The warming temperatures will bring many people out into the sun to get a little color on their skins. The sun, while being the source of all life on Earth, is also quite lethal if exposed for too long. As summer approaches, it is good to remember a few things about protecting your skin from the great ball of fire in the sky. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has teamed up with the National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and National Park Service (NPS) in a joint effort to spread the word. They have designated the Friday before Memorial Day as "Don't Fry Day" to highlight the important message.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a pronouncement in December 2009 to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. 

It claimed it was using the authority provided it from the Clean Air Act and the May 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling inMassachusetts v. EPA that "greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endanger both the public health and the environment for current and future generations."

An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study has linked a contaminated Wyoming aquifer to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. This is the process required to make natural gas extraction profitable, as it opens up cracks and pores in rock formations to make the gas flow. Scientists for the EPA stated that high levels of benzene were found in the water beneath Pavillion, Wyoming, which is located on the Wind River Indian Reservation.

 This is not the first time fracking has been linked to water contamination, but it is the first time the Federal Government has liked the two with scientific evidence. The owner of the well is Encana Oil and Gas, and this is also not the first time Encana has been blamed for contamination due to fracking. There have been other incidents of contamination in surrounding states, and many in western Colorado, over the past several years However, up until now, very little action has been taking to address the problem as a whole. There are several states that have been experiencing increased natural gas production recently, as it is a vital part of the U.S.’s energy future, and this makes proper regulation and oversight critical. Water sampling began in the Pavillion area in 2009, and since there have been small amounts of benzene and other toxic chemicals found in the water. The chemicals found did not exceed national drinking water standards in most cases, but either way, residents were advised to get drinking water from other sources. Since Encana was drilling wells in that area, it has been providing drinking water for 21 households at a cost of approximately $1,500 monthly.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) faced scrutiny on Capitol Hill again this week over the high costs of its record number of environmental regulations.  During a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee, the agency’s air chief denied consequences of the Clean Air Act on jobs and the economy and argued that her agency’s rules relating to automobiles and fuel economy actually creates jobs and support small businesses.

On Friday, September 2, 2011, the White House directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw and reconsider a proposal to strengthen National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone, the primary ingredient in smog. The announcement marked the first time that the Obama Administration formally returned one of its own agencies proposals, and it could indicate heightened executive scrutiny of forthcoming rules economic impacts. The heart of the Clean Air Act, NAAQS set maximum levels for six criteria pollutants at levels necessary to protect public health and welfare, implemented through State Implementation Plans covering a broad range of  sources. The ozone NAAQS were last revised in 2008, when the Bush Administration set a primary standard of .075 parts-per-million (“ppm”�) — more lenient than the .06-.07 ppm range recommended by EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.In response to a lawsuit filed against the 2008 standards, the Obama administration agreed to reconsider the ozone NAAQS in September 2009 and proposed adopting a standard with the .06-.07 ppm range shortly thereafter. EPA held three public hearings on its proposal, and as recently as July 26, 2011, EPA stated that it "look[ed] forward to finalizing this standard shortly.".

Exxon Mobil Corp will bring in more people to mop up oil from a broken pipeline beneath the Yellowstone River as receding floodwaters reveal new contamination, federal officials said Friday.Also Friday, Montana environmental regulators said the pipeline may have leaked up to 1,200 barrels of oil into the scenic river. That equals 50,400 gallons and is 20 percent higher than prior estimates from Exxon Mobil.

Water levels on the Yellowstone have dropped six feet since the July 1 accident. Hundreds of logjams and debris piles, many coated in a layer of drying crude, now litter its banks and islands.

While ExxonMobil and government officials worked Saturday to clear a ruptured pipeline underneath the Yellowstone River of any residual oil, a small group of boaters began their own weeks-long survey of the river in an effort to document areas affected by the spill.

Called the Oily River Rendezvous, the group consisted Saturday of two kayakers and a pair of canoers from Montana and Arizona who plan to float the Yellowstone and its backwaters at least to Miles City and compile data as they go.

On July 6^th EPA issued ExxonMobil an administrative order instructing them to provide information on the circumstances of the spill, conduct appropriate recovery and remediation actions, and perform ongoing environmental sampling. The order also requires ExxonMobil to provide a work plan which is currently being reviewed by the state of Montana, EPA, and other agency partners. Once approved, the work plan will be publicly available.

Malfunctioning equipment at an oil well site leaked thousands of gallons of oil into a creek south of Rawlins, federal regulators said Monday, although they weren’t sure of the exact total.

The 2011 budget cuts and the environment. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

News is coming out all over the place about what the 2011 budget deal means for different topics. Even within the environmental realm, different organizations, journalists, and bloggers with different agendas are focusing on different issues. I'm a big picture kind of guy and, as a blogger, I'm a big environmental picture kind of guy. The following is a look at what the 2011 budget deal means when it comes to a variety of different environmental topics.