Not content to pander to the cosmetics industry by requiring no safety testing on American personal care products, the Bush administration is now working to thwart Europe’s attempts at improving product safety. Government correspondence uncovered by staff of the House Committee on Government Reform shows that the administration mixed with the American Chemistry Council (ACC) for a lobbying campaign to cripple Europe’s new laws, the Oakland Tribune reports.

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) took the EPA to task this week for using fuzzy math and ignoring health effects to bolster President Bush’s cap-and-trade proposal for mercury emissions from power plants, The Washington Post reports. The EPA skewed its analysis to indicate that the administration’s proposal would garner greater savings than enforcing pollution caps on all plants, the technology-based plan favored by conservationists.

New tests by Toronto's Globe and Mail and CTV News show some of the world's highest levels of chemical fire retardants in common Canadian foods.

The Washington Post reports that half the fish consumed worldwide will be farm-raised instead of wild-caught by the year 2025, exposing Americans to more fish with plenty of healthy omega-3s and dangerous levels of toxic PCBs.

Newly uncovered documents from W.R. Grace show that the company exposed workers in at least 14 of its insulation factories around the country to lethal asbestos dust at levels above those in the now notorious Grace-owned mine in Libby, Mont.

The international mining giant, Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp., is under fire for dangerously polluting Indonesian communities in violation of US environmental standards. Now, an Environmental Working Group (EWG) search of US government electronic records it has posted on its web site (www.ewg.org/mining/) shows the company holds more acres of mining claims on Western public land than any other metal mining company. Newmont holds 347,458 acres of claims in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Washington.

An Environmental Working Group (EWG) investigation into a controversial pesticide study found that the chemical industry's lobbying arm, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), boasted to its members that a $2 million contribution it made to the study had gained the industry "considerable leverage" over the project.

According to news reports, Teflon maker DuPont reported earning $331 million in the third quarter this year. That amount will just cover the possible $313 million fine it faces for illegally hiding from the EPA studies finding that their Teflon chemical moves from mother's blood to baby and that it had polluted drinking water supplies used by thousands of Ohioans and West Virginians.

Yesterday House and Senate committee members agreed on a bill that would have the tobacco industry, rather than taxpayers, spend $9.6 billion to buy out tobacco quotas. While the bill rightly ends an outdated, lopsided subsidy system, Congress let slip a key provision that would have given the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the power to regulate the manufacture and sale of cigarettes.