Last week, a federal court held the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the nation's largest public utility, responsible for a massive 2008 coal ash spill near Kingston, TN, that released 5.4 million cubic yards of sludge into the surrounding community. Coal ash can contain arsenic, lead, chromium, and other toxic substances, which many Kingston area residents say contaminated their properties. The decision could provide compensation for many harmed by the spill, but better public protections to prevent these types of spills are still needed.

It's back-to-school season! In cities and towns across the country, parents and kids are out shopping for school supplies, making sure everyone's ready to head back to the classroom. The products they're buying are safer than they were a generation ago thanks to important safety protections we’ve built over the past four decades and recent improvements in those standards.

No one is in favor of outmoded, ineffective, duplicative, or unnecessary regulation. But judgments about what rules are necessary or effective are in the eye of the beholder: the same rules that save the lives of consumers and workers may be viewed as burdensome by the firms that have to follow them.

Americans from across the country – tired of waiting for state or federal protections – have been arriving in the nation’s capital this week to participate in the first-ever national anti-fracking rally on July 28. More than 3,000 people are expected to attend.