"NASA, the agency known for exploring space, will be spending a lot more time studying Earth in the next few years. The Obama administration has proposed a budget for NASA that includes billions of dollars for satellites and other tools to help scientists investigate Earth-bound problems, especially climate change."
The EPA is considering requiring pesticide-makers to disclose often-toxic "inert" ingredients, changing a policy of secrecy that has been in effect for nearly 2/3 of a century.
"African-American residents of Mossville, a community just west of Lake Charles, have won a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on charges that the U.S. government has violated their rights to privacy and racial equality in not forcing local chemical plants to stop polluting."
"Exposure to certain chemicals and pollutants before a woman reaches her mid-30s could treble her risk of developing breast cancer after the menopause, Canadian scientists said on Thursday."
"Workers who apply certain pesticides to farm fields are twice as likely to contract melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer, according to a new scientific study."
"The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that it is intensifying its look at how BPA affects the nation's wildlife and water supply and will designate the compound as a 'chemical of concern.'"
Parallel investigations into clusters of cancer cases near Pratt & Whitney plants in Connecticut and Florida raise questions about industrial chemicals that have been in use for decades.
"The metal tungsten remains an important clue in research related to the Fallon [NV] leukemia cluster, which sickened 17 children and killed three of them between 1997 and 2004, scientists said Thursday."
An Indian company that produces endosulfan -- a pesticide banned in Europe because of suspicions it causes birth defects and death -- is pushing to keep the U.N. from restricting its use.
"BP America Inc. and two other oil and gas companies are lobbying for the new Senate climate and energy bill to recommend against federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing." A draft would bar public disclosure of chemicals in fracturing fluid, some of which are toxic.
