Regs Talk: The CSS Blog
Blogs are authored by CSS members and policy experts, and have been reprinted with permission.
Amazon vs. Its Workers
By Katie Tracy, Center for Progressive Reform Amazon’s response to the coronavirus pandemic is the latest in a long line of instances where the company has put profit ahead of the health, safety, and economic well-being of its workforce. According to Amazon employees at its fulfillment centers and Whole Foods stores, the company is refusing to provide […]
Better Markets Asks the Heads of the Financial Regulators to Extend all Comment Periods
By Better Markets Better Markets, and many other public interest groups, have repeatedly asked the financial regulators to pause their rulemaking process while the American public grapples with the ongoing Coivd-19 outbreak. This week we sent letters directly to the heads of six agencies, the CFTC, SEC, CFPB, FDIC, OCC, and the Federal Reserve Board, asking them to indefinitely extend the public comment […]
EPA Watchdog Report Reveals a Failure to Talk to Communities with Higher Ethylene Oxide Health Risks
By Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists The EPA’s watchdog, the Office of Inspector General (IG), released a report this week that highlights how inadequate EPA’s communication around the hazardous air pollutant, ethylene oxide, has been in communities that need information most. The IG’s report confirms what communities have been saying for months and recommends that EPA take urgent […]
Worker Health Is Public Health
By Debbie Berkowitz, National Employment Law Project In the Covid-19 pandemic, worker health is public health. But worker safety and health is in a crisis in this pandemic. The Federal government is failing to ensure the safety and health of workers—including those most at risk, health care workers. The government has also abandoned its role […]
ICYMI: Trump Admin’s Under the Radar Environmental Attacks
By Emily Samsel, League of Conservation Voters While the nation’s attention is on the coronavirus pandemic and healthcare workers face a shortage of lifesaving equipment, the Trump administration continues to roll back environmental protections and cater to corporate polluters. Some of these moves are making headline news — like Trump’s expected meeting today with oil company CEOs, […]
Trump’s Securities and Exchange Commission Is Trying to Gut Investor Advocacy
By Jeff Conant, Friends of the Earth While most Americans are sheltering in place, homeschooling their kids, or finding ways to support their neighbors through the coronavirus crisis, the Securities and Exchange Commission seems to be taking the opportunity to kneecap investors who care about climate change, labor rights and protecting democracy. A new proposed […]
UPDATED MAP: Suspected and Confirmed PFAS Pollution at U.S. Military Bases
By Jared Hayes and Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group The toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS are now confirmed or suspected at 678 military installations, according to EWG’s updated analysis of Defense Department records. Through Freedom of Information Act requests, EWG has so far confirmed PFAS in the tap water or groundwater at 328 of these […]
The Trump NLRB Needs to Be Removed
By Lynn Rhinehart, Economic Policy Institute That’s it. The Trump appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) need to be removed for neglect of duty and malfeasance—now. The latest outrage? Yesterday, the Trump board added to its long and growing list of anti-worker, anti-union actions, issuing new rules that undermine the longstanding practice of […]
Precaution and the Pandemic
By Joseph Tomain, Center for Progressive Reform In this time of pandemic, we are learning about our government in real time – its strengths and weaknesses; the variety of its responses; and about our relationship, as citizens, to those we have elected to serve us. Most importantly and most immediately, we have learned the necessity […]
The Trump Administration’s Hazy Plans to Weaken Car Pollution Standards Won’t Work. Here’s Why.
By Paul Cort, Earthjustice The future of the nation’s clean car protections is on the table, and Andrew Wheeler, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is moving forward with a plan that will unleash tailpipe pollution across the country. On Mar. 31, the Trump administration finalized rules to weaken greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards for […]
Air Pollution, on the Rise Under Trump, Puts People at Risk of Severe Illness From Coronavirus
By Alex Formuzis, Environmental Working Group As the novel coronavirus sweeps across the U.S. and the number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 climbs by the hour, the Americans at greatest risk are the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the highest-risk group includes people who […]
Six Facts About Trump’s Clean Cars Rollback
By Luke Tonachel, Natural Resources Defense Council It’s hard to believe. While we are in the middle of a global pandemic, the Trump administration is dramatically weakening safeguards that protect our health and welfare. People are dying of virus-inflicted respiratory illness, and President Trump is acting to make the air dirtier. On top of that, the Trump administration’s rollback of […]
CPR Joins Advocates in Blasting EPA’s Free Pass for Polluters
By Brian Gumm, Center for Progressive Reform On March 27, the Center for Progressive Reform joined environmental justice, public health, and community advocates in calling out the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for suspending enforcement of our nation’s crucial environmental laws. The agency made the move as part of the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, despite […]
How the Trump Administration’s Deregulation Agenda Has Worsened the Coronavirus Pandemic
By Ryan Zamarripa and Galen Hendricks, Center for American Progress In 2015, Donald Trump promised: “Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.” Yet, long before news of the COVID-19 outbreak reached the United States, the Trump administration had been dismantling policies and proposing new ones that have vastly exacerbated the coronavirus pandemic. […]
While You Were Focused on COVID-19, EPA Gave Polluters Free Rein, Threatening At-Risk Communities
By Adrienne Hollis, Union of Concerned Scientists On March 26, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an order–retroactive to March 13–giving polluters the power to “self-regulate,” suspending environmental enforcement and giving industry a free pass to pollute. This is the latest and most brazen act by an administration determined to remove any semblance of federal environmental […]
National Farmworker Awareness Week Blog: Heat Stress Is an Increasing Risk for Farmworkers
By Farmworker Justice The last few years have been the hottest on record, and scientists predict that temperatures will continue to climb. These high temperatures put farmworkers at increased risk for heat related illnesses, including heat stress and heat stroke. Heat related illnesses occurs when the body is subjected to and/or produces more heat than […]
Regulators Must Stop Non-Coronavirus Rulemaking Now
By Better Markets Today, Better Markets joined a coalition of dozens of public interest organizations calling on agencies and other federal government bodies to suspend all rulemakings that are not connected to the response of COVID-19. The health and welfare of the American people are currently under unprecedented and grave threats. Their lives and work […]
Under the Cover of COVID, Polluters Seek Free Pass to Pollute
By Keith Rushing, Earthjustice Polluting industries are lobbying the government to loosen restrictions and waive monitoring requirements. HOW ARE POLLUTING INDUSTRIES EXPLOITING THE CRISIS? As governments struggles to get a handle on the COVID-19 pandemic, polluters sense an opportunity to break free from protections that safeguard public health and our environment. Oil, gas, coal, petrochemical, […]
Trump Administration Endangers the Lives of Health Care Workers
By Anita Desikan, Union of Concerned Scientists First responders and health care workers throughout the US are currently facing extreme shortages of the equipment they need to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus. The shortages of personal protective equipment, or PPE, are so dire that health care workers and hospital staff are fashioning masks out […]
Three Steps for an Expert Response to COVID-19
By Sidney Shapiro and Liz Fisher, Center for Progressive Reform Whatever one’s political views, the end goal regarding the coronavirus (COVID-19) is the same – to minimize the number of people dying and suffering from severe disease. As commentators have repeatedly noted, we need genuine expertise for that. Beyond involving scientists and physicians in decision-making, there are […]