But the full Senate never voted on the nomination before that session of Congress ended, and Trump never renominated Vela, instead falling back to acting directors. Smith continued to wield the power of director until the fall of 2019 when he left under curious circumstances that led ...

It’s imperative to know what decisions the EPA [has] made concerning the recent reviews of new chemicals, said Kyla Bennett, science policy director for the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). If the agency has granted all the applications, Bennett said she’d be ...

A 2021 survey of BLM workers by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility reported that 87% of reassigned employees either retired or quit rather than move. The field offices were staffed largely by new hires who lacked the scientific or experiential backgrounds of the former ...

“Whistleblowing has traditionally been a nonpartisan thing,” said Tim Whitehouse, who joined PEER as its executive director in 2019, following stints leading Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility and a decade at EPA. But under Trump 2.0, PEER has seen a “20-fold increase ...

Kyla Bennett, the director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, expressed similar frustrations with the office’s closure. “There’s no reason to reorganize and (reduce the workforce in the) ORD,” Bennett said. “It provides us with so much ...

According to records collected by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, HUD submitted the rule in early July, and then yanked it just days later. In their letter, the senators said that “the status of the interim rule is unclear.” Read the PEER Story… ...

A 2021 survey of BLM workers by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility reported that 87 percent of reassigned employees either retired or quit rather than move. The field offices were staffed largely by new hires who lacked the scientific or experiential backgrounds of the ...

Public health advocates and some Congress members are now mobilizing to kill the rider, which they say is likely illegal because it pre-empts the Clean Water Act. The attempt to kill the risk assessment is “absolutely insane,” said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA attorney who is now science ...

Bennett’s view of PFAS doesn’t align with Taylor’s testimony. Manufacturers continue putting PFAS in their turf fields, said Bennett, adding that academics and nonprofits have tested dozens of artificial turf samples and all of them contained PFAS. Bennett hasn’t ...

The US Environmental Protection Agency is shutting down its Office of Research and Development, which represents 50 years of independent scientific research. Kyla Bennett is director of science policy for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and she joined host Aynsley O’ ...

With the initial shock now passed, affected employees are considering their options, PEER staff counsel Laura Dumais said. “I think everybody’s just trying to move forward; it’s so unfortunate what’s happening,” Dumais said. A religious denomination that played a pivotal role in ...

“EPA deals with climate change issues in virtually everything that they do,” says Kyla Bennett, the director of science policy for the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The EPA’s research and development office houses work like the Air, Climate ...

Kyla Bennett, director of science policy for the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), said eliminating the ORD “will not only cripple EPA’s ability to do its own research, but also to apply the research of other scientists. This [reduction in ...

Staffers from the division were notified about the RIF through the public press release, said Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Staff were then notified about an all-staff meeting scheduled for Monday. Bennett said the manner in ...

Kaaa-Swain’s case was the most egregious example identified in Civil Beat’s review of public records, and it is extreme even by national standards. Peter Jenkins, a Maryland-based attorney who has pushed for shorter periods of paid leave for federal employees, said he’s never seen ...

The provision, introduced as part of a government spending bill unveiled Monday, would bar the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from enforcing the findings from a January risk assessment, which found that the sludge contains dangerous amounts of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances ( ...

The administration’s move is “not just stupid, it’s evil”, said Kyla Bennett, science director with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), and a former EPA attorney. “Cutting funding into research on how these toxic chemicals get into our food will doom us to ...

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit group that defends governmental whistleblowers, warned that the case number could surge if a court order blocking widespread agency layoffs is lifted. “MSPB may be heading for the biggest legal trainwreck in history,” said ...

OPM quickly backpedaled on the essay requirement in the wake of a formal complaint by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, saying it would retain the essay questions in the new hiring process but downgrade their importance. Read the PEER Story… ...

Fears that a RIF was imminent spiked after the Supreme Court declined to take up whether President Donald Trump could move forward with a RIF without Congressional approval and sent the matter back down to federal court for adjudication. For more than a month the National Parks ...