Safeguarding Public Health and the Environment

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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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A Misleading Report Obscures Sequestration's Impact on Regulators' Budgets

Aug 22, 2013 by Nick Schwellenbach

Last month, university-based researchers Susan Dudley and Melinda Warren released a highly misleading report claiming sequestration has not had much impact on the overall budgets of federal regulatory agencies.

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New Clean Water Initiatives Welcome but Highlight Need for More Oversight and Enforcement

August is National Water Quality Month, and efforts to clean and protect water resources have never been more important. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced new initiatives to reduce water pollution and modernize existing clean water programs. In addition, the agency expects to propose improved drinking water standards within the year, according to the latest Unified Regulatory Agenda. Still, EPA has yet to address a number of serious health and safety risks related to water quality.

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New Analysis and Interactive Map Illustrate Dangers of Freight Trains Carrying Toxic Chemicals

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8, 2013—In response to the recent Lawtell, Louisiana, rail accident, the Center for Effective Government today released an analysis and a new interactive map that displays freight train derailments and other incidents involving toxic chemicals.

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Product Safety Law Gets the Lead (and Other Things) Out

Aug 8, 2013 by Katie Greenhaw

Thanks to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), toys and other children’s products are safer. Five years ago, the critical law set strict standards to protect children from exposure to lead and other harmful chemicals. These standards are crucial to ensuring that children’s products are safe and free of dangerous toxins.

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Fixing Chemical Security after West, Texas

In the aftermath of the West Fertilizer explosion in April, Congress and the Obama administration are looking for ways they can better address chemical plant security and safety. A congressional hearing on Aug. 1 focused on how the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) chemical security program missed problems at the West Fertilizer plant. On the same day, President Obama issued a new executive order instructing federal agencies to form a working group to identify and fix any regulatory or informational loopholes.

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House Subpoenas Personal Medical Information in Continued Assault on Clean Air Policies

Aug 6, 2013 by Sam Abbott

On Aug. 2, the House Science Committee issued a subpoena demanding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) release all underlying data and personal medical information from two crucial studies the agency has relied on in setting air quality standards since 1997.

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Five Important Reasons to Share and Gather Data on SaferProducts.gov

Aug 6, 2013 by Guest Blogger

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), which provided a long overdue upgrade of critical safety protections for consumer products. The CPSIA revitalized the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and created the publicly available safety incident online database, better known as www.SaferProducts.gov.

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5th Anniversary of Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act: Five Safety Breakthroughs in Five Years

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5, 2013— Consumer Federation of America (CFA), Kids In Danger (KID), Consumers Union (CU), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), U.S. PIRG, Public Citizen, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Center for Effective Government mark the fifth anniversary of the passage of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).

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New Gluten-Free Standards Highlight Triumphs and Challenges at the FDA

Aug 5, 2013 by Sam Abbott

Last Friday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released final standards that manufacturers must meet before labeling their food products “gluten free.” According to the new rules, a food product must contain less than 20 parts per million (ppm) of gluten before a producer can label and advertise the product as being without gluten.

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Public Protections Take Center Stage at Committee Hearing on Toxic Substances Bill

Aug 2, 2013 by Katie Weatherford

Did you know that nearly 80,000 chemicals are currently used in the United States, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has only performed a safety assessment of 200 and has only issued partial restrictions for five of these substances? This illustrates how the nation's primary environmental law on toxic substances, the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA), has failed to protect Americans from exposure to dangerous chemicals. On July 31, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hosted a hearing to discuss the law's failures and hear from witnesses about the strengths and weaknesses of proposed legislation introduced by the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) this past May.

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Resources & Research

Living in the Shadow of Danger: Poverty, Race, and Unequal Chemical Facility Hazards

People of color and people living in poverty, especially poor children of color, are significantly more likely...

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A Tale of Two Retirements: One for CEOs and One for the Rest of Us

The 100 largest CEO retirement funds are worth a combined $4.9 billion, equal to the entire retirement account savings of 41 percent of American fam...

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Blowing Smoke: Chemical Companies Say “Trust Us,” But Environmental and Workplace Safety Violations Belie Their Rhetoric

Large chemical companies a...

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Gasping for Support: Implementation of Tougher Air Quality Standards Will Require New Funds for State Agencies

New scientific research shows that the current levels of...

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