Tag: Trump EPA

Experts warn Trump’s EPA policies mean more cases of autism

Credit: Getty Images

Small particles of air pollution can travel directly from the nose to the brain, causing damage.

Some of the country’s leading experts on healthy brain development have come together to warn the public that President Donald Trump’s efforts to roll back science-based air pollution standards will come at a high cost to our children.

Published in the American Journal of Public Health this week, these scientists and doctors cite “mounting evidence linking air pollution to neurodevelopmental disorders in children, like autism, ADHD, memory deficiencies and reduced IQ.”

The article makes several specific recommendations for how the government can protect children, one of the most important being to “strengthen and enforce federal fuel efficiency standards.” As the article explains, “Increasing evidence links prenatal exposure to traffic-related air pollutants and PM2.5 [tiny particulates] to autism spectrum disorder.”

View the complete March 1 article by Joe Romm on the ThinkProgress website here.

Senate confirms Wheeler to lead EPA

The Senate on Thursday voted to confirm Andrew Wheeler as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a 52-47 mostly party-line vote.

Every Democrat voted against Wheeler, while Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) was the only Republican to vote against him.

Collins in a statement Wednesday said she would not vote for Wheeler, a former energy lobbyist, because of his track record backing policies that weaken rules protecting air pollution and lowering car emissions.

View the complete February 28 article by Miranda Green on The Hill website here.

EPA regulator skirts the line between former clients and current job

Bill Wehrum, the Environmental Protection Agency’s top air-policy official, in Washington earlier this month. Credit: Bill O’Leary, The Washington Post

Less than a month into his tenure as the top air-policy official at the Environmental Protection Agency, Bill Wehrum hopped into the EPA’s electric Chevy Volt and rode to the Pennsylvania Avenue offices of his former law firm.

There, he met with representatives of the nation’s largest power companies — including two groups that, shortly before, had been his paying clients — to brief them on the Trump administration’s plans to weaken federal environmental regulations.

The Dec. 7, 2017, meeting is just one example of interactions between Wehrum, a skilled lawyer and regulator, and former clients that ethics experts say comes dangerously close to violating federal ethics rules. Wehrum acknowledges that since joining the EPA in November 2017, he has met with two former clients at his old firm — without consulting in advance with ethics officials, even though they had cautioned him about such interactions. He also weighed in on a policy shift that could have influenced litigation involving DTE Energy, a Detroit-based utility represented by his former firm.

View the complete February 25 article by Juliet Eilperin on The Washington Post website here.

These toxins last ‘forever.’ But the EPA is going slow

Andrew Wheeler, acting administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, prepares to testify before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in August. Credit: Bill Clark, CQ Roll Call file photo

PFAS were used for decades to make cookware, microwave popcorn bags, carpeting, rainwear and shoes

When two officials from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality showed up at Sandy Wynn-Stelt’s Belmont, Michigan, house in July of 2017 asking to test her private water well, she didn’t anticipate trouble.

So she was stunned when they discovered incredibly high levels of a class of chemicals that are raising serious pollution and health concerns as communities around the country discover their water is contaminated with them.

The compounds, known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, were used for decades in manufacturing products such as cookware, microwave popcorn bags, carpeting, rainwear and shoes, as well as polishes, cleaning products and fire retardants because they make surfaces resistant to heat, water and staining.

View the complete February 19 article by Jacob Holzman on The Roll Call website here.

EPA Wants To Free Uranium Miners To Pollute Western Groundwater

Industry Says Current, Tougher Pollution Rules Are ‘Impossible to Meet’

Our nation’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is dominated by Trump appointees, is asking for suggestions about regulating a type of uranium mining after EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, who once lobbied for a uranium miner, junked more stringent mining rules.

Mining uranium could pollute groundwater our western states might later need during droughts. The way to mine uranium most used today, in situ uranium recovery, pumps an oxygen-enriched solution into the ground to dissolve uranium deposits. More chemicals are used to remove the liquid uranium.

Mining companies are supposed to repair damage from uranium mining, but Thomas Borch, an environmental chemistry professor at Colorado State University, led a study that found uranium levels in water at a Wyoming well were more than 70 times higher after mining.

View the complete February 7 article by Sarah Okeson on the DC Report website here.

New EPA Advisory Board Member Believes Burning Fossil Fuels Is Good For Earth

© Getty

“Carbon dioxide makes things grow. Plants love this stuff,” John Christy has said.

The newest member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board is a climate change skeptic whose research has been debunked and who believes that burning fossil fuels is actually beneficial.

“There’s a benefit, not a cost, to producing energy from carbon,” John Christy, an atmospheric science professor at the University of Alabama in Hunstville, told E&E (Energy and Environment) News.

He didn’t elaborate, but he once told The Guardian: “Carbon dioxide makes things grow. Plants love this stuff. It creates more food. There is absolutely no question that carbon energy provides… longer and better lives.”

View the complete February 3 article by Mary Papenfuss on the Huffington Post website here.

**ICYMI** Politico Exclusive: Trump EPA won’t limit 2 toxic chemicals in drinking water

The Trump administration will not set a drinking water limit for two toxic chemicals that are contaminating millions of Americans’ tap water, two sources familiar with the forthcoming decision told POLITICO.

The expected move is yet another sign of the administration’s reluctance to aggressively deal with the chemicals, which have been used for decades in products such as Teflon-coated cookware and military firefighting foam and are present in the bloodstreams of an estimated 98 percent of Americans. And it comes less than a year after the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency faced criticism for delaying publication of a health study on the chemicals, which a White House aide had warned could trigger a “public relations nightmare.”

EPA’s decision means the chemicals will remain unregulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, according to sources familiar with a still-unreleased draft plan that acting administrator Andrew Wheeler signed off on in late December. That means utilities will face no federal requirements for testing for and removing the chemicals from drinking water supplies, although several states have pursued or are pursuing their own limits.

View the complete January 28 article by Annie Snider on the Politico website here.

Democrats want answers about the Interior Department’s decisions during the shutdown

A once vibrant Joshua Tree severed in half in an act of vandalism in Joshua Tree National Park on January 8, 2019. Credit: Gina Ferazzi, Los AngelesTimes via Getty Images

Controversial decisions made by the Interior Department and other agencies during the ongoing partial government shutdown are emerging as an immediate test of power for Democrats looking to hold the Trump administration accountable after re-taking the House of Representatives.

The use of entrance fees to keep national parks open, along with a sudden decision to bring back department employees to work on offshore drilling and related tasks, have come under fire from House Democrats and environmental groups — they argue Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and other officials may be breaking the law. And lawmakers are looking to flex their new power once the government reopens.

On Wednesday, Rep. Betty McCollum (DFW-MN), chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee for agencies including the Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), announced that she intends to probe the Trump administration’s decisions during the shutdown.

View the complete January 25 article by E. A. Crunden on the ThinkProgress website here.

Coal industry fought black lung tax as disease rates rose

An overview of a coal prep plant outside the city of Welch in rural West Virginia on May 19, 2017, in Welch, West Virginia. Credit: Spencer Platt, Getty Images

Coal companies and industry groups lobbied against extending a tax program that provides a lifeline for sufferers and their families

While cases of black lung disease among miners were on the rise last year, coal companies and industry groups lobbied lawmakers against extending a tax program that provides a lifeline for sufferers and their families.

Mandatory disclosures show the coal lobby spent some of its influence money on discussions with lawmakers regarding the Black Lung Excise Tax and the trust fund that helps pay for the health and living benefits of sick coal workers whose employers have gone bankrupt, and their beneficiaries.

Industry efforts appear to have paid off as Congress did not act by Dec. 31 to extend the higher excise tax on coal companies, the primary source of money for the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, which was established in 1977.

View the complete January 25 article by Elvina Nawaguna on The Roll Call website here.

Civil penalties for polluters dropped dramatically in Trump’s first two years, analysis shows

Civil penalties for polluters under the Trump administration plummeted during the past fiscal year to the lowest average level since 1994, according to a new analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.

In the two decades before President Trump took office, EPA civil fines averaged more than $500 million a year, when adjusted for inflation. Last year’s total was 85 percent below that amount — $72 million, according to the agency’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online database.

Cynthia Giles, who headed the EPA’s enforcement office in the Obama administration and conducted the analysis, said the inflation-adjusted figures were the lowest since the agency’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance was established.