Over the last few months, a number of different companies have requested licenses from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch data centers into space. SpaceX’s proposal alone requests licenses for up to one million satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). But the ...

Kyla Bennett of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, who was involved in both appeals, has been sounding the alarm about PFAS in artificial turf for years. “I actually was sued by an artificial turf company in my individual capacity for saying that artificial turf has PFAS ...

The number of US chemical accidents is rising just as the Trump administration guts protections against the disasters, a new analysis of federal data by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit found. The report found the number of chemical accidents, ...

 A coalition of environmental groups is urging the Trump administration to scrutinize the cumulative impacts of efforts to launch more than a million data centers into orbit, citing risks to human health and the climate. DarkSky International, Environment America and Public Employees for ...

Pacific gray whales are facing a “catastrophic mortality event,” with 145 fatal strandings reported along the West Coast this year — including at least 20 in California so far — environmentalists warned this week, citing NOAA‑linked data. The organization Public Employees for ...

In addition, in 2024, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) sued the EPA on behalf of Texas farmers over its failure to regulate PFAS in biosolids and prevent them from contaminating farmlands. The US District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the case in 2025 ...

But the initiative did not come without a cost to taxpayers. In December, the executive director of the environmental nonprofit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) claimed the Trump administration cost taxpayers an estimated $10 billion in 2025 through its ...

CNBC’s Luke Fountain is at the Great American State Fair on the Washington Mall for celebrations of the nation’s 250th Independence Day. Freedom 250, the sponsor of the state fair, has become politicized because the Trump administration has pushed many events through that, ...

Tony Irish, a former Interior Department attorney who now works for the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told SFGATE that many employees believe department leaders underestimated how specialized communications jobs are within individual bureaus. “What a ...

Tony Irish, a former associate solicitor for general law at the Interior Department who left government in 2025, told USA TODAY that the effort to capture Americans’ personal data is concerning, especially since the Freedom 250 events are using considerable U.S. government civilian and ...

On May 11, 2026, PEER brought a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.to force the release of key documents regarding the “Freedom 250” initiative. An official ...

“Farmers are waking up. They’re angry. But a lot of them also don’t have any choice in the matter,” says Kyla Bennett, a former EPA staffer who is now director of science policy for the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). She called the use of ...

Plans by the Trump administration to roll back regulations on chemical facility safety will allow for the continued rise in industrial chemical accidents, which are already up by 50% since 2021, a watchdog group warned this week. The administration is making an “appalling” divestment ...

In May, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility sued the U.S. Interior Department over the agency’s refusal to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request for documents on Freedom 250 funding and activities. Among the group’s inquiries are reports that federal workers ...

Close to 150 million people live within 3 miles of these facilities. Historically underserved and overburdened populations, including people who identify as Black and Latino, are at greatest risk of exposure to an accidental release. Many refineries were built before 1985, the analysis ...

While Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and its allies challenged that agreement as an illegal evasion of the court’s order and NEPA, the court without explanation dismissed the challenge Wednesday. “This unfortunate ruling means that the impacts of noisy disruptive air ...

Two conservation groups filed a rulemaking petition in 2023 asking the Biden administration to adopt a national strategy to reduce whale strikes. The Biden and now Trump administrations have not acted on the recommendations, according to Rick Steiner, an Anchorage-based marine ecologist ...

That confusion over who decides what is corrosive or disparaging is at the heart of a lawsuit recently filed by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER. After nine months of failed Freedom of Information Act requests to find out how those decisions were made, PEER ...

Lilly’s acting role has come under fire from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The watchdog group argues that acting titles are meant for career senior officials that step temporarily into posts requiring Senate confirmation. The White House officially nominated Lilly in ...

Critics also contend that mandating that pins be worn by feds, who are barred from engaging in partisan political activity while on the job, is illegal. “Requiring NPS personnel, uniformed or not, to wear a pin displaying the trademarked logo of Freedom 250, LLC is unlawful, full stop ...