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Coast Guard allows toxic chemical use on Gulf oil (AP)

Oil containment boom is seen with fresh oil near Comfort Island, in Yscloskey, La. Saturday, July 31, 2010. On shore, BP, Halliburton and Transocean are engaging in a billion-dollar blame game over the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. At sea, they're depending on each other to finally plug up the environmental disaster. (AP Photo/Judi Bottoni)AP - The U.S. Coast Guard has routinely approved BP requests to use thousands of gallons of toxic chemical a day to break up oil slicks in the Gulf of Mexico despite a federal directive that the chemicals be used only rarely on surface waters, congressional investigators said Saturday after examining BP and government documents.


Spike Lee screens film that includes oil spill (AP)

FILE-This July 10, 2010 file photo shows director Spike Lee entering Cipriani's for the wedding of Carmelo Anthony and LaLa Vasquez, in New York.  Lee has screened his new four-hour documentary on the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and says no one from the oil giant is speaking to him. The director showed 'If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise' at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in San Diego on Saturday July 31, 2010. It airs in August on HBO. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano,File)AP - Spike Lee screened some of his new HBO documentary that includes a look at the massive BP Gulf oil spill and says no one from the oil giant is speaking to him.


Feds warned company in Mich. spill about pipeline (AP)

Crews clean up oil, from a ruptured pipeline, owned by Enbridge Inc, near booms where Talmadge Creek meets the Kalamazoo River in Marshall Township, Mich., July 30, 2010.  The Canadian company that owns the pipeline that leaked the oil estimates the spill at 820,000 gallons. The EPA puts the total at more than 1 million gallons.   (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)AP - U.S. regulators earlier this year demanded improvements to the pipeline network that includes a segment that ruptured in southern Michigan, spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River, according to a document released Saturday.


3 squabbling companies must cooperate to plug well (AP)

Harold Cline vacuums up oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill that recently washed up in a cove in Barataria Bay on the coast of Louisiana, Saturday, July 31, 2010. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)AP - On shore, BP, Halliburton and Transocean are engaging in a billion-dollar blame game over the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. At sea, they're depending on each other to finally plug up the environmental disaster.


AP EXCLUSIVE: Salazar keeps oil drill ban, for now (AP)

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar touches the blowout preventer control panel as he asks safety questions in the drilling shack on the drilling floor of the deep water Noble Danny Adkins oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana, Wednesday, July 28, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)AP - The helicopter passes over the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico — with surprisingly little oil visible on its surface — when out of the sea rises a skyscraper-like structure nearly 350 feet above the waves. The $600 million rig, nearly 100 miles off Louisiana's coast, has a hull larger than a football field and can drill more than 5 miles beneath the ocean floor.


Congress to probe Michigan oil spill (Reuters)
Reuters - A U.S. congressional committee will probe the spill of more than 800,000 gallons (3 million liters) of oil from an Enbridge Inc pipeline in southern Michigan this week, a Michigan congressman said on Saturday.

Oil spill taints UC Berkeley's BP-funded research (AP)

In this July 30, 2010 photo, demonstrator Gene Bernardi holds a sign during a protest in Berkeley, Calif., to mark the 100th day anniversary of BP oil spill. BP's catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is fueling opposition to the University of California, Berkeley's research partnership with the oil giant, with activists staging protests on the famously liberal campus. The British company gave UC Berkeley a $500 million grant in 2007 to create the Energy Biosciences Institute, which works to develop new sources of plant-based fuel. It's believed to be the largest-ever corporate sponsorship of university research, but still outraged students and professors who worried the global oil company would exert too much influence over academic research and damage the university's reputation.  (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)AP - BP's catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is fueling opposition to the University of California, Berkeley's research partnership with the British company, with activists and professors on the famously liberal campus calling for a severing of ties.


Ecuador inks deal to protect oil field in national park (AFP)

An indigenous man navagates along the Napo River as it runs through the Yasuni National Park in the Ecuadorean Amazon region, 300 km east of Quito in 2007. Ecuador said Saturday it had reached a deal with the United Nations Development Program under which donor countries will compensate Quito for leaving oil reserves in a national park untouched.(AFP/File/Rodrigo Buendia)AFP - Ecuador said Saturday it had reached a deal with the United Nations Development Program under which donor countries will compensate Quito for leaving oil reserves in a national park untouched.


BP to try well kill Tuesday (Reuters)

Drill ships and response vessels work in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast line while attempting to drill relief wells at the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill wellhead July 27, 2010. REUTERS/Sean GardnerReuters - BP said on Friday it could seal its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well by next week as the House of Representatives voted to toughen regulation of offshore energy drilling.


Engineers prepare to seal ruptured BP oil well (AFP)

An oil-soaked Laughing Gull is cleaned at the Fort Jackson Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Buras, Louisiana. Engineers Saturday readied a plan to permanently seal a damaged Gulf of Mexico well, despite delays to the process caused by debris left behind by a recent tropical storm.(AFP/Getty Images/File/Joe Raedle)AFP - Engineers Saturday readied a plan to permanently seal a damaged Gulf of Mexico well, despite delays to the process caused by debris left behind by a recent tropical storm.


House approves oil spill bill; stalled in Senate (AP)

Demonstrator Mary Ann Thomas wears chocolate syrup on her face next to a similarly stained stuffed duck on a fence during a protest in Berkeley, Calif. on Friday, July 30, 2010 to mark the 100th day anniversary of BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)AP - The House has approved a bill to boost safety standards for offshore drilling and remove a liability cap for oil spills, but a partisan fight in the Senate will likely delay action on a response to the Gulf oil spill until Congress returns from its summer recess.


Group sues over Wyoming-to-Oregon gas pipeline (AP)
AP - An environmental group that wants to block construction of a $3 billion gas pipeline from Wyoming to Oregon filed a lawsuit Friday, saying the pipeline will cut across pristine land and harm endangered fish.

House approves oil spill reform bill (Reuters)
Reuters - The House of Representatives on Friday approved the toughest reforms ever to offshore energy drilling practices, as Democrats narrowly pushed through an election-year response to BP's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

House votes to end offshore drilling moratorium (Reuters)

Drill ships and response vessels work in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast line while attempting to drill relief wells at the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill wellhead July 27, 2010. REUTERS/Sean GardnerReuters - The House of Representatives on Friday voted to end the federal moratorium on deepwater drilling for oil companies that meet new federal safety requirements.


U.S. nuclear front-runners begin to slow spending (Reuters)
Reuters - Two companies leading the U.S. nuclear power revival may curb spending on the next generation of reactors due to delays in federal loan support, officials said.

Oil threat recedes for East Coast, much of Florida (Reuters)

A large sheen of oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, background, is seen approaching Timbalier Island in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana, Wednesday, July 28, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)Reuters - South Florida, the Florida Keys and the East Coast will likely be spared from any contamination from the ruptured BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, U.S. government scientists said on Friday.


Time to scrap BP brand? Gas-station owners divided (AP)

FILE - In this file photo made Oct. 25, 2007, the BP (British Petroleum) logo is seen at a gas station in Washington. BP gas station owners across the country are divided over whether the oil giant stained by its handling of the Gulf spill should rebrand U.S. outlets as Amoco or another name as part of its effort to repair the company's badly damaged reputation. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)AP - BP gas station owners across the country are divided over whether the oil giant stained by its handling of the Gulf spill should rebrand U.S. outlets as Amoco or another name as part of efforts to repair the company's badly damaged reputation.


Mabus to hold town-hall meetings on Gulf's future (McClatchy Newspapers)
McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, President Barack Obama's point man on long-term restoration of the Gulf Coast after the BP oil spill, heads back to the Gulf next week for town hall meetings in all five states — two a day in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana and one in Texas.

Despite anger over BP spill, Washington might not act (McClatchy Newspapers)
McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — As the Gulf of Mexico focuses on cleaning up the mess left by the BP oil spill, the question facing the nation's capital is: Will Washington clean up its act, too?

Everglades, Madagascar rain forest on UNESCO list (AP)

An alligator swims by as a fisherman looks on in Coopertown, the Everglades, Fla., Thursday, July 29, 2010. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)AP - The United Nations has added Florida's Everglades National Park and rain forests in Madagascar to its list of World Heritage sites in danger.


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