Regs Talk: The CSS Blog
Blogs are authored by CSS members and policy experts, and have been reprinted with permission.
To Rebuild Trust After Pruitt, EPA Should Ban These Toxic Chemicals
By Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group Thanks to President Donald Trump, Americans’ confidence in the Environmental Protection Agency has never been lower. Since taking office, Trump and his minions have sought to roll back 76 environmental safeguards, according to Harvard Law School’s regulatory rollback tracker. Trump’s decisions have created a toxic mess of more air and water pollution. One study estimated […]
QR Codes and GMOs: The Proposed Food Labeling Rule
By Sharon Treat, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy IATP recently submitted comments on the U.S Department of Agriculture’s proposed GMO disclosure rule. When the record closed at midnight on July 3, more than 14,000 comments had been submitted. Most, like ours, strongly criticized the proposed rule as ineffective and discriminatory. The proposal would not require clear on-label GMO information but instead […]
Chemical Disaster Prevention Repeal Will Harm EJ Communities
By Sara Imperiale, Natural Resources Defense Council On April 17, 2013 in the town of West, Texas, a fertilizer facility storing ammonium nitrate exploded with the force of 15,000 thousand pounds of TNT, killing 15 people, many of them first responders, injuring more than 250, damaging or destroying more than 150 buildings, including a school and nursing home, […]
How Trump’s EPA Is Keeping Asbestos Legal
By Melanie Benesch, Environmental Working Group A Russian asbestos company is lavishing praise on Donald Trump and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Donald is on our side,” says a post on the Facebook page of the company, Uralasbest, touting the EPA’s recent decision to “no longer deal with negative effects potentially derived from products containing asbestos.” […]
If Confirmed, Kavanaugh Would Tilt Supreme Court Against Public Protections
By Matt Shudtz, Center for Progressive Reform Last night, President Donald Trump set the stage for a contentious debate about American social and economic welfare in the decades to come, nominating a Washington insider with a narrow worldview to the Supreme Court. Brett Kavanaugh’s opinions on issues related to reproductive and civil rights are at the forefront of […]
Who Is Brett Kavanaugh?
By Bettina Ramon, People For the American Way Earlier tonight, President Donald Trump announced his nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy: D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Even before Kavanaugh’s name was revealed, Donald Trump made clear exactly what we’d be getting. He repeatedly […]
Court Says Agency Can’t Indefinitely Delay Implementation of Obama-Era Rules
By Josh Goldman, Union of Concerned Scientists Here is a beacon of good news to temporarily brighten your dark and stormy social media feeds. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit struck down an attempt by the Trump Administration to indefinitely delay a rule that was set to increase the fines automakers must pay for […]
Despite Health Concerns, FCC and States Clear the Way for Next-Generation Wireless Networks
By Kaitlyn Mensing and David Andrews, Environmental Working Group The wireless communications industry is rushing to blanket the nation with next-generation networks whose health effects are unknown. Despite studies linking radiation from existing networks to cancer in lab animals, the Federal Communications Commission and state legislators are bowing to industry lobbyists and clearing the way for […]
The Face of the EPA, Post-Pruitt
By Bret Thompson, Public Citizen In the face of 13 current federal inquiries and sustained public activism, Scott Pruitt has resigned as director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). During his time in office, Pruitt made an astonishing number of questionable decisions. His continuing service, as the controversies continued to accumulate, were redefining the idea of how much scandal a […]
President Trump’s Supreme Court Pick: What’s at Stake for Science and the Environment?
By Ken Kimmell, Union of Concerned Scientists Battle lines over President Trump’s nominee for a new US Supreme Court justice are now being drawn, as they should be, over crucial issues such as a woman’s right to choose, health care, immigration, civil rights, and criminal justice. In past nomination fights, little attention has been paid […]
How Dangerous Is New EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler? Very. Here’s Why.
By Derrick Jackson, Union of Concerned Scientists With Scott Pruitt’s resignation as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency amid a slew of ethics scandals, environmentalists who long campaigned for his ouster should be careful what they wished for. That is because the acting administrator of the EPA is now Andrew Wheeler, formerly the agency’s second-in-command. […]
Kathy Kraninger?
By Bartlett Naylor, Public Citizen On July 19, 2018, Kathy Kraninger will testify before the Senate Banking Committee as President Trump’s nominee to direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CFPB was created in 2010 to protect consumers from abuse by financial firms, following widespread misconduct leading to the 2008 financial crash. Kraninger would replace Mick […]
President Trump’s Supreme Court Pick: What’s at Stake for Science and the Environment?
By Ken Kimmell, Union of Concerned Scientists Battle lines over President Trump’s nominee for a new US Supreme Court justice are now being drawn, as they should be, over crucial issues such as a woman’s right to choose, health care, immigration, civil rights, and criminal justice. In past nomination fights, little attention has been paid […]
Pro-Polluter Scott Pruitt Resigns Amid Flurry of Ethics Scandals
By the Natural Resources Defense Council Ending what will go down as the worst era in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s history so far, Scott Pruitt resigned today, ending a tumultuous few months of ethics scandals and a year of egregious anti-environment rollbacks. “Ethics matter. So does a commitment to the EPA’s central mission,” says Rhea […]
Keep Your Paws Off: Three Ways Congress is Preying on Endangered Species Protection
By Charise Johnson, Union of Concerned Scientists It seems there is a doggedly persistent contingent of lawmakers in Congress whose life goals include defunding, weakening, ignoring, and overhauling endangered species protections. Their tactics are varied: sidelining science in favor of industry interests, attaching harmful riders to “must-pass” spending bills, and introducing legislation whose insidious intentions […]
Borrowing From CPR Playbook, Small Business Administration Brings New ‘Win-Win’ Approach to Regulations
By James Goodwin, Center for Progressive Reform When it comes to regulatory protections for health, safety, and the environment, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and its Office of Advocacy don’t always put the public interest first. Falling in line with industry and small-government conservatives, it often opposes public protections, particularly where small businesses are concerned. So I […]
The Trump Administration Is Getting in the Way of Summer Vacation
By Sydney Colopy, League of Conservation Voters The Trump administration is threatening one of the most enjoyable and relaxing times of the year—summer vacation. With high gas prices, rollbacks on clean car standards and clean water safeguards, and the potential loss of public lands protections, the Trump administration is constructing significant roadblocks to a safe, […]
Trump’s Title X Rule Is Much More Than a Gag Rule
By the National Women’s Health Network On June 1, the Trump administration issued a proposed rule that would drastically change Title X, the nation’s program for affordable birth control and reproductive health care. Trump’s rule not only prohibits family planning providers from referring patients for abortion care, but it also instructs Title X providers to offer […]
In a Big Win for Kids, EPA Finally Proposes to Strengthen Lead Standards
By Jessica Knoblauch, Earthjustice After almost two decades of dragging its heels, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced plans to reduce the amount of lead allowed in household dust, one of the most common sources of lead poisoning in children in the U.S. The EPA’s decision was prompted by an Earthjustice lawsuit in 2016, which argued that […]
Pruitt’s Science Advisors Urge Him to Let Them Review His So-Called Transparency Initiative
By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists One week after issuing its letters on EPA’s spring and fall regulatory agendas, the SAB posted a letter to Administrator Pruitt urging him to charge the SAB with reviewing the flawed restricted science rule before taking further action on the proposed rule due to the very important scientific considerations needed for transparency […]