Gulf Coast environmental groups praised the call and urged the new task force to rely on input from local officials. Executive director of Mobile Baykeepers, Casi Callaway, says “Local involvement is absolutely key. If the public does not have a say, we’re not going to be ‘sweet’.” Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, will head the new Ecosystem Restoration Task Force. “The president has made clear that he wants restoration plans to come from the Gulf Coast and not be imposed on the Gulf residents by Washington,” Jackson said in a statement. “We’re counting on the people who know these areas best, the people who call the Gulf home, to shape our work.” Obama’s order to restore the Gulf Coast says, “Its natural resources are an important economic engine for the entire United States, its waters sustain a diverse and vibrant ecosystem; and the Gulf’s culture, natural beauty and historic significance are unique.” … Read ahead
Source: timeeco.com
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Inhabitants of the Gulf coast have endured some of the most catastrophic tragedies in recent history. Exacerbating those tragedies was the spectacularly poor leadership of two men: BP’s bumbling CEO Tony Hayward, and the deposed head of FEMA, Michael Brown (the former of oil spill infamy, and the latter widely detested for his bungled response to Hurricane Katrina). Since there can be only one King of the Gulf Gaffe, we pitted the two against each another in a five-round battle royale using their own quotes as ammunition. May the worst-spoken win. … 
Coastal air quality on the U.S. Gulf Coast is improving now that the oil leak has been stopped, University of California, San Francisco, researchers said. … 
Gulf of Mexico oil spill. “The farther away you are from the Gulf and the Gulf shore the less likely it is that you will have a valid claim,” Feinberg, administrator of the fund, said Aug. 13 in a telephone interview. “But I will take a look at each claim.” BP has received more than 142,400 claims, representing every state, for damages from the well that gushed for almost three months, and most will be turned over to the Feinberg-run Gulf Coast Claims Facility that goes into operation on Aug. 23, according to … 
It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” So goes the summertime lament wailed by every weather watcher across the country. Humidity is generally acknowledged as a serious factor affecting a region’s climate comfort: cities in the West are generally thought to have a pleasant dry heat, while the unfortunate South- and Northeast are doomed to virtual swamplike conditions from June to September. Or that’s the conventional wisdom, anyway. It seems like residents of every Gulf Coast or Atlantic seaboard city like to boast that their town’s average relative humidity is the worst, the highest, or … 
Faced with hundreds of lawsuits and a deep need for experts, BP has been offering some Gulf Coast scientists lucrative consulting contracts that bar them from releasing their findings on the company’s massive oil spill for three years. … 
HOUSTON – Faced with hundreds of lawsuits and a deep need for experts, BP has been offering some Gulf Coast scientists lucrative consulting contracts that bar them from releasing their findings on the company’s massive oil spill for three years. Some scientists say the contracts constrain academic freedom. A few signed the agreements, then changed their minds. And others argue BP’s contract is standard, and with little federal funding available to study the spill’s impact, Gulf Coast researchers have few other options. “I personally wouldn’t care to have my research limited, but if I wanted to do work on the spill and this was the only way I could get out there and get working on it, I don’t think there’s a lot of alternatives,” said Chris D’Elia, dean of the Louisiana State University School of the Coast and Environment. BP confirms hiring more than a dozen scientists who have Gulf Coast expertise to assist with hundreds of lawsuits and assess the environmental damage caused by the spill. “What we have asked is that they treat information from BP’s lawyers as confidential, as is customary,” said David Nicholas, a BP spokesman in London. “But we do not take the position that environmental data is confidential and we do not place restrictions on academics speaking about scientific data.” Still, American Association of University Professors President Cary Nelson said the three-year limitation could suppress information key to restoring the environment. “Many scientists are turning down these contracts because they feel this research needs to be shared with the public, it needs to be shared with the government,” said Nelson, whose group represents about 48,000 academics. Researchers are asked to sign similar contracts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency charged with tracking the oil and assessing the damage. Also in the mix is a hesitance to be associated with the company that’s responsible for around 184 million gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. “Setting aside any good intentions, the idea of being affiliated with BP was not a good thing,” said Joe Griffitt, a scientist at the Gulf Coast Research Marine Lab at the University of Southern Mississippi, who initially signed a deal with BP, then changed his mind. In the end, each side will try to get as many experts on their team as possible, removing knowledge from the public domain, said Mark Davis, director of the Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy at Tulane Law School in New Orleans. “That’s not wrong. Those are the rules of the game,” he said. “It’s the survival of a company, the survival of a crucial industry is at stake in a vital market area. This is serious business.” ___ Schwartz reported from Los Angeles. … 
Just how bad is the Gulf oil crisis? A BBC News correspondent joined an expedition of top scientists in the region to explore the Gulf Coast, who say that it may be decades before wildlife in the region recover. …