Citizen Health & Safety / Environment
EPA Drops Rule to Require Basic Information on Agricultural Sources of Water Pollution
Jul 24, 2012
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced that it was withdrawing a proposed rule that would have required Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to report basic information to the agency. CAFOs are livestock facilities or farms that confine large numbers of animals and do not grow crops on the land. The concentrated waste from these operations can contaminate groundwater supplies as it sinks into the earth. The rule in question would have required CAFO owners to provide information on operations that could result in water pollution. By dropping the rule, EPA appears to have succumbed to pressure from the agricultural community to limit transparency and citizens' rights to a healthy water supply.
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Updated: House Majority Trying to Shut Down Safeguards – Again
Jul 20, 2012 by Jessica Randall
The highlight of next week's legislative calendar in the House is likely to be a vote on H.R. 4078, the misleadingly named "Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act." With this vote, the House majority is set to launch yet another attack to shut down the safeguards that protect Americans against health, safety, and economic disasters.
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National Transportation Safety Board: Pipeline Regulations Need Teeth
Jul 13, 2012 by Jessica Randall
On July 10, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced its report on the 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill in Michigan. The report is a scathing indictment of Enbridge Energy, the company responsible for the safety of the pipeline involved in the spill, but also blames inadequate federal regulation.
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Fracking Disclosure Policies Fail to Protect Public Health and Safety
Jul 10, 2012
State oversight laws requiring disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (commonly referred to as fracking) are in need of an overhaul. A new OMB Watch report, The Right to Know, the Responsibility to Protect: State Actions Are Inadequate to Ensure Effective Disclosure of the Chemicals Used in Natural Gas Fracking, examines state chemical disclosure rules and aims to empower the public. It also encourages state and local authorities to improve their chemical disclosure standards, especially in those regions of the country most involved in and affected by natural gas fracking.
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June Was a Good Month for Clean Air Act Protections, but Challenges Continue
Jul 10, 2012
On June 26, a federal appeals court upheld the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The decision reaffirms the EPA's ability to protect our health and the environment from air pollution and allows it to continue combating climate change.
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Diesel Exhaust Causes Lung Cancer
Jun 26, 2012
For more than a decade, the mining industry has been waging a war to cast doubt on scientific studies showing that diesel exhaust causes lung cancer. Industry lost that fight on June 12 when the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) voted unanimously to designate diesel exhaust as a known cause of lung cancer. IARC’s conclusion comes more than a decade after the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) adopted a standard that reduced miners' exposure to diesel particulate matter – a prudent move on MSHA's part in the face of industry criticism.
read in fullImproving the Public's Right to Know at Rio+20
Jun 20, 2012
Today marks the official opening of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, and representatives from government, public interest, industry, and intergovernmental organizations have gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to address the environmental challenges facing our planet. Rio+20, as the international conference is being called, is an opportunity to take stock of progress that has occurred over the past two decades and the challenge of sustainable development that we face. It also represents an opportunity to advocate for more citizen involvement in environmental policymaking.
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Momentum Builds for Legislation to Curb Use of Toxic Flame Retardants
May 30, 2012
Lawmakers are calling for legislation to protect children from toxic flame retardant chemicals embedded in a host of everyday consumer products. The substances have been linked to cancer, endocrine disruption, and other serious illnesses. Since these chemicals are widely used in furniture, clothes, and carpets, practically every home in the country could be affected.
read in fullWhy Is the Small Business Administration Arguing that Formaldehyde Doesn’t Cause Cancer?
May 15, 2012
The Small Business Administration (SBA) is supposed to protect the interests of small businesses – businesses most Americans define as employing fewer than 100 workers. But a little-known office in the SBA, the Office of Advocacy, has recently weighed in with the National Toxicology Program (NTP), urging that it scrap a congressionally mandated Report on Carcinogens and challenging NTP’s designation of formaldehyde as a known human carcinogen. The NTP report is not a regulatory document. It does not directly affect small business costs. So what is the Office of Advocacy at the SBA doing objecting to a scientific report on carcinogens?
Anti-Environment Provisions Complicate Conference on New Transportation Bill
May 1, 2012
Next week, members of Congress from both chambers will meet to negotiate a comprehensive federal transportation bill. They will have to hash out the differences between two disparate extension bills and address controversial, anti-environment policy riders in the House version. The House bill would force the approval of the full Keystone XL pipeline and includes an industry-backed amendment that would prevent the federal government from issuing uniform safeguards for potentially toxic coal ash waste. Environmental groups call the coal ash amendment a gift to Big Coal and are urging Senate conferees and the Obama administration to ensure that it is not included in the final transportation bill.
