The Environmental Protection Agency studied the exhaust levels from school buses while they were parked and idling compared to when the buses actually were turned off and then restarted. The study concludes that idling for more than three minutes causes more pollution than restarting the engine. By shutting off the bus, levels of carbon monoxide, fine particles, nitrogen oxide, and carbon dioxide were lowered. Alan J. Steinberg, the EPA Regional Administrator who made the announcement, said Pollution from school buses has health implications for everyone, especially asthmatic children. This study shows in no uncertain terms that allowing a bus to idle exposes children to more pollution and shows that a very simple step – shutting off that engine – can really make a difference.”
EPA School Bus Study Shows Idling Worse Than Re-starting Engines

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Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor or California, and governor Jodi Rell, the governor of Connecticut, said in the editorial pages of the Washington Post that the Environmental Protection Agency has not done enough to combat global warming. The governors say that the EPA has the ability to regulate greenhouse gases, but did not do so. They also accuse the EPA from preventing states from creating their own standards to regulate emission gases.
Schwarzenegger Blasts EPA Over Tailpipe Emissions

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Hexavalent chromium, the chemical featured in the movie Erin Brockovich, has been found to definitively cause cancer in laboratory animals that drink it in their water. The study was published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Hexavalent chromium was used in the early 1990s in industrial manufacturing. It still is used in chrome planting and the making of dyes and plastics. Hexavalent chromium has long been recognized as a carcinogen that can cause lung cancer, but it had been unclear if the compound caused cancer when ingested.
Chemical Can Cause Cancer When Ingested

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Fish collected from Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin have tested positive for hemorrhagic septicemia or VHS. The virus already may have appeared in Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, and in the Mississippi River. Since May 2, 2007, the Wisconsin State Department of Natural Resources has received reports of hundreds of freshwater fish dying on Lake Winnebago.
Deadly Fish Virus Found in Lake Winnebago

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The Environmental Protection Agency released a plan to evaluate a new demolition process for buildings containing asbestos. Scientists and engineers from the EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory have developed a new method called the Alternative Asbestos Control Method to improve upon the current methods for demolishing buildings containing asbestos. Preliminary findings show that the AACM method is effective in cleaning up asbestos-contaminated buildings.
EPA study looks for better asbestos removal technology

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Cindy Wilson was thrilled to find a small house on Lawrenceburg Road in Ohio. She always had wanted to live in the country: “I had always heard my grandma telling stories about the farm she grew up on,” Wilson said. “It sounded perfect.” However, Wilson’s dreams were shattered after neighbors told her that a former tenant of the house had used the house to make methamphetamine. The chemicals used to make methamphetamines are so toxic that police raiding meth labs wear environmental suits to protect themselves.
Meth toxins leave family homeless

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Senator Hillary Clinton said that she and Rep. Jerry Nadler plan to chair a probe investigating the federal government’s response and clean-up efforts following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Clinton said in a press release that “we need to examine what went wrong and assess whether the federal government is better prepared to respond to environmental hazards in future disasters. I also remain concerned about potential indoor contamination resulting from the collapse of the World Trade Center and want to take a close look at the EPA’s inadequate program to test and clean residential areas in Manhattan.”
Clinton, Nadler to investigate post-9/11 environmental cleanup

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency has decided to increase reporting of dioxin compounds. Because of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 said that all facilities must report the amount of dioxin and dioxin-like compounds that are released or transferred from a facility. The EPA is now broadening the report to require that facilities give a report on each compound individually. The more detailed reports should allow communities to better determine the level of risk posed from dioxins and dioxin-like compounds released in an area.
EPA Increases the Information on Dioxin

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President Bush plans to direct the Environmental Protection Agency to work to create steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2008. However, Bush did not call for a specific increase in fuel efficiency standards. Bush said that he is responding a Supreme Court Ruling last month that gives the EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.
Bush wants EPA action on greenhouse gases

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A Cornell researcher, Rodney Dietert, and his wife have completed the first comprehensive review of diseases in those who were exposed to environmental toxins or drugs while fetuses. Results indicate that most of the diseases found in fetuses exposed to toxins have two things in common: an imbalanced immune system and exaggerated inflammatory reactions.
Prenatal Toxicity Linked To Immune Dysfunctions In Later Life

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