Regs Talk: The CSS Blog
Blogs are authored by CSS members and policy experts, and have been reprinted with permission.
Trump EPA Hiding Hundreds of Deaths in Plain View
By Daniel Farber, Center for Progressive Reform According to press reports, EPA is preparing to ignore possible deaths caused by concentrations of pollutants occurring below the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). This is a key issue in a lot of decisions about pollution reduction. For instance, there is no NAAQS for mercury, but pollution controls […]
Cancel Student Debt, Boost the Economy
By Alexis Goldstein, Americans for Financial Reform In April, Senator Elizabeth Warren released a bold plan for free public college and debt cancellation. This transformational proposal takes direct aim at some of the deepest inequities in education in America, and it’s funded by her Ultra-Millionaire tax on wealth above 50 million. The plan includes a $50 billion minimum […]
Stop a Massive Clean Water Act Loophole!
By Larissa Liebmann, Waterkeeper Alliance A year ago, we warned that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was considering creating a massive loophole in the Clean Water Act. EPA is now moving forward with this and has released an interpretation of the Act that would let known polluters off the hook and even create incentives for companies […]
EPA’s Proposal for Limiting Rocket Fuel in Drinking Water Is Dangerous to Public Health
By Natural Resources Defense Council After a decade of delay, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally proposed a limit for levels of the toxic chemical perchlorate (a component of rocket fuel) in drinking water—except the newly proposed standard of 56 parts per billion is 10 to 50 times higher than what scientists recommend. “This is enough to […]
5 Things You Need to Know About Trump’s Attacks on Birth Control Coverage
By Natalee Dawson and Hannah Finnie, National Women’s Law Center In 2017, the University of Notre Dame teamed up with the Trump-Pence administration in a secret settlement agreement to deny students and staff birth control coverage. This was happening at the same time the Trump-Pence Administration was issuing rules to allow virtually any employer to refuse […]
Pee in the Pool: Toxic or Just Gross?
By Sydney Evans, Environmental Working Group It’s no secret that pee finds its way into swimming pools. In fact, the typical residential pool contains about two gallons of urine. What’s worse, there are other, more alarming contaminants lurking in the depths, and pee in the pool could be making the problem worse. Pools are vulnerable to […]
Recent Whale Deaths Are Visceral Sign of Nature’s Dangerous Decline
By Jessica A. Knoblauch, Earthjustice Early this spring, dozens of Northern Pacific gray whales began washing up all along the West Coast, their charcoal-colored bodies appearing on beaches from Baja California, Mexico, to Washington. Scientists say dead, stranded gray whales are turning up at the highest rate in almost two decades. Though it’s too early to say […]
EPA’s Partial Retreat on Cost-Benefit Analysis
By James Goodwin, Center for Progressive Reform In a memo sent last week but just now released, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler backtracked a bit on one of the administration’s initiatives to undercut sensible safeguards. His May 13 memo abandons the agency’s push last year to establish uniform standards for bending agency decision making in favor of cost-benefit analysis, regardless of […]
Children’s Health Research Centers Protect Our Kids. The EPA Just Defunded Them.
By Kathleen Rest, Union of Concerned Scientists Almost 19 years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) entered into a partnership with the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to invest in children’s health. The EPA lauded this history just last October, noting the immeasurable value and singular focus of improving the health of children across […]
State Efficiency Standards Are Good For Everyone
By Lauren Urbanek, Natural Resources Defense Council The federal government continues to miss legal deadlines for energy efficiency standards for appliances, equipment, and electronics with 17 standards overdue for review and more on the horizon. That’s bad news for anyone who likes saving energy, lower utility bills, and a cleaner planet. Fortunately, more states are setting efficiency standards in […]
New Report: Secret Regulatory Talks Threaten Public Protections
By Sharon Anglin Treat, Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy With the Trump administration poised to submit its United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA or New NAFTA) to Congress, IATP has teamed up with corporate and trade policy watchdog groups in Canada and Europe to expose the dark history of the regulatory cooperation provisions that comprise much of […]
Congress Is Coming for Chemical Contamination
By Sonya Lunder, Sierra Club Our country’s toxic legacy— a historical failure to safeguard communities from industrial chemicals— is on full display lately. The evidence is mounting about widespread contamination by a family of industrial chemicals known as PFAS. Once again, man-made chemicals are being treated as innocent until proven guilty. Millions of Americans are […]
Enforcing Title IX: Our Letter to Policy Makers
By Shiwali Patel, National Women’s Law Center Today, we sent a letter to educational policy makers in every state to remind them that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 has not changed, despite all of the actions taken by Betsy DeVos to try to weaken Title IX protections for survivors and all students. As we’ve written about before and told the Department of Education, DeVos […]
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 92 OHV recalls, and the number of recalls has increased from two recalls in 2010 to 18 recalls in 2018 and currently three in 2019. […]
Trump’s New Overtime Proposal Will Let Employers Keep Making You Work For Free
By Maggie Hagen, National Women’s Law Center In a long string of anti-worker regulations, the U.S. Department of Labor has proposed a rule change to dramatically weaken the overtime rules issued by the Obama Administration in 2016, a move that will leave more than 8 million working people—disproportionately women and people of color—without any guarantee that they […]
CPR Member Scholars Feature Prominently in this Year’s Duke Administrative Law Symposium
By James Goodwin, Center for Progressive Reform The annual Duke Law Journal Administrative Law Symposium has long served as one of the most prestigious fora for cutting-edge administrative law scholarship. This year’s event, which featured the leadership and contributions of six CPR Member Scholars, was no exception. Each symposium is built around a theme, and this year’s topic […]
Trump Administration Pulls Punches in Drilling Safety Rollback
By David S. Hilzenrath, Project on Government Oversight By at least one measure, the Trump Administration’s recently finalized rollback of offshore drilling safety standards went much further than planned. The Administration’s rewrite of safety requirements will save oil and gas companies 63 percent more money than a draft of the rollback published last year would have, mainly by […]
Celebrate Endangered Species Day, Stop Extinction
By Kirin Kennedy, Sierra Club Endangered Species Day is a celebratory day to bring to light the importance of the Endangered Species Act and its impact on animal conservation. The Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973 by the United States Congress and since that time has been responsible for the recovery of many iconic […]
A Stroller Debacle at CPSC Politicizes Child Safety and I Have No Chill
By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists I’m a self-proclaimed transparency nut. But now that I’m a mom, my need for information has grown exponentially. I want a label on baby food that tells me how much added sugar is in it. I want to know whether my daughter’s car seat or mattress contains organohalogen flame retardants. And I certainly want to […]
Here’s How OSHA Can Improve Its Handling of OSH Act Whistleblower Cases
By Katie Tracy, Center for Progressive Reform The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) guarantees workers the right to speak up about health and safety concerns in the workplace without reprisal. Specifically, Section 11(c) of the law provides workers the express right to report any subsequent employer retaliation against whistleblowers, such as demotion or firing, to […]