Regs Talk: The CSS Blog
Blogs are authored by CSS members and policy experts, and have been reprinted with permission.
DOE Under Secretary Misses the Efficiency Standards Facts
By Ashley Leung, Natural Resources Defense Council What saves money for Americans, reduces climate-warming emissions, and keeps getting delayed by the Trump administration? Appliance and equipment efficiency standards! Department of Energy (DOE) Under Secretary Mark W. Menezes praised the agency’s recent “progress” on appliance energy efficiency standards during his appearance earlier this month before the […]
We Can’t Turn Our Backs on the Birds
By Larissa Liebmann, Waterkeeper Alliance Whether it’s identifying the birds visiting a feeder outside a window, watching ducks float along a city park pond, or spotting a glimpse of an eagle on the riverside, birds so often play a significant role in strengthening our connection with the natural world. They have also been an important […]
Let the Children Breathe Particulate Matter: How the Trump Administration’s Polluted Policies Are Hurting Children
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Union of Concerned Scientists Let the children suffocate. That is the vicious message from President Trump in his proposed budget cuts for the Environmental Protection Agency for fiscal year 2021. As the Union of Concerned Scientists last week issued its new report Endangering Generations: How the Trump Administration’s Assault on Science Is Harming Children’s […]
A Crisis Just Under the Surface: Stopping the Alarming Loss of Freshwater Biodiversity
By Christopher Williams, American Rivers At American Rivers, we go about our work with an optimistic, can-do spirit. Clean water, healthy rivers, and thriving communities are our watchwords. We are happy warriors for rivers and streams, and we celebrate – rightly so – the successes and highlight the progress that our members, supporters and staff […]
From School Lunch to SNAP, New Attacks on Kids’ Health and Nutrition
By Karen Perry Stillerman, Union of Concerned Scientists Life comes at you fast, and so does the Trump administration’s ongoing assault on children’s health. Over the last many months, my colleagues in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy have been hard at work rounding up stories of action or inaction, at […]
Lead Contaminated Water: EPA’s Proposal Fails Our Kids
By Erik D. Olson and Valerie Baron, Natural Resources Defense Council We have learned from the ongoing lead in water crises in Flint, Michigan; Newark, New Jersey; and Washington, DC, for example, that no community and no child is exempt from the threat of lead-tainted water. Lead in water threat remains for many Newark residents. iStock Indeed, between 6.5 […]
Blowing the Cover Off the “Cleanest Air” Sparkle of the Trump Administration
By Julie McNamara, Union of Concerned Scientists First, a fact: People want clean air. And who can blame them—in the United States more than 100,000 people still die from air pollution each year. Notably, the Trump administration is right there with them, repeatedly claiming to want clean air—the cleanest air—too: Like President Trump stating: “I want clean air. I want clean […]
Are Your Children Vaping? On Vaping and a Need for Science-Based Policy
By Jacob Carter, Union of Concerned Scientists Teens and young adults across the country are dying from vaping. Yet, the Trump administration has chosen not to take the appropriate steps to fix this pandemic. First planning a sweeping ban on all flavored vape products across the country, the Trump administration walked back this policy stance. The new policy […]
“Navigable Water Protection Rule” Guarantees Widespread Pollution of Our Nation’s Waters
By Kelly Foster, Waterkeeper Alliance Reversing more than 40 years of progress and settled law, on January 23, 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps announced a new regulation that removes clean water protections against discharges of pollution into rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands across the country. While the Clean Water Act is focused on protecting […]
Court Rebukes EPA’s Ban on Independent Science Advisors
By Michael Halpern, Union of Concerned Scientists A court this week found serious flaws in the EPA’s exclusion from its advisory committees of academic and non-profit scientists holding grants from the agency. After permitting these eminent scientists to serve (for free!) for decades, the EPA abruptly reversed course in 2017. The U.S. District Court for […]
The Trump Administration’s Disappointing Efforts to Prevent Lead Poisoning in Children
By Anita Desikan, Union of Concerned Scientists One of the longest running epidemics in the history of the US is the poisoning of our children with lead. But, as we discuss in our new report on children’s health, the Trump administration is failing to enact or enforce comprehensive measures based on the science that protect children […]
Trump’s NLRB Earns an ‘F’ for Proposing to Take Away Graduate Student Workers’ Rights
By Anastasia Christman, National Employment Law Project Last fall, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or “the Board”) published a notice that sounds a lot like a logic test from school: it intended to make a new rule that students on private college or university campuses “who perform any services for compensation” would not be considered employees, […]
One Year Into Trump’s PFAS Action Plan, Few Signs of Progress
By Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group Friday marks one year since the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled its latest plan to address the crisis of the toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS, which have likely contaminated a majority of drinking water supplies nationwide. But President Trump’s so-called action plan has met few of the milestones parents expect from […]
A DOE Budget for a Dirty Energy Future
By Arjun Krishnaswami, Natural Resources Defense Council President Trump has once again proposed to slash the budget for clean energy innovation at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), eliminate several highly successful programs, and cancel funds that Congress gave the agency in prior years. We hope his dangerous proposal is once again dead-on-arrival—for the sake […]
Ask a Scientist: How Trump Administration Policies Harm Children
By Elliott Negin, Union of Concerned Scientists At the March for Life rally in Washington a few weeks ago, President Trump declared that “unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House.” Defender? In fact, a number of his administration’s anti-environmental policies harm children in utero. And post-birth? Forget about it. According to our […]
Clean Air vs. Dirty Interference
By Vijay Limaye, Natural Resources Defense Council The Trump administration continues its assault on clean air this week, by convening a group of handpicked advisers in a sham review process. It’s another sad chapter in this administration’s corrupt partnership with corporate polluters. The Clean Air Act has been an unmitigated success story. Since it was passed into law in […]
An Attack on Common Sense: Don’t Let the Trump Administration Kneecap NEPA!
By Christopher Williams, American Rivers When Trump administration Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former oil and gas industry lobbyist, celebrates a proposed regulation as “really, really big…affect[ing] virtually every single decision by the federal government that affects the environment,” folks who care about clean air and water had better brace for some bad news. The […]
The Trump Administration’s Attacks on Science Are Putting Kids in Harm’s Way
By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists The Trump administration has abandoned our nation’s mission of protecting kids based on the best evidence. From unsafe strollers to harmful chemicals, the Union of Concerned Scientists illustrates the harms, figuratively and literally, using a wide range of examples in a new report and a storybook for adults, “Breathe In […]
An Analysis of OHV Recalls: Increasing Number of OHVs Pulled From Market Due to Safety Concerns
By Rachel Weintraub, Consumer Federation of America A Consumer Federation of America (CFA) analysis of off highway vehicle (OHV) recalls found that over the past 10 years, there have been 110 OHV recalls, and the number of recalls has increased from two recalls in 2010 to 17 recalls in 2018, and 16 in 2019. In […]
Asbestos, Ubiquitous and Avoidable, Is a Deadly Threat to Our Kids
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Union of Concerned Scientists In the United States, gun violence kills nearly 40,000 people a year and has killed nearly 40,000 or so children and teenagers since 1999, and yet the nation is still without serious gun control. Another 40,000 people die each year in traffic accidents, including 1,200 children 14 and under. Yet we eschew policies used abroad […]