Trump Shutdown Compounds Threat to Public Safety and Protection
Federal agencies had already been reeling from the Trump administration’s disdain for regulation. The shutdown adds insult to injury — and puts Americans at risk.
2017 Was a Brutal Year for the Environment
The battle of humankind vs. nature might have been a draw this year — with several huge blows to the environment as the planet metaphorically struck back with devastating natural disasters. It is a fight with no winners.
Can Harvey and Irma End Republican Climate Change Denial?
Hurricane Harvey was supposed to be a 500-year event. Instead, it became the third and most destructive in three years. Whether Americans can outlast more catastrophic disasters will depend on the GOP’s willingness to acknowledge and combat the threat of climate change.
When Toxic Politics Clash With Toxic Chemicals
For 40 years, the federal government has failed to protect the public from toxic chemicals. Last year, a bipartisan Congress passed a law to change that state of affairs. Public health advocates worry that the Trump administration is now undermining it.
Lawsuits Pile Up as Government Agencies Delay New Rules
Government agencies continue to delay Obama-era regulations, leading to an influx of legal challenges from states.
EPA Drops Scientists, Invites in Corporations
Over half of the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors have been dismissed to make way for fossil fuel advocates, leading many to worry about the vanishing role of independent scientific review within the agency.
Conflict of Interest Questions Dog Former EPA Official
A former EPA official involved in a controversial study of the health effects of Monsanto’s glyphosate is being taken to court by public interest advocates who want to know more about his ties to the company and the chemical industry.
Why Is the EPA Delaying Release of Glyphosate Information?
Last spring, a report published on the EPA’s website said glyphosate does not cause cancer. It disappeared within a week and an advocacy group’s efforts to obtain the information has been met with silence. Now it is suing for access.
Daggers Drawn: Conservatives Plot Ways to Throttle Agency Power
Pro-business lawyers, scholars dominate Hill conference pushing deregulatory agenda.
Can EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Surprise Everybody?
A large batch of emails from Scott Pruitt’s time as Oklahoma Attorney General reveal an alarmingly cozy relationship with oil and gas industries. Will he put their interests first as head of the EPA or those of the American people?
Unsafe at Any Level? Dangerous Chemicals Everywhere, Part 2
Part 1 of this series revealed the technical difficulties in assessing the potential harm from chemical additives like BPA. Part 2 focuses on the contamination of scientific review by money and politics, and why chemical regulatory systems are not only broken — they are unfixable.
Obama Administration Controls the Message
Barack Obama began his presidency with a promise of unprecedented openness in government. But heading into his final year in office, journalists see an administration that is more interested in message-control than transparency.
WhoWhatWhy Media Extras: WWW Talks Nuclear Mess With Thom Hartmann
Paul DeRienzo appeared on the Thom Hartmann Program to talk about the risk of contamination and explosions from America’s nuclear stockpile waste.
Obama’s Retreat from Green Electronics
Why did the president back away from a commitment that federal agencies use green electronics? Buried in a recent Executive Order on sustainability is recycled rhetoric that undermines long-standing federal policy.
Chevron Making a Killing with Water in California—But at What Cost?
Chevron is selling treated wastewater to California that has been shown to include oil and potentially harmful chemicals. What exactly is in the water used in agriculture is still the oil giant’s dirty secret.
Part 2: Denying Climate Change….
Washington won’t act to slow the chaos of climate change, even as the Navy prepares to patrol an open Arctic Ocean and the oil industry pushes to be able to start drilling in newly ice-free Arctic waters.
Part two of a three-part WhoWhatWhy investigation.
The Blue Dogs: Best Friends of Big Business
[Updates below – Ed.] As the Obama administration attempts to overhaul the nation’s health care, energy, and financial sectors, it faces the growing leverage of the Blue Dog Coalition—the conservative, fifty-two-member faction of the House’s Democratic caucus—to moderate, or obstruct, its goals. The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) recently published an investigation into the Blue Read More
In Defense of Lobbyists
In the days after the November election, Obama’s advisers announced “the strictest, and most far reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history.” These rules included a ban on lobbyists joining the new administration. Why would political ethics demand such a prohibition? According to Obama’s transition team, the new policy sought to curb the Read More