Category: Oversight

The state of Florida has passed laws and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on water treatment projects to try to reduce the phosphorus flowing into the lake. But it continues unabated, according to a review of state water-monitoring data by Weather.com and the Investigative Reporting Workshop.

While the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs has been regulating pollution running off farms, not a single enforcement action has been taken against a farmer or rancher. Here’s how they kept it that way.

The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly urged pregnant women to avoid medically unnecessary ultrasounds, saying it is aware of “several enterprises” in the U.S. that perform ultrasounds on pregnant women for entertainment’s sake and then sell the images as keepsake photographs and videos.

In January, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that most new electric power generation in 2020 would come from wind and solar. A few months and a national crisis later, renewable prospects are perhaps shining even brighter, as government projections show that for the first time renewable power is likely to produce more electricity than coal in 2020.

Across the United States, state and local officials, frustrated by a lack of leadership in the White House and federal agencies, took steps on their own to prepare for the pandemic and protect their communities.

Most hospitals — nonprofit, public and for-profit — operate on thin financial margins and have little to no budget for contingency preparations.

The American Lung Association ranks Bakersfield, Calif., as the most polluted city in the nation for average annual levels of dangerously high particle pollution. The city is second for short-term pollution spikes, a ranking Bakersfield has held in eight out of the last 10 reports.

For nearly 45 years federal legislation has shielded farm owners from accountability when their workers die in preventable accidents.

State regulators for more than a decade allowed a New Mexico refinery to delay fixing leaky equipment that was releasing toxic gases, including high levels of the carcinogen benzene.

“Plastic Wars” looks at how the plastics industry has used recycling to help sell more plastic — and why the plastic waste problem has only grown.