Regs Talk: The CSS Blog
Blogs are authored by CSS members and policy experts, and have been reprinted with permission.
Is “Regulation by Enforcement” a Pretext for Less Enforcement?
By Jeff Sovern, St. John’s University School of Law The industry and some others often complain about “regulation by enforcement,” by which I gather is meant that enforcement agencies bring actions against businesses without having previously given extremely clear notice that, in the agency’s view, the conduct that is the subject of the action violates existing law. […]
Scientists Find Serious Flaws in Proposal to Delist Endangered Gray Wolf
By Jacob Carter, Union of Concerned Scientists According to a five-member peer-review panel, the administration’s proposal to delist the endangered gray wolf (Canis lupus) from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is chalk full of scientific errors that misrepresent the scientific consensus regarding wolf conservation and taxonomy. One member of the panel even said that the proposed rule […]
Trump’s EPA Calls for Dirty Power as Climate Crisis Accelerates
By Jonathan Hahn, Sierra Club At a raucous political rally in West Virginia last year, just hours after the Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposal to roll back the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, Donald Trump amused the crowd with talk of blowing up clean energy. “We love [coal], right?” he said while the crowd […]
Happy (?) World Giraffe Day
By Elly Pepper, Natural Resources Defense Council Today is World Giraffe Day, but I’m not sure how happy this day is. Giraffes certainly aren’t happy right now. How could they be? Their habitat is being lost at an alarming rate, not to mention the myriad other threats they deal with, including the trade in giraffe […]
PFAS Chemicals Harm the Immune System, Decrease Response to Vaccines, New EWG Review Finds
By Tasha Stolber, Environmental Working Group Toxic PFAS chemicals, notorious for contaminating drinking water supplies across the U.S., are harmful to nearly every human organ, and the immune system is particularly vulnerable. PFAS mixtures, which are used in a variety of consumer products, can be found in the body of nearly every American and in the developing fetus. […]
Utility’s Negligence to Blame for Los Angeles Methane Disaster
By Byron Chan, Earthjustice A pattern of deception and neglect led SoCalGas to disregard obvious safety measures that could have prevented the largest methane leak in U.S. history. For 111 days in 2015 and 2016, more than 100,000 metric tons of methane – a potent greenhouse gas – and other harmful chemicals leaked into the […]
NRDC to Science Committee: Say No to Purple Pigment Report
By Jennifer Sass, Natural Resources Defense Council My colleague, Daniel Rosenberg and I both had the opportunity to present public comments on behalf of NRDC to the EPA Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) that is providing peer review on EPA’s chemical risk assessments. THE PURPLE PIGMENT POLITICAL ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM The work of this advisory […]
Immigration Enforcement Is Funded at a Much Higher Rate Than Labor Standards Enforcement — and the Gap Is Widening
By Daniel Costa, Economic Policy Institute One clear way to understand the priorities of a government is to look at how it spends money. If it’s true as they say that “budgets are moral documents,” then this Congress and administration does not place much value on worker rights or working conditions. A comparative analysis of […]
George Washington University’s Koch Problem
By Bret Thompson, Public Citizen Taylor Lincoln’s recent report spotlighting the deep ties between the Koch Brothers and just one of the fifty plus college research centers they help fund is making waves. Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education both published lengthy write-ups on the report, which focused on the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University. […]
Studies: Heart Disease and Death Tied to Ultraprocessed Foods
By Sydney Swanson and Dawn Undurraga, Environmental Working Group One in five U.S. adults gets 81 percent of their calories from so-called ultraprocessed foods, industrially processed foods that are hyperpalatable and highly profitable formulations of ingredients and additives designed to make products “look, smell, feel and taste like food.” Only a quarter of Americans’ calories come from unprocessed or minimally […]
What Do We Know About Long-Term Effects of Air Pollution on Health?
By the American Lung Association In 2014, Chris Lim, M.S. set out to understand long-term effects of climate change—specifically, temperature variability and air pollution—on health. At the time, short-term effects had been studied extensively, but not much was known about long-term exposure and adverse health outcomes. As a lung health dissertation fellow at New York University […]
As EPA Dismantles the CPP, NRDC Is Prepared to Fight Back
By Lissa Lynch, Natural Resources Defense Council The Trump EPA has finally issued its irresponsible rulemaking repealing the Clean Power Plan and replacing it with a do-nothing rule that will produce only minor reductions in power plant carbon pollution, if any at all. With the climate crisis already upon us, EPA should be strengthening the Clean […]
He’s a Science Denier and He Oversees the Nation’s Farm Policy
By Ricardo Salvador, Union of Concerned Scientists The pattern is clear: by consistently requesting that Congress cut budgets for science, and by decreeing that all federal executive agencies arbitrarily terminate “at least one third” of their advisory committees, the Trump administration is in an all-out war against science—against the premise that evidence and analysis should inform policy-making. This agenda […]
5G and the FCC: 10 Reasons Why You Should Care
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 across town at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Now I do. Here […]
What to Expect from Today’s EPA Scientific Integrity Stakeholder Meeting
By Michael Halpern, Union of Concerned Scientists Later today, a few dozen advocates will head to the Environmental Protection Agency for a stakeholder meeting on protections for scientific research at the agency in the context of its annual scientific integrity report and scientific integrity policy. The meeting is an opportunity for organizations to ask questions about […]
Trump’s EPA Casts Aside Critical Climate Plan
By Rhea Suh, Natural Resources Defense Council With the perils of unchecked climate change widening by the day, President Trump took another giant step today toward surrendering our future to the fury of rising seas, flooded croplands, raging wildfires and torrential storms. In scuttling the 2015 Clean Power Plan, he’s trying to shut down one of […]
Congress Must Do More to Counter Trump Administration’s Assault on Climate Science
By Bianca Majumder and Kristina Costa, Center for American Progress Since taking office, President Donald Trump and his administration have threatened to dismantle the federal climate apparatus. Earlier this year, the White House released a budget proposal for fiscal year 2020 that repeats many of the cuts to federal climate science proposed in Trump’s previous fiscal year budgets. At some […]
Congress Is Pushing Back on the Trump Fuel Economy Rollback. Why Aren’t Auto Companies?
By Dave Cooke, Union of Concerned Scientists On Thursday, two House Energy and Commerce subcommittees are holding a joint hearing examining the Trump administration’s rollback of fuel efficiency and emissions standards for passenger cars and trucks. The witnesses include the regulators moving forward with this disastrous plan and at least one of the key state regulators opposing it, […]
Congress Should Lift the Hood on Faulty Clean Cars Rollback
By Luke Tonachel, Natural Resources Defense Council Leaders in Congress are again raising their concerns about the Trump administration’s plan to rollback common-sense clean car and fuel economy standards. And for good reasons—consumers, workers and all those that depend on clean air and a stable climate will suffer. On Thursday the House Energy and Commerce […]
Six Ways the Trump Administration Is Promoting Discrimination in Health Care
By Kelli Garcia, and Julie Zuckerbrod, National Women’s Law Center The Trump Administration wants to legalize discrimination in health care. Yes, you read that correctly. The Health Care Rights Law, which is part of the Affordable Care Act, is a groundbreaking civil rights statute that makes it illegal for health care providers to discriminate on the basis […]