Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. I blogged last week about the new-but-not-improved Senate Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA), focusing on how it would reinstate some of the worst flaws of the old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that were fixed in the bipartisan TSCA reform legislation, the Lautenberg Act, signed into law last June. […]

Here's the scariest legislation you've never heard of

Editor’s note: This post was updated on May 1, 2018.

Congress is moving forward with sweeping legislation that could undercut major laws that keep our food, water, workers and children’s products safe.

Yet, surprisingly little attention has been paid to a bill that could drastically reshape the way we think about government, while threatening to undermine the very idea that any product at all – from pacifiers to peanuts – will remain safe going forward.

It’s what former White House strategist Steve Bannon had in mind when setting in motion the effort to “deconstruct the administrative state.” And it paves the way for a shoddy government with more, and slower, bureaucracy than we can ever imagine.

Bill “cutting red tape” would tie agencies in knots 

The Regulatory Accountability Act would fundamentally alter how Americans protect themselves from unsafe pollution, chemicals, drugs and other dangers – by undermining the Clean Air Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act and a slew of other laws affecting public health and safety.

Rather than repealing these popular laws, the bill would simply hobble them by, in effect, preventing agencies from creating or enforcing rules under such laws.

EDF Action: Don’t let Congress gut our safety laws

The sound-bite description of the bill makes the Regulatory Accountability Act sound reasonable: Cut red tape and reduce government regulation. In reality, it would tie federal agencies in knots.

A blog post by my colleagues Rosalie Winn and Martha Roberts has a chart showing the dizzying list of requirements an agency would face before it could issue a new rule.

In essence, it takes the things Americans already hate about government – that it’s slow, bureaucratic, and too responsive to special interests – and makes it worse.

Example: Protection against toxic formaldehyde

In 2010, Congress ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to shield the public from formaldehyde in imported floorboards and other wood products. Research had shown the chemical can cause cancer, asthma and other dangerous health effects.

The EPA has since spent seven years carefully studying ways to protect Americans from this dangerous material. Yet under the Regulatory Accountability Act, it would take even longer to implement such protections, if they even get to that point.

Under the proposed law, federal agencies would face a gauntlet of cost analyses and trial-like proceedings that can last weeks. What’s more, such complex, burdensome procedures would make it hard for average Americans to participate and be heard.

Backdoor legislation is advancing quietly

Because legislation to outright repeal landmark safeguards would spark public outrage, the Regulatory Accountability Act represents a backdoor attack on fundamental protections that has largely gone unnoticed. In fact, the bill already passed the House in January 2017 by a 238-183 vote, although it remains uncertain if and when the full Senate will take up the bill.

How to explain this? Myron Ebell, who led President Trump’s EPA transition team, summed it up when calling for the administration to “make permanent the reforms and changes we’re making.”

They are looking to change how our government works.

If taking on landmark laws under the guise of regulatory reform has largely escaped public notice, surely that would change when Americans begin to see tainted food, contaminated drugs, unhealthy pollution levels and unsafe vehicles.

The question now is whether members of Congress will defeat this bill before their constituents pay the price.

EDF Action: Don’t let Congress gut our safety laws krives May 11, 2017 - 08:42

See comments

Complicating protections and tying knots into issuing new rules and consumer protections is wrong. This back-end attack on rule making and landmark environmental laws, safety laws, and even voting laws is perverse and unconscionable.

C.m lade January 13, 2018 at 4:34 pm

Very bad news. Don’t they have to breathe and drink water???

Sandigoode January 13, 2018 at 5:25 pm

Not necessary for "them" as they have 'gas masks' to go w/ 99% pure oxygen, from tanks & other equipment, of course and also there's bottled water; the previously mentioned products are most assuredly part of "their" financial portfolios as man doesn't live by "bread" alone after all, right ?!?

Victor de Castro July 3, 2018 at 3:43 pm

In reply to Very bad news-don't they… by Sandigoode

Reasonable deregulation is warranted, but we must be diligent [and make sure] not to deregulate to the point where our citizen, our environment, our safety, our security…. are not safeguarded.

Maria Price January 14, 2018 at 11:13 am

Once again, you put big business financial gains over the welfare of the people and our environment. We hired you in to represent and protect the interests of the people, our environment and the future of our country.

Lauren Jusek January 14, 2018 at 11:40 am

The Regulatory Accountability Act would fundamentally alter how Americans protect themselves from unsafe pollution, chemicals, drugs and other dangers – by undermining the Clean Air Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act and a slew of other laws affecting public health and safety. We absolutely do NOT need to move back to the 19th century, with NO protections for regular Americans against pollution, tainted medicine and food, and other unscrupulous practics. Defeat this terrible bill.

Dean Robb PhD January 15, 2018 at 6:16 pm

Keep our health the # 1 priority by not passing the Regulatory Accountability Act. Americans need/deserve clean natural resource's, medications...

Jack Gajda January 30, 2018 at 8:34 am

It is just totally sad, really sad. I would be hauled of to jail if I wrote what I really think our best options are. It is sad the human suffering that will result.

Ernest Swinson May 11, 2018 at 5:14 pm

This sounds like typical government actions. They never have our best interests in mind, just money, money, money, catering to corporations and special interest groups. We need normal everyday Americans in office, get rid of parties and politicians. We need to take our gov’t back, for the people, by the people.

Cathy Fuller June 16, 2018 at 6:21 pm

All Cheeto and the repugnant Party do are horrendous and monsterous acts [that will affect] everyone including themselves. The repugnant Party doesnt think that they will have to pay the same price as the rest of the world. Where do they expect to weather the storm they are about to release?

David Light July 3, 2018 at 7:16 pm

Horrendous news for sure. So what are you and all the other environmental groups going to do to alert the public besides posting to “friends” on Facebook?!? If this is your only venue, this is a lost cause.

Jim August 10, 2018 at 2:37 pm

Hi Jim and thanks for your comment! We agree we need to do a lot more than just voice opinions. Here you can see some of the things EDF is working on: https://www.edf.org/how-we-get-results

Karin Rives August 13, 2018 at 10:06 am

Here's the scariest legislation you've never heard of

Editor’s note: This post was updated on May 1, 2018.

Congress is moving forward with sweeping legislation that could undercut major laws that keep our food, water, workers and children’s products safe.

Yet, surprisingly little attention has been paid to a bill that could drastically reshape the way we think about government, while threatening to undermine the very idea that any product at all – from pacifiers to peanuts – will remain safe going forward.

It’s what former White House strategist Steve Bannon had in mind when setting in motion the effort to “deconstruct the administrative state.” And it paves the way for a shoddy government with more, and slower, bureaucracy than we can ever imagine.

Bill “cutting red tape” would tie agencies in knots 

The Regulatory Accountability Act would fundamentally alter how Americans protect themselves from unsafe pollution, chemicals, drugs and other dangers – by undermining the Clean Air Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act and a slew of other laws affecting public health and safety.

Rather than repealing these popular laws, the bill would simply hobble them by, in effect, preventing agencies from creating or enforcing rules under such laws.

EDF Action: Don’t let Congress gut our safety laws

The sound-bite description of the bill makes the Regulatory Accountability Act sound reasonable: Cut red tape and reduce government regulation. In reality, it would tie federal agencies in knots.

A blog post by my colleagues Rosalie Winn and Martha Roberts has a chart showing the dizzying list of requirements an agency would face before it could issue a new rule.

In essence, it takes the things Americans already hate about government – that it’s slow, bureaucratic, and too responsive to special interests – and makes it worse.

Example: Protection against toxic formaldehyde

In 2010, Congress ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to shield the public from formaldehyde in imported floorboards and other wood products. Research had shown the chemical can cause cancer, asthma and other dangerous health effects.

The EPA has since spent seven years carefully studying ways to protect Americans from this dangerous material. Yet under the Regulatory Accountability Act, it would take even longer to implement such protections, if they even get to that point.

Under the proposed law, federal agencies would face a gauntlet of cost analyses and trial-like proceedings that can last weeks. What’s more, such complex, burdensome procedures would make it hard for average Americans to participate and be heard.

Backdoor legislation is advancing quietly

Because legislation to outright repeal landmark safeguards would spark public outrage, the Regulatory Accountability Act represents a backdoor attack on fundamental protections that has largely gone unnoticed. In fact, the bill already passed the House in January 2017 by a 238-183 vote, although it remains uncertain if and when the full Senate will take up the bill.

How to explain this? Myron Ebell, who led President Trump’s EPA transition team, summed it up when calling for the administration to “make permanent the reforms and changes we’re making.”

They are looking to change how our government works.

If taking on landmark laws under the guise of regulatory reform has largely escaped public notice, surely that would change when Americans begin to see tainted food, contaminated drugs, unhealthy pollution levels and unsafe vehicles.

The question now is whether members of Congress will defeat this bill before their constituents pay the price.

EDF Action: Don’t let Congress gut our safety laws krives May 11, 2017 - 08:42

See comments

Complicating protections and tying knots into issuing new rules and consumer protections is wrong. This back-end attack on rule making and landmark environmental laws, safety laws, and even voting laws is perverse and unconscionable.

C.m lade January 13, 2018 at 4:34 pm

Very bad news. Don’t they have to breathe and drink water???

Sandigoode January 13, 2018 at 5:25 pm

Not necessary for "them" as they have 'gas masks' to go w/ 99% pure oxygen, from tanks & other equipment, of course and also there's bottled water; the previously mentioned products are most assuredly part of "their" financial portfolios as man doesn't live by "bread" alone after all, right ?!?

Victor de Castro July 3, 2018 at 3:43 pm

In reply to Very bad news-don't they… by Sandigoode

Reasonable deregulation is warranted, but we must be diligent [and make sure] not to deregulate to the point where our citizen, our environment, our safety, our security…. are not safeguarded.

Maria Price January 14, 2018 at 11:13 am

Once again, you put big business financial gains over the welfare of the people and our environment. We hired you in to represent and protect the interests of the people, our environment and the future of our country.

Lauren Jusek January 14, 2018 at 11:40 am

The Regulatory Accountability Act would fundamentally alter how Americans protect themselves from unsafe pollution, chemicals, drugs and other dangers – by undermining the Clean Air Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act and a slew of other laws affecting public health and safety. We absolutely do NOT need to move back to the 19th century, with NO protections for regular Americans against pollution, tainted medicine and food, and other unscrupulous practics. Defeat this terrible bill.

Dean Robb PhD January 15, 2018 at 6:16 pm

Keep our health the # 1 priority by not passing the Regulatory Accountability Act. Americans need/deserve clean natural resource's, medications...

Jack Gajda January 30, 2018 at 8:34 am

It is just totally sad, really sad. I would be hauled of to jail if I wrote what I really think our best options are. It is sad the human suffering that will result.

Ernest Swinson May 11, 2018 at 5:14 pm

This sounds like typical government actions. They never have our best interests in mind, just money, money, money, catering to corporations and special interest groups. We need normal everyday Americans in office, get rid of parties and politicians. We need to take our gov’t back, for the people, by the people.

Cathy Fuller June 16, 2018 at 6:21 pm

All Cheeto and the repugnant Party do are horrendous and monsterous acts [that will affect] everyone including themselves. The repugnant Party doesnt think that they will have to pay the same price as the rest of the world. Where do they expect to weather the storm they are about to release?

David Light July 3, 2018 at 7:16 pm

Horrendous news for sure. So what are you and all the other environmental groups going to do to alert the public besides posting to “friends” on Facebook?!? If this is your only venue, this is a lost cause.

Jim August 10, 2018 at 2:37 pm

Hi Jim and thanks for your comment! We agree we need to do a lot more than just voice opinions. Here you can see some of the things EDF is working on: https://www.edf.org/how-we-get-results

Karin Rives August 13, 2018 at 10:06 am

By Martha Roberts

(This post was co-authored by EDF legal Fellow Rosalie Winn)

New legislation introduced in the Senate threatens to undermine critical public health, safety and environmental protections through paralysis by analysis.

The Regulatory Accountability Act, recently introduced by Senators Rob Portman of Ohio and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, would tie up essential safeguards in enormous amounts of red tape – putting at risk longstanding protections in child safety, food safety, auto safety, and other areas that Americans depend on and often take for granted.

If the Regulatory Accountability Act were to become law, common sense new safeguards would have to make it through a mind-boggling series of analyses before they could begin to protect Americans.

We’ve illustrated this recipe for paralysis by analysis in this diagram:

Here’s a small sample of important safety measures — recent or in progress — that would get tied up in red tape under this bill’s approach:

• New Food and Drug Administration protections against intentional contamination of the food supply.
• Consumer Product Safety Commission standards, which are regularly updated to help assure the safety of everyday children’s products like cribs, high chairs, and infant carriers.
• New auto safety standards that would take advantage of new crash-avoidance and vehicle-to-vehicle communication technologies to reduce car accidents and fatalities.
• Food and Drug Administration reforms to help ensure the safety of personalized medications — issued in the aftermath of the 2012 outbreak of fungal meningitis from contaminated steroid injections, which killed 64 people and sickened 753.
• Centers for Disease Control updated screening measures for airports that would help stem the spread of diseases — issued to protect against the next outbreak of a dangerous communicable disease like Ebola.

We’ve written before about how the Regulatory Accountability Act would stymie agencies’ ability to address public concerns.

Important protections would face time-consuming, costly new burdens – burdens that would fall on the public, on businesses, and on anyone trying to participate in the decision-making – while giving an advantage to big-money interests who can afford expensive lawyers.

The Regulatory Accountability Act would allow opponents of health and safety protections to delay and obstruct the safeguards they don’t like, while leaving all Americans more vulnerable.

By Martha Roberts

(This post was co-authored by EDF legal Fellow Rosalie Winn)

New legislation introduced in the Senate threatens to undermine critical public health, safety and environmental protections through paralysis by analysis.

The Regulatory Accountability Act, recently introduced by Senators Rob Portman of Ohio and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, would tie up essential safeguards in enormous amounts of red tape – putting at risk longstanding protections in child safety, food safety, auto safety, and other areas that Americans depend on and often take for granted.

If the Regulatory Accountability Act were to become law, common sense new safeguards would have to make it through a mind-boggling series of analyses before they could begin to protect Americans.

We’ve illustrated this recipe for paralysis by analysis in this diagram:

Here’s a small sample of important safety measures — recent or in progress — that would get tied up in red tape under this bill’s approach:

• New Food and Drug Administration protections against intentional contamination of the food supply.
• Consumer Product Safety Commission standards, which are regularly updated to help assure the safety of everyday children’s products like cribs, high chairs, and infant carriers.
• New auto safety standards that would take advantage of new crash-avoidance and vehicle-to-vehicle communication technologies to reduce car accidents and fatalities.
• Food and Drug Administration reforms to help ensure the safety of personalized medications — issued in the aftermath of the 2012 outbreak of fungal meningitis from contaminated steroid injections, which killed 64 people and sickened 753.
• Centers for Disease Control updated screening measures for airports that would help stem the spread of diseases — issued to protect against the next outbreak of a dangerous communicable disease like Ebola.

We’ve written before about how the Regulatory Accountability Act would stymie agencies’ ability to address public concerns.

Important protections would face time-consuming, costly new burdens – burdens that would fall on the public, on businesses, and on anyone trying to participate in the decision-making – while giving an advantage to big-money interests who can afford expensive lawyers.

The Regulatory Accountability Act would allow opponents of health and safety protections to delay and obstruct the safeguards they don’t like, while leaving all Americans more vulnerable.

Back when Donald Trump was a real estate developer whose projects involved thousands of construction workers, he repeatedly downplayed well-documented dangers of asbestos, writing in one of his books that the carcinogen was “100-percent safe, when applied.”

It helps explain President Trump’s pattern, amid ever-swirling ethical scandals, of selecting people with conflicts of interest for key environmental positions. These are appointments that will undermine the health of American families.

His latest consideration, according to The New York Times: Replacing experts on a federal science advisory board “with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate” – again raising the issue of his administration’s serious conflicts of interest when it comes to enforcing clean air and water laws.

Even if some of Trump’s appointees are undoubtedly nice people, it matters a great deal who is running federal agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and what drives their interests and motivations.

Here are a few of the most conflicted people with power over health and environmental policies in his administration, including, at the top, the president himself:

1. Nancy Beck: Worked for chemical industry group

Beck has just been hired as the highest political appointee at the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, the office writing the rules for the nation’s new chemical safety law. She last worked for the chemical industry’s trade group pushing the EPA to write those rules in a way that set the loosest standards for companies, and provided the least protection for families.

Beck is now in a position to undermine the bipartisan law that has the potential to bring sanity to our chemical safety system. Toxic chemicals, as you know, are linked to cancer, diabetes and death. 

EDF Action: Tell your senators to protect our health

2. Justin Schwab: Represented coal utility

Now a top lawyer at the EPA, Schwab was previously the attorney for a utility and other major industrial companies that likely have a financial interest in EPA decisions.

While at the law firm BakerHostetler, he represented, among others, Southern Company, one of the country’s largest coal-burning utilities. Fun fact: Schwab also represented the “London Whale,” the financial trader who was behind JPMorgan’s monstrous trading losses in 2012.

Undermining limits on pollution from power plants will result in more asthma attacks and other health problems.

3. Andrew Wheeler: Lobbied for coal mining giant

Wheeler, a lobbyist for Murray Energy, has reportedly been tapped to become deputy administrator, the second-highest official at the EPA. Murray, the country’s largest coal mining conglomerate – which has been fined for safety violations and repeatedly sued to block pollution limits – just called on the EPA to drop the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule.

The rule is already reducing the amount of mercury, a neurotoxin that damages children’s brains, and other harmful pollutants in our environment. As deputy administrator, Wheeler would be in a position to influence a decision about whether or not to try to repeal this rule.

4. Carl Icahn: Oil refinery investor, billionaire

Icahn has been advising Trump on a range of issues, including important rules and environmental safeguards. He’s been accused of promoting “policy proposals that benefit his own investments,” that include stakes in an oil refinery. He also interviewed Pruitt for the EPA job, asking him about issues that had a direct impact on his business interests.

Icahn is in a position to potentially influence regulatory issues in which he has a business stake.

5. Christian Palich: Lobbied for coal industry group

Palich recently got a senior position in the EPA’s Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations. Before that he was head of the Ohio Coal Association and a registered lobbyist.

In that position, Palich praised President Trump for honoring his pledge to stand up to “radical environmentalists” by targeting clean air and climate safeguards. 

6. Doug Matheney: Ran Ohio’s “Count on Coal”

Recently hired as Secretary Rick Perry’s assistant at the U.S. Department of Energy, Matheney is very familiar with industry players.

He has worked for both Americans for Prosperity, the Koch Brothers-backed political organization, and as the Ohio director of Count on Coal, a public relations campaign funded by the coal industry. 

7. Scott Pruitt: Sued the EPA 14 times

As has been well documented, the companies that Pruitt now regulates have contributed millions of dollars to his political campaigns and causes. Pruitt sued in court to block 14 EPA safeguards – protections he’s now in charge of implementing and enforcing.

Pruitt recently made a big show of recusing himself from litigation over these safeguards. But he’s made no similar assurance that he will not let his conflicts of interest skew his approach to rolling back and undercutting these important protections.

As he gets under way with targeting regulations that benefit his industry allies, 125 million Americans who already live in areas with polluted air can expect even more asthma attacks and other lung diseases. 

Commander in Chief: Where the problem begins

With his appointments, Trump will ultimately be responsible if pollution increases and we see a rise in asthma attacks among children, more premature deaths from lung disease, and more communities suffering from unhealthy air pollution. Of course, his own conflicts are the most powerful and disturbing of them all.

Many of the president’s family’s business interests are overseen by the federal government, including important health and environmental programs.

There are many others in the administration, not all of whom are presidential appointees, with close ties to regulated, polluting industries. All of this in spite of the fact that President Trump signed a new “ethics” order when he first took office. In reality, the order weakens protections against improper influence.

Philosophical differences are one thing, but having a government run by those with self-interests that run counter to the public good is another. Unless we have a cleaner government, we’re unlikely to have a cleaner world.

EDF Action: Tell your senators to protect our health

Landowners and environmentalists both grapple with the same question: In the midst of uncertainty, what is the most effective way to reconcile short-term and long-term needs for wildlife habitat? For example, it can be risky to invest in permanent conservation on a property vulnerable to climate change, but failing to protect existing habitat in the […]

The post We need to get creative to protect wildlife in the face of climate risk first appeared on Growing Returns.

By Dan Kaiser

A pilot project for Swainson’s hawk is creating high-quality nesting habitat on a 4,000-acre farm in San Joaquin County.

Landowners and environmentalists both grapple with the same question: In the midst of uncertainty, what is the most effective way to reconcile short-term and long-term needs for wildlife habitat?

For example, it can be risky to invest in permanent conservation on a property vulnerable to climate change, but failing to protect existing habitat in the face of uncertainty is an existential threat to species like the Swainson’s hawk.

Fortunately, new habitat accounting tools are emerging that bring more certainty to conservation planning, which helps landowners make effective management decisions for their property, helps biologists design effective restoration plans and ultimately helps wildlife thrive.

We need to get creative to protect wildlife in the face of climate risk. Here's why, via…
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New tools in the toolbox

Despite the pressures of climate change, the Swainson’s hawk has successfully adapted to agricultural lands in the Central Valley. Grasslands, hay crops and row crops provide habitat for rodents, the hawk’s primary food source, but that food source is disappearing as row crops are converted to permanent orchards and vineyards.

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is working to meet the need for flexible conservation solutions that can adapt with a changing climate and account for uncertainty.

The Central Valley Habitat Exchange in California, for example, has developed Habitat Quantification Tools for at-risk species like the Swainson’s hawk. The tools measure how well a property provides for all life stages necessary for survival and reproduction. Combined with high performance standards and third-party verification, the goal of the exchange is to enhance and protect habitat on farms and ranches.

We are currently working on a pilot project for Swainson’s hawk in San Joaquin County on a 4,000-acre farm that produces a mix of organic and conventional crops within a rotation of irrigated pasture. Substantial high-quality nesting habitat on the property supports several pairs of hawks, and dozens of birds are frequently observed hunting for rodents as flood irrigation exposes their prey.

This property is one of the largest tracts of prime hawk habitat in the San Francisco-San Joaquin Bay Delta, a region with accelerated conversion of row crops to orchards and vineyards. Though protected by a series of levies, the property is susceptible to sea level rise, and regulatory agencies have advised the county not to invest in a permanent conservation easement. Even so, that doesn’t mean this site can’t provide habitat benefits for the bird.

Flexible conservation timelines

Where permanent conservation protections aren’t an option, it’s possible to protect valuable habitat for a shorter time frame. In a partnership with NatureServe, EDF has been examining five climate change models for select species in the Central Valley. By analyzing the models’ predictions, we can identify where habitat is expected to be stable, to shrink or to expand as climate changes.

This information is useful in understanding where permanent habitat protections make sense, and where providing 20- to 50-year protections makes more sense. This is the case with the property in San Joaquin County.

To stabilize current bird populations, we need a way to take advantage of critical conservation opportunities today yet retain flexibility to adapt to evolving climate conditions. Key ideas worth considering include:

• Carving out climate change adaptation funds in state water and park bonds to establish term easements or performance contracts on properties with high-quality, at-risk habitat. While term projects are sometimes allowed, preference is usually given to permanent protection.
• Allocating a portion of fees collected to offset the impacts of development to term contracts of 15 to 20 years to stabilize existing habitat. This would require a change in guidance and precedence from regulatory agencies. While this may be seen as risky, our current approach is failing the species we’re all working to protect.
• Establishing a Resource Conservation Investment Strategy (RCIS), as allowed by a new California law, AB 2087. Though in the pilot phase, an RCIS might serve as a laboratory to finally devise a conservation strategy for these types of projects.

Creative and adaptive conservation approaches are possible. With the commitment of state and federal agency staff, conservation organizations, scholars and landowners, I’m confident we can address near-term and long-term habitat challenges in a cooperative and pragmatic way.

Related:

How healthy riparian forests benefit California ranchers >>

California’s new law means more bang for every buck invested in wildlife >>

Birds, snakes and butterflies: Farming for more than crops and cash >>

Our opposition in the Senate tried to put the interests of the oil & gas industry above those of American taxpayers. Your Senator stood on the wrong side--and lost. Regional. C4.

Our opposition in the Senate tried to put the interests of the oil & gas industry above those of American taxpayers. Your Senator stood on the wrong side--and lost. Regional. C4.

Our opposition in the Senate tried to put the interests of the oil & gas industry above those of American taxpayers. Your Senator stood on the wrong side--and lost. Regional. C4.

Sediment Diversion Operations & Oyster Shell Recycling  Welcome to the latest episode of Delta Dispatches with hosts  & . On today’s show Natalie Peyronnin, Director of Science Policy and Mississippi River Delta Restoration at the Environmental Defense Fund, speaks to Jacques about sediment diversions operations. In the second half the show, Simone has Jimmy Frederick, Communications Director for CRCL on to speak about their exciting oyster shell recycling project. Listen Now the 2017 Coastal Master Plan becomes law and the economic ...

Read The Full Story

The post Delta Dispatches: Innovations in Restoration appeared first on Restore the Mississippi River Delta.

Sediment Diversion Operations & Oyster Shell Recycling  Welcome to the latest episode of Delta Dispatches with hosts  & . On today’s show Natalie Peyronnin, Director of Science Policy and Mississippi River Delta Restoration at the Environmental Defense Fund, speaks to Jacques about sediment diversions operations. In the second half the show, Simone has Jimmy Frederick, Communications Director for CRCL on to speak about their exciting oyster shell recycling project. Listen Now the 2017 Coastal Master Plan becomes law and the economic ...

Read The Full Story

The post Delta Dispatches: Innovations in Restoration appeared first on Restore the Mississippi River Delta.

Sediment Diversion Operations & Oyster Shell Recycling  Welcome to the latest episode of Delta Dispatches with hosts  & . On today’s show Natalie Peyronnin, Director of Science Policy and Mississippi River Delta Restoration at the Environmental Defense Fund, speaks to Jacques about sediment diversions operations. In the second half the show, Simone has Jimmy Frederick, Communications Director for CRCL on to speak about their exciting oyster shell recycling project. Listen Now the 2017 Coastal Master Plan becomes law and the economic ...

Read The Full Story

The post Delta Dispatches: Innovations in Restoration appeared first on Restore the Mississippi River Delta.

Written by Marcia G. Yerman

The history of WE ACT for Justice goes back to 1988. Peggy Shepard was one of three neighborhood activists who recognized that West Harlem in New York City, was bearing the brunt of toxic pollution.

The Environmental Justice movement was getting off the ground. Awareness was building that low-income communities and people of color were targeted for sitings by polluting industries in disproportionate numbers.

Now, the Trump administration plans to negate gains from the past eight years. The stakeholders WE ACT represents are facing greater jeopardy.

I reached out to Shepard, to ask her how she anticipates moving ahead.

What do you expect from Trump and the EPA, and how are you preparing your community to push back?

I anticipate a rollback of many of the regulations and policies that the Environmental Justice movement has worked on over the last twenty-five years.

We’re used to blackouts at the federal level. We lived through Bush and Reagan, and we will overcome this new hardship through commitment, hard work, and keeping our eye on the prize.

Environmental Justice folks are used to being under-resourced and ignored. It has not stopped our vision and savvy at finding ways forward.

The new administration has helped motivate the grassroots, and when we have regular people fired up and ready to go, good things happen.

We took four buses to the People’s Climate March in D.C. in April.

Much of the work WE ACT did to fight air pollution was through the courts. Do you think the judicial branch of government will be successful in protecting any of the in-place legislation?

Actually, I believe we have gained as much through the regulatory process as the courts.

We got EPA Region 2 to do air monitoring in Harlem. That data was used to promulgate the fine particulate standard.

I am not optimistic about the courts, but we will have to wait and see. Even with a win, government has to enforce and implement. If that does not happen, then the law is ineffectual. We have to monitor the laws we already have, to ensure they are enforced and complied with.

How are you bringing awareness to health, particularly with the one in four asthma rate among children in Harlem?

We are providing leadership to a Healthy Homes coalition in New York City and support the Asthma Free Homes bill (Intro 385A), which holds landlords responsible for making repairs in a given period of time, when there is a tenant with a diagnosis of asthma.

What is your advice to frontline communities in America on how to protect their rights over the next four years?

Organize at the grassroots. Coordinate leadership development and issue-oriented trainings to empower, mobilize and strengthen social cohesion so regular folks understand and experience their voices being heard.

WE ACT is proud to bring an empowered, informed and mobilized constituency to the table. Once that structure is in place, a lot can be accomplished. Act locally, think globally.

What impact will potential cuts to programs devoted to protecting children from lead paint have in New York state?

WE ACT used to have several HUD grants over the years. We were able to run bus ads, conduct workshops around the city, and train parents how to do lead testing. We reached over 100,000 people in our last campaign. We were an active member of the NYC Coalition to End Lead Poisoning, which organized to pass the most protective law in the nation, Local Law 1 of 2004. Unfortunately, we now find the city is not enforcing the law. We have to go back to court to secure the city’s compliance to ensure landlords are contacting parents in their buildings who have a child under the age of 6. They must make the necessary repairs within a given period of time.

When new families and immigrants move into apartments, they do not have the information to protect their children from lead. We cannot assume that because lead poisoning incidence is down, everyone knows about this toxin. Over 80 percent of all new cases in New York City are children of color, living in the ten worst neighborhoods for housing maintenance.

The New York City Council voted to protect low-income New Yorkers and communities of color with the Environmental Justice Study Bill (Intro 359) and The Environmental Justice Policy Bill (Intro 886A). Thoughts? 

We will be working on implementation in the coming months. We had this vision for years – to get the city to focus on equity and Environmental Justice. This is a moment for us to be creative and strategic.

We must scale up our civic engagement with electoral work, holding candidates and incumbents to a higher standard, and to keeping their commitments.

TELL YOUR SENATOR: PROTECT OUR HEALTH FROM AIR AND CLIMATE POLLUTION

Methane rule endures, common sense prevails

When they tell the story of environmental protection in the early days of President Trump’s administration, today’s Senate vote upholding rules to reduce natural gas waste on federal lands will stand out as a breathtaking and much-needed win for activism, civic engagement and common sense.

The Senate turned back, for now, a disturbing push to ignore basic science and common-sense economics.

It rejected an attempt by the Trump administration and Senate Republicans to overturn the Bureau of Land Management’s methane pollution rule, a resounding triumph of cooler heads over rank ideology and special interests. The oil and gas industry and the administration fundamentally misread the mood of the American people.

It is the first big win this year for the environmental community – and a clear sign that when we fight back, we can still protect American families and defend our natural heritage.

We won’t win them all. But we won today, and we should allow ourselves to feel good about that.

Incredible waste avoided 

What might at first appear like an issue reserved for energy policy wonks – oil and gas producers squandering natural gas on federal and tribal lands via widespread leaks, intentional venting or flaring – resonated with broad swaths of the American public. Across party lines, 73 percent of Americans support laws that stop gas leaks, and two out of three oppose rollbacks of current oil and gas laws.

They have good reason: Taxpayers dislike government waste, and overturning the methane rule would have resulted in more than $300 million in wasted natural gas over the next decade. By volume, we’re talking about enough gas to heat every home in Chicago for a year.

And this is to say nothing of the health and economic dangers methane poses as a short-term forcer of global warming.

CRA sledgehammer misses its mark

The rule nearly fell victim to a formerly obscure legislative tool called the Congressional Review Act, which not only kills the reform but bars any rules that are “substantially the same” from being passed in the future.

This is the worst kind of policy making. So far this year, it’s been used to allow coal companies to pollute local waterways with industrial wastewater, and to make it easier for mentally ill people to buy guns.

EDF Action: Tell your senators to protect our health

Yet, while other objectionable legislation sailed through the congressional review process, the administration was unable to muster votes for this rollback. No one who voted in November wanted public lands plundered, our energy resources squandered, or our health put at risk. A majority of senators understood that.

Among many others, I particularly thank Senators Cantwell, Carper, Collins, Graham, Heitkamp, Manchin, McCain and Udall for listening to their constituents and standing up against unchecked waste of our national energy resources.

Support from all corners

This attack failed because communities most affected by this decision spoke up. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets to support science and to demonstrate their belief in global climate action, including methane policies that favor voters, rather than special interests.

A broad spectrum of Americans – from farmers and ranchers to tribal and community leaders to families - are willing to make their voices heard, and are effective when they do. This sends an important signal to state leaders and officials in other parts of the world that the United States is not abandoning its environmental values.

No agency has ever reissued a rule to replace one rescinded under the Congressional Review Act, and no court has ever addressed whether such a rule is valid. This is why former officials of the U.S. Department of the Interior and 40 law professors wrote to Congress to oppose the process.

If the oil and gas sector wants to be seen as a responsible player on the energy scene, they must take an active role in preventing methane leaks. It’s also good business.

“Repeal would be a costly and wasteful mistake,” noted Todd Mitchell, a former oil and gas industry official.

Far outside the beltway, Westerners were among the most vocal supporters of the common sense regulations to reduce methane waste.

“The thought of a bunch of disconnected lawmakers who don’t live next to leaking gas wells deciding to vote to take this protection away from us just leaves me speechless,” New Mexico cattleman Don Schreiber told the Los Angeles Times.

As we savor a hard-earned victory, we can’t turn a blind eye to the challenges yet to come. 

The threat isn’t hypothetical, or over 

The fight to protect and defend bedrock health and environmental protections and progress is far from over.

Methane leaks are a national problem

While industry and Congress expected to win easily, their loss today is the consequence of extreme overreach. A broad range of communities will note who stood with us and who stood against us.

If oil and gas industry ideologues continue to try to undermine the basic protections through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and BLM agency reviews, today has demonstrated the tenacious, unyielding resistance they will face.

EDF Action: Tell your senators to protect our health Anonymous May 10, 2017 - 12:52

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Comments

We need to hold the 49 Republican senators [who voted in favor of overturning the methane rule] accountable.

Fracking: On a 20-year timescale, methane (which is the principal component of natural gas) has 84 times the global warming potential of CO2. That’s important, because on our current global emissions pathway, we only have about 27 years left before we lock in levels of warming that scientists and governments classify as “dangerous.”

Simply put, cutting methane immediately is the biggest bang for our apocalypse-prevention buck.

Methane clouds: NASA now says a vast methane cloud over America's Southwest is for real: http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/nasa-now-says-vast-methane-cloud-…

Fracking over the next 40 years shows levels of methane gas that will kill the world before global warming: http://www.vox.com/2014/10/7/6934819/oil-prices-falling-russia-OPEC-sha…

Ronda Evans May 10, 2017 at 5:17 pm

When lawmakers put money ahead of the health of the citizens and the protection of our planet's resources, they deserve to be given the boot. Thank you to those Republicans who broke rank and voted for clean air and a promise for our future.

Norma May 13, 2017 at 8:31 am

Thank all of you who decidedly voted to save our planet and promote health, humankind and save our cherished natural habitats!

Betty Hatfield May 16, 2017 at 10:02 pm Add new comment

Our opposition in the Senate tried to put the interests of the oil & gas industry above those of American taxpayers. Your Senator fought back--and won. Regional. C4.

Our opposition in the Senate tried to put the interests of the oil & gas industry above those of American taxpayers. Your Senator fought back--and won. Regional. C4.

Our opposition in the Senate tried to put the interests of the oil & gas industry above those of American taxpayers. Your Senator fought back--and won. Regional. C4.