Citizen Health & Safety

New agency agendas

May 15, 2005 by Guest Blogger

BNA's Daily Report for Executives (a subscription-only service) has already combed through a copy of tomorrow's edition of the Federal Register, in which the agencies are releasing their semiannual agendas for the next six months of regulatory priorities. We have some information available to help people decipher the agendas: click here for more.

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RTK NET Releases 2003 Toxic Release Inventory Data

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MAY 12, 2005 Contact: Herb Ettel or Sean Moulton, 202-234-8494 OMB Watch, 1742 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20009 www.rtknet.org www.ombwatch.org Washington, D.C., May 12, 2005 -- The Right-to-Know Network (RTK NET) published the 2003 Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data today, providing public access to important Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data on the release and transfer of toxic chemicals in the United States.

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Senate Vote Gives Homeland Security Power to Waive All Law

Statement of Robert Shull, Director of Regulatory Policy, OMB Watch
In passing the Iraq War Supplemental today, the Senate also gave the Secretary of Homeland Security the power to waive any and all law in the course of building roads and barriers along the U.S. borders -- without limit and with no checks and balances. The measure is part of the "REAL ID Act of 2005," the controversial immigration bill attached by the House as a rider to the Iraq war supplemental.

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EPA Halts Rulemaking to Prevent Childhood Lead-Poisoning

May 10, 2005 by Guest Blogger

According to a letter from several minority representatives to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, EPA has decided to stop work on a regulation to protect children and construction workers against lead poisoning from building renovation and remodeling.

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Swimming upstream into risky territory

May 6, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Instead of hit lists and regulatory sunsets that would weaken or eliminate the protections we need, why isn’t our government doing its part to address the public’s unmet needs? Latest case in point: farm-raised fish. Two articles appearing the same day raise concerns about the potential harms of farm-raised salmon. One article stresses the ecological harms and calls for assessments of those risks:

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Fetal harm, culture of life, and unsound science

May 5, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Scientists have concluded that male fetuses exposed to very low doses of man-made estrogenic chemicals commonly found in drugs and consumer products are at risk of developing deformities in the prostate and the bladder.

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Anti-Regulatory Hit List Debated in House Hearing

The Bush administration again defended its anti-regulatory hit list to Congress, this time presenting the initiative as a boon to small manufacturers in a hearing before the House Small Business Committee that also featured renewed calls for regulatory sunsets. The committee's Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform and Oversight held a hearing on April 28 to discuss the White House's hit list of regulatory protections to be weakened or eliminated supposedly for the benefit of the manufacturing sector.

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UMRA, Results Proposals Advance in Budget Resolution

The budget resolution Congress finally agreed upon last week incorporated language that endorses the establishment of a results commission and marks the first steps in the direction of turning the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) into an insurmountable obstacle for new protections of the public interest.

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Funny Numbers at EPA

Apr 29, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Just how much did EPA downplay the benefits of controlling mercury? The Wall Street Journal (subscription only) said today that internal EPA analysis found that cutting mercury pollution could produce benefits of more than $2 billion for the Southeast alone. This number stands in stark contrast to the number EPA projected publicly: $50 million in benefits for the entire nation. From WSJ: The report on Southeast benefits, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, looked at reducing mercury concentrations in marine fish and shellfish.

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Testimony on Hit List Before the House Small Business Committee

Download testimony of Robert Shull before the House Small Business Committee's Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform and Oversight, concerning the OMB anti-regulatory hit list.

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