Setting and Enforcing Regulations

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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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Court Rules in Favor of Mountaintop Mining

Nov 30, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Update on mountaintop removal: The use of a streamlined, general permit for mountaintop mining was reinstated by an appeals court on Nov. 22, vacating a lower court decision to bar the use of a general permit for 11 coal mining projects in West Virginia. The three-judge panel concluded that the Army Corps of Engineers had complied with the Clean Water Act in issuing the general permit. The streamlined general permit requires far less scrutiny of environmental impacts than an individual permit.

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White House Asserts Authority Over Agency Guidance Documents

The White House released a draft bulletin on the day before Thanksgiving that establishes new guidelines for non-rulemaking agency guidance documents.

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Weak Roof Crush Rule Threatens Victims' Rights

Based in part on flawed cost-benefit analysis, a proposed rule to reduce injuries sustained when vehicles roll over and their roofs are crushed inward fails to require the level of safety available in current technology and threatens to eliminate the rights of roof crush victims to sue manufacturers. Caving in on Roof Strength

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Administration Ignores Scientific Evidence and Pushes Forward with Mountaintop Removal

A long-anticipated Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the mountaintop mining waste disposal process ignores scientific evidence in order to validate the waste disposal method preferred by industry and the administration. Mountaintop mining uses explosives to expose coal seams for mining, resulting in waste dumped in nearby valleys, often burying streams and disrupting local ecosystems. Federal Protections Undermined

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Industry Costs Pitted Against Public Needs in Homeland Security Policy

How much is a human life worth when it comes to a terrorist attack? Should the public be involved in setting the nation's safety priorities? The Bush administration is offering surprising answers to these questions and more as it develops the general framework for homeland security policy.

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Clear Skies No Better than Existing Regs

Nov 1, 2005 by Guest Blogger

EPA recently released cost-benefit analysis of competing legislation to curb power plant emissions, including the President's Clear Skies legislation as well as legislation introduced by Sen. James Jeffords (I-VT) and separate legislation introduce by Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE). The cost-benefit analysis showed that the President's Clear Skies bills perform no better than regulations already on the book. Furthermore, though the analysis predicts lower costs for the Clear Skies Act compared to competing legislation, it also predicts far fewer benefits.

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Nanotech, Genetically Modified Crop News Spotlights Regulatory Gaps

New evidence of long-term persistence of genetically modified crops and new concerns about gaps in monitoring of nanotechnology underscore the risks from failing to embed the Precautionary Principle in regulatory policy.

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Senate Uses Minimum Wage Increase to Push Anti-Regulatory Agenda

The recently revised unfunded mandates point of order was invoked in the Senate to kill dueling amendments to raise the minimum wage, one of which included a Republican counterproposal to "offset" the wage increase with several pro-business anti-regulatory provisions. The exchange revealed dramatically the power of the recently revised point of order to stop legislation.

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One More Thing About Davis-Bacon

Oct 28, 2005 by Guest Blogger

One more thing about the White House's decision to rescind the waiver of Davis-Bacon Act prevailing wage requirements, per CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight: The reinstatement will not change the wages of those already working under contract. So far, the federal government has awarded $50 million in relief contracts. But it should make the contracting process from here on out more transparent and ensure displaced workers are first in line to rebuild their communities.

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Your Safety is at Stake

Oct 19, 2005 by Guest Blogger

More than 5,000 people are killed every year in crashes with big rigs on the nation's highways, and a major cause of these accidents is fatigue -- that overworked truck drivers are forced to drive way too many hours at a stretch. Now Congress is poised to make matters worse.

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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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