CLEAN AIR 2

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1/18 age of trump, swamp things epa</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see air pollution</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see pm 2.5 partic</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see west va v epa
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</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">https://www.eenews.net/articles/meet-the-lawyers-teeing-up-the-supreme-court-climate-showdown/</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">1/22</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a<span georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px">s arguments approach in the most significant Supreme Court environment battle of the decade, teams of lawyers are already making their case for how the justices should view EPA’s climate authority.</span></font><div style=""><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the justices take the bench on Feb. 28 to hear arguments i<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">n&nbsp;<b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">West Virginia v. EPA</span>,&nbsp;</b>they will arrive armed with information from reams of briefs prepared by some of the nation’s leading environmental lawyers.</span></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those attorneys’ arguments will lay the groundwork in a high-stakes case that has the potential to upend EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants — one of the nation’s largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions.</font></b></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the challenge — brought by Republican-led states and coal companies —<b> asks the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that struck down a Trump-era EPA rule gutting the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.</b></font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The 2015 Obama rule invoked EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act to set systemwide requirements for power plant emissions reductions.</b></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the D.C. Circuit ruling, President Biden’s EPA had a clean slate to craft its own rule. The agency had said it would not return to the Clean Power Plan, whose goals have already been met by the power sector, even though the regulation never took effect.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The justices then took the unusual step of agreeing to hear a dispute over a regulation that does not technically exist.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Their ruling in the case, which is expected by next summer, could not only constrain EPA from issuing a comprehensive new carbon rule but also prevent Congress from handing off broad regulatory authority to federal agencies.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here are some of the lawyers to know in this year’s high court climate slugfest:</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lindsay See</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leading the briefs for West Virginia is Lindsay See, the state’s solicitor general.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The coal-rich state, joined by 18 others, filed the first plea for the Supreme Court to weigh in on EPA’s climate authority</b>. It was followed by three other petitions, which are now consolidated in one massive case.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See has served as West Virginia’s leading litigator since 2017 and previously worked as an associate at<b>&nbsp;Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher</b>&nbsp;LLP, a firm with a prominent Supreme Court practice.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She has appeared once before the nation’s highest bench, in a 2018 case related to a discrimination challenge against an exemption in West Virginia tax law that protected state and local — but not federal — employees from having their pension benefits taxed.&nbsp;<b>West Virginia lost the case.</b></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R</b>) and other state lawyers said the D.C. Circuit should not have allowed EPA to regulate power plant emissions under a “rarely used, ancillary provision of the Clean Air Act.”&nbsp;</span>They referred to Section 111(d) of the statute, which served as the basis for the carbon rule.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Save for a few general factors EPA was to take into account, the lower court told EPA it has ‘no limits’ on the emission-related measures it can impose — on any economic sector or almost any actor,” says the states’ most recent&nbsp;<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1530/204846/20211213135136223_WV%20v%20EPA%20-%20Opening%20Brief%20for%20WV.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">brief</a>, which was signed off on by See.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See is a Harvard Law School graduate and clerked for former D.C. Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paul Seby</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One other state has echoed West Virginia’s arguments in a petition and brief led by a lawyer who has been involved in the EPA carbon rule battle since the Clean Power Plan days.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Paul Seby, a shareholder at the firm&nbsp;<b>Greenberg Traurig</b>&nbsp;LLP&nbsp;</span>and&nbsp;<b>special assistant to North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem (R</b>), signed off on a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1530/204918/20211213175459245_Merits%20Brief%20of%20Petitioner%20the%20State%20of%20North%20Dakota%2020-1530.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">brief</a>&nbsp;that said the D.C. Circuit ruling “undermines the cooperative federalism framework carefully crafted by Congress” by finding that EPA — rather than states — can set power plant performance standards.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>North Dakota v. EPA</b><i>&nbsp;</i></span>is one of the four petitions in the consolidated Supreme Court case.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seby has argued against EPA carbon regulations before, back when the Clean Power Plan was before the D.C. Circuit. The court held a marathon argument over the regulation in 2016 but never reached a ruling.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Earlier that year, the Supreme Court had blocked the rule from taking effect, which allowed the Trump administration to dismantle it.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seby holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of San Diego and a law degree from Lewis & Clark College.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Andrew Grossman</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the other lead petitioners in the climate case, Westmoreland Mining Holdings LLC, hired Andrew Grossman to make its case to the high court.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Grossman leads</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">&nbsp;BakerHostetler’s</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;appellate practice&nbsp;</span>and is a frequent conservative commentator on wide range of administrative and constitutional issues.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Grossman is an adjunct scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute and a former legal analyst at the Heritage Foundation<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.&nbsp;</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He’s also a familiar face on Capitol Hill, having testified several times before the House and Senate Judiciary committees.</span></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In Westmoreland’s&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1778/182076/20210618132734780_Westmoreland%20Cert%20Petition.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">petition</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, Grossman raised what some environmental advocates referred to as a</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> killer question: whether EPA may use Section 111(d) to create performance standards for existing stationary sources under the provision’s “hazardous air pollutants” program.</span></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The justices granted the petition alongside others, but they said they would<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;only consider the second question posed by Westmoreland’s petition: whether EPA’s carbon rule violated the major questions doctrine,</span>&nbsp;which restricts federal agencies from deciding issues of “vast economic and political significance.”</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Grossman attended Dartmouth College and the<b>&nbsp;George Mason University’s&nbsp; SCALIA School of Law.</b></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yaakow Roth</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The fourth&nbsp;<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1530/204904/20211213163113690_20-1530%20-%20NACCO%20Opening%20Merits%20Brief.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">petition</a>&nbsp;in the consolidated case comes from North American Coal Corp., represented by<b>&nbsp;Jones Day&nbsp;</b>partner Yaakov Roth.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like the other challengers, the coal company argues that EPA and the D.C. Circuit have taken far too broad a view of federal climate authority under the Clean Air Act.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roth comes to the EPA climate case with lots of experience before the Supreme Court. He was the brainchild behind an argument that led the Supreme Court to overturn convictions in the New Jersey “Bridgegate” scandal.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He has also fought to preserve restrictive voting laws in Arizona and to dismantle the Obama-era Affordable Care Act.</font></b></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Roth has clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia&nbsp;</span>and a federal appeals court judge.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He is a graduate of&nbsp;<b>Harvard</b>&nbsp;University and York University.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elizabeth Prelogar</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before the Supreme Court agreed to hear&nbsp;<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">West Virginia v. EPA</i>, Elizabeth Prelogar had argued on behalf of the federal agency that it was too early for the justices to get involved.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The solicitor general<b style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;</b>noted in a&nbsp;<a href="https://subscriber.politicopro.com/f/eenews/?id=0000017b-182b-d760-a77b-986f069d0000" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">brief</a>&nbsp;filed in August that Biden’s EPA has not yet written a new carbon rule and has no plans to revive the Obama plan.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA instead intends to issue a new rule “after taking into account all relevant considerations, including changes to the electricity sector that have occurred during the last several years,” she wrote.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prelogar, who was confirmed in late October, has already made several appearances before the Supreme Court, including in one case in which she argued on behalf of the federal government against abortion laws in Mississippi and Texas.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since her appointment as acting solicitor general in January, Prelogar has also led Supreme Court briefs in several environmental cases, including one in which the Biden administration backed efforts by the developer of the PennEast natural gas pipeline to acquire state-owned land in New Jersey (<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2021/03/10/biden-echoes-trump-in-supreme-court-eminent-domain-battle-004523" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">Energywire</a></i>, March 10, 2021). The pipeline company won its case, but the project was eventually canceled.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prelogar, a Harvard Law School graduate, has previously served as assistant to the solicitor general and has worked in private practice. During a prior stint at the Justice Department, she&nbsp;<b>served on the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 electio</b>n.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She clerked for Attorney General Merrick Garland when he was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prelogar is the second woman to be confirmed as solicitor general. Kagan was the first.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sean Donahue</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental groups that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1530/186828/20210805145523797_20-1530%2020-1531%2020-1778%20and%2020-1780%20BRIEF%20IN%20OPPOSITION%20OF%20NON-GOVERNMENTAL%20ORGANIZATION%20AND%20TRADE%20ASSOCIATION%20RESPONDENTS.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">support</a>&nbsp;broad EPA regulatory authority have turned to an experienced Supreme Court litigator to represent them in the case: Sean Donahue.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donahue has been a go-to lawyer for environmental groups and public health advocates in some of the most high-profile litigation of the last decade, including Clean Air Act and climate cases.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He’s also represented environmentalists in key cases on the social cost of carbon for fuel economy and vehicle emissions standards.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donahue and his team, including the Environmental Defense Fund’s Vickie Patton, will have a challenging task ahead of them. Several conservative justices have signaled skepticism of doctrines requiring them to defer to agency expertise, and the current case appears to be a coordinated effort to curtail EPA’s regulatory authority broadly.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an interview, Donahue said once again it may be an environmental case that set an important precedent for administrative law.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Statutes like the Clean Air Act," he said, "necessarily depend upon expert agencies to apply Congress’ health and environmental directives to complex factual records, developing technologies, about particular industries and pollutants."</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donahue, who works for Donahue, Goldberg & Littleton, clerked for former Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens. He’s also a veteran of the Justice Department. He attended Columbia University and University of Chicago’s Law School.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beth Brinkmann</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another attorney with Supreme Court experience is making the case for electric utilities that want to preserve the D.C. Circuit decision striking down the Trump-era carbon rule.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Before the justices granted the case,</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Covington & Burling&nbsp;</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">LLP partner Beth Brinkmann led a&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1530/186844/20210805160947066_1%20Brief%20in%20Opposition.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">brief</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;on behalf of Consolidated Edison Inc. and other companies that said Supreme Court review of a nonexistent regulation would run the risk of a “ruling untethered to actual circumstances.”</span></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moreover, she wrote, the red states and coal companies are seeking relief from the justices even as the power industry has achieved the Clean Power Plan’s 2030 emissions reductions targets more than a decade in advance —<b>&nbsp;even though the rule never officially took effect.</b></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Those changes, which include reductions in the cost of emission-reduction technologies and increasing consumer preferences for clean power, have only accelerated since adoption of the ACE Rule,” she wrote.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brinkmann has argued more than two dozen times before the Supreme Court. As former deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department’s civil rights division, for example, she&nbsp;<b>defended the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act.</b></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She has also worked in the appellate practice at the firm&nbsp;<b>Morrison & Foerster</b>&nbsp;and as an assistant federal public defender representing indigent criminal defendants.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brinkmann is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and Yale Law School. She clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elbert Lin</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A utility industry group that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1530/180817/20210603111442106_AmPowerSupportBrief.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">opposes</a>&nbsp;EPA’s ability to craft rules like the Clean Power Plan has staffed its legal team with an attorney who, at only 43 years old, has already made a significant impact on environmental law at the Supreme Court.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elbert Lin was the lawyer who secured the unprecedented stay of President Obama’s climate regulatory regime, the Clean Power Plan, in 2016 while he was West Virginia’s solicitor general.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lin said in an interview that his interest in environmental and administrative law was born out of necessity when he was West Virginia’s solicitor general. It was during Obama’s second term, and the administration was promulgating many major environmental rules, including the Clean Power Plan.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Environmental regulations were of significant importance of the state," he said.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now in private practice at the firm Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, Lin is back in the EPA carbon rule litigation, representin<b>g America’s Power, a trade association of companies that produce electricity from coal.</b></font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lin, who is the son of Taiwanese immigrants, has also argued key Clean Water Act cases at the high court. He argued on behalf of Maui, Hawaii, in a case over whether a federal permit is required for pollution that is pumped underground but eventually reaches the ocean.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Supreme Court delivered a new test for determining whether a permit was needed, and a federal judge in Hawaii later sided with environmental groups arguing that Maui should have secured a Clean Water Act approval (<a href="https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2021/10/21/hawaii-ruling-tests-supreme-court-precedent-282240" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">Greenwire</a>, Oct. 21, 2021). Legal experts say they are watching to see how other courts apply the Supreme Court’s test.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lin attended Yale for undergrad and law school, and he<b>&nbsp;clerked for a federal appeals court judge and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas</b>.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reporters Lesley Clark and Niina H. Farah contributed.</font></span></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div></div><div><div>=</div><div>icn</div><div>
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</div><div>rELATED HEADLINES</div><div>AIR POLLUTION</div><div>Wheeler, coal industry allies tout soot rule</div><div>E&E News PM: Monday, December 7, 2020</div><div>AIR POLLUTION</div><div>Deal will close coal plants over Trump admin protest</div><div>E&E News PM: Thursday, December 3, 2020</div><div>AIR POLLUTION</div><div>Judge tosses Trump ally's bid to nix power plant deal</div><div>Greenwire: Tuesday, December 1, 2020</div><div>AIR POLLUTION</div><div>EPA deal sets cleanup deadline for booming Ariz. county</div><div>E&E News PM: Monday, November 30, 2020</div><div>AIR POLLUTION</div><div>Pressure mounts for Biden EPA to revamp soot standard</div><div>Greenwire: Monday, November 23, 2020</div><div>
</div><div>AIR POLLUTION</div><div>Trump EPA rejects tighter soot standards</div><div>Sean Reilly, E&E News reporterPublished: Monday, December 7, 2020</div><div>Smokestack. Photo credit: Ian Barbour/Flickr</div><div>EPA completed a final rule on particulate matter pollution. Ian Barbour/Flickr</div><div>
</div><div>With six weeks left in President Trump's term, EPA has cemented plans to bypass tighter soot standards, despite agency career staff conclusions and concerns about tens of thousands of additional deaths every year.</div><div>
</div><div>EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler has signed a final rule to keep the existing ambient air quality standards for soot in place at least another five years, according to people familiar with the matter both inside and outside the agency, who spoke on the condition that they not be identified. A formal public announcement is scheduled for later this afternoon.</div><div>
</div><div>An EPA spokesman declined to comment in advance of that announcement.</div><div>
</div><div>The decision, which marks a victory for the fossil fuel industry but is certain to be challenged in court, comes as no surprise. In signing the draft rule this spring, Wheeler said he believed the existing limits sufficed to protect public health (Greenwire, April 14).</div><div>
</div><div>But his determination bypassed the findings of EPA air office employees who concluded in a report this year that the existing annual limit on soot exposure could be too weak to prevent "a substantial number" of premature deaths each year. An overview of 30 urban areas, for example, tied exposure to as many as 45,000 annual deaths from heart disease and other causes, with minority communities at greater risk. Those findings didn't take into account more recent research suggesting that long-term exposure to soot may also heighten vulnerability to COVID-19 (Greenwire, April 30).</div><div>
</div><div>As E&E News has previously reported, critics are already angling to reverse the decision under the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden (Greenwire, Nov. 23). In a letter late last month, for example, Democratic attorneys general from 16 states urged EPA to reopen the review on the grounds that fresh evidence of soot's perils had surfaced.</div><div>
</div><div>Equally contentious was the process by which the Trump administration pursued the legally required review of standards for what is formally known as fine particulate matter or PM2.5.</div><div>
</div><div>Under a fast-track timetable put in motion in mid-2018, the review is ending roughly two years ahead of its previous schedule.</div><div>
</div><div>While Wheeler cited the recommendation of an agency advisory committee in opting to stick with the status quo, that committee is chaired by a consultant who had previously done work for the American Petroleum Institute and was nominated for the position by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In late 2018, in what he later described as a streamlining move, Wheeler fired an auxiliary panel of researchers who were providing additional expertise to the review.</div><div>
</div><div>In statements today, environmental and scientific advocacy groups denounced his decision to stick with the status quo.</div><div>
</div><div>"The Trump administration rigged the rule-making process to achieve exactly this result by cutting science and scientists out of the picture at every turn," said Gretchen Goldman, research director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Center for Science and Democracy, which last year reconvened the fired panel to conduct a competing unofficial review, which found the evidence warranted tighter standards.</div><div>
</div><div>"The worst part of all of this is that low income communities and communities of color will bear the brunt of Wheeler's heartless decision," said Al Armendariz, an Obama-era EPA official who is now a senior director at the Sierra Club. "We look forward to the new administration following the scientific evidence and setting the air quality standard that meets legal requirements to protect public health."</div><div>
</div><div>Soot is known as PM2.5 because it is no bigger than 2.5 microns in diameter, or one-thirtieth the width of a human hair; its formation is closely associated with the burning of coal and oil products. With an ability to penetrate deep into the lungs and even get into the bloodstream, the tiny particles are associated with an array of respiratory and cardiovascular problems, including a greater risk of premature death under some circumstances.</div><div>
</div><div>EPA's current annual exposure threshold for PM2.5, set in 2012, is 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air; the daily limit, dating back to 2006, is 35 micrograms. In this year's report, EPA career staff concluded that the evidence justified an annual standard as low as 8 micrograms per cubic meter of air.</div><div>
</div><div>Under the Clean Air Act, particulate matter is among a half-dozen common pollutants for which EPA must set and periodically review ambient air quality standards at least every five years. While the agency rarely meets that timetable, the newly signed final rule is intended to keep the existing standards in place through 2025 at a minimum.</div><div>
</div><div>On Friday, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs completed a routine review of the final draft rule, according to a government tracking website. In sending the rule back to EPA, OIRA officials canceled several meetings that had previously been scheduled with the California Air Resources Board, Environment America and the Natural Resources Defense Council, representatives for the three organizations confirmed in email messages and via Twitter.</div></div><div><div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font face="Times New Roman">820</font></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html</a></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">toxic 10 epa rollbacks ewg</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2647067465" style="margin-top: -15px; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="body-description" style="clear: both;"><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">From the beginning, the Trump administration has aggressively slashed environmental regulations. A New York Times analysis identified&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">100 environmental protections</a>&nbsp;that have been reversed or are in the process of getting rolled back.&nbsp;<b>The administration's record on chemical safety has been especially hazardous for the health of Americans,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2020/02/report-after-three-years-trump-kids-are-not-alright" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">especially children</a>.</b></span></p><p><b><a href="https://www.ewg.org/planet-trump/2018/01/trump-s-toxic-wake-8-ways-president-made-chemicals-less-safe-2017" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">One year into President Trump's term,</a>&nbsp;EWG detailed how the Trump administration has stacked the Environmental Protection Agency with industry lawyers and lobbyists, undermined worker safety and cooked the books on chemical safety assessments.</b>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/05/13-ways-pruitt-s-epa-has-made-your-life-more-toxic" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Midway through his second year,</a>&nbsp;we reported how the EPA reversed a ban on a brain-damaging pesticide, delayed chemical bans and killed a rule to protect kids from toxic PCBs in schools.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2019/08/10-ways-trump-has-undermined-chemical-safety" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Last year,</a>&nbsp;we reported that the EPA had rescinded safety rules at chemical plants, rubber-stamped untested new chemicals and silenced researchers.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Trump's first term nears its end, things are even worse. Here are 10 more ways the Trump administration has continued to make life more toxic for Americans.</span></p><p /><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem1" data-id="1" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" data-basename="1-failed-to-aggressively-regulate-toxic-forever-chemicals" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False"><h3 data-role="headline">1. Failed to Aggressively Regulate Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’</h3><p>The toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS contaminate&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">more than 2,200 sites</a>&nbsp;across the nation. Because they never break down in the environment, PFAS are often called "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/these-toxic-chemicals-are-everywhere-and-they-wont-ever-go-away/2018/01/02/82e7e48a-e4ee-11e7-a65d-1ac0fd7f097e_story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">forever chemicals</a>."&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">They build up in our bodies and are&nbsp;<b>linked to cancer</b>, reproductive and developmental harms and reduced effectiveness of vaccines</span>. Even though the EPA has known about the risks from PFAS chemicals&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/epa-pfas-timeline/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">since at least 1998</a>, they remain virtually unregulated.</p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In February 2019, the EPA released a toothless PFAS "action plan" that lacked deadlines for action and failed to address the use of PFAS in everyday products, contamination from PFAS air emissions or disposal of PFAS waste, among other concerns. A year and a half later, key goals from the plan, including regulating PFAS under the Superfund law and setting drinking water standards, remain unfulfilled.</span></p><p>When Congress stepped in and sought to designate PFOA and PFOS – the two most notorious and well-studied PFAS – as "hazardous substances" and to set deadlines for agency action, Trump&nbsp;<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/SAP_HR-535.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">threatened a veto</a>. Trump's EPA also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/07/27/2020-13738/long-chain-perfluoroalkyl-carboxylate-and-perfluoroalkyl-sulfonate-chemical-substances-significant" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">weakened a rule</a>&nbsp;designed to regulate&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2020/06/final-decision-epa-fails-protect-public-toxic-forever-chemicals-consumer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">PFAS in consumer products</a>.</p></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem2" data-id="2" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" data-basename="2-allowed-a-rocket-fuel-chemical-to-stay-in-drinking-water" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False"><h3 data-role="headline">2. Allowed a Rocket Fuel Chemical to Stay in Drinking Water</h3><p>Perchlorate is a component of rocket fuel that also frequently contaminates drinking water sources. Perchlorate can interfere with thyroid function, which can also harm&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2017/11/kids-still-risk-rocket-fuel-chemical-food-and-water" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">childhood brain development</a>.</p><p><a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-02-11/html/2011-2603.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Almost a decade ago,</a>&nbsp;the EPA determined that these harms warranted regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The agency then dragged its feet for years. In 2016, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nrdc.org/media/2016/160218" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Natural Resources Defense Council sued</a>&nbsp;to force the EPA to finally set a legal limit for perchlorate in drinking water. In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.freshlawblog.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2016/12/Doc-38-Consent-Decree.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">court-approved consent decree</a>, the EPA agreed to propose a standard by October 2018 and finalize it by 2019. However, the EPA sought extensions and failed to meet these deadlines.</p><p>The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/06/26/2019-12773/national-primary-drinking-water-regulations-perchlorate" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">EPA finally proposed a drinking water standard</a>&nbsp;in June 2019 but also suggested that it might not regulate perchlorate after all.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/07/21/2020-13462/drinking-water-final-action-on-perchlorate" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">A year later,&nbsp;</a>the EPA withdrew its decision to regulate perchlorate in drinking water.</p></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem3" data-id="3" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3" data-basename="3-allowed-scores-of-new-chemicals-including-new-toxic-pfas-onto-the-market-without-adequate-oversight" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False"><h3 data-role="headline">3. Allowed Scores of New Chemicals, Including New Toxic PFAS, Onto the Market Without Adequate Oversight</h3><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2016, Congress substantially changed the way new chemicals are approved under the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2016/05/new-tsca-bill-falls-short-protecting-americans-toxic-chemicals#.WwLUddMvwWo" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Toxic Substances Control Act</a>, or TSCA.</span></p><p>Under the old law, chemicals were frequently approved by default, often&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/research/off-the-books-ii-more-secret-chemicals/new-chemicals" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">without any health and safety information</a>. As a result, unsafe chemicals were allowed to be used for years or decades before the health and environmental hazards came to light. Inadequate oversight of new chemicals can also lead to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/harmful-chemicals-removed-from-products-often-replaced-with-something-as-bad-or-worse/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">regrettable substitution</a>&nbsp;– when chemicals are finally found to be unsafe, they are often replaced by unstudied chemicals that may be just as or even more toxic.</p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The 2016 update was supposed to fix the new chemicals program by requiring the EPA to make an affirmative safety finding on new chemicals and restrict use if industry failed to provide sufficient safety data.</span>&nbsp;Nonetheless, the Trump EPA has approved scores of new chemicals in a process that&nbsp;<a href="http://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/12/09/when-will-epa-fully-explain-and-legally-justify-its-reviews-of-new-chemicals-under-tsca/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">lacks transparency</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/20200317_comms_pc_tsca_english_final.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">contravenes the 2016 law</a>.<b>&nbsp;The EPA has also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.edf.org/blog/2018/09/05/trumps-epa-flouting-law-when-approving-new-chemicals-here-are-3-examples" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">ignored known health concerns</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/02/21/the-trump-epa-is-throwing-workers-facing-risks-from-new-tsca-chemicals-under-the-bus/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">limited its consideration of worker risks</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="http://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/06/03/the-trump-epa-is-illegally-denying-requests-for-public-files-on-new-chemicals/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">denied requests for public files</a>&nbsp;in the new chemicals program.</b></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The EPA has also exploited loopholes in the new law to quickly approve new chemicals, including toxic PFAS.</span>&nbsp;<a href="http://blogs.edf.org/health/2020/07/28/greasing-the-skids-the-trump-epa-is-green-lighting-dozens-of-new-pfas-under-tsca/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">A recent investigation</a>&nbsp;found that the EPA has been quietly approving new PFAS chemicals, through a provision known as the low volume exemption in the new chemicals program. As a result, the EPA is greenlighting new PFAS chemicals on an expedited basis, without public scrutiny. One PFAS,&nbsp;<a href="http://blogs.edf.org/health/2020/01/27/what-connects-cross-country-skiing-and-chemical-safety/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">used in ski wax</a>, was approved despite a finding that the chemical could "waterproof the lungs," resulting in severe health impacts.</p><p>Since the law was updated in 2016, the EPA has reviewed more than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/reviewing-new-chemicals-under-toxic-substances-control-act-tsca/statistics-new-chemicals-review" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">3,000 new chemicals</a>&nbsp;submissions. More than 1,000 of these chemicals have been approved through the low volume exemption, and since 2016, manufacturers have begun producing at least 900 new chemicals, many without adequate safety data. Environmental groups have&nbsp;<a href="https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/final_filed_complaint.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">sued the EPA</a>&nbsp;over its failures to protect the public and the environment from risks from new chemicals.</p></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem4" data-id="4" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4" data-basename="4-failed-to-protect-workers-from-a-deadly-paint-stripping-chemical" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False"><h3 data-role="headline">4. Failed to Protect Workers From a Deadly Paint-Stripping Chemical</h3><p>Methylene chloride is a highly toxic chemical used in paint strippers that is responsible for&nbsp;<a href="https://saferchemicals.org/us-deaths-from-methylene-chloride/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">more than 60 deaths</a>&nbsp;since 1980. In the final days of the Obama administration, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPPT-2016-0231-0001" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">EPA proposed a ban</a>&nbsp;on "methylene chloride for consumer and most types of commercial paint and coating removal."</p><p>After significant pressure from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-reconsiders-ban-on-potentially-lethal-paint-stripper-chemical-methylene-chloride/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">families who lost loved ones</a>&nbsp;due to methylene chloride exposure, the Trump EPA eventually issued a final rule in 2019. However, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-bans-consumer-sales-methylene-chloride-paint-removers-protecting-public" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">EPA narrowed the rule</a>&nbsp;so that it would apply only to consumer<em>&nbsp;uses</em>&nbsp;of methylene chloride, not commercial uses. That means workers are not protected, even though a&nbsp;<a href="https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/workers-rights/epa-restricts-sales-of-deadly-paint-strippers-after-years-of-delays/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Center for Public Integrity investigation</a>&nbsp;found that most deaths from methylene chloride take place at work.</p><p>A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/final-risk-evaluation-methylene-chloride" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">separate EPA evaluation</a>&nbsp;of methylene chloride found that manufacturing, disposal and several other uses of methylene chloride pose no "unreasonable risk." Environmental groups have filed lawsuits challenging&nbsp;<a href="https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2019/trump-s-epa-sued-for-leaving-workers-exposed-to-deadly-chemical-in-paint-strippers" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">the rule</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href="https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2020/trumps-epa-sued-over-understating-risks-of-deadly-chemical" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">recent evaluation</a>.</p></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem5" data-id="5" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5" data-basename="5-cooked-the-books-on-the-civil-action-chemical" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False"><h3 data-role="headline">5. Cooked the Books on the “Civil Action” Chemical</h3><p>Trichloroethylene is a chemical solvent made infamous by the book and movie "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3PHjIly2N0" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">A Civil Action</a>." The EPA considers it to be a&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">known carcinogen,</span>&nbsp;and it is one of the primary contaminants that sickened scores of veterans who served at&nbsp;<a href="https://psmag.com/environment/what-happened-at-camp-lejeune" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Camp Lejeune</a>, in North Carolina.</p><p>As with methylene chloride, in the final days of the Obama administration, the EPA proposed banning three uses of TCE:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPPT-2016-0163-0001" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">spot cleaning, aerosol degreasing</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPPT-2016-0387-0001" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">vapor degreasing</a>. In December 2017, the Trump EPA&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/release/trump-epa-indefinitely-delays-bans-deadly-chemicals" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">shelved these proposed bans</a>, claiming that it would study those uses in a separate ongoing risk evaluation of TCE.</p><p>However, the EPA dramatically rewrote the accepted science on<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;TCE&nbsp;</span>in the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/draft-risk-evaluation-trichloroethylene" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">draft risk evaluation</a>&nbsp;released in February. As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/06/industry-s-behest-epa-caves-banning-civil-action-carcinogen-lays-ground" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">EWG warned</a>&nbsp;in 2018, the solvents industry aggressively lobbied the EPA to ignore a key&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1241384/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">2003 study</a>&nbsp;finding that TCE causes heart deformities in developing fetuses. TCE's connection with fetal heart defects was an important basis for the Obama EPA's decision to ban three uses of TCE. An&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890623816303240#bib0190" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">independent review</a>&nbsp;of the EPA's science found that "prenatal exposure to TCE can cause human cardiac defects" and that the study "remains a valid choice" for assessing risk.</p><p>The lobbyists succeeded. The EPA's draft risk evaluation questioned the study's design and minimized its significance. An&nbsp;<a href="https://www.revealnews.org/article/epa-scientists-found-a-toxic-chemical-damages-fetal-hearts-the-trump-white-house-rewrote-their-assessment/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">investigation by Reveal News</a>&nbsp;compared the draft risk evaluation with a leaked earlier draft. It found that the earlier draft had relied extensively on the 2003 study and used it as a benchmark for the risk calculations. Reveal also reported that then-EPA chemicals safety chief Nancy Beck – "<a href="https://www.ewg.org/planet-trump/2017/05/scariest-trump-appointee-you-ve-never-heard" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">the scariest Trump appointee you've never heard of</a>" – ordered that the risk evaluation be rewritten to downplay the risks of TCE. With the EPA giving significantly less weight to risks from fetal heart deformities, it's unlikely the agency will finalize the proposed bans.</p></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem6" data-id="6" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=6#rebelltitem6" data-basename="6-pressured-epa-scientists-to-drop-evaluations-of-toxic-chemicals-including-formaldehyde" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False"><h3 data-role="headline">6. Pressured EPA Scientists to Drop Evaluations of Toxic Chemicals – Including&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Formaldehyde</span></h3><p>The Trump EPA is undermining the work of independent scientists within the Integrated Risk Information System program, known as IRIS. The program's work is supposed to be impartial and non-political. Its scientific assessments are intended to support the work of other EPA program offices and regional offices. IRIS is a&nbsp;<a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/02/03/epa-iris-toxic-chemicals/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">frequent target of chemical industry attacks</a>&nbsp;because its independent safety assessments often don't align with industry objectives.</p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2018, the Trump EPA tried to&nbsp;<a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3534381/Combined.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">defund</a>&nbsp;the IRIS program</span>. EPA leadership also pressured IRIS to drop critical health assessments. In March 2019,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/697212.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">a Government Accountability Office report</a>&nbsp;disclosed that EPA leadership directed agency offices to limit the number of chemicals they wanted IRIS to review, and cut in half the number of IRIS's ongoing or upcoming assessments.</p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One of the halted assessments was IRIS's decades-long review of formaldehyde, a widely used chemical and&nbsp;<a href="https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/content/profiles/formaldehyde.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">known human carcinogen</a>. This is surprising because former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt indicated to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in January 2018 that the report was complete and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Pruitt%20Letter%20formaldehyde%20assessment.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">ready for release</a>. However, answering&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eenews.net/assets/2019/01/29/document_pm_02.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">questions for the record</a>&nbsp;following a 2019 Senate hearing, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said formaldehyde was "not a top priority."</span></p><p>Instead of releasing the IRIS study on formaldehyde to the public, the EPA has instead decided that the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention – under the leadership of Nancy Beck – should&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-finalizes-list-next-20-chemicals-undergo-risk-evaluation-under-tsca" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">conduct its own assessment</a>&nbsp;of formaldehyde. As with TCE, this action will give the agency an opportunity to distort the science and minimize risks. Because these reviews take years, it will also significantly delay any EPA regulatory action on formaldehyde.</p></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem7" data-id="7" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=7#rebelltitem7" data-basename="7-rolled-back-clean-water-protections" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False"><h3 data-role="headline">7. Rolled Back Clean Water Protections</h3><p><b>Industrial chemical pollutants are often discharged into drinking water supplies</b>. But the Trump administration has made it a priority to roll back the<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/06/29/2015-13435/clean-water-rule-definition-of-waters-of-the-united-states" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">&nbsp;Clean Water Rule,</a>&nbsp;which more clearly defined which kinds of bodies of water are subject to the Clean Water Act. EWG's analysis found that the Clean Water Rule, if implemented as proposed by the Obama administration, would have protected drinking water sources for more than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/research/trump-plan-gut-stream-protections-imperils-tap-water-117-million-americans" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">117 million Americans</a>.</p><p>The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/31/politics/epa-science-board/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">EPA's own science advisors</a>&nbsp;have opposed the rollback of the Clean Water Rule, but the Trump administration&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/release/trump-completes-repeal-clean-water-rule-imperiling-drinking-water-sources-117m-people" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">repealed</a>&nbsp;it in 2019,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/release/trump-administration-finalizes-repeal-pollution-rule-threatening-drinking-water-sources-117" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">proposed its own rule</a>&nbsp;in January and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/04/21/2020-02500/the-navigable-waters-protection-rule-definition-of-waters-of-the-united-states" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">finalized it</a>&nbsp;in April. The new rule covers far fewer bodies of water and would leave 234,000 miles of small streams unprotected<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">. EWG estimates that at least 72 million Americans draw at least half their drinking water from small streams.</span></p><p>Because of the repeal, those bodies of water will no longer be subject to pollution limits. Protection for small and seasonal streams and wetlands is important because they often flow into larger bodies of water, including sources of drinking water.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Polluted drinking water sources&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2017/03/17/judge-dismisses-water-works-nitrates-lawsuit/99327928/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">strain municipal water utilities</a>&nbsp;tasked with filtering out contaminants regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and risk exposing the public to more&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/state-of-american-drinking-water.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">contaminants that aren't regulated</a>&nbsp;under the act.</span></p></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem8" data-id="8" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=8#rebelltitem8" data-basename="8-cooked-the-books-on-asbestos" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False"><h3 data-role="headline">8. Cooked the Books on Asbestos</h3><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Asbestos is a highly toxic, naturally occurring&nbsp;<b>chemical linked to a particularly deadly form of cancer called&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/mesothelioma/symptoms-causes/syc-20375022" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">mesothelioma</a>.&nbsp;</b>An estimated&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/search?authors=Jukka%20Takala&orcid=0000-0001-5722-7052" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">40,000 Americans</a>&nbsp;die every year from asbestos-related diseas</span>es. Although the toxicity of asbestos is well understood, the EPA has never actually banned most uses. The EPA attempted a ban in 1989, but most of the rule was overturned by&nbsp;<a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6165892895625819539&q=corrosion+proof+fittings+v+epa&hl=en&as_sdt=20006" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991.</a></p><p>After Congress reformed TSCA in 2016, the EPA announced that asbestos would be one of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/research/under-new-safety-law-epa-picks-first-10-chemicals-review" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">first 10 chemicals</a>&nbsp;reviewed under the new law. Many hoped that this time, the EPA would finally ban asbestos.</p><p>Instead, when the EPA released its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/draft-risk-evaluation-asbestos" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">draft risk evaluation</a>&nbsp;in May, it found that several uses of asbestos, including import of asbestos and asbestos-containing products and distribution of asbestos-containing products, did not pose an unreasonable risk. The EPA made its risk determinations by ignoring exposure from "legacy" uses of asbestos, such as old insulation and building tiles. Although in November the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/release/court-trump-epa-acted-unlawfully-refusing-consider-legacy-use-asbestos-lead" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals</a>&nbsp;ordered the EPA to fix this error, it has yet to do so.</p><p>Instead of banning asbestos, in April 2019 the EPA&nbsp;<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/04/25/2019-08154/restrictions-on-discontinued-uses-of-asbestos-significant-new-use-rule" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">published a rule</a>&nbsp;requiring notice and approval before manufacturers could resume using it in some applications the agency considered abandoned. However,&nbsp;<a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/815-e-p-a-memos-on-asbestos/12c87a96be998db10048/optimized/full.pdf#page=1" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">leaked documents</a>&nbsp;show that more than a dozen EPA staffers urged an outright ban on asbestos instead.</p></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem9" data-id="9" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=9#rebelltitem9" data-basename="9-proposed-a-loophole-for-toxic-air-pollution" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False"><h3 data-role="headline">9. Proposed a Loophole for <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Toxic Air Pollution</span></h3><p>In July 2019, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/07/26/2019-14252/reclassification-of-major-sources-as-area-sources-under-section-112-of-the-clean-air-act" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">Trump EPA proposed to reverse</a>&nbsp;a longstanding policy requiring large power plants, refineries and other industrial polluters to always meet certain strict controls, even after reducing emissions.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The new rule creates a loophole in the Clean Air Act regulations that would allow large industrial facilities to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-02/documents/reclassification_of_major_sources_as_area_sources_under_section_112_of_the_clean_air_act.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">reclassify themselves</a>, from "major sources" of air pollution to "area sources."</span></p><p>That change would allow them to opt out of strict pollution control standards, called "maximum achievable control technology," and substantially increase their emissions of dangerous air pollutants. EPA's own data shows that more than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-07-26/pdf/2019-14252.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">3,900 large facilities</a>&nbsp;that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/haps/initial-list-hazardous-air-pollutants-modifications" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">emit pollutants like mercury and&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">benzene</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;</span>could take advantage of this loophole.&nbsp;<a href="http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2020/02/19/epa-data-emphasizes-danger-of-trump-administrations-air-toxics-loophole/?conversion_pg=www.momscleanairforce.org%2Fthe-racism-of-the-epa-agenda%2F" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">The Environmental Defense Fund</a>&nbsp;estimates the loophole could increase toxic air emissions by as much as 480 percent, or almost 50 million pounds per year.</p><p>This rollback is especially alarming in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic. Studies have found that people who live in areas with&nbsp;<a href="https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2020/07/17/why-air-pollution-is-linked-to-severe-cases-of-covid-19/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">high levels of air pollution</a>&nbsp;are at greater risk for severe cases of COVID-19.</p></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem10" data-id="10" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=10#rebelltitem10" data-basename="10-continuing-its-quest-to-censor-science" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False"><h3 data-role="headline">10. Continuing Its Quest to Censor Science</h3><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In 2018, the EPA&nbsp;<a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/04/30/2018-09078/strengthening-transparency-in-regulatory-science" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">proposed a disastrous rule</a>&nbsp;significantly limiting the kinds of science the agency can rely on to justify environmental regulations. The rule would have prohibited the agency from using studies that don't make their underlying data publicly available or whose results can't be replicated. That change would prevent the EPA from including in its future risk assessments most&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aaas.org/news/scientific-medical-academic-groups-urge-epa-drop-transparency-rule" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">human health studies</a>, because personal medical data must remain confidential. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The rule would undermine studies that are foundational to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/climate/epa-science-trump.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">clean air regulations</a>.</span></p><p>The proposal sparked enormous opposition from scientists, academics and environmental health advocates. More than 600,000 public comments were submitted to the agency, the vast majority in opposition. In September 2019, the EPA dropped the proposal from its regulatory agenda.</p><p>But the Trump EPA is at it again. In March, the agency issued a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2020-03/documents/supplemental_notice_of_strengthening_transparency_in_regulatory_science.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">supplemental proposal</a>&nbsp;that is actually&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ewg.org/testimony-official-correspondence/ewg-comments-epa-strengthening-transparency-regulatory-science" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70);">worse than</a>&nbsp;the original proposal. The 2018 proposal applied to all "dose response" studies, but the new proposal applies to all studies. The new proposal also applies retroactively, which means the EPA could use it to gut existing regulations.</p><p>As these actions – and dozens of others – show, the Trump EPA has aggressively worked to erode and eliminate vital environmental and public health protections. The public needs an EPA that will prioritize people and planet over polluters and profit.</p></div></div></div></div></div><div><p class="print-title"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/05/05/epa-decides-reject-latest-science-endanger-public-health-and-ignore-law-keeping-outdated-fine-particle-air-pollution"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/05/05/epa-decides-reject-latest-science-endanger-public-health-and-ignore-law-keeping-outdated-fine-particle-air-pollution</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx many</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>EPA Decides to Reject the Latest Science, Endanger Public Health and Ignore the Law by Keeping an Outdated Fine Particle Air Pollution Standard</b></font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Guest • Tuesday, May 5, 2020&nbsp;</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By H. Christopher Frey, North Carolina State University</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The COVID-19 pandemic and economic shutdown have temporarily produced clearer skies across the U.S. Meanwhile, however, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been busy finding reasons not to pursue long-lasting air quality gains.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On April 30, 2020, the agency published a proposed new rule that retains current National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter without any revisions. It took this action after a five-year review process, in which scientific evidence showed unequivocally that these standards are not adequate to protect public health.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I have studied air pollution and air quality for over 30 years, and have been directly involved for a decade with EPA’s reviews of scientific findings on air pollution. This includes serving on the agency’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, or CASAC, and on 10 specialized panels focused on individual pollutants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As I have written previously, the Trump administration has watered down the role of science in what is supposed to be a science-based process of setting national air quality standards. This new proposal — which I expect will be challenged in court when finalized — is the result.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Recent studies indicate that reducing PM2.5 standards below current levels could avert thousands of premature deaths.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fine Particle Air Pollution Is Deadly</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fine particles, known as PM2.5 because they measure 2.5 microns or less in diameter, can penetrate deeply into the lungs and bloodstream. EPA staff scientists have reaffirmed that daily and annual exposure to PM2.5 causes premature death and a variety of illnesses.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientists have known this for decades, but since the national standard was last revised in 2012, new studies have strengthened these findings. They include an epidemiologic study with the largest ever number of subjects and several that include PM2.5 concentrations well below the current standard.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA’s scientific staff estimates, based on multiple epidemiologic studies, that currently an average of 13,500 to 51,300 people die prematurely each year from breathing fine particles. Although these numbers are uncertain, the likelihood of thousands of deaths per year would typically spur regulators to tighten existing standards. However, EPA’s current political leadership disagrees.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, has asserted that uncertainty around recent studies suggesting that current PM2.5 standards don’t adequately protect public health justifies retaining the current standard. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>What the Law Requires</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Clean Air Act directs the EPA to set air quality standards based on an accurate and thorough review of the latest science. This function is performed by CASAC, which I chaired from 2012 to 2015.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CASAC has seven members, which isn’t enough to provide the breadth, depth and diversity of expertise, experience and perspectives needed for these complex reviews. Recognizing this, for four decades the EPA has augmented the committee by convening expert review panels for each pollutant. They include scientists with extensive knowledge of epidemiology, toxicology, medicine, air quality, exposure, risk, statistics and other fields. I served on the 20-member CASAC PM Review Panel that was appointed in 2015 to help CASAC review the PM2.5 standard.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler disbanded that panel in October 2018. Wheeler also continued a makeover of CASAC, started by his predecessor, Scott Pruitt, that removed leading researchers from the committee. Now CASAC has no epidemiologists — a key discipline for assessing PM2.5 health effects.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>What Our Expert Panel Recommended</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Realizing that EPA would not otherwise get the science advice it needs, the disbanded PM review panel reconvened itself in October 2019. We found that current fine particle standards are not protective of public health.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The studies published since 2012 demonstrating that exposure to fine particles causes premature death at concentrations below current standards were key to our decision. We advised the EPA that the annual standard should be reduced from its current level of 12 micrograms per cubic meter to a range of between 10 and 8 micrograms per cubic meter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For the 24-hour standard, which regulates short-term air quality spikes, we recommended reducing the limit from the current level of 35 micrograms per cubic meter to between 30 and 25 micrograms per cubic meter. These scientific findings were based on multiple epidemiologic studies, augmented with evidence from controlled experiments with animals and humans.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Failing to Protect the Public</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Administrator Wheeler claims that recent studies since the last time the standards were revised “do not provide a basis for revising the standards.</b>” Wheeler acknowledges that studies based on long-term exposures below the current standards show “associations” between air quality and premature death. However, he argues that this research does not show a causal relationship. Yet, based on the overall body of evidence, he acknowledges that “a causal relationship exists between long-term PM2.5 exposure and total mortality.” In my view, his rationale is illogical and is inconsistent with the evidence.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Clean Air Act requires regulators to set standards that will provide an “adequate margin of safety.”</b> This means that they should be stringent enough to protect sensitive populations, such as older adults, people with preexisting cardiovascular or respiratory diseases and children with asthma.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA proposal acknowledges that these groups exist, but does not specify how it will protect them from PM2.5 in the air. Wheeler is also silent regarding the role of racial and ethnic differences in exposure and risk, even though a federal court called EPA to task in 2009 for not specifically addressing at-risk groups.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Preliminary evidence suggests that exposure to particles worsens the effects of COVID-19. While this finding needs peer review and additional study, existing evidence of risk for sensitive populations shows the need for a more protective standard.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA currently faces lawsuits for multiple instances in which it has either sought to weaken, or failed to strengthen, air pollution regulations. They include rolling back motor vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards, failing to implement stringent rules limiting interstate air pollution and repealing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan to limit carbon emissions from power plants. Unless EPA modifies its position on particle air quality to address the law and the science, I expect that this regulation too will end up in court.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">H. Christopher Frey is Glenn E. Futrell Distinguished University Professor of Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.</font></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">omg</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new 1119</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1119 LCV</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">story is still developing.</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">&nbsp;It's just been leaked out of the EPA that the Trump administration is preparing to drop a new rule that will disallow the use of vast quantities of data in its policy making.</span></div><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In effect, the new rule could virtually end meaningful implementation of significant parts of the Clean Air Act and many more bedrock environmental laws....</span><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>&nbsp;details: The new rule would prevent policy makers from using any study if the study's data, code, and models aren't made public.</b>

It sounds innocuous enough, but in practice, the EPA currently relies on public health studies based on confidential medical information — data that is incredibly private and should never be made public. These public health studies are absolutely critical to implementing virtually every law that protects the water we drink and the air we breathe.

Scientists within the EPA are raising the alarm. This policy has been designed and pushed forward by lobbyists for the oil industry and big tobacco. Politically-appointed leaders within the EPA have pushed aside the agency's&nbsp;<b>Science Advisory Board&nbsp;</b>in an end-run to stop the EPA from fulfilling its mission.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">icn 1019</font></div><div><h3 class="article-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-family: " playfair="Playfair" display="Display" serif="serif" font-weight="font-weight" normal="normal" line-height="line-height" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" height="height" px="px"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02102019/cross-border-smog-ruling-coal-power-trump-obama-clean-air-act" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">Court Rules Trump's EPA Can’t Erase Interstate Smog Rules</a></h3></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EW 919</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-childrens-mental-health-2640650546.html">
</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-childrens-mental-health-2640650546.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-childrens-mental-health-2640650546.html</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">Climate change</a>&nbsp;is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/04/climate-change-makes-air-pollution-worse/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">making air pollution worse</a>&nbsp;and is exacerbating&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-impact-on-health-like-a-sunburn-on-your-lungs/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">smog-related health risks</a>&nbsp;such as heart and lung diseases, pregnancy complications and development issues. Now, a study by the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center has identified another health risk associated with rising&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">air pollution</a>: childhood psychiatric issues.</font></p><div class="rebellt-item col1" data-id="1" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem1"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;" /><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the study, published in the journal&nbsp;<a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp4815" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;"><em>Environmental Health Perspectives</em></a>, short-term spikes in ambient air pollution are linked with an increase in hospital visits for childhood psychiatric issues. Also, children in low-income neighborhoods with poor access to healthcare appeared to be more susceptible to the mental health effects of air pollution.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/26/health/pollution-children-mental-health-intl-hnk-scli/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">CNN reported</a>&nbsp;that while previous research has shown an association between&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/particulate-matter-pm-basics" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">particulate matter pollution</a>&nbsp;in the air and adult mental health issues, this is the first time researchers have looked into its effect on children.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>During the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190925075731.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">five-year study,</a>&nbsp;researchers focused on a very small type of particulate matter called&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.vic.gov.au/your-environment/air/air-pollution/pm25-particles-in-air#targetText=Sources%20of%20PM2.5%20particles,major%20sources%20of%20fine%20particles." target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">PM 2.5</a>&nbsp;</b>— fossil fuel-powered vehicles and power plants, cooking, dust and brush fires are all sources — can be easily inhaled and end up in organs and the bloodstream, causing inflammation in the lungs or brain, and, in the long term, may trigger&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/cancer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">cancer</a>&nbsp;and heart attacks.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The researchers looked at more than 13,000 visits by children to Cincinnati Children's emergency psychiatric unit and compared it with data on the concentrations of PM 2.5 where they live. Results showed that spikes in PM 2.5 concentration were associated with&nbsp;<a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp4815" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">increased childhood psychiatric visits</a>&nbsp;one or two days later for adjustment disorder, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, while same-day visits were usually related to schizophrenia.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All daily exposures to PM 2.5 in the study were below levels set in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/criteria-air-pollutants/naaqs-table" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">National Ambient Air Quality Standards</a>, researchers said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These spikes in air pollution increased the risk of hospitalization for suicidal thoughts by 44 percent overall, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7500829/Spikes-air-pollution-disrupt-childrens-mental-health-study-finds.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">Daily Mail reported</a>, but the risk for children from disadvantaged areas was almost double that. These children were also 39 percent more likely to need treatment for anxiety.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The researchers noted that the study was observational and more research would be needed to rule out other causes,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/air-pollution-has-been-linked-psychiatric-disorders-children-1460966" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">Newsweek</a>&nbsp;reported.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"More research is needed to confirm these findings, but it could lead to new prevention strategies for children experiencing symptoms related to a psychiatric disorder," lead author Cole Brokamp said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/news/release/2019/air-pollution-mental-health" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">press release</a>. "The fact that children living in high poverty neighborhoods experienced greater health effects of air pollution could mean that pollutant and neighborhood stressors can have synergistic effects on psychiatric symptom severity and frequency."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While this study only looked at PM 2.5, it builds on other recent research by Cincinnati Children's demonstrating that exposure to air pollution in general during childhood may contribute to a host of mental health issues at an early age.</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In May, researchers at the Cincinnati Children's published a study in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/childhood-anxiety-could-be-affected-by-air-pollution-052219.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;"><em>Environmental Research</em></a>&nbsp;showing a link between increased exposure to high traffic related air pollution (TRAP) and generalized anxiety. Another study&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30925441" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5;">published in June</a>&nbsp;found that exposure to TRAP shortly in early childhood was linked with symptoms of anxiety and depression in 12-year-olds.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;" /></div><div class="rebellt-item col1" data-id="2" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem2" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><twitter-widget class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" id="twitter-widget-0" data-tweet-id="1174518573252915202" style="position: static; visibility: visible; display: block; transform: rotate(0deg); max-width: 100%; width: 500px; min-width: 220px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div data-twitter-event-id="0" class="SandboxRoot env-bp-350" style="max-height: 10000px; direction: ltr; background: 0px 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.4; white-space: initial; position: relative;"><div class="EmbeddedTweet EmbeddedTweet--cta js-clickToOpenTarget" data-click-to-open-target="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/1174518573252915202" data-iframe-title="Twitter Tweet" data-scribe="page:tweet" id="twitter-widget-0" lang="en" data-twitter-event-id="1" style="overflow: hidden; cursor: pointer; border: 1px solid rgb(225, 232, 237); border-radius: 5px; max-width: 520px;"><div class="EmbeddedTweet-tweetContainer"><div class="EmbeddedTweet-tweet" style="padding: 20px 20px 10px;"><blockquote class="Tweet h-entry js-tweetIdInfo subject expanded" cite="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/1174518573252915202" data-tweet-id="1174518573252915202" data-scribe="section:subject" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; border: none;"><div class="Tweet-header" style="display: flex;" /></blockquote></div></div></div></div></twitter-widget></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Fumes from Petroleum Tanks in this City Never Seem to Go Away. What Are the Kids Here Breathing?</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>BY: SABRINA SHANKMAN</div><div>As an idyllic coastal town embarks on an air monitoring program, child care providers, the mayor & our reporter begin a quest for answers.</div><div>Read More</div><div>https://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=2d40acf798&e=06876ede6b</div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/faith-groups-epa-toxix-chemical-regulations-power-plants-5da1991f1969/">https://thinkprogress.org/faith-groups-epa-toxix-chemical-regulations-power-plants-5da1991f1969/</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3/19</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Faith groups and a bipartisan alliance of lawmakers are coming out hard against the Trump administration’s efforts to rollback rules overseeing toxic chemicals at power plants.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During a hearing on Monday,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-03/documents/mats-public-hearing_preliminary_speaker_list-18march2019.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">representatives from a number of religious and spiritual organizations,</a>&nbsp;including evangelical Christian, Catholic, and Jewish groups, spoke out against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) plans to weaken the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The MATS rule aims to limit the amount of mercury and other toxic gases emitted from power plants as a byproduct of burning coal or oil. The Trump administration has moved to weaken the rule in a boon to the fossil fuel industry that could see human health severely impacted, worrying a number of religious organizations in the process.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And they aren’t alone in their objections. Also on Monday, a bipartisan group of senators&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/cache/files/19d7d59f-8a58-468b-85d7-248bd26ecc7d/dear-administrator-wheeler-final-w-signatures.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">wrote to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler</a>&nbsp;opposing “any action that could lead to the undoing” of the MATS rule.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>&nbsp;The outpouring of objection from religious organizations coupled with emerging opposition from some Republicans marks a hard break with President Donald Trump, who will likely rely on groups including conservative Christians to maintain the presidency in 2020.</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"When I hear the words ‘protect human health’ I think of Jesus,” said Melody Zhang, a member of&nbsp;<b>Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA</b>), at the public hearing Monday. “Jesus always acted out of compassion for the under-heard. I challenge you to live out this EPA mission by upholding the Mercury Rule.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Zhang was among more than a dozen speakers associated with a faith group that spoke out against the MATS rollback during the hearing. They were joined by many others; the all-day event saw speakers ranging from medical professionals opposing the rule change to hardline supporters of the rollback like representatives from Murray Energy, the coal company that once hired Wheeler as a lobbyist.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The number of religious groups opposing the administration’s anti-environment agenda is far from a monolith and many people of faith have supported the president’s mass rollback of environmental regulations more generally. But for the speakers on Monday, the connection between faith and upholding rules like MATS is clear.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We start with the concept that we care for God’s creation,” Jose Aguto, associate director for the<b>&nbsp;Catholic Climate Covenant</b>, told ThinkProgress. “Especially the poor and vulnerable … we find that the measure of every institution is life and dignity.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Established in 2011, the Obama-era MATS rule limits hazardous pollution at both coal and oil-burning power plants. The standards have been credited with saving up to 17,000 lives per year, even as the energy industry and other stakeholders have sought to block MATS through litigation.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The EPA, however, isn’t moving to get rid of MATS entirely. Instead, the&nbsp;<b>agency would reduce the emphasis the rule places on public health data, which justifies costs to power plants by prioritizing the well-being of people. The EPA would subsequently place emphasis on the costs to fossil fuel interests, which can be steep. That new approach would greatly reduce the effectiveness of MATS, likely threatening thousands of lives in the process</b>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Weakening the MATS rule, Aguto said, “threatens life and dignity.” As a Catholic, he emphasized concern for the health of fetuses; mercury is a toxin that can have severe impacts in utero, causing brain damage along with potential hearing and vision problems.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We feel that this is a real threat,” Aguto continued, calling any MATS rollback a “renunciation of the EPA’s very mission.”</font></p><div class="related-contentwrapper" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/epa-rollback-mercury-rule-trump-obama-health-coal-e66b43ec1501/" style="box-sizing: inherit; 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text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/epa-rollback-mercury-rule-trump-obama-health-coal-e66b43ec1501/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/epa-rollback-mercury-rule-trump-obama-health-coal-e66b43ec1501/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/epa-rollback-mercury-rule-trump-obama-health-coal-e66b43ec1501/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/epa-rollback-mercury-rule-trump-obama-health-coal-e66b43ec1501/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/epa-rollback-mercury-rule-trump-obama-health-coal-e66b43ec1501/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/epa-rollback-mercury-rule-trump-obama-health-coal-e66b43ec1501/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/epa-rollback-mercury-rule-trump-obama-health-coal-e66b43ec1501/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><figure class="postfigure postfigure--format-thumbnail" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; max-width: 100%;"><div class="postthumbnail" style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow: hidden; position: relative;"><picture id="picture-1089503" class="wp-image-1089503 size-full " data-id="1089503" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><source srcset="https://i0.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-1020826564.jpg?w=1920&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C1280px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 1920px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i0.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-1020826564.jpg?w=1920&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C1280px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 1024px) and (max-width: 1920px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i0.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-1020826564.jpg?w=1024&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C683px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1024px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i0.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-1020826564.jpg?w=1024&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C683px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 512px) and (max-width: 1024px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i0.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-1020826564.jpg?w=768&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C512px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 512px) and (max-width: 768px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i0.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-1020826564.jpg?w=512&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C341px&ssl=1" media="(max-width: 512px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i0.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-1020826564.jpg?w=768&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C512px&ssl=1" media="(max-width: 768px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i0.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-1020826564.jpg?w=3000&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C2000px&ssl=1" media="all" style="box-sizing: inherit;">
</source></source></source></source></source></source></source></source></font></picture></div></figure></a></div><div class="related-contentbody" style="box-sizing: inherit; width: 513px;"><h3 class="related-content__title" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 2rem; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">EPA to roll back mercury rule in a boon to coal industry and blow to human health</font></h3></div></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Speakers associated with faith groups on Monday talked about the role religion has played in their opposition to the Trump administration’s environmental regulation rollbacks, with an emphasis on health concerns.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“As I read the Scriptures of my own faith, we are called to follow the example of Jesus Christ, who protected the poor, the marginalized, and the vulnerable — and advised the mighty and the powerful to do the same,” said Rev. Susan Hendershot, president of the organization<b>&nbsp;Interfaith Power and Light,</b>&nbsp;during her testimony, later shared with ThinkProgress.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rolling back MATS, Hendershot argued, would be “morally unacceptable” and at odds with “Christian tradition.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mirele B. Goldsmith, who spoke on behalf of the&nbsp;<b>Jewish Climate Action Network (JCAN)</b>&nbsp;on Monday, relayed similar concerns about health and the environment to ThinkProgress.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We are seeing a surge in activism by Jews across the country who want to see more, not less, protection for people and nature,” said Goldsmith. “We feel compelled to take action in our homes and synagogues, and to speak up for our values in public.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The faith groups’ opposition comes as bipartisan concern grows over efforts to weaken MATS. The letter sent on Monday to Wheeler included among its signatories Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Susan Collins (R-ME), Tom Carper (D-DE),<b>&nbsp;Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Joe Manchin</b>&nbsp;(D-WV). Collectively, the lawmakers argue, “cleaner air means better health, a better economy, and better jobs for residents of our states.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Tillis and Collins are both eyeing re-election in 2020, while Alexander is retiring.</b>&nbsp;Their show of support for the MATS rule indicates that,&nbsp;<a href="https://thinkprogress.org/offshore-drilling-bipartisan-opposition-trump-00d389c5d084/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">along with issues like offshore drilling</a>, clean air could become a bipartisan rallying point during the election.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For the faith groups that testified Monday, that line in the sand has already been cemented. Aguto pointed to MATS as a “shining example” of the wider federal assault on environmental regulations.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.1875rem; line-height: 2.2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“When we talk about mercury, it’s been recognized for decades as being damaging to human health,” he said. “So to see a reversal of those protections, given decades of medical understanding … [it] is beyond troubling.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">EW</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/worlds-most-polluted-cities-2630812632.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/worlds-most-polluted-cities-2630812632.html</a></font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The latest data on the world's most polluted cities is out, and confirms that Asia has a major crisis on its hands when it comes to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution" target="self" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">air pollution</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.airvisual.com/world-most-polluted-cities?continent=&country=&state=&page=1&perPage=50&cities=" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">report</a>, released by&nbsp;<a href="https://t.co/DaMSTKfTRO" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Greenpeace</a>&nbsp;and software company IQAir AirVisual, shows that 22 of the world's 30 most polluted cities are in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/india" target="self" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">India</a>. Five are in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/china" target="self" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">China</a>, two in Pakistan and one is the capital of Bangladesh: Dhaka.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While India dominates the list numerically, Bangladesh is actually the world's most polluted country on average when weighted by population, followed by India and Pakistan,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/world/asia/india-air-pollution.html?emc=edit_mbe_20190306&nl=morning-briefing-europe&nlid=8863129420190306&te=1" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">The New York Times reported</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The report looked at 2018 air quality data assessing levels of particulate matter PM2.5, a particularly dangerous form of air pollution that has been linked to a growing number of health problems from pneumonia and heart disease to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-dementia-2602268931.html" target="self" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">dementia</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-diabetes-epa-2583155988.html" target="self" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">diabetes</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The report assessed 3,000 cities and found that 64 percent of them had PM2.5 levels higher than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.who.int/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">World Health Organization</a>&nbsp;(WHO) safety guidelines, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/05/india-home-to-22-of-worlds-30-most-polluted-cities-greenpeace-says" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">The Guardian</a>. Every city in Africa and the Middle East exceeded the guidelines, as well as 99 percent of South Asian cities and 89 percent of East Asian cities. The study estimates that air pollution will cause seven million early deaths next year,&nbsp;<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/05/health/100-most-polluted-cities-2018-intl/index.html?utm_campaign=fossil-fuels&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=post&utm_content=single-image&utm_term=no" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">CNN reported</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Air pollution steals our livelihoods and our futures, but we can change that," Executive Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia Yeb Saño told The Guardian. "We want this report to make people think about the air we breathe, because when we understand the impacts of air quality on our lives, we will act to protect what's most important."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The report indicated that China was having some success in its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/chinas-war-on-pollution-helps-kick-coal-habit-1881952951.html" target="self" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">war on pollution</a>. PM2.5 levels fell around 12 percent for the Chinese cities listed in the report between 2017 and 2018, The New York Times reported. India, however, has had less success. Its cities' pollution levels saw relatively no change between the two years.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We're still in denial," Jai Dhar Gupta, founder of Indian pollution mask company Nirvana Being, told The New York Times. "The priority for 99 percent of Indians is necessities: food, shelter and clothing. Health and environment are not even in the top 10."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here are the world's 100 most polluted cities according to the report, as summarized by CNN:</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. Gurugram, India</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2. Ghaziabad, India</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3. Faisalabad, Pakistan</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4. Faridabad, India</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5. Bhiwadi, India</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6. Noida, India</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7. Patna, India</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8. Hotan, China</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9. Lucknow, India</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10. Lahore, Pakistan</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">11. Delhi, India</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p></div></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">guk 219</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Europe / Continent's most deprived areas 'hit hardest by air pollution'</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-us-air-pollution-levels-2614554181.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-us-air-pollution-levels-2614554181.html</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;no lnxx many graphs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>5 Ways Trump Is 'Gaslighting' Us on U.S. Air Pollution Levels</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>As he's wont do to, President Donald Trump on Monday tweeted a World Health Organization (WHO) map of particulate pollution and said that the U.S. has the "cleanest air in the world - BY FAR!"</b></div><div>
</div><div>Trump's tweet "shows how maps can be used to misrepresent facts and conclusions," as John Walke, director of a clean air program and a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), clapped back in an epic Twitter thread.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Let's break down the many ways the president's claims are disingenuous or plain wrong:</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">1. First, as POLITICO noted, the tweet is based on information from 2016, when Barack Obama was POTUS. This is not the first time the Trump team has taken credit for the previous administration's work on reducing pollution.</span></div><div>
</div><div>2. Now let's look at the map itself. Notice that the image has a blue band on top that says, "America: the Cleanest Air in the World—BY FAR." It also includes text that states, "91 percent of the world population (none in the U.S.) are exposed to air pollution concentrations above WHO suggested level."</div><div>
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</div><div>Walke tracked down the original map, which looks very different. No additional text, but also a lot more pink. It clearly shows that most areas of the world have annual averages of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) higher than the WHO air quality guideline level of 10 micrograms per cubic meter.</div><div>
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</div><div>From WHO report: "Exposure to ambient air pollution from particulate matter for 2016"</div><div>Walke tweeted an accurate map based on the same WHO data showing that the U.S. has average annual PM2.5 pollution concentrations above WHO recommendations.</div><div>
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</b></div><div><b>3. Finland, not the U.S., has the world's best air quality, the WHO announced earlier this year. </b>The U.S. isn't even in the top 10. Countries with the healthiest air are actually Australia, Brunei, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, New Zealand, Sweden and countries in the Pacific islands, as EcoWatch previously reported from WHO data.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">4. Fine particulate matter or PM2.5 is a dangerous form of air pollution linked to a wide array of adverse health impacts, including premature deaths, asthma attacks, heart attacks, lung cancer, preterm births, autism and dementia.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When it comes to avoiding sicknesses and deaths due to air pollution, the U.S. is ranked number 23 in the world.</span></div><div>
</div><div>"In 2016, the American population lost 516 years of disease- and disability-free life per 100,000 people. That's more than double the rate found in top-ranked New Zealand, and only marginally better than countries like Honduras (#26) and Nicaragua (#28)," the NRDC wrote.</div><div>
</div><div>So it's false for President Trump's tweet to claim that no populations in the U.S. are suffering from dangerous air pollution levels. The "State of the Air report" by the American Lung Association found that 133.9 million Americans—about 4 in 10 people—could be breathing in unacceptable levels of smog, pathogens and toxins.</div><div>
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</div><div><b>5. Thanks to national clean air standards, air pollution levels have dramatically lowered in the U.S. since the 1970s. However, progress is in jeopardy thanks to the Trump administration's efforts to roll back these protections in favor of the fossil fuel industry and other polluting sectors.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As you can see in the tweet below from the Associated Press science writer Seth Borenstein, pollution actually got worse in 2017:</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Sierra Club noted that Trump's Environmental Protection Agency disbanded a scientific panel that reviews particulate pollution and has gutted several clean air standards that protect from particulate matter pollution, including the Clean Power Plan and loosening regulations on glider trucks.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"Trump is responsible for the most serious attacks on clean air by any president ever, and his tweets will do nothing to prevent kids from getting sick from his big polluter handouts and clean air rollbacks," Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune said in a press release.</span></div><div>
</div><div>"Trump is taking credit for the progress achieved by the exact same clean air safeguards other presidents put in place that he is now trying to throw out. Just last week, Trump disbanded the EPA panel that was responsible for overseeing the progress on particulate pollution that he is now citing. No amount of gaslighting can undo the damage that Trump's reliance on gas and coal will cause," Brune added.</div><div>
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</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-placentas-pregnancy-2605967194.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-placentas-pregnancy-2605967194.html</a></font></div><div><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Air Pollution Particles Discovered in Placentas</font></h1></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></span></font><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2605967194" data-authors="Lorraine Chow" data-headline="Air Pollution Particles Discovered in Placentas" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Researchers have found the first evidence that soot from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution" style="text-decoration-line: none;">polluted air</a>&nbsp;can travel from a pregnant woman's lungs and reach the placenta via the bloodstream, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/2018/smd/first-evidence-that-soot-from-polluted-air-may-be-reaching-placenta.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">press release</a>&nbsp;from Queen Mary University of London.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The study examined the placentas of five women living in London after they gave birth. The women were all non-smokers, had uncomplicated pregnancies and delivered healthy babies.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For the study, the research team examined 3,500 macrophage cells from the five placentas. Macrophages, which are white blood cells that reside all over the human body, protect the immune system as they work to engulf harmful particles, such as bacteria and pollution particles.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Using a high-powered microscope, the researchers detected 72 small, black particles among the placental macrophages, which the scientists believe are tiny carbon particles typically created by burning&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/cannabis" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fossil fuels</a>, the press release noted.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We can't think of anything else they could be. It is very evident to us they are black sooty particles,"</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p></div></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><span style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://ecowatch.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=248c14152b&e=c2e8fdabfa" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New Study Links Air Pollution to Dementia</font></a></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">yikes DN</font></div><div><span style="" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;environmental news, a new scientific study has found air pollution can lead to a huge reduction in cognitive intelligence. One of the study’s authors, Xi Chen at Yale School of Public Health, said,<b> “Polluted air can cause everyone to reduce their level of education by one year, which is huge.”</b> The study, which was based in China, also suggests pollution can lead to increases in Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.</font></span></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">&nbsp;=</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/10/koch-nichols-scott-pruitt-strip-california-waiver-regulate-auto-emissions">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/10/koch-nichols-scott-pruitt-strip-california-waiver-regulate-auto-emissions</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">...In the weeks leading up to his announcement about&nbsp;the emissions standards, Pruitt had taken a more antagonistic tone towards California, signaling that he might attempt to revoke the waiver that was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/california-greenhouse-gas-waiver-request" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">granted by the Obama administration, per legal mandate, in 2009</a>.</font></p><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="min-height: 280px;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>California is not the arbiter of these issues,” Pruitt told Bloomberg News in March, adding that the state “shouldn’t and can’t dictate to the rest of the country what these levels are going to&nbsp;be.”</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With the waiver in hand, California can continue to enforce current greenhouse gas emissions standards, despite whatever the&nbsp;<span class="caps">EPA</span>&nbsp;sets as the new national standards for model years 2022-2025. On top of that, any other state can choose to adopt California’s standards, which 13 other states and the District of Columbia currently&nbsp;have.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Because these states represent roughly one-third of the country’s personal vehicle market, automakers would have to decide whether to set up two different production lines for states following the California&nbsp;standards and the rest of the country, or whether to treat California’s targets as a de facto national&nbsp;standard.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Predictably, the automakers, through the powerful Auto Alliance and Global Automakers trade groups, are calling for one national regime, which could result from a grand bargain like the one that Pruitt just scrapped, or could be delivered by Pruitt stripping California of its&nbsp;waiver.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Any attempt at such a repeal would be hugely controversial, and possibly illegal, due to many nuances in the Clean Air Act and the history of its application and enforcement. A waiver granted to California under the Clean Air Act has never been revoked, and has only been denied&nbsp;once.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Notably, that lone denial came in December 2007 when William (Bill) Wehrum, who ran the&nbsp;<span class="caps">EPA</span>’s clean air division at the time,&nbsp;<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/27/nation/na-waiver27" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">convinced then-<span class="caps">EPA</span>&nbsp;Administrator Stephen Johnson to reject the state’s request</a>&nbsp;to set its own greenhouse gas&nbsp;standards for vehicles, the very issue at hand&nbsp;today.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(California was later granted that same waiver in 2009 under the Obama administration, after the state sued the&nbsp;<span class="caps">EPA</span>, and after the Supreme Court had held in 2007 that&nbsp;<a href="http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2017/04/02/the-tenth-anniversary-of-massachusetts-v-epa/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the&nbsp;<span class="caps">EPA</span>&nbsp;was required to regulate greenhouse gas emissions</a>. For a much more comprehensive background on California’s waiver and Wehrum’s opposition, see&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/02/06/bill-wehrum-once-denied-california-right-cut-auto-emissions-and-could-do-it-again-epa" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">this recent Desmog article</a>.)</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Today, Wehrum is again the air chief at the&nbsp;<span class="caps">EPA</span></b>, and is again in a position to attempt to strip California of its unique authority to set its own air pollution limits. As Wehrum, Pruitt, and&nbsp;<span class="caps">EPA</span>&nbsp;policymakers work to figure out the new national emissions standards for cars and light trucks, they are hearing from groups including&nbsp;the American Consumer Institute and its Koch-tied coalition on the importance of revoking the California&nbsp;waiver.</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Who Are the Groups Fighting California’s Clean Air Act&nbsp;Waiver?</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<span class="caps">ACI</span>&nbsp;letter to Pruitt, dated March 28, 2018, was signed by representatives from 11&nbsp;groups, eight&nbsp;of which have known ties to the Koch network, and all of which are routine commenters on conservative&nbsp;issues.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Consumer_Institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">American Consumer Institute (<span class="caps">ACI</span>)</span></a>&nbsp;is credited with organizing the coalition, and the letter is signed by its President Steve Pociask. The group is best known for opposing&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/13-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-fccs-net-neutrality-regulation/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">net neutrality efforts</a>&nbsp;while being funded by a major internet service provider (<span class="caps">ISP</span>) lobby, as journalist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8gdbw5/cables-companies-are-astroturfing-fake-consumer-support-to-end-net-neutrality" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Lee Fang detailed&nbsp;for&nbsp;<span class="caps">VICE</span></a>. More recently, Pociask has turned his attention to attacking electric vehicles,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevepociask/2018/03/22/the-science-on-electric-vehicles-does-not-support-continuing-californias-waiver/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">writing on Forbes</a>&nbsp;that “the science on electric vehicles does not support continuing California’s&nbsp;waiver.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://lessgovernment.org/#sthash.UrtaKSlM.dpbs" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">Less Government</span>&nbsp;</a>is an “organization dedicated to reducing the power of government and protecting the First Amendment from governmental assault,” which was founded and run by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heartland.org/about-us/who-we-are/seton-motley" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Seton Motley</a>, who is also listed as a Policy Adviser to&nbsp;the climate science-denying&nbsp;<a href="http://desmogblog.com/heartland-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Heartland Institute</a>. Though Motley and his Less Government org have their roots in telecom and media issues, he has in recent years engaged more on climate and energy issues,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.energyandpolicy.org/americans-for-prosperity-anti-wind-letter-analysis/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">signing some anti-wind energy letters organized by the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="http://lessgovernment.org/why-are-republicans-resurrecting-failed-green-energy-subsidies/#sthash.9ki1QTaT.dpbs" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">writing a bit on electric vehicles</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<a href="http://www.energyandpolicy.org/taxpayer-protection-alliance" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">Taxpayers Protection Alliance (<span class="caps">TPA</span>)</span></a>&nbsp;is part of the&nbsp;<a href="https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/koch" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">network of front groups</a>&nbsp;funded by the Koch brothers and their donor network through the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/12/center-to-protect-patient-rights-ga/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Center to Protect Patient Rights</a>&nbsp;(now called&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Encore" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Encore</a>), and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/behind-the-curtain-exclusive-the-koch-brothers-secret-bank-96669.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Freedom Partners</a>. As the Energy and Policy Institute has described, “<span class="caps">TPA</span>&nbsp;essentially exists as a shell for its advocacy, based on its own&nbsp;<span class="caps">IRS</span>&nbsp;form 990s: 'The Taxpayers Protection Alliance has given control of the management duties and the daily activities of the organization to&nbsp;<span class="caps">MLM</span>&nbsp;Consulting,&nbsp;<span class="caps">LLC</span>&nbsp;(<span class="caps">MLM</span>).&nbsp;<span class="caps">MLM</span>&nbsp;will be responsible for managing the organization and work to support the exempt purposes of&nbsp;<span class="caps">TPA</span>. The President of&nbsp;<span class="caps">TPA</span>, David Williams, is the sole owner of&nbsp;<span class="caps">MLM</span>&nbsp;Consulting&nbsp;<span class="caps">LLC</span>.'”&nbsp;Williams signed the&nbsp;<span class="caps">ACI</span>letter to Pruitt.&nbsp;<span class="caps">TPA</span>&nbsp;has fought clean energy policy in the past using the website SolarSecrets.org and has published white papers arguing against solar energy tax&nbsp;credits.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://caseforconsumers.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">Consumer Action for a Strong Economy&nbsp;</span></a>is run by Matthew Kandrach, and has been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/freedomworks#s46" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">linked to a number of coalition efforts stemming from the FreedomWorks</a>&nbsp;organization, which was born of a merger between the Koch-founded&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Citizens_for_a_Sound_Economy" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Citizens for a Sound Economy (<span class="caps"><span class="caps">CSE</span></span>)</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Empower_America" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Empower America</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><a href="https://www.americancommitment.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Commitment</a>&nbsp;</span>is run by Phil Kerpen, a former Vice President of Americans for Prosperity. The organization was founded by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Sean_Noble" title="Sean Noble" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Sean Noble</a>, a right-wing operative with close ties to the&nbsp;<a class="mw-redirect" href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_brothers" title="Koch brothers" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Koch brothers</a>&nbsp;who also runs the&nbsp;<a class="mw-redirect" href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_to_Protect_Patient_Rights" title="Center to Protect Patient Rights" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Center to Protect Patient Rights</a>&nbsp;(American Encore),&nbsp;a major funnel for Koch donor network money to front&nbsp;groups.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/freedomworks" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">FreedomWorks</a>&nbsp;</span>was, as mentioned above, born of a merger between the Koch-founded&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Citizens_for_a_Sound_Economy" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Citizens for a Sound Economy (<span class="caps"><span class="caps">CSE</span></span>)</a>and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Empower_America" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Empower America</a>, though it has no known Koch ties at present day. The group was described in a&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150821200015/http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/12/dick-armey-resigns-freedomworks-tea-party" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2012 article in&nbsp;Mother Jones</a><em><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150821200015/http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/12/dick-armey-resigns-freedomworks-tea-party" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">&nbsp;</a></em>as “one of the main political outfits of the conservative movement and an instrumental force within the tea party.” It pushes free market policies and has questioned the well-established science linking human activity to a warming&nbsp;planet.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/competitive-enterprise-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">Competitive Enterprise Institute (<span class="caps">CEI</span>)</span></a>&nbsp;is a conservative advocacy group&nbsp;<a href="https://cei.org/about-cei" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">dedicated</a>&nbsp;to “economic freedom” that has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/competitive-enterprise-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">received funding</a>&nbsp;from ExxonMobil, Texaco, and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/koch-family-foundations" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">family foundations of the Koch brothers</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><a href="http://www.energyandpolicy.org/americans-for-tax-reform" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Americans for Tax Reform</a></span>&nbsp;(<span class="caps">ATR</span>) is an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.atr.org/about" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">anti-tax</a>&nbsp;group that has received funding from the oil and gas lobbying group, the&nbsp;<a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/org/americans-for-tax-reform-americans-for-tax-reform-foundation/?og_tot=127&order_by=contribution+DESC&adv=American+Petroleum+Institute&min=&max=&yr=&yr1=&yr2=&submit=#grants" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Petroleum Institute</a>, along with various groups in the Koch network such as the&nbsp;<a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/org/americans-for-tax-reform-americans-for-tax-reform-foundation/?og_tot=127&order_by=contribution+DESC&adv=claude&min=&max=&yr=&yr1=&yr2=&submit=#grants" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/org/americans-for-tax-reform-americans-for-tax-reform-foundation/?og_tot=127&order_by=contribution+DESC&adv=Center+to+Protect+Patient+Rights&min=&max=&yr=&yr1=&yr2=&submit=#grants" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Center to Protect Patient Rights</a>, as well as&nbsp;<a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/org/americans-for-tax-reform-americans-for-tax-reform-foundation/?og_tot=127&order_by=contribution+DESC&adv=donors&min=&max=&yr=&yr1=&yr2=&submit=#grants" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">DonorsTrust</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/60-plus-association" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">60 Plus Association</span></a>&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151014182632/http://60plus.org/about/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">describes itself&nbsp;</a>as the conservative alternative to the American Association of Retired Persons (<span class="caps"><span class="caps">AARP</span></span>) and receives significant funding from groups connected to the Koch brothers. The group has also received funding from the American Petroleum Institute, and was created by Sean Noble (see American Commitment above). Noble was until recently a consultant for the Arizona Public Service utility company, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/07/08/how-arizona-corporation-commission-turned-anti-solar-just-few-years" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">has led efforts in Arizona to kill solar-friendly legislation</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/frontiers-freedom" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Frontiers of Freedom</a></span>, run by George Landrith, has received significant funding from Exxon, the Koch brothers, and dark money organizations like Donors Trust. In 2015,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/12/23/energy-equality-coalition-koch-attack-federal-electric-vehicle-tax-credit" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Landrith launched the Energy Equality Coalition</a>&nbsp;to&nbsp;battle against the federal electric vehicle tax credit. The coalition also includes David Williams of the Taxpayer Protection Alliance and Horace Cooper, a senior fellow at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Heartland Institute</a>. Landrith is also a&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20171115202340/http://www.nationalcenter.org/NCPPR_Directors.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">director&nbsp;</a>of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/national-center-public-policy-research" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">National Center for Public Policy Research (<span class="caps"><span class="caps">NCPPR</span></span>)</a>.&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: 700;">The Center for Freedom and Prosperity&nbsp;</span>was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-deniers/front-groups/center-for-freedom-prosperity-foundation/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">once funded by the Charles Koch Foundation</a>&nbsp;and has actively lobbied for more liberalized tax laws, and for less scrutiny towards offshore tax&nbsp;havens.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seven of the organizations that signed this letter to Pruitt — and five&nbsp;of the actual representatives who signed —&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rstreet.org/outreach/letter-support-policies-encouraging-smokers-to-switch-to-less-harmful-alternatives/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">also recently penned a letter to the&nbsp;<span class="caps">U.S.</span>&nbsp;Food and Drug Administration</a>&nbsp;(<span class="caps">FDA</span>)&nbsp;defending “electronic and heat-not-burn” tobacco products (or vaping products), indicating that this network is defending the tobacco industry as well as oil and gas&nbsp;companies.</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">California and Partner States Fight&nbsp;Back</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nichols has signaled that California will not be retreating from its strong&nbsp;standards.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>California will not weaken its nationally accepted clean car standards, and automakers will continue to meet those higher standards, bringing better gas mileage and less pollution for everyone,” Nichols wrote in a statement emailed to reporters. “This decision takes the&nbsp;<span class="caps">U.S.</span>&nbsp;auto industry backward, and we will vigorously defend the existing clean vehicle standards and fight to preserve one national clean vehicle&nbsp;program.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has also said that California is prepared to sue if the&nbsp;<span class="caps">EPA</span>&nbsp;moves to weaken the vehicle emissions&nbsp;standards.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>We are going to do everything that can been done to defend these standards,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-autos-emissions-california/california-attorney-general-says-ready-to-defend-vehicle-efficiency-standards-idUSL1N1R927Q" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Becerra told&nbsp;</a><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-autos-emissions-california/california-attorney-general-says-ready-to-defend-vehicle-efficiency-standards-idUSL1N1R927Q" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Reuters</a><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-autos-emissions-california/california-attorney-general-says-ready-to-defend-vehicle-efficiency-standards-idUSL1N1R927Q" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">&nbsp;last week</a>. “So far, when we have been challenged on environmental standards we have had a good record in court. We haven’t lost a&nbsp;case.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under the Clean Air Act, the&nbsp;<span class="caps">EPA</span>&nbsp;is required to grant California a waiver on air pollution emissions standards if the state has “compelling and extraordinary circumstances,” which California argued a decade ago, and which the Obama administration agreed that it does. To revoke the waiver, the&nbsp;<span class="caps">EPA</span>&nbsp;would legally have to prove that those circumstances are no longer there. To satisfy the courts in California's inevitable legal challenge, this would require a comprehensive and scientifically rigorous&nbsp;analysis.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the&nbsp;<span class="caps">BNEF</span>&nbsp;Future of Energy Summit on April 10, Nichols said, “The document that came out a week ago from the administrator did nothing to change the nature of the debate. It expressed Mr. Pruitt's view but there was absolutely nothing new in the way of data or analysis to support that&nbsp;view.”&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She did indicate that she would be willing to sit down with the&nbsp;<span class="caps">EPA</span>&nbsp;and&nbsp;automakers to look at some “minor adjustments” to the technical changes measuring how companies could comply, but not the targets themselves. She provided an example related to electric vehicles. “Under the 2012 rules [car companies are] responsible for upstream emissions of power plants for charging&nbsp;<span class="caps">EV</span>s [electric vehicles]. I don't think that's a great idea. I didn't think so at the&nbsp;time.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, “if the whole system is up for reexamination,” said Nichols, “then that's a whole different story … That's a different fight. And we would win&nbsp;it.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It’s also clear that other states would have California's back and join a legal fight, or start their own. Attorneys general from 11 states said last week in a statement that they would defend California's right to set firm&nbsp;standards.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“By cooking the books on its review of national auto emissions standards, the Trump administration is putting special interests ahead of New Yorkers’ health and wallets,” said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. “We stand ready to take legal action to block the Trump administration’s reckless and illegal efforts to reverse these critical standards and the gains we’ve made in ensuring cars are more fuel-efficient and less&nbsp;polluting.”</font></p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above" style="padding: 1.5em 0px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); margin-top: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="field-label" style="text-transform: uppercase; display: inline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TAGS:&nbsp;</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div class="field-items" style="display: inline;"><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/3899">cafe standards</a></div><div class="field-item odd" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/11425">Scott Pruitt</a></div><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/topics/american-consumer-institute">american consumer institute</a></div><div class="field-item odd" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/topics/william-wehrum">william wehrum</a></div><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/4457">FreedomWorks</a></div><div class="field-item odd" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/tags/competitive-enterprise-institute">competitive enterprise institute</a></div><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/5883">Americans for Tax Reform</a></div><div class="field-item odd" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/9125">60 Plus Association</a></div><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/1746">frontiers of freedom</a></div></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">&nbsp;=</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-startups-shutdowns-2534981679.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-startups-shutdowns-2534981679.html</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Air Pollution From Industrial Shutdowns and Startups a Grave Danger to Public Health</font></h1></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></span></font><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2534981679" data-authors="The Conversation" data-headline="Air Pollution From Industrial Shutdowns and Startups a Grave Danger to Public Health" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Nikolaos Zirogiannis, Alex J. Hollingsworth and David Konisky</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-harvey" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Hurricane Harvey</a>&nbsp;struck the Texas coast in August 2017, many industrial facilities had to shut down their operations before the storm arrived and restart once rainfall and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding" style="text-decoration-line: none;">flooding</a>&nbsp;had subsided.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These shutdowns and startups, as well as accidents caused by the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricanes" style="text-decoration-line: none;">hurricane</a>, led to a significant release of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution" style="text-decoration-line: none;">air pollutants</a>. Over a period of about two weeks, data we compiled from the Texas'&nbsp;<a href="http://www2.tceq.texas.gov/oce/eer/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Air Emission Event Report Database</a>&nbsp;indicates these sites released 2,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and other pollutants.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p></div></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><div data-reactid="173" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">&nbsp;WEHRUM IS</span>&nbsp;the Trump administration’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation. “Bill,” the first line of his bio at his law firm,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hunton.com/en/people/william-wehrum.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Hunton & Williams, boasts,</a>&nbsp;“is well known for his thorough grasp of environmental issues.”</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his Senate confirmation hearing this week, Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., put that claim to the test.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The senator</span>&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/SenJeffMerkley/status/915704243335700481" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">produced</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;a large graph for Wehrum from NASA, tracking levels of both greenhouse gas emissions and warming from 1880 through 2005. The lines follow one another fairly closely, including a dramatic upward spike through the latter half of the&nbsp;20th century and early 21st. “Can you acknowledge,” Merkley asked, “that these lines generally track each other?”</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I’m not familiar with those data. I have no idea what it depicts,” Wehrum answers.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Merkley prods. “But you can see the lines. Do the lines track each other?”</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“What’s important, senator, is to know how the data is depicted.”</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Yes it is,” Merkley agrees, “But I’m just asking a question: Can you see those two lines, and do they generally track each other?”</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p></div><div class="Tweet" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><twitterwidget class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" id="twitter-widget-0" data-tweet-id="915704243335700481" style="box-sizing: border-box; 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height: 1.25em; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: contain; vertical-align: text-bottom; width: 1.11111em; background-image: url(" xmlns:data="data"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" /></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="u-hiddenVisually" style="position: absolute !important; overflow: hidden !important; width: 1px !important; height: 1px !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">✔</font></span></font></span></span></a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="TweetAuthor-screenName Identity-screenName" title="@SenJeffMerkley" data-scribe="element:screen_name" dir="ltr" style="padding-right: 4px; flex-basis: 100%;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">@SenJeffMerkley</font></span></font></div></div><div class="Tweet-body e-entry-content" data-scribe="component:tweet" style="margin-top: 14px;"><div class="u-hiddenVisually js-inViewportScribingTarget" style="position: absolute !important; overflow: hidden !important; width: 1px !important; height: 1px !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important;"><p class="Tweet-text e-entry-title" lang="en" dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; border: none; white-space: pre-wrap; cursor: text; word-wrap: break-word; direction: ltr;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">You've got to be kidding me with this nominee.</font></p><div class="Tweet-metadata dateline" style="margin-top: 3.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a class="u-linkBlend u-url customisable-highlight long-permalink" data-datetime="2017-10-04T22:24:39+0000" data-scribe="element:full_timestamp" href="https://twitter.com/SenJeffMerkley/status/915704243335700481" style="text-decoration: inherit; font-weight: inherit; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">2:24 PM - Oct 4, 2017</font></a></font></div><ul class="Tweet-actions" data-scribe="component:actions" role="menu" aria-label="Tweet actions" style="margin: 8.4px 0px 0px; 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font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /></div><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;">&nbsp;<span class="TweetAction-stat" data-scribe="element:retweet_count" aria-hidden="true" style="display: inline-block; vertical-align: text-bottom;">11,601</span><span class="u-hiddenVisually" style="position: absolute !important; overflow: hidden !important; width: 1px !important; height: 1px !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important;">11,601 Retweets</span></a></li><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;">&nbsp;</a><li class="Tweet-action" style="display: inline-block; margin-left: 14px;"><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--retweetEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:retweet" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><div class="Icon Icon--heart TweetAction-icon Icon--heartEdge" aria-label="Like" title="Like" role="img" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" charset="utf-8,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%20width%3D%2224%22%20height%3D%2224%22%20viewBox%3D%220%200%2024%2024%22%3E%3Cpath%20fill%3D%22%23657786%22%20d%3D%22M12%2021.638h-.014C9.403%2021.59%201.95%2014.856%201.95%208.478c0-3.064%202.525-5.754%205.403-5.754%202.29%200%203.83%201.58%204.646%202.73.813-1.148%202.353-2.73%204.644-2.73%202.88%200%205.404%202.69%205.404%205.755%200%206.375-7.454%2013.11-10.037%2013.156H12zM7.354%204.225c-2.08%200-3.903%201.988-3.903%204.255%200%205.74%207.035%2011.596%208.55%2011.658%201.52-.062%208.55-5.917%208.55-11.658%200-2.267-1.822-4.255-3.902-4.255-2.528%200-3.94%202.936-3.952%202.965-.23.562-1.156.562-1.387%200-.015-.03-1.426-2.965-3.955-2.965z%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E" style="display: inline-block; 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font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; 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font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;" /></div><a class="TweetAction TweetAction--heartEdge web-intent" href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=915704243335700481" data-scribe="element:heart" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent;">&nbsp;<span class="TweetAction-stat" data-scribe="element:heart_count" aria-hidden="true" style="display: inline-block; vertical-align: text-bottom;">23,335</span><span class="u-hiddenVisually" style="position: absolute !important; overflow: hidden !important; width: 1px !important; height: 1px !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important;">23,335 likes</span></a></li></ul></div></div></blockquote></div><div class="tweet-InformationCircle--top tweet-InformationCircle--topEdge tweet-InformationCircle" data-scribe="element:notice" style="position: absolute; right: 0px; top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 6px 6px 5px 5px; z-index: 20; line-height: 0;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175256" class="Icon Icon--informationCircleWhite js-inViewportScribingTarget" title="Twitter Ads info and privacy" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" charset="utf-8,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%20viewBox%3D%220%200%2072%2072%22%3E%3Cg%20transform%3D%22translate(8%208)%22%3E%3Cpath%20fill%3D%22%23657786%22%20fill-opacity%3D%22.8%22%20d%3D%22M28%203.11C14.278%203.11%203.11%2014.276%203.11%2028c0%2013.723%2011.166%2024.887%2024.89%2024.887S52.89%2041.723%2052.89%2028C52.89%2014.274%2041.724%203.11%2028%203.11z%22%2F%3E%3Cpath%20fill%3D%22%23FFF%22%20d%3D%22M28%2044.593c-1.718%200-3.11-1.393-3.11-3.112V30.076c0-1.718%201.392-3.11%203.11-3.11s3.11%201.392%203.11%203.11V41.48c0%201.72-1.392%203.113-3.11%203.113z%22%2F%3E%3Ccircle%20fill%3D%22%23FFF%22%20cx%3D%2228%22%20cy%3D%2218.148%22%20r%3D%224.667%22%2F%3E%3Cpath%20fill%3D%22%23FFF%22%20d%3D%22M28%2056C12.56%2056%200%2043.44%200%2028S12.56%200%2028%200s28%2012.56%2028%2028-12.56%2028-28%2028zm0-49.778C15.99%206.222%206.222%2015.992%206.222%2028S15.992%2049.778%2028%2049.778c12.01%200%2021.778-9.77%2021.778-21.778S40.008%206.222%2028%206.222z%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fg%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; background-color: transparent; display: inline-block; height: 18px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: contain; vertical-align: text-bottom; width: 18px; background-image: url(" xmlns:data="data"><span class="u-hiddenVisually" style="position: absolute !important; overflow: hidden !important; width: 1px !important; height: 1px !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></span></a></font></div></div><div class="resize-sensor" style="position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; z-index: -1; visibility: hidden;"><div class="resize-sensor-expand" style="position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; z-index: -1; visibility: hidden;"><div style="position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; transition: 0s; width: 510px; height: 447px;"><div class="resize-sensor-shrink" style="position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; z-index: -1; visibility: hidden;"><div style="position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; transition: 0s; width: 1000px; height: 873.625px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" /><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Wehrum does not answer the question, leading Merkley to give up on his graph-related line of inquiry for another. “What we see is this Koch Brother-inspired determination not to acknowledge even the most fundamental facts. … Why should the American people put into an office of significant influence someone who refuses to look at the facts directly that are so important to the health of this planet?”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“As I said, these are complex issues and very important issues.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">So Merkley sought to make it a little less complex, asking Wehrum whether he acknowledges a series of basic scientific facts about recent ecological trends tied to rising temperatures: the increasing acidification of the ocean, growing snowpacks on the cascade mountains, longer fire seasons. Wehrum, again, does not respond, saying of ocean acidification that he’s aware there “is an allegation,” before being cut off.</font></p><div class="img-wrap align-none width-auto" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2em -40px 2.25em -20px; line-height: 1; padding: 0px 20px; width: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2017/10/Screen-Shot-2017-10-05-at-1.16.17-PM-1507227677.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><img class="alignnone size-article-medium wp-image-150848" src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2017/10/Screen-Shot-2017-10-05-at-1.16.17-PM-1507227677.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=540&h=291" alt="" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: -20px; min-width: 0px !important; min-height: 0px !important;" /></font></a></font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">As Merkley suggests, Wehrum is in all likelihood not as stupid as his testimony would lead you to believe. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it,” Upton Sinclair famously wrote. Wehrum has</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/science/epa-chemical-industry-dourson.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;represented</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;a number of fossil fuel industry interests, from the American Petroleum Institute, Kinder Morgan, the American Forest & Paper Association, and electric utilities in</span><a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/william-wehrum-lawsuits-in-federal-appellate-courts_2017-09-19.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;suing the EPA</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;in fighting a number of regulations, some of which his new job would give him the authority to dismantle.</span></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Among his other cases was one in which he represented industry trade associations in fighting Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules that limited how much silica workers can be exposed to on the job, and another challenging Mine Safety and Health Administration regulations. He also worked over a decade ago to try to block California from implementing more stringent vehicle standards. At another point in his confirmation hearing, Wehrum demurred when asked by California Sen. Kamala Harris if he’d pledge not to try to undo the state’s more stringent air quality regulations.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Notably, Wehrum is a major critic of the endangerment finding, a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that gives the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Peeling back that authority is seen as a prize for many industry groups Wehrum has represented, that have reportedly been miffed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt hasn’t moved faster to dismantle it.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Having been at the EPA during the Bush years in the same job, Wehrum might be even better-positioned than Pruitt to take the endangerment finding head on, all with the backing of agency opponents and outsiders now running one of the nation’s top regulators. He’s expected, as well, to act as a kind of bridge between career administrators and Pruitt’s team, helping smooth the path for his boss’s anti-regulatory agenda.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">But he has to get confirmed first.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“No one can look at what is happening on the planet and see that there is nothing happening unless you’re deliberately determined to ignore that information,” Merkley concluded Wednesday. “And that makes you, really quite frankly, unacceptable to serve in this capacity.”</font></p></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></twitterwidget></div></div></div></div></div>