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 ...

The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a complaint Oct. 29 demanding the EPA retract or defend information on its website about PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid, a chemical that belongs to a group of manmade chemicals commonly referred to as “forever chemicals&# ...

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has issued a Freedom of Information Act request to solicit information on Interior’s reorganization and what the fee structure looks like and recently filed a lawsuit after failing to get a timely response. Jeff Ruch, PEER’s senior ...

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility claims Clark’s role as acting administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs now runs afoul of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. If Clark’s appointment is deemed invalid, his actions in office — and many of the ...

Environmental advocates also accuse the EPA of ignoring clear scientific evidence. Kyla Bennett, a former EPA scientist who now works with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said PFAS exposure can cause developmental issues in children, obesity, cholesterol problems and ...

The drilling plan, promoted by Devon, Chesapeake Energy Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp., Northwoods Energy and EOG Resources, Inc., ran into trouble at the beginning when a BLM whistleblower claimed the agency was dismissing worries about migrating and nesting raptors. The BLM fired him ...

Vance and Trump may also be prosecuted under the Appropriations Rider – but can easily get around penalties, by restricting their propaganda to free or privately-funded propaganda. David Warrington, White House Counsel, advises Trump on legal and ethical matters. However, Russel Vought, ...

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which filed a challenge of Pendley’s tenure in 2020, sent a letter Friday to the Interior Department expressing concern that the various BLM acting heads, including Groffy, don’t satisfy the requirements of the law that outlines who ...

According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Forest Service employees have been told that they are “not authorized to use administrative leave to vote or participate in voting-related activities” without exception, although a similar policy has not been announced at ...

The officials “are improperly using titles and issuing regulatory decisions and other actions stating they are the ‘acting’ officials in positions that require Senate confirmation,” said Timothy Whitehouse, PEER’s executive director, in the letter. Whitehouse asked Interior to ...

“PFAS are in every single sample that I have seen a lab report done correctly on,” Bennett said of further research she’s reviewed on turf fields. In addition to the potential for PFAS, Bennett noted the likelihood that turf fields will emit microplastics, which have also been linked ...