Category Archives: US Environmental Protection Agency

EPA has limited six ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water – but there are 15,000

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Rules celebrated for reducing exposures, but experts say it’s not enough and will lead to ‘an endless game of Whac-a-Mole’

Strong new limits for some PFAS compounds in drinking water set by the US Environmental Protection Agency this week are being celebrated for how far they go in reducing exposures to the dangerous chemicals.

But public health advocates say the rules merely represent a first step that is limited in its impact on the broader PFAS crisis because they do not directly prevent more pollution or force the chemical industry to pay for cleanup.

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EPA again OKs use of toxic herbicide linked to Parkinson’s disease

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Agency’s draft report backs paraquat’s safety but lawsuit’s plaintiffs say EPA ignored evidence of Parkinson’s risk

The US Environmental Protection Agency is doubling down on its controversial finding that a toxic herbicide is safe for use across millions of acres of American cropland, despite what public health advocates characterize as virtual “scientific proof” the product causes Parkinson’s disease.

The agency in 2021 reapproved paraquat-based herbicides for use, but a coalition of agricultural and public health groups sued, charging that the EPA had ignored broad scientific consensus linking the substance to Parkinson’s.

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‘It would be devastating’: inside Trump’s plan to destroy the EPA

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Trump has made campaign promises to toss crucial environmental regulations – including dismantling the federal body with the most power to tackle the climate crisis

Donald Trump and his advisers have made campaign promises to toss crucial environmental regulations and boost the planet-heating fossil fuel sector.

Those plans include systemically dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the federal body with the most power to take on the climate emergency and environmental justice, an array of Trump advisers and allies said. It’s a potential future that “horrifies” experts.

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Former EPA official says agency fails to protect public from toxic pesticides

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Karen McCormack says regulators at environmental agency are discouraged from speaking up about dangerous chemicals

Federal regulators are discouraged from speaking up about potentially dangerous pesticides, according to a former agency official.

Karen McCormack, a retired Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientist who spent 40 years with the agency, told Al Jazeera’s investigative show Fault Lines that she believed the EPA was not fulfilling its mission to protect the public from harmful chemicals.

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US industry disposed of at least 60m pounds of PFAS waste in last five years

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Estimate in new EPA analysis is probably ‘dramatic’ undercount because ‘forever chemical’ waste is unregulated in US

US industry disposed of at least 60m pounds of PFAS “forever chemical” waste over the last five years, and did so with processes that probably pollute the environment around disposal sites, a new analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data finds.

The 60m pounds estimate is likely to be a “dramatic” undercount because PFAS waste is unregulated in the US and companies are not required to record its disposal, the paper’s author, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), wrote.

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Revealed: how a little-known pollution rule keeps the air dirty for millions of Americans

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Major investigation shows local governments are increasingly exploiting a loophole in the Clean Air Act, leaving more than 21 million Americans with air that’s dirtier than they realize

A legal loophole has allowed the US Environmental Protection Agency to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, enabling local regulators to claim the air was cleaner than it really was for more than 21 million Americans.

Regulators have exploited a little-known provision in the Clean Air Act called the “exceptional events rule” to forgive pollution caused by “natural” or “uncontrollable” events – including wildfires – on records used by the EPA for regulatory decisions, a new investigation from The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian reveals.

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Government shutdown could hurt weather disaster responses, Fema says

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The House reached a budget deal on Saturday to extend funding for 45 days but Fema looks beyond at potential delays

The budget deal Republicans and Democrats reached in the House on Saturday included a 45-day funding extension for disaster relief funds. Lawmakers had been warning that without that provision, a government shutdown would hamper responses to any new weather disasters, leave hazardous waste sites uninspected, and stop work at federal Superfund clean-up sites.

“Federal emergency management agency (Fema) staff will still respond to emergencies, but all long-term projects will be delayed due to a lack of funding in the disaster relief fund,” warned the Illinois Democrat Lauren Underwood on Friday.

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Drinking water of millions of Americans contaminated with ‘forever chemicals’

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Water of about 26 million is contaminated as new data offers the most robust look into exactly which communities are polluted

Drinking water consumed by millions of Americans from hundreds of communities spread across the United States is contaminated with dangerous levels of toxic chemicals, according to testing data released on Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The data shows that drinking water systems serving small towns to large cities – from tiny Collegeville, Pennsylvania, to Fresno, California – contain measurable levels of so-called “forever chemicals”, a family of durable compounds long used in a variety of commercial products but that are now known to be harmful.

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Supreme court ethics: Senate committee approves new rules as fresh Clarence Thomas claims emerge – as it happened

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Rules passed along party lines; conservative nonprofits reportedly orchestrated a $1.8m PR campaign to defend supreme court justice
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Here’s a rundown of the ethical controversies supreme court justices have been involved in.

Real estate transactions

Just about every week now, we learn something new and deeply troubling about the justices serving on the supreme court, the highest court in the land in the United States, and their conduct outside the courtroom.

Let me tell you, if I or any member of the Senate failed to report an all-expense paid luxury getaway or if we used our government staff to help sell books we wrote, we’d be in big trouble.

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The US banned a brain harming pesticide on food. Why has it slowed a global ban?

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Farmers can’t use chlorpyrifos on food because it damages children’s brains but an EPA official questions restrictions under global treaty

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden announced that his administration planned to scrutinize a Trump-era decision to allow the continued use of chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that can damage children’s brains. And with great fanfare, the Environmental Protection Agency went on to ban the use of the chemical on food.

“Ending the use of chlorpyrifos on food will help to ensure children, farmworkers, and all people are protected from the potentially dangerous consequences of this pesticide,” the head of the EPA, Michael Regan, said in his announcement of the decision in August 2021. “EPA will follow the science and put health and safety first.”

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EPA sued over reapproval of toxic herbicides using Agent Orange chemical

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Federal suit brought by public health groups alleges agency’s science shows human risks and harm to endangered species

Public health groups are suing the US Environmental Protection Agency over the reapproval of two toxic herbicides made with an active ingredient in Agent Orange, a chemical weapon deployed by the US to destroy vegetation in the Vietnam war, and which caused huge health problems among soldiers and Vietnamese residents.

The federal suit alleges the EPA’s science shows the human health risks and harm to endangered species associated with widely spreading the chemical on US cropland, but the agency failed to properly calculate those risks during the reapproval process. The herbicide is also prone to damaging non-GMO crops or vegetation on neighboring fields.

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New US rules could stem emissions from coal and gas power plants

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Environmental groups laud the regulation, which would advance clean power in the US – if it survives expected legal challenges

The US is set to impose new carbon pollution standards upon its coal- and gas-fired power plants, in a move that the Biden administration has hailed as a major step in confronting the climate crisis.

Under new rules put forward by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), new and existing power plants will have to meet a range of new standards to cut their emissions of planet-heating gases. This, the EPA predicts, will spur facilities to switch to cleaner energy such as wind and solar, install rarely used carbon capture technology or shut down entirely.

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Biden team to propose strict vehicle pollution limits to boost EV sales

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Proposal expected to be unveiled on Wednesday would require at least 54% of new vehicles sold in US to be electric by 2030

The Biden administration will propose strict new automobile pollution limits requiring that all-electric vehicles account for as many as two of every three new vehicles sold in the US by 2032 in a plan that would transform the US auto industry.

Under the proposed regulation, expected to be released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday, greenhouse gas emissions for the 2027 through 2032 model years for passenger vehicles would be limited to even stricter levels than the auto industry agreed to in 2021.

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‘Trust the government’: EPA seeks to reassure Ohio residents near toxic spill

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People in East Palestine demand answers from Norfolk Southern railroad, which skipped meeting due to staff safety concerns

The head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) got a first-hand look on Thursday at the toll left by a freight train derailment in Ohio, where toxic chemicals spilled or were burned off, leaving the stench of fresh paint nearly two weeks later.

The EPA’s administrator, Michael Regan, walked along a creek that still reeks of chemicals and sought to reassure skeptical residents that the water was fit for drinking and the air safe to breathe around East Palestine, where just less than 5,000 people live near the Pennsylvania state line.

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More than 80% of US waterways contaminated by ‘forever chemicals’

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Analysis finds ‘widespread contamination’ in the US, with forever chemicals frequently exceeding federal and state limits

Most of America’s waterways are likely contaminated by toxic PFAS “forever chemicals”, a new study conducted by US water keepers finds.

The Waterkeeper Alliance analysis found detectable PFAS levels in 95 out of 114, or 83%, of waterways tested across 34 states and the District of Columbia, and frequently at levels that exceed federal and state limits.

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US firms exploiting Trump-era loophole over toxic ‘forever chemicals’

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Study finds chemical companies dodging federal law designed to track how many PFAS plants are pumping into environment

Chemical companies are dodging a federal law designed to track how many PFAS “forever chemicals” their plants are discharging into the environment by exploiting a loophole created in the Trump administration’s final months, a new analysis of federal records has found.

The Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act put in place requirements that companies discharging over 100lb annually of the dangerous chemicals report the releases to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But during the implementation process, Trump’s EPA created an unusual loophole that at least five chemical companies have exploited.

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Global dismay as supreme court ruling leaves Biden’s climate policy in tatters

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Biden’s election was billed as heralding a ‘climate presidency’ but congressional and judicial roadblocks mean he has little to show

Joe Biden’s election triggered a global surge in optimism that the climate crisis would, finally, be decisively confronted. But the US supreme court’s decision last week to curtail America’s ability to cut planet-heating emissions has proved the latest blow to a faltering effort by Biden on climate that is now in danger of becoming largely moribund.

The supreme court’s ruling that the US government could not use its existing powers to phase out coal-fired power generation without “clear congressional authorization” quickly ricocheted around the world among those now accustomed to looking on in dismay at America’s seemingly endless stumbles in addressing global heating.

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Supreme court decisions: court deals blow on climate but Biden wins immigration case – live

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In its second and final decision of the day, the Supreme Court on Thursday said Biden can terminate a controversial Trump-era immigration policy, known as Remain in Mexico. The ruling affirms a president’s broad power to set the nation’s immigration policy.

The ruling concludes the most consequential supreme court term in recent memory.

The case, which was backed by a host of other Republican-led states including Texas and Kentucky, was highly unusual in that it was based upon the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era strategy to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants that never came into effect. The Biden administration sought to have the case dismissed as baseless given the plan was dropped and has not been resurrected.

Not only was this case about a regulation that does not exist, that never took effect, and which would have imposed obligations on the energy sector that it would have met regardless. It also involves two legal doctrines that are not mentioned in the constitution, and that most scholars agree have no basis in any federal statute.

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Giuliani associate Lev Parnas handed 20 months in prison for campaign finance fraud – as it happened

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• It was a mixed Tuesday for Donald Trump-backed candidates in Republican primary elections around the country. Colorado voters largely rejected most Trump-supporting candidates in Tuesday’s GOP primaries, although Lauren Boebert, the extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman, won her bid for relection.

• In Illinois, Mary Miller, who had been criticized after she declared the Supreme Court’s abortion decision as a “victory for white life” – a spokesman said she had mixed up her words – won in after she was backed by Trump. Darren Bailey, who was also endorsed by Trump, won the Republican gubernatorial primary in the state.

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US must re-examine risks of glyphosate, key Roundup weed-killer ingredient

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Appeals says EPA did not adequately consider whether glyphosate causes cancer and threatens endangered species

The US Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered to take a fresh look at whether glyphosate, the active ingredient in Bayer’s Roundup weed killer, poses unreasonable risks to humans and the environment.

In a 3-0 decision on Friday, the ninth US circuit court of appeals agreed with several environmental, farmworker and food-safety advocacy groups that the EPA did not adequately consider whether glyphosate causes cancer and threatens endangered species.

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