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Forever chemicals and the fight for Texas farmers: nonprofit leads lawsuit against the EPA

by High Plains Public Radio | October 2, 2024
Laura Dumais is staff counselor at PEER, which is currently working with two separate farmers outside of Dallas Fort-Worth. Following the spread of illness and loss of cattle, the families brought their concerns to the county. “There was a huge dump of sewage sludge biosolids on a ...

Groups challenge BLM’s Western Solar Plan over impact to trails

by E&E News | September 30, 2024
What’s more, BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not properly evaluating potential impacts to the national trail system from encouraging solar applications within trail boundaries, the coalition, led by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said. ...

PFAS Roundup: Minnesota PFAS regulation said to be the strictest

by Great Lakes Now | September 27, 2024
The U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) are currently in a legal dispute about sewage sludge used in farm fertilizer. According to PEER, the Clean Water Act (CWA) requires that the EPA must regulate these contaminants, but ...

The Grudge Match Over Maine’s Plans for Offshore Wind

by Heatmap | September 25, 2024
Now that this longstanding conflict has become intertwined with the cause of carbon reduction, it is pitting an older generation of eco-warriors against a younger breed of climate activists, as well as local unions eager to get in on energy transition jobs. Unfortunately for Maine ...

EPA Watchdog Says Officials Violated Whistleblower Protections With Dissenting Scientist

by Epoch Times | September 19, 2024
Kyla Bennett, director of policy at the organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), who filed the complaints on behalf of the scientists, said the problems flagged by the scientists have continued under the Biden Administration. PEER says the affected EPA ...

‘Bullying, Harassing, Name-Calling’: EPA ‘Retaliated Against’ Three Dissenting Scientists, Inspector General Finds

by | September 19, 2024
“EPA has received the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) reports on five whistleblower complaints in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention’s new chemicals program,” an EPA spokesperson said in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The events ...

EPA officials retaliated against 3 scientists, watchdog says

by The Hill | September 18, 2024
“Since day one, the Biden-Harris Administration has restored scientific integrity as the cornerstone of its work to protect public health and the environment, including reinstating key whistleblower protections that empower employees to share their own, differing scientific opinions,” ...

EPA Scientists Said They Were Pressured to Downplay Harms From Chemicals. A Watchdog Found They Were Retaliated Against.

by ProPublica | September 18, 2024
After they were forced to leave their jobs assessing new chemicals, the scientists filed the first of what would be six complaints with the EPA inspector general in June 2021. Their allegations, which detailed industry pressure that continued under the administration of President Joe Biden ...

Watchdog slams EPA for retaliation on chemical reviews

by E&E News | September 18, 2024
An EPA spokesperson said the whistleblower’s complaints are a bygone of the Trump administration, and the agency under President Joe Biden “has restored scientific integrity as the cornerstone of its work to protect public health and the environment, including reinstating key ...

EPA says it has no obligation to regulate PFAS in biosolids in federal lawsuit

by Waste Dive | September 16, 2024
The group of farmers are represented by advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in June. It comes after the constable in Johnson County, Texas, partnered with scientists at PEER to ...

EPA Seeks To Dismiss Suit On Biosolids Rules For PFAS, Citing Discretion

by Inside EPA | September 11, 2024
EPA is urging a federal court to dismiss litigation brought by farmers who allege the agency has failed to meet Clean Water Act (CWA) requirements to regulate PFAS in biosolids, arguing the law gives the agency discretion on whether to identify and regulate toxic pollutants in sewage ...

‘Forever’ Pesticides Threaten Worse Environmental Harms Than DDT

by Scientific American | September 11, 2024
When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ended most uses of the notorious pesticide DDT back in 1972, it wasn’t just because of the poison’s then suspected links to cancer and serious reproductive effects in humans. Evidence also suggested that the chemical would bioaccumulate in ...

EPA denies duty to regulate PFAS in sewage sludge spread on farmland

by The New Lede | September 11, 2024
US regulators claim they are not legally required to regulate toxic PFAS chemicals in sewage sludge spread on farmland across the country, according to a court filing the government made this week in response to a lawsuit from an environmental watchdog group. In its Sept. 9 filing, the ...

Interior’s scientific integrity policy doesn’t sit well with some scientists

by Federal News Network | September 10, 2024
The Interior Department posted a revised scientific integrity policy last month. It requires each component agency to appoint a career staff person as scientific integrity officer. But to one group of scientists, the policy differs little from protections that were greatly weakened during ...

EPA lets Colorado off the hook again in air pollution open records

by The Colorado Sun | September 10, 2024
Now it’s likely the environmental groups will have to file their own lawsuit with the 10th Circuit, demanding the EPA’s tougher open-access rule be put back in place. Coloradans wanting to check up on actual air pollution emissions from oil and gas or other sites will be “getting ...

NV Energy Gets Greenlight for 470-Mile Transmission Project

by Bloomberg Law | September 10, 2024
Utility company NV Energy will begin constructing the Greenlink West system in December and expects it to be in service by May 2027. The project’s recent record of decision allows the BLM along with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, and the Department of Energy to ...

Major Nevada power line, solar project win final approval

by E&E News | September 9, 2024
The proposed route and its impacts on the national monument, as well as undeveloped desert lands across seven counties, is part of an ongoing debate over green energy and how the infrastructure needed to get that electricity to the power grid will forever change previously untouched places ...

Roads to ruin: Why the park service closed a camping site at Lake Mead

by Las Vegas Review-Journal | September 6, 2024
“In desert areas, off-road vehicles can be quite destructive,” said Jeff Ruch, director of the Pacific Regional Office of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “They rip up whatever vegetation is there and make the land uninhabitable for wildlife.” Ruch called the ...

Lawmakers push to block BLM’s sweeping public land policy: ‘These lawsuits do nothing to help Western states brave the very real threats’

by The Cool Down | September 3, 2024
Though Western states are critical of the BLM policy, environmental activists lauded the rule as a much-needed way for conservation groups to improve the environment and revitalize public lands. Supporters also say the rule gives energy and mining companies a way to offset the ...
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