Additionally, as Common Dreams reported Monday, the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility warned congressional committees that the DOI orders are “not legally defensible” and raise “significant” questions about conflicts of interest involving a top ...

Officials told park leaders that most employees should get a grade of 3, meaning that they had achieved their goals, rather than a 4 or 5, which are for exceeding expectations. Park Service watchdogs are critical of the move. “What they’re doing is discarding transparent standards,” ...

Timothy Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), wrote to the top members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the House Committee on Natural Resources regarding the pause on projects off the coasts of Virginia, New ...

The nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a lawsuit on behalf of the farmers and ranchers in Johnson County in June 2024, arguing the EPA failed to identify and regulate toxic chemicals in sewage sludge. The lawsuit points to harmful impacts on communities ...

In their letter, PEER and the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks called out Interior Secretary Doug Burgum for poor leadership. “Under Secretary Burgum’s watch, NPS management appears willing to discard transparent standards, override professional judgment, and ...

Kyla Bennett, director of science policy for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told the council that no proper analysis has shown the existence of PFAs-free turf. Even if the turf did not have PFAs, its microplastics would contaminate soils and water, Bennett said. Read ...

The order appears to violate the Code of Federal Regulations, said Tim Whitehouse, a lawyer and executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The code states that the government cannot require a “forced distribution” of ratings ...

On Wednesday, the council heard from PaddleHeads leadership, officials from the artificial turf company and an environmental expert from the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Kyla Bennett, the director of scientific policy for PEER, told the council there ...

“I want EPA to define PFAS broadly, have a comprehensive federal definition that’s consistent with the states and with OECD,” said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA regulator who is now the director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). “And then ...

On Wednesday, Yackulic and five other former employees filed legal challenges to their firings with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board. They argue their firings are illegal retaliation for perceived political affiliation. These are people who exercised their First Amendment right by ...

Six former EPA staffers who signed an open dissent letter this summer and were later terminated are filing an appeal with the Merit Systems Protection Board. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, part of the legal team representing the employees, announced their appeal ...

The six former EPA employees, who were among roughly 140 workers who signed a “declaration of dissent” in June, argued their firings were not only an illegal response to exercising their First Amendment rights, but also a form of retaliation for “perceived political affiliation,” ...

The fired workers also argued that they arbitrarily received harsher treatment than many other employees who signed the letter, who were suspended without pay for two weeks. According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), one of the groups defending the employees, ...

Ultimately, most targeted for retribution were issued letters of reprimand or forced to take two weeks’ unpaid leave. But around 15 workers, including seven employees still serving their one-year probationary period, were terminated in early October, shortly after the start of the 43-day ...

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which is representing the fired employees, said that the EPA of President Donald Trump has undermined the First Amendment’s free speech protections and has also put the public in danger by removing experienced employees from their ...

Six staffers who the Trump administration fired after they signed a “Declaration of Dissent” letter have filed claims with the Merit Systems Protection Board, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which is helping to represent the ex-employees. The ...

We used geospatial data compiled by the conservation group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility to tell us the land-health status of BLM allotments. The organization obtained the data, which was last updated in December 2023, from the BLM via a public records request. Read the ...

The navy is trying to avoid spending several billion dollars to do a proper clean up, said Jeff Ruch, senior counsel with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility nonprofit, which is involved in litigation at the site. “It’s been one thing after another after another,” ...

Kyla Bennett, director of science policy for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in Massachusetts, said the proposed CVU field should be held to Vermont’s tougher standard for PFAS contamination in water, not soil, and measured in parts per trillion, not billion. That ...

The five Texas farmers who originally brought the lawsuit said the spread of PFAS from biosolids has harmed their animals’ health and severely limited their abilities to grow crops. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and the Potomac Riverkeeper Network joined the ...