News Clips

From: Law 360 “U.S. Environmental Protection Agency staffers involved in the Clean Water Act permit process for a $1 billion planned copper and nickel mine in Minnesota told a state agency they had concerns” Read more . . . Read the PEER story ...

From: Duluth News Tribune “An environmental group claims the Environmental Protection Agency is wrongfully withholding documents that contain staff comments on the state-issued pollution permits issued to PolyMet’s copper-nickel mine proposed near Hoyt Lakes. In a lawsuit filed ...

From: E&E News “A government watchdog and an environmental group have sued EPA to force the agency to turn over documents related to PolyMet Mining Corp.’s proposed copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota. Attorneys from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility ( ...

From: Mother Jones “Caffrey said she asked her supervisor at the park service, “Is this because of the climate change stuff?” She said he told her, “I don’t want to answer that.” Park service officials did not respond to questions from Reveal about why Caffrey wasn’t rehired ...

From: Reveal “All federal scientists are vulnerable, but scientists like Caffrey who work under federal contracts face particular risk because they can be fired easily and their funding can be pulled, said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility ...

From: Safety+Health “Watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and other environmental organizations filed a lawsuit against CSB in December 2017, about three months after an incident at an Arkema Inc. facility in Crosby, TX. Extensive flooding from Hurricane ...

From: Inhabitat “Even more concerning is the fact that only 62 of the referrals in 2018 ended with convictions. That is less than any year after 1992 and illustrates a dire need for greater efficiency within the EPA. PEER argues that the Trump administration is one of the biggest reasons ...

From: Pacific Standard “Will Bernhardt continue these practices? Will he continue the Trump administration’s effort to bend public lands management to the will of the fossil fuel powers? Or will he commit to keeping public lands in public hands, and recognize the fact that the ...

From: Reuters “A federal judge in Washington, DC has ordered a federal agency to issue rules in the next 12 months for reporting accidental chemical releases, handing environmental groups a victory. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta on Monday granted summary judgement to a coalition of ...

From: EcoWatch “PEER claims the press office’s actions violated the Hatch Act, or An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, which mandates that civil servants not campaign on official time or with official resources. The organization sent a letter Monday to the Hatch Act ...

From: Government Executive “The letter, according to news reports and confirmed by EPA to Government Executive, was provided to reporters by the press office. That prompted the nonprofit advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility on Monday to file a complaint with ...

From: Bloomberg News “The court rejected the CSB’s argument that the delay was reasonable given its “limited resources and competing priorities.” If their inaction is caused by a lack of resources, the board should not ignore the congressional directive, the court said. Instead it ...

From: The Washington Examiner “GROUP URGES SPECIAL COUNSEL TO PROBE EPA FOR BREAKING THE LAW: An environmental group formally petitioned the federal special counsel’s office on Monday to probe whether the Environmental Protection Agency broke the law by promoting Trump’s 2020 re- ...

From: Signals AZ “Ruch said he believes the decision to tap fee dollars came from Washington and not from local park superintendents, despite “all this happy talk we’ve been hearing in this administration about empowering the field.” Garder said using fee dollars in the first place ...

From: AP “The EPA has been one of the most active agencies overall in carrying out the deregulatory goals of President Donald Trump. Environmental and public-health groups say the business-friendly rollbacks place public health and the environment at greater risk. Jeff Ruch of Public ...

From: JD Supra “In a succinct, yet forceful, decision, Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia lambasted the CSB for what he called “an egregious abdication of a statutory obligation” to promulgate reporting regulations under the Clean Air Act ...

From: C&EN “The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board must develop, within one year, a long-delayed regulation that could lead to a national chemical-accident reporting system, a federal court ordered on Feb. 4. The requirement for public reporting of industrial accidents ...

From: Wall Street Journal “The former oil industry lobbyist now in charge of the Interior Department says he’s prepared to balance the interests of environmentalists against an administration that has put a priority on opening public lands to energy development. David Bernhardt has ...

From: JD Supra “On February 4, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held, in a Clean Air Act (CAA) Citizen Suit, that the U.S. Chemical and Safety Hazard Board (Board), an independent federal agency, has violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by failing to ...

From: Havasu News “The National Park Service said it will reimburse parks, like the Grand Canyon, that were forced to dip into local maintenance funds to remain partially open during the recent five-week government shutdown. While they welcomed the reimbursement, advocates said parks ...