Regs Talk: The CSS Blog
Blogs are authored by CSS members and policy experts, and have been reprinted with permission.
A Pandemic Response That Puts Politics Before Science Is Doomed to Fail
By Rebecca Jones, Project on Government Oversight As the world contends with the coronavirus pandemic, decision-makers cannot afford to kick objective science to the sidelines. Yet on April 21 the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) demoted Rick Bright, a career expert on vaccine development and a doctor of immunology, from his two positions as […]
As COVID Barrels Down on Communities, EPA Offers Polluters a Pass
By Patrice Simms and Hilton Kelley, Earthjustice The Trump administration is using the virus as cover to give industries a wink and a nod that it will let them off the hook when it comes to emissions releases and reporting. In the city of Port Arthur, Texas, people are used to sheltering-in-place due to unseen […]
Trump Attempts to Shield Big Ag at the Expense of Workers
By Valerie Baron, Natural Resources Defense Council On April 28, Workers’ Memorial Day, at the reported urging of Tyson Foods, President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA) with the stated goal of keeping meat processing (slaughterhouses) open through the COVID-19 crisis. In doing so, the President is attempting to trample over state decisions intended to improve […]
The White House Scrapped the Science on Tricholorethylene — So We’re Urging the EPA to Investigate
By Taryn MacKinney, Union of Concerned Scientists When Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists concluded that the chemical trichloroethylene (TCE) causes fetal heart defects, even at low doses, officials at the White House overrode their conclusions—an egregious example of political interference in science, and a violation of the EPA’s scientific integrity policy. The Union of Concerned Scientists […]
Cold Hard (Storage) Facts About Meatpacker Threats of Scarcity
By Dr. Steve Suppan, Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy “It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” said Smithfield Chief Executive Officer, Kenneth Sullivan when he announced the closing of its Sioux Falls, South Dakota slaughterhouse due to a COVID-19 outbreak among more than 200 Smithfield workers. Sullivan, […]
We Need Cleaner Cars to Avoid Dangerous Climate Change
By Luke Tonachel, Natural Resources Defense Council The Trump administration seems not to care that we are headed toward climate catastrophe with carbon dioxide pollution driving global average temperatures up some 6 degrees Fahrenheit (°F) and rendering places that hundreds of millions of people call home virtually unlivable. This monumental disregard for human health and well-being underpins […]
NRDC and Partners Sue to Stop the Dirty Water Rule
By Jon Devine, Natural Resources Defense Council Today, a broad coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration’s unlawful decision to gut federal protections for many of the nation’s streams and wetlands. We challenged a regulation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers called the Navigable […]
EPA Advisory Board’s Restricted Science Advice Is Too Little, Too Late, and Comes During a National Crisis
By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists In a strange turn of events, EPA issued a press release welcoming and quoting its Science Advisory Board’s (SAB’s) final recommendations report on the so-called Strengthening Transparency rule. The paragraph quoted in the press release was not in the SAB’s harsher draft letter, and I would argue it is incorrect in assuming good […]
Trump Judge Tries to Overturn NLRB Remedies for Company’s Unfair Labor Practices: Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears
By Elliot Mincberg, People For the American Way Trump Sixth Circuit judge Chad Readler dissented from a decision upholding penalties by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against a company that improperly fired several employees and committed unfair labor practices. The March 2020 case is Ozburn-Hessey Logistics LLC v. NLRB. Workers at Ohio’s Ozburn-Hessey Logistics (OHL), […]
Numbers That Take Your Breath Away: COVID-19, Air Pollution and Equity
By Maria Cecilia Pinto De Moura, Union of Concerned Scientists The pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus has become a global public health calamity and has spurred the worst economic downturn since the 1930s. Together, the novelty, the contagiousness and the severity of COVID-19 have quickly turned a few cases into a deadly pandemic. 1. A small increase in PM2.5 increases […]
This Workers Memorial Day, We Honor Those Who Died at Work, Including From COVID-19
By Pablo Ros, AFSCME Roxie Nelson remembers her father, Ed Nelson, as a caring and passionate man who often put the needs of others before his own. “When I was around him his phone was always busy, and he would take calls from people all the time,” she recalls. “He was always working to help […]
Oil Industry Ghostwrites Trump’s Deadly Anti-Environmental Policies
By Elliott Negin, Union of Concerned Scientists In the midst of a pandemic that has brought the world to its knees, the Trump administration’s latest spate of anti-environmental actions is maddening—and seemingly inexplicable. Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refused to strengthen inadequate standards for industrial soot pollution even though it contributes to tens of thousands of […]
Workers Memorial Day 2020
By Katie Tracy, Center for Progressive Reform Tomorrow, April 28, is Workers’ Memorial Day, a day the labor movement established to mourn workers killed on the job and to renew the fight for the living. This year, as the coronavirus pandemic grinds on, taking its toll on workers and their families, we’re reminded more than […]
The EPA’s Dirty Water: New Rule Discards Science, Ignores Importance of Wetlands and Tributaries
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Union of Concerned Scientists Water, water everywhere and hardly a drop is being protected by the Trump administration. In its latest act of abdication, the Environmental Protection Agency published its Navigable Waters Protection Rule in the Federal Register on April 21. The rule is scheduled to go into effect June 22, completing the […]
The Fox in the Henhouse
By Tom Conway, United Steelworkers Thousands of workers across America begged the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to investigate when their employers failed to take steps to protect them from COVID-19. They reported a lack of face masks, gloves, soap and hand sanitizer. They warned of having to share desks and stand right next to one […]
Trump Administration’s Hydroxychloroquine Misinformation Is Endangering People’s Lives
By Anita Desikan, Union of Concerned Scientists The Trump administration’s claim that two anti-malarial drugs, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, should be regarded as treatment options for COVID-19 may be one of its most dangerous forms of misinformation yet. For weeks, the Trump administration has claimed that these drugs can act like a panacea for the disease […]
Our Lawyer Just Got a Big Win for Clean Water at the Supreme Court
By Jessica A. Knoblauch, Earthjustice Thirty minutes. David Henkin knew that was all he would get to make his case. But he felt ready. On the morning of November 6, 2019, the Honolulu-based Earthjustice attorney swapped his customary Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants for a new, tailored suit and blue tie. He was headed to the […]
Mapping the PFAS Contamination Crisis
By Phil Brown, Alissa Cordner, Lauren Richter, David Andrews and Olga Naidenko, Environmental Working Group Research by the Environmental Working Group and the PFAS Project at Northeastern University’s Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute, or SSEHRI, has helped to map the crisis of contamination with the toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS, now recorded at more than 1,400 locations in 49 […]
Coral Reefs, Sewage Injection and the Supreme Court
By Pat Gallagher, Sierra Club Who even knew that sewer plants inject treated sewage into deep wells, a dystopian counterpoint to extracting drinking water from deep wells. I guess if one manages sewage on an island like Maui, one needs to devise creative ways to get rid of the crap. Hence the case County of Maui […]
Trump’s Corporate First Agenda Has Weakened Worker Protections Needed to Combat the Coronavirus
By Celine McNicholas and Margaret Poydock, Economic Policy Institute Using the COVID-19 pandemic as cover, the Trump administration is reportedly preparing to take executive action to repeal and suspend federal regulations. This should not be a surprise—one of Trump’s first actions after taking office was to issue an executive order requiring federal agencies to identify at least two […]