I talked to Jerry Phillips of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility about this. He said the state could be passing laws to make pollution rules stronger, require more inspections and monitoring, even shorten the timeline and increase the penalties for violators. “We need ...

From the red rock canyons of Moab to the sagebrush flanked shores of Bear Lake, Bureau of Land Management land covers vast swathes of Utah. These nearly 23 million acres of public land draw broad user groups and underpin local economies. On BLM land in Utah, hikers traverse lonely country ...

For years, residents on Maui and Hawaii island have raised alarms about the buzzing choppers and the disruption they cause in neighborhoods and natural areas. Eventually, a group of Big Island residents fed up with the noise — called Hawaii Island Coalition Malama Pono, or HICoP — ...

A Ramsey County district court judge had earlier faulted the MPCA’s actions but did not find that the agency had violated any law and that the action did not, by itself, warrant reversing the permit. The Court of Appeals had agreed with that assessment, a decision which several ...

We, the undersigned organizations, represent a broad cohort of civil society groups, each with our own perspectives and ideological preferences on a wide range of public policy issues. However, we all share a commitment to protecting government whistleblowers as a key means of promoting a ...

EPA has been investigating the container issue since last December, when the nonprofit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility found elevated levels of PFAS in pesticides sprayed in Massachusetts, including Anvil 10+10, a widely used mosquito repellent (E&E News PM, Jan ...

Kevin Bell, staff counsel for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said agencies haven’t been following the standard either. “It really has become a box-checking exercise,” Bell told E&E News. “I don’t think this memo helps too much with that ...

A Ramsey County district court judge had earlier faulted the MPCA’s actions but did not find that the agency had violated any law and that the action did not, by itself, warrant reversing the permit. The Court of Appeals had agreed with that assessment, a decision which several ...

The government watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) led the letter, which was also signed by Natural Resources Defense Council, California Communities Against Toxics, and Committee to Bridge the Gap (CBG), among others. CBG previously raised the issue ...

The BLM oversees 246 million acres of land — the vast majority of it in the Western U.S. The agency’s mission is to “sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations,” but according to records obtained by ...

In 2000, Congress passed the National Parks Air Tour Management Act, which requires the Federal Aviation Administration and National Park Service to develop a plan or voluntary agreement for each park where air tour operations occur or are proposed. When the agencies failed to create the ...

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, analyzed BLM data covering assessments of about 108 million acres of land that has been leased for livestock grazing, and found that about 54 million acres — an area about the size of the state of Washington — failed so-called ...

Roughly half of all rangelands leased by the Bureau of Land Management for livestock grazing do not meet baseline health standards, according to a new analysis by a government watchdog group. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, analyzed BLM data covering assessments ...

The size of the Whitmore settlement will likely get the attention of many federal officials, said Paula Dinerstein, a lawyer who has represented Whitmore. “It sends a message to employers: Retaliate against whistle-blowers at your peril,” said Dinerstein, senior counsel for Public ...

The national organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) responded to the release of the data on Thursday, stating  that the publication only occurred following three years’ worth of requests from the group. “We are glad this information was finally released ...

This is happening despite a joint federal-state emergency effort to drop tons of lettuce and other produce to starving manatees. The unprecedented feeding operation began on January 20 for manatees that gather in the warm waters near a power plant on Florida’s east coast particularly ...

Thousands of facilities are located in areas considered at high risk for flooding, with hundreds in areas that may be inundated by storm surge or with high wildfire hazard potential. The report found that more than 150 facilities, especially in the Gulf Coast, are located in areas that may ...

Despite more than two decades to get the task accomplished, and almost two years after a federal judge ordered the Federal Aviation Administration and National Park Service to get the job done by this summer, air tour management plans for eight national parks will not be completed on ...

In a 31-page report, PEER requested that the Federal Trade Commission investigate the vendors, manufacturers, and marketers of artificial turf. “Our review of numerous websites advertising artificial turf and statements made to consumers shows at least one type of deceptive or unfair ...

PolyMet is hoping to open Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine near Babbitt and Hoyt Lakes. Supporters say the project would bring much-needed jobs to the region and can be done in an environmentally safe way, but environmental groups fear it could pollute waterways. AFGE Local 704 ...