A Voice from the Eastern Door
A Voice from the Eastern Door
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This week, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of Pesticide Programs proposed reregistering malathion, an organophosphate pesticide linked to learning disabilities, as it claims in a new risk assessment that the chemical is 100 times less dangerous than it previously thought, even at the same exposure and toxicity levels. The July 16 proposed action relies again on a misguided new approach to evaluating organophosphates, which includes the continued use of the misused testing methodology. Organophosphates are among the mos...
By Zahra Ahmad. Earthjustice. WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it would start the process to regulate toxic PFAS (per and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) found in plastic containers. This decision follows a petition filed by a coalition of environmental and health advocates, urging the EPA to address the severe risks these chemicals pose to consumers, workers, and the environment. The coalition, represented by Earthjustice, and alongside two other organizations, filed a petition under Section 21 of the Toxic Su...
By Jake Bittle and Zoya Teirstein. The Supreme Court on Friday, June 26, 2024, threw into question the future of climate and environmental regulation in the United States, scrapping a decades-old legal precedent that gave federal agencies leeway to interpret laws according to their expertise and scientific evidence. The impact of the decision to scrap the so-called Chevron deference will take years to become clear, but it could allow for far more legal challenges against regulations by agencies like the EPA and the Department of the Interior...
By: Cristen Hemingway Jaynes. Ecowatch. According to a new report by The Washington Post, last month at his private Mar-a-Lago club Donald Trump bluntly proposed a “deal” to more than 20 oil executives from some of the largest oil companies in the United States, suggesting they donate $1 billion to his presidential re-election campaign. In exchange, Trump promised that once he was back in office, he would immediately reverse dozens of environmental regulations implemented during President Joe Biden’s presidency and prevent the passage of any n...
By Steph Kwetásel’wet Wood. The Narwhal. A marine protected area managed by Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation has been designated a ‘blue park’ — an internationally recognized example of excellence in marine protection. And it is the first Indigenous-led blue park in the world The 33.5-square-kilometre Gitdisdzu Lugyeks Marine Protected Area on the central coast of British Columbia encompasses Kitasu Bay, an area rich with herring, shorebirds, whales, sea lions, and juvenile fish. The nation unilaterally declared a protected area in 2022 and began purs...
STRAUSBURG, France – The association of the Swiss Senior Women for Climate Protection, whose members took action against Switzerland for violating their human rights by failing to set sufficient climate targets have won a historic victory at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Co-President of the Swiss Senior Women for Climate Protection Rosmarie Wydler-Wälti said: “This ruling is not just a victory for the Senior Women for Climate Protection. Our victory is a victory for all generations. Especially for the Portuguese youth, whose gene...
The Creating Confidence in Clean Water Permitting Act would allow polluters to recklessly pollute our streams, wetlands, and waterways while shielding them from accountability. The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on H.R. 7023, The Creating Confidence in Clean Water Permitting Act. The bill would actively undermine the ability of federal agencies to protect our water resources, make it easier for industry to pollute water without permits, and limit the ability of communities and stakeholders to seek justice in the courts to...
By: Cristen Hemingway Jaynes. According to a new analysis by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the United States has produced the most crude oil globally for six years in a row – more than any nation in history during that time. In 2023, the daily average crude oil production in the U.S. was a record 12.9 million barrels, a press release from EIA said. Its production broke the previous global record set in 2019 of 12.3 million barrels. In December, the average U.S. crude oil production hit a monthly high of more than 13.3 million b...
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced final new safeguards and rules aimed at nearly 12,000 chemical plants operating under the Risk Management Program (RMP). These crucial measures are designed to mitigate risks of explosions, fires, and other hazardous industrial incidents, which frequently occur and harm fenceline communities nationwide. The final rule mandates chemical facilities to account for extreme weather events like hurricanes and unprecedented flooding in their emergency plans, which have b...
Hilary Beaumont Last February, two balloons that were launched from Reno, Nevada, flew to Northern California. Along the way, as planned, they released a small amount of sulfur dioxide, a gas that has a cooling effect when erupting volcanoes release it. In their six-to-eight-hour journey, according to a High Country News flight-path analysis, the balloons crossed the airspace of at least five tribes, including the Colfax-Todds Valley Consolidated Tribe. But when I called Pam Cubbler, the tribe’s vice chair and lead cultural preservation o...
By Paige Bennett. A new report from nonprofits Environment America, U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund and Frontier Group has found that bans on plastic bags around the U.S. have already reduced the number of bags used by billions. The report, “Plastic Bag Bans Work”, found that bans in three states – New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Vermont – and two cities, Portland, Oregon and Santa Barbara, California, have reduced the number of single-use plastic bags used each year by around 6 billion. According to Environment America, the num...
By Cristen Hemingway Jaynes The Canadian government made its largest land transfer in history on Thursday when it officially signed over the massive Arctic territory of Nunavut to its own government, who will now have control over the 808,200 square miles of sparsely populated mountains, tundra and vast mineral reserves. The Nunavut Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement signed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Premier of Nunavut P.J. Akeeagok, President of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated Aluki Kotierk and the Minister of Northern Affairs Dan...
The head of United Nations climate talks underway in Dubai insisted incorrectly that there is no science to support phasing out fossil fuels to avoid catastrophic warming. Sultan al-Jaber, who is also the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates’ state-run oil company, made the comments in an online meeting on November 21. That was little over a week before he officially began to preside over annual U.N. climate negotiations, known as COP28, that are being held this year in the UAE. The comments were first reported by The Guardian, which a...
By Nydia Gutiérrez. ALBANY – Last week, Governor Hochul vetoed a bill to help preserve the state’s community gardens (S.629-A/A.4139). The bill, which passed the Senate and Assembly unanimously, would have supported community gardens by requiring the New York State Community Gardens Task Force to assess whether community gardens on publicly owned land are eligible for designation as Critical Environmental Areas (CEAs) and to recommend CEA designation for eligible gardens. The Governor vetoed the bill in a package with 31 other bills. She offe...
Interview by Steve Curwood, “Living on Earth” From Inside Climate News collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Host Steve Curwood with Penn State geologist Richard Alley. Antarctica’s ice shelves are the gatekeepers between the continent’s glaciers and the open ocean. As the planet warms, these shelves shrink, exposing more and more ice, which leads to more melting. This frozen continent rests under a massive ice sheet averaging more than a mile thick. But a recent study in Scie...
By Erin Fitzgerald, Earthjustice. SEATTLE, WA — Thursday, November 2, the 8th Circuit vacated the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rule that revoked all food allowable for chlorpyrifos, which effectively banned the use and presence of the neurotoxic pesticide on the foods we eat. The final rule, issued in August 2021, came in response to the 9th Circuit ruling issued in a challenge filed by Earthjustice, on behalf of public health, labor, and disability organizations. That ruling required the EPA to revoke chlorpyrifos tolerances bec...
Dr. Weihsueh Chiu, a professor at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, partnered with Environmental Defense Fund to create a new tool that provides communities and policymakers with actionable data about long-term vulnerabilities tied to climate change. The Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) is the most comprehensive screening tool of its type, showing how, why, and where climate risks threaten the stability of communities throughout the U.S. "The launch of the...
Human activities have caused the Earth to exceed six of nine boundaries necessary for keeping the planet healthy, pushing the environment "well outside the safe operating space for humanity," scientists warn in a new study published last week in Science Advances. According to the paper, Earth's ability to sustain human society depends on nine primary "planetary boundaries," or global systems that are key indicators of its health. Of these nine limits, humans have blown past six: climate change,...
WASHINGTON D.C. – States and Native American tribes will now possess enhanced powers to halt energy projects, including natural gas pipelines, that might contaminate rivers and streams. This change comes as a result of a final rule announced on Thursday by the Biden administration. Effective from November, this rule counteracts a previous directive from the Trump era that restricted states’ and tribes’ capacity to evaluate pipelines, dams, and other federally overseen projects on their lands. According to the Environmental Protection Agenc...
As heat waves and wildfires cause chaos in North Africa, Europe and North America, climate scientists from the United Nations (UN) have announced that it is almost certain this July will be the warmest month ever recorded. At a press conference on climate Thursday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned, “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived,” a UN press release said. “Today, the World Meteorological Organization and the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service are releasing official...
By Zahra Ahmad. Earth Justice. On July 21, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) affirmed its May 2022 decision to allow the ongoing use of phthalates, a class of toxic chemicals, in food packaging and food production equipment. Health and environmental advocates had asked FDA to reconsider that decision based on mounting scientific evidence that phthalates in food cause serious health harm. Phthalates are chemicals that hurt people’s hormonal systems and are linked to a range of health harms, including preterm birth, birth defects, i...
By Umar Farooq. In September 2020, the Hopi Tribe's four-decade effort to secure its right to water culminated in a court proceeding. The outcome would determine how much water the arid reservation would receive over the next century and whether that amount would be enough for the tribe to pursue its economic ambitions. Under rules unique to Arizona, the tribe would have to justify how it would use every drop it wanted. The monthslong ordeal in Arizona's Superior Court unfolded in video calls...
By: Cristen Hemingway Jaynes. Hundreds of wildfires have been burning in nearly all of Canada’s provinces for almost a month, the smoke from them drifting down into the midwestern and eastern United States. Major U.S. cities from Minneapolis to Charlotte have been affected by the eerie orange-tinged wildfire smoke, but last week four out of the five most polluted cities in the world — New York, Toronto, Montréal and Washington, DC — were in North America, according to Swiss technology company IQAir. “This is not something that we’re talking ab...
By Zahra Ahmad. Earthjustice The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council sent a letter urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to strengthen the national ambient air quality standards for particulate matter and ozone to the most protective level EPA’s outside scientific advisors recommended. When implemented, these improved air quality regulations would prevent thousands of deaths, especially benefiting overburdened communities. In the letter, the advisory council asked EPA to listen to the science and lower the allowable l...
House Republicans and the White House cut a deal that raised the debt ceiling and averted an economic crisis. The deal cuts spending for programs critical to environmental protections and our social safety net. In addition, the deal includes hastily negotiated changes to the National Environmental Policy Act. Historically, bills to raise or suspend the debt ceiling have been clean, reflecting the common interest we have in protecting our economy, but this deal comes riddled with policy provisions that continue to sacrifice our communities....
