RegsTalk: The CSS Blog

By Daniel Rosenberg, Natural Resources Defense Council Every year the chemical industry holds a conference known as “Global Chem”—and every year representatives of the chemical industry say things that are revealing, scary, ridiculous, or delusional (or sometimes all four);... Continue Reading

By Carla Burns and Kali Rauhe, Environmental Working Group Many brands of menstrual pads and disposable diapers contain elevated levels of chemicals linked to developmental and reproductive harm, according to a recent study published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology. The... Continue Reading

By Mike Lavender, Union of Concerned Scientists Presidential budgets are wish lists. Very detailed and public wish lists. That’s why on Monday, when the Trump Administration released its FY2020 Budget, it was alarming to see a 7 percent reduction to the U.S. Department of... Continue Reading

By the American Lung Association “Where Does Air Pollution Come From?” That’s our theme for the month of March as part of the Year of Air Pollution & Health, and we are doing a series of blogs featuring success stories of reducing pollution from major sources. First up: The... Continue Reading

Bu Susan Harley, Public Citizen This week marks Sunshine Week, when the media, civil society organizations and the government all join together to celebrate transparency and the power of open government. Named in reference to the famous quote from Supreme Court Justice Louis... Continue Reading

By Sylvia Fallon, Natural Resources Defense Council No one was surprised when the Trump administration proposed removing Endangered Species Act protections from wolves across the entire Lower 48 states with the exception of the small, struggling population of Mexican wolves in... Continue Reading

By Ellen Simon, Waterkeeper Alliance As Houston grows, the city and its suburbs are devouring its wetlands. Building subdivisions on top of wetlands has made the nation’s fourth-largest city vulnerable to the stronger and more frequent storms that come with climate change, as... Continue Reading

By Rachel Cleetus, Union of Concerned Scientists A couple of days after Christmas last year, during the federal government shut-down, EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler somehow found time to issue a pernicious proposal to undermine a crucial clean air rule, the Mercury and Air... Continue Reading

By Joel Clement, Union of Concerned Scientists Laws are good to have. Take the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires the federal government to complete a science-based Environmental Impact Assessment for any project that might damage the surrounding landscape,... Continue Reading

By Alan Zibel, Public Citizen Law enforcement activity at three large U.S. consumer protection agencies has fallen sharply under President Donald Trump, as the White House continues to put corporate interests ahead of the middle class. A new Public Citizen report, “Consumer... Continue Reading

By Jon Devine, Natural Resources Defense Council The White House released its proposed federal government budget this week and it’s a plan only water polluters can love. If followed, it would mean more polluted drinking water supplies, make restoring the fisheries of the... Continue Reading

By Lauren Hoffman and Sunu P. Chandy, National Women’s Law Center At NWLC, we’re committed to fighting back against sex discrimination in schools, workplaces, and elsewhere. That’s why we’re proud to highlight two recent amicus briefs that we filed in support of transgender... Continue Reading

By Grace Sullivan, Public Citizen Recently, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) released its new recall “app.” The CPSC, the nation’s chief product safety regulator, released the app in an effort to make recall information more accessible to consumers and as part... Continue Reading

By Daniel Rosenberg, Natural Resources Defense Council When he was a candidate for President, Donald Trump (in)famously said that he could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody, and he wouldn’t lose any voters. While he hasn’t taken that particular step, his... Continue Reading

By Laurie Ristino, Center for Progressive Reform The Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives has a weighty agenda – from policy reform to oversight of the Trump administration. Given all that the House Democrats have on their plate, urging them to restore policy... Continue Reading

By Christopher Williams, American Rivers On February 14, the Trump Administration published a proposed federal rule that would roll back protection for streams and wetlands across the United States. But we don’t have this accept this awful valentine — Write to the Administration... Continue Reading

By Kelly Ross, AFL-CIO The Donald Trump administration is proposing a new overtime regulation that would protect at least 2.8 million fewer workers than the overtime regulation proposed by the Barack Obama administration in 2016. The AFL-CIO and other overtime advocat... Continue Reading

By Sierra Club Thanks to the Endangered Species Act, gray wolves have now started to recover in the continental United States after human persecution brought them to the brink of extinction. But gray wolves are still functionally extinct in the vast majority of places where they... Continue Reading

By Ed Mierzwinski, U.S. PIRG Today, new CFPB director Kathy Kraninger testifies to Congress for the first time (since her confirmation hearing) to deliver the Semi-Annual Report To Congress of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Chairwoman Maxine Waters and the House... Continue Reading

By James Goodwin, Center for Progressive Reform To this point, much of the focus in the discussion over the Green New Deal has been on the substance of the vision it lays out for a better society – and why shouldn’t it be? There’s some really exciting stuff included... Continue Reading

By Kit Kennedy, Natural Resources Defense Council In the search for powerful climate change action that can win support from both parties in Congress, it’s hard to beat energy efficiency standards. Long-established federal efficiency baselines for appliances and equipment... Continue Reading

By Dave Cooke, Union of Concerned Scientists Today, EPA published the latest in a series of annual reports looking at the fuel economy and emissions of passenger cars and trucks. The news is both good and completely unsurprising: vehicles are more efficient than ever before, and... Continue Reading

By Luke Tonachel, Natural Resources Defense Council The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s annual vehicle fuel economy report shows, yet again, that clean car standards are making new cars better for consumers and the planet. In other words, the EPA’s own report show... Continue Reading

By Sunu P. Chandy, National Women’s Law Center The more information you have about a problem, the more likely you will be able to craft a solution to fix it. That’s especially true for workplace pay inequity. It would be much easier to close discriminatory wage gaps if we... Continue Reading

By Better Markets Will altering the frequency of big bank stress tests from annual to every other year leave the big banks less prepared for a future financial crisis?  That is the question addressed in comment letters filed by Better Markets with the Fede... Continue Reading

By Seth Johnson, Earthjustice Sometimes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s job can be complicated. Sometimes it has to explore questions on the cutting edge of science. But sometimes its job is really simple. This is one of those times — and yet the EPA still hasn’t done... Continue Reading

By Kara Cook-Schultz, U.S. PIRG Having a beer or a glass of wine at happy hour or a backyard barbecue shouldn’t include gulping down a potentially hazardous pesticide. But that’s likely the case, according to a new U.S. PIRG report, The study tested 20 different beers, wines and... Continue Reading

By Laura Padin, National Employment Law Project Two recent actions by the National Labor Relations Board will make it harder for outsourced workers to organize and gain a voice at their workplace. First, on September 14, 2018, the NLRB announced its intent to engage in rulemaking... Continue Reading

By James Goodwin, Center for Progressive Reform The return of divided government promises to bring with it a welcome, albeit temporary, reprieve from the unprecedented abuse of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) that we witnessed during the 115th Congress. As I argue i... Continue Reading

By Americans for Financial Reform The merger between SunTrust and BB&T announced last week is a big deal, literally and figuratively. The deal merges two of the twenty largest banks in the U.S. to form the eighth largest bank in the country. The new entity, with over $430... Continue Reading

By Joel Clement, Union of Concerned Scientists In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig suffered an uncontrollable well blowout and a series of explosions that killed 11 people. Two days later the rig sank 5,000 feet to the ocean floor and the well continued to... Continue Reading

By Jon Devine, Natural Resources Defense Council I’m posting this from Kansas City, Kansas, where the Trump administration is holding its one and only public hearing on its plan to radically roll back the safeguards of the Clean Water Act for critical streams and for wetlands... Continue Reading

By Alexis Temkin and Olga Naidenko, Environmental Working Group Seems like every time a government agency or public interest group tests food for Monsanto’s weedkiller glyphosate, which has been linked to cancer, they find it. Last year, two rounds of tests commissioned b... Continue Reading

By National Women’s Health Network In 2016, the FDA reclassified transvaginal mesh used to repair pelvic organ prolapse (POP) as a Class III device—the highest risk category—in response to over 20,000 adverse event reports during a three-year period alone. The NWHN actively... Continue Reading

By Sujatha Bergen and Daniel Rosenberg, Natural Resources Defense Council Yesterday, Ace Hardware Corporation became the 13th U.S. retailer to publicly commit to stop selling and distributing paint removers that contain the toxic chemicals methylene chloride and... Continue Reading

By Andrew Rosenberg, Union of Concerned Scientists Andrew Wheeler’s confirmation as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is creeping up on us like watching a coal ash spill flow down a gentle slope. It slowly lays waste to the landscape as it advances, then... Continue Reading

By Better Markets There’s some good news to report in the fight to preserve ripped off shareholders’ rights to seek justice in court, rather than being forced into biased, unfair and secret arbitration proceedings.  On Monday, February 11, 2019, SEC Chairman Jay Clayto... Continue Reading

By MiQuel Davies, National Women’s Law Center Since day one, the Trump-Pence Administration has been trying to roll back our rights and take away protections against sex discrimination. One of the ways they are trying to do this is by redefining the word “sex” to erase... Continue Reading

By Karen Perry Stillerman, Union of Concerned Scientists This week, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue is set to appear before Congress for the first time in a year. When he testifies on the state of the rural economy at a hearing of the House agriculture committee, he’ll have... Continue Reading

By Gillian Giannetti, Natural Resources Defense Council Federal law requires that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) take a “hard look” at a proposed energy’s project’s effect on climate change. In last week’s order approving the Calcasieu Pass liquefied natural gas... Continue Reading

By Gregg Gelzinis, Center for American Progress This week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell will testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and U.S. House Committee on Financial Services on the state of the U.S. economy and the Fed’s... Continue Reading

By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists Throughout history, special interests have worked studiously to deny, distort, or manipulate science to interfere with policy outcomes and rig the game so that they may continue profiting, usually at the expense of public health or... Continue Reading

By Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group In coming weeks, members of Congress will again introduce bipartisan bills to ensure that the chemicals used in cosmetics and other everyday personal care products are safe. As The New York Times noted, it’s been 30 years since Ron... Continue Reading

By Michael Brune, Sierra Club Andrew R. Wheeler, the acting administrator of the EPA, is Donald Trump’s nominee to succeed the disgraced Scott Pruitt. From Trump’s perspective, Wheeler’s a smart choice. Where Pruitt acted like a gung-ho commando who had... Continue Reading

By Sean Davis, National Consumers League When you ask consumers about the kind of information that they’d like to keep private, location data is usually near the top of the list. That’s why Motherboard’s recent investigation into cell phone companies’ location data sharing... Continue Reading

By the SEIU Karlene Whonder, a home care worker and proud SEIU District 1199NE member from New Haven, Conn., provides the essential care her client, a woman with autism and schizophrenia, needs so she can remain living at home. “I love helping my client and enjoy the feeling of... Continue Reading

By Grace McRae, Sierra Club This morning, the Sierra Club released results of a seven-state poll which reveals how out-of-touch the Trump administration is with the public on issues concerning energy and the environment. We asked Global Strategy Group to survey registered voters... Continue Reading

By Jessica A. Knoblauch, Earthjustice The low, guttural bellows and high-pitched calls of the North Atlantic right whale may soon be drowned out—or altogether silenced—by the continuous blasts of seismic airguns used to identify dirty energy deposits deep within the Atlantic... Continue Reading

By Jim Lyons, Center for American Progress Improving and upgrading U.S. roads, bridges, and transportation networks; energy production and transmission systems; and other elements of human-made infrastructure is long overdue. As the new Congress begins its bipartisan, bicameral... Continue Reading

By Ellen Simon, Waterkeeper Alliance Stocking Head Creek’s headwaters are a forest spring. Once this tributary to North Carolina’s Cape Fear River leaves that forest, however, its sources become considerably less pristine. Part of a watershed where 94,000 swine and 1.3 million... Continue Reading

By Olga Naidenko and Dave Andrewst, Environmental Working Group Last week, as he unveiled the Environmental Protection Agency’s toothless “action plan” on fluorinated chemicals, acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler maintained that the current guideline of 70 parts per trillion, or... Continue Reading

By Alex Hillibrand, Natural Resources Defense Council Energy and environment regulators from 120 of the world’s developing countries are gathering this week in Paris to tackle a growing climate threat – cooling in an increasingly warming world. They’ll be reviewing a suggested... Continue Reading

by Sharon Anglin Treat, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy As Congress and the public debate the pros and cons of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), or New NAFTA, behind the scenes and in the shadows transnational corporations are doubling down on their... Continue Reading

By Kara Cook-Schultz, U.S. PIRG On Valentine’s Day this year, consumer and environmental groups waited with excitement to hear the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s much-touted national plan to crack down on PFAS contamination. EPA’s national plan t... Continue Reading

By Sean Davis, National Consumers League Last month, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined the growing list of Members of Congress, advocacy groups, and industry players who have released privacy bills. Rubio’s bill, the American Data Dissemination Act (ADD Act), exists primarily to... Continue Reading

By Theresa Lau, National Women’s Law Center Neomi Rao is Trump’s pick for a lifetime position on the D.C. Circuit. Rao has been in the spotlight recently because of her appalling writings that range from rape apologist pieces from college to defending the cruel practic... Continue Reading

By Daniel Rosenberg, Natural Resources Defense Council When it comes to protecting the public from cancer-causing chemicals, Andy Wheeler, EPA’s Acting Administrator is afraid of commitment. The “action plan” to address PFAS chemicals—released by the Agency today in an effort to... Continue Reading

By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists At a press conference in Philadelphia this morning, EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the long-awaited action plan for the class of toxic chemicals known as PFAS. During an ABC News interview last night, Wheeler called... Continue Reading

By Erik D. Olson and Anna Reade, Natural Resources Defense Council The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will issue its “PFAS management plan” tomorrow. PFAS, or poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, are a widely used large class of highly toxic chemicals. This is an... Continue Reading

By Larissa Liebmann, Waterkeeper Alliance The Trump administration is implementing its treacherous strategy to eliminate Clean Water Act protections for waters—and communities—across the country through a rulemaking that removes historically protected rivers, streams, lakes,... Continue Reading

By Dan West, Natural Resources Defense Council Ethylene oxide (EtO) is a common, highly hazardous industrial chemical linked to breast cancer and immune system cancers like non-Hodgkin lymphoma and lymphocytic leukemia (see EPA IRIS Exec Summary, Dec 2016). Concerned community... Continue Reading

By Sharon Buccino, Natural Resources Defense Council As an environmental lawyer for over 25 years now, I have become intimately familiar with the workings of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior. I didn’t have occasion to watch what was happening... Continue Reading

By Melanie Benesh and Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group The toxic chemicals known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a national crisis demanding action. They’re found everywhere we look. They’re in the blood of virtually all Americans, including newborn... Continue Reading

By Karen Hansen-Kuhn, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy The economic state of U.S. agriculture is dire. The Federal Reserve Banks of Kansas City, Minneapolis and Chicago report that a growing percentage of U.S. farmers cannot pay the interest on their loans. Five years... Continue Reading

By Dave Cooke, Union of Concerned Scientists In an interview with Bloomberg Media on February 4th, EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler stated that manufacturers have paid $77 million in fines for not complying “with the current Obama numbers,” going on to say that “it’s... Continue Reading

By Harold P. Wimmer, American Lung Association Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, killing more than 480,000 Americans a year. For 17 years, our “State of Tobacco Control” report has tracked and graded efforts to... Continue Reading

By Free Press Republicans in Congress just dropped three totally B.S. fake Net Neutrality bills — and we need to expose them for what they really are and stop them in their tracks. We’ve seen these fake compromises masquerading as real Net Neutrality before, and these bills are... Continue Reading

By Noah Horowitz, Natural Resources Defense Council The U.S. Department of Energy’s proposal to dramatically narrow the scope of light bulbs covered by the upcoming federal 2020 energy efficiency standards will cost consumers up to $12 billion on their utility bills and cause up... Continue Reading

By Kathleen Rest, Union of Concerned Scientists EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler is true to his word. With a masterful sense of timing and irony, the EPA has announced that on Thursday, February 7, it will publish its proposal to revise (read: roll back) the agency’s own... Continue Reading

By Mary Anne Hitt, Sierra Club On February 2, 2014, a Duke Energy coal ash pit spilled more than 39,000 tons of toxic coal ash into North Carolina’s Dan River, creating an emergency and raising concerns about environmental and economic impacts for communities for miles... Continue Reading

By Lauren Urbanek, Natural Resources Defense Council The Department of Energy (DOE) today announced major and unnecessary changes to its procedures for administering its unequivocally successful energy efficiency standards program, which currently saves the average U.S. household... Continue Reading

By Paul Gordon, People For the American Way At D.C. Circuit nominee Neomi Rao’s hearing before the Judiciary Committee, her work as administrator of the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) played a central role. She did not assuage concerns that her... Continue Reading

By Andrew Rosenberg, Union of Concerned Scientists A great public servant and one of my mentors, William Ruckelshaus, always emphasized to me that the State of the Union was a time to put big ideas on the table, to talk about the truly great challenges facing the country, and to... Continue Reading

By Olga Naidenko and Dave Andrews, Environmental Working Group The Environmental Protection Agency reportedly has decided not to set legal limits for the toxic fluorinated chemicals PFOA and PFOS in drinking water. The news is deeply disturbing, because an estimated 110 million... Continue Reading

By James Goodwin, Center for Progressive Reform Tomorrow morning, Neomi Rao, the current administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on her nomination to the U.S. Court... Continue Reading

By Ben Lilliston, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy As President Trump prepares the State of the Union address at the midpoint of his term, fights over the U.S.-Mexico border wall, the Russia investigation, and his latest tweet are dominating headlines. But beneath the... Continue Reading

By Jacob Shea, Sierra Club It was the longest government shutdown in US history, and work at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) nearly ground to a halt. Some 7,000 of its 9,260 employees were furloughed. Public education programs and conservation corps maintenance ceased. The... Continue Reading

By Better Markets Despite their protests that more and more deregulation is needed to ensure their strength, it was reported that for the first time since the years before the 2008 financial crisis, there was not a single bank failure in the United States last year. Reaffirming... Continue Reading

By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists After Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s confirmation hearing for the agency’s top job earlier this month, he responded to a long list of questions for the record that had been submitted by senators. In the questions related t... Continue Reading

By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists The EPA released the names of eight new members of its Science Advisory Board (SAB) yesterday. The verdict? In general Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler is continuing the trend of undermining the independence and quality of... Continue Reading

By Daniel Farber, Center for Progressive Reform Conservatives, with full support from Donald Trump, have come up with a menu of ways to weaken the regulatory state. In honor of National Backward Day – that’s an actual thing, in case you’re wondering, and it’s... Continue Reading

By Jonathan Hahn, Sierra Club President Trump wastes few opportunities to demonstrate that he doesn’t believe in science. Most recently, he confused weather with climate by suggesting (not for the first time) that a short-term cold weather event—the polar vortex plunging the... Continue Reading

By Better Markets Fighting for the right for all Americans to have their day in court, Better Markets joined lots of other advocacy groups in a letter to SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, urging him to reject a pending attempt to take away shareholders’ rights to recovery when ripped off... Continue Reading

By Marissa Moore, National Women’s Law Center Betsy Devos’ hurtful and misguided proposal on sexual assault guidance for schools continues to be embroiled in condemnations. Today Judith Herman, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and renowned author of Trauma... Continue Reading

By Jacob Carter, Union of Concerned Scientists Today, UCS is releasing the report “The State of Science in the Trump Era: Damage Done, Lessons Learned, and a Path to Progress.” This report is truly a culmination of the state of science in the Trump era to date. In it, we have...... Continue Reading

By John Walke, Natural Resources Defense Council I know you’re suffering from anxiety overload as a result of the news cycle. Believe me, I’m suffering, too. But I’m afraid I need to add one more worrisome item to your psychic burden. Under President Trump, the Environmental... Continue Reading

By Michael Halpern, Union of Concerned Scientists Two years into the Trump administration the damage done to science is significant, as we’ve highlighted in our just-released report, The State of Science in the Trump Era. But it would have been far worse without thousands of... Continue Reading

By Estelle Mitchell and Natalee Dawson, National Women’s Law Center Well, folks, we are officially in week five of the government shutdown. With what appears to be no end in sight, it’s time to highlight the very real effects it is having on women, families, our... Continue Reading

By Leo W. Gerard, United Steelworkers Thousands of federal employees protested at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., this week, holding aloft empty plates during 33 minutes of silence – one minute for each day of the government shutdown. Some plates carried the... Continue Reading

By the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health The prolonged shutdown of the federal government – now the longest on record – is a growing risk to the health and safety of workers and communities, say leaders of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health... Continue Reading

By United Food and Commercial Workers There have been a number of recent articles highlighting the air-travel safety issues caused by the government shutdown as more and more TSA agents are forced to call out from work. TSA agents are a visible reminder of the work that federal... Continue Reading

By Karen Perry Stillerman, Union of Concerned Scientists As if the Trump administration’s recent rollback of school lunch nutrition rules weren’t bad enough, the president’s ill-conceived, peevish partial government shutdown (now at 33 days and counting) is further endangering... Continue Reading

By AFSCME Michele Kennedy Kouadio knows more about the soybean industry than most of us know about anything. She can rattle off statistics (U.S. farmers exported $26.4 billion worth of soybeans last year, 60 percent of which went to China), explain the complicated web of private... Continue Reading

By Nellis Kennedy-Howard, Sierra Club My wife Suzanne has written about living with lupus, a chronic illness requiring intensive care. She has a whole team of health care providers to help meet her unique needs. Living with lupus is scary at the best of times — many people... Continue Reading

By Margaret Hazuka, National Women’s Law Center Now I know, we have spoken time and timeagain about how messed up Secretary DeVos’s proposed rules to change Title IX enforcement are. But we aren’t the only ones paying attention. One of the largest university systems in the... Continue Reading

By Craig Sandler, Public Citizen Never at a loss for spinning its corporate-friendly agenda as somehow benefiting working Americans, yesterday’s “2019 State of American Business Address” by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s CEO, Thomas J. Donohue, was a textbook example of using... Continue Reading

By Elizabeth Tang, National Women’s Law Center The School Superintendents Association (AASA), which represents more than 13,000 public school superintendents across the nation, has announced its strong opposition to DeVos’s proposed Title IX rules on sexual harassment. Why?... Continue Reading

By Sonya Lunder, Sierra Club This week the Sierra Club submitted comments on the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft toxicity assessments for two perfluorinated chemicals, PFBS and GenX. Both chemicals were introduced about a decade ago as “safer... Continue Reading

By Jacob Shea, Sierra Club After Volkswagen was caught cheating air-quality standards, the multi-billion dollar settlement between the German automaker and the Department of Justice is being split between the states. The funds from the so-called Volkswagen Mitigation Trust are to... Continue Reading

By Marty Hayden, Earthjustice This week, the heartbreaking struggles faced by out-of-work federal employees and the people who rely on them made headlines, amplifying the impacts of the government shutdown. Furloughed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency employees are struggling... Continue Reading