Safeguarding Public Health and the Environment

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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more news

EPA Releases OMB Comments on Chemical Studies

Oct 15, 2009 by Matthew Madia

As promised, the Environmental Protection Agency is releasing White House comments on EPA assessments of potentially toxic chemicals. Yesterday, EPA released the first batch of comments on four ongoing risk assessments.

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EPA Keeps the Transparency Coming

Oct 2, 2009 by Brian Turnbaugh*

Two back-to-back announcements by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week extend the agency's admirable record on transparency since the beginning of the Obama administration. EPA announced two policy changes that increase the transparency of the agency's pesticides programs: opening up the registration process for pesticides to public scrutiny and moving to require all pesticide ingredients be listed on product labels.

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EPA Authority a Bargaining Chip in Senate Climate Bill

Oct 2, 2009 by Matthew Madia

Unlike its House counterpart, a climate change bill introduced in the Senate this week would not prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from writing greenhouse gas emissions regulations.

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Transparency Provisions Wanting in New Chemical Management "Principles"

Sep 30, 2009 by Brian Turnbaugh*

Yesterday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revealed a set of "Essential Principles" for reforming the nation's severely flawed chemicals management policies. The principles are a helpful and welcome addition to the reform efforts, but they say little about the need for greater transparency. The six principles include calls for greater authority for EPA to set standards and the use of "sound science" to regulate chemicals – even in the face of uncertainty about their health risks.

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Business and Anti-Regulatory Lobbyists Divided over Climate Policy

Sep 29, 2009 by Matthew Madia

Increasingly, businesses are severing their ties to industry lobbying groups that oppose climate change legislation, according to an article in today’s New York Times by reporters Clifford Krauss and Kate Galbraith.

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Agencies and Courts Beat Congress to the Punch in Climate Change Fight

Unprecedented regulatory proposals and a paradigm-shifting federal court ruling are converging to put big polluters on the hook for their contributions to global warming. The developments raise the stakes for Congress as it considers whether to curb greenhouse gas emissions and how to do so.

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Greenhouse Gas Registry Finalized

Sep 22, 2009 by Brian Turnbaugh*

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized its mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting rule. This new rule will require thousands of facilities to monitor and report their annual emissions of several major GHG. The registry should provide much of the detailed, facility-level information needed to develop policies to reduce emissions. Several major changes were made to the proposed rule, mostly in favor of industry. The changes appear to have reduced the amount of facilities covered and the amount of greenhouse gases tracked.

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Power Plants’ Last Stand?

Sep 22, 2009 by Matthew Madia

Regulation of major greenhouse gas emitters appears increasingly inevitable. The latest news comes out of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where two federal judges ruled that state and local governments can sue power companies over greenhouse gas emissions and their contribution to global warming.

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EPA Asking the Public to Help Set Enforcement Priorities

Sep 16, 2009 by Brian Turnbaugh*

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is collecting ideas from the public on what its enforcement and compliance priorities should be for the next three years (the 2011-2013 fiscal years). These priorities address the most pressing environmental problems and are accompanied by strategies to tackle the problems. The public may comment on an online forum on the EPA's blog until Sept. 30.

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EPA May Tighten Smog Standards

Sep 16, 2009 by Matthew Madia

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson announced today that she will review and possibly revise the national air quality standard for ozone, or smog. The Bush administration announced the standard on March 12, 2008, but clean air advocates and good government groups accused Bush officials of ignoring scientific conclusions in the face of political pressure. Today, EPA intimated that it will more closely align the regulation to the underlying science.

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