Congress has allocated funding for relocating the entire population of the town of Treece, Kansas, according to the Wichita Eagle. Ensconced in the the state’s southeastern corner, Treece is profoundly polluted with the chemical detritus of more than a century of mining — lead, zinc and small mountains of mining waste called ‘chat.’
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Plastic bottle recycling by consumers climbed by 3.2 percent in 2008 to a record high of more than 2.4 billion pounds, according to figures released jointly today by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (APR). The 19th annual National Post-Consumer Plastics Bottle Recycling Report also found that the results reflect a...
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued the first test orders for pesticide chemicals to be screened for their potential effects on the endocrine system last week. Testing, conducted through the agency’s Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program , will eventually expand to cover all pesticide chemicals. “After years of delay, EPA is aggressively moving forward by...
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The World Bank launched the “MultiCat Program,” a catastrophe bond issuance platform, so tha governments and other public entities will have access to international capital markets to insure themselves against the risk of natural disasters. The types of events that may be insured are earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and other wind storms. The platform, designed specifically to help...
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Senate opens climate change laws debate (Financial Times, Reuters, 27 October 2009) The US Senate’s environment and public works committee begins hearings on a future climate change bill today. Most Senate Republicans oppose the bill, and some will propose an alternative solution to the cap-and-trade scheme at the centre of the proposed legislation. This...
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1366 Technologies, a photovoltaics start-up company based in Massachusetts, won four million dollars in federal funding from the the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The first ARPA-E solicitation was extremely competitive with over 3,600 applications from across the country. Evaluations were based on the potential for high impact on ARPA-E’s...
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Opening Statement of Sen. James M. Inhofe, Ranking Member Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Hearing on S. 1733 Tuesday, October 27, 2009 “We are here today to discuss a 923-page bill to fundamentally redesign our $14 trillion economy. The bill is no doubt ambitious but it’s also extremely costly and ineffective. It...
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The U.S. Department of Defense’s most critical assets are vulnerable to disruptions in electrical power supplies and the DOD doesn’t even have the wherewithal to assess adequately the risks and vulnerabilities these assets face, according to a report released last week by the Government Accountability Office. All 34 of the U.S. military’s most critical assets require electricity continuously...
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