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Environmental group questions USDA funding of summer festival

by E&E News | June 9, 2026
The NFF is a congressionally chartered foundation that raises private donations to support national forests. Because its official mission is to support the Forest Service, the use of funds from the NFF for anything unrelated to that purpose could subject the foundation to extra scrutiny ...

Watchdog warns of safety shortcut in EPA chemical reviews

by E&E News | June 8, 2026
EPA has rolled out a new approach to reviewing the health risks for existing chemicals, a results-focused, streamlined strategy that advocates warn could skirt necessary public health precautions. An internal training video, obtained and released by watchdog group Public Employees for ...

Exclusive: EPA scientists say they are being pushed to downplay potential risks of household products

by CNN | June 8, 2026
But EPA staff who spoke to CNN say the shift in the agency’s culture goes beyond the video. Kyla Bennett of PEER said she worries the changes are significant and could extend beyond the Trump administration. “The culture within these agencies outlives the people,” she said. “That ...

Who has the better concert lineup, a state fair or Trump’s 250th America birthday bash?

by The Independent | June 5, 2026
Watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a lawsuit last month demanding key documents behind Freedom 250’s funding scheme. The organization is asking whether Freedom 250 siphoned $100 million in taxpayer dollars from the competing America 250 while co- ...

Activities around the 250th highlight America’s disunity

by Roll Call | June 4, 2026
Democrats and other critics have raised questions about whether funds appropriated by Congress for America250 have been diverted to the White House group and combined with private donations that are not being disclosed. The watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility ...

Great American meltdown: Trump’s Freedom 250 concerts are collapsing while the project rakes in taxpayer dough

by The Independent | June 3, 2026
Watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a lawsuit last month demanding key documents behind Freedom 250’s funding scheme. The organization is asking for details about the project siphoning $100 million in taxpayer dollars from the competing America 250 ...

Dismantling the EPA – with Dr. Kyla Bennett

by Green Street | May 29, 2026
This week on Green Street, Patti and Doug talk about the rise of anti-bacterial resistance due to climate change, and the EPA’s latest attempt to weaken drinking water standards for PFAS chemicals. Then former EPA scientist Dr. Kyla Bennett, senior scientist at Public Employees for ...

Why Trump administration’s plan to attempt to destroy Pfas is ‘nonsenscial’

by The Guardian | May 26, 2026
The idea that the administration is going to destroy its way out of the Pfas problem is “nonsensical”, said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA scientist. It parallels fossil fuel industry attempts to use unreliable carbon capture technology as a solution – both offer the appearance of ...

Kids were allegedly poisoned in Yellowstone. The park says it isn’t responsible.

by SFGate | May 22, 2026
“Thousands of Yellowstone employees and their families have been and/or are currently being exposed to harmful levels of lead through the paint in their housing,” states the disclosure, filed by the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in late April with the U.S ...

Reorganization plans can look clean on paper and turn out far messier in real life

by Federal News Network | May 18, 2026
A year ago, the Interior Department pitched a sweeping reorganization as a way to save money and streamline operations. We look at what the evidence actually shows about how that played out. “They’re moving things around on paper without recognizing the effects that may have in ...

U.S. Government Pushes $10 Billion D.C. Makeover As National Parks Get $1 Billion Cut

by The Travel | May 15, 2026
While the reorganization was implemented to “achieve effectiveness, accountability, and cost savings for the American taxpayer,” the DOI has failed to provide documents demonstrating such savings. According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), SO 3429 ...

First came the redundancies at the EPA, now peer-reviewed science written by agency scientists has fallen dramatically

by Chemistry World | May 13, 2026
‘These numbers represent a diminution of scientific contributions from the fewer, remaining EPA scientists,’ stated Kyla Bennett, a scientist and attorney who is Peer’s science policy director and formerly worked at the EPA. ‘It is as if EPA is seeking to reduce the sum total of ...

BLM Nixes Conservation Rule for Public Lands

by The Missoula Current | May 12, 2026
Also on Monday, the White House released a proposed rule that would overhaul the BLM’s grazing regulations, reviving and advancing an earlier effort to weaken government oversight on 155 million acres of public land across the West. The rule would eliminate public input on grazing ...

Watchdog Sues Trump Interior Dept, Demanding Transparency on Freedom 250 Funding

by Common Dreams | May 12, 2026
In late February, PEER’s FOIA requests sought information from DOI on reports that public funds are being directed to Freedom 250 through the congressionally chartered National Park Foundation, “with no transparency, no accountability, and no guardrails.” “America’s 250th ...

Trump Admin Sued for Diverting $100 Million in Taxpayer Funds

by The New Republic | May 12, 2026
PEER alleges that the Trump administration is using Freedom 250 to redirect $100 million in taxpayer funds from America 250 without congressional approval, mix private funding and public taxpayer money without oversight, sell “access to President Trump” for up to $2.5 million, solicit ...

Interior Refuses To Release Documents Related To Freedom 250, Prompting Lawsuit

by National Parks Traveler | May 12, 2026
The Department of the Interior has refused to release documents related to President Trump’s controversial Freedom 250 initiative, prompting watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility to file a lawsuit in the United States District Court in Washington, DC. Congress ...

Enviros criticize Trump administration change to grazing rules

by Tucson Sentinel | May 11, 2026
On Monday, the White House proposed “sweeping” changes to how the agency manages grazing allotments without preparing full Environmental Impact Statements to understand “the cumulative impacts to wildlife, watersheds, land health and public oversight,” said the ...

Advocates decry Trump’s plan to open 24m acres of federal lands to cattle grazing

by The Guardian | May 11, 2026
The plan also contains “unusual provisions to benefit” big agriculture, said Chandra Rosenthal, western lands and rocky mountain advocate with the Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit. Among those is the establishment of “immersion and training programs ...

Workers paint Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue

by BBC | May 10, 2026
Tim Whitehouse, the executive director of nonprofit watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told the BBC this project was evidence that “the system of checks and balances has broken down in the United States”. “Burgum is dispensing with a variety ...

Trump hands multimillion-dollar Washington project to his ‘pool guy’

by The Telegraph | May 10, 2026
The White House has been sued by the National Trust for Historic Preservation over its destruction of the East Wing, while there have been sustained complaints about the use of “no-bid” contracts. Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the watchdog group Public Employees for ...