heavy metals toxic
820 ntbcw head bangers
MERRI OK
SEE DEREG EPA ZELDIN WHEELER TRUMP
SEE COAL COAL ASH
SEE KID KILLERS
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CONTEXT?
May 11, 2026
Zeldin’s EPA Is Letting Trash Incinerators Poison Children. Now It’s Being Sued
Weak federal rules allow incinerators to release cancer-causing pollutants into communities of color, harming children’s development before they are even born
Contacts
Robert Valencia, rvalencia@earthjustice.org
Washington, D.C. —
Community groups from multiple states today sued the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to establish strong emission rules for municipal solid waste incinerators, large facilities that burn trash for profit and release mercury, lead, dioxins, and other cancer-causing pollutants into neighborhoods across the country.
The lawsuit, filed by Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project on behalf of Sierra Club, Ironbound Community Corporation, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, South Baltimore Community Land Trust, and Florida Rising, argues that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s agency has defied the Clean Air Act by setting incinerator emission standards far weaker than what modern pollution controls can achieve and far weaker than the law requires.
“These incinerators are burning garbage and releasing poisons that cause cancer and can harm children’s development,” said Jonathan Smith, Earthjustice attorney. “Every day that the agency delays strong standards, families in places like Newark, South Baltimore, and across Florida pay the price with their health because corporations want to save some money instead of doing right for the surrounding communities.”
Municipal solid waste incinerators are among the largest sources of dioxin pollution in the United States. Dioxins are potent carcinogens with no safe level of exposure, capable of causing permanent harm to a child’s development even before birth. These same smokestacks release mercury, arsenic, and cadmium — dangerous pollutants linked to cancer, heart disease, and lifelong developmental damage. Yet despite the well-documented risks, the EPA failed to strengthen its regulations, leaving communities to bear the health consequences while companies continue to profit.
Incinerators are spread across the country, but their impacts are not felt equally. In Newark, Covanta’s Essex facility, located in a community where 78% of residents are people of color, emitted more than two million pounds of air pollutants in 2020 alone. In South Baltimore, the BRESCO incinerator towers over a predominantly Black neighborhood. People throughout Florida are dealing not only with the current, polluting incinerators in their backyards, but also the threat of new incinerators being placed in their communities.
Quotes from our clients and partners
“Our children grow up breathing some of the most polluted air in California. Weak federal rules let incinerator corporations off the hook while our families pay with their health,” said Andrea Luna, policy analyst at East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. “Corporations should not be allowed to profit from poisoning us.”
“Floridians watched a Reworld incinerator burn for weeks and breathed the smoke. We filed complaints, we showed up, and we were ignored,” said MacKenzie Marcelin, deputy campaigns director, Florida Rising. “The Zeldin EPA’s failure to protect us is an injustice that falls hardest on communities that need their help the most.”
“Ironbound residents live with elevated asthma rates, cancer diagnoses, and the daily reality of what comes out of that smokestack,” said Alejandra Torres, assistant director of organizing and advocacy at the Ironbound Community Corporation. “Our community should not have to go to court every time we want a company or the government to follow the law.”
“The science on dioxins, lead and mercury is not in dispute, these chemicals cause cancer, interrupt healthy brain development, and harm children the most,” said Jane Williams, chair of the Sierra Club’s National Clean Air Team. Communities hosting these facilities, which are often environmental justice communities, have waited decades for the clean air protections the Clean Air Act requires. EPA’s failure to adopt a rule which protects the health from these emissions is costing people their lives.”
“These incinerators have been operating under illegal standards for decades while families in nearby communities get sicker,” said Haley Lewis, senior attorney, Environmental Integrity Project. “It’s time for the EPA to stand by the communities they are meant to protect.”
Read *Decades of Denial*, Earthjustice’s report on municipal waste incinerators.
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OMFG
AN 7 25
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision Friday to eliminate its scientific research arm drew horrified responses from public health experts and climate advocates, who warned that the Trump administration is targeting the foundation of the department's work to shield Americans from hazardous chemicals, toxic pollution, and drinking water contaminants.
"This is grim news," said Adam Gaffney, an ICU doctor at the Cambridge Health Alliance. "For decades, the EPA's Office of Research and Development has produced the science that underlies the regulations and technologies that protect us from innumerable hazards."
"You can't put a number on the lives that it has saved. Now Trump and Zeldin are killing it," Gaffney added, referring to the president's handpicked EPA administrator.
Since taking charge at the EPA, Lee Zeldin has moved aggressively to implement President Donald Trump's executive orders aimed at gutting the agency's staff and freeing oil and gas corporations from regulatory restraints.
The agency will soon have 12,448 employees, after starting the year with more than 16,000. Staffers at the targeted research office—which had more than 800 employees as of earlier this week—reportedly learned of what one public health expert called "the ultimate Friday night purge" through the EPA's public press release.
In the statement, Zeldin said the elimination of the Office of Research and Development would help "ensure the agency is better equipped than ever to deliver on our core mission of protecting human health and the environment."
But scientists said the closure of the research office would have the opposite impact, leaving the agency's ability to protect the environment and public health badly compromised.
Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that "it is absolutely devastating that Trump officials would shut down this office in its entirety."
"Science, data, and research underpin all of EPA's work, from protections from harmful chemicals to air quality standards to safe drinking water. It's hard to see how EPA can fulfill its mission without its scientific research arm," said Goldman. "The nation enjoys a cleaner environment thanks to the decades of high-quality research coming out of this office. Our nation cannot let this stand. Members of Congress must act."
In his public messaging, Zeldin has deemphasized the EPA's fundamental responsibility to protect the environment, instead casting the agency as a promoter of "energy dominance"—the slogan Trump administration officials have used to describe the president's commitment to boosting fossil fuel drilling.
Earlier this year, Zeldin boasted about launching "the biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history," targeting power plant rules, Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and other regulations.
"Out in the open, Zeldin's EPA has been dismantling protections against precisely the sorts of dangers that right-wingers warn are coming from alleged deep-state conspiracies: toxic, cancer-causing chemicals that corporations have lobbied to freely inject into our air, water, food, and bodies," The New Republic's Kate Aronoff wrote in a recent column.
"Among the broader suite of regulations Zeldin's EPA has promised to roll back," Aronoff wrote, "is one that would require coal-fired power plant operators to upgrade wastewater treatment facilities, limiting their ability to freely discharge toxins like mercury, arsenic, selenium, lead, and bromide and to threaten local drinking water supplies."
NOW READ:'Like an open fire hose': Trump ripped as cracks show in MAGA media
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/epa-chiefs-former-lobbying-clients-are-getting-a-long-list-of-favors-from-agency
At least three former lobbying clients of Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler have received favorable decisions from the EPA under his leadership.
Wheeler spent years as an energy lobbyist at the law firm Faegre Baker Daniels, where he represented companies like the coal giant Murray Energy, whose owner RobertMurray is a major Trump donor. Wheeler signed a pledge in May 2018 to recuse himself from matters related to former clients after he replaced embattled former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. But the two-year pledge expired earlier this year and he has been repeatedly accused of violating the agreement by approving rules that he lobbied for as a lobbyist for Murray Energy and others.
At least three of Wheeler’s former clients have pushed for rules that the EPA has proposed or implemented under his leadership.
“Andrew Wheeler is overseeing policies that damage the air we breathe and water we drink while his associates benefit,” Chris Saeger, a spokesperson for the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. “This is a clear abuse of his taxpayer-funded position and ethics agreement."
in April, the EPA weakened regulations on the release of mercury and toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants, which experts said was aimed at “potentially constraining or handcuffing future efforts by the EPA to regulate air pollution.”
The New York Times described the change as a “particular victory” for Murray, who pressed for the change in a “wish list” of environmental regulation rollbacks he handed to President Trump just weeks after his inauguration. Murray donated $300,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee.
The Trump administration and federal agencies “have completed or are on track to fulfill most of the 16 detailed requests” in Murray’s wish list, the Times reported in 2018. But Murray had “unsuccessfully pressed the administration in 2017” to roll back the mercury emissions rule, E&E News reported, before it was rescinded under Wheeler.
The government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington filed an ethics complaint against Wheeler last yearover his involvement in the rule change, noting that he “participated in the matter less than a year” after signing the pledge.
“It is becoming more and more clear why coal and energy companies are happy to have their former lobbyist Andrew Wheeler in charge of the EPA,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said at the time. “Administrator Wheeler’s apparent failure to abide by ethics obligations and to avoid the reality or appearance of conflicts continues to undermine the EPA’s integrity and weakens public confidence in our government.”
Earlier this year, the EPA also finalized a rule that would extend deadlines to start closing unlined coal ash ponds. Coal ash from coal plants is dumped into excavated holes in the ground, where it mixes with water to create “coal ash ponds,” which can leak if they are not properly lined. The proposed rule would allow some coal plants five more years before requiring them to close the unlined ash ponds.
One of the major backers of the rule is the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group (USWAG), a secretive trade group whose members include Xcel Energy, a longtime former Wheeler client. Xcel Energy called for the rule change and the USWAG petitioned Pruitt for the rule in 2017. The USWAG praised the EPA for proposing the change under Wheeler last year.
Accountable.US criticized the EPA for rolling back regulations on coal ash at the behest of Wheeler’s former client.
“Administrator Wheeler is part of a corrupt pattern in the Trump administration, putting the interests of his allies above the public he is supposed to serve,” Saeger said last month. “This administration is abusing its power to hand out favors to corporate lobbyists, selling out Americans’ health and the environment in the process.”
In May, the EPA proposed no additional measures to mitigate negative air quality impacts associated with renewable fuel standards as required under the Clean Air Act. The proposed rule has been open for public comment ever since but has only received 16 thus far, including one supporting the rule from Growth Energy. The company has been one of the biggest supporters of the rule.
Growth Energy was one of Wheeler’s clients before he joined the EPA, according to his financial disclosure, which said he provided the company “strategic advice and counseling.” Wheeler had pledged to recuse himself from matters related to Growth Energy until shortly before the proposed rule was published.
The trend has played out in other agencies whose heads were appointed by the president. The Interior Department has made at least 15 policy changes or proposals that benefited Secretary David Bernhardt’s former energy industry clients. Several of acting Homeland Security SecretaryChad Wolf’s former lobbying clients have alsoreceived millions in government contracts while he held senior positions in the department. More than 280 of Trump’s political appointments have been former lobbyists, according to an analysis by ProPublica.
CREW has repeatedly called for the EPA’s inspector general to investigate whether Wheeler violated his ethics pledge in connection to rules that benefited his former clients.
“Administrator Wheeler has repeatedly used his government position at EPA to benefit the former clients that made him rich, and to the detriment of the agency’s critical mission,” CREW Deputy Director Donald Sherman said in a statement to Salon. “Administrator Wheeler’s continued lobbying on behalf of industry from within EPA, is clear evidence that patronage is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump administration.”
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ref
https://www.energyandpolicy.org/uwag-and-uswag-the-secretive-utility-groups-that-target-epa-rules/
may 2019
ref
https://www.energyandpolicy.org/uwag-and-uswag-the-secretive-utility-groups-that-target-epa-rules/
may 2019
matt kasper
The Utility Air Regulatory Group announced on Friday that its remaining members had decided to disband the embattled project after more than 40 years. UARG had been an unincorporated group of utilities represented by lawyers at Hunton Andrews Kurth that fought against clean air standards.
But while the utilities may have dissolved UARG, the same corporations still have other “U Groups” that exist to attack EPA’s enforcement of the nation’s environmental laws. Just as utilities used UARG to target the Clean Air Act, they have the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group (USWAG) and the Utility Water Act Group (UWAG) to attack EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act and other laws that utilities have long perceived as thorns in their sides.
USWAG is represented by lawyers at Venable LLP. Attorneys from Hunton Andrews Kurth, the same firm that housed UARG, represent the members of UWAG. Both U-groups are set up similarly to UARG: unincorporated, voluntary, ad-hoc coalitions that do not disclose individual utility members. USWAG has been a party in 88 lawsuits since the early 1990s while UWAG has been a party in 99 cases since 2000, according to the Public Access to Court Electronic Records.
Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, Utility Water Act Group targeting Obama-era rules; also subsidized by utility customers
UARG’s utility members faced intense scrutiny in recent months since Politico obtained and published confidential documents that outlined goals for a meeting of UARG’s policy committee to attack Obama-era clean air and public health rules.
The spotlight brightened when leading Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to several member-utility CEOs asking for information about EPA air official Bill Wehrum’s relationship with UARG and its member companies. Wehrum was an attorney at Hunton and represented UARG. Congress is investigating how he and another former Hunton lawyer now at the EPA, David Harlow, have helped reverse the agency’s position in a major enforcement action to favor a client of their former law firm – DTE Energy.
The Congressional probe into UARG requested that the utilities state whether they had forced their customers to fund their annual contributions to the collective legal effort. Journalists and consumer advocates also pressed individual utilities to answer the question posed from the members of Congress.Several utilities, including American Electric Power, Arizona Public Service, and Tucson Electric Power, admitted that they force their customers to fund UARG expenses and therefore the legal challenges to the Clean Air Act. Others, such as Ameren, DTE Energy, Dominion, and Duke Energy did not provide details about the source of UARG funding.
Rate case filings reveal that many utilities similarly force their customers to fund their attacks on EPA’s ability to enforce the Clean Water Act via USWAG and UWAG. In 2017, the Minnesota Office of the Attorney General argued that customers of Minnesota Power shouldn’t foot the utility’s membership bill for both USWAG and UWAG. Missouri Public Service Commission Staff explained that Ameren shouldn’t bill its customers $96,010 for UWAG annual dues and $47,163 for USWAG. And in November of 2018, the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General attempted to prevent Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities customers from paying the $68,175 for USWAG annual dues and $109,501 for UWAG.
In a2016 Arizona Public Service rate case, the Residential Utility Consumer Office (RUCO) described the U-groups as “purely voluntary, many of which are political in nature, and may not be necessary for the provision of utility services.”
Earlier this month, UWAG attorneys were in court to join the defense of the Trump administration’s two-year delay of Obama’s Effluent Limitations Guidelines (ELG) rule. Two years ago, Hunton attorneys representing UWAG petitioned the Trump EPA to reconsider the ELG rule. Under President Obama, the EPA finalized an update to the rule as it hadn’t been updated since the early 1980s. The rule exists to limit the wastewater that power plants can discharge in waterways. That wastewater includes arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, chromium, and cadmium.
USWAG attorneys, meanwhile, have targeted a coal ash rule,which the Obama Administration proposed in 2010 following the largest toxic waste spill in U.S. history at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in Kingston. One billion gallons of coal ash sludge destroyed 300 acres and dozens of homes. The rule established a set of requirements for the safe disposal of coal ash from coal-fired power plants. Similar to the ELG rule, USWAG was quick to petition the Trump EPA to reconsider parts of the coal ash rule. In September 2017, then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt announced that it will review parts of the rule that USWAG addressed in their petition.
Ten years after the Kingston spill that triggered the rule which USWAG has fought to undermine, 400 workers who cleaned up the spill have been sickened. Another 40 died, according to a tally maintained by the Knoxville News Sentinel.