Between February 2010 and July 2011, Lisa and Bob Parr filed 13 complaints about air pollution from gas and oil operations near their ranch in Wise County, Texas. Sometimes they had trouble breathing, they told the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). They also experienced nausea, nosebleeds, ringing ears and rashes. Other families were also […]
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Posted inNational Security, Up in Arms, War in Afghanistan and Iraq
Exporting mismanagement to Afghanistan
The purchase of spare parts by the U.S. military is a big business, with more than $25 billion worth of screws and widgets kept in storerooms. It is also a notoriously sloppy one. Pentagon auditors have found that, due to poor bookkeeping, the military services regularly buy parts that they already have plenty of. Due […]
Posted inHealth
Eyelid lifts skyrocket among Medicare patients, costing taxpayers millions
Aging Americans worried about their droopy upper eyelids often rely on the plastic surgeon’s scalpel to turn back the hands of time. Increasingly, Medicare is footing the bill. Yes, Medicare. The public health insurance program for people over 65 typically does not cover cosmetic surgery, but for cases in which a patient’s sagging eyelids significantly […]
Posted inWorkers’ Rights
Study spotlights high breast cancer risk for plastics workers
WINDSOR, Ontario — For more than three decades, workers, most of them women, have complained of dreadful conditions in many of this city’s plastic automotive parts factories: Pungent fumes and dust that caused nosebleeds, headaches, nausea and dizziness. Blobs of smelly, smoldering plastic dumped directly onto the floor. “It was like hell,” says one woman […]
Posted inNational Security
A world awash in a nuclear explosive?
Key findings: Japan will finish a $22-billion plutonium factory in October. In a single year, this plant in Rokkasho could produce enough of the nuclear explosive to make 2,600 bombs. Japan says it needs the material to fuel existing or future nuclear power plants, though all such plants are now shuttered and none will be […]
Posted inWorkers’ Rights
Union demands protection for workers, after breast cancer linked to auto plastics industry
Margaret Keith, a researcher behind a study that linked breast cancer to the auto plastics industry, called the issue of women’s health in industry “a no-go area.” She said that more work needs to be done to ensure parity with their male counterparts. James Fassinger for the Toronto Star Study spotlights high breast cancer risk […]
Posted inEnvironment
‘Chemicals of Concern’ list still wrapped in OMB red tape
For anyone anxious about toxic chemicals in the environment, Sunday marked a dubious milestone. It has been three years since the “chemicals of concern” list landed at the White House Office of Management and Budget. The list, which the Environmental Protection Agency wants to put out for public comment, includes bisphenol A, a chemical used […]
Posted inInequality
Senators grill Treasury official about debit card program
Democrats on the Senate Special Committee for Aging pummeled a Treasury official Wednesday with questions about the effort to replace paper checks with electronic payments to mostly poor and elderly beneficiaries of government programs. Questioning Treasury Fiscal Assistant Secretary Richard Gregg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts repeatedly expressed her concern about the decision to pay […]
Posted inWorkers’ Rights
U.S. report urges deeper look into breast cancer’s environmental links
A new federal advisory panel report makes a forceful case for more research into environmental causes of breast cancer, which was diagnosed in 227,000 women, killed 40,000 and cost more than $17 billion to treat in the United States last year. Compiled by the congressionally mandated Interagency Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Coordinating Committee, the […]
Posted inState Integrity 2012, State Integrity Investigation, State Politics
A year after Newtown, searching for answers in the nation’s schools
A sign is posted behind Jonesboro’s main school building. Across the country, guns are generally prohibited from school grounds. But federal and state laws contain exceptions that have allowed about 70 districts in Texas to arm their staff. Nicholas Kusnetz/Center for Public Integrity It wasn’t quite cold enough to need a vest on a mid-November […]
Posted inEnvironment
High bladder cancer rate shrouds New York plant, exposing chemical hazards in the workplace
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — Ray Kline, it’s said, bled Goodyear blue. Compact and laconic, Kline signed on as an operator at the Goodyear chemical plant here in 1960 and logged just short of 40 years. He routinely worked six days a week, 12 hours a day, retiring in 1999 as head of maintenance. “I made […]
Posted inEnvironment
New scrutiny of ‘longwall’ mining finds damage in Pennsylvania streams
The brutally efficient coal-extraction method known as “longwall mining” has permanently damaged a half dozen streams in Pennsylvania, state regulators have found — a finding that could trigger deeper waves for such operations in the state. In December, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, or DEP, sent a little-noticed letter relaying its unusual decision to […]
Posted inDemocracy, Primary Source
E-cigarette maker fires up lobbying efforts
A man smokes an electronic cigarette, the makers of which have begun lobbying the federal government more aggressively of late. Danie Ware The cigarette, a product so politically passé that even the wiliest of Mad Men stopped selling it, is looking for second shot on Capitol Hill. But like Don Draper, the maligned cancer stick […]
Posted inEnvironment
In new battleground over toxic reform, American Chemistry Council targets the states
HARTFORD, Conn. — In the bare-knuckle war over toxic chemicals, the fight between industry and activists has shifted noticeably from Washington, D.C., to state venues such as the golden-domed Capitol that rises over Hartford like a lordly manse. What happened this year in Hartford shows how industry — fueled by the American Chemistry Council, a […]
Posted inHealth
The year in medical investigations
The Center for Public Integrity’s health reporting in 2012 included “Cracking the Codes,” an investigation that exposed loopholes in Medicare billing costing billions of tax dollars. Since the series ran, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder have threatened possible criminal prosecutions of doctors and hospitals that use […]
Posted inHealth
Best of 2012: Health reporting
The Center for Public Integrity’s health reporting in 2012 included “Cracking the Codes,” an investigation that exposed loopholes in Medicare billing costing billions of tax dollars. Since the series ran, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder have threatened possible criminal prosecutions of doctors and hospitals that use […]
Posted inWorkers’ Rights
House bill targets deadly dust explosions
Unchecked dust explosions kill, injure hundreds of workers By Chris Hamby May 29, 2012 Workers’ Rights Threats to America’s workers, and the fragile federal net that protects them Stories in this series OSHA rule targets worker exposure to silica By Jim Morris August 23, 2013 Farmworker advocates press EPA to update pesticide rules By Ronnie […]
Posted inInequality
Benefit payment change hurts poor
Key findings The government has been aggressively pushing seniors, veterans and others who collect federal benefits to sign up for Direct Express, a payment card subsidized by taxpayers and issued by Comerica bank. Comerica received $22 million in taxpayer money for offering the cards as of August 2012. It also collects millions in fees that […]
Posted inEnvironment
Industry muscle targets federal ‘Report on Carcinogens’
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — In the 1980s, toxicologist James Huff was a bane of industry’s existence. A blunt Philadelphian, Huff helped supervise animal tests here at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health. Mice and rats were dosed with chemicals, and Huff and his colleagues publicized the […]
Posted inEnvironment
Ouster of scientist from EPA panel shows industry clout
In 2007, when Deborah Rice was appointed chair of an Environmental Protection Agency panel assessing the safety levels of flame retardants, she arrived as a respected Maine toxicologist with no ties to industry. Yet the EPA removed Rice from the panel after an intense push by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), an industry lobbying group […]
Posted inWorkers’ Rights
Worker suffocations persist as grain storage soars, employers flout safety rules
Key Findings At least 179 grain entrapment deaths have occurred at U.S. commercial storage sites since 1984, a CPI-NPR analysis of Occupational Safety and Health Administration data shows. Initial OSHA fines imposed on employers in these cases totaled $9.2 million but were reduced by almost 60 percent, to $3.8 million, the analysis shows. The five […]
Posted inEnvironment, Poisoned Places, Pollution
‘Upset’ emissions: Flares in the air, worry on the ground
BATON ROUGE, La. — Shirley Bowman noticed the smell after 8 a.m. on June 14, 2012, her 61st birthday. In Baton Rouge, where the petrochemical industry dominates the landscape, foul odors resembling burnt rubber or propane are perennial. But this odor, caustic and potent, seemed especially foul — “like some sort of chemical,” she recalls. […]
Posted inAccountability
Visa, MasterCard in $6B settlement over card fees
NEW YORK (AP) — Visa, MasterCard and major banks agreed to pay retailers at least $6 billion to settle a long-running lawsuit that alleged the card issuers conspired to fix the fees that stores pay to accept credit cards. As part of the settlement, announced late Friday, stores from Rite Aid to Kroger will be […]
Posted inEnvironment
Clean Air Act case brings $1 million penalty
The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a $1 million fine against a global plastics producer for alleged Clean Air Act violations at its plants in two small, polluted communities seven hours apart in Alabama and Indiana. The civil penalty against SABIC Innovative Plastics, announced May 31, targets leak detection and repair failings that resulted in […]
Posted inAccountability, Skin and Bone
Body brokers leave trail of questions, corruption
Skin and Bone Recycling dead humans into medical implants is a lucrative trade, rousing concerns about how tissues are obtained. Stories in this series Medical journal issues warning about human tissue trade By ICIJ November 15, 2012 IMPACT: RTI Biologics suspends import of human tissue from Ukraine By Kate Willson September 7, 2012 IMPACT: Pentagon, […]
Posted inWorkers’ Rights
Kentucky death case: Another black eye for state workplace safety enforcement
Workers’ Rights Threats to America’s workers, and the fragile federal net that protects them Stories in this series OSHA rule targets worker exposure to silica By Jim Morris August 23, 2013 Farmworker advocates press EPA to update pesticide rules By Ronnie Greene July 17, 2013 OSHA strengthens protections for temp workers By Jim Morris April […]
Posted inEnvironment, Pollution, Toxic Clout
EPA unaware of industry ties on cancer review panel
In September 2010, scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency came to a startling conclusion: Even a small amount of a chemical compound commonly found in tap water may cause cancer. Key Findings In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency was poised to cite evidence of cancer risks in hexavalent chromium, a chemical compound found in tap […]
Posted inEnvironment
NTSB: Neglect, inaction caused Michigan oil spill
DETROIT (AP) — A Canadian company’s failure to deal adequately with cracks in an oil pipeline and its slow response to a 2010 rupture in southwestern Michigan likely caused the most expensive onshore oil spill in U.S. history, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday. Enbridge Inc. knew in 2005 that its pipeline near Marshall, […]
Posted inEnvironment
EPA’s ‘Brownfields’ program coming up short
About this story This story is a collaborative investigation by six nonprofit newsrooms into federal and state programs designed to clean up and redevelop polluted tracts known as “brownfields.” The project was coordinated by the Investigative News Network, and reported and written by the Connecticut Health Investigative Team, City Limits, Iowa Center for Public Affairs […]
Posted inEnvironment
Plastics industry edited environmental textbook
State officials ignored scientists in approving pesticide By Amy Standen August 30, 2011 Under pressure from the American Chemistry Council, a lobbying group for the plastics industry, schools officials in California edited a new environmental curriculum to include positive messages about plastic shopping bags, interviews and documents from California Watch show. The rewritten textbooks and […]
