In a letter to all U.S. senators, the chief legal officers of 12 states from New York to California are urging lawmakers to vote against the federal energy bill or any legislation that protects oil companies from lawsuits over drinking water contaminated with the toxic gasoline additive MTBE.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has come out against a provision in the federal energy bill shielding oil companies from lawsuits over water pollution by the toxic gasoline additive MTBE — a stance at odds with his fellow Republicans in the California congressional delegation, who all voted for it.

The NPRA's propaganda about our report is painstakingly crafted to confuse the issues, but it makes one thing perfectly clear: The oil industry is desperate to get the accountability shield, and scared of the facts that have already forced them to pay more than $250 million to two California communities whose drinking water was contaminated by MTBE.

The federal government has promised Central Valley agribusinesses that it will increase the amount of taxpayer-subsidized irrigation water by 44 percent over the next 25 years, well beyond what the state's infrastructure can reliably supply, according to Bureau of Reclamation documents obtained by EWG.

The Bush administration is paying some of the biggest and richest agribusinesses in America $17 million for cutbacks in their taxpayer-subsidized water supply. But an EWG investigation found that these same California agribusinesses — including the world's biggest cotton producer and the largest farm in America — already get hundreds of millions of tax dollars from other federal farm subsidy programs.

An investigation by the Riverside Press Enterprise documents how industries that make and use the rocket fuel chemical perchlorate have worked to undermine sound science on its health effects -- even rewriting an article in a federally funded journal. Meanwhile, U.S. Sen Dianne Feinstein says widespread contamination of water and food makes a national rocket fuel safety standard an urgent need.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed into law groundbreaking legislation, sponsored by EWG, to ensure that California's drinking water standards are strong enough to protect children.

Dozens of provisions in the GOP energy bill agreement pending in Congress make it a historic threat to the environment, according to Environmental Working Group (EWG) President Ken Cook.

Telfon-coated cookware poses a hazard when it is heated to high temperatures. EWG tests show that in 2 to 5 minutes on a conventional stovetop, cookware coated with Teflon and other non-stick surfaces can exceed temperatures at which the coating breaks apart and emits toxic particles and gases linked to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pet bird deaths and an unknown number of human illnesses each year.