Category: News Archive

Many agencies of our national government suffered from neglect during the four years of Donald Trump’s anti-governmental reign as president, but EPA was already damaged when Trump arrived. Writing on this issue a year ago, I noted that EPA reduced:
“…staff during the Obama years from 17,049 in 2009 to 14,777 in 2016 and was further reduced [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][under Trump] to 14,172 in 2019. Funding has been reduced from a peak of $10.3 billion in FY 2010 to $8.8 billion in FY 2019. These data do not account for inflation so the reductions over the past decade are underplayed by these figures.”
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Photo Credit: N.C. Department of Environmental Quality[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

The Senate on Monday voted to confirm Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., as President Joe Biden’s secretary of the Department of the Interior, making the second-term Democrat the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history.
The vote was 51-40, with four Republicans joining Democrats in favor.
Haaland, an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo, earned bipartisan support to run the Interior department, which has a staff of 70,000 employees and is charged with overseeing the country’s natural resources. The agency manages nearly 500 million acres of land, or one-fifth of the surface area of the United States.
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Photo Credit: Sarah Silbiger/Pool/Getty Images

The Senate confirmed Michael Regan to lead the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, putting the North Carolina regulator in charge of restoring the climate and water pollution regulations that the Trump administration had weakened.

Regan spent four years as secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, where his record of fixing environmental problems faced by low-income residents and communities of color drew national attention. It also propelled him to the Cabinet-level position above more prominent state regulators, such as California’s Mary Nichols.

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Photo Credit: Caroline Brehman-Pool/Getty Images

President Joseph Biden Jr. has committed to making major improvements in environmental justice communities (EJCs) by pledging to invest 40% of his $2 trillion clean energy plan into these communities.
The question for industry is what this will look like and how it will impact business.
A judicial order in a Louisiana district court case late last year could provide some clues. The EPA’s EJSCREEN mapping tool, used to identify pollution risks in minority and low-income communities, provided pivotal information for the judge.
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Photo Credit: Petrmalinak/Shutterstock.com

A growing number of states are adopting laws that promote environmental justice (EJ), which is the equitable treatment and involvement of all people, regardless of demographic, in the development and application of environmental laws and policies.
These laws are giving regulators and communities new tools to mitigate negative environmental impacts that have historically and disproportionately affected minority and low-income communities.
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Photo Credit: Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Government

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — Dariel Yazzie, Environmental Assistant Director for the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) takes a deep breath when asked about why the cleanup of uranium mines on the Navajo Nation is important to him.
“It’s personal,” he said.
Yazzie shares that it has impacted his health and many of his family members’ health.
Yazzie grew up in Cane Valley, southeast of Monument Valley, and said his maternal grandfather Luke Yazzie Sr. found uranium mill tailings less than a mile from their homestead. Their home was demolished in 2009 because of the contamination.
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Photo Credit: Kathy Helms/Gallup Independent via AP

Oscar Sanchez’s fight against a scrapyard set to be relocated to his Southeast Chicago neighborhood has taken quite the physical toll. He’s lost about 20 pounds in the past month. He is increasingly unable to sleep, speak, or think clearly. Sometimes it’s so bad he can’t remember what he said even five minutes ago.
Sanchez knows exactly why his mind and body are deteriorating: He is one of more than 100 Chicagoans participating in a hunger strike to force the city to rethink the scrapyard’s proposed location. The metal recycling plant used to be in a wealthy, mostly white neighborhood, but its newly approved site is in a lower-income, predominantly Latino area that’s already carrying a higher environmental burden compared to other parts of the city.
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Photo Credit: Grist/Google Earth
The hunger strike ended on March 7th after over a month of protests and direct actions, but activists vow to continue the fight. Read about their continued fight here.

WASHINGTON — The census tracts span much of Pittsburgh, along with the suburban North Hills and South Hills. They snake along the banks of the regions rivers, encompassing small towns like Connellsville and Kittanning, rural swaths of Indiana County and the woods of the Allegheny National Forest.
State officials have deemed the tracts as environmental justice zones: areas with high poverty rates or high rates of “non-white minorities,” or both, and that often contend with industrial development or pollution issues.
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Photo Credit: Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette