Investigating issues that involve federal legislation or policy? Congressional Research Service reports, publicly funded but not easily available to the public, are posted online by open-government advocates.
"Despite the worst U.S. recession in decades, sales of organic and sustainable products have continued to grow, experts say, with shoppers willing to spend a few more dollars in a bid to become more green."
Some nations like Saudi Arabia, with more money and less arable land compared to much of the world, are seeking to outsource food production by buying up farmland in less-developed parts of the world like Africa.
When the Delaware City Refinery complex opened in 1957, the petrochemical trade press hailed it with superlatives. It was the largest single refinery project ever built, and became a hub for an industry that sprawled into Pennsylvania and New Jersey. "Today, most of Delaware City's chemical plants have closed, the result of tougher economic conditions and environmental laws."
New testing by EPA has strengthened the case that World War II-era copper mining may have caused uranium and arsenic contamination of some Nevada wells.
"Virtually the entire sugar beet crop in the United States is genetically engineered to protect it from herbicides. Now, a lawsuit claiming the biotech beets pose a risk to other varieties could threaten sugar production."
"Exposure to both tobacco smoke before birth and lead during childhood increases a child's risk of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) more than eight-fold, according to new research from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center."
"Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated -- beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then. As the world has talked for a dozen years about what to do next, new ship passages opened through the once frozen summer sea ice of the Arctic. In Greenland and Antarctica, ice sheets have lost trillions of tons of ice. Mountain glaciers in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa are shrinking faster than before."
"Could nuclear power plants last as long as the Hoover Dam? Increasingly dependable and emitting few greenhouse gases, the U.S. fleet of nuclear power plants will likely run for another 50 or even 70 years before it is retired -- long past the 40-year life span planned decades ago -- according to industry executives, regulators and scientists."
Despite tens of billions spent under the 1972 Clean Water Act to upgrade the sewage-handling systems of U.S. cities, many have reached capacity and are unable to handle wet-weather flows. The result is that many are "violating the law by dumping untreated or partly treated human waste, chemicals and other hazardous materials into rivers and lakes."
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