Regs Talk: The CSS Blog
Blogs are authored by CSS members and policy experts, and have been reprinted with permission.
The Chamber’s Support for Junk Plans Puts Industry Profits Ahead of Americans’ Health Care Needs
By Craig Sandler, Public Citizen Recently, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released an issue brief entitled “Association Health Plans: Everything You Need to Know.” The brief argues for expanded “association health plans” (AHPs)—junk health care plans with skimpy coverage and without Affordable Care Act protections—to address the problem of rising health insurance premiums. In characteristic […]
Don’t Be Fooled by the Trump Administration’s Labor Day Pitch on Overtime Policy — It’s Going to Cost Workers Billions
By Heidi Shierholz, Economic Policy Institute Soon, the Labor Department under the Trump administration will release its final rule on worker overtime. The rumor is that the administration may showcase the rule around Labor Day and claim they are taking steps to help workers. That means an important public service announcement is in order: do […]
EPA Administrator Wheeler Worsens Particulate Pollution Review Process
By Gretchen Goldman, Union of Concerned Scientists In April, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler rejected the recommendations of his hand-picked science advisors on the particulate matter and ozone standard updates. Now, we again see him choose to meet a political deadline at the expense of a scientifically sound process. The bottom line is that Administrator Wheeler has made […]
When Will the Endangered Florida Panther Catch a Break?
By Alison Kelly, Natural Resources Defense Council The Florida panther is the only remaining puma population in the eastern United States. It is estimated that fewer than 230 individual panthers remain in a single south Florida population. As NRDC previously reported, Florida panthers already experience constant threats to their survival from habitat loss due to oil exploration […]
How Trump’s ESA Rollbacks Will Affect Foreign Species
By Elly Pepper, Natural Resources Defense Council As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the Trump Administration’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) finalized its drastic rollbacks to the Endangered Species Act this month. What you may not have heard is how this will affect species being discussed right now at the World Wildlife Conference or 18th Conference […]
Trump Proposes Rollbacks to Public Input and Safeguards for Our National Forests
By David Moryc, American Rivers On June 13, the U.S. Forest Service initiated a regulation change that if successful would eliminate current public participation and reduce the role of science in the vast majority of land management decisions for the nation’s 193 million acres of National Forests. A part of the Trump Administration’s push to rollback regulation, the rule would gut one of the essential bedrock laws that protects the right of the general public to know about […]
July Was Hottest on Record — and Dangerous Heat Hits Home
By Vijay Limaye, Natural Resources Defense Council The heat is on. The summer of 2019 has been brutally hot around the world, from the United States to the Netherlands to Japan, and last month was the warmest summer recorded since reliable temperature recordkeeping began in 1880. The science tells us that climate change is fueling more frequent, more intense, […]
You Can Now Weigh in on New Right Whale Protections
By Francine Kershaw, Natural Resources Defense Council You can now make your voice heard on North Atlantic right whale protections. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA; also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS) recently announced a “scoping’ period” to solicit public comments on ways to reduce the risk of entanglement of North Atlantic […]
Lack of Heat Safety Standard a Risk to Postal Worker Health
By Clare Morganelli, Natural Resources Defense Council My grandfather was a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier for over two decades. “Tony the Mailman,” as he was affectionately known along his route, delivered mail on foot throughout neighborhoods in Queens, New York all year long and in all kinds of weather. But this was in the […]
Harmful Chemicals in Personal Care and Cosmetic Products Lead to Negative Health Outcomes for Women
By M. Isabelle Chaudry, National Women’s Health Network On average, women use 12 products containing 168 unique ingredients every day. Men, on the other hand, use 6 products daily with 85 unique ingredients according to the Environmental Working Group. Their study shows that some of the chemicals in personal care and cosmetic products have been linked to health […]
10 Ways Trump Has Undermined Chemical Safety
By Melanie Benesh, Environmental Working Group President Trump toured a Shell chemical plant in Pennsylvania Tuesday, supposedly to promote his economic agenda. According to reports, he went off script quite a bit – but one thing he definitely didn’t talk about was his administration’s record on chemical safety. Here are 10 ways the Trump administration has made […]
Extinction Crisis Looms as Trump Attacks Endangered Species Act
By Jessica A. Knoblauch, Earthjustice This week, the Trump administration finalized rules that overhaul the enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, a bedrock environmental law that is both widely popular among the public and remarkably successful in protecting imperiled wildlife. The rollbacks come on the heels of several scientific reports warning that, as our planet heads straight toward a […]
Dog Deaths Linked to Harmful Algae Blooms
By Ketura Persellin, Environmental Working Group Last week, Melissa Martin and Denise Mintz took their dogs – Abby, Harpo and Lizzy – for a swim in a pond near their home in Wilmington, N.C. Within hours, the dogs grew sick and died, apparent victims of poisoning from toxic algae blooms. “We are gutted,” Martin wrote in a […]
Critics Call BLM and USDA Relocations a Gambit to Sell Off Public Lands
By E.A. Crunden, Sierra Club In the span of a few months, entire sections of the US government have been turned upside down with around 1,000 federal employees given a stark choice: relocate or lose your job. That dilemma lies at the heart of a decision to move parts of two federal departments out of […]
NRDC Goes to Court to Challenge Dirty Power Scheme
By Natural Resources Defense Council Major public health and environmental groups, including NRDC, took legal action today asking the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s so-called Affordable Clean Energy Rule—the Trump administration’s watered-down rule to replace the Clean Power Plan that was issued in 2015 to tackle the climate […]
Who Benefits from Endangered Species Rollback? Big Polluters
By Jonathan Hahn, Sierra Club At a time when the world’s leading scientists warn that human-caused global warming is precipitating a wildlife extinction crisis, the Trump administration has announced the most sweeping rollback of protections for endangered species in a generation. Trump’s newly finalized regulations will significantly weaken the process for listing and enforcing Endangered […]
Cuts to Animal Protections Aren’t Surprising to Anyone Who Knows David Bernhardt
By Alison Cagle, Earthjustice Who would want to make it harder for vulnerable species to survive on an increasingly imperiled planet? That would be David Bernhardt, Trump’s Secretary of the Interior. Today, Bernhardt dramatically weakened the rules that implement the Endangered Species Act. He is attempting to weaken the popular environmental law that serves as the […]
The Trump Administration Dismantles Endangered Species Protections as Sixth Mass Extinction Crisis Looms
By Jacob Carter, Union of Concerned Scientists Today, the Trump administration released a final rule dismantling the role of science in informing protections for endangered and threatened wildlife. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the protections it has afforded to threatened and endangered species have been based on the best available science and commercial data. […]
Trump Extinction Plan Puts Wildlife in Peril
By Lena Moffitt, Sierra Club Several reports out recently paint a dire picture for our nation’s lands and wildlife. The most recent is the special report on lands from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report stresses both the need to manage lands as part of the climate solution and the urgent need for […]
As Scientists Warn of Biodiversity Crisis, Trump Administration Guts Endangered Species Act
By Natural Resources Defense Council The Trump administration finalized its drastic rollback of the Endangered Species Act(ESA), just months after the United Nations released a dire report warning that one million species could go extinct if business continues as usual. “We’re facing an extinction crisis, and the administration is placing industry needs above the needs of our natural heritage,” says Rebecca […]