"In late July, the Blackhawk School District, 40 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, joined a handful of other school districts in Pennsylvania looking to cash in on the state’s natural gas boom."
USDA spokeswoman Isabel Benemelis declined to release the names or locations of the landowners who are likely to be participating in two new SAFE (State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement) efforts, saying journalists have to make such requests via FOIA.
"U.S. EPA still hasn't implemented 20-year-old recommendations to improve the management of its laboratories, leaving the agency's research and technical activities "fragmented and largely uncoordinated," the Government Accountability Office has found. The problems could impede EPA's ability to handle upcoming budget cuts as Congress looks for ways to reduce spending and pay down the deficit, the watchdog agency says.""
Oil Change International invites you to look up campaign donations from energy companies to members of Congress with data sourced from the Center for Responsive Politics and the Federal Elections Commission.
An Aug. 5, 2011, NASA memo says the agency's existing policies are so good they don't need improving — yet the policies do not offer any clear guarantee that reporters can talk to NASA scientists without permission and supervision from the public affairs office.
In formal comments, SEJ stated that the section of NOAA guidance policy requiring advance public affairs approval of media interviews — and minders sitting in on those interviews — thwarts open communication between scientists and reporters, which is "unacceptable in a free society."
"The Army and the Department of the Interior violated federal procurement law when they awarded a contract to an Alaska native corporation and allowed it to pass on most of the work to other companies, federal auditors have found."
Five years after writing about polar bears drowning, apparently from lack of sea ice, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement was suspended without a reason. Later he was told it was due to charges of "scientific misconduct" from a party or parties not identified.
The draft "Scientific Integrity Policy" marks the first time that the EPA's previously unwritten minders-and-permissions policy for press interviews has been reduced to a publicly disclosed written policy applying to the entire agency. The Society of Environmental Journalists has previously opposed these restrictions and is likely to submit formal comments on this draft policy as well.
"Canada's environment ministry will cut or reassign around 10 percent of its workers, unions said Thursday, prompting fears that services like weather forecasting and environmental protection will suffer."
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