News Clips

Conservation groups sue Bureau of Land Management over its grazing practices

by KJZZ | September 13, 2023
Conservationists frequently criticize the agency for its grazing policies, and two of them have filed suit. The Western Watersheds Project and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility say the law requires the BLM to conduct an environmental assessment before it issues a grazing ...

Conservation groups sue BLM for rangeland degradation

by High Country News | September 13, 2023
The Bureau of Land Management oversees 246 million acres of land — scrubby sagebrush, rolling deserts and dense forests — mostly in the Western U.S. It’s home to all sorts of things, from sage grouse, pronghorn and ponderosa pines to dirt bikers, cows and drilling infrastructure. But ...

Senator presses BLM on vacant grazing land in Washington

by East Oregonian | September 13, 2023
“I can’t imagine that out of 40,000 acres there isn’t a sizable percentage that BLM couldn’t work with farmers and ranchers in the area to lease,” Schoesler said. Environmental organizations are looking to reduce grazing on BLM land. Western Watersheds Project ...

Guest column: The Bureau of Land Management is ignoring its most serious land-health problem

by Bozeman Daily Chronicle | September 8, 2023
In a recent opinion piece, Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning claims her agency has a renewed focus on land health. However, she fails to make even a single mention of the most pervasive land-health problem the agency faces: livestock-caused ecological destruction ...

US government is funding kills of endangered animals, activists say | Focusing on Wildlife

by ReportWire | September 8, 2023
In a statement to the Guardian, the interior department claimed federal money is not used for the kills. Spokesperson Melissa Schwartz said the allegation that the department funded state kills was “wildly inaccurate”. But the coalition said the interior department’s statement is ...

Biden Admin Scientific Integrity Policy Falls Short, Warn Watchdogs

by Common Dreams | September 5, 2023
Groups including Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the Government Accountability Project, and the Center for Reproductive Rights wrote to the administration to warn that both Democratic and Republican administrations have stood in the way of scientific integrity, ...

PEER: Biden revamp of scientific integrity policies ‘falls short’

by Remediation Technology | September 5, 2023
The first revamped agency scientific integrity policy crafted under a Biden initiative leaves a lot to be desired, according to comments submitted by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and a coalition of ten public health, transparency, and environmental groups. If ...

First revamped science policy falls short of fulfilling Biden’s promise to protect scientists, watchdogs say

by Government Executive | September 5, 2023
The Health and Human Services Department became the first agency to publicly update its Scientific Integrity Policy, following an edict from the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy to strengthen its protections for civil servants working in science and research. HHS ...

Feds seek more than a face-lift for aging wildlife health center

by E&E News | September 1, 2023
Groundbreaking for the new facility is tentatively scheduled for late 2024 or early 2025, though the exact timing will turn on both the environmental impact statement process and on congressional appropriations. Citing in part the work of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, ...

PEER review finds Florida once again is under-punishing pollution

by Florida Today | September 1, 2023
After a promising first few years under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida is right back to its dirty old ways of going soft on environmental violators, a nonprofit watchdog group says. Anti-pollution enforcement sharply declined in 2022, according to a new analysis by Public Employees for ...

Joe Montana joins neighbors to sue S.F., claiming flooding filled homes with sewage

by San Francisco Chronicle | September 1, 2023
Part of the issue, according to the lawsuit, is that San Francisco Public Utilities Commission closed rather than made needed repairs to a facility on Pierce street called an outfall, which allows excess water to go into the bay rather than escape through manholes onto the street. The ...

US government is funding kills of endangered animals, activists say

by The Guardian | August 31, 2023
But the coalition said the interior department’s statement is misleading. Federal money cannot be used to purchase bullets or guns for the hunts, which are paid for with state money, said Jeff Ruch, an attorney with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit ...

Public lands had a roller coaster month

by High Country News | August 31, 2023
ULTIMATELY, HOWEVER, all the protections in the world don’t mean a whole lot if they aren’t enforced. Just as he has for more than three decades, Cliven Bundy continues to run his cattle illegally on public lands in southern Nevada, where they gnaw on sparse vegetation and trample ...

Judge questions TSCA scope in novel case

by E&E News | August 31, 2023
Bob Sussman, an attorney representing intervening plaintiff groups responsible for the initial independent testing, the Center for Environmental Health and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, argued that the rule covers both impurities and byproducts. Sussman filed a motion ...

Turf War: South Florida Cities Spend Millions for Fake Grass Despite Resident Outcry

by Miami New Times | August 29, 2023
“You are literally laying down acres of plastic, which means that you are destroying that habitat, that soil for any kind of insect life or wildlife,” says Bennett, New England director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and PEER’s director of ...

New water standards present challenge

by Florida Weekly | August 24, 2023
Environmental protection organizations are quick to point out that the EPA’s proposed limits do little to mitigate a much larger problem. In a statement released on March 14, 2023, in response to the EPA’s announcement, Public Employees for Environmental Protection (PEER) stated that ...

BLM whistleblower says illegal grazing is ruining land along the Rio Grande River

by Fort Morgan Times | August 21, 2023
Shawcroft is represented in her complaint by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a non-profit that works with public employees who want to point out government wrongdoing. The Bureau of Land Management named Shawcroft its range management specialist of the year in 2012 and ...

BLM whistleblower says illegal grazing is ruining land along the Rio Grande River

by Denver Post | August 21, 2023
Shawcroft is represented in her complaint by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a non-profit that works with public employees who want to point out government wrongdoing. There is no timeline for when a decision must be made on her complaint about the discipline, said Jeff ...

EPA’s new definition of PFAS could omit thousands of ‘forever chemicals’

by The Guardian | August 18, 2023
Current and former EPA employees say the agency is not defining some fluorinated chemicals used in pesticides as PFAS at a time when research has discovered their widespread use in agricultural products. The agency also excludes some “ultra short chain” PFAS refrigerants, which are ...

Questions Persist on EPA’s New Chemicals Review Process

by Chemical Processing | August 16, 2023
The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, is an organization that supports whistleblowers who have worked for government agencies. The nonprofit has filed complaints in the past on behalf of EPA scientists who alleged the agency’s managers often overlook or omit ...
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