Bureau Rejects Nationwide Call to Protect Jobs and the Environment  WASHINGTON–(ENEWSPF)–March 16, 2012 — The Obama administration’s decision today authorizing nearly 1,300 new natural gas wells in Utah’s Desolation Canyon wilderness and other remote areas will degrade the pristine region’s air quality and hurt the state’s tourism industry, according to[Read More…]

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.–(ENEWSPF)–March 16, 2012.  Nuclear watchdog Friends of the Earth is filing a public records request today with the California Public Utilities Commission calling for the urgent release of information regarding the serious safety problems at the troubled San Onofre nuclear reactors. Seriously damaged tubes in the steam generators[Read More…]

Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–March 16, 2012.  A report published online this week in the journal Endocrine Reviews documents extensive scientific research showing that endocrine disrupting chemicals, or endocrine disruptors, can be toxic to humans even in minutely small doses. The report, three years in the making, was published Wednesday by a team[Read More…]

TORONTO, ON–(ENEWSPF)–March 15, 2012.  A group of the world’s leading environmental scholars are sounding the alarm that human societies need to transform their national and international environmental institutions into a more coherent and robust planetary stewardship model in order to steer away from rapid and irreversible changes to the Earth’s[Read More…]

Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–March 15, 2012 California sea lions consuming salmon just below the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam. Download here (Credit: With permission from the U.S. Corps of Engineers) NOAA’s Fisheries Service said today it was authorizing Idaho, Oregon and Washington to permanently remove the specific California sea lions eating the imperiled salmon[Read More…]

Drought lingers in southern Plains and Southeast, expands in West and upper Midwest Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–March 15, 2012 U.S. Spring Flood Risk Map for 2012. Read the full National Hydrologic Assessment. Download here (Credit: NOAA) For the first time in four years, no area of the country faces a high risk of[Read More…]

Too many turtles still in harm’s way Honolulu, HI–(ENEWSPF)–March 15, 2012.  The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a decision issued yesterday upheld a federal district court settlement limiting the number of loggerhead and critically endangered leatherback sea turtles that can be caught by Hawai`i’s longline swordfish fishery. The settlement[Read More…]

Friends of the Earth demands reactors not be restarted WASHINGTON, D.C.–(ENEWSPF)–March 15, 2012.  In response to the announcement that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is sending an “Augmented Inspection Team” to California to investigate safety problems at reactor 3 at the San Onofre nuclear plant, Friends of the Earth’s climate and[Read More…]

Asteroid 2012 DA14 EU–(ENEWSPF)–15 March 2012, When it whizzes past Earth in 2013, a newly discovered asteroid is going to miss our planet – but not by much. The 50 m space rock is expected to come closer than many satellites, highlighting the growing need to keep watch on hazards from[Read More…]

Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–March 15, 2012.  Earlier this week, 55 Members of Congress signed on to a letter that calls on U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D. to require the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) food. The bicameral letter, led by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Representative Peter[Read More…]