Government

Press Statement

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/230613.htm

Image: The Dan River site.

ecowatch.com - May 22nd 2014 - Brandon Baker

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Duke Energy reached a deal Thursday afternoon to clean up one of the largest coal ash spills in U.S. history.

The deal comes after months of advocates demanding answers and residents calling for stricter enforcement.

As a result of Duke spilling thousands of tons of coal ash into the Dan River near Eden, NC in February, the EPA decided the company must:

    Perform a comprehensive assessment
    Determine the location of coal ash deposits
    Remove deposits along the Dan River as deemed appropriate by EPA, in consultation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Image: Senator Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

theguardian.co.uk - May 1st, 2014 - Suzanne Goldenberg

Barack Obama faced a new challenge on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline on Thursday when Democrats and Republicans in the Senate introduced a bill taking the decision out of his hands.

The bill, introduced by Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu and North Dakota Republican John Hoeven, would bypass Obama, authorising immediate construction of the 1,660-mile pipeline.

The two senators said they were hoping for a vote as early as next week. Landrieu said she hoped to “greenlight construction of the pipeline immediately”.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

csis.org - by Kathleen H. Hicks, Ernest Z. Bower, Heather A. Conley, Jennifer G. Cooke, Andrew C. Kuchins, Carl Meacham, Richard M. Rossow - April 8, 2014

In December 2013, the Pew Research Center released data suggesting that Americans’ views of U.S. power and prestige abroad had reached a 40-year low. That poll came in the wake of the first releases of National Security Agency (NSA) documents by Edward Snowden and the August 2013 Syria crisis and amid heated battles in Washington over the federal budget. More recently, controversy over the adequacy of defense funding in the President’s FY2015 Budget Request and Russia’s annexation of Crimea have renewed concern about how the United States is perceived beyond its borders.