EPA

Pandemic Used To Cover For Loosening Crop Poison Regulation

May 17, 2020 Sarah Okeson, DC Report. Educate! EPA, Food and Agriculture, health, Pesticides

The Trump EPA wants to reapprove use of a dangerous herbicide. Trump appointees are hiding behind the COVID-19 pandemic to excuse a herbicide manufacturer from monitoring levels of the poison in Midwest lakes and streams. The EPA plans to raise the concentration of atrazine allowed in streams and lakes to 15 parts per billion. That is more than four times higher than what the EPA had recommended under the Obama administration. In April, Elissa Reaves, acting director of the herbicide re-evaluation division, suspended monitoring for the rest of the year. “The public will now have no idea whether dangerous levels of atrazine are reaching rivers and streams throughout the Midwest,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “That’s absurd and reckless.”

Report: Nearly Half Of Americans Breathing Unhealthy Air

May 4, 2020 Dana Drugmand, DeSmog Blog. Educate! Air Pollution, EPA, health, Trump

As the death toll from COVID-19 continues to rise in the U.S. — and as initial studies suggest that long-term exposure to air pollution may lead to higher death rates from the disease — a new report finds that nearly five in 10 Americans are breathing polluted air. According to the American Lung Association’s (ALA) latest State of Air Report released April 21, 150 million Americans — almost half the population — are living in areas with unhealthy air. The findings challenge clean air claims by the Trump administration and fossil fuel allies. The report also describes how the current administration’s environmental rollbacks threaten the nation’s air quality and public health. The American Lung Association’s 21st annual State of the Air Report marks the 50th anniversary of the Clean Air Act, a bedrock environmental law enacted in 1970.

Trump’s EPA Weakens Justification For Life-Saving Mercury Pollution Rule

April 21, 2020 Olivia Rosane, Ecowatch. Educate! Air Pollution, Deregulation, EPA, health

As many Americans fight for their lives in the midst of a respiratory pandemic, the Trump administration Thursday axed the justification for a mercury pollution rule that saves more than 10,000 lives and prevents as many as 130,000 asthma attacks each year. The new rollback leaves mercury emission standards in place for now, but changes how their benefits are calculated so that the economic cost takes precedence over public health gains, The New York Times reported. The move provides a legal opening to challenge other pollution controls even as evidence suggests that exposure to air pollution might increase one's chances of dying from the new coronavirus. "This is an absolute abomination," former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head under Obama and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) president Gina McCarthy said in a statement.

EPA Is Unleashing Pollution That Makes Us Vulnerable To COVID-19

April 15, 2020 Sharon Zhang, Truthout. Educate! COVID-19, EPA, health, pollution

Past exposure to air pollution increases the risk that an individual will suffer critical illness after contracting COVID-19, according to a report released on April 8 by researchers at Harvard. In light of this finding, the recent decision of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to indefinitely suspend environmental rule enforcement is tantamount to gross negligence. And, as waves of the virus come and go, the rule suspension could have consequences for months to come. The Harvard research has confirmed what scientists had already strongly suspected to be true: Exposure to air pollution exacerbates the worst effects of the virus. Just one unit more of long-term exposure to hazardous fine particulate matter, the researchers found, is correlated with an increase in COVID-19 mortality of 15 percent.

US EPA Continues Glyphosate Cancer Cover Up With Regulatory Review Publication

February 1, 2020 Staff, Sustainablepulse.com Educate! Cancer, EPA, glyphosate

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has continued its glyphosate cover-up by announcing Thursday that they have finished and published their regulatory review and found that glyphosate is ‘not a carcinogen’. In a statement released Thursday the agency said; “EPA has concluded that there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used according to the label and that it is not a carcinogen.”

What Are We Doing To Ourselves? 84,000 Chemicals, And Only 1% Have Been Tested

January 24, 2020 By Reynard Loki, Alternet.org Educate! Chemicals, EPA

There are around 84,000 chemicals on the market, and we come into contact with many of them every single day. And if that isn't enough to cause concern, the shocking fact is that only about 1 percent of them have been studied for safety. In 2010, at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health, Lisa Jackson, then the administrator of the EPA, put our current, hyper-toxic era into sharp perspective: "A child born in America today will grow up exposed to more chemicals than any other generation in our history."

The EPA Is Aggressively Approving Very Dangerous Pesticides

January 18, 2020 Staff, Sustainablepulse.com Educate! EPA, Pesticides

As reported by U.S. Right to Know last May, court documents showed that a domestic policy advisor at the White House said, ‘We have Monsanto’s back on pesticides regulation.’ In a new and unsettling report from the Center for Biological Diversity, we now have confirmation that this promise is being kept. The study, called Toxic Hangover: How the EPA Is Approving New Products With Dangerous Pesticides It Committed to Phasing Out, found that the EPA approved 1,190 pesticide products and denied only 71 in the 2017-2018 time period, giving it a 94% approval percentage.

Fighting Back: Six States Sue The EPA Over Its Approval Of Pesticide Linked To Brain Damage

August 19, 2019 By Alexandra Jacobo, Nationofchange.org Resist! California, Courts, EPA, Lawsuit, Pesticides

Last month the EPA announced that despite urging from the scientific community, it will not ban the dangerous pesticide chlorpyrifos. Now six states are fighting back against the decision. California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland and Vermont have filed a lawsuit against the EPA arguing the chloypyrifos poses a significant danger to human health and should be banned. A similar lawsuit has been filed by Earthjustice on behalf of the environmental and health groups that advocate for environmentalists, farmworkers, and people with learning disabilities. The EPA argues that environmental groups do not have enough data to determine that chlorpyrifos isn’t safe. “Registration review is a comprehensive, scientific and transparent process that will further evaluate the potential effects of chlorpyrifos.

EPA Refuses To Allow Warning Labels For Glyphosate

August 17, 2019 By Alexandra Jacobo, Nationofchange.org Educate! California, EPA, glyphosate, Labeling

The Environmental Protection Agency is protecting Monsanto by refusing to approve warning labels for products that contain glyphosate. Although the Internation Agency for Research on Cancer has labeled glyphosate – the active ingredient in Monsanto’s weed killer Roundup – as a “probable carcinogen”, the EPA is adamant the research has failed to prove a significant public risk to human health. The EPA’s decision is in response to a court order obtained by Monsanto against the state of California.

EPA Plans To Rewrite Clean Water Act Rules To Fast-Track Pipelines

August 14, 2019 Phil McKenna, Insideclimatenews.org Educate! EPA, Pipelines, Reform

The Trump administration is proposing changes to federal regulations that could fast-track the approval of natural gas pipelines and other energy infrastructure. Environmental advocates say the move will weaken the ability of states and tribes to protect their waters. The proposed changes to Clean Water Act permitting rules, announced Friday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, would limit the amount of time states and tribes can take to review new project proposals to a "reasonable period" of no more than one year...

People Of Color And White Rural Populations Are Going To Suffer The Most From The EPA’s War On Renewable Power

August 9, 2019 By Gloria Oladipo, Otherwords.org Educate! Class Struggle, Coal Mining, EPA, Renewable Energy

New coal standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are threatening to permanently undermine the federal government’s power to control power plant pollution. The new rule — which would empower states to decide how much they want to reduce their emissions, if at all — will be devastating for all Americans. Especially vulnerable are people of color and rural populations. Several states — California, Washington, and Iowa to name a few — have already challenged the new rule.

The 9-Percent Lie: Why Are The USDA And EPA Hiding The Fact That Half Of All US Greenhouse Gas Emissions Come From Industrial Food, Farming And Land Use?

July 30, 2019 Ronnie Cummins, Organicconsumers.org Educate! EPA, Farming, Food and Agriculture, greenhouse gases, Land, USDA

The Climate Emergency is finally getting the attention of the media and the U.S. (and world) body politic, as well as a growing number of politicians, activists and even U.S. farmers. This great awakening has arrived just in time, given the record-breaking temperatures, violent weather, crop failures and massive waves of forced migration that are quickly becoming the norm. Global scientists have dropped their customary caution. They now warn us that we have to drastically reduce global emissions—by at least 45 percent...

Climate Change References Are Disappearing From U.S. Government Sites

July 26, 2019 Jordan Davidson, Ecowatch.com Educate! Censorship, Climate Change, EPA, Fossil Fuels

It's no secret that the Trump administration has championed fossil fuels and scoffed at renewable energy. But the Trump administration is trying to keep something secret: the climate crisis. That's according to a new analysis from the watchdog group Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) who found that more than a quarter of the references to climate change on .gov websites vanished. The watchdog group found some disturbing trends since Trump took office in January of 2017.

Groups Demand EPA Remove Monsanto’s License To Pollute

July 3, 2019 Friends of the Earth. Resist! Environment, EPA, health, Monsanto

Washington, D.C. – On June 26, environmental and consumer organizations are delivering more than 149,000 public comments to the Environmental Protection Agency advocating for a ban on glyphosate, aka Monsanto’s RoundUp, which is linked to cancer. The EPA is collecting public comments until July 5th for glyphosate’s proposed interim registration review, which could allow glyphosate to be used in the U.S. for another 15 years. “The science is clear about glyphosate. This dangerous herbicide causes serious health risks, including cancer, and threatens our environment,” said Jason Davidson with Friends of the Earth.“EPA must do its job and ban this toxic pesticide instead of prioritizing corporate profits.”

A Tale Of Two Toxic Cities

March 5, 2019 By Sharon Lerner, Theintercept.com Educate! EPA, pollution, Toxic Chemicals

After a crucial division of the Environmental Protection Agency reassessed the dangers of two key pollutants — ethylene oxide and chloroprene — the risk of cancer from air pollution shot up in many communities around the country. In 109 census tracts around the United States, the risk was suddenly unacceptable, according to the EPA’s own standards. Yet the agency didn’t take the next logical step: regulating these compounds or limiting emissions to protect residents from exposure. Instead, what happened next depended on where these hotspots were — and who was living there.

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