A day before Christmas, a federal appeals court temporarily blocked the Bush administration from implementing a major rollback of clean air standards, which would have allowed the nation’s oldest and dirtiest power plants to upgrade their facilities without installing the latest anti-pollution controls (as they were previously required to do under EPA’s New Source Review program) -- even if it results in substantial new emissions.

The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a lawsuit Dec. 9 against the Army Corp of Engineers alleging the Corp released a status report that violates the Data Quality Act. The Corp failed to respond to a request for correction under the Department of Defense’s data quality guidelines filed by PEER on Aug. 20.

The Bush administration recently issued standards that will weaken and delay efforts to reduce highly toxic mercury emissions from power plants, which can fall to the ground with rain and enter bodies of water.

A data quality petition filed December 6, 2002 by the Animal Health Institute (AHI) challenged information the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) disseminates regarding fluoroquinolones. Background Fluoroquinolones are a class of antibiotics used on humans, pets, and more recently poultry. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) opposed the use of fluoroquinolone in poultry, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two drugs -- one developed by Abbott Laboratories (approved in 1995) and another by the Bayer Corporation (approved in 1996).