Toxic Teflon? You mean that set of cooking pans my parents swore by as state-of-the-art was, actually, transferring toxins to our family? And it’s much more than Teflon that’s now known to be toxic — it’s fabric protectors and firefighting foam, among other common items. A lawsuit filed by Minnesota against 3M, the company that first […]
It’s been more than four months since news first surfaced on April 28 that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s climate change website for all practical purposes had gone dark. It was by no means “fake news,” though the frequent messages that the entire site had been flat-out “killed” appear overstated, at least in limited ways. […]
EPA head Scott Pruitt says his agency will continue to “very aggressively” pursue action against auto manufacturers who faked their diesel emissions tests. By James Ayre “What VW did was very, very troublesome and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Pruitt told Reuters. He also noted that aggressive actions were needed in order to […]
We finally have a budget agreement. After years of partisan bickering and the GOP pushing the Federal Government into shutdown, lawmakers agreed on a compromise proposal that now goes to the House and Senate for final approval. Not in the bill: 134 of the GOP’s ransom demands, including some ugly environmental provisions: Stripping the Environmental […]
We may be in the middle of a government shutdown, but don’t forget – this is just phase one! Phase two comes in a few weeks when the Republicans are threatening to crash the economy of the the Debt Limit Ceiling. We don’t have the official list of GOP demands yet, but they’ve leaked a […]
Bill McKibben has the following message to everyone who is looking for something to do for the planet on this Earth Day 2013: It’s as if the president was setting it up for us. This morning, in his Earth Day proclamation, he said: “Nothing is more powerful than millions of voices calling for change.” This afternoon, […]
By Senator Bernie Sanders I support Gina McCarthy to be the next Environmental Protection Agency administrator. When her Senate confirmation hearing was held on Thursday, the debate among senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee wasn’t really about her qualifications. It was about global warming. It was about whether or not we are going […]
The problem with allowing lots of soot particles in the air? They end up in your lungs. And in kids lungs. That’s why the EPA came down today with new standards on soot (or “small particulate matter”). Why is soot a big deal? Mary Ann Hitt of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign explains: Soot […]
The Adirondack Council, an environmental organization that has been a national leader in the fight against acid rain, has called on the Obama Administration to appeal the decision of the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit here, which last month overturned the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. The Adirondack Council called […]
Wow. After years of bowing to his state’s all-powerful coal barons, West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller took to the floor of the Capitol Wednesday to denounce them. Rockefeller accused big coal of using scare tactics and lies to bully people over environmental regulations. And he says it’s time coal executives stopped “pining for the past” […]
Natural gas fracking is spreading wildly, with very little oversight – especially in states like Pennsylvania, which was pretty much bought outright by the energy industry in the 2010 election. Now, President Obama appears to be making moves to take up some of that slack. He signed an executive order today that sets up a […]
How did America, a society founded on equality, become so unequal? How did power shift from voters to corporations? Bill Moyers concludes his keynote address to Public Citizen by showing how it began: with the corporate backlash against the environmental movement in the 1970s. (Part 1 is here.) Comments Prepared for Delivery (video here) Public Citizen […]
The Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry dirty tar sands oil from Canada all the way to Texas, has hit a major roadblock. Politico broke the story: The State Department’s Office of the Inspector General will conduct an investigation into serious allegations that the Keystone approval process has been corrupted. As Politico notes, there have […]
The TRAIN Act (H.R. 2401)—the most deadly bill on House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s Pollution Plan—is expected to be brought up for a House floor vote today.
As initially introduced, the TRAIN Act was a biased and irresponsible “study” bill—creating a committee of cabinet members to review just the costs of a multitude of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) health standards, while ignoring the greater health and monetary benefits to Americans. While this version of the bill would have been harmful to human health, the bill is now an entirely different, and much more deadly beast that would result in many more deaths and health hazards…
The Republicans in the House of Representatives have taken much of their anti-environment wishlist and stuffed it into one literally breath-taking bill. The “TRAIN” act that comes to a vote tomorrow will block recent clean air initiatives and also gut the 40-year-old Clean Air Act.