"Federal rules governing pesticide experiments using people as test subjects must be rewritten and issued for public comment under a new agreement reached between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and public health groups, farm worker advocates and environmental organizations."
"BP PLC has applied 272,000 gallons of dispersants to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico in the four weeks since U.S. EPA directed the company to stop using the chemicals, except "in rare cases" when other approaches to fighting the ongoing oil leak proved unworkable, according to government records."
"There are 'large gaps' in data now being gathered on the health of the 34,000 workers cleaning up the largest oil spill in U.S. history and growing concern that BP Plc will fail to publicize problems if they arise." Those concerns came up at an Institute of Medicine hearing Tuesday.
"In the intense but inscrutable debate about the chemicals that drillers inject underground to flush out natural gas, this much can be said: Everyone is for disclosure."
"The Environmental Protection Agency has decided to delay enforcing a new lead-paint regulation following pressure from home builders and members of Congress."
"The director of the national institute that oversees environmental health research said Monday that a new study raises many important questions about how flame retardants in common household items may pose a threat to the health of pregnant women and their infants."
The Superfund tax on oil and chemical companies that helped support cleanup of abandoned hazardous waste sites expired in 1995. Now the Obama administration plans an effort to revive it.
"Environmental groups filed two new major lawsuits Thursday, aimed at forcing the coal industry to stop violations of water-quality limits for toxic selenium."
"As arguments rage over how to clean up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, an examination of toxicity tests reveals flaws in the data used to determine the safety of dispersants."
Petrochemical companies like BP won a key battle in achieving unpoliced self-regulation early in the Bush administration -- when they got friends in Congress and the White House to shut EPA out of chemical safety and security oversight. As public health advocates point to possible disasters more lethal than the Gulf spill, there may be an opportunity to reverse the federal government's decisions not to protect the public from petrochemical disasters.
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