Workers Ask EPA To Enforce St. Johns River Discharge Limits
From: Law360 “A group representing public environmental workers asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday to enforce wastewater discharge permit limits for the St. Johns River in northeast Florida, saying the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s “chronic ...
Die-off of Freshwater Turtles Prompts Florida Wildlife Agency to Investigate
From: Tampa Bay Times “Freshwater turtles began turning up dead along the St. Johns River in January. Now about 100 dead or dying turtles have been found in water bodies in Orange, Seminole and Putnam counties.” Read more . . . Read the PEER story ...
Watchdog Targets Pruitt’s Legal Defense Fund
From: E&E News “Given that this high-level official is directly soliciting funds for his purported personal benefit, Mr. Pruitt needs to do far more than he is currently doing to avoid giving the inevitable appearance that official integrity and impartiality may be at risk,” ...
Group Files Ethics Complaint Over Pruitt’s Legal Defense Fund
From: The Hill “The group alleges that Pruitt’s fund, developed to help him pay for legal representation through numerous ethics and spending scandals, violates rules against accepting gifts from parties a federal employee regulates, engaging in action that could result in “ ...
EXCLUSIVE: Obama Holdovers ‘Working Toward A Union Takeover’ Of US Chemical Agency
From: The Daily Caller “CSB board members are expected to vote an Obama administration appointee as “interim executive” to take over for outgoing CSB chairwoman Vanessa Sutherland, said sources, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. Sutherland announced her ...
Wastewater Plants Need EPA Oversight, Group Argues
From: The Florida Times-Union “State officials repeatedly downplayed violations of pollution permits at Northeast Florida wastewater treatment plants that affect the St. Johns River, a whistle-blower group is telling the federal government. Public Employees for Environmental ...
Sorry to See Wolf Guy Go … Not
From: Sunnyside Daily Sun “The settlement came about after the professor enlisted the help of the Silver Spring, Md.-based political action group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in bringing both the lawsuit and the complaint against Joel. Don’t know about you, but ...
Connecticut State Legislature Bans Residential Mosquito Misters
From: Beyond Pesticides “In 2015, Public Employees for Environmental Responsbility (PEER) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, detailing false and deceptive claims by manufacturers of pesticide misters. Specifically, PEER noted that manufacturers claim that these ...
Navy Finds More Radiation Data Falsification at Hunters Point
From: NBC Bay Area “The U.S. Navy has uncovered further data falsification at the Hunters Point Shipyard, this time regarding radiation surveys conducted on 28 buildings at the site, according to a federal report uncovered by the Washington, D.C.-based environmental watchdog group, ...
House GOP’s CWA Jurisdiction Rider May Hint At Scope Of New EPA Rule
From: InsideEPA “A source at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which represents whistleblowers at EPA and other agencies, told Inside EPA, “eliminating wetlands that cannot be discerned by the naked eye . . . is ludicrous — it essentially eliminates ...
Tongass “Good Neighbor” Agreement Goes Bad
From: YubaNet “In this timber sale, Good Neighbor authority became a license to loot,” stated PEER Staff Counsel Adam Carlesco, arguing that under the guise of restoration, damaging clear-cutting occurred. “Both the U.S. Forest Service and the Alaska Department of Natural ...
Interior Whistleblower Complaints Rise — But Why?
From: E&E News “Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said the numbers don’t reveal whether there’s more misconduct at the agency, comparing OSC data to “the blind man and the elephant.” To know more about what ...
This University Told a Professor Not to Talk About Wolves. Now It’s Paying Him $300,000 to Leave.
From: The College Fix “The group representing Wielgus, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said WSU issued a cease-and-desist letter against him so he would stop “lobbying” on wolf issues and restricted his grant funds so he couldn’t be reimbursed for research- ...
TONGASS “GOOD NEIGHBOR” AGREEMENT GOES BAD
Alexander Archipelago Logging Did No Restoration and Timber Exported to Asia ...
University Pays $300,000 to Settle ‘Gagging’ Complaint
From: University World News “Washington State University (WSU) has agreed to pay a leading researcher US$300,000 to resolve a complaint about infringement of academic freedom by university administrators whom he accused of threatening him with disciplinary action, impeding his ...
Researcher Resigns From Washington State University After Wolf Studies Anger Ranchers
From: Montana Standard “Robert Wielgus, director of the Carnivore Conservation Lab, sued the Pullman school for infringement of his academic freedom. Wielgus angered ranchers with his research of wolf behavior. He concluded the state’s policy of killing wolves that preyed on ...
Bison Range Planning Docs Open for Comment
From: Daily Inter Lake “In a lawsuit that stemmed from these issues, PEER alleged that the Fish and Wildlife Service had failed to complete required planning processes for the range. One of these failures, it claimed, was the absence of a Comprehensive Conservation Plan. In their ...
Wolf Researcher Settles With WSU, Exits
From: Capital Press “Wolf scientist Rob Wielgus, cheered by environmentalists and jeered by cattlemen, parted ways Tuesday with Washington State University, leaving with $300,000 to resolve claims he was muzzled by school administrators.The university denied any wrongdoing and said ...
NGOs Decry Biocides Exemption in EPA ‘Science Transparency’ Proposal
From: Chemical Watch “The proposal, which was issued late last month, seeks to ensure that the data, models and science underpinning agency regulatory decisions are “transparent” and “available to the public for validation”. It has been fiercely criticized by ...
Ethics complaint Dismissed Against Rep. Joel Kretz for Opposing WSU Wolf Research
From: The Spokesman-Review “Kretz opposed Wielgus’ research, which contends that killing members of a wolf pack actually increases predation on livestock, and supported UW research that said Wielgus’s study was statistically unsupported. He described Wielgus as brilliant, but ...
