The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards is an alliance of more than 180 consumer, labor, scientific, research, faith, community, environmental, small business, good government, public health and public interest groups — representing millions of Americans. We are joined in the belief that our country’s system of regulatory safeguards should secure our quality of life, pave the way for a sound economy, and benefit us all. Follow us @goodregs.
Latest Regulatory News 2024
Litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court has become the right wing’s genteel alternative to open rebellion. The three newest justices, who gave the Court a conservative supermajority, were installed in their posts precisely for the purpose of neutralizing the government. Billionaire-funded advocates declare that the United States is a “shell” of a republic and concede that their goal is to topple the government as it stands. One lawyer helping to wage this assault admits to preferring the Supreme Court as a venue for momentous change because it is “more efficient” than working through the electoral branches of government. This radical judicial project is well underway. Based on an aggressive and controversial vision of the constitutional separation of powers, the reconfigured Court, spurred on by well-heeled litigants, has already dramatically changed the structure and authority of the federal government. With each new case, the Court has enlarged its own power while shrinking the power of the other institutions of government.
On March 8, the Biden administration took a major step towards curtailing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by publishing its expansive rule to reduce the potent climate pollutant. First announced in early December by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan at the United Nations climate talks in Dubai, the rule is scheduled to take effect 60 days after publication, or sometime in May. According to the EPA, the final rule will avoid an estimated 58 million tons of methane emissions from 2024 to 2038. That’s nearly 80 percent less than projected methane emissions without the rule, and the equivalent of 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) — nearly equal to CO2 emissions from U.S. power plants in 2021. The rule will also avoid 16 million tons of smog-forming volatile organic compound emissions and 590,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants tied to cancer and other health risks, according to EPA.
Federal land managers have sparked a heated debate about recreation in some of this country’s most wild places with a proposed overhaul of rules governing rock climbing on public lands, angering both wilderness advocates and climbers alike. At issue for the National Park Service and Forest Service, which released draft guidance for managers four months ago, are the small metal anchor bolts used to make climbs safer but that are oftentimes left behind in national parks and forests. Some wilderness groups regard the anchors that climbers drill into rocks as a clear violation of federal law, noting that there are 20,000 bolts just at Joshua Tree National Park in California, with roughly 30 percent of those on rocks in officially designated wilderness areas. By definition, those areas are supposed to be “untrammeled by man.”
EPA on Thursday announced new regulations to slash releases of a cancer-causing compound used by dozens of medical equipment sterilization plants, often located in heavily populated and marginalized communities. The final rule is the latest of a series for various industries, including many chemical manufacturers, to account for a 2016 finding that ethylene oxide was much more dangerous than previously thought. The rule, stronger in some respects than a draft released last year, will eventually cut emissions of ethylene oxide by sterilization facilities by more than 90 percent, according to an agency forecast. Many of those plants are located in neighborhoods or near schools. When the new regulations are fully in effect, EPA predicts that they will reduce the lifetime cancer risk for all nearby residents below a key Clean Air Act threshold of one additional cancer case per 10,000 people.
Amid a difficult year for North Atlantic right whales, a proposed rule to help protect them is one step closer to reality. Earlier this month, a proposal to expand speed limits for boats — one of the leading causes of death for the endangered whales — took a key step forward: It’s now under review by the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the last stage of federal review. Fewer than 360 of the whales remain; only about 70 of them are females of reproductive age. Every individual whale is considered vital to the species’ survival, but since 2017 right whales have been experiencing what scientists call an “unusual mortality event,” during which 39 whales have died. Human actions — including climate change — are killing them.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) continues to work on six economically significant rulemakings, including developing a workplace violence prevention rule, according to a March 14 Department of Labor (DOL) Federal Register notice. An earlier DOL notice omitted a listing of the department’s regulatory flexibility items on its semiannual regulatory agenda.