Regs Talk: The CSS Blog
Blogs are authored by CSS members and policy experts, and have been reprinted with permission.
A Coronavirus Hot Spot Gets More Air Pollution
By Elly Benson, Sierra Club Happy Earth Day. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC (the company behind the 515-mile Sabal Trail Pipeline) are celebrating by starting up a polluting compressor station in an environmental justice community that is a global hot spot for the COVID-19 crisis. You read that right. For years, residents of […]
Corporate-Owned Nursing Homes and Covid-19
By Phil Mattera, Good Jobs First It was only a few days ago that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that nursing homes will be required to notify residents and their families when coronavirus cases have been discovered in a facility. This comes many weeks after the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington became an […]
With All Eyes on COVID, Trump Continues His Environmental Assaults
By Andy Sharpless and Antha Williams, Oceana As COVID-19 continues its deadly march across the United States, the public and the media are rightly captivated by the pandemic and this administration’s inadequate response. Unfortunately when it comes to President Trump’s environmental assaults, he’s proven he can walk and chew gum at the same time. In […]
Trump’s Farm Relief Won’t Protect Essential Farmworkers From COVID-19
By Scott Faber and Jared Hayes, Environmental Working Group The Trump administration’s plan to spend billions to address the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on agriculture may help industrial-scale produce farms but does little to assist farmworkers threatened by COVID-19, a new EWG analysis shows. Last week, the Department of Agriculture announced a $19 billion COVID-19 relief […]
The Pandemic Polluter Loophole
By John Rumpler, Environment America Like many people, I’m now working from home in isolation. But at least I can open the windows or go for a walk to get some fresh air. Not so for people who live in the shadow of massive refineries or other industrial facilities that release toxic pollution into the […]
FERC’s Power Grab
By Tom Rutigliano, Natural Resources Defense Council A coalition of environmental groups is suing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in court to reverse FERC’s disastrous 2019 decision undermining state clean energy programs. On April 16th FERC issued a series of orders mostly upholding last December’s infamous “minimum offer price rule” decision. But in some important ways, […]
It’s Time to Switch to PFAS-Free Firefighting Foams
By Melanie Benesh, Environmental Working Group Firefighting foam is one of the most significant sources of water contamination from the toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS. PFAS-based firefighting foams have been widely used by the military, fire training centers and airports for five decades, even though the Pentagon has known since the 1970s that PFAS is toxic. PFAS […]
Workers Memorial Day Highlights Secretary of Labor Scalia’s Failure to Protect Workers During the Coronavirus Crisis
By Celine McNicholas, Economic Policy Institute April 28 is Workers Memorial Day, a day observed around the world to remember those workers killed or injured on the job and to fight for strong safety and health protections for all workers. This fight has never been more critical. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed a reality many […]
Weak Labor Protections Have Put Midwestern Food Processing Workers at Risk for Coronavirus
By Colin Gordon, Hannah Halbert and Laura Dresser, Economic Policy Institute Earlier this year, our report Race in the Heartland detailed stark and pervasive racial disparities in Midwestern states—tracing these to longstanding patterns of discrimination and segregation in the region, and the disproportionate impact of “rust belt” deindustrialization and the collapse of union membership for workers of color. Unsurprisingly, the […]
I Investigated the Deepwater Horizon Disaster 10 Years Ago. When Will We Learn From Our Mistakes?
By Sam Sankar, Earthjustice It has been 10 years since BP’s Macondo well blew out on April 20, 2010, claiming 11 lives, creating an underwater volcano of crude oil and destroying not only the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, but also any illusion that the oil industry can be trusted with our nation’s natural resources, the public’s health and […]
Revolving Door Ejects Offshore Drilling Standards
By Matt Kent and Amit Narang, Public Citizen On this date 10 years ago, corporate greed caused the worst environmental disaster in American history: the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven people were killed. Five million barrels of oil poured into the ocean. The damage was so severe that some marine wildlife […]
Where Is OSHA?
By Katie Tracy, Center for Progressive Reform As the coronavirus pandemic wears on, reports abound of essential frontline workers laboring without such basic protective gear as masks, gloves, soap, or water; with improper distancing between workstations and coworkers; and in workplaces alongside infected colleagues. So far, nearly 4,000 workers have filed complaints with the federal Occupational Safety and Health […]
10 Years After the BP Disaster, Still Fighting Offshore Drilling and Environmental Injustice
By Julia Widmann, Waterkeeper Alliance Ten years ago today, on the evening of April 20, 2020, the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. This horrific catastrophe killed eleven workers and initiated one of the worst oil spills — and environmental disasters — in history. Today, we honor the lives […]
Censored Science Rule Lacks Legal Basis
Matthew Freeman, Center for Progressive Reform Every four years, as presidential elections draw near, the political appointees driving the incumbent administration’s regulatory agenda put their feet on the gas, working to cover as much ground as they can before their boss’s term is up. It makes no difference whether the current White House occupant is […]
Barreling in the Wrong Direction, a Decade After Deepwater
By Valerie Cleland and Jacob Eisenberg, Natural Resources Defense Council Ten years ago, people all over the U.S. gasped in horror, glued to news broadcasts trained on the fallout from a massive oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Deepwater Horizon was America’s worst environmental disaster, and it killed 11 people and injured 17. That unexpected, catastrophic […]
Do Any National Park Service Staff Have COVID-19? Interior Department Isn’t Saying
By Maria Caffrey, Union of Concerned Scientists We are in the midst of a global health crisis like none other in recent history. If you are like me, then you are following stay-at-home orders. Perhaps you worry about how to limit your exposure to the virus while you are performing any essential activities like getting groceries, or you […]
Trump Administration Muzzles Own Safety Experts on Offshore Drilling Rule
By Chris Eaton, Earthjustice You’d think by now, almost 10 years after one of the worst manmade environmental disasters in American history—the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster—that we would’ve learned our lesson about the need for offshore drilling safety. But no. In its endless thirst for fossil fuels, the Trump administration has been gutting safety regulations […]
Trump Rolls Back Mercury Standards Amid Pandemic
By Amit Narang, Public Citizen The middle of a pandemic is hardly the time for the Trump administration to be putting the finishing touches on its corrupt, partisan agenda of rolling back regulations that protect our health and environment. But that’s exactly what the administration is doing. Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized […]
What If Food and Farm Workers All Get Sick at the Same Time?
By Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group More than 20 million people grow, harvest, pack, process, transport, serve and sell our food. The food and farm industry rivals the energy and health care sectors in terms of number of jobs. But many of the people who feed us are unusually susceptible to the COVID-19 virus sweeping […]
Danger in the Air
By Jim Pew, Earthjustice WHEN COAL IS BURNED IN THE U.S., most of the mercury in the coal no longer spews into our air. This improvement is due to a 2011 federal rule that is now under attack by the Trump administration. The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards was widely adopted by industry and has proven enormously successful […]