"JUNEAU, Alaska -- A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the U.S. Interior Department wrongly awarded offshore oil leases in the Chukchi Sea near Alaska in 2008 without considering the full range of environmental risks posed by drilling in the Arctic."
Drones might count as new media — and certainly have journalistic uses in covering everything from prairie fires to chemical emergencies. The federal government, which devotes enormous technical resources to spying on its citizens, now says this is illegal. The Federal Aviation Administration issued the ruling, saying there was no grey area: hobbyists can legally fly video drones. But journalists can not. Image: Cade Cleavelin, a science/ag journalism senior at U of Missouri, demonstrates a DJY Phantom quadcopter at the 2013 SEJ Conference in Chattanooga, TN. © Roger Archibald.
You read about the 300,000 West Virginians who don't know if they are drinking safe water — and ask "Could it happen here?" The answer is "You betcha!" Environmental journalists have many tools for discovering drinking-water disasters-waiting-to-happen in their own bailiwicks.
"A federal appeals court today tossed out a U.S. EPA air pollution rule for some Native American territories."
"West Virginia's governor on Monday proposed legislation to regulate above-ground storage tanks, a move that comes after a spill of coal-processing chemicals shut off drinking water to about 300,000 people."
"There are more than 80,000 chemicals in the United States catalogued by government regulators, and the health risks of most of them are unknown."
"The Environmental Protection Agency issued regulations Wednesday creating a national electronic system to track hazardous waste."
"TransCanada, the energy company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, was ordered by the Texas State Supreme Court last week to submit information on its use of eminent domain -- an action that keeps a key landowner lawsuit alive."
"The Italian government agreed Tuesday to send in the army to fight the mafia which it blames for illegally dumping tonnes of toxic garbage around Naples, in an area dubbed the 'Triangle of Death'."
"WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is retreating from previous demands of strong international environmental protections in order to reach agreement on a sweeping Pacific trade deal that is a pillar of President Obama’s strategic shift to Asia, according to documents obtained by WikiLeaks, environmentalists and people close to the contentious trade talks."
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