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The article informs that according to a study conducted by Colmer et al., document trends in the spatial distribution of airborne particulate matter smaller in diameter. It mentions that most and least polluted tracts in 1981 remain the most and least polluted in 2016, with disadvantaged communities more likely to have higher pollution ranks at any given time in the U.S. It also mentions about U.S. federal policy-making on environmental justice.

The article reports on the debate about safety at U.S. biodefense laboratories. The unreported infection with a dangerous pathogen and other biosafety breaches at Texas A&M University heightened the said debate. The problem at the University has led federal officials to shut down its biodefense research. It also coincides with the accidental release of foot-and-mouth virus from a research facility in Great Britain that shows the potential economic devastation if a pathogen escapes. These events create urgency to an assurance of a safe laboratory on biodefense research after the 2001 anthrax attacks.

This article reports that the U.S. Congress is poised to revise a 1973 law which critics say has not worked and that defenders say needs to be strengthened. With more than 80% of its habitat gone by the late 1980s and populations plunging, the diminutive songbird that lives in coastal sage scrub in southern California seemed to birders and environmentalists to be a deserving candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Specifically, federal officials drafted a rule that allowed some birds to be harmed as long as the developers participated in an innovative state planning program. The goal was to coordinate conservation of larger blocks of habitat and encourage conservation not just on federal land but also on private lands, where most of the birds are thought to live. But although the plan has lessened conflict, it didn't end it. Some environmental groups felt that developers were given too much leeway, and they successfully sued FWS again to win further protection for the gnatcatchers' habitat.

The article offers information on issues concerning the benefits of policies on wetland protection as well as clean water regulations in the U.S. It discusses the disparity between the benefits in two conflicting regulatory impact analyses in relation to the country's Clean Water Act and the 2015 Waters of the U.S. rule.

The article argues that environmental policies are needed in the U.S. that will protect intermittently flowing streams and rivers and will prevent the degradation of temporary waterways aquatic ecosystems. The discussion topics include recognizing the social, hydrological, and ecological importance of temporary waterways, improving methods for mapping temporary waterways, and defining naturally temporary waterways for conservation.

The article focuses on the science policy of John Edwards, a presidential candidate for the 2008 elections in the U.S. It states that Edwards wants to change the policies related to science and aims towards countering pollution, climatic changes, and increase science funding for the development of research works on stem cells. It also mentions Edwards' policies for the economic development of the U.S., which includes low cost Internet for rural communities, and more research works on autism and fragile X syndrome. Edwards endorses Friends of the Earth Action, a nonprofit group that proposes to reduce greenhouse emissions. It mentions that the environmental policies of Edwards, which includes his opposition towards the expansion of nuclear power and eradicating the use of carbon-based fuel.

The article focuses on the goals of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in response to the challenges that the country faces that have major implications on the conduct and direction of natural science. The USGS proposes six integrated multiscale strategic directions that will help the U.S. address complex environmental problems. The difference of this effort from the previous ones is that the vision of integration across and among each of the science directions. The vision will be flourished by the USGS workforce of biologists, hydrologists, geologists and geographers. The six directions include understanding ecosystems and predicting changes, climate variability and change or energy and minerals for the country's future.

Federal regulators should be allowed to use data from controversial studies in which people are deliberately dosed with pesticides and other chemicals, an expert panel has concluded. The National Research Council report says that even though some consider such tests morally wrong because they expose healthy volunteers to risks, they may be acceptable under certain conditions. The panel recommends that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hold human testing to strict new standards, including review by a new agency ethics panel. Environmental groups charged that the report is full of loopholes and urged EPA to place a moratorium on exposing humans to pesticides and other toxicants.

The article reports on the release of the evaluations made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regarding climate change. It calls for health-surveillance systems to include climate sensitive pathogens and vectors as well as recommendations for research to model the health impacts of climate-related events. The report was written by a team of government and independent scientists under the guidance of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). CDC was under a U.S. government's climate change science program.

The article reports on the court ruling issued by a federal court of appeals regarding the use of sonar in United States Navy exercises off the southern California coasts. The ruling was issued despite of the environmental risks that the exercise may pose. Sonar noise may harm whales and would destroy their habitat forcing them to go elsewhere. The 9th United States Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to stay an injunction by a district court. The majority argues that the public may be concern about whales but they also have an interest in national defense.

The article reports on the first national study of air pollutants from dairy cow, swine and poultry farms launched by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Researchers will measure emissions of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and other gases from livestock farms in nine states across the country. The agency will then create a model to enable individual operations to check whether they need a permit. However, some environmentalists opposes the study because for them it is not comprehensive and may underestimate emissions.

The article focuses on the regulatory controversy heading toward Susan Dudley's inbox concerning the toxic legacy of lead pollution in the U.S. The controversy highlights on the cost versus benefits in the proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientific advisers to tighten the implementation of air-quality standard for lead, lowering the permissible level from 1.5 µg/m3 to 0.2 µg/m3. The standard of lowering lead amount is proposed to cope up with the lowered intelligence quotient (IQ) among children exposed with lead. Various methods to reduce lead content in the air were considered, depicting the initiative to eliminate contaminated soil from along the road or renovate old house

The article reports on the argument of U.S. Supreme Court for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the regulation of carbon dioxide in the U.S. Supreme Court will address the question this term in a case about whether greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide should be regulated as pollutants. Several climate researchers hope the court will correct what they see as a distortion by a lower court and the federal government of the current state of science. The landmark Clean Air Act gave the new Environmental Protection Agency the ability to discuss new pollutants as researchers discovered them.

This article reports that activists are criticizing a proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to speed up its regular review of air-quality standards. By law, EPA must revisit its National Ambient Air Quality Standards every 5 years. Staff scientists evaluate the latest research and propose ranges for new standards, which are then reviewed by the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. Because EPA regularly misses its deadline and gets sued, an internal EPA committee proposed several suggestions in for speeding up the process. EPA chief scientist George Gray said that the idea behind this proposal is not to have the policy drive the science.

The article focuses on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which is planning to loosen reporting rules for chemicals on its Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) list. Under EPA regulations, companies must tell the agency every year how much of 666 chemicals on the TRI they release to the environment. Under a revised rule, EPA will increase the reporting thresholds and only require reports every 2 years. Those changes will make it harder for the public to track dangerous chemicals, argues the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in Washington, D.C., including five chemicals EWG says, by EPA's own rules, should be subject to even stricter reporting thresholds.

The article informs that critics of revision to air pollution standards, proposed last month by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), say the new daily threshold will only marginally improve public health. In fact, an outside panel that made such a recommendation is not happy with EPA's decision. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson did not answer that question during a 20 December teleconference announcing the standards but said he had thought long and hard about the data. Studies have shown that inhaling the small particles that make up soot, a widespread byproduct of combustion, harms health, although the mechanisms are not all clear. In 1997, the EPA first regulated fine particles measuring 2.5 micrometers or less. As part of a settlement in a suit brought by the American Lung Association, EPA was required to propose revised PM 2.5 rules by the end of 2005. Such a reduction could make a big difference in public health, scientists have found. The EPA models for nine major U.S. cities predict that the tightest daily and annual standards recommended by CASAC would cut the roughly 4700 deaths due each year to PM 2.5 in those cities by 48%.

This article reports that the U.S. Congress has forbidden the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from accepting any toxicity studies in which people were intentionally exposed to pesticides until EPA issues a final rule spelling out its policies. The legislators said draft rules released by EPA last month. The restriction was part of a spending bill finalized last week.

This article reports that the U.S. government has enlisted an outspoken skeptic of global warming in a legal fight with environmental groups over U.S. funding for overseas energy projects. The move has angered several prominent climate researchers, however, who say the government's arguments fly in the face of scientific consensus about both the causes and possible consequences of global warming. On April 29, a federal district court in San Francisco will hear a case about whether the National Environmental Policy Act should apply to projects supported by the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corp. The act requires the government to assess actions that could alter the environment.

This article reports that several U.S. science agencies will have new congressional budget bosses this year after the U.S. House of Representatives last week rearranged its spending panels in hopes of streamlining operations. If the Senate doesn't follow suit, however, the misalignment could result in a more chaotic 2006 budget cycle. The Environmental Protection Agency joins a panel that includes the Interior Department's U.S. Geological Survey. The National Institutes of Health is unaffected by the reshuffling. Senator Christopher Bond could lose his gavel if the Senate follows suit.

This article focuses on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency accepts data from controversial studies that deliberately dose human volunteers with pesticides. EPA stopped considering such data in December 2001, after the advocacy organization Environmental Working Group challenged them as unethical. A review by the National Academy of Sciences recommended that EPA accept the results of certain human tests if they met strict scientific and ethical criteria. Meanwhile, CropLife America, a Washington D.C.-based industry trade group, had sued EPA arguing that the moratorium was illegal, and in 2003 a judge agreed.

This article reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has asked experts to help it assess the health dangers of a common chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). PFOA and related chemicals are used to make nonstick and stain-resistant coatings, including Teflon. EPA officials trying to assess PFOA's risks also face a host of technical issues, says Charles Auer, director of EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, including how to compare blood levels in humans and animals.

The article focuses on Toxmap, a new site from the National Library of Medicine that allows to find values from the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory. The annual report tallies U.S. emissions of some 650 hazardous chemicals into the air, water and soil. Using Toxmap one can pinpoint pollution sources or map up to 15 years of data to identify emission trends.

The article reports that the recently passed U.S. budget for fiscal year (NY) 2005, finalized in a scurry to complete the congressional lame duck session, did more than just shortchange science. Although homeland security and defense did receive notable increases in funding, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Environmental Protection Agency actually had their funding reduced from FY 2004 levels. The decrease in NSF funding will not only hurt basic science research programs but will seriously hamper efforts to improve science education, in which NSF plays a key role.

Research budgets at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would face a 4.3% cut, to $589 million, in a spending plan approved last week by the U.S. House of Representatives' appropriations committee. The cuts are part of an increasingly gloomy budget picture for science. The panel restored funding to EPA's extramural grants program, called Science to Achieve Results, bringing the program back to its fiscal year 2004 level of about $76.1 million, with an additional $9.5 million spent on graduate fellowships.

Nearly 20 years ago, British researchers discovered a gaping ozone hole over Antarctica, which fueled concerns that human-made chemicals were gnawing away at Earth's shield against harmful UV radiation. "The Ozone Depletion" page from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers everything from animations of the ozone hole to measurements of UV radiation reaching the ground in different parts of the United States. Teachers will find backgrounders on the causes and possible consequences of ozone depletion.