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While there are many ways to green one’s laundry room, one place to start is with detergent. Luckily, in 2009 the federal government phased out phosphates, harsh chemicals that help break down minerals and loose food bits during the wash cycle, because their presence in waste water causes algae blooms in downstream waterways.
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You hear this retort often when anybody brings up the inescapable fact that the prevalence of guns in American society is a huge factor in our otherworldly homicide rate. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. Yep. Bob Costas sure stepped into that one with his halftime rant on “Sunday Night Football” discussing the murder-suicide involving Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher.
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Conservation groups praised the Obama Administration’s announcement on Friday of a lease sale for the offshore wind energy area 23.5 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. The Department of the Interior announced it would be conducting a competitive lease sale for the 112,800-acre area identified last February. DOI will auction the entire area as a single lease. The lease sale is an important step and is the result of cooperation among regulators, environmentalists, utilities and state lawmakers-all of whom support offshore wind energy for Virginia.
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Americans still don’t recycle as much as they could. Nonetheless, the practice is already considered a huge success given that it keeps about a third of the solid waste we generate out of our quickly filling landfills and saves natural resources while generating much-needed revenue for struggling municipal governments. Recycling also helps us keep our carbon footprints down: According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, recycling one ton of aluminum cans conserves more than 1,665 gallons of gasoline.
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Gov. Bob McDonnell has received and transmitted to the General Assembly the final report of the Uranium Working Group regarding a conceptual regulatory framework should the General Assembly act to lift the current moratorium on uranium mining in the Commonwealth.
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During debate on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 on Tuesday, Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) reiterated his concerns about using funding intended for operations, maintenance, and acquisition programs to expand biofuel research-and-development (R&D) programs in the Department of Defense.
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A new report from the Southern Environmental Law Center on Virginia’s Public-Private Transportation Act, under which billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent and decades of substantial tolls imposed, warns that the law lacks adequate safeguards to protect the public interest.
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Common sense would tell you that if something is broken, it should be fixed. However, once again common sense has not prevailed within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Just a few days ago, the EPA denied a waiver of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) for this year. The EPA’s decision to deny much-needed relief to American livestock producers, food producers, and consumers was extremely disappointing. With a steep decline in corn production this year and a sharp increase in corn prices, the economic harm of the RFS is undeniable.
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Many healthy food advocates were disheartened on Election Day when Californians rejected Proposition 37, which would have required the labeling of genetically modified (GM) foods across the state.
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Indeed, some 31 million American kids participating in the federally supported National School Lunch Program have been getting more whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables in their diets—whether they like it or not. The change is due to new school meal standards unveiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) last January, per the order of 2010’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. The new standards are based on the Institute of Medicine’s science-based recommendations, and are the first upgrade to nutritional standards for school meals since 1995 when low- and no-fat foods were all the rage.
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