On Thursday, April 19th the House subcommittee on the environment and economy held a hearing on H.R. 4345, the Domestic Fuels Protection Act of 2012, which provides liability protection for oil companies, gas retailers, and car manufacturers for any environmental or economic damage caused by the use of E15, among other fuel types. Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups oppose the Domestic Fuels Protection Act, but the opposition comes from well…
Have you ever used toothpaste? What about deodorant or makeup? Do you wear sunscreen when you go outside? If you’ve answered "yes" to any of these questions, then you may want to read on.
A few weeks ago the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee Health Subcommittee held a historic legislative hearing to examine cosmetics regulation -- the first gathering of its kind in 30 years! After all this time our government is…
Enbridge, the Canadian oil giant responsible for a massive tar sands oil spill into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan not yet two years ago, now wants to pipe tar sands oil—the world’s dirtiest oil—through New England with its Trailbreaker pipeline project.
The Trailbreaker tar sands pipeline project
In August 2011, Enbridge filed a permit application with Canada’s National Energy Board to revive a previous tar sands project, called Trailbreaker. Trailbreaker would transport tar sands…
TransCanada yesterday unveiled its proposed alternative routes—including a preferred alternative route—through Nebraska for its Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline to the state’s Department of Environmental Quality.
The Keystone XL pipeline would pump up to 830,000 barrels per day of the world's dirtiest oil from beneath Canada's boreal forest through the United States' heartland to oil refineries and international export ports on the Texas Gulf Coast. Along the way, it would endanger vital water…
As the World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual Spring Meetings get underway, 117 organizations from around the world today urged government funders of the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds to pivot away from financing the CIFs and to redirect funds to the new UN Green Climate Fund. The apparent scarcity of funds available to jump start the Green Climate Fund makes the call all the more pressing. Amongst the letter signers were organizations based…
Washington is beautiful in the Spring: the cherry trees are in full bloom, children flock to the White House lawn for a century-long tradition of rolling eggs on Easter Monday, and hundreds of office workers breakout their well-worn leather mitts for another season of softball. However, spring in Washington also raises the annual “how high will gas prices be at the pump this summer?” specter. As usual, this year Congress has fallen into a discordant…
Throughout the world, concerned individuals, groups and governments have been racking their brains, trying to figure out how on earth they’re going to be able to afford the costs of the climate crisis, made even worse by a climate of fiscal austerity.
But part of the solution to finding the money may be right under our noses. How’s that? Well, today of all days is Tax Day in the United States. And wouldn’t…
“There is a silent epidemic here. The effects on the children are not easily visible, but they have all kinds of serious health problems, and those will only get worse if the smelter reopens,” says Hugo Villa, a local doctor. According to the Blacksmith Institute, a non-profit pollution think tank, the children of La Oroya, Peru live in one of ten most polluted places on earth. In this town of 33,000 high in…
This morning, standing on the dunes above the Pacific Ocean near the San Onofre nuclear reactor site, San Onofre Safety, San Clemente Green, ROSE and other local groups held a press conference ahead of the afternoon visit to the reactors from the NRC chairman, Greg Jazcko.
The groups organized the event to raise public concerns about the recent string of safety issues regarding the reactors' steam generator tubes -- and the need to…
San Onofre reactor safety failures remind us (again) why the United States cannot afford the risks of nuclear reactors.
In late January of this year, Friends of the Earth, while preparing an analysis on the Fukushima-daiichi nuclear accident, was investigating how the implications of that accident would impact nuclear safety in the United States. The Fukushima reactors were decades-old and operating under poor regulatory oversight -- and the United States has many reactors operating…