Citizen Health & Safety

H.R. 185 - Program Assessment & Results Act

Download text of the PAR Act as introduced in the 109th Congress.

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Factory farms off the hook

Jan 21, 2005 by Guest Blogger

It's now official: Factory farms that generate huge amounts of harmful pollution are being let off the hook from enforcement of clean air laws provided they simply let EPA monitor them and collect data. EPA basically let industry write its own rules in a back-room deal... no surprise that the rules would be toothless. The official story goes like this (per the AP): Seeking data for future regulation, the government on Friday told factory-style farms that generate huge amounts of animal waste they can escape potentially large fines if their air pollution is monitored.

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New Cases of BSE Highlight Need for Strong Safeguards

Jan 21, 2005 by Guest Blogger

With two new cases of mad cow disease in Canada, questions of food safety in the U.S. are once again making headlines, and two new articles do nothing to squelch national fears. According to the New York Times, scientists have recently discovered that the proteins that cause mad cow disease may be present in more parts of the animal than previously thought. Until now, scientists believed that the mad cow prion only existed in the brain and spinal tissue and removing those parts was enough to protect the food supply.

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57 channels, nothing on, and the price is still going up

Jan 19, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Consumers Union has an excellent companion website, Hear Us Now, with a wealth of information about, among other things, cable and satellite TV service. If you were concerned by the news that the FCC rigged a cost-benefit analysis in order to benefit the cable and media giants and deny consumers meaningful choice in their cable subscriptions, check out the Hear Us Now action alert, through which you can send comments to the FCC urging them to do the right thing.

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Bush environmental record: Broken record of broken promises

Jan 19, 2005 by Guest Blogger

NRDC has released its comprehensive report on the Bush administration's environmental record during the first term.

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Making sure that nothing sticks: EPA and DuPont

Jan 18, 2005 by Guest Blogger

EPA is rigging the game for a Bush administration industry ally, this time DuPont. The Environmental Working Group has analyzed EPA's draft risk assessment on perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a key ingredient of Teflon, and found that EPA has rigged the risk assessment in order to make its own brand of regulatory Teflon. The essence of the charge is that EPA "ignored its own science panel's guidance and internal industry research":

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Peer review guidelines: Sneak attack, yet again

Jan 12, 2005 by Guest Blogger

Late one Friday afternoon in late December -- the week before Christmas, no less -- OIRA finally released the long-awaited final version of its peer review guidelines. As the Information & Access team discusses here, the final guidelines make only modest changes to a faulty policy designed to burden the process of generating the science and other information that will become the basis of sensible regulation.

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New Forestry Rules Endanger Wildlife, Limit Public Participation

Three days before Christmas the U.S. Forest Service gave the timber and paper industry an early Christmas present, announcing a final rule that will drastically overhaul the U.S. Forest Service�s land management system.

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White House Meets with Industry to Plan Deregulatory Strategy

Over the past several months, the White House has met with industry representatives to develop a sweeping deregulatory strategy. The White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has given industry a leg-up on the upcoming reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). According to Inside EPA, OIRA has been working with a coalition of industry groups to strategize using the PRA reauthorization as a vehicle for developing new anti-regulatory policies.

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Expect Anti-Regulatory Bills in 109th Congress

When the 109th Congress reconvenes on Jan. 20, expect Republican lawmakers to continue work on anti-regulatory measures that will protect industry interests at the cost of the public interest. House Speaker Tom DeLay (R-TX) has repeatedly mentioned “universal regulatory reform” as one of several high-priority items for the 109th Congress’s agenda, and the House Government Reform Committee announced late last year that reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act will be only one part of “a reform-focused legislative and oversight agenda that will streamline the federal government.”

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