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WASHINGTON — As Congress begins to assemble a once-in-a-century federal investment in infrastructure, the Biden administration is taking steps to redefine the process for permitting such projects.
It’s a quieter set of actions that could amount to sweeping changes to how the money, once authorized by lawmakers, is directed across the Pittsburgh region and the country.
Biden officials are studying a 50-year-old environmental permitting law, widening the scope of reviews and restoring provisions rolled back by the Trump administration last year. The changes could advance President Joe Biden’s climate agenda by funneling federal dollars to specific projects, like those powered by clean energy, while stalling others, like those run by fossil fuels.
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Photo Credit: Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette

Before sunrise on a June morning in 2019, a section of pipe nearly five decades old ruptured at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery, spewing a cloud of flammable vapor that hung to the ground like a spectral fog.
Within minutes, according to a surveillance video, a series of explosions in the refinery’s alkylation unit rained huge pieces of shrapnel across the refinery and released 5,239 pounds of hydrofluoric acid (HF), a chemical so toxic that worker-safety advocates have called for its banishment from use in refining.
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Photo Credit: Jessica Griffin/The Philadelphia Enquirer

We grew up believing that everyone had to deal with asthma. Everyone had to use a nebulizer just to breathe, or had a history of lung disease in their family, right? But as we got older, we realized these things were not normal. This is the harsh reality nearly every child in Chicago’s predominantly Black and Latino Southeast Side has to face. We are raised believing factories are a part of everyday life, harsh smells are unavoidable, and having toxic metals in your backyard soil is typical. The Southeast Side is a community where polluting industries are more common than playgrounds, and the rate of lung cancer is over 50% per 100,000 people .
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Photo Credit: Oscar Sanchez

On Monday, Governor Tom Wolf announced a major clean energy initiative that will produce nearly 50 percent of electricity for Pennsylvania’s state government by the year 2023.

On the heels of an Environmental Health News (EHN) study, 35 members of the Pennsylvania House and Senate have issued a public letter calling on state Governor Tom Wolf to take “immediate action in response to the ongoing harm” from fracking.
The letter, led by State Senator Katie Muth and State Representatives Sara Innamorato, points to a study recently published by EHN that found evidence of exposure to harmful chemicals in families living near fracking wells.
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Photo Credit: Senator Katie Muth via Twitter

MILLIE CORDER DIDN’T know why there was so much cancer in her family. Her daughter, Cheryl, was only 27 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and 34 when the disease killed her in 2002. By that time, Millie’s husband, Chuck, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He recovered, only to develop skin cancer in 2005. The next year, Millie herself was diagnosed with colon cancer and, two years after that, with breast cancer. Those years were a blur as she shuttled back and forth between her office, her home, and doctors’ appointments. While she was recovering, Chuck died of his cancer. Two years later, her stepson, Brian, was diagnosed with and died from lung cancer.
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Photo Credit: Jamie Kelter Davis/The Intercept

The Memphis City Council yesterday stepped into the path of a proposed oil pipeline through the Tennessee city, casting its opposition as a fight against “environmental racism.”
The council’s 13 members unanimously passed a resolution opposing the Byhalia Connection pipeline, a joint project of Plains All American Pipeline LP and Valero Energy Corp. Members also gave unanimous initial approval to a proposed ordinance that would require City Council approval for new oil pipelines within city limits and set strict conditions.
Several miles of the 49-mile pipeline would run through low-income, predominantly Black neighborhoods in South Memphis. Opponents say the area has already borne the burdens of too much pollution. They also say that a pipeline spill could damage the aquifer that Memphis and the surrounding region rely on for drinking water.
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Photo Credit: Sean Davis/Flickr

Washington, D.C. March 17, 2021 – Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D-Va.), authors of the landmark Environmental Justice for All Act, wrote to President Biden today urging him to revoke Army Corps of Engineers permits for the proposed Formosa Plastics petrochemical complex located in St. James Parish. The site is in the heart of Louisiana’s Cancer Alley corridor, one of the most heavily polluted regions of the United States, and the community residents have expressly asked the federal government to protect them from further heavy industrial contamination.
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Photo Credit: Giles Clarke/Getty