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February 5, 2009 10:38 AM |

It's Go Time for Holdren and Lubchenco

by Jeffrey Mervis

ScienceInsider has learned that the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hopes to hold a joint hearing next Thursday on the nominations of John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco for the respective positions as director...

February 4, 2009 2:04 PM |

IG: EPA Needs Plan for Climate Change Research

by Erik Stokstad

Note: This item has been corrected. It previously cited GAO as the source of the report. The Environmental Protection Agency needs an overall plan for its research on climate change,...

February 3, 2009 5:31 PM |

Commerce Nominee Is Friend of NOAA Research

by Erik Stokstad

Science advocates welcomed the nomination this afternoon of Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) to head the Department of Commerce, which houses both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National...

January 29, 2009 1:46 PM |

Budget Squeeze Has Cali Ocean Mappers Feeling Lost

by Greg Miller

California marine scientists have encountered some rough seas lately, following the state finance department's decision last month to freeze all funding derived from the sale of bonds. That decision...

January 26, 2009 6:06 PM |

Controversy in Their Wake, Geoengineering Experiment in Southern Ocean to Begin

by Eli Kintisch

ScienceInsider can report that a 10-week, 300-km² experiment to create a massive bloom of algae in the Southern Ocean will begin tomorrow. Furor over the potential environmental impact of the project...

January 21, 2009 3:01 PM |

Nanotechnology Bill Would Have Obama Think Small

by Robert F. Service

The U.S. House of Representatives Technology Committee has reintroduced legislation to reauthorize the National Nanotechnology Initiative and beef up environmental and health research related to nanotechnology. The bill is essentially...

January 16, 2009 6:31 PM |

Sprucing Up the Ag Labs

by Erik Stokstad

The U.S. Department of Agriculture bills its Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) as "The World's Largest Most Diversified Agricultural Research Complex." Still, the place is a shadow of its former...

January 14, 2009 2:44 PM |

Obama's Pick for EPA Pledges to Rely on Science

by Erik Stokstad

"Science, science, science, and the rule of law," demanded Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) at the confirmation hearing today for Lisa Jackson, the presumptive head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency....

January 13, 2009 3:00 AM |

Dirt Diagrams Developed

by Daniel Charles

Agricultural experts in Africa say the continent faces a crisis of depleted soil and they're hoping that a detailed, high-tech map of soil quality will help them solve the problem. ...

January 7, 2009 5:00 PM |

Fishing a Net Negative for Whales?

by Erik Stokstad

Image via WikipediaThe National Marine Fisheries Service needs to do a better job keeping track of how often whales and other marine mammals get stuck in fishing gear, according...

December 31, 2008 10:05 AM |

California Sues Over Endangered Species

by Eli Kintisch

One of the nation's most biodiverse states has taken the Bush administration to court to reverse last-minute changes by the Department of Interior to the Endangered Species Act. The changes...

December 22, 2008 2:17 PM |

Obama Adds to Science Team

by Jeffrey Mervis

On Saturday, President-elect Barack Obama confirmed that John Holdren will be his White House science adviser, a pick first reported here on ScienceInsider last week. The Harvard University professor, a...

December 19, 2008 4:07 PM |

Obama Stacks the Energy and Climate Deck

by Jeffrey Mervis

So far, President-elect Barack Obama's scientific appointments are heavily skewed toward one piece of the vast U.S. scientific enterprise: energy and climate research. Researchers in those communities were generally thrilled...

December 18, 2008 12:15 PM |

Academy Calls for More Changes at EPA

by Erik Stokstad

The National Research Council has just issued another report calling for substantive changes in how the Environmental Protection Agency conducts risk assessments of hazardous chemicals. Earlier this month, an NRC...

December 12, 2008 3:37 PM |

Cali Lawmakers Get Specific on Greenhouse Cuts

by Robert F. Service

California regulators yesterday laid out a plan to cut the state's greenhouse gas emissions by 15% over the next 12 years. That blueprint is the most ambitious greenhouse gas–reduction plan...

December 9, 2008 3:54 PM |

How Tailpipes Once Convinced EPA To Tackle Carbon Dioxide

by Erik Stokstad

A detailed series on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency running this week in The Philadelphia Inquirer includes new information about how the agency had initially decided to regulate carbon dioxide....

December 3, 2008 3:14 PM |

Biosafety Lab Will Be Manhattan Project

by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

Word has leaked out: The new $450 million federal lab to replace the aging Plum Island Animal Disease Center will be built in Manhattan, Kansas. The Associated Press broke the...

December 3, 2008 3:01 PM |

U.S. National Academies Call for "Major Transformation" at EPA

by Erik Stokstad

If you think home renovations are a headache, consider risk assessment at the Environmental Protection Agency. The process of determining the health risk of chemicals is often long, expensive, full...

December 3, 2008 2:18 PM |

Troubled Environmental Health Institute Gets New Leader

by Jocelyn Kaiser

The National Institutes of Health has a new chief for its environmental health institute, which has been leaderless since David Schwartz left in February under a cloud of controversy. Federal...

November 21, 2008 11:47 AM |

A Lively Environment for a Party

by Richard Stone

XIAMEN, CHINA—The drinks were flowing freely and firecrackers were popping off as Chinese and U.K. scientists celebrated the opening of a new Sino-U.K. center on environmental science and technology. The...

November 21, 2008 10:50 AM |

Seismic vote in House; Waxman Cometh

by Science News Staff

Big vote among House democrats yesterday that saw Henry Waxman (D-CA) defeat John Dingell (D-MI) for the chairmanship of the powerful Energy and Commerce panel, the committee through which climate...