Regs Talk: The CSS Blog
Blogs are authored by CSS members and policy experts, and have been reprinted with permission.
With ACE, EPA Blows Off Chance to Save Thousands of Lives
By Arjun Krishnaswami, Natural Resources Defense Council The Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today finalized its repeal of the Clean Power Plan (CPP), the key Obama Administration initiative to cut dangerous climate pollution from the electricity sector. The EPA replaced it with a do-nothing dirty power plan, instead of seizing the opportunity to update and […]
Trump’s Climate Deniers Fiddle While the World Burns
By David Doniger, Natural Resources Defense Council The concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, driven by burning coal, oil, and gas, hit almost 410 parts per million in 2018 and surged to nearly 415 parts per million this May—the highest levels in 3 million years. The effects: 120-plus-degree heat waves in India and Australia. A 128-degree heat index (heat […]
New NAFTA Limits Labeling for Food and Workplace Chemicals
By Sharon Anglin Treat, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy With 34 chapters, 13 Annex agreements, 14 side letters and nearly 2,000 pages of text, you wouldn’t think there could be a consistent theme across the entirety of the New NAFTA, also known in the U.S. as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). But a major […]
5 Ways the Trump Administration Will Eviscerate Science and Undermine Climate Action in New “Affordable Clean Energy” Rule
By Julie McNamara, Union of Concerned Scientists This week, the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will finalize carbon pollution standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants. Bold federal action on climate change could not come at a more urgent time. Except this rule will be bold for all the wrong reasons. In the past two and a […]
Help Us Recognize the 10th Anniversary of the Tobacco Control Act
By the American Lung Association Ten years ago, we won a major victory against Big Tobacco. In 2009, President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act into law, for the first time giving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to oversee all tobacco products. The FDA hit the ground running by […]
The Trump Administration’s Hostility Toward Independent Expert Advice Spirals Out of Control
By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists Since day one, the Trump Administration has been actively ignoring its own scientists, external experts, and seeking advice from the wrong people. Now, President Trump has further waged war on expert advice by ordering the federal government to rid itself of one-third of its 1,057 advisory committees, getting down to […]
The Department of Health and Human Services Proposes Rule to Weaken the Nondiscrimination Protections of the Affordable Care Act
By The Arc The Arc continues to work to protect the significant achievements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the nondiscrimination provisions in Section 1557. We are disappointed to see the proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which radically narrows application of the nondiscrimination protections and limits the […]
CFA Opposes Proposed Cutbacks in HMDA Reporting
By Barry Zigas, Consumer Federation of America The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) has provided invaluable information on credit flows in US communities since 1975, and a proposed rulemaking issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) would unnecessarily reduce the scope of its coverage and is ill-advised and should not be adopted. The proposed […]
NCL Applauds USP for New and Revised Compounding Standards
By Sally Greenberg, National Consumers League Every day, thousands of consumers in the United States—including those with rare diseases or allergies to commercially available drugs—rely on specially and individually made medicines known as compounded drugs. Compounding is critically important for patients but, if done improperly, this process can pose significant risks to patients and healthcare workers […]
Teamsters Stand Up for Trucker Safety at House Hearing
By the Teamsters The trucking industry is facing numerous challenges that are jeopardizing the well-being of drivers that must be addressed to ensure highway safety is a top priority for the traveling public, a Teamster official said today. Lamont Byrd, the Teamsters’ Director of Safety and Health, told members of a House Transportation and Infrastructure […]
Trump Administration Wants to Cut Down Forestry Protections
By Natural Resources Defense Council The U.S. Forest Service today proposed broad revisions to the environmental review process that helps protect forests and their wildlife from activities like logging and overdevelopment. “Once again, the Trump administration is abandoning protections for our treasured natural resources as it moves to end safeguards ensuring that the public has a say […]
Forced Arbitration: Taking Away Your Rights and Your Money
By Better Markets Wall Street banks and corporations and their lobbyists, trade groups and political allies have been trying for years to take away the rights that consumers and investors have to recover money when they are ripped off by those banks and corporations. They do this by prohibiting victimized customers from going to court […]
Environmental Groups Sue to Keep Oil Rig Safety Standards Intact
By Natural Resources Defense Council Ten environmental groups, including NRDC, sued the Trump administration today for weakening safety standards on offshore oil rigs that were put in place after the deadly Deepwater Horizon blowout—a disaster that killed 11 rig workers and spilled hundreds of millions of gallons of raw crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, killing wildlife and decimating the area’s […]
PFAS Nation: Toxic Discharges Suspected From Almost 500 Industrial Facilities Across U.S.
By Jared Hayes, Scott Faber, Dave Andrews and Audrey Lothspeich, Environmental Working Group At least 475 industrial facilities across the nation could be discharging the toxic fluorinated compounds known as PFAS into the air and water, according to an EWG analysis of government data. EWG analyzed two online databases from the Environmental Protection Agency, as […]
DOE Proposes Appliance Efficiency Testing Loophole
By Joe Vukovich, Natural Resources Defense Council Imagine if everyone got to develop their own method for determining whether they followed the law, like drivers proposing new ways of measuring how fast they’re traveling or taxpayers inventing new methods to calculate what they owe. And imagine the chaos if they not only got to follow […]
One Thing You Can Do to Stand Up for Science This Week
By Michael Halpern, Union of Concerned Scientists Today kicks off the National Call Out to Protect Scientific Integrity. And UCS is making it easier than ever for you to stand up for science and help restore science to its rightful place in public health and environmental decision-making. This week (and beyond!), we’re speaking out about the Scientific […]
Industry Influence on an FCC Advisory Panel
By Andrea Peterson, Project on Government Oversight After high-tech phone network outages hit major U.S. cities in 1991, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chartered an advisory group to help the agency troubleshoot emerging technology issues. Yet a recent Project On Government Oversight investigation found that instead of helping solve problems, this industry-dominated group has at times been a barrier […]
After Broad Run, FERC’s GHG Policy Is on Thin Ice
By Gillian Giannetti, Natural Resources Defense Council The DC Circuit fired a warning shot this week at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and its analysis of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with gas pipeline projects. The court rejected the core legal arguments that underpin the agency’s policy and admonished FERC for its “less-than-dogged” efforts to build a robust record […]
Secretary Perdue Is Moving the Cheese and It’s Not Good for Any of Us
By Rebecca Boehm, Union of Concerned Scientists In a recent interview by the North Carolina News and Observer, USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue discussed the current proposal to relocate the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) outside Washington DC. When asked if he was worried about employee backlash he replied, […]
Three Times EPA Administrator Wheeler Failed His Science Advisors This Week
By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists I told E&E News before this week’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) meeting that my concern was that Administrator Wheeler was using the board “as a box he needs to check off” on his path to deregulation. He called out my quote in his statement to the SAB on Tuesday morning and refuted […]