Regs Talk: The CSS Blog
Blogs are authored by CSS members and policy experts, and have been reprinted with permission.
Families Will Bear the Cost of Trump EPA’s Dirty Power Plan
By Khalil Shahyd, Natural Resources Defense Council Even as many of our nation’s most vulnerable urban and rural communities continue to suffer from unusually high energy cost burdens, today the Trump Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule replacing the Clean Power Plan (CPP) with a new proposal, the “Affordable Clean Energy” plan. The two proposed plans could not be […]
Two Truths and a Lie: Trump Won’t Save Coal or Slow Clean Energy With Clean Power Plan Rollback
By Mary Anne Hitt, Sierra Club My daughter went back to school here in West Virginia this week, so maybe that’s why, as Trump comes to my home state tonight to once again peddle his false promises of reviving coal by scrapping the Clean Power Plan, I’m reminded of the childhood game “two truths and […]
Big Ag’s Unwinnable Arms Race
By Sylvia Fallon, Natural Resources Defense Council By now you have likely heard about the jury in California that found in favor of a 46-year-old man who claimed that his routine exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in the common herbicide Roundup, is the cause of his terminal cancer. After a trial that seemed at times like a […]
Separating Fact From Fiction in EPA’s CPP Talking Points
By Lissa Lynch, Natural Resources Defense Council As the Trump EPA prepares to unveil its proposed Clean Power Plan replacement, E&E News obtained the agency’s talking points, giving us a window into how Acting EPA Administrator Wheeler plans to spin this Dirty Power Scam. The talking points read like a work of fiction, using old data […]
A Power Plan No More: Trump Team Slaps Down Progress, Clears Way for Dirty Air
By Julie McNamara, Union of Concerned Scientists Today, with the legal system pinning its back on the ropes, the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a new proposed rule for power plant carbon pollution standards. Or perhaps more accurately, EPA proposed a new version of an old rule, as the content retreads that which the agency already finalized three years ago, previewed four years […]
Trump’s Clean Power Plan Replacement Is WORSE Than Nothing
By Lissa Lynch, Natural Resources Defense Council The Clean Power Plan replacement proposed today by Acting EPA Administrator Wheeler demonstrates the Trump EPA’s unflagging commitment to propping up polluters. The proposal is designed to require power plants to do nothing to reduce their carbon pollution, and it could even result in greater climate-polluting emissions—a worse than do-nothing […]
The EPA’s Proposed Chemical Disaster Rule Is a Disaster in the Making
By Charise Johnson, Union of Concerned Scientists It isn’t new news or another hot take: communities of color are disproportionately exposed to and impacted by toxic chemical releases. The impacts of these incidents are severe, including death and serious injury, and often the children and families affected also have the fewest resources to protect themselves. They are […]
Doing “a Big Number” on Commodity Market Regulation
By Steve Suppan, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy Then-candidate Donald Trump campaigned as the scourge of Wall Street. But now-President Trump has promised to “do a big number” on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Financial Protection Act. Most media coverage of the promised “big number” has focused on the gutting of the […]
SaferProducts.gov Puts Power Into the Hands of the Consumer
By Rachel Weintraub, Consumer Federation of America You’re probably familiar with websites like Yelp and Angie’s List, where users can review businesses, research the most popular services in their area, and avoid bad customer service experiences. Websites like these make our daily lives a bit easier, and increase the chances that we’ll have a good […]
Trump and FERC’s Proposed Bailouts: A Consumer’s Nightmare
By Miles Farmer, Natural Resources Defense Council The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC, the nation’s grid regulator) and the Trump administration are working on bailouts for different types of power plants that could end up acting at cross-purposes with one another, creating a nightmare for energy customers that would force them to spend billions propping […]
Walmart Will Also Ban Toxic Paint Strippers
By the Natural Resources Defense Council Following the lead of nearly all major home-improvement retailers, Walmart has now also committed to removing deadly paint strippers containing methylene chloride and N-methylpyrroliodone (NMP) from its shelves. The world’s largest retailer, Walmart will no longer sell these products online or in its U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Central America stores starting February […]
Another Loss for Trump’s EPA: Chlorpyrifos
By Sonya Lunder, Sierra Club In a huge victory for public health, the courts have ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban the neurotoxic pesticide chlorpyrifos. This is a clear loss to the Trump administration in their ongoing effort to roll back safeguards for pesticides and toxic chemicals. Chlorpyrifos is a highly toxic insecticide […]
Protecting Consumer Safety Whistleblowers: The CPSIA at 10
By Shanna Devine and Remington Gregg, Public Citizen Consumers gained new protections against unsafe products in August 2008 when President George W. Bush signed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) into law. One of the law’s provisions included protections for employees who blow the whistle on unsafe products. The whistleblower sections safeguard employees from retaliation when […]
Pool Pump Motor Loophole Must Be Closed
By Lauren Urbanek, Natural Resources Defense Council If you’re the owner of one of the 8 million pools in the U.S., you’re probably staying cool and refreshed during this summer’s record-breaking heat. But what may not be quite as fun is your electricity bill, which can be very expensive if you have an inefficient pool pump. […]
The SEC Is Supposed to Protect Investors, Not Take Away Their Rights
By Better Markets In a recent interview with Politico Pro, SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce shared her thoughts on a wide range of topics, including her view that companies should be allowed to force shareholders into what is called “mandatory arbitration.” That’s just a fancy way of saying that corporations can take away shareholders’ rights (1) to […]
The Senate Will Accelerate Kelvin Droegemeier’s White House Science Advisor Nomination. That’s a Good Thing.
By Michael Halpern, Union of Concerned Scientists Try not to breathe too easily, but the Senate is in fast drive mode to consider the nomination of Kelvin Droegemeier to lead the White House Office and Science and Technology Policy. And well it should. These days, this is one nomination we should all be excited about, as this […]
Ten Year Anniversary of Safer School Supplies: Happy Birthday CPSIA!
By Kara Cook-Schultz, U.S. PIRG It’s back to school season, and parents and teachers are shopping for school supplies. Many parents wonder how to make sure the products they buy are safe for their kids. The good news is that this week marks the 10th anniversary of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). This […]
Strong Leadership Makes for Satisfied Federal Scientists: A Case Study at the FDA
By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists As our research team was analyzing the results of our newest federal scientist survey that was released earlier this week, it was heartening to see that at some agencies, like at the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), the job satisfaction and ability to work appear to be even better than […]
We’re Standing Up Against EPA’s Attempt to Censor Science
By Vijay Limaye, Natural Resources Defense Council When former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced his plan on “secret science” in April, it was immediately clear that this was an unprecedented attempt to restrict the type of science that the agency uses to conduct its work. The more time we’ve spent analyzing it, the more dangerous this proposal appears. These […]
The Growing Rise of Megacompanies Hurts Consumers and Damages Our Democracy
By Remington Gregg, Public Citizen This month, Apple became the first publicly-traded American company to reach $1 trillion in market value. It is now one of the most powerful companies in the world both in revenue and in the share of the market that it holds. In 2017, Apple took home 79% of the global profit share for smartphones. […]