IN SOME WAYS, they couldn’t be more different. Gerica Cammack is a Black woman from Alabama; Floyd Kimball is a white man from rural Idaho. Yet they’re facing a similar ordeal. They’re both single parents, forced by difficult circumstances to live in government-subsidized housing surrounded by pollution that is, or could be, poisoning their children. Like tens of thousands of people across the country, they live near, or on, some of the most toxic places in the nation. And the government has failed to protect them.
Read more…
Photo credit: Andi Rice for The Intercept
Category: News Archive
Political officials at EPA have overruled the agency’s career scientists to weaken a major health assessment for a toxic chemical contaminating the drinking water of an estimated 860,000 Americans, according to four sources with knowledge of the changes.
The changes to the safety assessment for the chemical PFBS, part of a class of “forever chemicals” called PFAS, is the latest example of the Trump administration’s tailoring of science to align with its political agenda, and another in a series of eleventh-hour steps the administration has taken to hamstring President-elect Joe Biden’s ability to support aggressive environmental regulations.
Read more…
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Rick Snyder, the former governor of Michigan who oversaw the state when a water crisis devastated the city of Flint, has been charged with two counts of willful neglect of duty, according to court records.
The charges are misdemeanors punishable by imprisonment of up to one year or a maximum fine of $1,000.
Prosecutors in Michigan will report their findings in a wide-ranging investigation into the water crisis on Thursday, officials said, a long-awaited announcement that is also expected to include charges against several other officials and top advisers to Mr. Snyder.
Read more…
Photo credit: Brittany Greeson for The New York Times
Former Michigan governor Rick Snyder, his health director and other ex-officials have been told they’re being charged after a new investigation of the Flint water scandal, which devastated the majority Black city with lead-contaminated water and was blamed for a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in 2014-15, the Associated Press has learned.
Two people with knowledge of the planned prosecution told the AP on Tuesday that the attorney general’s office has informed defense lawyers about indictments in Flint and told them to expect initial court appearances soon. They spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Read more…
Photo credit: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday finalized a rule that would allow future greenhouse gas limits only on power plants, sidestepping oversight over the oil and gas industry, iron and steel manufacturers and other polluting industries.
The new rule from the EPA argues that only sectors whose pollution accounts for more than 3 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are “considered to contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.”
The rule is a direct response to a 2017 executive order from President Trump that asked agencies to “immediately review existing regulations that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources.”
Read more…
Green groups on Monday filed a lawsuit in an attempt to prevent a new rule limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) use of certain studies from taking effect.
The lawsuit takes aim at the EPA’s Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science rule, also known as the “secret science” rule, which restricts the use of studies that don’t make their underlying data public.
The agency has billed the rule as a transparency measure, though its opponents argue that it will prevent consideration of important public health studies that can’t publish their data for reasons such as privacy.
Read more…
Photo credit: istock
he federal appropriations bill for the 2021 fiscal year, signed into law this week, included $26.5 million to test for lead in schools and child care centers, a nod to the legacy of the Flint water crisis, which lifted the issue of lead in drinking water into the national spotlight.
The bill was signed a week after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency introduced new requirements for water utilities to test water in elementary schools and day cares for lead.
The Flint crisis spurred a national conversation on the dangers of exposing children to lead. “It really alters the entire life-course trajectory of a child,” Mona Hanna-Attisha, a Flint pediatrician, told Circle of Blue. Hanna-Attisha’s research helped uncover the extent of the city’s lead contamination, revealing elevated lead levels in the blood of children who ingested drinking water supplied from the Flint River.
Read more…
Photo credit: J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue
The Environmental Protection Agency has completed one of its last major rollbacks under the Trump administration, changing how it considers evidence of harm from pollutants in a way that opponents say could cripple future public-health regulation.
The EPA administrator, Andrew Wheeler, formally announced the completion of what he calls the “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” rule in a Zoom appearance before Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative thinktank on Tuesday. The EPA completed the final rule last week.
Read more…
Photo credit: Alex Brandon/AP
Though it may have been eclipsed in headlines and worrying by the coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis has not gone away.
As new President Joe Biden tries to implement policies with the goal of redirecting economic development toward greenhouse gas reduction, he’ll have to contend with pressure not only from groups on the right who oppose environmental regulations, but with those on the left who may see Biden’s plans as too timid.
Read more…
Photo credit: (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)