Regs Talk: The CSS Blog
Blogs are authored by CSS members and policy experts, and have been reprinted with permission.
Resolution of Disapproval: Call for Repealing the CRA Featured in ‘The Environmental Forum’
By James Goodwin, Center for Progressive Reform The return of divided government promises to bring with it a welcome, albeit temporary, reprieve from the unprecedented abuse of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) that we witnessed during the 115th Congress. As I argue in an article featured in the March/April edition of The Environmental Forum, published by the Environmental Law Institute, the […]
SunTrust-BB&T Merger: Deregulation Is Encouraging the Creation of Regional Megabanks
By Americans for Financial Reform The merger between SunTrust and BB&T announced last week is a big deal, literally and figuratively. The deal merges two of the twenty largest banks in the U.S. to form the eighth largest bank in the country. The new entity, with over $430 billion in total assets, will enter the group of supersize […]
Remember the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster? The Trump Administration Wants You to Forget
By Joel Clement, Union of Concerned Scientists In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig suffered an uncontrollable well blowout and a series of explosions that killed 11 people. Two days later the rig sank 5,000 feet to the ocean floor and the well continued to gush oil for more than three months, causing […]
Standing Up For Clean Water
By Jon Devine, Natural Resources Defense Council I’m posting this from Kansas City, Kansas, where the Trump administration is holding its one and only public hearing on its plan to radically roll back the safeguards of the Clean Water Act for critical streams and for wetlands that filter pollution, prevent flooding, and are nurseries for […]
Glyphosate Contamination in Food Goes Far Beyond Oat Products
By Alexis Temkin and Olga Naidenko, Environmental Working Group Seems like every time a government agency or public interest group tests food for Monsanto’s weedkiller glyphosate, which has been linked to cancer, they find it. Last year, two rounds of tests commissioned by EWG found glyphosate – the active ingredient in Roundup and the most widely used herbicide in […]
The NWHN Testifies for the Use of Better Evidence at the FDA
By National Women’s Health Network In 2016, the FDA reclassified transvaginal mesh used to repair pelvic organ prolapse (POP) as a Class III device—the highest risk category—in response to over 20,000 adverse event reports during a three-year period alone. The NWHN actively fought for the change, which also should have required manufacturers to submit thorough, randomized safety […]
Toxic Paint Strippers: Ace (Finally) Acts; Trump EPA Stalls
By Sujatha Bergen and Daniel Rosenberg, Natural Resources Defense Council Yesterday, Ace Hardware Corporation became the 13th U.S. retailer to publicly commit to stop selling and distributing paint removers that contain the toxic chemicals methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP). This latest commitment comes after a sustained campaign by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Safer Chemicals, Healthy […]
Confirmed: Andrew Wheeler’s Love of Polluters, Disdain for Science and Public Health
By Andrew Rosenberg, Union of Concerned Scientists Andrew Wheeler’s confirmation as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is creeping up on us like watching a coal ash spill flow down a gentle slope. It slowly lays waste to the landscape as it advances, then engulfs you in toxic pollution. Mr. Wheeler has been the Acting […]
SEC Doesn’t Take Away Ripped Off Shareholders’ Rights…Yet
By Better Markets There’s some good news to report in the fight to preserve ripped off shareholders’ rights to seek justice in court, rather than being forced into biased, unfair and secret arbitration proceedings. On Monday, February 11, 2019, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton announced that SEC staff would allow Johnson & Johnson to reject a proposal that […]
When the Trump-Pence Administration Tries to Hide Its Efforts to Roll Back Our Rights, We Don’t Back Down!
By MiQuel Davies, National Women’s Law Center Since day one, the Trump-Pence Administration has been trying to roll back our rights and take away protections against sex discrimination. One of the ways they are trying to do this is by redefining the word “sex” to erase trans and gender non-conforming people from civil rights protections. Well we […]
After Two Years, Trump’s USDA Is Making Good on Promises (to Agribusiness)
By Karen Perry Stillerman, Union of Concerned Scientists This week, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue is set to appear before Congress for the first time in a year. When he testifies on the state of the rural economy at a hearing of the House agriculture committee, he’ll have a lot to answer for. Over the last year—Perdue’s […]
FERC Can’t Just Check the Climate Box
By Gillian Giannetti, Natural Resources Defense Council Federal law requires that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) take a “hard look” at a proposed energy’s project’s effect on climate change. In last week’s order approving the Calcasieu Pass liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, FERC adopted what it called a “new approach for consideration of […]
Five Regulatory Questions for Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell
By Gregg Gelzinis, Center for American Progress This week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell will testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and U.S. House Committee on Financial Services on the state of the U.S. economy and the Fed’s current monetary policy stance. Beneath the topline economic numbers, which continue trends that started a decade […]
Five Ways the Trump Administration Uses Disinformation and Why We Need Oversight
By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists Throughout history, special interests have worked studiously to deny, distort, or manipulate science to interfere with policy outcomes and rig the game so that they may continue profiting, usually at the expense of public health or environmental quality. The tobacco and fossil fuel industries have perhaps most infamously […]
Who Will Support Real Cosmetics Reform?
By Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group In coming weeks, members of Congress will again introduce bipartisan bills to ensure that the chemicals used in cosmetics and other everyday personal care products are safe. As The New York Times noted, it’s been 30 years since Ron Wyden, then a representative and now the senior Democratic senator from […]
Wheeler’s Steal
By Michael Brune, Sierra Club Andrew R. Wheeler, the acting administrator of the EPA, is Donald Trump’s nominee to succeed the disgraced Scott Pruitt. From Trump’s perspective, Wheeler’s a smart choice. Where Pruitt acted like a gung-ho commando who had parachuted behind enemy lines at the EPA, Wheeler is a methodical technocrat and veteran fossil […]
What Broadband Privacy?
By Sean Davis, National Consumers League When you ask consumers about the kind of information that they’d like to keep private, location data is usually near the top of the list. That’s why Motherboard’s recent investigation into cell phone companies’ location data sharing services is so troubling. In the sting, Motherboard reporters paid a bounty hunter $300 to locate […]
Home Care Workers Sticking Together for Dignity and Respect in the Face of Anti-Worker Attack
By the SEIU Karlene Whonder, a home care worker and proud SEIU District 1199NE member from New Haven, Conn., provides the essential care her client, a woman with autism and schizophrenia, needs so she can remain living at home. “I love helping my client and enjoy the feeling of turning my client’s frustration and complications […]
Frustrated with Trump Administration’s Dirty Energy Agenda, Poll Finds Strong Support for Climate Action
By Grace McRae, Sierra Club This morning, the Sierra Club released results of a seven-state poll which reveals how out-of-touch the Trump administration is with the public on issues concerning energy and the environment. We asked Global Strategy Group to survey registered voters in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, and Washington to understand public attitudes […]
Trump Regulators Gave Oil Industry a Pass to Injure Whales, and We’re Fighting Back
By Jessica A. Knoblauch, Earthjustice The low, guttural bellows and high-pitched calls of the North Atlantic right whale may soon be drowned out—or altogether silenced—by the continuous blasts of seismic airguns used to identify dirty energy deposits deep within the Atlantic Ocean floor. Recently, the Trump administration gave the oil and gas industry a green light to conduct these […]