US Advocacy Group Sues EPA over Unreleased Formaldehdye IRIS Assessment
From: Chemical Watch “Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a US alliance of state and federal professionals, is suing the US EPA for failing to respond to a public records request related to an assessment of formaldehyde. The claim relates to an unreleased revised ...
Federal Court Rules that CREW and PEER Records Lawsuit Against Pruitt and EPA May Proceed
Washington — This week, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg issued an order allowing a Federal Records Act (FRA) lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) to proceed. CREW and PEER ...
Outdoor Activist Tim Mason Righted Many Wrongs
From: The Gazette “Only because Tim Mason was dogged did the biggest official mass desecrations of Indian prehistoric burial sites in U.S. history come to light,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of the group that presented Mason with its eco-hero medal. Mason made his environmental ...
Where Are Trump’s Watchdogs?
From: Greenwire “After eight years as EPA’s inspector general, Arthur Elkins is stepping down next month. Interior has had an acting IG in place for more than nine years, and President Trump hasn’t announced a nominee to fill the job. Trump has put forth a nominee for DOE&# ...
Editorial: Scott is a Disaster on Environment
From: Ocala Star Banner “From the moment the health-care multimillionaire swept into office on 2010′s Tea Party anti-tax, anti-regulation wave, he began slashing the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the five water management districts, cutting budgets, skilled staff and ...
Florida Editorial Roundup
From: Washington Times “What got slashed? The state’s network for water monitoring shrank from 350 monitoring sites to 115, according to Florida International University’s Southeast Environmental Research Center. Enforcement of anti-pollution regulations slowed to a crawl. The DEP ...
Labor Dept.’s OFCCP to Visit Hundreds of Contractors in the Coming Months
From: Federal News Radio “The Government Accountability Office may weigh in on how the Interior Department has been filling vacant political positions. In emails obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, GAO said it may look into “time violations” at Interior ...
Editorial: Scott Must Answer for Environmental Malpractice
From: My Palm Beach Post “With a horrific red tide killing marine life and tourism on Florida’s southwest coast, and with toxic green algae bringing misery to the Treasure Coast and Fort Myers area on a now-annual basis, it’s understandable that Gov. Rick Scott would want to run away ...
While You Weren’t Looking: 5 Stories from Trump’s America That Aren’t About Hurricanes
From: Mic “The memo was released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit environmental protection group that has repeatedly butted heads with the Trump administration over its lack of commitment to protecting wildlife and biodiversity. “This across-the-board ...
Yellowstone Grizzly Bears Spared From Hunters as Court Decides Their Fate
From: Truth Out “Conservation groups and nine Native tribes intervened with lawsuits challenging the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to remove endangered species protections for the bear population in and around Yellowstone, and a federal court in Missoula, Montana, heard oral ...
Dunes Action Calls on DNR to Hold Public Meeting on Proposed Pavilion Project Changes
From: Chesterton Tribune “Both Dunes Action and the National Park Service (NPS) have recently sent letters to the DNR. NPS asked that the DNR direct Pavilion Partners LLC to either revert to the original plans for restoration, submit new plans for review, or consider converting the ...
GAO May Weigh in on Zinke’s Temporary Filling of Political Positions
From: Federal News Radio “In February, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility urged Interior’s Office of the Inspector General to look into what it considered “blatant violations” of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. More specifically, PEER took issue with the agency’s ...
Navy’s Hunters Point Retesting Plan Draws on Questionable Cost-Cutting Study
From: San Francisco Chronicle “The U.S. Navy’s latest promise to clean up radioactive soil and buildings at its former San Francisco shipyard relies on an earlier Navy effort to remove less radioactivity in order to cut costs, The Chronicle has learned. The perplexing move has ...
The EPA Can’t Stop Polluters When the Trump Administration Cuts Enforcement Staff
From: Union of Concerned Scientists “n addition to reductions in staff focused on pollution prevention, it also means reductions in staff for those who work on environmental cleanup, such as at Superfund sites. There is also a critically low number of criminal investigators working for ...
Zinke Yields to States on Fish and Wildlife
From: Greenwire “Individual states will wield more clout over fish and wildlife on about 780,000 square miles of Interior Department land nationwide under a new policy outlined by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. In a move that’s welcomed by Western conservatives but worries ...
Court Challenges May Loom for ‘Acting’ Decisions
From: Greenwire “The Government Accountability Office appears to have punted on determining the legality of certain actions taken by temporary Interior Department appointees. So federal judges will now get the ball, with some high-stakes decisions potentially on the line. “The ...
Interior Deferring to States, Reviewing Fish, Wildlife Protections
From: Natural Gas Intel “Zinke’s plans for the review were outlined in a two-page memo posted Tuesday by the nonprofit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Although the memo doesn’t specifically mention the greater sage grouse or the lesser prairie ...
Zinke Memo: Interior Will Defer To States For Wildlife Management
From: Wyoming Public Media “In the memo Zinke asked Interior bureaus to examine and contrast state versus federal policies over the next month and a half, and then provide recommendations for policy changes that defer to states within 90 days. Zinke’s office did not return a request ...
Legal Battle Staves Off Trump’s Assault on Clean-Water Protections
From: Truth Out “Since taking office, Donald Trump has waged a relentless attack on the nation’s waterways, but his efforts to strip away protections for rivers and wetlands have run into a tide of legal resistance. One of Trump’s first environmental policy directives was to choke ...
Grand Teton Supe Tapped by Trump to Lead NPS
From: Grand Canyon Guide “Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said the organization has some concerns about Vela’s lack of transparency in park operations, among other things. In a news release issued Sept. 4, PEER listed a few of the ...
