Regs Talk: The CSS Blog
Blogs are authored by CSS members and policy experts, and have been reprinted with permission.
We’re Suing to Make Industry Clean Up Its Own Messes
By Amanda Goodin, Earthjustice Time and again, we’ve seen big industrial polluters emit toxic pollution that poisons the people and ecosystems nearby. And time and again, we’ve seen these polluters walk away from the bill, leaving taxpayers to fund the cleanup and communities to live with the contamination. We don’t think that’s right, which is […]
UCS Joins Lawsuit to Stop Pruitt From Rolling Back Clean Car Standards
By Josh Goldman, Union of Concerned Scientists UCS joined a coalition of non-profit organizations in filing a lawsuit to challenge EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s attempt to roll back a regulation designed to improve vehicle gas mileage, save you money, and tackle transportation-related emissions, the biggest source of climate change pollution in the U.S. A brief […]
Concerns With NHTSA Administrator Nominee Heidi King
By Marc Boom and Dan West, Natural Resources Defense Council With the transportation sector surpassing the power sector as the largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in the United States, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is working hard to protect strong federal vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards for passenger cars, trucks, and SUVs. That’s why […]
California Lawmakers Move to Ensure Lead-Free Water in Child Care Centers
By Susan Little, Environmental Working Group California lawmakers are moving toward ensuring that lead-free drinking water is required in all child care centers, catching up with Oregon, Washington and four other states. More than 700,000 California children are enrolled in state-certified child care centers, which are mostly housed in privately owned buildings. Since 2017, state law has required lead testing of […]
The House Farm Bill is Really a Harm Bill
By Clara Summers, Earthjustice This week, the House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 2, commonly known as the Farm Bill. Passed roughly every five to seven years since the 1930s, the Farm Bill funds our nation’s food security, nutrition and conservation programs. But H.R. 2 would be more accurately called the “Harm Bill.” If […]
Trump’s OSHA to Roll Back More Worker Safeguards, Slow Walk Others
By Katie Tracy, Center for Progressive Reform The White House released its Spring 2018 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions on May 9 with little fanfare. A close examination of the agenda for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) shows that protecting worker health and safety is anything but a priority for the Trump administration. […]
Automakers Pretend President Trump Isn’t Giving Them Exactly What They Asked For—We Don’t Buy It.
By Dave Cooke, Union of Concerned Scientists Today, automakers are meeting with President Trump to discuss his administration’s plans to rollback fuel efficiency and emissions standards on light-duty vehicles. Since reports of the proposal first began to leak, we’ve seen a number of statements from automakers claiming that this wasn’t what they asked for. Unfortunately, these statements […]
L’Oreal: This Mother’s Day, Make It Toxic-Free Because Moms Are Worth It
By Dev Gowda, U.S. PIRG With Mother’s Day coming up on May 13, picking the perfect gift for Mom is on the minds of millions of Americans. Many of us will be giving our moms perfumes, bath bombs and beauty products as gifts this Mother’s Day. We’ll be shopping for the right gift, the right […]
Senators’ Letter Brings Welcome Oversight to Troubled White House Office
By James Goodwin, Center for Progressive Reform Yesterday, six senators, led by Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, criticized Trump administration “regulatory czar” Neomi Rao and her office for what appears to have been a slapdash review of a highly controversial Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) draft policy designed to stifle the agency’s progress on advancing environmental and public health […]
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (or a Scientist’s Lab Coat)
By Sean Moulton, Project on Government Oversight The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently issued a new proposed rule entitled “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science.” Sounds like a good idea, right? Well, that is the point—to make it sound good. Not as many people would like it if they called it “Censoring Science in Rulemaking,” which would be […]
When It Comes to Suing Trump, We’re Batting a Thousand
By Rhea Suh, Natural Resources Defense Council NRDC has challenged this administration’s reckless attacks on the environment and the American people nearly 60 times in court—and we haven’t lost yet. If you’re as appalled as I am by President Trump and his reckless assault on the commonsense safeguards we all depend on to protect our environment and health, […]
Clean Car and Fuel Economy Standards: What’s Next?
By Luke Tonachel and David Doniger, Natural Resources Defense Council The Trump administration is expected to propose a dramatic rollback of the historic and successful clean car and fuel economy standards adopted under President Obama with car makers’ support. The standards are designed to nearly double new vehicles’ fuel economy and cut their carbon pollution […]
The New Farm Bill’s Pesticide Provisions Are a Sneak Attack on the Environment
By Derrick Jackson, Union of Concerned Scientists If fish could wail, they would scream over the lethal powers granted to the Environmental Protection Agency in part of the draft farm bill recently rolled out by the House Agriculture Committee. The bill, passed out of committee by Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX) on a party-line vote last […]
What Happened During the Hasty White House Review of EPA’s Science Restriction Rule?
By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists We already know that the production of Administrator Scott Pruitt’s rule to restrict science at the EPA was purely political, but it’s possible that there’s a whole new layer of politics that went on at the White House level as well. Source: reginfo.gov On Thursday April 19, the White House Office […]
More on Congress’ Disapproval of the CFPB’s Indirect Auto Guidance
By Jeff Sovern, St. John’s University School of Law Alan Kaplinsky and Chris Willis, on the one hand, and Adam Levitin, on the other, have been dueling over the impact of Congress’s use of the Congressional Review Act to disapprove of the CFPB’s Indirect Auto Lending Guidance. Those of us interested in consumer financial law are lucky […]
EPA Eliminates Vital Protection to Keep Air Clean of Toxics, Threatening Our Health
By Juan Declet-Barreto, Union of Concerned Scientists For decades, the Clean Air Act has protected us from the dangerous health effects of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). Many of these are toxic, since breathing or otherwise ingesting them can cause cancer, as well as respiratory and degenerative neurological diseases that can lead to death. Some, like […]
Science — The Hidden Gem at the Heart of the EPA and Why You Should Support It
Robert Kavlock, guest commentary, Union of Concerned Scientists The role of science in EPA decision-making might, in the vocabulary of former President George W. Bush, be the most “misunderestimated” part of the EPA’s job. Although their work is the foundation of virtually every EPA decision—from regulatory protections to reviews of new chemicals to Superfund cleanups—agency […]
Inside Sierra Club’s Work to Uncover the Secrets of the Trump Administration, One Lawsuit at a Time
By Elena Saxonhouse, Sierra Club EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s attempts at secrecy are quickly becoming legendary – from installing a soundproof phone booth in his office, to using private email accounts for government business (then lying to Congress about that fact), to excluding reporters from his public events. But like his attempts to roll back […]
Paper Cuts: Blankenship’s Battles
By Bonnie Goldstein, Project on Government Oversight There are tens of thousands of documents that could tell the storied history of rags-to-riches, up-from-the-hollow U.S. Senate candidate and lifelong coal baron Don Blankenship. During Mr. Blankenship’s 67 years, he has negotiated union contracts; piled up safety violations; been issued verdicts, appealed convictions; executed deeds on land […]
Pentagon: Fluorinated Chemicals Taint Water at Scores of Bases, Neighboring Communities
Bill Walker, Environmental Working Group The Defense Department has for the first time disclosed the locations of military installations where tap water or groundwater on or off base is contaminated with highly toxic fluorinated chemicals. But the list is incomplete, naming only locations where water is polluted above the Environmental Protection Agency’s “safe” level for […]