The latest from EWG’s staff of experts

Earlier this week it was eco-furniture -- now here's a green house to put it in. And like the furniture, the new green building is going beyond energy conservation and land use to focus mainly on building materials.

Key Issues: 

Consumer Products

No point rewriting Marian Burros' lead from Wednesday's New York Times: "The House is expected to vote Thursday on a bill that would pre-empt all state food safety regulations that are more stringent than federal standards."

Key Issues: 

Mercury

Perchlorate

Pesticides

A new EPA study fed 23 Seattle children an all-organic diet for a week and saw the pesticide levels in their blood drop to virtually zero. As soon as the kids started back on their conventional diets, their pesticide levels rocketed back up.

Key Issues: 

Pesticides

Talk about taking matters into your own hands! Seeing that there was no answer to the question, ‘How’s our environment doing?’, a nature-loving Gopher-stater took it upon himself to find out. His composite report, paid for with privately raised funds, shows development and population trends that threaten the green spaces the Land of 10,000 Lakes is famous for.

Key Issues: 

Conservation

AP reports that some Washington state farmers may have faked results in tests of a federal conservation program designed to reduce pesticide and fertilizer use. The farmers received tens of thousands of dollars in subsidies under the Conservation Security Program for using greener practices, but an audit of the program found that some individuals may have altered soil samples and given false information.

Key Issues: 

Pesticides

Subsidies

Tap Water

New York state is suing the EPA for its refusal to release information on the smog-causing properties of some common household chemicals. Smog-heavy states like New York and California need the records to plan for reducing pollution in order to meet their stringent Clean Air Act requirements.

Key Issues: 

Conservation

In a proposal that “drew praise from the mining industry”, the EPA recently suggested we all stop worrying about air quality in America’s less populous areas, insisting that dust from those fruited plains and majestic mountains can’t possibly hurt you, as if the only air pollution in the world was the black stuff from tailpipes and smokestacks.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Conservation

A new study from the University of California Berkeley found that combinations of low doses of toxic chemicals can be more harmful than any of the chemicals alone, suggesting that the vacuum EPA and other government agencies study individual chemicals' toxicity in does not mirror conditions in the real world.

Key Issues: 

Toxics

Maybe President Bush still had a New Year's hangover when he signed this particular appropriations bill into law on January 3rd. The bill funding the Health and Human Services Agency contained a tiny rider (compliments of Sen. Durbin of Ill.) that means agencies like the FDA, NIH, and CDC may actually get back to using science to protect public health.

Key Issues: 

Chemical Policy (TSCA)