Phil Zahodiakin

Bakken Oil Rolls Into California, Bringing Air Hazards Along With It

By modifying language on a permit to allow for oil shipments without an environmental review, one attorney says a California air quality agency “marks a very troubling turn,” with regulators “entering into backroom deals with the industry they’re supposed to be regulating.”

Phil Zahodiakin
By Phil Zahodiakin
Damaged Refinery Gas Pipes

SACRAMENTO --- Earthjustice has filed a lawsuit alleging that a California air quality agency has granted an illegal and clandestine permit allowing oil trains carrying Bakken crude to transfer their dangerously volatile cargo into oil trucks at a rail yard seven miles from downtown Sacramento. According to the Sept. 23 complaint, an existing

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US, NATO And Russia Continue Tug-of-War Over Ukraine

Russia, which supplies nearly two-thirds of all gas consumed by Ukraine, is still refusing to resume gas shipments to the country, while U.S. and NATO-backed actions threaten a new Cold War.

Phil Zahodiakin
By Phil Zahodiakin
Barack Obama, David Cameron, Petro Poroshenko, John Kerry

NEW YORK --- Just days before Russian, Ukrainian and European Union officials met in Berlin to open discussions on an “interim solution” to the gas crisis in Ukraine, a Columbia University energy institute issued a report saying future U.S. gas exports to Europe are unlikely to play much of a role in moderating Russian, U.S. and EU foreign

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Birth Defects: A Possible Side Effect Of FDA Proposal On A Natural B Vitamin

The shift to putting “folic acid” on supplement labels could potentially increase birth defects, allow a pharmaceutical company to rake in much more money and ultimately leave many people unable to absorb the compound they’re hoping to benefit from consuming.

Phil Zahodiakin
By Phil Zahodiakin
Pills

WASHINGTON -- An essential “B” vitamin which prevents certain birth defects and helps adults with a host of medical problems would disappear from the vitamin market under an inexplicable Food and Drug Administration labeling proposal that’s drawing fierce opposition from many quarters. The vitamin at issue is B 9 – a group of compounds known

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Report: “Critical Action” Needed To Fight Enormous Energy Waste At Data Centers

Data centers consume colossal amounts of energy and water, with most waste — largely stemming from operating inefficiencies — actually coming from the country’s millions of small data centers.

Phil Zahodiakin
By Phil Zahodiakin
NSA Water Use

WASHINGTON -- Data centers are wasting electricity so excessively that only “critical action” can prevent the pollution and rate hikes that some U.S. regions could eventually suffer as a result of power plant construction intended to ensure that the ravenous facilities are well-fed, a report from the Natural Resources Defense Council and Anthesis

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Natural Gas Exports Assailed As Economic And Environmental Threat

Fracking has unleashed two major elements: natural gas and controversy. As the U.S. appears poised to start exporting one, the other naturally follows, with critics citing economic and environmental concerns.

Phil Zahodiakin
By Phil Zahodiakin
LNG tanker

WASHINGTON -- Industry proposals that could turn the United States into a major natural gas exporter have raised concerns about an eventual fracking surge that could accelerate global warming and contaminate groundwater while undermining the economy by raising the cost of electricity from gas-fired power plants. America could start exporting

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New Englanders Oppose Proposed Pipeline — And The Tariff To Pay For It

“This pipeline would destroy hundreds of our trees because the pipeline swath will be over a hundred feet wide, and it would destroy our piece of the American dream,” one Massachusetts property owner says.

Phil Zahodiakin
By Phil Zahodiakin
EmptyFieldWithLeighYoungblood

NORTH ORANGE, Mass. --- A proposal to build a pipeline from the fracking fields of Pennsylvania to eastern Massachusetts by late 2018 is sparking concern among many property owners in the path of the pipe. But there’s a twist to this evolving story: a proposed surcharge added to electric bills that would force every ratepayer in New England to help

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Environmentalists Rally Against New Herbicide For GE Crops

Citing the inevitability of “superweeds” and calling the product a “life preserver” for fatally flawed technology, environmentalists urge the EPA not to register a new Dow AgroSciences herbicide for GE corn and soybeans.

Phil Zahodiakin
By Phil Zahodiakin

Environmentalists warn that an herbicide designed to work with new varieties of genetically engineered (GE) corn and soybeans should not be registered by the Environmental Protection Agency because, like other widely-used herbicides for GE crops, it will gradually promote the emergence of “superweeds” resistant to the new herbicide. The

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