MIT’s Ernest Moniz will become the next secretary of energy, but EPA administrator nominee Gina McCarthy still faces stiff Senate opposition.
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EPA
A proposal in President Barack Obama’s draft 2014 budget would cut the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Beach Grant Program. Critics, NBC4 reported, argue that people will be less informed about unhealthy ocean water if the $US 10 million cut is imposed. Yemeni Crisis In a dispatch from Taiz, Yemen, Tom Friedman writes about the violence [...]
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President Barack Obama’s nominees to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy are expected to join just-confirmed Interior Department Secretary Sally Jewell in developing the United States’ water, food, and energy systems.
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The Senate will host confirmation hearings this week for two more members of President Barack Obama’s cabinet with significant influence over water, agriculture, and energy management in the United States.
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South America A new billboard in Peru is creating fresh water from the air, helping to supply local communities, according to the Global Post. Though the area typically receives very little rainfall, the billboard takes advantage of the region’s high humidity. In an effort to clean up oil projects in the Amazon, Peru has declared [...]
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Confirmation hearings are pending for President Barack Obama’s nominees to lead the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency.
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U.S. federal regulations, set to take effect within three years, target pathogens in tap water, revising current rules to better target pathogens that can sicken people. Roughly 155,000 public water systems must comply with the Environmental Protection Agency rules, Scientific American reported, which add tests for E. coli.
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By 2017, coal will supplant oil as the world’s top energy source, the International Energy Agency predicted. In the next five years, the world will increase its coal consumption by roughly the equivalent of the U.S. and Russia’s combined consumption today, driven primarily by growth in China and India. Read a report from Circle of [...]
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The U.S. farm sector, more productive and richer than ever, is a major water polluter.
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Water is becoming ever-more expensive in California. Major infrastructure work, Capitol Weekly reported, is only the highlight of a long list of necessary improvements needed across the state that will push residential water prices higher. Financial Fallout from Hydraulic Fracturing The United States’ natural-gas boom has pushed energy prices down across the country—a financial perk [...]
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Artificial nutrient runoff may be contributing to a population boom of destructive starfish in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, The New York Times reported. The starfish accounted for 42 percent of the reef’s live coral decline since 1985, while cyclones and coral bleaching accounted for the remaining 58 percent, according to a new study from the [...]
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Environmental officials from the U.S. and Canada announced that they are about to sign a negotiated update to the 1987 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The document “addresses critical health issues in the Great Lakes region,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a news release. Infrastructure Investment The Egyptian government will spend $US 1.3 [...]
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The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is starting to tackle Superfund cleanup projects involving heavily polluted sites hidden beneath urban waterways, The New York Times reported. The sites, often contaminated by years of industrial waste dumped into the water, are among the most difficult and expensive to restore, and come with the risk of [...]
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China China canceled plans for a pipeline that would have dumped wastewater from a paper mill into the sea near Qidong, Reuters reported. Shrinking glaciers will likely put more pressure on northwestern China’s already stressed Tarim River Basin, which gets suspend its quotas for corn ethanol, warning that such quotas will push food prices even [...]
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South Australia has allocated $2 million to support its bid to keep more water flowing in the River Murray, AAP reported. States within the Murray-Darling River Basin are debating a draft plan for water management in the Basin, and are each struggling to get their share of water for agricultural, industrial and environmental purposes. The [...]
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Drinking water is safe to consume in the small Pennsylvania town of Dimock, where residents complained about hydraulic fracturing, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Meanwhile, this Reuters analysis shows that insurers find it tough to price the risk from hydraulic fracturing. A NASA scientist has for the first time tied specific weather events, [...]
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Asia Thailand’s biggest private water company plans to invest $US 97 million to improve its water storage and pipeline capacity in order to supply the rapidly growing demand from manufacturers, Bloomberg News reported. Meanwhile, 50 of Thailand’s provinces have been declared drought-hit areas, according to the Bangkok Post. Rising sea levels and irregular rains due [...]
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New findings that indicate elevated levels of methane in water near gas drilling sites in Pennsylvania raise questions about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) earlier statement that water in the region did not pose a health risk, according to Bloomberg News. Meanwhile, EPA has also dropped its claim that an energy company contaminated drinking [...]
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A new report by a U.S.-Canadian advisory panel recommends against large-scale engineering projects to control the Great Lakes water levels, saying people across the region should instead adapt to nature’s swings, Detroit Free Press reported. Chicago has announced a $7 billion, three-year plan to transform the city’s infrastructure. The program, which will touch nearly every [...]
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As the impact of agriculture on water quality intensifies around the globe, two lawsuits in the United States aim to reduce the size of the Gulf of Mexico’s ‘dead zone’ by setting limits on nutrient pollution in the Mississippi River Basin.
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