DEREG 4 EPA DJT

not just enviro

SEE DEREG 5 1 25

includes post trump esp scotus fails

see trade groups api afpm

html italics fail

SEE CHEVRON DOCTRINE SCOTUS GORSUCH

see pjt 2025

see dereg

see corruption

see lobbyist

see west va v epa

see dark $

see bribe buy elections

see libtard free mkt BS

see bomb train fail trump east palestine

see clean water act/ wotus

4/20 omfg sparked by blk lung and

tool:

https://www.drillednews.com/post/the-climate-covid-19-policy-tracker

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recall lakoff regs = protection ~ devil term

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AN 1 25

Big Wall Street banks are hoping that President-elect Donald Trump will kill several major regulations imposed on the financial industry — including one set of rules aimed at preventing another 2008-style financial crash.

That's according to a Saturday article in the Guardian, which reported that banks are optimistic about the incoming administration's regulatory agenda. Some bankers are particularly eager about the possibility of Trump taking an axe to the Basel III rules, which were put in place in response to the global banking crisis that preceded the Great Recession of the late aughts.

In a 2024 article, Investopedia described **Basel III as an international set of guidelines developed by 28 countries that established "minimum capital, leverage and liquidity requirements to ensure major banks could survive another upheaval." This was a response to the forced bailouts of banks deemed "too big to fail," requiring an infusion of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to keep financial institutions afloat.

In addition to Basel III, Trump could undo some of the anti-too-big-to-fail provisions in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform act. This includes a mandatory "stress test" from the Federal Reserve imposed on all financial institutions with more than $50 billion in assets. Dodd-Frank also requires banks to put forth a "living will" that serves as a plan in the event a bank should fail.

A.J. Bell investment analyst Dan Coatsworth told the Guardian that big banks are optimistic about their treatment under Trump's second term given his promises to roll back corporate regulations. He said banks' surging stock prices in the wake of the election symbolizes Wall Street's bullish attitude toward the incoming administration, but emphasized that the industry didn't want so much deregulation that it would risk future instability.

“Trump wants to make things easier for banks, but he won’t want to risk any damage to the financial system,” Coatsworth told the Guardian. “That means being more lenient with rules but not having them too loose."

Financial institutions are also excited about Trump's stated opposition to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement in which investors are encouraged to hold their wealth in industries deemed to be more sustainable. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has already suggested he would roll back the company's previous commitments to address climate change, and "use the word ‘commitment’ much more reservedly in the future" in regard to pro-environment pledges.

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an 12 24

Some advisors to President-elect Donald Trump have reportedly floated several ideas to gut regulations on banks, including one proposal to eliminate the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that several unnamed advisors and officials close to Trump — including some who part of the "Department of Government Efficiency" (which is not yet an actual federal agency authorized by Congress) — are mulling several major changes to government oversight of the banking sector. The Officer of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve have also been eyed for "restructuring," according to the Journal.

Under the plan, the FDIC would be eliminated, but deposit insurance would be rolled into the Department of the Treasury. Still, the proposal set off alarm bells among various experts on social media. Historian Kevin Kruse wrote on Bluesky that past major reforms to financial regulators sometimes led to catastrophe.

"When I lecture about New Deal banking reforms, I note that some of the key measures — like Glass Steagall — were repealed by the right with disastrous results like the 2008 financial meltdown, but ha ha, no one will ever be stupid enough to kill FDIC and bring back the old bank runs," Kruse wrote.

Journalist Walker Bragman further elaborated on why the FDIC was established in the first place in the wake of the 1929 financial crisis and subsequent bank failures of the 1930s. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had explicitly sought to create more stability in the financial sector by guaranteeing all Americans' bank deposits would be insured up to $2,500 (the FDIC now insures deposits up to $250,000).

"This is so bad," Bragman lamented. "FDR created the FDIC amid The Great Depression in order to restore faith in American banking. People were basically losing everything when their banks failed. The FDIC was meant to prevent so-called 'bank runs' where people would pull their money out to save what the could get."

MSNBC host Chris Hayes sarcastically wrote that he would "love to have to re learn all the lessons of the New Deal again." Writer Karl Folk responded to the Journal's report by arguing that Americans "are all about to get robbed by the wealth class in a way that really can not be described." Civil rights lawyer Joshua Erlich was more blunt: "[G]etting rid of the FDIC is so cartoonishly evil that it’s hard to even process."

Click here to read the Journal's report in full (subscription required).

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11 7 24 thom

Donald Trump is preparing to crash the American economy. He intends to do it by tearing up vital parts of our American government. He may even hire Elon Musk to pull it off. And from his point of view, this is not going to be a bad thing. The farther the economy crashes, the greater the buying opportunity for billionaires. It all has to do with something called the administrative state.

While it’s not sexy or even particularly interesting to the average American voter, having a strong administrative state is essential to a high-functioning economy. A strong administrative state is the only thing that protects entrepreneurs and small businesses from being squashed like bugs by monopolistic behemoths, and small businesses are our nation’s main growth engine.}:

:{For example, over 70 percent of all new jobs created since 2019 were created by small businesses, producing almost 13 million new jobs over the past 25 years. Small business creation is up 50 percent over Trump’s years because the Biden administration has been enforcing the rule of law, including taking on the giant tech monopolies. Small businesses now account for over 43 percent of all American economic activity.

A strong administrative state is also the only thing that can protect the environment from those who’d destroy it for their own profits. It’s the only thing that can protect consumers from defective or even deadly products and food or drug contamination. It our only defense against predatory banks, airlines, and insurance companies, among others. A strong administrative state that follows and enforces the rule of law — as opposed to the kind of grift-driven kleptocracies typical of strongman governments — is essential, in other words, to a functioning national economy.}:

Here in America, we see this best in the contrast between lightly bureaucratic and largely unregulated Red states and more bureaucratic and regulated (and taxed) Blue states and counties. While Red and Blue states are represented in Congress about 50/50, as the Brookings Institution found a few years ago: > “Biden’s winning base in 509 counties encompasses fully 71% of America’s economic activity, while Trump’s losing base of 2,547 counties represents just 29% of the economy.”

But now the administrative state is in the crosshairs of the incoming Trump administration, and their planned assault on it will almost certainly cause a loss of economic vitality, probably even leading to a major recession (every*Republican president since Nixon has had a major recession after tinkering with tax and regulatory policies;none*of the Democratic presidents have created one since Carter, and his started under Nixon). We also see this at the level of the nation-state. As Professor Timothy Snydernotes: > “Now consider the Russian and Hungarian economies. Russia sits on hugely valuable natural resources, and yet is a poor country. The profits from its oil and gas are in the hands of a few oligarchs. > >

“Hungary sits in the middle of the European Union, the most successful trade project of all time. And yet Hungarians are poorer than their neighbors, in part because the Orbán regime corruptly channels EU resources to friendly oligarchs. > > “The lesson is clear. Democracy is a method of checking corrupt rulers. When there is no functioning democracy, corruption is unchecked. And democracy is an element of a more fundamental guarantor of prosperity, the rule of law. In Hungary and Russia, the rule of law has been bent and broken, to the benefit of the few, and to the detriment of the many. Ending the rule of law is the Trump-Vance platform.”

Gutting the administrative state is the first and imperative aspect of ending or weakening the rule of law. Because, as Steve Bannon famously told America, the main goal of the Trump administration is “the ‘deconstruction’ of the administrative state.” He added: > “Every business leader we’ve had in is saying not just taxes, but it is also the regulation. I think the consistent …[thing] is the deconstruction. The way the progressive left runs is, if they can’t get it passed, they’re just going to put in some sort of regulation in an agency. That’s all going to be deconstructed and I think that that’s why this regulatory thing is so important.”

We saw this movie before, during the last Trump administration. He put a coal lobbyist in charge of EPA, an oil lobbyist at Interior, a Telcom lobbyist and lawyer at FCC, a professional union-busting lawyer in charge of the Labor Department, an advocate for replacing public schools with religious ones in charge of the Education Department, etc., etc. But that was more mere corruption than a wholesale destruction of administrative agencies. Since the Chevron deference decision by the Supreme Court this past year, though, it’s now possible that Trump could actually destroy the American administrative state.

Even whenChevronwas still intact eight years ago, the result of Trump’s corruption in his previous administration, just like with Reagan’s and Bush’s deregulatory campaigns, was a massive recession that started*before*Covidcame along. Trump will fire Lena Kahn at the Federal Trade Commission, blowing up the antitrust efforts of the Biden administration; the fat cat billionaires already are eagerly anticipating running amok (which is why they threw billions at Trump’s campaign). The result, predictably, will be another Republican economic disaster for America’s working class.

Interestingly, our country’s most famous investor also seems to be thinking along these same lines. Warren Buffett has recently sold over $325 billion in stock and is simply sitting on that huge pile of cash. Why? Probably the Oracle of Omaha can see the same thing I’m pointing out here: Trump is preparing to turn the economy over to Musk and his billionaire buddies and the result will be a disaster.

A disaster, by the way, that will be very useful to Buffett and other billionaires; recessions and depressions are when America’s largest fortunes are typically made or expanded because they represent great buying opportunities to those with cash, while at the same time the small companies being squeezed are willing to sell for a song.

:{:{ So get ready; we’re in for a bumpy few years as America descends into a strongman-run oligarchy while the Supreme Court and Trump’s toadies rip apart the protections of the administrative state we’ve so carefully constructed in the years since the Civil War and the Republican Great Depression. It may well be a disaster for your 401(k), and millions will lose their jobs in a recession. If Musk cuts $2 trillion from the federal budget, as promised, it will almost certainly impact Social Security and take a huge bite out of programs for veterans, children, and the disabled. It would probably also have to end all subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, and end hundreds of billions in federal aid to infrastructure construction programs. Get ready now, to the extent that you can. Forewarned is forearmed. }:

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an 11 24common dr

Consumer advocates applauded last month as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule aimed at making it easier for people to switch financial institutions if they're unhappy with a bank's service, without the bank retaining their personal data—but on Thursday, more than a dozen groups warned the CFPB that major Wall Street firms are trying to stop Americans from benefiting from the rule.

Several advocacy groups, led by the Demand Progress Education Fund, wrote to CFPB director Rohit Chopra warning that major banks—including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi, TD Bank, and Wells Fargo—sit on the board of the Financial Data Exchange (FDX), which has applied to the bureau for standard-setting body (SSB) status, which would give it authority over what is commonly known as the "open banking rule."

Standard-setting authority for the banks would present a major conflict of interest, said the groups.

The banks are also on the board of the Bank Policy Institute, which promptly filed what the consumer advocates called a "frivolous lawsuit" to block the open banking rule when it was introduced last month, claiming it will keep banks from protecting customer data.

At a panel discussion this week, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan also said the open banking rule, by requiring financial firms to unlock a consumer's financial data and transfer it to another provider for free, would cause "chaos" and amplify concerns over fraud.

The groups wrote on Thursday that big banks want to continue to "maintain their dominance by making it unduly difficult for consumers to switch institutions."

"The presence of these organizations on both the FDX and BPI boards undermines the credibility of FDX and presents various concerns relating to conflict of interest, interlocking directorate, and antitrust law," they wrote.

Upon introducing the finalized rule last month, Chopra said the action would "give people more power to get better rates and service on bank accounts, credit cards, and more" and help those who are "stuck in financial products with lousy rates and service."

The coalition of consumer advocacy groups—including Public Citizen, the American Economic Liberties Project, and Americans for Financial Reform—urged Chopra to reject FDX's application for standard-setting authority so long as the banks remain on its board.

“It would be a flagrant conflict of interest for the same banks who are suing to block the open banking rule because it threatens their market dominance to also be in charge of implementing it," said Demand Progress Education Fund corporate power director Emily Peterson-Cassin. "The American people are fed up with Wall Street controlling every aspect of their lives and the open banking rule is an opportunity to give all of us some financial freedom. The CFPB must stop this ploy by the biggest banks to keep us trapped under their thumbs."

The groups called the open banking rule "a historic step forward for the cause of giving consumers true freedom intheir financial lives."

"For this reason, it is imperative that SSB status not be granted to an organization whose board members are, either directly or through a trade association they are participating in, suing the CFPB to stop the rules from taking effect, particularly when such members may be ethically conflicted from such dual participation," said the groups. "By rejecting SSB status for FDX or any other organization with similar conflicts of interest pertaining to Section 1033, the CFPB will help prevent big banks from sabotaging open banking rules."

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alternet-no lnx

How the morbidly rich are sabotaging the very system that made them wealthy

Thom Hartmann August 19, 2024

Recently, a reporter spoke with one of the chief architects of Project 2025 using a hidden camera and microphone and learned they’re still in tight with Trump, still planning to run his administration if he’s elected, still planning to gut the guardrails America has placed around capitalism over the past 100 years, and even planning to “pull the ladder up” to make it harder for entrepreneurs and small business people to succeed in America.

Their plan relies on a major reinvention of modern capitalism and is being pushed by people suffering from an identifiable metal illness. To see how they’re hoping to pull this off, it’s important and necessary to first understand that there are two types of capitalism: raw and regulated.

Raw capitalism — sometimes referred to as Laissez-faire (“leave alone”) or “unregulated” capitalism — reflects the very essence of predatory activity. As any Libertarian can proudly tell you, the only rule is that no capitalist can commit fraud against another capitalist and the only role for government is to provide a stable currency and a court system to prosecute fraud.

Raw capitalism could be called the law of the jungle; only the strong survive, and those who are the most ruthless and cutthroat end up with all the money and power while everybody else stands on the outside looking in. It favors psychopathy in the executive suite.

A handful of families, typically one for each industry, end up fabulously wealthy while their companies monopolize market sectors to keep new entrants and entrepreneurs out.

Workers, at the bottom of the hierarchy, are screwed: no unions are allowed, wages reflect how desperate working people are, and consumers live in a caveat emptor (“buyer beware”) world where ripoffs are common, food and products are often dangerous, and the environment is poisoned to keep cleanup costs low and thus profits high.

Raw capitalism is how most of the world ran until the first decades of the 20th century. You can read the story of it in most of Dickens’ novels. By the 1880s-1920s era, it had made a handful of families (Rockefellers/oil, Carnegie/steel, Vanderbilt/railroads, Astor/real estate, Armour/meatpacking, Morgan/banking, DuPont/chemicals, etc.) mind-bogglingly rich and succeeded in limiting the middle class to about 10 percent of Americans, mostly doctors, lawyers, and shopkeepers. Everybody else was dirt poor.

Regulated capitalism is an altogether different animal that expands a capitalist system to aid workers and consumers as well as capitalists.

With regulated capitalism, the rules of capitalism are expanded to benefit all of society, rather than exclusively the capitalists themselves. While it was championed in Adam Smith’s books A Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations(1776), and highlighted repeatedly by David Ricardo five decades later, it didn’t really come into fruition until the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. His embrace of Keynesian economics transformed America and, ultimately, the entire free world.

President Roosevelt, when accepting his renomination in 1936, took on the advocates of raw capitalism — which had run the world just four years earlier — head-on:

“[O]ut of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital—all undreamed of by the fathers—the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.”

It was a radical separation from the old order, and his audience cheered wildly as they realized FDR wanted to make capitalism, and America, a fairer and more compassionate nation.

“There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small business men and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.”

He challenged the most powerful men and companies in America, promising to strip them of the power to write laws and control politicians that they’d enjoyed for over a century. He called them out and took them on.

“It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.”

And he pointed out how this corrupt system of raw capitalism had destroyed opportunity in America for average people while making a small group of “princes” richer than the kings of old.

“Throughout the Nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.”

Roosevelt beat the oligarchs and was successful in bringing regulated capitalism to America. His policies included the right of workers to unionize, aggressive enforcement of the nation’s new anti-monopoly laws, high levels of taxation on profits and great wealth, and consumer and worker protections guaranteed by government.

The result was the world’s first middle class that included more than half of all citizens.

Donald Trump, JD Vance, their billionaire donors, six Republicans on the Supreme Court, and Project 2025 have declared war on Roosevelt’s regulated capitalism; they want to turn the clock back to the raw capitalism Gilded Age of the 1920s by stripping regulatory agencies out of government, cutting taxes on the morbidly rich, and ending protections for labor.

Russell Vought was the guy who put Donald Trump's executive order banning the teaching of Black history (“CRT”) and other diversity training for federal employees into place when he was director of the Office of Management and Budget. Now he’s a principal architect of Project 2025 and the lead cheerleader for ending regulated capitalism and reverting to raw capitalism.

“Eighty percent of my time is working on the plans of what’s necessary to take control of these bureaucracies,” Vought said in the secretly-taped recording. “And we are working doggedly on that, whether it’s destroying their agencies’ notion of independence.”

In this effort, and the Supreme Court’s recent destruction of the Chevron Deference that authorized regulatory agencies to protect workers, consumers, and the environment, these reactionary (arguably “revolutionary”) Republicans are trying to pull up the ladder so a new generation of entrepreneurs will face a wall of monopolies and other barriers to achieving business success.

They are trying to gut the very system that created a large enough middle class to provide customers for their products, thus making them rich. They want to return us to the era of FDR’s libertarian “economic royalists,” an effort that will impoverish America just as it has every other country that’s tried it (Russia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, etc.).

When psychologist Eric Fromm identified people as having either a “doing” or a “being” orientation, he nailed the personality characteristics of the billionaires and their well-paid toadies who’re promoting this dystopian future for America.

He argued that there’s a specific “hoarder” personality afflicted with a compulsion to constantly accumulate more, more, more stuff. When they’re poor, their apartments fill up with newspapers and tin cans. When they’re rich, their money bins fill up with cash.

In either case, they’re mentally ill and perpetually miserable. If they’re rich enough, their mental illness causes them to mercilessly exploit others for their own gain.

This is the psychology of this generation of wannabee economic royalists, and their plan to replace regulated capitalism with the old laissez-faire system will also destroy the remnants of the American middle class that FDR created.

We can’t let them get away with inflicting their mental illness on the rest of us. Double-check your voter registration and show up this fall!

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thom 3 7 24

https://hartmannreport.com/p/demolishing-chevron-deference-republicans-9b4

in 1904, O. Henry coined the phrase “banana republic” to describe a country where the government supports big business for the exclusive benefit of the morbidly rich. A government of, by, and for what that generation called the “fatcats” or the “robber barons.”

The banana republic-ication of America just kicked into high gear, and, curiously, there’s been a virtual mainstream media blackout about it.

Here’s how it’s happening.

When Steve Bannon was in the Trump White House, he declared one of their goals was to “deconstruct the administrative state.” That same type of language also appears in Project 2025.

Now, fewer than two weeks ago, the six Republicans on the Supreme Court began that process by kneecapping the ability of regulatory agencies to protect the American people from out-of-control polluters, rip-off banks and insurance companies, Big Pharma, and hundreds of other industries and massive corporations that put profits above humans.

They did it by blowing up the Chevron Deference. It’s part of their long-term commitment to turning America into a billionaire- and corporate-run banana republic with an autocrat as president.

The case ofLoper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondoends the power of most regulatory agencies that are so hated by America’s most exploitative industries and the rightwing billionaires they’ve made.

As Senators Whitehouse, Hirono, Feinstein, and Warren noted:

“This case is the product of a decades-long effort by pro-corporate interests to eviscerate the federal government's regulatory apparatus, to the detriment of the American people.”

So, how did the Supreme Court put the EPA and other regulatory agencies functionally out of business?

It has to do with something called the Chevron deference, a policy established by the Court decades ago to protect just such agencies.

Here’s how regulatory law — using the example of the EPA — issupposedto work (in super-simplified form):

1. Congress passes a law that says, for example, that the Environmental Protection Agency should limit the damage that pollutants in the environment cause to the planet. Congress (the Constitution’s Article I branch of government) defines the broad goal of the legislation, but the Executive Branch (Article II, which encompasses the EPA and other regulatory agencies) has the responsibility to carry it out.

2. The EPA, part of that Executive Branch and answering both to the law and the President, then convenes panels of experts. They spend a year or more doing an exhaustive, deep dive into the science, coming up with dozens or even hundreds of suggestions to limit airborne pollutants, ranging from rules on how much emission cars can expel to drilling and refining processes that may leak or pour poisons into our atmosphere, waters, etc.

3. The experts’ suggestions are then run past a panel of rule-making bureaucrats and hired-gun rule-making experts for the EPA to decide what the standards should be. They take into consideration the current abilities of industry and the costs versus the benefits of various rules, among other things.

After they’ve come up with those tentative regulations, they submit them for public review and hearings. When that process is done and a consensus is achieved, they make them into official EPA rules, publish them, enforce them, and the deadly emissions begin to drop.

This is how it worked, for example, with regard to CO2 until June of last year, a process that simply comports with common sense, as the Supreme Court ruled in 1984 when they established theChevron deferenceto legitimize and defend our regulatory agencies.

Functionally, this process dates back to 1887, when Congress established America’s first regulatory agency — the Interstate Commerce Commission — to prevent railroads from ripping off shippers and passengers.

It was nailed into law and doctrine with the Chevron deference, articulated by the Supreme Court in 1984, reflecting a century-and-a-half of the will of Congress and presidents of both parties who signed regulatory agencies into existence. It says that once a regulatory agency does its due diligence and determines reasonable rules for a substance or behavior, they then have the legal authority to regulate and the courts should “defer” to the agency (thus the “deference” in the doctrine that emerged from the ruling when Chevron tried to negate an EPA ruling in 1984).

Congress passes laws that empower regulatory agencies to solve problems, the agencies figure out how to do that and put the rules into place, and the solutions get enforced by the agencies. And when somebody sues to overturn the rules, if the courts determine they were arrived at through a reasonable process without corruption, those rules stand.

Then came a group of rightwing Supreme Court justices — including Neil Gorsuch (the son of Reagan’s EPA Administrator, Anne Gorsuch, who resigned in disgrace after trying to destroy the agency — who overturned rules made by the EPA about CO2 emissions from power plants in their June, 2022 West Virginia v EPA decision, taking the first big bite out of the Chevron deference.

Their rationale was that because the legislation that created the EPA doesn’t specifically mention “regulating CO2” but instead let the EPA itself determine what pollutants are dangerous to America and the planet, the agency lacks that power to regulate CO2. And now it has lost that power, the result of thatWest Virginia v EPAdecision two years ago.

The coal, oil, and natural gas industries have been popping champagne corks for two years now, as CO2 levels continue to increase along with the temperature of our planet and the violence of our weather.

In addition to Gorsuch, the Court’s decision-makers inWest Virginia v EPAincluded Amy Coney Barrett whose father was a lawyer for Shell Oil for decades, and John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh who are all on the Court in part because of support from a network funded by fossil fuel billionaires and their industry (among others) that brought that case and then brought this year’sLoper v Raimondo.

And, of course, there’s Clarence “on the take” Thomas, who supported the Chevron deference 15 years ago but, since being wined and dined by rightwing billionaires, in 2020 wrote:

“Chevron compels judges to abdicate the judicial power without constitutional sanction. … Chevron also gives federal agencies unconstitutional power.”

Giving us a clue to how this went down, all six Republicans on the Court voted to gut the EPA’s ability to regulate CO2 inWest Virginia; all 3 Democratic appointees opposed the decision.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the Court:

“[D]oes not have a clue about how to address climate change...yet it appoints itself, instead of congress or the expert agency...the decision-maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.”

Their ruling was, essentially, that all of that research into the specifics of anticipated regulations — all those hundreds of scientists, millions of public comments, and hundreds of thousands of science-hours invested in understanding problems and coming up with workable solutions — must now be done by Congress and the courts rather than administrative regulatory agencies.

As if Congress and the courts had the time and staff.

As if they was stocked with scientific experts, a much larger budget, and had millions of hours a year for hearings.

As if Republicans in the pockets of fossil fuel billionaires wouldn’t block any congressional action — or those billionaires wouldn’t lavish more gifts on Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Kavanaugh even if it did.

Republicans on the Supreme Court succeeded in dancing to the tune of the billionaire’s fossil fuel network in the West Virginia v EPAcase, but it was narrowly focused on CO2.

In theLoper v Raimondocase, however, the Court explicitly expanded that victory by blowing the entireChevron deferenceout of the water, thus ending or severely limiting most protective government regulations in America and opening the door to court challenges to every decision by every regulatory agency established since the last decades of the 19th century.

They’re saying, essentially, that the EPA (and any other regulatory agency) can’t do all the steps listed above: instead, that detailed and time-consuming analysis of a problem, developing specific solutions, and writing specific rules has to be done, they say, by Congress or the courts themselves.

A Congress where arcane rules and gerrymandering have given Republicans the ability to block pretty much any legislation their billionaire patrons pay them to block. And courts filled with lawyers who never set foot in a science classroom.

So now, starting just hours after theLoper Brightruling, those industries and companies that have chafed under rules and regulations protecting us are on the march. They hope to rule the new banana republic the GOP envisions for us.

So far in the past two weeks, federal courts have stripped over 4 million Texas workers (and soon to be all Americans) of Department of Labor rules requiring overtime payments. It happened hours after the SCOTUS ruling, specifically referencing that ruling.

In Kansas on July 2nd, a federal judge ruled that Title IX “gender identity” non-discrimination protections promulgated by the Department of Education no longer apply to queer students, with the judge specifically citing and quoting Loper Bright:

“The Supreme Court recently held that [this] court ‘need not and under the APA may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.’ Loper Bright Enter. v. Raimondo. [This] court must exercise its ‘independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, as the APA requires.’”

It’s been fewer than two weeks since the Court accomplished what Trump andProject 2025publicly aspired to, but the floodgates have opened.

Dozens of other challenges to protective regulations are already in the works, including, but not limited to:

“[R]egulation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), healthcare and product reimbursement, white collar enforcement and investigations, intellectual property, Federal Trade Commission and antitrust enforcement, international trade and national security regulation, public company disclosures, environmental regulation, government contracting, business transactions, and litigation….”

Thousands more will soon clog the federal courts (including the legal status of mifepristone and birth control). The six Republicans on the Supreme Court have unleashed a legal tsunami that, if not reversed by Congress or through expanding the Court, threatens to take Americans back to 1876, when morbidly rich robber barons, landlords, and employers could rip off and poison Americans with impunity.

It’s past time to stand up and speak out, and Dick Durbin’s Senate Judiciary Committee is the logical place to start with subpoeas to bare this Court’s naked corruption. If you agree, you can find Durbin’s phone numbers and addresses here and a list of the Committee’s members here.

And, of course, we must vote a straight Democratic ticket this November.

Every day that goes by without these corrupt judges being held to account by the Senate is another day closer to the end of the functional “government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,” and our final transition into a genuine, and perhaps irreversible, banana republic.

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carbon dioxide pipeline rupture in the small village of Satartia, Mississippi, sent nearly 50 people to the hospital with “zombie”-like conditions in 2020, and now another major leak from a pipeline in Sulphur, Louisiana, has once again exposed the risks carbon dioxide pipelines pose to communities in their path.

Soon, pipelines like this could be coming to cities and towns throughout the country. Spurred by federal tax incentives from the Biden Administration, the fossil fuel industry is planning to build tens of thousands of miles of carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines across the United States for experimental carbon capture and storage — a process aimed at sequestering carbon emissions from power plants, sending it through pipelines, and injecting it underground.

While regulators are working to craft updated safety rules for these pipelines, major fossil fuel companies and their trade groups — including Chevron, ConocoPhillips, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association — have launched a lobbying blitz to scale back regulations and target the regulators themselves so they can construct new pipelines as quickly as possible.

Carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant. Upon entering the atmosphere during a pipeline leak or rupture, it can travel long distances, shut down vehicles, and sicken, suffocate, or even kill people and wildlife.

Only about 5,000 miles of carbon dioxide pipelines currently exist across the country, largely operating in states across the Midwest and Gulf Coast. Many communities, landowners,and environmental and public health groups have staunchly opposed and, in some cases, successfully prevented their build-out, such as eliminating the proposed 1,300-mile Navigator pipeline that would have crossed through five Midwestern states.

But now, this pipeline network could be greatly expanded. According to the U.S. Department of Energy and financial industry estimates, it could take up to 96,000 miles of new carbon dioxide pipelines — enough to wrap around the earth four times — to transport just 15 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal agency tasked with pipeline safety, announced in 2022 that it would update rules for carbon dioxide pipelines.

The agency, which is overseen by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and was implicated in the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, is itself up for reauthorization, meaning Congress will reconsider its lawmaking mandates and funding. Now the pipeline industry, represented by its main lobbying group, the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association, is using both the rule-making and reauthorization processes to push its agenda forward.

“There is no need for adding a host of punitive provisions on the pipeline industry,” reads written January testimony from Andrew Black, the lobbying group’s president and CEO, to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has proposed a bill on the pipeline safety agency’s reauthorization. “The data just does not support those who wish to impose harsh new mandates or penalties on pipeline operators.”

On March 6, the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association arranged a meeting with the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is currently reviewing the draft carbon dioxide safety rules. Also present at the meeting were representatives from ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Marathon, TC Energy, Kinder Morgan, Phillips 66, and Valero, along with representatives from the Department of Transportation.

“THE ADMINSTRATION [sic] SHOULD AVOID AN OVERLY BROAD OR UNSUBSTANTIATED CO2 PIPELINES RULEMAKING THAT RISKS DELAY AND IMPERILS FINALIZATION,” reads the all-caps intro to the lobbying group’s talking points for that meeting.

In response to a request for comment, Liquid Energy Pipeline Association’s president and CEO Andy Black offered several reasons “why we think a measured approach to pipeline safety legislation is appropriate.” According to Black, federal data shows “the number of CO2 pipeline incidents is flat over the last 5 years,” and “Federal regulation imposes dozens of safety requirements on interstate CO2 pipelines on everything from design and construction to inspection, maintenance, and emergency response.”

Robin Rorick, one of the American Petroleum Institute's vice presidents, said in an email, “The safe use and development of CO2 pipelines will be critical as our industry and the nation as a whole advances its emissions reduction efforts. API will continue to work with [Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration] and industry experts to safely accelerate the widescale, responsible deployment of CO2 pipelines while protecting the environment and communities where we live and work.”

An Invisible Menace

The urgency of this issue reemerged this month after a carbon dioxide leak from a pipeline in Sulphur, Louisiana, co-owned by ExxonMobil and Denbury, a carbon capture developer that owns the country's largest carbon dioxide pipeline network.

Residents within a quarter mile of the leak received a phone notification to shelter in place. But others only received the news from a Facebook post by local officials, citing a “bust” in Exxon’s high-pressure carbon dioxide pipeline in Sulphur and warning residents to shut their doors and windows, turn off any ventilation, and wait.

While the proper procedure is to evacuate, local fire chief Todd Parker said changing winds near the leak made that impossible. “For the homes that were affected, they had to drive through the release to be able to get out, so we couldn’t evacuate them,” Parker explained. He said it took more than two hours for pipeline operators to stop the leak, which was called in by a resident who reported seeing “white clouds” coming from the pipeline.

In the meantime, Roishetta Ozane, a Sulphur resident and local environmental justice organizer, began fielding calls from panicked residents.

“People were reaching out asking me about what CO2 is,” Ozane said. But as a mom of six children, she was also scared and confused. “We know that this is colorless and odorless, so I just kept my children inside and made sure they were OK,” said Ozane. “Pipelines leak, CO2 leaks, and you don’t know it’s happened until tragedy has struck.”

She remembered the incident in Satartia, where another Denbury carbon dioxide pipeline rupture caused mass asphyxiation, turning people into dazed and unresponsive “zombies,” with some losing consciousness. As hundreds rushed to evacuate, vehicles became paralyzed, since cars need oxygen to burn fuel. Some residents still face serious health issues years later.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration slapped Denbury with the second-largest fine in its history after the Satartia disaster for neglecting to address hazards to its pipeline system and notify emergency responders of the leak or train them to address such an accident before it happened.

The leak in Sulphur is “a very sobering introduction to how the companies will probably try to handle similar incidents,” said journalist Dan Zegart, who reported in depth on the Satartia disaster. “I say ‘similar incidents’ not even really knowing what [kind of leak] we’re talking about here, which is a perfect example of what we’re worried about in the future.”

No injuries have been reported so far in Sulphur — regulators are still investigating the leak and the local municipality said it did not have records to provide — but the bewildering incident highlights the uncertain future for residents in the path of the carbon dioxide pipeline build-out.

“It is alarming that we have been organizing, educating the community, educating ourselves, and trying to get answers from the government on [carbon capture and storage] in Louisiana for three years now, and we still did not have the information or frankly relationships necessary to get real-time information on what was happening [in Sulphur],” said Jane Patton, a campaign manager at the nonprofit advocacy group, the Center for International Environmental Law.

“[The Liquid Energy Pipeline Association] supports Congress mandating and [Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration] imposing new safety requirements on CO2 pipelines reflecting the lessons learned from the Satartia, MS pipeline incident,” said Black, the lobbying group’s president, in his email to The Lever. He added that the organization “looks forward to the results of Sulphur, LA pipeline incident review and any recommendations it produces for how to improve CO2 pipeline safety further.”

A Carbon Capture Future?

ExxonMobil — which purchased Denbury last year — is planning to build carbon capture infrastructure throughout Louisiana, where about a third of the nation’s carbon capture projects have been proposed.

Exxon did not respond to requests for comment.

“We’ve got plans to grow our carbon capture business and really focus on emitters all along that Denbury pipeline,” Exxon CEO Darren Woods told Louisiana newspaperThe Advocatein February. “What we’re doing is taking advantage of the ability to pump carbon dioxide back into the ground, and store it very safely. It’s isolated from the rest of the community.”

Patton says that such statements are just “another lie that we're being sold” by the fossil fuel industry.

“Louisiana is magic, and I want to be able to pass this magic onto the next generation behind me,” she said. “We deserve a future here and that future is not in carbon capture.”

Scientists have been sounding the alarm that carbon capture and sequestration is not an effective way to reduce emissions and is most often used for enhanced oil recovery, which means accessing more fossil fuels to be burned. The Department of Energy just announced it would invest $23 million in two projects to evaluate the potential for enhanced oil recovery using captured carbon dioxide.

In internal company documents, the oil and gas industry has privately admitted that though CCS is “complex, costly, and will require additional power,” it will “enable the use of petroleum and natural gas” well into the future.

But thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, which ratcheted up tax credits available for carbon capture technology, the race is on to build out carbon dioxide pipelines.

Meanwhile, advocates say their concerns are being ignored. “You’ve got communities, NGOs on pipeline safety, governmental experts on pipeline safety all raising alarm about the hazards of what is being planned,” said Monique Harden, director of Law and Policy at the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. “What you don’t have is the response of protection or response that validates those concerns. Instead, what you have is silence.”

Last week, U.S. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Brad Crabtree told the Illinois newspaper The Springfield State-Journal Register, “I would argue that our electric transmission and distribution infrastructure, it’s essential to modern life, but it also results in injuries and fatalities… But as a result of those risks, we do not have people saying we shouldn’t have electric transmission and distribution… CO2 pipelines are no different in that regard.”

Many of the proposed pipeline projects would run through communities like Sulphur — low-income communities of color already burdened by polluting petrochemical and fossil fuel facilities. These communities often have minimal resources to respond to worsening extreme weather events, like a tornado that destroyed the office of Ozane’s disaster-relief and environmental justice nonprofit not far from Sulphur just days after the leak.

“On top of the fact that this is taking public money, it is essentially a program where the federal government pays the oil and gas industry to deal with its own waste product in a way that burdens communities and makes us demonstrably less safe,” said Patton. “Accidents that happen along CO2 pipeline routes are going to become more common and much more dangerous if this program is allowed to move forward.”

While significant public resources are being deployed to develop this technology, understanding of carbon dioxide pipeline leaks — how they happen, the extent of their damage, and how they should be addressed — lags far behind.

“Often you need the knowledge gaps to be filled before you can fully fill the regulatory gaps,” said Bill Caram, executive director of Pipeline Safety Trust, an organization that advocates for stronger regulations on pipeline safety. “Right now, CO2 pipelines are relatively rare and relatively rural, and we’re moving toward building a lot more CO2 pipelines closer to communities. I don't think we are ready to do that safely.”

Current carbon dioxide pipelines are largely located in small communities with underpaid or volunteer fire departments, many of which lack equipment to respond to and monitor for carbon dioxide leaks. In Sulphur’s case, the fire chief said he had not seen an emergency response protocol from the company until after the leak occurred.

Environmental and public health groups are pushing federal regulators for additional pipeline safety provisions, including updated “dispersion modeling” requirements, which show how carbon dioxide moves and would help emergency personnel respond to accidents, and adding odorants to the carbon dioxide to warn community members of a leak.

Groups are also advocating for new limits on contaminants in the pipelines that can lead to corrosion; mandates for training and coordination between pipeline operators and first responders; and additional rules for transporting gaseous and liquid carbon dioxide, which are currently unregulated.

Pipeline Pushback

But companies, and the lobbying groups that represent them, are pushing back. Since the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration announced its intention to make new rules on carbon dioxide pipelines in 2022, records show that Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Enbridge, Marathon, Shell, and Targa, along with trade associations like Liquid Energy Pipeline Association, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, have been lobbying the agency on pipeline infrastructure, rule-making, and safety, and/or lobbying on the agency’s reauthorization, among other issues.

During their March meeting at the White House Office of Management and Budget, fossil fuel interests appeared to push for rulemaking that prioritizes secrecy and expediency over safety and transparency.

“Any emergency response requirements should ensure the protection of sensitive information and be aligned with industry current best practices,” reads API’s talking points from the meeting. “The rule must be technically feasible and set realistic timelines for implementation to ensure it supports rather than hinders the build-out of this additional CO2 pipeline infrastructure.”

Maggie Coulter, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said advocacy groups are particularly concerned about the industry’s attempts to keep data about potential pipeline leaks hidden from the public. One of the bills being considered for Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s safety reauthorization, which has received broad support from industry trade groups, contains a provision for the “protection of sensitive information in responding to a public request for information regarding carbon dioxide dispersion modeling.”

“There’s an additional cost in doing things safely, and increased public scrutiny when you’re affirmatively tasked with informing first responders and members of the public,” said Coulter. “Right now we just have to trust the company.”

Black, president of the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association, said in his comment to The Lever that his organization “supports operators sharing the results of pipeline modeling with state and local emergency planning officials and first responders,” but advocates for “limiting general public sharing of security sensitive information, as is the current approach for crude oil pipelines, to prevent bad actors from misusing this information to harm surrounding communities.”

Black did not respond directly to questions about evidence showing that pipeline operators have failed to communicate with first responders ahead of and properly respond to CO2 pipeline disasters in the past.

Caram of Pipeline Safety Trust said that given the risks that carbon dioxide pipelines pose to communities across the country, the companies involved shouldn’t be allowed to dictate their own safety standards.

“It's like the difference between a speed limit of 55 MPH as opposed to a sign saying ‘please drive safely,’” Caram said. “We need something specific to hold them to.”

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When former Rep. Anne Gorsuch Burford (R-Colorado) — the late mother of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch — was heading the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the early 1980s under President Ronald Reagan, she drew a great deal of criticism from environmentalists and some Democrats in Congress for weakening air and water regulations.

Burford ended up resigning, much to the disappointment of her son (who was in his teens at the time).

In an article published by CNN on January 17, Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic stresses that Justice Gorsuch has followed in his mother's footsteps with "his own brand of defiance and anti-regulatory fervor."

"In recent years," Biskupic explains, "Justice Gorsuch has voted against regulations that protect the environment, student-debt forgiveness and COVID-19 precautions. During a COVID-19 spike in early 2022, Gorsuch was the lone justice who declined to wear a mask while sitting on the bench. He has led calls on the Court for reversal of a 1984 Supreme Court decision that gives federal agencies considerable regulatory latitude and that, coincidentally, traces to his mother's tenure."

On January 17, according to Biskupic, the High Court is scheduled to hear arguments in cases testing the Reagan-era 1984 ruling in Chevron USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

"The issue comes down to Congress' ability to write open-ended laws that delegate policy details to agency officials," the CNN journalist notes. "The Chevron principle dictates that when disputes arise over regulation of an ambiguous law, judges should defer to agency interpretations of the law if the interpretations are reasonable. The Chevron case has steered disputes over countless directives intended to protect the public, such as from air pollution, workplace hazards, risky drugs and medical fraud, or to guarantee certain benefits, such as people with disabilities and elderly."

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, according to Biskupic, will defend that 1984 ruling.

Prelogar, in a filing, told the Roberts Court, "Overruling Chevron would be a convulsive shock to the legal system. All three branches of government, regulated parties, and the public have arranged their affairs for decades with Chevron as the backdrop against which Congress legislates, agencies issue rules and orders, and courts resolve disputes about those agency actions."

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new 10 23 email

no lnx

‘Get the Right Cases to the Supreme Court’: Inside Charles Koch’s Network

Billionaire’s web of rightwing groups works to bring cases to court that could undermine core functionings of the US government

ED PILKINGTON AND NICK SURGEY

OCT 26

This article was produced in partnership with The Guardian

The Koch network, a web of rightwing groups cultivated by billionaire businessman Charles Koch and his late brother David Koch, is spearheading the attack on federal agencies and government regulations that dominates the US supreme court agenda this term.

The network has been working behind the scenes to bring cases before the court that, if successful, could undermine many of the core functionings of the US government. At least two of the biggest cases to be considered by the justices this term have been spurred by groups bankrolled and coordinated within the Koch universe.

Footage of an internal panel discussion between senior operatives from Koch entities held in the summer of 2022 reveals that the network has been quietly planning the current assault on the “administrative state”. The groups are seeking to exploit the supreme court’s new six-to-three rightwing majority secured by Donald Trump to dismantle vital executive powers.

Regulatory controls in their sights include environmental standards to combat pollution and the climate crisis, consumer protections against predatory lenders, and safeguards for workers’ rights. At stake is what the Strict Scrutiny podcast has called “the future of government as we know it”.

The footage, which is made public here for the first time, was obtained by the investigative watchdog Documented and shared with the Guardian. During the 37-minute panel discussion, legal strategists with several Koch-related groups expressed excitement that the new hard-right supreme court supermajority has created the potential for a concerted attack on the functions of federal agencies.

Jorge Lima, an economic policy strategist at the Koch network’s central coordinating group, Stand Together, said that the new composition of the court amounted to a huge “landscape opportunity, particularly on the administrative state. We’re doubling down on this strategy.”

Lima added: “Every dog has its day, and it’s a big day for the administrative state.”

Casey Mattox, a legal strategist at the main Koch advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, argued that the supreme court was now “primed for a real change in the law” on federal regulations which he said amounted to a “paradigm shift”. Mattox said: “That’s why we are partnering with organizations that can get the right cases to the supreme court.”

The effort appears to have born fruit. Two of the most significant cases before the court in the 2023-24 term, brought with the backing of Koch-linked organizations, attempt to rein back the government’s power to impose regulations on corporations.

The prominence of the cases underlines how the libertarian empire created by the Kochs is still a force to be reckoned with within US politics. Since David Koch’s death in 2019, and the Koch network’s decision to come out in opposition to Trump ahead of next year’s presidential election, the network has receded from public attention.

But the scope of Charles Koch’s reach remains formidable, as was demonstrated earlier this month when the 87-year-old told Forbes that he had given $4.3bn of his Koch Industries stock to Believe in People, a newly-created group named after his book of the same title. He has transferred a further $975m to another new entity, CCKc4, which carries the initials of his son Chase Koch.

The massive combined $5.3bn in donations, one of the largest acts of giving to non-profits in US history, will ensure that the Koch influence will continue to push the US to the right for years to come. Undermining government regulations is central to those ambitions.

Lisa Graves, the executive director of the progressive watchdog True North Research who is a long-time Koch watcher, said that Charles Koch has shown a “fundamental hostility to government regulation” since his early political writings in the 1960s. “This is the through-line of his career. His business operations have a substantial self-interest in assailing regulations that impede his profits.”

Koch Industries is a conglomerate of energy and chemicals companies that stand to benefit if controls on pollution, workers’ rights and other aspects of public governance are rolled back. The firm is the second largest privately-owned company in the US.

Among the big administrative state cases that the justices will be considering this term is Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, which seeks to overturn a 40-year precedent set by the supreme court itself. Known as Chevron, the ruling allows federal agencies the flexibility to reasonably interpret laws without interference from the courts as they regulate critical parts of public life, such as the environment and public safety.

Experts have warned that if Chevron is struck down, it could be a recipe for legal and administrative chaos. “We are talking about rules that protect us in so many ways – truckers who are too tired to drive on the highway, unsafe workplaces, and pollution of our water and the air we breathe,” Graves said.

The case was nominally brought by a New Jersey herring fishing company that objected to being charged by a federal agency that monitors its catch to prevent over-fishing. Behind the challenge is a conservative group called Cause of Action, which is intricately tied to the Koch network.

The chair of Cause of Action’s board, Brian Menckes, is general counsel of the Charles Koch Foundation. Cause of Action’s executive director, James Valvo, who is acting as one of the fishing company’s lawyers in the case, is the former head of policy of Americans for Prosperity.

A second lawyer representing the company, Eric Bolinder, holds dual roles as a counsel for Cause of Action and Americans for Prosperity.

In 2021 Cause of Action’s entire income of $375,000 came from Stand Together, the Koch network’s coordinating group, Bloomberg reported. The groups are also physically close: Cause of Action and Americans for Prosperity not only share the same address in Arlington, Virginia, they occupy the same office – suite 700.

Bolinder was one of the panel speakers at the 2022 Koch discussion on the administrative state. He framed the plan to use the supreme court to launch a legal attack on regulatory government as a states’ rights issue.

“As the federal government grabs more and more power, particularly to the regulatory state, the states become less and less important,” he said.

The Guardian contacted Stand Together and Cause of Action for comment. Cause of Action did not immediately reply.

Gretchen Reiter, Stand Together spokesman, said that the Loper Bright case was seeking “to restore one of the core tenets of our democracy: that Congress, not the administrative agency, makes the laws. Cause of Action Institute – which filed the lawsuit in 2020 – is representing family-run fishing companies that the federal government is forcing to pay a tax that Congress never authorized, and that violates our constitution’s separation of powers.”

Last week, the supreme court accepted a second case also challenging the Chevron precedent, which has now been consolidated with the fishermen’s petition. Relentless v Department of Commerce was also filed by a group with intimate connections to the Koch network, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA).

The organization, which claims to “protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the administrative state”, was founded in 2017 with seed money from the Charles Koch Foundation. Over five years, it has received more than $5m from the Koch network.

NCLA’s president, Mark Chenoweth, previously served as in-house counsel for Koch Industries.

NCLA submitted an amicus brief last week supporting another major challenge to regulatory agencies that will be heard by the supreme court this term. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) v Jarkesy threatens to gut the enforcement power of the SEC by curtailing its ability to fast-track cases of securities fraud through its own in-house administrative law judges.

A ruling against the SEC could drastically reduce the ability of numerous government agencies to enforce environmental and other standards.

The footage of the Koch panel discussion obtained by Documented reveals that the NCLA has been secretly lobbying for the Jarkesy case to reach the supreme court. Mattox said that “NCLA brought a lot of value to that case”.

He went on: “You won’t see them actually directly litigating on that case, but they’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes, and that speaks to the way that our community adds value here, because when we partner with people we look for results, not necessarily for headlines and attention-grabbing.”

There is a further twist to the issue of Koch influence on the supreme court’s docket this term. Last month, ProPublica revealed as part of its expose of ethical breaches by some justices, that the right-leaning Clarence Thomas had attended at least two Koch donor events where funds were raised to forward the Koch network’s mission – which includes bringing cases before the court.

The attack on the administrative state is central to the work of Americans for Prosperity, which boasts of its years-long campaign to challenge what it calls the “out-of-control regulatory environment imposed by Washington”. It organizes bus tours around the country, directly relating “red tape” on energy infrastructure projects to the high cost of fuel at the pump.

This has taken place while oil and gas giants such as Exxon, BP and Shell have posted record profits, and the world has increasingly felt the impact of climate change. Americans for Prosperity calls itself “the nation’s premier grassroots organization”, but according to an independent audit report from 2021, 94% of the $112m in cash it received that year came from just two donors.

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texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed legislation earlier this week that "poses serious health risks" to construction workers, Texas Public Radio (TPR) reports.

Per TPR, HB 2127 — known as the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act — "bars cities and counties from passing regulations that are stricter than state ones. It also overturns local rules such as ordinances in Austin and Dallas that mandate rest breaks for construction workers."

Republican State Rep. Dustin Burrows, who proposed the "Death Star Bill," insisted "the law is needed to end 'the current hodgepodge of onerous and burdensome regulations,'" but TPR notes "for construction workers in two of the state's fastest-growing cities, advocates say, it poses serious health risks."

READ MORE: Neither 'compassion' nor 'leadership': Greg Abbott blasted for calling shooting victims 'illegal immigrants'

Mario Ontiveros told TPR "he once saw a co-worker lose consciousness and fall from a ladder," and due to his previous "safety training," the Texas construction worker "was the only one on the job site who knew how to help — performing CPR and asking his co-worker basic questions to keep him conscious — until paramedics arrived, he said."

The Texas Tribune reports:

Texas is the state where the most workers die from high temperatures, government data shows. At least 42 workers died in Texas between 2011 and 2021 from environmental heat exposure, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Workers’ unions claim this data doesn’t fully reflect the magnitude of the problem because heat-related deaths are often recorded under a different primary cause of injury.

Furthermore, according to TPR, "Research published in 2018 — eight years after Austin passed its rest-break ordinance — found that construction workers were 35% more likely to get a break because of the rule."

Daniela Hernandez, state legislative coordinator for Texas advocacy group Workers Defense Action Fund, said, "We know that workers do pass out and experience heat stress and different types of heat illnesses."

READ MORE: Gov. Greg Abbott leaves experts stunned as he injects politics into Texas' criminal justice system

Paul Puente, executive secretary of the Houston Gulf Coast Building and Construction Trades Council, said the "Death Star Bill" is expected to "strike down construction-worker protections in southeast Texas," and "negatively impact construction safety as a whole," even though "labor unions can still negotiate for rest breaks."

He emphasized "Science has already shown that individuals need to have time to take a break, collect their thoughts, and then return back to work to ensure a safe working environment," and "Without allotted rest breaks in extreme heat," he told TPR "workers can easily become fatigued, disoriented, dehydrated — effects that endanger their lives."

Calling the state "unsafe" for construction workers, Puente added, "when you're trying to encourage businesses to come to your state, this is not a good look."

TPR reports the law is set to go into effect Sept. 1.

READ MORE: 'Absolutely insane': Texas Governor Greg Abbott seeks pardon for man convicted of murdering BLM protester

Texas Public Radio's full report is available at this link. The Texas Tribune's report is here.

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mma 6 23

Right-wing media are attempting to discredit mainstream coverage and reactions around the Supreme Court’s recent decision to limit bodies of water protected under the Clean Water Act.

On May 25, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of wealthy Idaho couple Michael and Chantell Sackett in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, after a 14-year legal battle in which they fought to do construction near protected wetlands without a permit. All nine justices ultimately agreed they could do so, however, their reasoning differed and concurring opinion on the scope of the case was split 5-4.

Five conservative justices ruling for the majority decided that definitions previously laid out in the 51-year-old Clean Water Act were the problem, considerably narrowing the scope of which bodies of water must be protected. According to the environmental law nonprofit EarthJustice, which filed anamicus brief in the case, the new decision means that “as many as half of the 118 million acres of wetlands in the U.S. are no longer protected by the Clean Water Act, embracing the decades-long demands of mining companies, the fossil fuel industry, reckless developers, and other big polluters.”

Mainstream media coverage of the ruling rightfully highlighted this serious outcome. Democratic lawmakers including Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called out the decision’s radical implications and suggested it was driven by a partisan conservative agenda. Other experts pointed out that the majority decision ignores the best available science on how pollutants move through ecosystems.

In response, right-wing media celebrated the decision and slammed its critics, claiming that the unanimous ruling was intentionally being ignored to mislead the public and fit the narrative that conservative, Trump-appointed justices were making controversial decisions. In reality, the outcome of Sackett v. EPA was nothing if not controversial. Even Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh opted to side with the court’s three liberal justices, saying the majority’s decision to redefine what is protected under the Clean Water Act went against scientific evidence.

Right-wing media attacks focus on the majority’s decision to gut the Clean Water Act

Right-wing media attempted to expose those who called out the very real impacts of gutting the Clean Water Act and implied that the only decision that mattered — and the only one that should be publicized — was the unanimous ruling in favor of the Sacketts. Suggesting otherwise, according to them, was a gross misrepresentation of the ruling.

These allegations started on May 25 in response to Schumer’s tweet attacking the “MAGA Supreme Court” for the decision to “erode our country’s environmental laws,” adding that “this ruling will mean more polluted water, and more destruction of wetlands.” Twitter users accused Schumer of lying by highlighting the unanimous ruling in favor of the Sacketts, and even added a community note clarifying the decision. Echoing the online backlash, right-wing media including Fox News and Newsmax piled on Schumer as well.

Trending Politics owner Collin Rugg: “I was today years old when I found out Ketanji Brown Jackson was a MAGA Republican.”Twitter, [5/29/23]
Conservative precious metals investment influencer account Wall Street Silver pushed back on Schumer’s tweet: “It was a 9-0 unanimous opinion.”Twitter, [5/27/23]
A Daily Wire op-ed claimed that Schumer labeling the decision as “MAGA” was a “smear” against the Supreme Court:“Democrats attempt to smear anybody who goes against their agenda as a ‘MAGA’ extremist — even if those individuals are liberal members of the United States Supreme Court.” Daily Wire, [5/27/23]
Right-wing comedian Tom Shillue, filling in for Fox’s Greg Gutfeld, said the decision was “about as MAGA as a tofu hotdog with a Bud Light."“Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took time out from never having a real job and slammed yesterday's Supreme Court ruling,” Shillue said. “Shockingly, Schumer described the decision as the work of a MAGA court. This despite the fact the decision was 9-0. Yeah, that’s MAGA — that’s about as MAGA as a tofu hotdog with a Bud Light.” Fox News, *Gutfeld!*, [5/26/23]
Shillue later added that “there are plenty of liberals still on the court,” while Fox News contributor Kat Timpf asked if Schumer even bothered to look at the ruling.“It's just ‘MAGA’ and it doesn’t even make any sense,” Timpf said. “I mean, you know that. Did he not even bother to look at the 9-0?" Fox News, *Gutfeld!*, [5/26/23]
Newsmax co-host Bianca de la Garza dismissed Schumer’s comment and the 5-4 split.“To be very clear, all nine judges unanimously agreed that the EPA overstepped its authorities,” she said. “I guess any reason to throw in MAGA, he’ll take.” Newsmax, *John Bachman Now*, [5/26/23]
Fox News host Sean Hannity: “*IT WAS UNANIMOUS, CHUCK!* ‘All 9 judges agreed that the EPA overstepped its authority and that the plaintiffs’ property should not be subject to EPA regulation.’”Twitter, [5/26/23]
Fox Business host Liz MacDonald accused Schumer of politicizing the ruling: “This was a unanimous ruling, so that means Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, Sonya Sotomayor joined in this unanimous ruling. So are they MAGA too? Why is this politicizing everything?” Fox Business, *The Evening Edit*,[5/26/23]
Townhall accused Democrats of having “grossly misled on the outcome of the case.” “Democrats are not taking the news well, to the point that they've grossly misled on the outcome of the case,” Townhall wrote. “In a tweet from his official account, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) lamented about how the ‘MAGA Supreme Court is continuing to erode our country's environmental laws,’ despite how, again, it was unanimous.” Townhall, [5/25/23]
National Review senior writer Dan McLaughlin mocked Schumer over the 9-0 decision: “Unanimous SCOTUS decision written by George W. Bush appointee. Outcome joined by GHW Bush appointee, 2d GW Bush appointee, 2 Obama appointees, & a Biden appointee. The 3 Dems joined a concurring opinion written by a Trump appointee. Chuck Schumer: That's so MAGA!” Twitter, [5/25/23]

Right-wing media also attacked The Washington Postand Bloomberg for not highlighting the unanimous decision more prominently, or even falsely stated that this was not even mentioned.

Radio host Erick Erickson: “You’d never know from Bloomberg that the decision was unanimous.”Twitter, [5/25/23]
Red State blogger known as Bonchie: “This is the first seven paragraphs of the Post's write-up. Can you tell it was actually a 9-0 unanimous decision?” Twitter, [5/25/23]
Former New York Post columnist and Daily Wire content creator Frank Fleming: “What the hell is wrong with the Washington Post misleading people like that?” “I have to defend Schumer a bit here,” Fleming wrote. “Everyone is dunking on him for this being a unanimous decision, but the Washington Post article he links doesn't mention that and calls it a 5-4 decision (when actually, it's separate concurring opinions). What the hell is wrong with the Washington Post misleading people like that?” Twitter [5/25/23]

Why the 5-4 split between the concurring justices matters

It’s true that all nine justices ruled in favor of the Sacketts. Specifically, they found that the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA did not have jurisdiction over this particular property. But despite what right-wing media say, the differences in their reasoning are important.

Initially, the Sacketts filed a lawsuit against the EPA because the agency ordered them to remove sand and gravel fill from the lot where they wanted to build a house, arguing that it was on protected wetlands and they would need to return the area to its natural state. The couple brought the case to the Supreme Court for the first time in2012 after lower courts sided with the EPA, maintaining that the property was subject to the Clean Water Act and the Sacketts did indeed need permits to continue construction. The Supreme Court at the time ruled in favor of the Sacketts’ right to challenge the EPA’s order.

Aided by the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity, both of which were founded by the fossil fuel billionaire Koch brothers, as well as other industry groups, the Sacketts managed to get their case in front of the Supreme Court for a second time. They were represented by thePacific Legal Foundation,which has received funding from the fossil fuel industry and its allies and also fought to weaken the Clean Water Act back in 2006.

This time, five far-right justices didn’t just rule in favor of the Sacketts — they went so far as to adopt the narrowest possible definition of which waters are protected by the Clean Water Act, completely changing how the law has functioned for the past 51 years. Kavanaugh, along with three liberal justices, argued that this decision went too far. Though they wrote a concurring opinion, he and three other justices fundamentally disagreed with Justice Samuel Alito’s reading of the law, which would not protect wetlands unless they have a “continuous surface connection” to bodies of water. Kavanaugh explained why that doesn’t make sense in his concurring opinion (citations omitted):

“Because of the movement of water between adjacent wetlands and other waters, pollutants in wetlands often end up in adjacent rivers, lakes, and other waters. Natural barriers such as berms and dunes do not block all water flow and are in fact evidence of a regular connection between a water and a wetland. … The scientific evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that wetlands separated from covered waters by those kinds of berms or barriers, for example, still play an important role in protecting neighboring and downstream waters, including by filtering pollutants, storing water, and providing flood control. In short, those adjacent wetlands may affect downstream water quality and flood control in many of the same ways that adjoining wetlands can."

Right-wing media’s gripes ignoring the concurring opinion and framing the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling as key to the case are completely bad-faith attempts to gaslight the public into thinking that the decision was less controversial than it actually was. This narrative directly benefits the industries that were so keen to help gut a bedrock environmental law while refusing to accept clear scientific evidence that is inconvenient to their bottom line. As Earthjustice puts it, the effort was part of “a coordinated push by industry polluters that want to blow a hole in the Clean Water Act, bulldoze cherished wetlands, and contaminate the country’s streams with waste from mining, oil and gas, and agro-industrial operations as they see fit, just to maximize their profits.”

This isn’t the first time this court has delivered a victory to polluters. In June 2022, the court’s conservative majority issued a devastating ruling in West Virginia v. EPA that severely limited the EPA’s power to make power plants cut the toxic pollution that is driving the climate crisis.

===

3rd hit ~ EPA?

tom b raw an 5 23

https://www.alternet.org/brett-kavanaugh-lobbed-the-judicial-version-of-a-grenade-at-sam-alito-this-week-analysis-2660660997/

reacting to a blunt-talking concurring opinion submitted by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh taking on the ruling authored by colleague Sam Alito, Loyola Law School Professor Jessica Levinson suggested in a new column for MSNBC there is the makingsof a schism developing within the conservative majority court.

At issue was the court severely limiting the ability of the government to enforce theClean Water Act,with Kavanaugh agreeing with the ultimate decision, but siding with the liberal wing in pointing out that the court is making law instead of interpreting it.

According to Levinson, the court's ruling was an egregious assertion of the court's authority and "the court’s ruling isn’t merely practically pernicious for those who care about the environment; it is legally wrong."

As she notes, the conservative wing of the court continually emphasizes that they are jurists and not elected lawmakers and, surprisingly, Kavanaugh reminded Alito of that in the text of his concurrence.

"It is unusual for Kavanaugh to break with his conservative colleagues, and the fact that he did so here shows us how truly baseless the court’s reasoning is," she suggested before explaining, "Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion explains why the court’s interpretation of the text of the Clean Water Act is fundamentally unmoored from the text itself. To use his words, 'the Court is imposing a restriction nowhere to be found in the text.'"

"The question before the court in this case was which wetlands are considered to be 'adjacent' to a body of water covered by the act, and therefore itself protected by the act," she wrote. "While the court’s ultimate decision was unanimous, its reasoning was splintered. A thin five-member majority of the court, defying basic rules of legal interpretation, concluded that 'adjacent' means 'adjoining.'"

As she notes Kavanaugh pointed out that the court went out of its way to ignore the obvious meanings of the words involved.

"Kavanaugh tells us exactly why Justice Alito got it wrong, as well: his interpretation goes against the 'ordinary meaning' of the word 'adjacent' and the 'longstanding agency practice' of the Army Corps.Referring to dictionaries for the plain and ordinary meaning of the word adjacent, Kavanaugh notes, 'the definitions of "adjacent" are notably explicit that two things need not touch each other in order to be adjacent,'" she elaborated.

According to Levinson, Kavanaugh was being brutally blunt with Alito and his other conservative colleagues when he wrote, "I would stick to the text.”

"These six words are nothing less than the judicial version of a grenade," the law professor wrote before adding, "Kavanaugh is essentially reminding the majority that they had one job, and one job alone, when interpreting a federal law: to follow the text. They failed to do so. We will live with the practical and legal consequences of that failure for years to come."

You can read her whole column here

---

an 5 23

no lnx

U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority on Thursday severely curtailed protections for "waters of the United States."

The decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is "unanimous in result but very split in reasoning," explainedSlate's Mark Joseph Stern. "The upshot of Sackett is that, by a 5–4 vote, the Supreme Court dramatically narrows" which wetlands are covered by the Clean Water Act (CWA).

The majority opinion—authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by all of the court's other right-wing members except Justice Brett Kavanaugh—concludes that the CWA only applies to wetlands with "a continuous surface connection" to larger bodies of water, excluding those that are "adjacent."

Earthjustice declared in response to the ruling that "this is a catastrophic loss for water protections across the country and a win for big polluters, putting our communities, public health, and local ecosystems in danger."

Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), was similarly critical, saying that "the Supreme Court ripped the heart out of the law we depend on to protect American waters and wetlands."

"The majority chose to protect polluters at the expense of healthy wetlands and waterways. This decision will cause incalculable harm. Communities across the country will pay the price," Bapna warned.

"What's important now is to repair the damage," he added. "The government must enforce the remaining provisions of law that protect the clean water we all rely on for drinking, swimming, fishing, irrigation, and more. States should quickly strengthen their own laws. Congress needs to act to restore protections for all our waters."

Elizabeth Southerland, former director of science and technology in EPA's Office of Water, noted that "since 1989, the U.S. government has used Clean Water Act authority to either prevent the filling of wetlands or to permit filling only when an equal acreage of wetlands is reclaimed or restored."

"Wetland preservation is critical for providing flood control, absorbing pollutants, preventing shoreline erosion, storing carbon, and serving as a nursery for wildlife," stressed Southerland, now a volunteer with the Environmental Protection Network.

Thursday's decision, she said, "is a big win for land developers and miners, who will now be free to destroy certain types of wetlands without paying for wetland reclamation," and "a big loss for communities who will have to pay more to treat their drinking water and respond to increased flooding and shoreline erosion."

The high court was criticized for hearing the case—brought by an Idaho couple denied a permit by the EPA—as the federal agencuy was finalizing a new waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule following the Trump administration's widely condemned rollback. The Biden administration's policy was just finalized in December.

"While Earthjustice and our allies are closely evaluating the impact of the Sackett decision on the new WOTUS regulation," said Sam Sankar, the legal group's vice president of programs, "we can say with certainty that the court has once again given polluting industries and land developers a potent weapon that they will use to erode regulatory protections for wetlands and waterways around the country."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Legal experts explain how Clarence Thomas’ SCOTUS ruling could impact charges against Sam Bankman-Fried ›

How a 1892 SCOTUS decision is 'setting up a spectacular legal clash' that could imperil US democracy: Trump biographer ›

Billionaire SCOTUS benefactor Harlan Crow has just hours to comply with Senate Judiciary probe ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey Challenges Student Loan ... ›

Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion ... ›

===

https://www.alternet.org/chevron-doctrine/

no lnx twt

'Judicial power grabs': US Supreme Court puts Chevron doctrine 'squarely in the crosshairs'

Brett Wilkins and Common Dreams May 01, 2023

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will hear a challenge to a nearly 40-year administrative law precedent under which judges defer to federal agencies' interpretation of ambiguous statutes—a case that legal experts warn could result in judicial power grabs and the gutting of environmental and other regulations.

The Supreme Court said it will take up Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—a case in which fishing companies are seeking to strike down the Chevron doctrine, named after the landmark 1984 Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council ruling that conservatives have long sought to overturn. The case is one of the most cited precedents in administrative law.

The Chevron doctrine involves a two-step process in which a court first determines whether Congress expressed its intent in legislation, and if so, whether or not that intent is ambiguous.

James Goodwin, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Progressive Reform, toldPolitico that Loper v. Raimondo has "the potential of being one of the most destabilizing decisions that this court has issued."

President Joe Biden's "environmental and energy agencies were already facing a heavily tilted playing field in the federal judiciary," Goodwin added. "I think eliminating Chevron... would make the prospects of surviving judicial review all the more daunting."

At issue in Loper v. Raimondo is whether the federal government can force herring fishers to fund a National Marine Fisheries Service program used to monitor their work. Two fishing companies argue that while the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires owners of fishing vessels to accommodate federal monitors onboard, the proprietors are not required "to pay the salaries of government-mandated monitors who take up valuable space on their vessels and oversee their operations."

The Biden administration's argument in favor of the Chevron doctrine leans heavily upon precedent.

"Federal courts have invoked Chevron in thousands of reported decisions, and Congress has repeatedly legislated against its backdrop," a brief filed by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar and other officials in support of the doctrine notes. The brief adds that the Chevron doctrine "promotes political accountability, national uniformity, and predictability, and it respects the expertise agencies can bring to bear in administering complex statutory schemes."

In 2020, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in Howard v. United States that "Chevron is in serious tension with the Constitution," while Justice Neil Gorsuch opined last year in Buffington v. McDonough that the doctrine "deserves a tombstone no one can miss."

"Overruling the Chevron doctrine, and undermining agencies and regulatory authority more broadly, has long been a hobbyhorse of Neil Gorsuch and other conservatives," legal journalist Christian Farias tweeted. "In a sense, the outcome of this case is foreordained. It's part of a continuing agenda."

Liberal Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson has recused herselffrom Loper v. Raimondo, explaining that she sat on the circuit court that initially heard the case.

"I still want to know how Ketanji Brown Jackson feels about all of this," Farias wrote. "Her insights are valuable: She was the vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an agency that is given Chevron-like deference in some contexts. Making her sit this one out won't help."

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Judicial deference and the future of regulation ›

Supreme Court to consider overruling Chevron doctrine | The Hill ›

Kavanaugh And The “Chevron Doctrine” - Legal Aggregate ... ›

3 23

intercept

silicon Valley Bank Used Former McCarthy Staffers to Weaken Regulations, Lobby FDIC

Ken Klippenstein

Two senior aides to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy were among the top lobbyists for the bank at the center of a new financial crisis.

===

3 23 Gigi scalp

We strongly urge you to reject Sohn’s nomination to the FCC and hold our regulators to the highest standard.

Sincerely,

Center for a Free Economy

Americans for Tax Reform

60 Plus Association

American Commitment

Center for Individual Freedom

Citizen Outreach

Conservatives for Property Rights

Consumer Action for a Strong Economy

Institute for Liberty

Less Government

Market Institute

Independent Women’s Voice

Eagle Forum

Affiliations listed for identification purposes only.

===

3 23 an

rail industry spent $654 million on federal lobbying over past 20 years: analysis

https://www.alternet.org/environment/railroad/

===

https://www.desmog.com/2019/05/30/trump-federal-railroad-administration-crew-staffing-self-regulation-rail-industry/

===

media fail mma 30%

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/study-30-cable-coverage-trumps-visit-east-palestine-cited-his-role-deregulating-rail

===

david urban lobby

https://www.mediamatters.org/cnn/cnn-commentator-lobbied-norfolk-southern-network-didnt-tell-its-audience-during-east-palestine

===

biden infra has nat'l grid?

===

mma 2 23

fox News’ Brian Kilmeade acknowledged on Thursday that federal regulations may be necessary to protect people and the environment, a rare admission on a network that has pushed for mass deregulation for decades. Kilmeade, who co-hosts Fox & Friends, made the comments while discussing the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment and its aftermath.

“I knew nothing about these derailment numbers,” Kilmeade said. “I'm stunned by it – that we have thousands of derailments all the time and how costly it is, and how they're not kept up and maybe the regulation needs to be there"

fox News has long vilified federal regulations as governmental overreach, and needless red tape that eats into corporate profits. In 2011, the network launched Regulation Nation, a series that would “expose how excessive laws are drowning American businesses.” The series was the brainchild of then-Fox News President Roger Ailes, who said at the time that bureaucrats “draw up regulations totry to ruin your life.” [vid]

That same year, Fox News also waged a full-on war against the Environmental Protection Agency, and continues to argue against environmental regulations, including in its so-called straight news programs.

More recently, Fox News personalities and their guests have railed against federal regulations for the oil industry, argued that federal regulations are a way to divide families, blamed regulations that purport to limit police violence for resulting in the police killing of Tyre Nichols, and pushed for further deregulation of the cryptocurrency market, just to name a few examples. Fox News and other cable networks also largely ignored the Trump administration’s broad deregulatory agenda to benefit massive polluters in the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic.

**Television coverage of East Palestine was scant and decontextualized, including on Fox News, immediately after the derailment, with only**3% of coverage mentioning the decadeslong deregulatory push by the rail industry. The Obama administration attempted to make more effective train brakes mandatory following a series of derailments in 2014, which the industry fought against, effectively hollowing out the proposed rules. In 2018, the Trump administration completely repealed the regulations.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-friends/fox-host-ohio-train-derailment-regulations-regarding-train-safety-were-changed-during

===

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-host-blames-diversity-initiatives-ohio-train-derailment

===

palestine OH neglected

an 2 23

ahead of former President Donald Trump's Wednesday visit to East Palestine, Ohio—where a Norfolk Southern-owned train transporting carcinogenic chemicals derailed on February 3, prompting a mass evacuation and release of pollutants—progressive critics highlighted the key role his administration played in making the fiery crash and its toxic aftermath more likely.

During his speech, Trump—considered a leading GOP presidential candidate for 2024 despite spearheading a deadly coup attempt following his 2020 loss—criticized how President Joe Biden's administration has responded to the environmental and public health disaster unfolding in East Palestine, a poor rural town of about 4,700 people located a few miles west of the Pennsylvania border.

But as critics noted beforehand, the Trump administration's gutting of train safety rules at the behest of railroad industry lobbyists was instrumental in creating the conditions for the derailment and ensuing chemical spill and burnoff, which has provoked fears of groundwater contamination and air pollution.

"He should be apologizing to that community for his administration rolling back rail regulations," progressive stalwart Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator, tweeted prior to Trump's address.

philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch made a similar point in an opinion piece published earlier this week.

"If residents of East Palestine—:{a}:**:{ modern }::{news desert}:**of downsized or disappeared news sources, which allows misinformation to fester—truly knew the reality, a delegation of townsfolk would likely greet Trump with tiki torches and pitchforks," Bunch wrote, comparing the former president's visit to "the tendency of a criminal to return to the scene of his crime."

Bunch noted that "Trump acted specifically to sabotage a nascent government effortto protect citizens from the growing threat posed by derailments of outdated, poorly equipped, and undermanned freight trains that were increasingly shipping both highly flammable crude oil from the U.S. fracking boom as well as toxic chemicals like the ones that would derail in East Palestine."

"Trump had been in office for less than a year when he moved to killthe 2015 rule change initiated by the Obama administration that would have required freight trains to upgrade the current braking technologythat was developed in the 19th century for state-of-the-art electronic systems," wrote Bunch, who pointed out that this came after Norfolk Southern and other rail carriers donated more than $6 million to Republican candidates in 2016 and spent millions more on lobbying.

"With the investigation into the East Palestine wreck still in its early phases, it's not clear if the modern brakes—originally required for installation by 2021—could have prevented the toxic derailment or whether the specific Obama rule would have applied," Bunch continued. "But experts do believe the new brakes could have mitigated the wreckage—and thus the release of so many hazardous chemicals."

"The rule reversal wasn't the only time that Team Trump sided with Big Rail over the forgotten Americans who live on the wrong side of their tracks," he added. "In 2019, for example, the Trump administration moved to not strengthen but relax regulations on shipping fracked natural gas through communities like East Palestine. The same year, Trump's White House also killed an Obama-era proposal that would have required two crew members in freight-train locomotives."

Ahead of Trump's visit,More Perfect Union also argued on social media that the ex-president's "attempt to portray himself as a friend of the town and as someone who would have stood up to Norfolk Southern... couldn't be further from the truth."

As the progressive media outlet observed, the Trump administration "withdrew multiple rail safety recommendations and moved toward a 'self-regulatory approach' where rail companies could do as they pleased."

"It's no surprise that the Trump years were filled with dangerous deregulation," More Perfect Union asserted, describing his decision to nominate top rail industry executives to lead the Federal Railroad Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration as "a prime example of the revolving door between business and government."

"The Trump approach to the rail industry was to let the companies do what they wanted, which was to avoid regulations, slash jobs, and extract profit," the outlet continued. "This approach, and rail companies' greed, has led to over 1,000 derailments each year. Some are massive catastrophes like East Palestine. But every single one is harmful. And if the industry isn't regulated and forced to change, we'll soon be seeing more disasters."

When Trump "pretends to care about rail workers, or the people of East Palestine, we can't believe him," More Perfect Union added. "His record tells a very different story, the story of his own role in creating this problem in the first place."

Even some conservative critics of Trump have questioned the sincerity of his visit.

"It's clear that it's a political stunt," Ray LaHood, a Republican ex-member of Congress who led the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) during former President Barack Obama's first term, told Politico on Wednesday. "If he wants to visit, he's a citizen. But clearly his regulations and the elimination of them, and no emphasis on safety, is going to be pointed out."

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wasted little time in doing exactly that, calling the GOP's indignation "fake" soon after Trump announced his travel plans.

Bunch acknowledged that "it's beyond hypocritical for Trump to bring his Harold Hill-huckster shtick to East Palestine when residents are still experiencing headaches and breathing foul air from the kind of catastrophe he didn't lift a finger to stop from the Resolute Desk."

"But also it's a bit baffling why Biden or his Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg—who seems to be channeling**his inner McKinsey & Co**. these days—haven't gone to Ohio," he argued. "Especially when Trump and any other Republicans hoping to make political hay off of East Palestine's misery are coming to town empty-handed."

"None of the anti-Biden critics on this issue have offered a solution, because they can't," wrote Bunch. "The only fix for the kind of runaway abuses of modern capitalism that cause these environmental catastrophes isgovernment regulation, aided by empowering worker safety with strong unions—two things that the Trump-led GOP has opposed at every turn."

Even in the wake of the disaster, Republican lawmakers have refused to demand stronger regulations, as HuffPost reported:

Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), a vocal Biden critic who represents East Palestine, on Tuesday dismissed immediate calls for stricter rail regulations, saying actions toward accountability will hinge on the findings of a National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB] investigation into the derailment:{.

'That will dictate whether there are laws, regulations that need to be changed, whether there were rules that were violated,' he said during a news conference in East Palestine. 'We don't know any of that yet, and we won't know that until NTSB releases its report.'}:

Hours before Trump spoke, Buttigieg announced that he plans to travel to East Palestine on Thursday. His visit is expected to coincide with the publication of the NTSB's preliminary report about its ongoing probe into the crash.

On Tuesday, Buttigieg unveiled DOT's recommendations for improving the safety of the nation's rail system, though an inter-union alliance of rail workers immediately criticized the plan as inadequate.

Given the scale of the problems—and in light of the transportation secretary's ongoing refusal to exercise his authority to reinstate previously gutted rules along with his consideration of an industry-backed proposal to further weaken the regulation of train braking systems—union leaders have called for nationalizing the railways and implementing their proposed solutions.

Turner, for her part, emphasized that she has "been outspoken about the two years the Biden administration had [to] fix these problems."

"The Trump administration is at fault, as is the Obama administration," Turner contended, referring to the fact that the latter's regulations were also watered down in response to industry pressure.

"The Ohio GOP is to blame as well," she added, echoing recent reporting on Norfolk Southern's campaign to influence state-level lawmakers and officials. "Failure at every level of government and multiple administrations led to this."

ref dayton

https://www.daytondailynews.com/ideas-voices/marcano-the-importance-of-local-media-following-the-east-palestine-derailment/7ORSBKCMPZGLLPR6NAX3EWXNPA/

the Norfolk Southern train wreck near East Palestine has received its share of national news coverage.

The Washington Post covered a raucous town hall that the train company inexplicitly skipped. NPR’s “what to know about the derailment” provided an excellent primer on the wreck. CBS, CNN, NBC, and even Al Jazeera have covered the incident.

The train, pulling 150 cars, derailed on Feb. 3. Three dozen cars went off the tracks, and 11 contained hazardous materials — including five with the man-made, cancer-causing substance vinyl chloride. For the roughly 4,800 residents of East Palestine, on the Pennsylvania border some 40 miles west of Pittsburgh, the current short-term angst will soon turn to long-term worry.

But what happens when the story subsides and the big boys go home?

The Lisbon Morning Journal is the closest newspaper to East Palestine, about 13 miles away. The Salem News has covered the story, and they’re 30 miles away. Particle Media’s online site, Newsbreak, aggregates news content, so that’s useful.

But the train derailment highlights a problem that has affected small communities and areas from Tarboro, North Carolina, to Tucson, Arizona.

Some 360 newspapers closed from the start of the pandemic, according to a report published in the New York Times. The problem is so acute thatone in five Americans live in a news desert with limited access to local news, the Times reported.

Ohio has fared particularly poorly. Since 2004, the state has lost 32% of its newspapers, according to a study by Policy Matters. Most of those companies were run by small operators who cared about the communities they covered.

In years past, the Youngstown Vindicator would have unleashed its army of journalists to travel the 30 minutes to East Palestine. The Vindicator once had the staff and resources to support its 160,000 Sunday circulation product. But the newspaper collapsed under the weight of circulation declines and financial losses and closed in 2019, with a Sunday circulation of just 32,000.

The East Palestine train derailment lays bare what happens when the community loses its news sources.

Newsgathering goes far beyond the daily reporting of who said what at a press conference or who spoke to a crowd at a community gathering. That’s fairly simply blocking and tackling.

I wonder who will go more in-depth.

Who will tell the stories of the townspeople who will be scared for years by the wreck?Who will monitor whether residents start leaving, which would have a cascading effect on property tax revenue and the city’s school district? Who will chronicle the families and children who stay behind and worry about their health?

Who will monitor health department reports to see if residents start getting sick?

Who will act as a watchdog to monitor state officials, who will be charged with ensuring that Norfolk Southern makes restitution, in whatever form that takes? Who will file public records requests to examine the records of any settlements? If there are lawsuits, who will go to the courthouse and report on the findings?

Without reporters and news sources, the people of East Palestine don’t have an independent news source that keeps officials on their toes.

When people say that local media doesn’t matter, take a look at what’s happening a four-hour drive east of the Dayton area. The big boys will go home because they have so many other issues to tackle. Eventually, the citizens of East Palestine will feel the frustration of living in a news desert.

Somehow, we need to strengthen local news, not continue to watch it wither.

Dying newspapers mean there are fewer independent avenues to help communities, fewer ways to cover tragedy, and fewer ways to hold companies and agencies accountable through reporting.

Local news matters. Let’s do a better job supporting it.

Ray Marcano’s column appears on these pages each Sunday. He can be reached at :{raymarcanoddn@gmail.com}:

===

how much BS is deflection from trump incomp deregulation corruption free mkt libtard BS /grievance victim conspiracy

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOP DID OR WILL DO, CHECK THEIR ACCUSATIONS/ PROJECTION:

projection rubber glue retaliation

vs trump dereg vs chris christie bridge shutdown

https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-suggests-residents-east-palestine-are-being**-punished-voting-republican**

https://www.mediamatters.org/cable-news/study-national-television-coverage-east-palestine-train-derailment-ignored-industry

https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/right-wing-media-weaponize-east-palestine-train-derailment-claim-white-0

===

an 2 23

Donald Trump Junior conjured up a new conspiracy theory over the weekend regarding train derailments. His hypothesis is that hackers working on behalf of the Russian government were responsible for the February 3rd East Palestine, Ohio Norfolk Southern disaster as well as, perhaps, other incidents involving railcars disconnecting from their tracks.

Shortly after the crash that spilled toxic substances like vinyl chloride and forced thousands of residents to evacuate, many began to recall that Junior's father, former President Donald Trump, loosened regulations on braking mechanisms and safety features during his term.

But that is not the narrative that Junior was presenting.

"No MSDS for the chemicals on train. Yeah, I don't know what that, I don't know what the acronym is. I'm sorry. Um, but yeah, there, it's just gonna keep going. And I read about a spill in Houston and another one in Detroit," Junior said. "And again, it feels like a lot. Hey, maybe there's a train derailment every day. I, I don't know, but like, it seems like we're having an awful lot of train derailments that we're finally hearing about, uh, in the last few days."

Statistically, these are common occurrences, with around three per day on average according to the United States Department of Transportation Federal Railroad Administration. Junior also was unaware that MSDS stands for Material Safety Data Sheet, which is used to catalog hazardous materials and the potential harm that they can cause.

Nevertheless, Junior pressed on, positing that Moscow could be retaliating for the destruction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline last September:

And all of that happens to come, after, you know, an alleged US attack on a Russian pipeline. And, you know, we know they have very sophisticated, uh, hackers working in the systems and like, does anyone even ask the question? I'm not saying it is. I'll say I'm a conspiracy theorist. Like, uh, I, I don't know, seems like a question we'd wanna ask even if it's refuted with actual evidence. That would be nice. Like, I'd love that for it to not be the case, but maybe it's just a whole sh*t ton of coincidence. Uh, but, I don't believe in that much coincidence anymore.

MSDS material safety data sheet. Ah, yeah. I don't, they have 'em, but they have 'em, but they burned them up. Yeah. That wouldn't surprise me. It seems like the evidence always magically disappears, right? It, it always goes away. Or it, it's discovered conveniently after the other side gets what they want. Uh, again, if you still believe in this much coincidence, folks, I got some, uh, oceanfront property in Colorado to sell you.

Watch below or at this link.

===

Polluters Pass “Go”

In 1995 the new governor of Texas responded to the needs of the “polluting industries” that had contributed more than $4 million (about 20 percent of his total) to his election campaign the year before. Thus, as soon as he was in office, George W. Bush signed into law the Texas Environmental Health and Safety Audit Privilege Act, also known as the “polluter immunity law.” This new law, which has since been emulated in twenty-five other states and was tried at the federal level during the Bush presidency, allows polluting industries to avoid prosecution for pollution violations if they themselves report their own crimes to themselves in an internal audit. It also gives them the ability to prevent the public from knowing about their violations.

As Arizona’s assistant attorney general, David Ronald, said, “Only the business with something to hide would benefit from a law that turns data gathered from environmental audits into secret information.”:{7}::{ }:Some of these laws even provide for a year in jail and a $10,000 fine for any human who reveals to the public or to government agencies any corporate pollution discovered in an audit, thus discouraging investigative reporting or whistle-blowing employees.

Like with health-care policy, these laws that increase the power and the profitability of the nation’s largest corporations at the expense of smaller companies who play by the rules—and to the detriment of average citizens—from the beginning are influenced by enormous amounts of “corporate free speech” in the form of cash for politicians and political parties.

In a Democracy…

The point for a democracy is, “What is the will of the people?” That will may change over time, but it is undemocratic when it is shaped by the single voice that shouts the loudest because there are profits to be made. Democracy is more important than any single debate, and this is a classic example of how democratic republican processes have been twisted because of the concept of corporate personhood.

---

https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-regulation/

...During the Reagan administration, Robert Monks and Nell Minow worked with the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief. Monks says, “We found that business representatives continually sought more rather than less regulation, particularly when [the new regulations] would limit their liability or protect them from competition.”

Monks and Minow became disenchanted with the process. In their 1991 book Power and Accountability, they say, “The ultimate commercial accomplishment is to achieve regulation under law that is purported to be comprehensive and preempting and is administered by an agency that is in fact captive to the industry.”[1] In this way corporations find an actual government shield for their actions. For example:

Tobacco companies point to the government-mandated warnings on their labels, saying that the labels relieve them of responsibility for tobacco-related deaths because they’re obeying government rules.
Producers of toxic wastes can’t be sued or attacked if they are releasing their toxins within guidelines defined by a government agency.
Telemarketingcompanies push for laws and regulations that define their practice, thus legalizing it.
Manufacturers of genetically modified products can bring them to market without labeling, so long as the products are made within the guide- lines of the regulations. [2]

The Fox Guarding the Chicken Coop

Before there was a single genetically modified food product on the market, Monsanto, a leading provider of agricultural products to farmers, including Roundup, the world’s best-selling herbicide, and a pioneer in genetically altered crops, sent lobbyists to the White House in late 1986 to meet with Vice President George H. W. Bush.

“There were no products at the time,” Leonard Guarraia, one of the Monsanto executives at the meeting, told the New York Times in 2001. “But we bugged him for regulation. We told him that we have to be regulated.”[3]

And so, the Times reports, “the White House complied,” and Monsanto got the regulations it wanted from the EPA, FDA, and USDA.

Those regulations evolved throughout the Reagan and Bush administrations into aregulatory policy, announced by Vice President Dan Quayle on May 26, 1992,when he said, “We will ensure that biotech products will receive the same oversight as other products, instead of being hampered by unnecessary regulation.”

Certainly there would be no unnecessary regulation, but the regulations that were now in place were necessary for the industry. Said the New York Times, “The new policy strictly limited the regulatory reach of the FDA.”[4]

Under the regulations shepherded through government agencies by the White House, the dangers of genetically modified foods would be determined by the manufacturers, not the government, and testing would occur only when the companies wanted it to. And consumers were not to be notified if their food contained genetically modified organisms (as does now a substantial percentage of the American food supply).

“Labeling was ruled out as potentially misleading to the consumer, since it might suggest that there was reason for concern,” notes Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald.[5] In the meantime, gene-altered corn accounted for about 32 per- cent of the 1998 U.S. crop, 38 percent for soybeans, and 58 percent for Canadian canola oil.[:{6]}:

In the summer of 2000, the Clinton administration had to select an American representative to the World Trade Organization talks on genetically modified foods. Ignoring the nomination of a scientist from the Consumers Union, the administration instead chose a former lobbyist for one of the largest companies in the business of genetically modified foods.

And in one of the most notorious cases, a multinational chemical and agricultural-products company’s attorney quit his job with the company’s law firm; went to work for the FDA, where he wrote a regulation that allowed that company’s product into the food supply; quit the FDA and went to work for the USDA, where he participated in writing regulations eliminating labeling of the product for consumers; and then quit the USDA and went back to work for the law firm representing the multinational.[:{7]}:

Unfortunately, because of “veggie libel laws” passed in numerous states after much lobbying by pesticide manufacturers and others in the agricultural products industry (under which Oprah Winfrey was sued for her hamburger remarks), it would be a crime in at least fourteen states (where, hopefully, this book will be for sale) for me (or any reporter) to give you the details of this episode.*

*Even Ben & Jerry’s must, by law, say something nice about the outcome of this incident on their labels, although you can read the entire story on the wall of their Waterbury, Vermont, manufacturing facility, as Vermont has not yet passed a law making it illegal to question the safety of the American food supply.

The GMO (genetically modified organism) regulations followed a pattern set out years before by the chemical industry. As Paul Hawkenpointed out in 1994 in The Ecology of Commerce, the industry launched such a huge lobbying effort to fight regulations on toxic chemicals after the passage of the 1970 Clean Air Act that by 1990 “the agency has been able to muster regulations for exactly 7 of the 191 toxins that fell under the original legislation.”[:{8]}:

A decade later things are still problematic, with profit driving the equation at every turn. The last year for which EPA statistics are available on the release of toxic chemicals into the environment by industry is 1999, and in that year 7.7 billion pounds of toxins were released directly into our air and water, most with unknown short- or long-term effects.[9] And as huge as that statistic may sound, it’s actually only the tip of the iceberg:

Lobbyists defined EPA regulations so that now only 650 of the more than 80,000 chemicals being used in industry have to be reported— which means that the 7.7-billion-pound total represents only 1 percent of the possible chemicals in use.
Only America’s largest chemical manufacturers are required to report their figures.
Those figures include only accidents and spills. As the Worldwatch Institute’s Anne Platt McGinn noted in a commentary titled “Detoxifying Terrorism” on November 16, 2001, “Releases during routine use are not included” in that 7.7-billion-pound figure. Platt added that we don’t yet even know how dangerous or carcinogenic are more than “71 percent of the most widely used chemicals in the United States today” because the data simply doesn’t exist or hasn’t been released by the industry.[:{10]:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:

The Impact on Small Business

Small businesses rarely lobby Congress, the White House, or regulatory agencies for more regulations. But because large businesses have an infrastructure to deal with regulations, the burden of regulations on small businesses some- times wipes them out. Many regulations come along with benefits. Farm subsidies represent a huge transfer of tax money to corporations, but only a very small portion goes to family farmers.

In the agriculture industry, four multinational corporations control 82 percent of the beef cattle market; five companies control 55 percent of the hog-packing marketplace. Although large agricultural corporations numerically own only 6 percent of U.S. farms, that 6 percent accounts for almost two- thirds of all farm income.[:{11]:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:

In a growing trend known as contract farming, farmers are forced (because they can’t compete against large-scale multinational purchasing) to sell their farms to agribiz companies and then work on the land they once owned. The United States lost 300,000 family-owned farms between 1979 and 1998. As agriculture writer Julie Brussell notes, “This agrarian ‘genocide’ mirrors the descent of much of America’s rural country into economic serfdom.”[12] The result, as documented by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund’s (CELDF) Thomas Linzey, is that, “Suicides have replaced equipment- related deaths as the number one cause of farmer deaths.”[:{13]}:

References:

1. Robert A. G. Monks and Nell Minow, Power and Accountability (New York: Harper- Collins, 1991),https://www.ragm.com/archives/books/poweracc/cover.html.

2. Kurt Eichenwald, “Redesigning Nature: Hard Lessons Learned; Biotechnology Food: From the Lab to a Debacle,” New York Times, January 25, 2001,https://www.nytimes .com/2001/01/25/business/redesigning-nature-hard-lessons-learned-biotechnology- food-lab-debacle.html?pagewanted=1.

...

6. Marian Burros, “Shoppers Unaware of Gene Changes,” New York Times,July 20, 1998, https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/20/world/shoppers-unaware-of-gene-changes .html?scp=1&sq=Marian%20Burros,%20%E2%80%9CShoppers%20Unaware%20 of%20Gene%20Changes,%E2%80%9D%20New%20York%20Times,%2020%20 July%201998&st=cse.

7.https://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0523-02.htm.

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/supreme-court-2657745095/

Environmentalists and climate change activists were dealt a severe blow on June 30, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. EPA and greatly limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate power plan emissions. The decision came during a summer in which extreme weather events, which environmentalists are attributing to climate change, have been especially plentiful — from heatwaves, droughts and wildfires in both the United States and Europe to record flooding in Sydney, Australia (although June-August is winter in Australia because it’s in the world’s southern hemisphere).

London had a record high of 104F/40.3C, and St. Louis, on July 25-26, suffered more than 9 inches of rain — events that, according to climate change activists, serve as painful reminders of how bad a decision the High Court made in West Virginia v. EPA.

But according to Georgetown University law professor Lisa Heinzerling, handcuffing the EPA is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the damage the Court’s West Virginia v. EPAdamage will cause. Heinzerling, in an article published by The Atlantic on July 26, warns that the Court’s GOP-appointed supermajority has made regulation in general "much harder" for government agencies.

“Like many governmental agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency has an elaborate process for developing important rules,” Heinzerling explains. “As I saw during the Obama Administration, when I headed the EPA office that oversees this process, getting a major rule over the finish line can take years. Almost every step of the way offers obstacles to addressing any serious environmental problem. This work just got much harder, if not altogether impossible.” [OIRA/OMB? DQA, SECRET SCI BS]

The Georgetown law professor continues, “In West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court held that Congress may not authorize an administrative agency like the EPA to address an issue of great economic and political significance — in the Court’s parlance, a ‘major question’ — unless Congress speaks extremely precisely in doing so. Broad statutory language, written with the aim of empowering an agency to take on new problems in new ways, will no longer suffice.”

Heinzerling emphasizes that although the Court’s West Virginia v. EPA decision “has the immediate effect of limiting the EPA’s power and flexibility in regulating fossil-fuel-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act,” it “extends beyond that.”

“Any agency that asserts authority over an issue of great economic and political significance could meet a hostile reception in the courts precisely because it has tried to do something big,” Heinzerling warns. “Many agencies will just avoid taking such actions in the first place, knowing the risk. The obvious result could be a federal government with little ability to tackle many of the biggest issues society faces…. The Court’s major-questions doctrine will make effective governance of this country even harder than it has long been.”

Heinzerling adds, “Somewhat ironically, the first victim is Congress itself. Congress has long addressed important problems by empowering agencies to regulate based on newly developed scientific and technical information. That is what Congress did in the Clean Air Act and in the public-health and workplace-safety statutes the Court narrowed in the COVID cases. All laws with a similar structure, passed in at least implicit reliance on a different interpretive framework from the one the Court has embraced, are now vulnerable to severe judicial cropping.So, while the Court is purporting to hand Congress the baton, in reality, it’s creating a major hurdle that will stand in the way of Congress’ work.”

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/safety-regulations/

Remember when lots of romaine lettuce was recalled because it was causing E.coli outbreaks? That was the Food and Drug Administration protecting us from getting sick.

Working in a warehouse? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration sets standards to ensure you don’t breathe in dangerous chemicals like asbestos.

Enjoying the fresh air on a clear, sunny day? Thank the Environmental Protection Agency for limiting the amount of pollution that can go into our air.

These agencies save lives. Since OSHA was established a half-century ago, its workplace safety regulations have saved more than 618,000 workers’ lives.

Republicans have been trying to gut these agencies for decades. Now, with the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority solidly in place, they have their best chance yet.

In January 2022, the Supreme Court blocked OSHA’s vaccine-or-testing mandate from going into effect, which was estimated to prevent a quarter-million hospitalizations.

The Court claimed that Covid isn’t an “occupational hazard” because people can become infected outside of work, and that allowing OSHA to regulate in this manner “would significantly expand” its authority without clear Congressional authorization.

This is absurd on its face. Section 2 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 clearly spells out OSHA’s authority to enact and enforce regulations that protect workers from illness, injury, and death in the workplace. Congress doesn’t need to list every specific workplace hazard before OSHA can protect workers.

What this ruling tells us is that the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court are intent on gutting the power of agencies to issue regulations.

This term, the Court will also hear a case regarding the EPA’s authority to enforce the Clean Water Act. If the Court undermines the EPA’s authority, it will put our environment – and our health – at risk. Remember when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire because it was brimming with oil, acid, and factory chemicals? That’s what we may be returning to.

And what’s next? Will they gut the Federal Trade Commission and put us all at risk of being defrauded? Target the Securities and Exchange Commission and deregulate the financial sector, sparking another financial crisis?

Beware. If Republican appointees on the Supreme Court succeed in gutting regulatory agencies, we all lose. This agenda is anti-worker, anti-consumer, and anti-environment. The only thing it’s good for is corporate profits.[rr vid] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRJmq9yCh-w&t=5s

===

aha more regs tossed out for exceeding authority = ~ gubmint? corp laissez-faire pollute? kill workers?

rooted in fed overreach?

jones day, trump fav, clerked for clarence

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's mask mandate for domestic travelers was struck down on Monday by a federal jurist who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. The decision is the latest in a string of blows to President Joe Biden's efforts to curb transmission of the coronavirus.

The CDC last week extended the rule until May 3rd.

Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida wrote in a 59-page ruling that the CDC exceeded its authority in requiring passengers on airlines and any other "conveyance" of public transportation to wear masks to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

Mizelle – whom the American Bar Associated dinged as "not qualified" after she was installed by Trump at the age of 33 – said that passengers who refused to comply and were "forcibly removed from their airplane seats, denied board at the bus steps, and turned away at the train station doors" had their rights against "detention and quarantine" violated.

"The Mask Mandate is best understood not as sanitation, but as an exercise of the CDC's power to conditionally release [from what?] individuals to travel despite concerns that they may spread a communicable disease (and to detain or partially quarantine those who refuse). But the power to conditionally release and detain is ordinarily limited to individuals entering the United States from a foreign country," she proclaimed.

“Wearing a mask cleans nothing,” Mizelle opined, even as cases are once again rising in pockets throughout the country, such as in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which has re-instituted a mask mandate. The virus has also been spreading in the nation's capital, infecting White House officials and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California).

Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, blasted Mizelle's order in a Monday afternoon tweet.

"This is both a big deal and a truly preposterous (nationwide) injunction. The CDC’s statutory authority is specifically directed at preventing the spread of communicable diseases across state lines," he wrote. "Where else is such spread more likely to occur than transport hubs like airports?"

===

Former United States Secretary of Labor Robert Reich blasted right-wing efforts to gut federal regulations in a new video posted to YouTube on Tuesday.

In the roughly four-minute-long spot, Reich warned Americans that Republicans are working tirelessly to make life "more dangerous" in the name of boosting corporate profits.

"Your life could get a lot more dangerous. Republican appointees on the Supreme Court seem poised to strip away basic safety standards for our workplaces, our food, our air and water," Reich began.

He explained that regulatory organizations exist to protect the public from predatory practices.

"Remember when lots of romaine lettuce was recalled because it was causing E.coli outbreaks? That was the Food and Drug Administration protecting us from getting sick. Working in a warehouse? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration sets standards to ensure you don’t breathe in dangerous chemicals like asbestos. Enjoying the fresh air on a clear, sunny day? Thank the Environmental Protection Agency for limiting the amount of pollution that can go into our air," said Reich. "These agencies save lives. Since OSHA was established a half-century ago, its workplace safety regulations have saved more than 618,000 workers’ lives."

In this case, Reich takes aim at HFIB versus OSHA, in which the Court sided with the plaintiffs who sued to have COVID-19 workplace vaccine-or-testing mandates lifted.

"What this ruling tells us is that the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court are intent on gutting the power of agencies to issue regulations," he said. "This term, the Court will also hear a case regarding the EPA’s authority to enforce the Clean Water Act. If the Court undermines the EPA’s authority, it will put our environment – and our health – at risk. Remember when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire because it was brimming with oil, acid, and factory chemicals? That’s what we may be returning to."

Reich then reminded viewers that the GOP's assault on regulations is far from over.

"And what’s next? Will they gut the Federal Trade Commission and put us all at risk of being defrauded? Target the Securities and Exchange Commission and deregulate the financial sector, sparking another financial crisis?" he asked.

"Beware. If Republican appointees on the Supreme Court succeed in gutting regulatory agencies, we all lose. This agenda is anti-worker, anti-consumer, and anti-environment," Reich added. "The only thing it’s good for is corporate profits."

===

https://www.opednews.com/articles/SCOTUS-Conservatives-Decla-by-Jeanine-Molloff-Corporate-Rule_Deregulation-Regulation_Supreme-Court-SCOTUS-220210-234.html

OpEdNews Op Eds 2/10/2022

SCOTUS Conservatives Declare War Against Decades of Regulatory Laws

By Jeanine Molloff (Page 1 of 4 pages)

Message Jeanine Molloff

Reprinted from buzzflash.com

Conservatives on the Supreme Court are working feverishly to potentially dismantle most government regulation that corporations want gone, by dredging up two legal fictions, the 'major questions' doctrine and the 'nondelegation' doctrine.If successful, the court could nullify decades of progressive laws on everything from food safety to environmental concerns. The court is dismantling democracy itself.

December 10, 2021, multiple tornados struck the American Midwest, including Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, and Kentucky, destroying everything in their path. Amazon employees at the Edwardsville, Illinois 'fulfillment center' were trapped in a flimsy tinfoil structure as a killer tornado stampeded through the sleepy rural setting. Personal accounts from workers and their families claim that Amazon kept these workers as virtual hostages. Those who wanted to leave were threatened with disciplinary action. Though multiple tornado warnings were issued all day, workers weren't allowed to access emergency weather reports because of the company's 'no phone' policy, which forbids phones on the warehouse floor. Six Amazon employees died in that warehouse when the roof collapsed. These deaths were avoidable. In fact, you could argue that these deaths were facilitated by Amazon's systemic abuse of their employees.

That same night another lethal tornado hit the Mayfield Consumer Products Factory in Mayfield, Kentucky. Severe weather warning systems alerted the community some three hours before the tornado hit. Employees at the Mayfield factory were also being threatened by supervisors with disciplinary action, including termination if they left the facility. The employees remained on site, and eight died in the rubble. Kentucky tornado: Factory workers threatened with firing if they left before tornado, employees say (nbcnews.com)Survivors of deadly tornado that leveled factory sue employer, saying they weren't allowed to leave | PBS NewsHour

In both instances, workers placed in danger by their employers have a legal pathway to receive compensation for their injuries and demand their employer be held accountable. This is due, in part to various government agencies such as OSHA, whose job is to defend workplace safety. Without such agency regulation, workers have little to no recourse against abusive employers. These agencies determine and craft regulations meant to implement laws which are generally written in very vague and broad terms. In order to make the regulations fair and subject to various industry standards, these agencies are staffed by professionals in those specific areas of expertise. It should be unnecessary to explain this rationale; that a lawyer shouldn't be crafting regulations on something like pharmaceuticals, nuclear energy or vaccine safety but Supreme Court conservatives apparently never received the memo.

The conservatives on the court would use two legal fictions to deregulate the government, and yes, subsequently create a chaotic system which could, for instance, assign a lawyer to write regulations for nuclear waste storage or decide whether vaccines are medically safe.

The two legal fictions I am referring to are the 'major questions doctrine' and the 'nondelegation doctrine.' Both fictions were crafted specifically to undermine any regulations which did not receive a legislative permission slip from Congress for any rules or regulations not mentioned in the original legislation.

Conservative jurists know these two fictions are based on little more than rhetorical quicksand, but they don't care.

The intent of these two legal fictions is to bring all government agencies other than the military to a grinding halt. The conservatives on the Supreme Court are determined to create a judicial 'get out of jail free' card for the growing state of 'corporate capture' in the USA. Just this past month the Supreme Court reviewed and decided two cases, specifically engineered to test the "major questions doctrine." Both cases revolve around vaccine mandates. The court is also scheduled to hear a case which would test "nondelegation" in the coming weeks, and that case is West Virginia v. EPA. If these legal fictions are allowed to stand, the Supreme Court could dismantle much of the federal government, especially in the areas of consumer safety, worker rights, and environmental concerns.

The history of the "major questions" doctrine...

The genesis of this fiction began with a few cases which questioned whether federal agencies exceeded their authority granted by Congress as they interpreted various applications of the law. The goal of this fiction is clear. The "major questions" doctrine was implemented so conservatives could nullify any substantive agency authority and subsequent regulations.

This was the first step required to dismantle much of government. The far right-wing is patient if nothing else. Historically, there were three specific cases which served as the prerequisite to dismantling regulations which the business community was determined to kill.

Communications Act of 1934and "major questions" kryptonite...

The first case dealt with the Communications Act of 1934, which established tariffs on telecommunications companies through the administration of the FCC or Federal Communications Commission. In 1994, the Supreme Court ruled that the FCC couldn't unilaterally "modify" tariffs for the telecommunications industry, deciding that such modifications would constitute a rewriting or revision of the Communications Act of 1934. Such changes would have to come about through the legislative process. The fact that this action on the part of the FCC would have virtually abolished those tariffs is not the major point. The goal of these judicial activists was to discredit the delegation of powers to federal agencies, as an illegitimate and thus unconstitutional grant of power to the administrative state.

FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. Case....[much more]

===

https://www.scotusblog.com**/2018**/07/:{kavanaugh-and-the-environment/:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:

Michael Livermore is professor of law at University of Virginia School of Law.

As in many other areas, Justice Anthony Kennedy was the swing vote in environmental cases, lining up in the middle of his more reliably conservative and liberal peers. His proposed replacement, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, has exhibited a very clear track record of relative solicitousness to regulated industry and skepticism to environmental interests. These instincts will likely place him to the right of Chief Justice John Roberts in environmental cases, shifting Roberts to the center of the court. As a consequence, we can expect that a Kavanaugh confirmation would usher in a court that is considerably less sympathetic to environmental protections. This new alignment may have particularly profound effects in the coming years in litigation involving greenhouse gas emissions and federal jurisdiction over water pollution.

When the Supreme Court decides environmental cases, its primary role is in defining the scope of agency authority under one of the major environmental statutes (such as the Clean Water Act) or passing on the legality of an agency action. Because of the specificity of many environmental cases — interpreting the language in one provision of a long and complex statute or examining the administrative record that supports a particular agency decision — the doctrines that arise in environmental cases are typically fairly contained. Where they have more general applicability, it is often because they are intertwined with other questions, such as administrative law issues.

Such was the case with the Supreme Court’s decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council Inc., which arose in a challenge by an environmental organization to a Reagan-era rule by the Environmental Protection Agency. The environmental law question in that case was the definition of a “source” under Clean Air Act rules concerning air pollution control requirements. Although the outcome had important environmental law consequences, that statutory issue did not represent the kind of repeat question that generally arises many times before the courts. The case is famous, rather, for its rule concerning the deference owned to agencies for their statutory interpretations, a doctrine that applies far outside the context of a single environmental statute.

Because of the sui generis nature of many environmental law cases, and their entanglement with administrative law issues, one might expect that it would be difficult to identify general trends for individual judges. A strong commitment to Chevrondeference, for example, might cut in favor of a stringent regulation in one case and an industry-friendly deregulation in another. Nevertheless, in some high-profile environmental cases, the court does split along standard ideological lines, with the liberal justices coming down in favor of pro-environment outcomes and the conservative justices favoring industry. It is in these more ideologically charged cases that Kavanaugh’s skepticism toward environmental protections is likely to have the most impact.

Two little-known dissents in which Kavanaugh parted ways from even his conservative colleagues on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit help illustrate his general tendencies in environmental cases. In Sierra Club v. EPA, in 2008, Kavanaugh sat on a panel with two fellow Republican appointees: then-Chief Judge David Sentelle, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, and Judge Thomas Griffith, who, like Kavanaugh, is a President George W. Bush appointee. That case involved a challenge by the Sierra Club to a Bush-era EPA regulation that relaxed monitoring requirements associated with a permitting program under the Clean Air Act. Writing for the majority, Griffith found that the EPA had overstepped its statutory authority and struck down the rule. In his dissent, Kavanaugh noted that he “agree[d] completely with the majority opinion about bedrock principles of statutory interpretation,” yet arrived at the opposite result — for him, the most natural interpretation of the act was one that favored the agency’s less stringent approach.

Another case in which Kavanaugh disagreed with like-minded colleagues in an environmental case was 2010’s Howmet Corp. v. EPA, which involved an industry challenge to an EPA interpretation of one of its regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The agency had determined in an enforcement action that a particular chemical was “spent material” and therefore subject to regulation after it had been used in an industrial cleaning process. Writing for herself and Sentelle, Judge Janice Brown (also a George W. Bush appointee) found that the regulation in question was ambiguous and deferred to the agency’s interpretation. Kavanaugh disagreed, arguing that “EPA’s argument mangles the language of [its] 1985 regulations.” He would have voided the agency enforcement action that relied on that interpretation.

Both of these cases involve fairly typical questions of statutory and regulatory interpretation, but what is striking is Kavanaugh’s inclination — even more so than his fellow conservatives — to read the language at issue in ways that were adverse to more stringent environmental protection. By contrast, it appears as though in his time on the D.C. Circuit, Kavanaugh has never issued a dissent in a case in which the majority ruled against an environmental interest.

To reach these outcomes, Judge Kavanaugh is quite flexible in how he applies general principles of administrative law. This tendency is especially clear in two opinions concerning challenges to Obama-era Clean Air Act regulations. In White Stallion Energy Center v. EPA, in 2014, the majority upheld a regulation that imposed more stringent controls on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants. In dissent, Kavanaugh argued that the agency was obligated to consider compliance costs when determining whether it was “appropriate and necessary” to regulate these sources — its failure to do so was, in his eyes, fatal to the regulation. After granting certiorari in the case, the Supreme Court in 2015 vindicated Kavanaugh’s view in Michigan v. EPA. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for a 5–4 majority, held that the statutory language “appropriate and necessary” required that the agency consider costs at the earliest stage of its rulemaking.

Kavanaugh’s flexibility becomes apparent in something of a companion case from 2012, EME Homer City Generation v. EPA, in which a group of states and industry representatives challenged a rule to reduce air pollution that crosses state borders. That case also involved the consideration of costs when setting a regulation, but with a twist: In this case, it was the EPA and environmentalists that argued that the agency had the discretion to consider compliance costs when setting emissions budgets for states, and industry arguing that the agency could not consider costs. Kavanaugh again sided with industry, holding that the “EPA may rely on cost-effectiveness factors in order to allow some upwind States to do less than their full fair share” to control pollution, but not more. In other words, for Kavanaugh, cost considerations were a one-way ratchet: When costs are high, then they can be used to justify less stringent environmental protection, but cheap and easy controls are not a good reason to go further to clean up the air. EME Homer, like White Stallion, was taken up by the Supreme Court, but this time Kavanaugh’s view did not prevail, with Justice Ginsburg writing for a 6–2 majority (which included Kennedy and Roberts) that the statute gave the agency broad latitude to craft a regulatory program to cut interstate emissions, with compliance costs as a perfectly reasonable factor for the agency to consider. Scalia, however, agreed with Kavanaugh, arguing in dissent that the agency inappropriately relied on costs.

The contrast between White Stallion and EME Homer is clear: In the case in which considering costs would lead to less stringent standards, Kavanaugh believes that costs must be considered; but in the case in which considering costs would lead to more stringent standards, he says that they cannot be considered.

If we assume that Kavanaugh’s appointment would shift the swing vote on environmental cases to Roberts, it is worth considering how much this would affect the shape of environmental law in the coming years. Despite the Supreme Court’s politically charged nature, many environmental cases do not result in 5–4 decisions, and so changing a single justice would not upset the outcome. And in recent years, when the justices have fallen along strict ideological lines, Kennedy has typically joined the conservative wing. Since taking his position as the court’s median justice, Kennedy has only swung an outcome toward the liberals in two major environmental cases. The first was Rapanos v. United States, in which a separate opinion by Kennedy avoided a majority opinion by Scalia that would have severely limited the scope of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. The second was Massachusetts v. EPA, in which Kennedy joined the liberal wing in holding that the agency had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Both of these are extremely consequential cases and involve issues that are likely to reappear in the near future.

Current controversies over jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act swirl around the Clean Water Rule, which was promulgated under President Barack Obama. Several cases involving that rule, and an effort by the current administration to repeal it, are now winding their way through the courts and are likely to find an audience before the Supreme Court soon. With a new court composition, Scalia’s plurality opinion in Rapanos may be up for a revival, potentially leading to a severe contraction of federal jurisdiction over pollution into smaller water bodies. Litigation over climate change and greenhouse gas regulation currently takes many forms, from constitutional claims and state actions under nuisance law to pending challenges to the not-yet-rescinded Obama-era Clean Power Plan. When these cases ultimately arrive at the court, environmentalists have good reason to be fearful not only that they may lose on the issue of the day, but also that the bedrock holding of Massachusetts v. EPA may gradually be eroded over time. (It is worth noting that a direct reversal of Massachusetts v. EPA is unlikely, given the court’s reliance on that decision in subsequent cases such as American Electric Power Co. Inc. v. Connecticut, which held that there was no federal common law action for climate damages.)

More generally, given congressional gridlock, notice-and-comment rulemaking by environmental agencies has become the primary vehicle for environmental progress over the past several decades. A shift from Kennedy to Roberts as the deciding vote in environmental cases will make this path more difficult, halting and fraught with risk. For regulated industries, this shift will be welcome, improving their chances in litigation and strengthening their bargaining hand with agencies. Environmentalists, on the other hand, have good reason to be concerned about the new obstructions that are likely to spring up on one of the few remaining paths they have for achieving their policy goals.

Posted in Judge Kavanaugh's jurisprudence, Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court

Recommended Citation: Michael Livermore, Judge Kavanaugh and the environment, SCOTUSblog (Jul. 18, 2018, 1:27 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/07/kavanaugh-and-the-environment/

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'No shame': how the Trump administration granted big oil's ...https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › dec › big-oil-...

Dec 12, 2017 — The EPA has fulfilled almost all major demands made by the American Petroleum ... On March 22, Pruitt met with API executives at the Trump ...

Missing: zinke ‎| Must include: zinke

guk no lnx

https://yyy.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/12/big-oil-lobby-get-what-it-wants-epa-trump-pruitt

This article is more than 3 years old

'No shame': how the Trump administration granted big oil's wishlist

This article is more than 3 years old

The EPA has fulfilled almost all major demands made by the American Petroleum Institute within its first year under Trump

Demonstrators in California protest against Donald Trump’s executive order fast-tracking the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines. ]

Tue 12 Dec 2017

The Trump administration’s zeal for environmental rollbacks has enabled it to fulfill almost all of the top priorities in a “wishlist” drawn up by the American Petroleum Institute (API), the leading lobby group for US oil and gas companies.

[API White house

How big oil is tightening its grip on Donald Trump's White House

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

How Corporate Lobbyists Conquered American Democracy - The ... ›

How And Why Corporate Lobbying Will Continue To Matter During ... ›

The truth about lobbying: 10 ways big business controls government ... ›

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debacle ~ dereg poster child an 521 https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/texas/]

https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/abbott/

no lnx

===

aha: texas indep grid goes back to to resistance to New Deal? tx AG wake up sue feds gubmint, enron dereg took out CA Davis, now came home to roost in freeze; gop mayor had to resign when said gov't owes you nothing;cruz andd another MOC left state one to utah; app griddy lets you buy at wholesale price, but then 16K for 3 days on spike.

an 221

Although Texas can be very Democratic in its large urban centers — from Houston to Dallas to El Paso to Austin — Republicans have maintained control of the state government. And many of them are the type of far-right Republicans who push Culture War themes and use dumb phrases like "owning the liberals." But San Antonio-based journalist Adam Serwer, in an article published by The Atlantic on February 22, argues that fighting the Culture War didn't prevent Texans from freezing in their homes without electricity, heat and running water during a recent cold snap.

Texas recently suffered snowy, icy winter weather and freezing temperatures that are more typical of Pittsburgh or Boston than Houston, Austin or San Antonio. Tragically, Texas' power grid couldn't handle the increased demand for electricity, and millions of Texans lost power and were unable to heat their homes during the frigid weather.

"Many Texans were without power, water, or both for days, left to choose between the risk of contracting COVID-19 at a shelter and the danger of freezing in their home," Serwer explains. "I consider us fortunate….. Our roof did not collapse. Our home did not catch fire and burn down, as nearby firefighters struggled with empty fire hydrants. We did not run out of food. We were lucky."

twt]

serwer goes on to say that all the misery in Texas could have been avoided if Republicans in the state government had spent more time worrying about good governance and less time obsessing over the Culture War.

"The crisis in Texas was preceded by more than a decade of Republican control of state government, as politicians focused on Culture War grievances rather than the nuts and bolts of governance," Serwer argues. "After the near collapse of the power grid exposed its failures, the state's political leadership attempted to cover for those failures by doubling down on those same grievances."

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Fox News' Tucker Carlson and others on the far right have been claiming that green energy is responsible for Texas' electricity woes, which is total nonsense. Carlson made the idiotic claim that in Texas, wind turbines were too delicate to handle severe cold. First, Texas is much more reliant on fossil fuels than wind turbines. Second, European countries like Denmark and Sweden — which are known for cold, snowy winters — do fine with green energy in January and February because their systems are adequately winterized. Texas Republicans failed to winterize, and its power grid suffered an across-the-board failure.

Serwer writes, "I doubt that 'We'd freeze to death to own the libs' is a popular sentiment in Texas, but drawing that impression is easy if you're outside the state, listening to its Republican officials. As the journalist Brian Kahn noted on Twitter, when California was struggling with much smaller blackouts in late 2020, ambitious Texas Republicans were sneering at the state on social media…. Texas politicians were so interested in California's struggles last year because California is an easy conservative shorthand for liberalism, and what ambitious Republicans have discerned from the success of Donald Trump is that the best way to attract conservative support is to show that they, too, enjoy it when liberals suffer."

But during the recent cold snap, Serwer adds, Texans have been the ones suffering.

"Texas has trended blue in recent years, but the Texas GOP remains ruthlessly competent at the work of winning elections even as it fails at governing," Serwer explains. "That absence of political competition breeds complacency….. In the contemporary Republican Party, governance has taken a back seat to waging the Culture War. Whether you are a competent public official who serves your constituents well matters less than your ability to illustrate your contempt for the rival party's constituency in word and deed."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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resistance to sci suppr

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27122020/trump-climate-science-epa-wheeler-biden

see series: https://insideclimatenews.org/project/the-anti-scientists-2/

...

Christine Todd Whitman, the former New Jersey governor who served as President George W. Bush’s first EPA Administrator, had experience in clashing with the White House over climate change. But she said there was nothing like the Trump administration’s effort to manipulate how science was conducted. “There were certainly people who questioned science within the Bush administration,” she said. “But there wasn’t a war on science. This has been an outright war on the EPA, a physical effort to strangle the agency.”

‘They Basically Cooked the Books’

Jeff Alson, a senior engineer with EPA’s vehicles lab in Ann Arbor, Michigan, knew something was wrong soon after Trump took office, when the fuel economy group at the Department of Transportation stopped talking to his team.

The two agency teams had worked hand-in-hand on the nation’s first greenhouse gas standards for automobiles under Obama. “We had worked together every month, most of the time every week, and sometimes every day when we had deadlines coming up,” Alson recalled recently. “We knew the names of their spouses and how many kids they had and where they went on vacation.” Now, the fuel economy group wouldn’t return the phone calls of EPA’s engineers.

The Transportation Department analysts finally unveiled their work to Alson’s dumbstruck team at EPA via a video conference call in January 2018. The cost-benefit analysis they had previously worked on together was replaced with new numbers that shrunk the benefits of reducing carbon dioxide and other air pollutants, and added new costs, like increased car crashes, noise and congestion.Instead of the government’s previous conclusion that the clean car standards would bring $100 billion in net benefits to the economy, the new analysis concluded they would result in $200 billion in net costs.

Jeff Alson discusses energy efficiency advances with an auto industry representative at a 2014 technology showcase at EPA’s National Vehicle Fuel Economy Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Credit: EPA]

Alson, 63, had worked on dozens of cost-benefit analyses, but he had never seen such a dramatic reversal.

“I concluded that they had been told what the answers had to be if they were going to roll back the standards. They had to show the public that they were way too expensive, which they did by basically cooking the books,” Alson said. “When I saw how dishonest the whole analysis was in those early stages, that’s when I decided I wanted to get out of there. I thought maybe I can do more good on the outside.”

Alson, like Costa, left the agency and joined the EPA alumni in the Environmental Protection Network. He began speaking out and with 40 other former EPA engineers, scientists, policy analysts, attorneys and managers, filed formal commentson the proposed fuel economy rollback. A prominent economist whose work the Trump administration had heavily cited in its proposal, Antonio Bento of the University of Southern California, published a peer-reviewed critiquein the journal Science, detailing everything that the Trump team had gotten wrong.

“Inconsistent with basic economic principles,” Bento and his co-authors concluded about the Trump analysis, the most striking flaw being an assumption that looser standards would result in 6 million fewer cars on roads in the United States.

The public critiques by engineering and economics experts put the Trump administration in a bind. With the threat of litigation against its rollback looming, it had no choice but to address the flaws in its cost-benefit analysis in the final version of the “Safe Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule” published on March 31 of this year. But those corrections forced the agencies to concede that the rollback could be expensive, imposing as much as $22 billion in additional fuel bills and other costs on the economy. And that unfavorable cost-benefit analysis left the Trump rollback vulnerable in the courts, where it has been challenged by multiple states and health and environmental groups.

“They wanted to take money from our pockets and give it to the oil companies, because that’s basically what you’re doing if you make people buy cars that are less fuel efficient,” said Alson, who said a driving force behind his speaking out was to defend the reputation of the EPA.

“We did everything we could to try to do the best standards that we could so the American public would benefit,” he said.

As he was retiring, Alson said, he encouraged the young engineers on staff to continue their work, despite the setbacks of the Trump administration.

“Don’t lose faith in EPA,” he said he told them. “Because if we’re going to save the planet, people have to still have faith that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can do the job.”

In the End, They Were Scientists First

....

===

wheeler on way out door, tony cox, kill 34K/yr, kid killers:

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063720073

rELATED HEADLINES

AIR POLLUTION

Wheeler, coal industry allies tout soot rule

E&E News PM: Monday, December 7, 2020

AIR POLLUTION

Deal will close coal plants over Trump admin protest

E&E News PM: Thursday, December 3, 2020

AIR POLLUTION

Judge tosses Trump ally's bid to nix power plant deal

Greenwire: Tuesday, December 1, 2020

AIR POLLUTION

EPA deal sets cleanup deadline for booming Ariz. county

E&E News PM: Monday, November 30, 2020

AIR POLLUTION

Pressure mounts for Biden EPA to revamp soot standard

Greenwire: Monday, November 23, 2020

AIR POLLUTION

Trump EPA rejects tighter soot standards

Sean Reilly, E&E News reporterPublished: Monday, December 7, 2020

EPA completed a final rule on particulate matter pollution. Ian Barbour/Flickr

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.

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.

An EPA spokesman declined to comment in advance of that announcement.

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).

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).

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.

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.

Under a fast-track timetable put in motion in mid-2018, the review is ending roughly two years ahead of its previous schedule.

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.

In statements today, environmental and scientific advocacy groups denounced his decision to stick with the status quo.

"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.

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

===

nader 55th anniv unsafe any speed joan clayburg? save 4 mill lives plus radio hr 12/21/20

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/boeing/

dereg

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/perdue-2649059250

roger s salon

Perdue, one of two multimillionaire Georgia Republican senators facing insider-trading scrutinyahead of runoff elections in January, traded hundreds of thousands of dollars in bank stock while passing pro-bank legislation on the Senate Banking Committee, financial disclosures show.

Between 2017 and 2020, while on the committee, Perdue co-sponsored 14 bills that benefited the financial industry, including through deregulation and extended liability protection. In that time he also accepted more than $1 million in political contributions from financial interests, federal filings show...[db]...most active traders in Congress, pushed back against allegations of insider trading in advance of the coronavirus, claiming that outside advisers made the calls without his input.

A bombshell New York Times report on Wednesday has made clear that was a lie: This summer, Justice Department investigators found that Perdue had instructed one of his brokers to offload more than $1 million in a company after the CEO tipped off the senator in a personal email.

This news comes as Perdue faces a Jan. 5 runoff against Democratic rival Jon Ossoff, who battered Perdue on the insider-trading allegations throughout the year. The runoff, along with Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler's runoff election held on the same day — Loeffler faces the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat — will determine which party controls the Senate.

The latest stock news also creates a new context for assessing Perdue's personal involvement in prior trades, such as millions of dollars in transactions while he served on the Banking Committee.

Perdue, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, built his fortune in the style of Mitt Romney — "a turnaround specialist who helps revive brands and reap rewards for investors," as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution put it in a review of his business record.

The AJC ruled that his record was "mixed," in part because of a buyout Perdue helped structure as the CEO of Dollar General, which landed him a $42 million windfall when he stepped down in 2008. The next year, the company had to pay that same amount to settle shareholder claims that Perdue and other execs had shortchanged them in the deal....Perdue, who was elected to the Senate in 2014, has invested millions. A portion of it rests in a Wells Fargo brokerage account and a Georgia holding company called DBP Enterprises, where Perdue has held an ownership stake since 2011.

That DBP stake comprises 130 assets valued anywhere between $12 million and $29 million, according to 2018 Senate financial disclosures. His Wells Fargo account lists 60 assets valued at up to $1.2 million.

Disclosures only provide ranges of value, so we cannot know precisely how much money Perdue has moved in stock trades, or the extent of his profits. But the forms do show that between 2017 and 2020, while he sat on the Banking Committee, Perdue traded at a minimum hundreds of thousands of dollars, possibly millions... The shares earned him up to $204,000 in capital gains and dividends payouts.

But Perdue does not let his stocks sit idle. Between 2017 and 2018, disclosures show, the senator not only sold as much as $135,000 in bank stock, but scooped up as much as $600,000. Over the next two years he cranked up the volume, unloading as much as $1,110,000 in banking shares and buying as much as $480,000.

In April of this year, Perdue was swept up in the same insider trading scandal that has also damaged Loeffler, when it was revealed that earlier in the year he had bought and sold shares in several companies that were eventually directly affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The scandal, which included Senate veterans Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., shook public confidence, raising concerns that elected officials had abused their access to privileged information in order to capitalize personally on the spread of the disease.

The next month, under scrutiny from the public and government investigators, and with the election on the horizon, Perdue pledged to stop trading individual stocks....In September he announced that the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Senate Ethics Committee had all cleared him of wrongdoing. He marked the occasion with a new campaign ad, which accused Ossoff of lying to voters about Perdue's involvement.

The Times gave the lie to that defense on Wednesday, indicating that Perdue had acted on a personal tip. The report recalls a moment from an October 2017 hearing, where senators on the Banking Committee grilled Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan about the account fraud scandal that had wracked the bank the year before.

The scandal earned the bank a $150 million fine from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, an agency Perdue had...sought to defang earlier that same year with a bill that the American Bankers Association called "an effective check and balance on the Bureau's authority."

Perdue, whose Wells Fargo account at the time held up to $1.2 million, teed Sloan up to defend his company, but Sloan, contrite in the face of multiple bareknuckled government investigations, repeatedly declined the exit ramp. Perdue then let slip a reference to a private conversation, before reluctantly admitting that the decade-long scandal — which resulted in..."I think you would agree, we in a private conversation — there is no way to sugarcoat this as a serious issue, and I appreciate your handling it the way that you are," Perdue said.

Over the next three years, Perdue continued to throw softballs to big banks. As he was slinging stock, he cosponsored 14 bills that benefited the financial industry, the majority earning the blessing of the ABA. Five of them were lobbied on by financial institutions where Perdue held hundreds of thousands in stock, including Regions Financial, US Bancorp and JP Morgan.

For instance, in 2017, Perdue cosponsored a bill called the Systemic Risk Designation Improvement Act, which was geared to loosen Dodd-Frank regulations on mid-sized banks. The bill never made it out of committee, but Regional Financial and US Bancorp, where Perdue had stashed $300,000, both lobbied heavily on it.

Perdue went after Dodd-Frank again that year, cosponsoring the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act, which the New York Times reported "frees banks from a variety of regulations that were imposed after the financial crisis of 2008," including "innovative measures" that targeted large institutions. That bill never made it out of committee, but was lobbied on by banks where Perdue held up to $465,000 of stock at the time, including Wells Fargo....In two instances, Perdue received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from financial institutions on the same day he introduced legislation.

On May 21, 2019, Perdue signed on as an original co-sponsor of a bill that postponed compliance with a new accounting standard that some in the financial industry believed would impede lending during an economic downturn. FEC records show that in the days before Perdue co-sponsored the bill and the two weeks immediately afterward, he received nearly $50,000 from employees at the Capital Group, a financial services company, including $5,400 from the CEO.

In October 2017, a few weeks after Sloan's testimony, Perdue co-sponsored legislation that eased regulations on mortgage transfers that cross state lines. That bill was first introduced in August, and in the month before Perdue added his name on Oct. 25, his campaign received $24,000 from employees of the wealth management company SEI Investments, according to FEC filings.

Fourteen of those SEI employees gave $1,000 on Oct. 19, but only one employee donated the same day that Perdue committed to the bill: a maximum donation of $5,400, from CEO Alfred West.

This September, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was hit with FEC criminal complaints for an alleged "straw donor" scheme, in which he reimbursed employees for political donations to his favored candidates.

Over the course of his career, Perdue has accepted more than $2 million in donations from the investment and securities industry, and half a million from commercial banks. But considering that so few of those bills made it past the committee, and only two became law, it is not clear who got the most out of their investment.

A Perdue campaign spokesperson did not reply to questions for this article.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/is-the-republican-party-over/

...[rats from ship egs]

And yet another story from the day: a third career prosecutor from the Department of Justice resigned after publicly attacking Attorney General William Barr for abusing his power to get Trump reelected."After 36 years, I'm fleeing what was the U.S. Department of Justice," Phillip Halpern wrote. "[T]he department's past leaders were dedicated to the rule of law and the guiding principle that justice is blind. That is a bygone era, but it should not be forgotten." Noting that "Barr has never actually investigated, charged or tried a case," Halpern expressed deep concern over Barr's "slavish obedience to Donald Trump's will." "This career bureaucrat seems determined to turn our democracy into an autocracy," he warned.

Georgetown Law Professor Paul Butler, who worked as a federal prosecutor under Barr when he was George H. W. Bush's Attorney General, told Katie Benner of the New York Times that such criticism is "unprecedented," and reflects Trump's pressure on the AG. "I have never seen sitting prosecutors go on the record with concerns about the attorney general," he said.

And yet, Barr's willingness to bend the Justice Department to Trump's personal will may, in the end, not be enough to keep Trump's favor. Angry that Barr did not produce a report attacking the Russia investigation before the election, Trump just yesterday said he wasn't happy with Barr's performance, and might not keep him on as AG if he wins a second term.

There are signs people in the administration are preparing for Trump to lose the election. His cabinet is rushing to change regulations to lock in Trump's goal of giving more scope to businessmen to act as they see fit. Normally, changes in regulations require setting aside time for public comment on the changes, but the administration is shortening or eliminating those periods over changes in, for example, rules allowing railroads to move highly flammable liquefied natural gas on freight trains, what constitutes "contract" work, how much pollution factories can emit, and who can immigrate to America.

Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement: "President Trump has worked quickly from the beginning of his term to grow the economy by removing the mountain of Obama-Biden job-killing regulations," and that the current push simply continues that effort. But no one is missing the quiet distancing going on in Washington as Republican lawmakers are shifting away from public support for the president.

Meanwhile, at his rally tonight in Georgia, Trump told the crowd "You should… lock up the Bidens, lock up Hillary." The crowd then began to chant "Lock them up." But one thing about a bully: when people finally start to turn on him, there is a stampede for the exits.

Tonight, at his Georgia rally, Trump outlined all the ways in which he was being unfairly treated, then mused: "Could you imagine if I lose?… I'm not going to feel so good. Maybe I'll have to leave the country, I don't know."

===

note new scam to dereg by jiggering cost vs benefit numbers node? dirty trick?

see mercury, wheeler

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/deregulatory-rush-shows-even-if-defeated-the-trump-white-house-willing-to-scorch-the-earth-before-they-go/

no twt lnx

Deregulatory rush shows Trump White House willing to 'scorch the Earth before they go'

Brett Wilkins and Common Dreams October 18, 2020

With President Donald Trump's re-election very much in doubt, his administration is rushing to ram through regulatory rollbacks that could adversely affect millions of Americans, the environment, and the ability of Joe Biden—should he win—to pursue his agenda or even undo the damage done over the past four years.

Reporting by the New York Times details how the administration is cutting corners as it scrambles to enact as much of its agenda as possible before ceding power on January 20 if Trump loses the election. Required public comment periods and detailed analyses, according to the Times, are being eschewed in favor of streamlined approval processes that have left even staunch deregulation defenders sounding the alarm.

[EricLiptonNYT

JUST POSTED: Facing the prospect that President Trump could lose his re-election bid, his cabinet is scrambling to enact regulatory changes affecting millions of Americans in a blitz so rushed it may leave some changes vulnerable to court challenges]

"Two main hallmarks of a good regulation is sound analysis to support the alternatives chosen and extensive public comment to get broader opinion," Susan E. Dudley, director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center and formerly head of regulation in the George W. Bush White House, told the Times. "It is a concern if you are bypassing both of those."

Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told the Times that the president has always "worked quickly... to grow the economy by removing the mountain of Obama-Biden job-killing regulations."

However, critics are warning that some of the proposed changes are being rushed through with insufficient regard to the harm they might cause. Some of the issues that are raising red flags include:

Refusing to lower limits on dangerous particulate and ozone pollution, which cause thousands of annual premature deaths.

Allowing so-called "bomb trains" that transport highly combustible liquefied natural gas on freight trains.

Determining when workers can be classified as employees orindependent contractors.

Exempting certain commercial drivers from mandatory hour limits and rest periods.

Placing limits on how science is used in the air pollution rule-making process.

Expanding regulation of immigrants by requiring citizenship applicants to submit biometric data, by forcing sponsors of immigrants to stay off welfare and prove their financial independence.

In response to the reporting, critics of the administration like writer Matthew Kressel said that it helps make clear that if the Republicans in the White House cannot win reelection, they'll "scorch the earth before they go."

And Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, tweeted: "I think people underestimate the amount of time and energy that is going to be needed just to climb out from under the mountain of shit this administration leaves behind."

MattGertz

I think people underestimate the amount of time and energy that is going to be needed just to climb out from under the mountain of shit this administration leaves behind.

Many of the changes reflect the agendas of the powerful corporate and other business interests whose key players have donated generously to Trump, belying the president's oft-repeated claim that he is "draining the swamp." Other regulator rollbacks come despite warnings from career officials within federal agencies about the harm they could cause.

carlzimmer

EPA’s scientific advisers warn its regulatory rollbacks clash with established science

Alarmed by the administration's rushed rate of regulatory rollbacks, a group of over 15 Democratic senators earlier this month sent a letter (pdf) to Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia warning of "profound economic implications" for some 143 million U.S. workers that would result from curtailing public comment periods for the proposed rule change regarding independent contractors.

"Workers across the country deserve a chance to fully examine and properly respond to these potentially radical changes, and a 30-day comment period is not nearly enough," the letter states.

https://theintercept.com/**2020/09**/19/wildfires-trump-election-epa-environment/

sharon lerner

as WILDFIRES DESTROY millions of acres in California, Oregon, and Washington, and an unprecedented series of hurricanes cause historic flooding in the South, leaving parts of the region uninhabitable, the Trump administration has been racing to reverse rules designed to prevent exactly these kinds of climate disasters.

Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has presided over the rollback of more environmental rules and regulations than any other president. The result has been that, even as climate change is on track to soon force millions of Americans from their homes and eventually heat the Earth to temperatures not seen for 34 million years, the leader of the country that bears more responsibility for the climate change than any other has doubled down on the decimation of efforts meant to combat both pollution and the climate crisis.

“The Trump administration is the first in the history of the agency to devote itself so relentlessly to a rollback agenda without even a pretense of meaningfully reducing environmental pollution,” said John Walke, an attorney and senior adviser to the NRDC Action Fund.

starting with his choice of Scott Pruitt, a climate denier whose rise through Oklahoma politics was fueled by the oil and gas industry, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump has has signaled his disregard for the climate and public health throughout his time in office. While Trump has called climate change a “Chinese hoax” and a “con,” federal agencies under him have taken countless actions — from the removal of information about climate change on the EPA website to the decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement;the retooling of models used by the U.S. Geological Survey; and the **cancellation**of NASA’s carbon monitoring program — that set back the effort to address the climate crisis, and ultimately endanger the environment.

In recent months, the pace of these assaults has quickened. The frenzied efforts of federal agencies during the last months before a presidential election are often referred to as “midnight regulation.” But the work the Trump administration has recently been hurrying to complete would be more accurately described as “midnight deregulation.”

A sign with the words “Trump Digs Coal” can be seen on a factory building in a coal mining area in Hazleton, Penn., on Feb. 2, 2017.

Photo: Maren Hennemuth/Picture Alliance/Getty Images

Protections Obliterated

As soon as he entered office, Trump began the environmental reversals that will likely be the most enduring legacy of his administration. In March 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency signaled that it would not complete the planned ban of a neurotoxic pesticide called chlorpyrifos. The decision came after consulting closely with industry groups and after the Dow Chemical Company, which makes the pesticide, donated $1 million to the Trump inaugural committee. The Trump EPA has since completed dozens of other environmental rollbacks, including gutting the Clean Water Act; weakening restrictions on facilities that emit toxic air pollution; scrapping a rule that required mining companies to set aside money to cover the costs of cleaning up pollution; rewriting the National Environmental Policy Act so that it no longer requires government to consider the cumulative environmental impacts of major federal projects on communities; and ensuring that the coal industry is now able to dump mining waste in streams.

Among the recently finalized actions that will have devastating and long-lasting climate consequences are the rescinding of limits on methane emissions during oil and gas production and processing. Methane is a climate pollutant that traps over 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide in a 20-year period, and the U.S. is already releasing way too much of it. The rollback of methane rules, which was finalized in August — and opposed by many of the major oil companies that will be affected by it — is specifically designed to ignore climate considerations and is expected to increase the amount of the greenhouse gas released each year by 4.5 million metric tons. The additional pollution released will have the same impact as 100 coal-fired power plants each year, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, which is suing the administration over the rule.

The EPA’s weakening of fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks, which was finalized in March while most people were focused on the coronavirus pandemic, will also speed climate change and lead to more catastrophic weather events and wildfires. The change, which reduces fuel efficiency for these vehicles by 27 percent, is expected to result in at least 867 million metric tons of additional carbon dioxide pollution, the equivalent of the annual emissions from 216 coal plants.

The EPA has also reversed its policy of requiring businesses to inspect for leaks from refrigerators and air conditioners. The revision to the regulations, which was finalized in February, affects the release of hydrofluorocarbons, chemicals that can cause hundreds of times more warming than carbon dioxide and often leak from cooling equipment. According to the agency’s own science, the new rulewill result in an increase of greenhouse gas emissions that has the same warming potential as 2.9 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Meanwhile, the Department of Interior finalized its plan to open up Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, a move that environmentalists expect to not only be devastating to the 700 species of plants and animals that live there but also greatly increase carbon emissions. In 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission limited its consideration of greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas projects. And, through an executive order, Trump weakened regulations that were put in place to mitigate flooding from sea-level rise.

Perhaps most devastating is the loss of the Clean Power Plan. That Obama-era plan was designed to reduce climate pollution by more than 400 million tons by 2030. Instead, Trump replaced it with the far weaker Affordable Clean Energy Rule in 2019.

Deadly Consequences

In many cases, this deregulation will have a measurable human toll. Changes to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which the EPA made in April, undermined limits on mercury and other toxic air pollution coming from coal-fired power plants that were put in place in 2011. Those regulations had prevented between 4,000 and 11,000 premature deaths each year, according to the agency’s own calculations. But under Trump, the EPA has decided that it is no longer necessary to regulate this pollutant, which causes brain damage in developing fetuses and increases heart attacks in adults.

If it stands, the methane rollback, which is being challenged by environmentalists, will also result in illness and death. In addition to hastening climate change, methane turns into ozone, which causes chronic diseases, including respiratory damage, cancer, asthma, and heart disease. Fence-line communities, which are disproportionately made up of people of color, including the more than 1 million African Americans who livewithin a half-mile of an oil and gas facility, will be among the hardest hit by the pollution. And the replacement of the Clean Power Plan is expected to lead to thousands of deaths.

With less than seven weeks until the election, and the wildfires and flooding continuing to spread along with the recognition that they are part of a larger climate apocalypse, the Trump administration is still scrambling to finish the deadly destruction of some of the rules and processes that were put in place to protect human health.

Among other hugely consequential rules still hanging in the balance are the standards for particulate matter and ozone, both of which stem from power plants. Since 1977, the law has required that a Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, orCASAC, made up of independent scientists help set the standards. While the committee still exists, the Trump EPA has gutted it, removing many of the independent scientists from it and all of the epidemiologists, and instead stacked it with industry-friendly experts. CASAC is now headed byLouis Anthony “Tony” Cox Jr., an industry consultant who disputes well-established science showing that particulate matter kills by increasing rates of heart and lung disease. He has worked for Exxon Mobil, the American Chemistry Council, and the American Petroleum Institute.

EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler fired a panel of scientists that historically advised CASAC on particulate matter — which includes dust, dirt, soot, and smoke — and dispensed with a panel of ozone experts in what he claimed was an effort to “streamline” the standard-setting process. The result is that the EPA is now trying to finalize the current standards for both particulate matter and ozone, which independent scientists say are not protective of health. Although weather affects ozone levels, the proposed standard doesn’t consider the effects of climate change.

Maintaining the standards for the air pollutants, both of which result from power plant emissions, is a “sop to the oil and gas industry” that will prove deadly, according to Bernie Goldstein, a physician who served as chair of CASAC and a Reagan-appointed EPA assistant administrator who is now a member of the Environmental Protection Network.Already more than 100,000 people in the U.S. die because of air pollution, including particulate matter and ozone. “More people will die because the pollutant standards aren’t high enough,” said Goldstein.

Goldstein is particularly concerned about the increased vulnerability to these air pollutants during the coronavirus pandemic — something the EPA did not factor into its standard-setting process, even though it issued its proposal after the pandemic began. “The idea that something that violently attacks the heart and lungs the way Covid-19 does will interact with air pollutants that also attack the heart and lungs is a no-brainer,” he said.

Trump is working with the Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to expand logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, removing decades-old protections from the 10 million acres that absorb more carbon than any other national forest. And the administration is attempting, through the Department of the Interior, to fast-track the environmental reviews of oil and gas drilling projects, including the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline and a natural gas terminal in Oregon.

Also among the unfinished business at EPA is the rollback of 2015 protections that protect farm workers and agricultural communities from pesticide exposure. If the Trump administration succeeds with its change, farm workers — who are overwhelmingly Latino and already dozens of times more likely to be poisoned by pesticides than non-farm workers — will face even greater exposure.

And the EPA is taking the last steps to finalize its “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” rule, which would limit the use of independent science in the agency’s decision-making by employing a strategy first devised by tobacco companies. The proposal was sent to the White House regulatory review office earlier this week, and Wheeler said he hopes to finalize it by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the administration is still at work on two proposed rules affecting the Endangered Species Act: One will open up designation of critical habitat to challenges by industry, and the other will institute changes in the interpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, pushed by the oil and gas industry, that “will result in the deaths of many birds,” according to Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Trump administration has already been “devastating for endangered species,” according to Greenwald. “It’s been a terrible waste of four years at a time when we don’t have four years,” he said. “While scientists around the world have been raising alarms about the extinction crisis, they’re rushing to finalize these rules.”

A melted pro-Trump sign remains at a burned residence during the Bear fire, in the Berry Creek area of unincorporated Butte County, Calif., on Sept. 14, 2020.

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Reversing the Damage

The Center for Biological Diversity is just one of the environmental organizations that have been using the courts to challenge the Trump rollbacks.Overwhelmingly, these suits have succeeded. Only 12 out of 81 lawsuits related to environment, energy, and natural resources deregulation were decided in the Trump administration’s favoras of August 31, according to the Institute of Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law.

If Trump loses the election, a Democratic administration could fairly easily resolve many of the suits that are still pending. “Biden could quickly signal that he won’t defend Trump rollbacks in court,”said William Buzbee, a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. “Administrative law is flexible and always gives a future president the ability to reverse the damage of his predecessor.” A Biden administration could also simply reverse the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement — a move that won’t be finalized until a day after the election and will take a new president 30 days to reenter.

Depending on the date of the rollback, if Biden is elected and there is also a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate, some of the changes could be reversed through a law called the Congressional Review Act.

But other damage inflicted by the Trump administration on environmental protections will take longer to reverse. Some finalized rules will require years of formal rule-making to change. And there will be no way to revive the Clean Power Plan. “It is pretty close to dead,” Thomas McGarity, professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, said of the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s climate initiative. “If the next administration wants to do something on climate change and they try to do it administratively they’re going to have to start over.”

Some of the harm that Trump has inflicted by disputing established climate science and rolling back desperately needed climate protections is irreparable. “It will be impossible make up for the four years spent ignoring and worsening the climate crisis,” said Buzbee. “The amount of additional CO2 and methane in the atmosphere will linger for decades if not centuries. That loading into the Earth’s atmosphere cannot be recovered and that time cannot be recovered.”

The climate reversals have irrevocably undercut the international effort to address the most pressing issue of our time. “Climate change is in the end a trust game,” said Buzbee. “Nations constraining their own polluters have to trust that others will step up and also do their part. But by stepping back, the U.S. has lost credibility.”

Buzbee, who judges Trump as already “the worst president for the environment in U.S history,” predicts that the environmental impact of a second Trump term would be immeasurably more destructive. “They’d have the time to finish and defend all the first-term rollbacks,” he said. “I’m not sure the EPA and the major environmental statutes could withstand the onslaught.”

While the administration is racing to complete its rollbacks, the Sunrise Movement has sent its members door-to-door to convey the stakes of the election to voters. “Our movement is talking to hundreds of thousands of young people in swing states across the country to communicate the opportunity we have to organize and mobilize under a Biden admin,” said Stephen O’Hanlon, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement. “Biden wasn’t the first choice of many young people, but he is the clear choice.”

Activist and writer Bill McKibben has put a finer point on the environmental consequences of unseating Trump. “This is going to be the most important election for the next few million years,” McKibben tweeted on Tuesday, sending out a video of the president once again denying climate science even while being briefed on the fires that have killed dozens of people and destroyed millions of acres of land.

EPA Spokesperson James Hewittprovided the following comment in response to an inquiry from The Intercept:

This story is pushing a false narrative that isn’t rooted in fact. Under this EPA, air pollution in this country has fallen 7 percent, we’ve delisted 61 Superfund sites, invested $40 billion in water infrastructure, collected more in criminal and civil penalties than the Obama Administration did in their first term, and are finalizing a final Lead & Copper rule. All regulatory decisions are grounded in science and our legal statutes unlike the last administration.

Environmental experts took issue with all of the claims in the EPA’s response. Asked about the air pollution reductions, Elena Craft, senior director of climate and health at the Environmental Defense Fund, said she was unclear of any measure by which air pollution has fallen by 7 percent and added that “I can’t think of a single action that this administration has done that would result in a reduction of emissions.”

While the EPA has delisted many Superfund sites, it also has the largest backlog of unfunded construction projects at Superfund sites in 15 years. According to Betsy Southerland, who retired after 30 years of working for the EPA, the agency is trying to take credit for work done under previous administrations. “Delisting is just a paperwork exercise documenting that a project was completed in previous years,” she said. “This administration has the worst record of any previous in terms of the number of projects that were ready for construction that they did not fund. Rather than request the funding needed for these sites, they actually asked for cuts in the Superfund budget every year.”

Southerland also said that the agency’s touting of the lead and copper rule was disingenuous: “The proposed lead rule did not lower the concentration that would trigger lead pipe replacement. And they slowed the required rate of replacing lead pipes.”

As for the penalties, EPA’s own data shows that in fiscal 2019, the agency conducted the smallest number of inspections of polluters in at least 18 years,with about half the number of inspections conducted a decade earlier.A 2019 report from The Environmental Integrity Project documents these trends and shows that the number of criminal environmental cases opened and polluters charged fell sharply under Trump.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/the-epa-allows-continued-use-of-a-neurotoxin-found-to-harm-kids-brains/

an 920

EPA allows continued use of a neurotoxin found to harm kids’ brains

Brett Wilkins / Common Dreams

no lnx 2 cid one pbs newshour

Dismissing extensive scientific evidence showing that even low levels of chlorpyrifos damage children’s brains, the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released a risk assessment calling the toxic pesticide’s effects “unresolved” and allowing its continued use in a wide variety of agricultural products pending a future final decision on its use.

Reacting to the EPA’s move, Patti Goldman, managing attorney at Earthjustice, accused the agency of “ignoring decades of science by leading universities and in doing so, neglecting its duty to protect children from pesticides.”

“Ignoring the demonstrated harm to children doesn’t make chlorpyrifos safe, it just shows a commitment to keep a toxic pesticide in the market and in our food at all cost,” Goldman added.

The EPA’s third risk assessment (pdf) for chlorpyrifos, which is theresult of litigation by environmental groups, stated that “the science addressing [the pesticide’s] neurodevelopmental effects remains unresolved.” This, despite the study finding some dietary risks to adults, children, and handlers of the chemical, as well dangers to animals.

Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate pesticide applied to crops, animals, and buildings to eliminate insects and worms, killing them by attacking their nervous systems through acetylcholinesterase enzyme inhibition. Invented by Dow Chemical Company in 1966, it is classified as “moderately hazardous” (pdf) to humans by the World Health Organization. Chlorpyrifos was banned in 2000 for most household uses but is still applied to dozens of crops on over 40,000 farms.

Last December, the European Union voted to effectively ban chlorpyrifos. Thailand also tried to ban the pesticide, but backed down last year under pressure from the Trump administration to continue buying it.

In 2016 under the Obama administration, EPA scientists found that chlorpyrifos poisons food and drinking water and recommended a ban on the pesticide, citing extensive research of its effects on children and agricultural workers. The pesticide has poisoned farmworkers, and researchers at Columbia University (pdf), Stanford University (pdf), the University of California at Berkeley (pdf), and elsewhere have shown that it is neurotoxic and damages children’s brains by, among other harms, delaying development, damaging memory, lowering IQ, and reducing attention span.

However, in March 2017 then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rejected his own agency’s scientific findings and issued a ruling (pdf) upholding use of the neurotoxin. The American Academy of Pediatrics said it was “deeply alarmed” by Pruitt’s decision, which came after consultations with lobby groups including the American Farm Bureau Association.

Corteva Inc., which is owned by Dow Chemical and is the largest producer of chlorpyrifos, has also been lobbying the EPA, according to Earthjustice, one of the groups suing to ban the chemical. Progressive Farmer reported Wednesday that Corteva will phase out chlorpyrifos production, citing declining demand as the primary factor in its decision.

In 2017, the attorneys general of seven states—New York, California, Washington, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Vermont—formally called on the EPA to take immediate action to ban chlorpyrifos. Absent action from the Trump administration, Hawaii in 2018 became the first state to ban pesticides containing the chemical, although the ban won’t go into effect until 2022. California and New York followed suit, while lawmakers in several other states have introduced bills to ban it.

In a major victory for chemical corporations, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced in July 2019 that the agency would not ban chlorpyrifos, prompting a lawsuit by a coalition of health and labor organizations.

“Trump’s EPA might want to dismiss the science and the law to protect corporate profit, but we are confident the courts won’t stand for this,” said Dr. Elena Rios, president of the National Hispanic Medical Association, at the time.

Many scientists have expressed alarm that the U.S. government is upholding chlorpyrifos use.

“Strong evidence now supports the notion that organophosphate pesticides damage the fetal brain and produce cognitive and behavioral dysfunction through multiple mechanisms, including thyroid disruption,” wrote Leonardo Trasande, a professor of pediatrics, environmental medicine, and population health at New York University School of Medicine, in 2017.

“A regulatory ban was proposed, but actions to end the use of one such pesticide, chlorpyrifos, in agriculture were recently stopped by the Environmental Protection Agency under false scientific pretenses,” Trasande added. “Scientists have a responsibility to rebut and decry these serious challenges to human health and scientific integrity.”

“There are all these studies that have been done of kids showing that chlorpyrifos harms their brains especially as they’re young or fetuses as they’re developing,” Erik D. Olson of the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC)—one of the groups fighting for a chlorpyrifos ban—told The Hill on Tuesday. “The very young are at much greater susceptibility than older people, and also more exposed.”

NRDC said that “EPA political appointees are pushing to not only ignore the epidemiological studies showing children are harmed by real-world uses of chlorpyrifos, but to also strip away the ‘uncertainty factors’ that are routinely applied to add a measure of protection for children, and to address uncertainties in the risk assessment.”

The EPA’s final decision on chlorpyrifos will be made at a future date, with most experts believing the latest risk assessment points to approval or an inadequate offer to limit its use.

“With how toxic it is you can’t mitigate the harm enough to make sure not really impacting people’s lives and health and the environment,” Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Hill.

https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-safety-environmental-rollbacks-2647588050.html

in the nearly six months since President Donald Trump declared a public health emergency over the coronavirus pandemic, he has rolled back at least 30 public protections, while proposing changes to at least 20 others, according to a report published Thursday by Public Citizen's Coalition on Sensible Safeguards.

The report—Pandemic Rollbacks: Slashing Safeguards During the Coronavirus—tracks dozens of regulatory rollbacks enacted or proposed by the Trump administration since March.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/new-report-exposes-how-trump-used-19-to-enact-a-dangerous-right-wing-mission

...

Weakening EPA rules on methane emissions.
Relaxing the Volcker Rule, which was enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to prevent banks from acting like hedge funds.
Reducing regulations on trains transporting extremely flammable materials.
Loosening restrictions on predatory payday lending companies.
Revoking Health and Human Services Department nondiscrimination protections for transgender people and people seeking abortions.
Easing rules on dark money disclosure by groups including the National Rifle Association and AARP.
Limiting states’ power to reject fossil fuel projects.
Eviscerating protections for asylum-seekers.

Among the administration’s proposed rollbacks are: revoking protections for unhoused transgender people, redefining critical wildlife habitats, revising the Clean Air Act, weakening pipeline safety rules, and removing barriers on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Sea.

“Instead of using their regulatory and enforcement powers to implement a national pandemic response, Trump officials have sabotaged or obliterated essential health, safety, environmental, anti-discrimination, and financial safeguards for the American public,” said Matt Kent, a regulatory policy associate for Public Citizen, in a statement....

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what fresh hell?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-epa-chiefs-vision-would-create-an-apocalyptic-devastated-planet-critics-warn/

environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler is under fire for a Thursday speech laying out a vision for the agency that critics warn would unleash untold environmental devastation should it come to pass.

Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, delivered the remarks at the Nixon Library in southern California to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the EPA. The agency was established under the Nixon administration.

Wheeler also framed as positive steps the administration’s environmental protection rollbacks and attacks on science. The EPA chief said that “members of former administrations and progressives in Congress have elevated single issue advocacy—in many cases focused just on climate change—to virtue-signal to foreign capitals, over the interests of communities within their own country.”

“Communities that deal with the worst pollution in this country—and tend to be low-income and minority—face multiple environmental problems that need solving,” Wheeler said. He suggested President Donald Trump’s “opportunity zones” plan—recognized by expertsas a giveaway to the rich—as a remedy to environmental injustice.

wheeler declared it “very disappointing to see governors on the East Coast, such as [New York] Governor Cuomo, unilaterally block pipelines that would take natural gas from Pennsylvania to New York and New England.”

“We helped President Trump successfully implement the new NEPA regulations with the goal of reviewing federal permits within two years,” Wheeler said of the administration’s attack on the bedrock environmental law.

He also touted “a proposed rule that would remove onerous and expensive regulation of gene-edited plant protectants” and the administration’s “science transparency rules,” referring to what its critics call a “secret science rule” to limit scientific evidence the EPA will consider in its work.

Mustafa Santiago Ali, a former EPA official who helped found the agency’s environmental justice office, took issue with Wheeler’s plans for environmental justice.

“Every one of the actions the Trump administration has taken, either by weakening or rolling back basic air and water protections, has put #environmentaljustice communities in greater harm,” he tweeted Thursday. “No one believes a Trump second term would value Black and Brown lives!” he added.

Brett Hartl, government affairs director at conservation group Center for Biological Diversity, rebuffed Wheeler’s claim that the Trump administration has been a champion of EPA’s mission.

“Wheeler and the Trump administration have done grave and lasting damage to the EPA by elevating polluters and their profits above all else, and no slick speech can change that fact,” said Hartl. He further accused Wheeler of being “ignorant of the immense environmental progress made over the last 50 years because Congress and President Nixon recognized when they established the EPA that no one has a right to pollute our air, water, or land.”

“If Wheeler’s vision becomes real in the decades ahead,” warned Hartl, “our children and grandchildren would inherit nothing less than an apocalyptic, devastated planet.”

Hartl continued: “Instead of following the proud bipartisan traditions of the EPA, Wheeler has decimated protections for our nations wetlands and rivers, rolled back protections for toxic pollutants spewed into the air, rubberstamped pesticides that cause brain damage in children, and utterly ignored the climate crisis. He is a horror-show, through and through.”

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https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html

toxic 10 epa rollbacks ewg

From the beginning, the Trump administration has aggressively slashed environmental regulations. A New York Times analysis identified 100 environmental protections that have been reversed or are in the process of getting rolled back. The administration's record on chemical safety has been especially hazardous for the health of Americans, especially children.

One year into President Trump's term, 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. Midway through his second year, 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. Last year, we reported that the EPA had rescinded safety rules at chemical plants, rubber-stamped untested new chemicals and silenced researchers.

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.

1. Failed to Aggressively Regulate Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’

The toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS contaminate more than 2,200 sites across the nation. Because they never break down in the environment, PFAS are often called "forever chemicals." They build up in our bodies and are linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental harms and reduced effectiveness of vaccines. Even though the EPA has known about the risks from PFAS chemicals since at least 1998, they remain virtually unregulated.

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.

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 threatened a veto. Trump's EPA also weakened a rule designed to regulate PFAS in consumer products.

2. Allowed a Rocket Fuel Chemical to Stay in Drinking Water

Perchlorate is a component of rocket fuel that also frequently contaminates drinking water sources. Perchlorate can interfere with thyroid function, which can also harm childhood brain development.

Almost a decade ago, 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 Natural Resources Defense Council sued to force the EPA to finally set a legal limit for perchlorate in drinking water. In a court-approved consent decree, 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.

The EPA finally proposed a drinking water standard in June 2019 but also suggested that it might not regulate perchlorate after all. A year later,the EPA withdrew its decision to regulate perchlorate in drinking water.

3. Allowed Scores of New Chemicals, Including New Toxic PFAS, Onto the Market Without Adequate Oversight

In 2016, Congress substantially changed the way new chemicals are approved under the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA.

Under the old law, chemicals were frequently approved by default, often without any health and safety information. 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 regrettable substitution – when chemicals are finally found to be unsafe, they are often replaced by unstudied chemicals that may be just as or even more toxic.

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. Nonetheless, the Trump EPA has approved scores of new chemicals in a process that lacks transparency and contravenes the 2016 law. The EPA has also ignored known health concerns, limited its consideration of worker risks and denied requests for public files in the new chemicals program.

The EPA has also exploited loopholes in the new law to quickly approve new chemicals, including toxic PFAS. A recent investigation 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, used in ski wax, was approved despite a finding that the chemical could "waterproof the lungs," resulting in severe health impacts.

Since the law was updated in 2016, the EPA has reviewed more than 3,000 new chemicals 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 sued the EPA over its failures to protect the public and the environment from risks from new chemicals.

4. Failed to Protect Workers From a Deadly Paint-Stripping Chemical

Methylene chloride is a highly toxic chemical used in paint strippers that is responsible for more than 60 deaths since 1980. In the final days of the Obama administration, the EPA proposed a ban on "methylene chloride for consumer and most types of commercial paint and coating removal."

After significant pressure from families who lost loved ones due to methylene chloride exposure, the Trump EPA eventually issued a final rule in 2019. However, the EPA narrowed the rule so that it would apply only to consumeruses of methylene chloride, not commercial uses. That means workers are not protected, even though a Center for Public Integrity investigation found that most deaths from methylene chloride take place at work.

A separate EPA evaluation of methylene chloride found that manufacturing, disposal and several other uses of methylene chloride pose no "unreasonable risk." Environmental groups have filed lawsuits challenging the rule and the recent evaluation.

5. Cooked the Books on the “Civil Action” Chemical

Trichloroethylene is a chemical solvent made infamous by the book and movie ." The EPA considers it to be a known carcinogen, and it is one of the primary contaminants that sickened scores of veterans who served at Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina.

As with methylene chloride, in the final days of the Obama administration, the EPA proposed banning three uses of TCE: spot cleaning, aerosol degreasing and vapor degreasing. In December 2017, the Trump EPA shelved these proposed bans, claiming that it would study those uses in a separate ongoing risk evaluation of TCE.

However, the EPA dramatically rewrote the accepted science on TCE in the draft risk evaluation released in February. As EWG warned in 2018, the solvents industry aggressively lobbied the EPA to ignore a key 2003 study 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 independent review 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.

The lobbyists succeeded. The EPA's draft risk evaluation questioned the study's design and minimized its significance. An investigation by Reveal News 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 – "the scariest Trump appointee you've never heard of" – 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.

6. Pressured EPA Scientists to Drop Evaluations of Toxic Chemicals – Including Formaldehyde

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 frequent target of chemical industry attacks because its independent safety assessments often don't align with industry objectives.

In 2018, the Trump EPA tried to defund the IRIS program. EPA leadership also pressured IRIS to drop critical health assessments. In March 2019, a Government Accountability Office report 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.

One of the halted assessments was IRIS's decades-long review of formaldehyde, a widely used chemical and known human carcinogen. 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 ready for release. However, answering questions for the record following a 2019 Senate hearing, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said formaldehyde was "not a top priority."

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 conduct its own assessment 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.

7. Rolled Back Clean Water Protections

Industrial chemical pollutants are often discharged into drinking water supplies. But the Trump administration has made it a priority to roll back theClean Water Rule, 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 117 million Americans.

The EPA's own science advisors have opposed the rollback of the Clean Water Rule, but the Trump administration repealed it in 2019, proposed its own rule in January and finalized it in April. The new rule covers far fewer bodies of water and would leave 234,000 miles of small streams unprotected. EWG estimates that at least 72 million Americans draw at least half their drinking water from small streams.

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. Polluted drinking water sources strain municipal water utilities tasked with filtering out contaminants regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and risk exposing the public to more contaminants that aren't regulated under the act.

8. Cooked the Books on Asbestos

Asbestos is a highly toxic, naturally occurring chemical linked to a particularly deadly form of cancer called mesothelioma. An estimated 40,000 Americans die every year from asbestos-related diseases. 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 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991.

After Congress reformed TSCA in 2016, the EPA announced that asbestos would be one of the first 10 chemicals reviewed under the new law. Many hoped that this time, the EPA would finally ban asbestos.

Instead, when the EPA released its draft risk evaluation 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 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the EPA to fix this error, it has yet to do so.

Instead of banning asbestos, in April 2019 the EPA published a rule requiring notice and approval before manufacturers could resume using it in some applications the agency considered abandoned. However, leaked documents show that more than a dozen EPA staffers urged an outright ban on asbestos instead.

9. Proposed a Loophole for Toxic Air Pollution

In July 2019, the Trump EPA proposed to reverse a longstanding policy requiring large power plants, refineries and other industrial polluters to always meet certain strict controls, even after reducing emissions. The new rule creates a loophole in the Clean Air Act regulations that would allow large industrial facilities to reclassify themselves, from "major sources" of air pollution to "area sources."

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 3,900 large facilities that emit pollutants like mercury and benzene could take advantage of this loophole. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates the loophole could increase toxic air emissions by as much as 480 percent, or almost 50 million pounds per year.

This rollback is especially alarming in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic. Studies have found that people who live in areas with high levels of air pollution are at greater risk for severe cases of COVID-19.

10. Continuing Its Quest to Censor Science

In 2018, the EPA proposed a disastrous rule 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 human health studies, because personal medical data must remain confidential. The rule would undermine studies that are foundational to clean air regulations.

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.

But the Trump EPA is at it again. In March, the agency issued a supplemental proposal that is actually worse than 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.

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.

A running list of how President Trump is changing environmental ... ›

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epa trump administration public health politics toxics water drinking water childrens health air pollution asbestos

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no lnx

https://www.nytimes.com/:{2020/04/:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:16/climate/epa-mercury-coal.html

E.P.A. Weakens Controls on Mercury

The agency is changing the way it calculates the benefits of mercury controls, a move that would effectively loosen the rules on other toxic pollutants.

By Lisa Friedman and Coral Davenport

April 16, 2020

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday weakened regulations on the release of mercury and other toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants, another step toward rolling back health protections in the middle of a pandemic.

The new Environmental Protection Agency rule does not eliminate restrictions on the release of mercury, a heavy metal linked to brain damage. Instead, it creates a new method of calculating the costs and benefits of curbing mercury pollution that environmental lawyers said would fundamentally undermine the legal underpinnings of controls on mercury and many other pollutants.

By reducing the positive health effects of regulations on paper and raising their economic costs, the new method could be used to justify loosening restrictions on any pollutant that the fossil fuel industry has deemed too costly to control.

“That is the big unstated goal,” said David Konisky, a professor of public and environmental affairs at Indiana University. “This is less about mercury than about potentially constraining or handcuffing future efforts by the E.P.A. to regulate air pollution.”

The proposed change is the latest in the Trump administration’s long-running effort to roll back environmental regulations and reduce regulatory burdens, particularly on the coal, oil and gas industries. Over the past three years the administration has weakened rules to cut planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, restrict coal companies from dumping debris in streams and claimed falsely that that President Trump has revived the dying coal industry.

Over the past few weeks as the nation struggled with the coronavirus, the administration has also rushed to loosen curbs on automobile tailpipe emissions, opted not to strengthen a regulation on industrial soot emissions and moved to drop the threat of punishment to companies that kill birds “incidentally.”

The deregulatory push appears designed to secure less restrictive rules quickly, in case Republicans lose control of Congress and the White House in November. A new government could move quickly under the Congressional Review Act to overturn any regulation or federal rule within 60 days of it being finalized — making any rule completed after late May or early June vulnerable.

The mercury rollback is a particular victory for Robert E. Murray, the former chief executive of Murray Energy Corporation and a top fund-raiser for Mr. Trump. Mr. Murray personally requested the rollback in a written “wish list” to top officials shortly after the president took office. The company has since declared bankruptcy and is undergoing a reorganization.

“Under this action, no more mercury will be emitted into the air than before,” Andrew R. Wheeler, the E.P.A. administrator said in announcing the rule.

Climate and Environment ›

[Keep Up on the Latest Climate News

Once nonexistent, campaign cash earmarked as "climate donations" is flowing to Joe Biden as a small but growing counterweight to the monied muscle of fossil fuels.

Environmental lawyers and public health leaders called the timing of the final mercury rule, as well as its substance, an attack on air quality.]

“What is most disconcerting to me is this administration’s lack of interest in science and, frankly, their lack of concern for our nation’s children,” said Aaron Bernstein, interim director of the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Mercury pollution in the United States damages our children’s brains before they even come into the world, and estimates are that that cost is in the billions of dollars.”

Patrick Parenteau, a professor at the Vermont Law School, noted that in virtually every environmental rollback, Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. has acknowledged in the fine print that enormous increases in health problems and deaths will occur because of increased pollution.

A plan to weaken carbon dioxide emissions at power plants, for example, predicted as many as 1,400 additional premature deaths a year. A draft analysis of the soot policy put forward this week showed that tightening the existing standard by 25 percent could save as many as 12,150 lives a year.

Two people close to the administration said the White House was concerned enough about the public perception of loosening environmental rules during the outbreak that it held the mercury plan for several weeks after it passed a review from the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. E.P.A. officials assured the White House that the agency was merely responding as required to a 2015 Supreme Court ruling that found it must justify the economic impact of the mercury standards.

The weakening of the mercury rule would be one of the most significant regulatory rollbacks engineered by the Trump administration. The existing federal regulation on mercury pollution, completed in 2012, is the most expensive clean air regulation ever written by the E.P.A.

When it published its draft cost-benefit changes last year, the Trump administration’s E.P.A. said the cost of cutting mercury from power plant emissions “dwarfs” the economic benefits and argued that the Obama rule could not be justified as “appropriate and necessary.”

The E.P.A.’s 2012 regulation was the first federal standard to require power plants to install pricey pollution controls to limit mercury emissions — at a cost to industry of $9.6 billion a year. The Obama administration justified that cost with some mathematical legerdemain of its own. The Obama E.P.A. tallied not just the benefits of reducing mercury but also “co-benefits” like reducing sulfur dioxide, fine particulate matter and other pollutants that were also curbed by the equipment.

In his announcement on Thursday, Mr. Wheeler called the Obama administration’s accounting of health benefits “dishonest.”

Driving down mercury emissions alone, the studies at the time found, would yield a $6 million annual benefit, a fraction of the cost of the controls. But by adding in co-benefits like projected gains in avoided heart disease, asthma attacks and other health problems, the total benefits reached $80 billion over five years. Overall, the Obama administration estimated that the rule would prevent 4,700 heart attacks, 130,000 asthma attacks and 11,000 premature deaths each year.

Under the Trump administration’s new rule, such co-benefits will no longer be calculated with cost, only direct benefits.

While coal producers urged Mr. Trump to roll back the rule, the vast majority of electric utility companies have agreed the cost-benefit changes may be of little help to them, because they have already spent the billions of dollars needed to come into compliance. Many of those companies urged the Trump administration to leave the mercury measure in place.

Coal plants subject to the rule “have already spent millions of dollars to install mercury equipment to reduce mercury emissions,” wrote Scott A. Weaver, the director of air quality services for American Electric Power, an Ohio-based electric utility company that operates power plants in 11 states, in a public comment on a draft of the rule.

“Rescinding the standards at this point will create new problems” Mr. Weaver wrote, noting that companies that have sought to recoup the cost of installing mercury control equipment through bills to customers may no longer legally be able to do so. That means the new rule could actually cost companies more money.

Yet in comments to the E.P.A, major coal companies and the United States Chamber of Commerce also supported changing the underlying cost-benefit analysis to prevent future rules that they might consider onerous.

Matthew Davis, a former E.P.A. scientist who worked with the agency’s office of children’s health protection to develop the original rule, said weakening the rule still represented a threat to children’s health.

“The reason we did this rule is because children and developing fetuses are harmed by mercury,” said Mr. Davis, who now works at the League of Conservation Voters.

Jeffrey R. Holmstead, an attorney for the electric utility industry who served in the E.P.A. under the second President George Bush, rejected the idea that the decision was a cynical calculation to set the stage for other regulatory rollbacks.

“It’s not as if the administration has been shy about rolling back other things,” Mr. Holmstead said, dismissing environmental concerns. “I don’t think there’s any impact whatsoever from this.”

In Congress, the Obama-era mercury rule has bipartisan support. Senator Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works committee, and Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the chairman of an energy and water appropriations subcommittee, wrote an opinion piece in USA Today in November urging the Trump administration to leave the regulation unchanged.

“Changing the rule after billions of dollars have already been spent means that utilities will have less certainty about federal regulations,” they wrote. “The gains we have made over the past decade to protect children and families from dangerous mercury pollution should not be lost.”

trump mofo, reg capture:

https://theintercept.com/2020/08/12/cfpb-coronavirus-predatory-payday-loans

ON JULY 30, Chair Maxine Waters opened the House Committee on Financial Services hearing with a frustrate and ominous message: “I would like to welcome Director Kraninger to what I hope will be her last appearance before this committee as CFPB director.”

Kathy Kraninger was being called to account for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s failure to protect consumers during the coronavirus pandemic. In separate House and Senate hearings, committee members levied their sharpest criticisms against the agency’s plan to deregulate small-dollar lending by repealing key consumer protections on predatory products like payday and auto title loans. The final rule decided on by the agency tore out the heart of the policy by rescinding provisions that required lenders to assess a borrower’s ability to repay their loan.

small-dollar lenders, such as Speedy Cash and TitleMax, intentionally design high-cost, low-quality products to make it almost impossible for borrowers to repay their loans under the original terms. Finance fees and average annual interest rates of 400 percent prevent most borrowers from repaying payday loans in full, with borrowers ending up in debt five months out of the year for what was deceptively marketed as a two-week loan. Other loans within this industry are just as harmful. Ninety percent of auto title loans are re-borrowed, and 20 percent of borrowers have their vehicles repossessed. This rule makes it easier for lenders to trap borrowers in cycles of debt.

Payday lenders are well known for taking advantage of the precarious conditions experienced by working-class and poor people — and which disproportionately affect Black and brown people. The average loan amount borrowed from a storefront payday lender is about $1,000. Contradicting the assumption that these lenders profit primarily from unpredictable crises such as a pay cut or medical emergency, a majority of borrowers — 69 percent — rely on payday loans to cover recurring expenses. People use these higher-cost loans to live day-to-day: buying groceries, paying bills, and making their rent or mortgage payments.

The CFPB’s rule makes this form of racial capitalism even more punishing by paving the way for predatory lenders to prey on marginalized borrowers and extract lucrative profits. The economic stimulus payments that Congress approved under the CARES Act appeared to help people make it through the early months of the pandemic, and new applications for small-dollar loans declined during March and April. Now, with Congress’s failure to extend benefits, loan applications are rising steadily along with eviction fears, job losses, and coronavirus infection and death rates. In one survey, 36 percent of lower-income households applied for some type of small-dollar loan in June and July. Black and brown households applied for these loans at a rate three times higher than did white households.

Near the end of the House Committee on Financial Services hearing, Illinois Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García described CFPB’s final rule as a scary example of how the agency is working on behalf of predatory lenders instead of consumers. “I represent a working-class, immigrant district. There are a lot of payday lenders in my district,” said García. “My community was hit hard by the last crisis and many people never recovered. … That’s why the CFPB was established during the last crisis to give ordinary people, like my neighbors in Chicago, their own voice. … But that’s not what we see from watching the bureau today.”

THE CFPB first revealed its proposed rule to regulate the small-dollar lending industry at a 2016 field hearing in Kansas City, Missouri. Up to that point, regulators had allowed the industry to escape federal oversight. Then-Director Richard Cordray, an Obama appointee, had led the agency in conducting extensive research on the industry’s harms to borrowers.

The CFPB’s decision to reveal its proposed rule in Kansas City was far from random. Kansas City and its white, wealthy suburbs were swimming with payday and other small-dollar lenders hungry for people’s money. Lenders sold payday loans with 1,000-percent interest rates nationwide out of their call center based in Overland Park, and local investors helped bankroll these lenders.

A multibillion-dollar payday lending enterprise overseen by a man named Scott Tucker was located just a few miles away in Leawood, with businesses that had names like Cash Advance and OneClickCash. Tucker put together the seed funding for his payday lending business in the 1990s, about the same time as the industry’s rapid nationwide expansion. By his early 30s, he had already developed several financial schemes and defrauded investors out of $100,000 — credentials he used to pitch investors.

Tucker grew his payday lending business into a nationwide enterprise over the next few decades. He worked hard to keep his illegal enterprise under the radar, including paying off local officials through campaign donations, creating a near-impenetrable multistate maze of shell companies, using the internet to expand his business, and exploiting Native tribes for sovereign immunity. His relationships with payday lenders were hard to pin down. Tucker had succeeded in keeping his name out of states’ earlier lawsuits against the payday lenders from which he was profiting, including in Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Washington.

Trump Nominee for CFPB Admits in Hearing She Has No Background in Consumer Protection or Financial Regulation

A 2011 investigative report revealed the sources of Tucker’s wealth, publicly chaining him to the payday lenders whose affiliations he had worked so hard to suppress. The Federal Trade Commission filed suit against Tucker in 2012, and Tucker and his attorney were arrested on racketeering and other charges in 2016. Tucker was sentenced to 16 years in prison, and the FTC won their largest penalty at the time with a judgment for $1.3 billion in 2018. The FTC returned $505 million to the people Tucker had defrauded. The judge presiding over the decision estimated that Tucker had victimized 1 percent of the U.S. population through predatory loans and fraudulent activity.

Tucker wasn’t even the only person from Kansas City running a payday loan enterprise. Numerous Kansas City-area moguls have been sued in recent years, including Timothy Coppinger, Frampton T. Rowland, Richard Moseley Sr., Richard Moseley Jr., and Josh Landy. The initial rule stopped them from abusive practices, such as charging unaffordable payments that forced repeat borrowing and created debt traps.

trump was elected to the presidency a few months after the Kansas City field hearing. Since that time, his appointees, Interim Director Mick Mulvaney and current Director Kathy Kraninger, have hacked away at rule-making and used bureaucratic malaise to whittle away at the agency’s commitments to oversight and enforcement. One of Mulvaney’s first actions as interim director was to announce that the agency would reconsider the small-dollar lending rule. The Trump appointees even manipulated the agency’s research to make payday lenders appear less harmful. When the CFPB announced its final rule in July of this year, it hammered a nail into the coffin of the Cordray-era rule-making that steadfastly sought justice for borrowers defrauded by lenders like Tucker.

The CFPB announced the rule’s final fate as eviction moratoriums and expanded unemployment benefitswere expiring — along with any remaining hope that America could rally the collective spirit needed to fight the coronavirus. Other federal regulators followed in lock step with the CFPB. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation subsequently announced proposed rules that would allow payday lenders to circumvent state interest rate caps. Moreover, Trump’s executive orders on payroll taxes and student loans defer payments instead of canceling them. By extending these payments into the future, Trump’s executive orders actually operate a lot like payday loans: taking advantage of people’s precarious conditions by offering immediate relief while their debts accumulate with no way of repaying them. Mutually reinforcing policy decisions effectively deploy predatory lenders and their 400-percent interest rates as first responders to the pandemic. Not willing to throw out life vests, Trump’s government encourages people to drown in debt.

Congress must act with urgency to protect borrowers from predatory lenders and to stave the flow of Black and brown income into white pockets, like Tucker’s. The Democrats’ HEROES Act, if passed, would initiate another round of economic stimulus payments that would likely reduce reliance on payday loans by giving people the money they need to live. Some states are stepping up in the CFPB’s absence. Policymakers in Virginia recently passed legislation to cap interest rates at 36 percent and ensure that borrowers can repay their loans. Wisconsin issued emergency guidance warning payday lenders not to raise interest rates and threatening to revoke licenses.

The House and Senate hearings provided a necessary public accounting of the CPFB. However, without federal intervention, people will have little choice but to rely on predatory lenders and their high-cost debt for surviving the pandemic. And they’ll have fewer protections, thanks to the CFPB’s final rule that promises to widen racial economic inequality during a pandemic instead of narrowing it.

===

i get bernhaRDT and wheeler confused, but both key in suicidal dereg; both savvy enough to use levers of power and not get busted for corruption like zinke and pruitt? pendejo? jorjani perjury seems like a long shot? motive? trump likes any dereg because it makes him seem ideologically aligned with GOP, fits into is story that he alone will cut red tape to bring back mfg jobs? dereg talk even boost stock mkt. will please corp donors aND bring in more $

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trump-epa-plan-to-gut-emission-rules-for-oil-and-gas-industry-denounced-as-beyond-comprehension/

no lnx twt

trump EPA plan to gut emission rules for oil and gas industry denounced as ‘beyond comprehension’

Written by Julia Conley / Common Dreams August 12, 2020

In a move one green group said shows the Trump EPA’s approach is “manifestly inconsistent with the agency’s legal obligations” and with science, the agency is under fire for preparations to roll back methane rules for U.S. oil and gas producers.

Before Friday, the New York Times reported, the EPA is expected to unveil two new rules regarding methane, a greenhouse gas with 80 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide in the first two decades after emission.

One would eliminate federal regulation of methane emissions from oil and gas wells across the country and would prevent future regulation at sites built before 2015, and another would weaken remaining requirements for companies, including one directing them to locate and fix leaks in wells.

With the new rules in place, meteorologist and climate reporter Eric Holthaus said, voting Trump out of office in November will be imperative to protect communities across the country from methane emissions, which the EPA itself has said are linked to premature death, stroke, chronic bronchitis, and low birth weight as well as the warming of the planet.

“If Trump is reelected and this rule sticks, it is probably the single most consequential near-term climate decision of his presidency,” wrote Holthaus on social media. “A U.S. oil and gas industry unconcerned with methane would produce a surge in global warming with essentially irreversible consequences.”

Epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding denounced the expected rules as “sickening.”

About 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are made up of methane, and according to the Environmental Defense Fund, the EPA’s new rules could result in an additional five million metric tons of methane pollution to the atmosphere per year.

The expected rollback follows other significant EPA decisions to weaken environmental protections, including ones targeting the release of toxins from coal plants and tailpipe emissions.

“Our federal methane safeguards have been in place since 2016, protecting Americans from unhealthy and climate-damaging pollution. The Trump administration’s decision to reverse course is deeply and fundamentally flawed,” said Peter Zalzal, lead attorney for EDF, in a statement. “Eliminating these safeguards would ignore the overwhelming body of scientific evidence documenting the urgent need to reduce methane pollution.”

With public support for coal extraction waning significantly, the fossil fuel industry has in recent years promoted natural gas as a “cleaner” alternative and is concerned that methane leaks from gas wells will “undermine that marketing message and hurt demand,” the Times reported.

Meanwhile, advocates for climate action are focused on promoting solar, wind, and other sustainable energy sources that don’t involve fossil fuel extraction at all.

Minneapolis-based meteorologist Sven Sundgaard called the planned rollback “yet another destructive and stupid act of this administration.”

“Rather than trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to protect this planet for our children and grandchildren, this administration is now easing regulations on polluters,” tweeted Sen. Angus King (I-Maine). “Let’s call this what it is: environmental sabotage.”

===

https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-methane-emissions-regulations-2646947182.html

820

===

****

no lnx ya cheap bastard

Los Angeles Times

POLITICS

People live longer in blue states than red; new study points to impact of state policies

States that have pursued more liberal policies in education, environment and civil rights have a longer life expectancy.

States such as California that have pursued more liberal policies in education, environment and civil rights have seen a swifter rise in life expectancy than more conservative states. Above, the California Capitol in Sacramento.(Los Angeles Times)

By NOAM N. LEVEY STAFF WRITER

AUG. 3, 2020

WASHINGTON — Weak environmental protections, safety rules and labor and civil rights protections may be cutting lives short in conservative states and deepening the divide between red and blue states, according to a new study on links between life expectancy and state policy.

The report, published Tuesday in the health policy journal Milbank Quarterly, finds that states where residents live longest, including California, tend to have much more stringent environmental laws, tougher tobacco and firearms regulations and more protections for workers, minorities and LGBTQ residents.

Since the mid-1980s, the gap among U.S. states in how long their residents live has widened, reversing decades of progress toward greater equality.

One group of states, mostly in the Northeast and the West, have seen average life expectancies rise relatively steadily, placing them on par with the wealthiest nations of Western Europe. Those states tend to have more stringent regulations.

By contrast, the life expectancy in states with more conservative health, labor and social policies — concentrated in the South and Appalachia — have stagnated in recent decades, according to the study, which adds to growing research on health and political disparities between states.

California has among the highest average life expectancies in the country, at 81.3 years. It also had the most liberal policies in the nation in 2014, the most recent year the study analyzed, according to the system the authors developed to rank states.

Although the study’s authors note that they can’t prove that state policies caused the gap in life expectancy, the correlation is a persistent one across multiple states and several decades.

“It’s disheartening to see another example of a missed opportunity by policymakers,” said David Radley, senior scientist at the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund who studies differences in state health policies and the effects on people’s health. Radley was not involved in Milbank report.

[pix Bakersfield, CA., March 4, 2020 - Jenny Morones, 26, of Bakersfield poses for a portrait on Wednesday, March 4, 2020 in Bakersfield, California. Morones is working mother struggling to raise three children on a low income. Morones fled an abusive relationship and though in her twenties, has dealt with health challenges.Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Morones had health insurance that protected her from financial ruin. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)]

Coronavirus widens healthcare divide between red states and blue states

May 25, 2020

The new report may help shape efforts to rethink government policy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has exposed deep structural weaknesses in the U.S. as well as yawning gaps in many state safety nets.

“The overarching conclusion is clear: States that have invested in their populations’ social and economic well-being by enacting more liberal policies over time tend to be the same states that have made considerable gains in life expectancy,” the study’s authors wrote.

Even before the current public health crisis, life expectancy in the U.S. had been declining, setting America apart from most other wealthy nations. That decline has fueled tough questions about domestic policy.

The opioid epidemic, which has had a devastating impact on regions of the country already hit hard by economic stagnation, has been the focus of a lot of the discussion about that shift.

But Syracuse University sociologist Jennifer Karas Montez, the lead author of the new study, said the impact of opioids may be only part of the story.

“When we look at what is happening with life expectancy, the tendency is to focus on individual explanations about what Americans are doing,” she said, noting obesity and smoking behaviors as well as drug use. “But state policies are so important.”

To assess what role these policies may be playing, Montez and other researchers reviewed more than 120 policies enacted by states over the years and assessed whether each policy choice in each state was more liberal or more conservative.

Policies included housing rules such as rent control; health and welfare policies such as Medicaid eligibility and welfare limits; labor protections such as paid sick leave and minimum wages; and civil rights policies such as gender discrimination bans, hate-crime laws and same-sex marriage.

They also looked at state abortion restrictions, tax policy, education spending, immigration rules and gun control laws.

Each state was ranked by how liberal or conservative its policies overall have been, going back to 1970.

The researchers then compared these findings to trends in life expectancy in all 50 states.

Montez said the trends they saw were unmistakable. They also correlated with important points in the nation’s political history.

Through the 1960s and 1970s, for example, state life expectancies generally converged. That trend began to reverse in the mid-1980s, around the same time that a conservative movement, led by President Reagan and mirrored in many state capitols, became ascendant.

The gap between states accelerated further after 2010, when sweeping Republican victories in state elections shifted policies further to the right in many places.

By 2017, residents of the state with the highest life expectancy — Hawaii — were living on average seven years longer than residents of the state with the lowest life expectancy — Mississippi.

By contrast, the gap between the best- and worst-performing states in 1984 was less than five years.

The gap is not only about policy: States where people live longer tend to be wealthier and have better educated populations, for example.

But Montez noted that decisions by state leaders have helped shape those factors.

“States like Connecticut are investing in their population, investing in schools, setting an economic floor for their workers, discouraging behaviors like smoking that kill people,” she explained. “You have other states like Mississippi and Oklahoma that aren’t doing any of this.”

In Connecticut, whose policies have become steadily more liberal over the last half century, life expectancy increased 5.8 years between 1980 and 2017 to 80.7 years.

In Oklahoma, which has become markedly more conservative, life expectancy increased only 2.2 years over the same period, reaching 75.8 years in 2017.

Identifying which state policies may have the most impact on how long people live is difficult, the researchers concede. But the study points to a group of policies that appear to correlate most closely with longer lives.

These include some unsurprising candidates such as tougher environmental laws, which the authors note may protect people from toxic substances. The authors also found a correlation between longer life expectancy and labor policies that increase economic security, such as a minimum wage.

Tougher gun laws appear to track with longer life expectancies, the study notes, as do stricter tobacco controls.

The authors also point to civil rights laws, which they suggest may protect residents from ill health related to persistent stress.

And they found a correlation between longer life expectancy and better access to abortion, which the study notes may reflect other research that has linked abortion restrictions to women’s poverty and ill health.

Noam N. Levey writes about national healthcare policy out of Washington, D.C., for the Los Angeles Times. He covered passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act and has written extensively about the landmark law and reported on its implementation from around the country. A former investigative and political reporter, he is a Boston native and a graduate of Princeton University. He joined the newspaper in 2003 and has reported from Washington since 2006.

===

mofo ew 720

Donald Trump announced the final rollback of the "Magna Carta" of U.S. environmental laws on Wednesday, The New York Times reported.

Read More

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/deregulations-deadly-consequences-report-breaks-down-how-trumps-assault-on-government-exacerbated-pandemic/

Trump’s ongoing efforts to roll back regulations designed to protect the environment, workers, and public health likely played a significant role in the spread of Covid-19 in the United States.

That’s according to a new report released Tuesday by New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI), a nonpartisan policy think tank.

The 45-page report titled “Weakening Our Defenses” (pdf) details how Trump’s far-reaching deregulatory push has exacerbated several major risk factors for contracting and spreading Covid-19, such as high levels of air pollution, hazardous working conditions, and lack of adequate health insurance.

“President Trump’s deregulatory agenda has affected all those factors, and, therefore, the disproportionate racial and economic justice impacts of deregulation are now most likely compounding in deadly ways in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic,” the report says.

AD REMOVED FOR SUBSCRIBED USER

“Even before the pandemic,” the report continues, “those regulatory decisions collectively were already causing dire consequences for public health and safety, the environment, and economic conditions—but we now know that those regulatory decisions have likely also increased our collective susceptibility to Covid-19."

[twt]

the report cites the Trump administration’s rollback of restrictions on nearly 2,000 forms of hazardous air pollution in 2018, weakening of the Clean Power Plan, and gutting of vehicle fuel efficiency standards in 2020 as examples of environmental deregulatory actions that left the U.S. more vulnerable to Covid-19. The U.S. currently has the most confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths in the world.

“These rollbacks have put all of us—especially low-income communities, Black people, and people of color, and essential workers—at higher risk of contracting and dying from Covid-19,” said Gina McCarthy, former Environmental Protection Agency administrator and current president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The report also points to the Trump administration’s weakening of workplace safety standards at meatpacking plants, which have become major Covid-19 hotspots.According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 16,200 meat and poultry processing workers have contracted Covid-19 at 239 facilities in the U.S.

“In October 2019, the Trump administration’s Department of Agriculture finalized a rule to ‘modernize’ swine slaughter inspections,” IPI’s report says. “The new program, which pig processing plants may opt into, reduces the number of food safety inspectors in plants and removes caps on pig slaughter line speeds.”

By forcing workers to perform their jobs in close proximity to one another, the report notes, the prioritization of speed over safety forces “likely puts meat processing workers at greater risk for Covid-19.”

The Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the Affordable Care and limit Medicaid eligibility by approving state-level work requirements also may have contributed to the spread of Covid-19, according to the new report.

“Though some of these state requirements have since been invalidated by the courts, other state programs could yet be implemented, and even the temporary loss of coverage in some states could be significant—particularly during a pandemic,” the report says.

Dr. Kathleen Rest, executive director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that the Trump administration’s “failure to listen to and act on the best available science is irresponsible and dangerous.”

“From day one, the Trump administration has attempted to roll back not only existing public health protections, but the scientific basis on which all public health protections are based,” said Rest. “That’s short-sighted and foolish at the best of times, but they have continued to dismantle safeguards even as the country faces the threat of Covid-19, one of the biggest public health crises in our history.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/cfpb-director-facing-calls-to-resign-over-new-rule-exposing-consumers-to-predatory-debt-traps-in-middle-of-recession/

consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Kathy Kraninger is facing calls to resign after her agency finalized a rule Tuesday that critics say will further expose vulnerable people to “debt traps” set by payday and car-title lenders.

Kraninger, who was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in 2018, “just stamped an official seal of approval on one of the worst practices of payday lenders—and now there’s nothing stopping the industry from ruining families with 400% interest rates in the middle of a recession,” said Jeremy Funk, spokesperson for consumer watchdog group Allied Progress.

“For the sake of all U.S. consumers,” Funk added, “the director needs to step aside.”

The final rule—which has been in the works for more than a year—rolls back Obama-era regulations requiring payday and car-title lenders to verify that borrowers have the ability to repay before approving high-interest, short-term loans. Last June, Kraninger delayed implementation of the safeguards, which were previously set to take effect on August 19, 2019.

according to the Payday Loan Debt Trap Tracker, Kraninger’s decision to delay the regulations cost consumers nearly $6 billion in fees.

“A truly shameful thing that right in the middle of the economic distress from this pandemic, the current CFPB leadership would choose to roll back the heart of the payday lending reform rule,” tweeted former CFPB director Richard Cordray, who helped develop the Obama-era regulations. “Protecting consumers again takes a back seat to catering to the financial industry.”

The American Banker reported Tuesday that Kraninger’s rollback is “projected to save the payday lending industry more than $7 billion a year.”

BREAKING: In a direct attack on consumers, @CFPBDirector and Donald Trump just killed protections for payday loan borrowers in the middle of a global pandemic and economic downturn. Disgraceful. https://t.co/kGmCqiFqpE**

— Allied Progress (@AlliedProgress) July 7, 2020

In an August 2019 memo obtained by the New York Times, then-CFPB staffer Jonathan Lanning accused President Donald Trump’s political appointees of manipulating the bureau’s payday lending research to justify gutting the Obama-era borrower protections. Lanning left the CFPB later that same month.

Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending, said in a statement that “there is never a good time to enable predatory loans carrying 400% interest rates, but this is the worst possible time.”

“The pain caused by the CFPB gutting the payday rule will be felt most by those who can least afford it, including communities of color who are disproportionately targeted by payday lenders,” Calhoun added. “Payday and car-title lenders pull borrowers into financial quicksand. The CFPB’s own research shows that four out of every five payday loans are reborrowed within two weeks—because borrowers can’t afford to repay the initial loan.”

“Taking out a payday loan makes a person more likely to lose their bank account, rack up overdraft fees, and file for bankruptcy,” said Calhoun. “With today’s action, the politically appointed leadership of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is actively facilitating harm to consumers at a time of crisis and uncertainty.”

Advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) urged Congress to pass legislation capping interest rates nationwide to stop payday lenders from taking advantage of the CFPB’s new rule.

“With regulators throwing open the doors to predatory lender, Congress must step in to prevent profiteering and stop payday and car-title lenders from burying people in high-interest debt,” AFR senior policy counsel Linda Jun said in a statement. “Predatory lenders will do nothing but prolong the human misery stemming from this crisis.”

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/federal-court-urged-to-hold-rogue-trump-epa-head-in-contempt-for-blatant-defiance-of-ban-on-toxic-weed-killer/

common dreams

a coalition of farming and conservation groups is calling on a federal appeals court to hold EPA chief Andrew Wheeler in contempt for defying an order to immediately suspend use of dicamba, a poisonous weed-killer that is notorious for its tendency to drift and destroy nearby crops.

“Trump’s EPA is so rogue it thinks it can blow off a federal court ruling that stops the damaging dicamba spraying in an administrative order,” George Kimbrell of the Center for Food Safety, lead counsel in the case, said in a statement late Thursday night. “EPA needs a lesson in separation of powers and we’re asking the court to give it to them.”

On Monday, the EPA issued guidance greenlighting the use of dicamba through July 31 despite a June 3 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the agency’s approval of XtendiMax, Engenia, and FeXapan—dicamba-based herbicides sold by chemical giants Bayer (formerly Monsanto), BASF, and Corteva, respectively.

In its 56-page ruling (pdf), the Ninth Circuit said the EPA “entirely failed to recognize the enormous social cost to farming communities where use of dicamba herbicides had turned farmer against farmer, and neighbor against neighbor.”

...

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trumps-gutting-of-environmental-rules-will-lead-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths

...

nyt 100 rules ~

...his article will focus on just four major attacks on environmental protections initiated by the Trump Administration. Three of the attacks have significantly weakened the standards for soot, mercury and carbon dioxide. I chose these three because EPA staff has actually estimated the number of deaths that will occur due to the roll back of each of these protections. In addition, I will examine the administration’s unprecedented suspension of all environmental regulations/enforcement under cover of the COVID-19 pandemic. This suspension gives corporations control over major environmental decisions. The administration’s deregulatory offensive reflects a value system that literally prioritizes corporate profits over American lives.

Weakening Mercury & Air Toxic Standards: 110,000 Preventable Deaths over a Ten-Year Period...

===

_EJ

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04062020/trump-pipeline-sign-amid-racial-justice-coronavirus

With the nation convulsed by multiple crises, President Donald Trump returned to a favorite stand-by of his presidency—asserting his authority to sweep aside environmental restraints and speed up construction of oil and gas pipelines.

But the executive order that he signed Thursday night—the third of his presidency aimed at expediting pipelines—is destined to spur more of the type of litigation that has rendered his previous directives ineffective so far.

The White House invoked the same legal authority the president has to expedite hurricane and flood response actions to declare an "economic emergency," that requires the waiving of environmental reviews and other regulations.

"This order will be a sitting duck for the sorts of legal challenges that have been so successfully brought against other Trump environmental rollbacks," said Michael Gerrard, founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. "Few developers or lenders will risk millions on starting construction in reliance on this order surviving in court."

The White House provided few details on the order before the scheduled signing at 4:30 p.m. "I can tell you it does have to do some of the permitting and energy as it relates to rebuilding this country," said presidential spokesman Hogan Gidley in a brief noon appearance before reporters.

By 6 p.m., the White House had provided no copy of the order. There was no live streaming of any signing, nor any public appearance by Trump at the White House, where workers spent the day erecting tall metal barricades around the perimeter of the complex. Outside, crowds of protestors flanked the presidential residence in one of the demonstrations for racial justice that have proliferated in cities across the nation since the police killing of George Lloyd.

Finally, after 6:15 p.m., the White House made copies of the order available.

"From the beginning of my Administration, I have focused on reforming and streamlining an outdated regulatory system that has held back our economy with needless paperwork and costly delays," Trump said in the document. "Antiquated regulations and bureaucratic practices have hindered American infrastructure investments, kept America'sbuilding trades workers from working,andprevented our citizens from developing and enjoying the benefits of world-class infrastructure. The need for continued progress in this streamlining effort is all the more acute now, due to the ongoing economic crisis."

The president's critics were quick to point out that his order was poorly timed, since minority communities would be disproportionately affected by his move to waive the environmental review mandated under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

"Today President Trump is dealing another blow to the Black community, during a worldwide pandemic and nearly a week into nationwide Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and structural racism," said Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, in a statement. "Gutting NEPA takes away one of the few tools communities of color have to protect themselves and make their voices heard on federal decisions impacting them."

The second executive order of Trump's presidency, issued in January 2017 (after his plan to repeal Obamacare), was a directive to expedite oil and gas pipelines. In his speeches, he often repeats a line about creating 48,000 jobs in his first week in office by reviving the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada and the Dakota Access pipeline in the midwest.

In fact, environmental opponents of the Keystone project have so far been successful in preventing its advance with legal challenges to its water permit. And although the Dakota Access pipeline was completed, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in March won a court order for a sweeping new environmental review of the project; the judge is now considering whether the flow of oil should be stopped while the review is completed.

Legal experts expressed doubt that Trump's latest order could directly affect the outcomes in the Keystone XL or Dakota Access litigation. In the future, such litigation by states and tribes may be made more difficult by rules that the Environmental Protection Agency finalized this week in response to a 2019 Trump executive order.

Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.), the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee,said in a statement that it was clear that Trump is seeking to cut communities out of the process.

"By allowing projects to plow ahead without public engagement or input, this executive order will fast-track projects that could tear through communities, harm air quality, endanger drinking water sources, destroy critical habitats and threaten endangered species," said Carper. "Under the guise of immediate relief, this executive action will cause long-term damage that will not be easily undone."

Legal experts noted that Trump's use of the economic downturn to invoke environmental waivers was unprecedented. "These emergency exemptions have traditionally been used for necessary fast responses to disasters, such as clearing away debris after a hurricane, or building field hospitals," said Gerrard in an email. "They have not been used as a backdoor way of creating construction jobs."

Jayni Foley Hein, natural resources director at New York University Law School's Institute for Policy Integrity, said Trump's novel legal theory could have an effect that is precisely the opposite of what the White House intends. "In a strange way, this could create more uncertainty for project developers, as their approvals will be on shakier legal footing," Hein said.

"It's hard to say if it's bluster and posturing or if it's wishful thinking or some combination," Hein said.

But so far at least, despite his repeated efforts, Trump has been singularly unsuccessful in building pipelines with a stroke of his pen.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

OIL SPILLS/PIPELINES

5/20/20

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-executive-order-directs-all-agencies-to-gut-business-regulations-amid-covid-19-the-corruption-is-on-full-display/

no lnx

trump executive order directs all agencies to gut business regulations amid COVID-19: ‘The corruption is on full display’

President Donald J. Trump arrives in the House chamber and is greeted by members of Congress prior to delivering his State of the Union address Tuesday, Feb. 4, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams May 20, 2020

In a move watchdog groups decried as an effort to reward big corporations at the expense of public health and safety, President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order directing the heads of every federal agency to “waive, suspend, and eliminate” all regulations that they consider unnecessary obstacles to economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

“And we want to leave it that way,” Trump said during a press briefing, indicating he would like to make the sweeping deregulation permanent. The president’s order could have enormous implications for workplace safety rules, environmental and labor policy, consumer protections, food and drug regulations, and more.

Robert Weissman, president Public Citizen, said the executive order shows that “instead of real, direct help for the tens of millions of Americans struggling financially due to the pandemic, or a real plan to reopen the economy safely based on the best public health expertise, Trump wants to keep giving handouts to corporate interests.”

“Trump’s corporate-friendly executive order aimed at rolling back even more regulations that protect the public isjust the latest sign that his solution to the pandemic is the opposite of what the public needs,” said Weissman. “The corruption of this administration is on full display as it uses this crisis as an excuse to further its corporate agenda while distracting the public from its utter failure to fight the virus.”

Public Citizen

@Public_Citizen

Trump is using this crisis as an excuse to further his corporate agenda while distracting the public from his utter failure to fight the virus.

The corruption is on full display. https://twitter.com/cbsnews/status/1262828680943939586 …

CBS News

@CBSNews

President Trump says he will sign an executive order directing all federal agencies "to use any and all authority to waive, suspend, and eliminate unnecessary regulations that impede economic recovery"

"And we want to leave it that way," he adds http://www.cbsnews.com/live

Embedded video

Trump’s deregulatory push amid the Covid-19 pandemic is a continuation of his administration’s policy of hacking away at as many restrictions on big business as possible prior to the crisis.

As Common Dreams reported, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency has already used the coronavirus pandemic to suspend reporting rules and other requirements for the fossil fuel industry, which green groups warned gives oil companies “a green light” to pollute the nation’s air and water with impunity.

The president’s executive order instructs agency heads to “determine which, if any, [deregulatory actions] would promote economic recovery if made permanent,” giving the EPA and other agencies the go-ahead to indefinitely lift regulations on big polluters and other corporations.

“Remember when the EPA got all ‘how dare you’ about anyone saying their rollbacks were permanent? Well, now there’s an executive order that makes them so,” tweeted climate journalist Amy Westervelt. “There will be many, many more. Oil and gas royalties? Bye. Restrictions on offshore drilling? Buh-bye. This is unbelievably bad, reckless, and a complete fuck-you to democracy.”

While Trump presented his administration’s sweeping assault on regulations as an attempt to accelerate economic recovery from the coronavirus emergency, economists have disputed the longstanding right-wing notion that deregulation necessarily boosts activity and growth.

“This sounds exactly like the type of opportunistic political move that absolutely should not be attempted right now,” Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told the Washington Post last month. “Correlations between regulations and economic activity are far shakier than they assume, and I don’t believe this idea will help at all.”

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/ralph-nader-breaks-down-how-trump-is-letting-big-corporations-get-away-with-whatever-they-want/

Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has allowed large corporations to run rampant, exploit people, and get away with it. Trump considers himself above the law, boldly claiming, “I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” For more information about Trump’s misdeeds, please see theArticles of Impeachment proposed by me and constitutional law experts Bruce Fein and Louis Fisher in the December 18, 2019 Congressional Record, page H 12197.

In 2017, Trump betrayed his own voters by giving the corporate rich a nearly two trillion dollar tax cut instead of fulfilling his promise to invest in repairing infrastructure and expanding well-paid job opportunities.

These tax cuts for the rich and big corporations, which benefited the Trump family, ran up the deficit for our children and were largely used to give executives bonuses and let CEOs waste money on stock buybacks. In short, the corporate bosses lied to the Congress, saying they wanted these tax cuts to invest and create jobs, but actually used them to enrich themselves.

After his Trumpian giveaway, Trump crushed health and safety law enforcement, unleashing more disease-producing corporate polluters and corporate thieves. The result: harm to workers, consumers, and defenseless communities.

The New York Times reported 98 lifesaving regulations were revoked, suspended, or simply replaced with weaker versions. What remains on the books is not enforced.

Similar wreckage of corporate law-and-order has exacerbated the crisis of working people. Trump has worked to further punish student borrowers; diminish workplace and auto safety; and remove safeguards against banking, credit, and payday loan rackets.

Trump, during his failed business career and bankruptcies, saw the law as a nuisance and breaking and escaping justice as a competitive advantage.

While raising huge sums for his reelection campaign from business lobbyists, Trump keeps giving them no-law government, more loopholes for tax escapes ($170 billion more buried in the $2.2 trillion relief/bailout legislation), more corporatist judges to shut you down in the courtroom, and more of your taxes for their endless corporate welfare greed.

Big companies such as banks, insurance companies, real estate behemoths, and Silicon Valley giants have so many tax escapes and cuts that they’re moving toward tax-exempt status.

Howard Stern, a longtime friend of Trump who promoted Trump’s notoriety early on, has recently called on Trump to resign. Stern said that, in reality, Donald Trump was “disgusted” by his own voters. Why won’t more Trump voters realize that Trump has nothing but contempt for them? Trump will betray his followers at every turn.

During the Covid-19 virus pandemic—which Trump dismissed and scoffed for eight critical weeks, leaving the country defenseless—Trump has allowed a corporate crime epidemic. He has no qualms about aiding and abetting a corporate crime wave epidemic.

Trump, with Congressional Republicans, wants more legislation giving big companies immunity from lawsuits by victims for their negligently harmful products and services. Another rigging of the system.

Trump’s agencies actually announced that they’re putting their law enforcers on the shelf. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) astonishingly told foreign importers of food and medicine that inspections overseas are suspended. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signaled similar retreats, as have other enforcement agencies. Why would the Trumpsters signal green lights for corporate crooks? Especially since corporate scams and other corporate crimes—some crude, others sophisticated—are exploding as trillions pour out of Washington.

A year ago, Public Citizen reported a steep decline in corporate prosecutions and fines under Trump. Now, compared to the size of the previous corporate crime wave, they’ve fallen off a cliff. You can ignore the stern warnings by Attorney General William Barr. He is a phony. He has neither allocated nor asked Congress for a budget that will provide the Department of Justice the capacity to crackdown.

In fact, Trump has fired inspectors general and not filled vacant inspectors general positions. Trump’s boasts bear repeating: Congress can’t watchdog him because “[he has] an Article 2, where [he has] the right to do whatever [he wants] as president.”

With vicious madness, Trump pushes for federal deregulation of nursing homes where residents are dying from Covid-19. He pursues court cases in attempts to end Obamacare, the result of which would be throwing 20 million Americans off of their insurance during a lethal pandemic. He is cravenly freeing corporate emitters of life-destroying mercury and coal ash in our air, condemned pesticides and toxins in drinking water, and whatever else is on the deadly wish list given to him by his corporate paymasters.

Trump’s actions that dismantled protections for all Americans families have been expertly documented. Yet, few critics are calling for his resignation or removal from office, despite the clear and present danger he poses to the American people and the Republic.

Trump is doing whatever he wants. He is getting away with abandoning the rule of law and the dismantling of crucial government institutions as he embraces American-style fascism and nepotism.

Perhaps people will learn how to effectively fight back against Trump, a delusional, flailing, ego-obsessed, foul-mouthed, self-enriching bully. The people must stand up to this corrupt politician who lies every hour and turns our government over to Wall Street. He sacrifices the people on Main Street to enrich fat cats and oligarchs.

One person, Eugene Jarecki, offers a rebuttal to Trump. In a *Washington Post*op-ed, Jarecki’s sources found that “had the guidelines been implemented earlier, a crucial period in the exponential spread of the virus would have been mitigated and American lives saved.” According to conservative estimates from epidemiologists, “had the Trump administration simply implemented mitigation guidelines by March 9, approximately 60 percent of American Covid-19 deaths could have been avoided.” On his website, TrumpDeathClock.com, Jarecki “displays both the number of people who have died in the country from Covid-19 and an estimate of that portion whose lives would have been saved had the president and his administration acted just one week earlier.” Jarecki has also erected a 54-foot high Trump death clock in New York City’s historic Times Square.

See the numbers yourself on TrumpDeathClock.com. Email DeathClock2020@gmail.com to see how Eugene Jarecki’s team can help you set up such an accountability clock in your community.

https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/05/01/epa-wheeler-fossil-fuels-clean-power-plan-senators-court

===

sob --> mofo --> evil on hypocrisy [judges say...?] also asbestos --> furies?

WHEELER kid killer on asthma? now neuro-toxin , coal ash

---

https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/05/05/epa-decides-reject-latest-science-endanger-public-health-and-ignore-law-keeping-outdated-fine-particle-air-pollution

no lnx many

EPA Decides to Reject the Latest Science, Endanger Public Health and Ignore the Law by Keeping an Outdated Fine Particle Air Pollution Standard

By Guest • Tuesday, May 5, 2020

By H. Christopher Frey, North Carolina State University

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.

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.

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.

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.

Recent studies indicate that reducing PM2.5 standards below current levels could avert thousands of premature deaths.

Fine Particle Air Pollution Is Deadly

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.

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.

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.

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

What the Law Requires

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.

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.

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.

What Our Expert Panel Recommended

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.

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.

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.

Failing to Protect the Public

Administrator Wheeler claims that recent studies since the last time the standards were revised “do not provide a basis for revising the standards.” 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.

The Clean Air Act requires regulators to set standards that will provide an “adequate margin of safety.” 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.

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.

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.

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.

H. Christopher Frey is Glenn E. Futrell Distinguished University Professor of Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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https://theintercept.com/2020/05/08/coronavirus-republicans-bank-deregulation-loans/

lee f

rEPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS and finance industry lobbyists are using the coronavirus pandemic to press regulators into rapidly waiving financial safeguards for community banks.

And so far, banking regulators have obliged, lifting rules imposed after the 2008 crisis that limit risk-taking and require banks to undergo more strenuous audits.

But experts are warning that the deregulatory blitz, sold as a fix to stimulate business by encouraging more lending, raises the potential for a flood of small bank failures, potentially lengthening economic woes and risking the need for future bank bailouts.

In a recent academic paper, Kress observed that out of the 489 banks that failed and were resolved by the federal government from 2008-2013, all but nine were community banks. The failures of community banks during this period cost taxpayers nearly $50 billion. In contrast to the bailouts of large Wall Street banks, which were eventually paid back with interest to the federal government, the small bank bailouts only incurred significant costs.The flurry of advocacy began in March just as the imminent threat of the pandemic seized headlines. That month, several GOP lawmakers contacted regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to urge officials to adjust the threshold at which community banks may qualify for exemption from all risk-based capital requirements.

“We strongly urge you to use the full measure of discretion afforded by Congress to maximize capital simplification and regulatory relief for the greatest number of community banks,” wrote Rep. Denver Riggleman, R-Va., in a letter signed by eight other House Republicans, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by The Intercept. In addition to Riggleman, the letter was signed by Reps. Scott Tipton, R-Colo.; Bill Huizenga, R-Mich.; Ann Wagner, R-Mo.; Frank Lucas, R-Okla.; David Kustoff, R-Tenn.; Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga.; John Rose, R-Tenn.; and Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo.

The letter asked that the Federal Reserve and FDIC lower the Community Bank Leverage Ratio from 9 percent to 8 percent, a move that would qualify about 400 banks for special exemption from scrutiny over the level of risk taken on by a bank. The lower leverage ratio, the lawmakers argued, would “support credit in thousands more communities across the country.”

Ordinarily, a complete revision of federal regulation would require months of deliberation, an open comment period, and an agency justification backed by evidence. But the Covid-19 emergency short circuited the process, and within weeks, the leverage ratio was lowered.

The demands in the congressional letter were slipped into the CARES Act, the $2.2 trillion bailout legislation.The legislation waived a number of regulations on banks, from accounting standards to loan limits, and temporarily lowered the Community Bank Leverage Ratio to 8 percent through the duration of the public health crisis.

Banks must maintain a certain risk-based capital requirement, meaning banks with riskier assets must have higher levels of capital to contain potential losses. Bank stability is also measured by a leverage ratio, which is simply the percentage of capital held of total bank assets.

Lowering the Community Bank Leverage Ratio means hundreds of banks can hold onto less capital while avoiding standards that restrict the types of risk they take on.

“The industry and regulators love to use jargon and impenetrable language but the leverage ratio is nothing but a capital buffer that a bank has to have to absorb losses itself so it won’t have to be bailed out by taxpayers,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of the financial reform group Better Markets.

“It would really turn logic on its head to now say the banks should not have to comply with those other rules and they should get a lower leverage ratio,” added Kelleher.

“The whole idea of lowering capital requirements to respond to a pandemic is wrong,” said Jeremy Kress, an assistant law professor at the University of Michigan School of Business.

Kress noted that while public attention was focused largely on “too big to fail” mega-banks, hundreds of community banks failed during the crisis that started with the 2008 financial collapse.

The failure of small banks during the last crisis also created a cascading effect of economic damage, as small businesses and entrepreneurs around the country were cut off from credit, driving one of the slowest economic recoveries in U.S. history, Kress argues.

If the current pandemic leads to a wave of defaults, more community bank failures could be on the horizon. The deregulatory push to reduce capital requirements could hasten the level of bank failures, said Kress, exacerbating the current economic crisis.

“When we see a bunch of small institutions failing simultaneously,” said Kress, “that leaves a lot of communities and small businesses and individuals without needed access to credit.”

“The efforts that we are seeing today to weaken the Community Bank Leverage Ratio is only going to make the community banking sector more fragile and increase the likelihood of another collapse of small banks,” he added.

The leeway for regulators to exempt the community banks from risk-related assessments came from special authority granted by the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, a law passed in 2018, the largest bank deregulation measure ushered in by Trump.

The measure removed proprietary trading restrictions from banks with $10 billion or less in assets imposed by the so-called Volcker Rule following the 2008 crisis. It also instituted the Community Bank Leverage Ratio rule, allowing small banks to skirt regulatory standards known as Basel III capital rules if they maintain a leverage ratio between 8 and 10 percent. The FDIC set the rate at 9 percent following the law.

The Congressional Budget Office, the independent body that analyzes legislation, suggested at the time that the deregulatory push would threaten the stability of community banks, which would likely use the exemption to chase higher returns by taking on more volatile loans and securities. The CBO noted that even a Community Bank Leverage Ratio of 9 percent could raise FDIC costs by increasing the probability of bank failures and FDIC bailouts.

After winning passage of the 2018 law, the industry went to work lowering the Community Bank Leverage Ratio well before the pandemic. Over the last year, representatives from the Mortgage Bankers Associations and the Independent Community Bankers Association, have pressed for the 8 percent standard, a push that was renewed in recent months, lobbying disclosures show.

Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, a former FDIC official under President George W. Bush, was one of the lawmakers pushing to loosen the standard.

In a separate letter to bank regulators, Arrington asked for “ample time” for community banks to comply with the new 8 percent Community Bank Leverage Ratio and for the change to be made permanent. “Furthermore,” the congressman wrote, “in order to maintain long-term economic growth, the CBLR should be maintained at the minimum eight percent threshold, allowed by P.L. 115-174, beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The Texas lawmaker dismissed concerns that reducing regulations could raise the risk of bank failures.

“Relaxing regulations in a reasonable way including lowering reserve requirements by 1% for community banks during the immediate crisis as well as our longer term economic recovery will provide greater access to much-needed capital for small businesses, which, in turn, will help keep people employed and strengthen our overall recovery efforts,” said Arrington in a statement to The Intercept.

“Lenders of all sizes will certainly have an increase in risk to their loan portfolios; however, banks have an incentive to operate responsibly in order to stay solvent and community banks who operate on a thinner margin need some targeted relief to continue serving rural communities like mine,” the lawmaker added.

Bank industry advocates have long argued that capital requirements have curbed lending. But banking industry watchdogs have pointed out that a growing body of empirical research shows the exact opposite and that well-capitalized banks make more loans and more high-quality loans.

Research from the Bank for International Settlements found that “higher bank capital is associated with greater lending.” Morris Goldstein, a former fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, in a review of economic literature, similarly found that “better capitalized banks lend more, not less, than weakly capitalized ones.”

Still, community banks have won a series of deregulatory measures in part by leveraging their relative popularity in contrast to the big banks. Despite the economic risks of lifting bank rules, small banks have been at the tip of the spear in weakening financial safeguards.

“Everybody loves community banks, right?” said Kress. “They’re the most sympathetic industry in Congress because every member has a community bank in their district. They do a lot of residential and small business lending, they sponsor your kids’ kickball team, they seem far removed from the financial engineering of Wall Street.” “Community banks, motherhood, and apple pie,” chuckled Kelleher.

The lofty reputation held by community banks, however, has concealed the danger they pose to the economic system.

“The bank industry pushes in a lot of different ways,” Kelleher noted. “They do it directly against the regulators, they do it indirectly through their legislative allies. It’s really pretty sad how many are using the pandemic as nothing but a pretext for their deregulation agenda that they’ve been asking for for years.

”

===

OMG more evil?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/holy-crap-this-is-insane-citing-coronavirus-pandemic-epa-indefinitely-suspends-environmental-rules/

no lnx

‘Holy crap this is insane’: Citing coronavirus pandemic, EPA indefinitely suspends environmental rules

Royalty-free stock photo ID: 1417570841 Washington, DC/USA - June 3, 2019: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler speaks at the National Press Club.]

Written by Common Dreams March 28, 2020

4/12/20 grab

[map is interactive: Click the markers for information on a climate+coronavirus policy change or proposal.]

We've been covering how the fossil fuel industry and its allies in the Trump administration have wasted no time in leveraging the COVID-19 pandemic to increase the federal government's financial favors to oil and gas. The administration is also moving fast to stall or roll back regulations that the industry finds onerous, and push forward with controversial policies that, in some cases, benefit the petroleum sector.

We're documenting and mapping these fossil fuel-friendly changes here, on the Drilled News Climate & COVID-19 Policy Tracker, along with other moves by both federal and state governments, as well as internationally, that affect energy and climate-related policies and industries.

These changes are especially worrying right now, because they're happening even as climate scientists say that for all nations to have a chance of averting catastrophic climate change, industrial nations must slash their carbon pollution within roughly a decade.

If you have a tip, please send it to steal our work, with appropriate linkage and credit, or hit us up if you want a spreadsheet or map data. Our work is already being shared by

EPA Moves to Finalize “Secret Science” Rule

The EPA has forged ahead with finalizing new rules that will upend how the agency uses science to inform important anti-pollution regulations. Since first announced in 2018, scientists, public health groups, and environmentalists have steadily denounced this Trump administration effort as a ruse to sever environmental regulations from key scientific findings, notably 1993's landmark "Six Cities" study proving that tiny particle pollution (PM2.5) severely harms human health; it's created primarily by burning fossil fuels, The rule changes will also give regulated industries unprecedented power in shaping the agency’s use of science by “allow[ing] stakeholders to reanalyze the data and models and explore the sensitivity of the conclusions to alternative assumptions.”

Status: Public comment period ends May 18, 2020.

Note: On April 7, a team of Harvard public health researchers released data showing that death rates from COVID-19 have been 15% higher in areas with high levels of tiny particulate pollution.

Bureau of Land Management Releases Final Plan to Open 1.7 Million Acres of Colorado Public Lands to Fossil Fuel Extraction

The BLM largely ignored 42,000 public comments in opposition to the Uncompahgre Approved Resource Management plan. The Colorado state government and various environmental groups opposed the plan as inconsistent with state climate and land planning laws. “The Uncompahgre land-management plan gives the initial green light to widespread, long-term oil and gas development in the ecologically sensitive North Fork Valley," Melissa Hornbein, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center, said in a statement, and "has the potential to exponentially increase greenhouse gas pollution in the region over the next decade, when we need to be drastically reducing emissions.”

Status: Finalized April 10, 2020

Republican Senators Request Loans for Coal

A group of 17 Republican senators signed onto a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, asking that he not exclude fossil fuel companies from the $454 billion corporate loan program created under the CARES Act. The bond-purchasing part of that program is being administered by Black Rock, a global investment management corporation, which earlier this year announced it would remove fossil fuel investments from its discretionary active investment portfolios. Environmental groups have urged Black Rock to weigh climate risk when administering this program as well. Senators backing the coal bailout say that “BlackRock must act without regard to this or other investment policies BlackRock has adopted for its own funds.”

Status: Letter sent April 7, 2020.

proposal to Change Rule on Nuclear Waste DisposalA proposal from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would allow for the disposal of some nuclear waste in municipal landfills, rather than a licensed nuclear waste facility. Status: Proposed rule change published March 6, 2020; public comment period closes April 20, 2020.

Proposal to Change Rule on Nuclear Waste Disposal

A proposal from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would allow for the disposal of some nuclear waste in municipal landfills, rather than a licensed nuclear waste facility.

Status: Proposed rule change published March 6, 2020; public comment period closes April 20, 2020.

Trump Replaces Independent Watchdog Overseeing Coronavirus Stimulus Funds

Citing vague “reports of bias,” President Trump abruptly fired Glenn Fine, the Pentagon's acting inspector general, from his role leading oversight of how $2 trillion in pandemic stimulus funds get spent. Fine has been with the Pentagon since 2015 and is known as a tough federal watchdog. Trump has appointed Sean O’Donnell, the EPA's inspector general, as Fine's replacement, a move that could shift some of O'Donnell attention away from the EPA, where he has been fairly critical of Trump's second agency chief, Andrew Wheeler. But The New York Times points out that, given his scrutiny of Administrator Wheeler, “it is not a given that Mr. O’Donnell will toe the line at the Pentagon.”

Status: Effective April 7, 2020.

FERC Fast-Tracks Requests for Regulatory Relief

With a stated goal of ensuring the "reliability of the nation's energy infrastructure" during the COVID-19 emergency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has shortened the review period for requests and petitions to waive some regulations or extend deadlines for meeting them. FERC regulates the nation's electricity and natural gas suppliers, as well as oil pipelines.

Status: Effective April 7, 2020.

Trump Floats Idea of Tariffs on Foreign Oil to Boost U.S. Oil Prices

Following a meeting with oil executives on April 3, the president said he would not impose tariffs on foreign oil as a way to mitigate the impact of the Russia-Saudi oil price war on U.S. companies. But within 48 hours, at a COVID-19 pandemic press briefing, the president mentioned imposing such tariffs. “I would use tariffs, if I had to,” Trump said, adding that since he believed Russia and Saudi Arabia would soon agree to lower production levels (a move that would likely stabilize and increase global oil prices), he probably wouldn't have to.

Status: President Trump made his comments on April 5, 2020, but has not announced any new tariffs.

Application to Extend Authorization to Export Liquefied Natural Gas to Non-free Trade Agreement Countries — The firm Energy Transfer has asked the Department of Energy to extend its authorization to proceed with the construction of a large liquified natural gas export terminal in St. Charles, La, even though Shell exited the project in late March, citing low oil prices and the COVID-19 pandemic. The current authorization will expire in 2023 if the facility is not operating; an extension would buy the company two more years to finish construction and begin exporting LNG.

Status: Application filed April 3, 2020.

California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington Fuel Breaks Project - Department of Interior/Bureau of Land Management Fuel Breaks Project

DOI approved a $275 million BLM plan to construct and maintain a system of up to 11,000 miles of strategically placed firebreaks — strips of land with trees, deadwood, and undergrowth removed, which can slow or stop spreading wildfires — across 223 million-acres of federal public lands in California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington. Critics say it's an expensive end-run around environmental regulations aimed at protecting native vegetation and vulnerable species such as the Greater sage-grouse.

Status: Finalized April 1, 2020.

Protections Removed for the Sage Grouse

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied Endangered Species Act protection for the Bi-state greater sage grouse, a distinct sub-species of sage grouse that roams western Nevada and eastern California, stating that voluntary conservation efforts by energy and ranching operations have been enough to protect populations of the bird. The sage grouse population across multiple states has continued to decline under voluntary conservation efforts.

Status: Finalized March 31, 2020.

Rollback of Fuel Efficiency Standards

Weakens the Obama administration's signature climate achievement: An agreement with automakers to raise fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks (known as CAFE, or Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standards) to 55 mpg by 2025, significantly lowering greenhouse gas and other air pollution. The Trump administration has changed that mandate to about 40 mpg by 2026.

Status: Rollback finalized March 30, 2020.

Request for Oil and Gas Royalty Relief

Senate Republicans have asked Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to offer royalty relief and automatic lease extensions for oil and gas operations on public lands. Oil and gas royalties for drilling offshore brought in $3.8 billion to the U.S. Treasury in 2019. Critics argue that the royalty rate for onshore drilling should have been increased long ago: It was set at 12.5% in 1920 and has remained there ever since.

Status: Letter sent March 30, 2020.

EPA Temporary Waiver on Summer Low-Volatility Gas Requirements

"EPA intends to provide additional flexibility to the marketplace to transition from winter-grade, high volatility gasoline to summer-grade low vapor pressure gasoline. Due to the steep fall-off in gasoline demand as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, gasoline storage capacity is limited and more time is needed to transition the distribution system in order to come into compliance for the summer driving season. EPA will temporarily waive the summer low volatility requirements and blending limitations for gasoline." Winter-blend gasoline emits more volatile organic compounds, which are precursors of smog, when used in warmer weather.

Status: Effective March 27, 2020.

Request to Establish a Strategic Reserve for Uranium

The National Uranium Miners Association has asked the Trump Administration to establish a strategic reserve for uranium, and purchase strategic stockpiles of critical minerals to fill it, arguing the moves are critical to saving jobs as mines have closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Status: Letter sent March 27, 2020.

Temporary EPA Compliance Enforcement Discretion

"The EPA does not expect to seek penalties for violations of routine compliance monitoring, integrity testing, sampling, laboratory analysis, training, and reporting or certification obligations in situations where the EPA agrees that COVID-19 was the cause of the noncompliance and the entity provides supporting documentation to the EPA upon request."

Status: Effective March 26, 2020.

Regulatory Relief from the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)

Provides immediate regulatory relief and fee exceptions for a wide range of chemical manufacturers, including petrochemical manufacturers. TSCA is the main federal law regarding the safety of chemicals used in commerce.

Status: Effective March 25, 2020.

No Extension of Public Comment Period on Moneta Divide Oil and Gas Project

On Feb. 21, the Bureau of Land Management published its final environmental report for this massive energy leasing project, automatically triggering a 30-day public comment period. The agency subsequently denied requests from Indigenous and environmental groups to suspend the comment period for the duration of the COVID-19 emergency. BLM’s preferred plan for Moneta Divide would allow two energy companies to build 4,250 new natural gas fracking wells across 327,000 acres (510 square miles) of mostly public lands in central Wyoming, with a projected influx of about 700 outside workers to a rural area with limited medical resources. The lease area is near the Wind River Indian Reservation, home to the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes, which both declared states of emergency in mid-March and closed nearly all tribal offices.

Status: Finalization pending. Public comment period closed March 23.

Request for "Critical Infrastructure" Designation and Compliance Waivers

In a letter to President Trump, the American Petroleum Institute has requested a "critical infrastructure" designation for every piece of the fossil fuel supply chain, and a waiver of what it called "non-essential compliance obligations."

Status: Compliance waiver granted, no decision on critical infrastructure designation announced. Letter sent March 20, 2020.

Request for Regulatory Relief and Reduced Fees for the Coal Industry

Citing the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Mining Association has requested a reduction in the Black Lung Excise Tax, the elimination or reduction in royalty payments for coal mined on federal public lands, a reduction in fees collected for the Abandoned Mine Land Fund, and an increase in the availability of credit to the industry.

Status: Letter sent March 18, 2020.

State, Regional, and Local Governments

California

Request to Delay All Air Resources Board Rulemaking to 2021Assemblyman Jim Frazier (D - 11th District) has asked the Californiia Air Resources Board to delay voting or meeting on all proposed regulations until 2021.

Status: Letter sent March 27, 2020.

Request for Delay in At-Berth Emissions Regulations at PortsThe California Association of Port Authorities has asked the state's Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the California Air Resources Board, to delay implementation of new rules meant to reduce dockside air pollution at state ports.

Status: Letter sent March 24, 2020.

Request to Delay Electrification of Big RigsThe Truck & Engine Manufacturers Association has asked the California Air Resources Board to delay or or modify a plan that requires 50% of all new medium-to-heavy truck sales, and 15% of all other new truck sales, to be zero-emission vehicles by 2030.

Status: Letter sent March 23, 2020.

Colorado

Temporary Restraining Order Against the City's Emergency Decree to Pause Fracking Flowback During Shelter-in-Place

"Flowback" is when fracking fluids flow back up the well bore after a well is fracked. Air pollution is particularly likely during flowback and can include toxics like benzene, a carcinogen. Because of their proximity to oil and gas operations, residents of Broomfield, Colorado were at risk of exposure to flowback-driven air pollution during shelter-in-place orders, so the city issued an emergency decree for local operations to cease fracking flowback during the pandemic. Extraction oil sued for a temporary restraining order to block the city's decree. It's the first test of Colorado's 2019 law prioritizing public health and safety over oil and gas production, which allows local governments to set safeguards that are more stringent than state regulations.

Status: Restraining order denied, but Broomfield dropped health order April 8, 2020

Note: Full story coming soon in the Drilled podcast.

Kentucky

New Law Protecting Key Infrastructure This new Kentucky law designates “natural gas or petroleum pipelines” as “key infrastructure assets” and makes it a felony crime to cause more than $1,000 in damages to pipelines “in a manner that renders the operations harmful or dangerous.”

Status: Enacted March 16, 2020.

Louisiana

Offshore Drillers Request Royalty Cuts

Citing the combination of the Russia-Saudi price war and pandemic-driven drops in demand, Gulf coast offshore drilling firms represented by the Houma, Louisiana-based South Central Industrial Association have asked President Trump and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt for a reduction in royalties paid to the federal government. SCIA termed the confluence of COVID-19 and the OPEC spat an “existential threat to America’s ability to continue to produce energy in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond," reported Houma Today.

Status: Letter sent March 27, 2020.

Regulatory Relief for Oil and Gas

The Louisiana Oil and Gas Association asked the state regulator to lift plugging requirements for idle wells, fast-track permits for new wells, extend financial requirements for inactive wells, and extend and defer testing that ensures oil and gas operations are not contaminating water sources.

Status: Request granted March 26, 2020.

Massachusetts

Designation of Natural Gas Construction Projects as "Essential"

Gov. Charlie Baker has extended the definition of "essential construction" under the state's COVID-19 stay-at-home order to encompass various oil and gas projects, including the Weymouth natural gas compressor, which has no clear customers.

Status: Order issued March 23, 2020.

Michigan

Enbridge Requests Permit for Line 5 Tunnel A controversial project to update Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, which runs along the Straits of Mackinac—a narrow waterway that connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron—moved one step closer to completion with this filing. If the permit is approved, the Canadian oil pipeline company could begin construction on its Great Lakes Tunnel Project in 2021, with a target operational date of 2024. The tunnel would house Enbridge’s new Line 5 oil pipeline and replace a 67-year-old pipeline that transports up to 540,000 barrels a day of natural gas and crude oil. The project has been criticized by environmental groups, indigenous rights groups, and Michigan’s own governor, and is currently the subject of a court case, but the judge in that case ruled last year that construction could continue while the case is in progress.

Status: Pending. Permit application submitted April 8, 2020.

Minnesota

Permitting Process for Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline Moves Forward

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has continued to advance the permitting process for Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline replacement project. The agency extended the public comment period on the project by just a week, and moved in-person town halls to tele-townhalls, which activists said were stacked with pipeline supporters. The proposed replacement pipeline would have a capacity of 760,000 barrels a day, double the old pipeline's capacity; meanwhile, tar sands oil has hit a record low of less than $5 a barrel. Status: Pending. Public comment period closes April 10, 2020.

Polluters Can Ask for Waivers of Environmental Regulations

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has instituted a “flexibility” policy on enforcement of environmental regulations: Companies can request compliance waivers and delays, which are approved or rejected on a case-by-case basis. Of 227 requests made so far, only three have been rejected. The agency has also paused rule-making on its CleanCars initiative to regulate vehicle emissions until after shelter-in-place orders are lifted.

Status: Effective March 2020.

Missouri

Consumer Advocate Requests Suspension of Utility Energy Efficiency Programs Missouri’s Office of the Public Counsel requested that state regulators suspend utility energy efficiency programs in order to reduce ratepayers’ bills during the COVID-19 crisis. Executive Director James Owen of Renew Missouri, a clean energy advocacy group, told Energy News Network he believes the Office of the Public Counsel l”is trying to use this coronavirus issue to undo MEEIA [Missouri Energy Efficiency Investment Act statute],or to weaken it.”

Status: Pending. Request filed March 2020.

Montana

Governor Exempts Keystone XL From Statewide Stay-at-Home Directive

Deeming the Keystone XL pipeline “essential,” Montana Gov. (and Democratic candidate for Senate) Steve Bullock gave Canadian firm TC Energy the green light to bring in hundreds of out-of-state workers, in order to begin construction in April. Two counties on the pipeline's route are so far the least-affected in the nation by COVID-19. So county officials have mandated that out-of-state pipeline workers be quarantined for 14 days upon their arrival. But that quarantine does not prohibit them from working, so construction has begun and looks to continue unabated.

Status: Effective March 26, 2020.

Pennsylvania

Exemption for Mariner East PipelineTexas-based Energy LP asked the Penn. Department of Community and Economic Development for a waiver from Gov. Tom Wolf's emergency coronavirus shutdown, which would enable the company to continue construction on the controversial Mariner East pipeline, across 17 locations in Pennsylvania.

Status: Waiver granted March 25, 2020.

South Dakota

Expansion of "Incitement to Riot" Law Expands the definition of incitement to riot to include “intentional use of force or violence by three or more persons” that causes “any damage to property.” The law's provisions could chill anti-pipeline protests.

Status: Enacted March 23, 2020.

New Law to Designate and Protect Critical InfrastructureThe state's new “critical infrastructure” law extends the designation to all oil, gas, and utility equipment, and defines the crime of “substantial interruption or impairment” of such facilities as a felony.

Status: Enacted March 18, 2020.

Texas

Waiver of Regulatory Requirements

Oil and gas operators in the state may apply for a waiver of regulatory requirements on a case-by-case basis. Environmental groups have already documented an increase in methane emissions in the state's shale oil fields.

Status: Waiver granted March 24, 2020.

West Virginia

Critical Infrastructure Protection Act Expands definition of "critical infrastructure" to include a wide range of oil and gas production and distribution assets, including pipelines. Slaps fines as high as $20,000 on anyone found guilty of causing “damage, destruction, vandalization, defacing, or tampering” that totals $2,500 or more in damages.

Status: Enacted March 27, 2020.

International

Canada

New Law Lets Industry off the Hook for Cleaning Up Old Wells

A month after Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced a $100 million investment in the Orphan Well Association, the provincial legislature passed a law that has effectively turned the organization into a way for industry to offload its obligations to reclaim and remediate abandoned well sites. Known as Bill 12, the "Liabilities Management Statutes Amendment Act 2020" broadens the list of activities companies can carry out on private property without consent from or compensation for landowners. It also gives politicians, rather than scientists or industry experts, control over how the orphan well funds are spent. Further, it allows the OWA to take over the assets of bankrupt companies, continue operating their wells, and conduct clean-up free without consulting landowners. The new law “lacks any conditions that uphold Canada’s Polluter Pays Principle, ensuring industry pays for cleanup, property taxes and landowner compensation,” according to a statement from the Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project.

Status: Enacted April 2, 2020.

Alberta Puts $5.3 Billion Into Keystone XL Pipeline ProjectThe provincial government has granted firm TC Energy a $1.1 billion loan and $4.2 billion in government funding for the Keystone XL pipeline, a controversial infrastructure project aimed at transporting tar sands oil to coastal shipping ports. Alberta's support comes at a time when tar sands oil has hit record lows of less than $5 a barrel, making the pipeline's economic justifications questionable. While the Obama administration denied the project a permit to build in the U.S., the Trump administration is trying to advance it.

Status: Funding announced March 31, 2020.

Energy Regulator Waives Fees, Extends Mineral Agreements

The Alberta Energy Regulator oversees permitting, operations, and environmental compliance of the provinces’s fossil fuel and mineral extraction operations, collecting administrative fees from industry to fund its operations. But citing the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency has stopped collecting those fees for six months; the loss will total around $113 million. AER also announced that it will automatically extend mineral agreements that were set to expire at the end of 2020. The agency regulates, among other things, more than 181,000 wells, over 258,000 miles of pipeline, 8 tar sands mines and 8 coal mines, according to its website.

Status: Effective March 21, 2020.

Alberta Waives Environmental Regulations

Citing the COVID-19 pandemic, the Alberta provincial government has suspended some reporting requirements under three laws: the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, the Water Act, and the Public Lands Act, claiming that for industry “there is hardship in having to comply with routine reporting requirements.” That hardship does not extend to continuing construction, which the provincial government has not only allowed, but has helped to fund.

Status: Waivers effective March 17, 2020.

===

520

almost half of Americans are living in places with unhealthy air? That’s the conclusion of the latest report from the American Lung Association, which also lays out the public health implications of the Trump administration’s environmental rollback

===

https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/05/01/epa-wheeler-fossil-fuels-clean-power-plan-senators-court

no lnx many

EPA Has Been Captured by Fossil Fuel Interests, Democratic Senators Tell Court

By Dana Drugmand • Friday, May 1, 2020 - 14:40

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump administration is run by fossil fuel allies determined to do polluters’ bidding, U.S. senators are telling the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. The group of Democratic senators calls out this extensive fossil fuel industry influence in a recent friend-of-the-court brief filed in a lawsuit challenging the Trump EPA’s replacement of the Clean Power Plan meant to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.

Trump’s EPA replaced the Obama-era Clean Power Plan with what it calls the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, which requires only minimal emissions reductions by individual power plants rather than a systemic approach to cleaning up climate pollution from the power sector. The American Lung Association, which recently reported nearly half of Americans are breathing unhealthy air, is leading the legal challenge to the rule, with support from a coalition of states and cities, environmental and public health organizations, and over 70 Democratic members of Congress.

Five Democratic senators — Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York — submitted a legal brief that specifically points to the fossil fuel industry’s role in infiltrating the EPA and dictating the agency’s policymaking. The senators describe top EPA officials’ ties to the industry it is tasked with regulating and explain how fossil fuel interests have captured the agency. Within this context, the senators argue that no court could possibly conclude that EPA is engaged in reasoned, unbiased decision-making.

“With former fossil-fuel industry lobbyists and lawyers at the helm, EPA has decided to do nothing about [greenhouse gas] emissions,” the senators write. “The ACE Rule is not the product of reasoned decision-making by EPA that in any serious way grapples with the evidence of harms from climate change.”

Fossil Fuel Ties at EPA

The senators’ brief points out how former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, former top EPA official Bill Wehrum, and current EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler are all closely connected to the fossil fuel industry.

Before he was head of the EPA (Feb. 2017 — July 2018), Pruitt was the attorney general for Oklahoma, a state heavily dependent on the oil and gas industry. “Pruitt’s political career was largely underwritten by the fossil-fuel industry,” the senators’ brief notes — the fossil fuel sector poured over $1.25 million in donations to his political campaigns.

As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt took up fossil fuel companies’ campaigns against environmental regulations and sued the EPA, the agency he would later lead, 14 times, which included suing to stop the Clean Power Plan. In nearly all of these lawsuits there was at least one industry co-litigator that contributed to Pruitt’s campaign or political action committee (PAC).

In addition to suing EPA, Pruitt sent barely edited form letters to federal regulators that came to him directly from oil and gas lobbyists. The senators’ brief mentions one example where a lobbyist from Devon Energy drafted a letter saying EPA was overestimating air pollution caused by natural gas drilling and sent it to Pruitt, who then copy and pasted it verbatim onto official letterhead and sent it to Washington.

Before coming to EPA, Pruitt also served as chair of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA). Fossil fuel interests contributed more than $5 million to RAGA’s political arm during the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, the senators’ brief notes. And as DeSmog previously reported, Republican attorneys general fighting the Clean Power Plan (including Pruitt) took in over $2.4 million from polluting interests in those election cycles. Republican attorneys general even met privately with fossil fuel companies like Murray Energy and Southern Company at a 2015 RAGA summit, just one week before 27 Republican attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Clean Power Plan.

The process of repealing and replacing the Clean Power Plan began under Pruitt’s leadership at EPA, and continued with his successor Andrew Wheeler. Wheeler was a top lobbyist for dirty energy interests, including coal company Murray Energy. In lobbying for Murray, Wheeler earned nearly $3 million for his lobbying firm. Repealing the Clean Power Plan was at the top of Murray CEO Bob Murray’s wish list that he circulated among the new Trump administration.

Another chief architect of the Clean Power Plan replacement was Bill Wehrum, former head of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. He resigned in June 2019 amid a congressional investigation into his contact with former industry clients. Prior to assuming his EPA position, Wehrum was an attorney representing fossil fuel companies and trade groups. His clients included big names like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Duke Energy, Dominion Resources, and Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG). “Wehrum met with UARG and several electric utilities to discuss replacing the [Clean Power Plan] just weeks after he assumed his duties as Assistant Administrator,” the senators’ brief points out.

Furthermore, the brief notes that Pruitt, Wheeler, and Wehrum have all questioned the well-accepted influence of human activity on climate, a view that aligns with the interests of the fossil fuel industry.

'Rampant cronyism, conflicts of interest, and corruption'?

The senators argue that the ACE rule is “arbitrary and capricious” as EPA “rejected well-established scientific and economic research” and “instead embraced self-serving proposals from the fossil fuel industry that will not significantly reduce emissions.” EPA’s obligation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions stems from a 2007 Supreme Court ruling and subsequent 2009 “endangerment finding” where the agency itself concluded (based on thorough scientific input) that these greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare.

The ACE rule likely illegally ignores this endangerment finding. “Given its 2009 endangerment finding, the agency needs to explain how a rule that results in essentially zero [greenhouse gas] emission reductions comports with the direction given to it by Congress,” the senators write.

They also argue that EPA is essentially “captured” or run by fossil fuel interests, meaning the agency has “effectively delegated its authority to the fossil fuel industry.”

EPA declined to comment. “EPA does not comment on pending litigation,” an agency spokesperson said.

The senators conclude by questioning EPA’s ability to make unbiased decisions when polluting interests are involved: “The record of this case, and of other regulatory matters of which this Court may take notice, indeed raise the question whether this EPA is even capable of fair decision-making in matters involving the interests of the fossil fuel industry, or whether rampant cronyism, conflicts of interest, and corruption leave EPA under present leadership unable to conform itself to the strictures of [federal administrative law].”

===

omfg smithfield so dak covid hotspot?!

https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-removing-safeguards-on-food-2645756313.html

by t Corbo

As the world focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating impact on public health, the Trump Administration has been busy behind the scenes doubling down on its campaign to deregulate Big Ag. At the same time, it is not providing safeguards to food production workers and government inspectors who are being made to work on the frontlines without frontline employee protections.

The USDA Is Playing Fast and Loose With Meat Inspection Lines During the Coronavirus Outbreak

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is deregulating inspection in some of the largest pork processing facilities by reducing the number of inspectors assigned to the slaughter line. They turn over critical inspection tasks to untrained company employees, and remove the cap on how fast the line can run. FSIS anticipates that 40 hog slaughter facilities will convert to this method, which is being called the New Swine Inspection System (NSIS). Those 40 facilities process over 92% of all pork in the U.S. Some of the big names in pork processing are pushing for this, such as JBS, Tyson, Smithfield, Clemens, and Quality Pork Processors. In one plant that has been experimenting with the new system, FSIS inspectors have 2.6 seconds to determine whether the company employees have performed their tasks properly.As a consequence, it is not uncommon for hog carcasses to be contaminated with feces, hair, toe nails, and bile to be greenlit for processing into bacon, pork chops, hot dogs, sausage, and other pork products.

Three lawsuits to challenge NSIS have been filed by unions representing the plant workers, animal welfare groups, and food safety advocates, including Food & Water Watch and the Center for Food Safety. FSIS hid critical information from the public when it first proposed the frighteningly minimal system. Food & Water Watch was forced to file separate litigation to obtain crucial, undisclosed information which revealed that NSIS would lead to more contaminated pork entering commerce and could lead to an animal disease — to ravage hog herds and/or be transmitted to humans. Plants that wanted to convert to NSIS had until March 30, 2020 to state their intentions. FSIS still refuses to disclose the names of those plants, leaving consumers in the dark.

Meat Companies Are Being Given Almost Full Control Over Their Own Inspection Standards

While it is struggling to keep poultry plants properly staffed with inspectors during the pandemic, FSIS has stepped up its approvals of regulatory waivers to chicken slaughter plants that want to increase their maximum line speeds from 140 birds per minute to 175 birds per minute. In the first two weeks of April, FSIS approved 11 such waivers for plants operated by Foster Farms, Tyson Foods (4 plants), and Wayne Farms (6 plants). These plants have all converted to the so-called New Poultry Inspection System (NPIS) in which the number of government inspectors assigned to the slaughter line is reduced and many of their tasks are turned over to company employees. Under traditional inspection, each FSIS inspector is assigned 35 birds per minute to inspect. Under NPIS, there is only one FSIS inspector stationed at the end of the slaughter line. When a plant is granted a line speed waiver, that sole FSIS inspector is expected to examine 3 birds every second — or 175 birds per minute. The waiver process that FSIS uses is done in secret; it is not open to public scrutiny until the FSIS reveals that it has granted the waiver. Since taking office, the Trump USDA has approved 28 new waivers under this process, mostly to the big players in the poultry industry.

Inviting everyone to the new game, FSIS is recruiting cattle slaughter plants to deregulate inspection, too. In late March, FSIS approved a waiver through its secret process for a Tyson beef plant in Holcomb, Kansas that slaughters up to 6000 head of cattle per day. The waiver is designed to reduce the number of government inspectors assigned to its slaughter line, increasing its line speed. FSIS has not revealed how fast the line will run with this waiver or how many fewer government inspectors will be on the slaughter line, but we know it won't result in safety for consumers.

Meat Inspection Deregulation Threatens Food Safety

All of these deregulatory moves are designed to increase production; they are not being done to improve food safety. They will contribute to expanding the industrial agriculture model by promoting the growth of factory farms. It's even more disconcerting that it is occurring in the middle of a national crisis.

As the Trump Administration has stepped on the accelerator to deregulate in recent weeks, there are numerous examples around the country of meat and poultry plants being impacted by the spread of the COVID-19 virus. While the news has been focused on urban areas racked by the pandemic, hot spots have also emerged in rural communities in Colorado, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska where meatpacking plant workers have contracted the virus while being forced to work, forcing some plants to curtail or cease operations temporarily.

In those instances where meatpackers have insisted on continuing with business-as-usual even when their employees have gotten sick, it has pitted public health officials against company officials and even USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue.

Plant workers and even government inspectors who work at these plants have not been given adequate personal protective equipment. It is virtually impossible to practice social distancing in these plants because plant workers and government inspectors work side-by-side in slaughter and processing facilities. When workers protested these conditions, Vice President Mike Pence had the audacity to urge the workers to continue "to show up and do [their] jobs."

Urge Officials to Take Action Against Increased Line Speeds

Increased line speeds only create more opportunities for contamination and sickness. It's unnecessary and it's putting our health at risk.

Tell Congress to stop allowing USDA food safety waivers. This is no time to gamble with Americans' health.

Trump's Plan to Privatize Pork Inspections Called 'a Recipe for ... ›

Trump administration allows pork slaughterhouses to have fewer ... ›

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4/20 omfg sparked by blk lung and

https://www.drillednews.com/post/the-climate-covid-19-policy-tracker

4/12/20 grab

[map is interactive: Click the markers for information on a climate+coronavirus policy change or proposal.]

We've been covering how the fossil fuel industry and its allies in the Trump administration have wasted no time _{in leveraging the COVID-19 pandemic}_ to increase the federal government's financial favors to oil and gas. The administration is also moving fast to stall or roll back regulations that the industry finds onerous, and push forward with controversial policies that, in some cases, benefit the petroleum sector.

If you have a tip, please send it to steal our work, with appropriate linkage and credit, or _{hit us up}_if you want a spreadsheet or map data. Our work is already being shared by

*:{ :(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:*

*:{:{_{EPA }_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}::(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:*:{_{Moves to Finalize “Secret Science” Rule}_}:The EPA has forged ahead with finalizing new rules that will upend how the agency uses science to inform important anti-pollution regulations. Since first announced in 2018, scientists, public health groups, and environmentalists have steadily denounced this Trump administration effort as a ruse to sever environmental regulations from key scientific findings, notably 1993's landmark "Six Cities" study proving that tiny particle pollution (PM2.5) severely harms human health; it's created primarily by burning fossil fuels, The rule changes will also give regulated industries unprecedented power in shaping the agency’s use of science by “allow[ing] stakeholders to reanalyze the data and models and explore the sensitivity of the conclusions to alternative assumptions.” Status: Public comment period ends May 18, 2020. Note: On April 7, a team of Harvard public health researchers _{:{released data showing that}:}_ death rates from COVID-19 have been 15% higher in areas with high levels of tiny particulate pollution.
_{:{Bureau of Land Management Releases Final Plan to Open 1.7 Million Acres of Colorado Public Lands to Fossil Fuel Extraction:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_The BLM largely ignored 42,000 public comments in opposition to the Uncompahgre Approved Resource Management plan. The Colorado state government and various environmental groups opposed the plan as inconsistent with state climate and land planning laws. “The Uncompahgre land-management plan gives the initial green light to widespread, long-term oil and gas development in the ecologically sensitive North Fork Valley," Melissa Hornbein, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center, said in a statement, and "has the potential to exponentially increase greenhouse gas pollution in the region over the next decade, when we need to be drastically reducing emissions.”Status: Finalized April 10, 2020
_{:{Republican Senators Request Loans for Coal:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_ A group of 17 Republican senators signed onto a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, asking that he not exclude fossil fuel companies from the $454 billion corporate loan program created under the CARES Act. The bond-purchasing part of that program is being administered by Black Rock, a global investment management corporation, which earlier this year announced it would remove fossil fuel investments from its discretionary active investment portfolios. Environmental groups have urged Black Rock to weigh climate risk when administering this program as well. Senators backing the coal bailout say that “BlackRock must act without regard to this or other investment policies BlackRock has adopted for its own funds.” Status: Letter sent April 7, 2020.
:{_{Proposal to Change Rule on Nuclear Waste Disposal }_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:A proposal from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would allow for the disposal of some nuclear waste in municipal landfills, rather than a licensed nuclear waste facility. Status: Proposed rule change published March 6, 2020; public comment period closes April 20, 2020.
_{:{Trump Replaces Independent Watchdog Overseeing Coronavirus Stimulus Funds:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}::{ :(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_Citing vague “reports of bias,” President Trump abruptly fired Glenn Fine, the Pentagon's acting inspector general, from his role leading oversight of how $2 trillion in pandemic stimulus funds get spent. Fine has been with the Pentagon since 2015 and is known as a tough federal watchdog. Trump has appointed Sean O’Donnell, the EPA's inspector general, as Fine's replacement, a move that could shift some of O'Donnell attention away from the EPA, where he has been fairly critical of Trump's second agency chief, Andrew Wheeler. But _{:{The New York Times:{ :(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:points out :(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_that, given his scrutiny of Administrator Wheeler, “it is not a given that Mr. O’Donnell will toe the line at the Pentagon.” Status: Effective April 7, 2020.
_{:{FERC Fast-Tracks Requests for Regulatory Relief:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}__{}_With _{a stated goal of}_ ensuring the "reliability of the nation's energy infrastructure" during the COVID-19 emergency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has shortened the review period for requests and petitions to waive some regulations or extend deadlines for meeting them. FERC regulates the nation's electricity and natural gas suppliers, as well as oil pipelines. Status: Effective April 7, 2020.
_{:{Trump Floats Idea of Tariffs on Foreign Oil to Boost U.S. Oil Prices:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_Following a meeting with oil executives on April 3, the president said he would not impose tariffs on foreign oil as a way to mitigate the impact of the Russia-Saudi oil price war on U.S. companies. But within 48 hours, at a COVID-19 pandemic press briefing, the president mentioned imposing such tariffs. “I would use tariffs, if I had to,” Trump said, adding that since he believed Russia and Saudi Arabia would soon agree to lower production levels (a move that would likely stabilize and increase global oil prices), he probably wouldn't have to. Status: President Trump made his comments on April 5, 2020, but has not announced any new tariffs.
_{:{Application to Extend Authorization to Export Liquefied Natural Gas to Non-free Trade Agreement Countries:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_ — The firm Energy Transfer has asked the Department of Energy to extend its authorization to _{:{proceed with the c:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_onstruction of a large liquified natural gas export terminal in St. Charles, La, even though Shell exited the project in late March, citing low oil prices and the COVID-19 pandemic. The current authorization will expire in 2023 if the facility is not operating; an extension would buy the company two more years to finish construction and begin exporting LNG. Status: Application filed April 3, 2020.
:{_{California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington Fuel Breaks Project - Department of Interior/Bureau of Land Management Fuel Breaks Project}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:DOI approved a $275 million BLM plan to construct and maintain a system of up to 11,000 miles of strategically placed firebreaks — strips of land with trees, deadwood, and undergrowth removed, which can slow or stop spreading wildfires — across 223 million-acres of federal public lands in California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington. Critics say it's an expensive end-run around environmental regulations aimed at protecting native vegetation and vulnerable species such as the Greater sage-grouse. Status: Finalized April 1, 2020.
:{_{Protections Removed for the Sage Grouse}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied Endangered Species Act protection for the Bi-state greater sage grouse, a distinct sub-species of sage grouse that roams western Nevada and eastern California, stating that voluntary conservation efforts by energy and ranching operations have been enough to protect populations of the bird. The sage grouse population across multiple states has continued to decline under voluntary conservation efforts. Status: Finalized March 31, 2020.
:{_{Rollback of Fuel Efficiency Standards}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:Weakens the Obama administration's signature climate achievement: An agreement with automakers to raise fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks (known as CAFE, or Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standards) to 55 mpg by 2025, significantly lowering greenhouse gas and other air pollution. The Trump administration has changed that mandate to about 40 mpg by 2026. Status: Rollback finalized March 30, 2020.
:{_{Request for Oil and Gas Royalty Relief }_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:Senate Republicans have asked Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to offer royalty relief and automatic lease extensions for oil and gas operations on public lands. Oil and gas royalties for drilling offshore brought in $3.8 billion to the U.S. Treasury in 2019. Critics argue that the royalty rate for onshore drilling should have been increased long ago: It was set at 12.5% in 1920 and has remained there ever since. Status: Letter sent March 30, 2020.
_{:{EPA Temporary Waiver on Summer Low-Volatility Gas Requirements:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_"EPA intends to provide additional flexibility to the marketplace to transition from winter-grade, high volatility gasoline to summer-grade low vapor pressure gasoline. Due to the steep fall-off in gasoline demand as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, gasoline storage capacity is limited and more time is needed to transition the distribution system in order to come into compliance for the summer driving season. EPA will temporarily waive the summer low volatility requirements and blending limitations for gasoline." Winter-blend gasoline emits more volatile organic compounds, which are precursors of smog, when used in warmer weather. Status: Effective March 27, 2020.
:{_{Request to Establish a Strategic Reserve for Uranium}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:The National Uranium Miners Association has asked the Trump Administration to establish a strategic reserve for uranium, and purchase strategic stockpiles of critical minerals to fill it, arguing the moves are critical to saving jobs as mines have closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Status: Letter sent March 27, 2020.
_{:{Temporary EPA Compliance Enforcement Discretion:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_"The EPA does not expect to seek penalties for violations of routine compliance monitoring, integrity testing, sampling, laboratory analysis, training, and reporting or certification obligations in situations where the EPA agrees that COVID-19 was the cause of the noncompliance and the entity provides supporting documentation to the EPA upon request." Status: Effective March 26, 2020.
:{_{Regulatory Relief from the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) }_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:Provides immediate regulatory relief and fee exceptions for a wide range of chemical manufacturers, including petrochemical manufacturers. TSCA is the main federal law regarding the safety of chemicals used in commerce. Status: Effective March 25, 2020.
_{:{No Extension of Public Comment Period on Moneta Divide Oil and Gas Project:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_On Feb. 21, the Bureau of Land Management published its final environmental report for this massive energy leasing project, automatically triggering a 30-day public comment period. The agency subsequently denied requests from Indigenous and environmental groups to suspend the comment period for the duration of the COVID-19 emergency. BLM’s preferred plan for Moneta Divide would allow two energy companies to build 4,250 new natural gas fracking wells across 327,000 acres (510 square miles) of mostly public lands in central Wyoming, with a projected influx of about 700 outside workers to a rural area with limited medical resources. The lease area is near the Wind River Indian Reservation, home to the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes, which both declared states of emergency in mid-March and closed nearly all tribal offices. Status: Finalization pending. Public comment period closed March 23.
_{:{Request for "Critical Infrastructure" Designation and Compliance Waivers:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_ In a letter to President Trump, the American Petroleum Institute has requested a "critical infrastructure" designation for every piece of the fossil fuel supply chain, and a waiver of what it called "non-essential compliance obligations." Status: Compliance waiver granted, no decision on critical infrastructure designation announced. Letter sent March 20, 2020.
_{:{Request for Regulatory Relief and Reduced Fees for the Coal Industry:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_Citing the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Mining Association has requested a reduction in the Black Lung Excise Tax, the elimination or reduction in royalty payments for coal mined on federal public lands, a reduction in fees collected for the Abandoned Mine Land Fund, and an increase in the availability of credit to the industry. Status: Letter sent March 18, 2020.

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State, Regional, and Local Governments

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California

:{_{Request to Delay All Air Resources Board Rulemaking to 2021}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:Assemblyman Jim Frazier (D - 11th District) has asked the Californiia Air Resources Board to delay voting or meeting on all proposed regulations until 2021. Status: Letter sent March 27, 2020.
:{_{Request for Delay in At-Berth Emissions Regulations at Ports}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:The California Association of Port Authorities has asked the state's Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the California Air Resources Board, to delay implementation of new rules meant to reduce dockside air pollution at state ports. Status: Letter sent March 24, 2020.
:{_{Request to Delay Electrification of Big Rigs}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:The Truck & Engine Manufacturers Association has asked the California Air Resources Board to delay or or modify a plan that requires 50% of all new medium-to-heavy truck sales, and 15% of all other new truck sales, to be zero-emission vehicles by 2030. Status: Letter sent March 23, 2020.

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Colorado

_{:{Temporary Restraining Order Against the City's Emergency Decree to Pause Fracking Flowback During Shelter-in-Place:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_"Flowback" is when fracking fluids flow back up the well bore after a well is fracked. Air pollution is particularly likely during flowback and can include toxics like benzene, a carcinogen. Because of their proximity to oil and gas operations, residents of Broomfield, Colorado were at risk of exposure to flowback-driven air pollution during shelter-in-place orders, so the city issued an emergency decree for local operations to cease fracking flowback during the pandemic. Extraction oil sued for a temporary restraining order to block the city's decree. It's the first test of Colorado's 2019 law prioritizing public health and safety over oil and gas production, which allows local governments to set safeguards that are more stringent than state regulations. Status: Restraining order denied, but Broomfield dropped health order April 8, 2020 Note: Full story coming soon _{:{in the Drilled podcast}:}_.

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Kentucky

:{_{New Law Protecting Key Infrastructure }_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:This new Kentucky law designates “natural gas or petroleum pipelines” as “key infrastructure assets” and makes it a felony crime to cause more than $1,000 in damages to pipelines “in a manner that renders the operations harmful or dangerous.” Status: Enacted March 16, 2020.

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Louisiana

_{:{Offshore Drillers Request Royal:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_ty Cuts Citing the combination of the Russia-Saudi price war and pandemic-driven drops in demand, Gulf coast offshore drilling firms represented by the Houma, Louisiana-based South Central Industrial Association have asked President Trump and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt for a reduction in royalties paid to the federal government. SCIA termed the confluence of COVID-19 and the OPEC spat an “existential threat to America’s ability to continue to produce energy in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond," reported Houma Today. Status: Letter sent March 27, 2020.
:{_{Regulatory Relief for Oil and Gas}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:The Louisiana Oil and Gas Association asked the state regulator to lift plugging requirements for idle wells, fast-track permits for new wells, extend financial requirements for inactive wells, and extend and defer testing that ensures oil and gas operations are not contaminating water sources. Status: Request granted March 26, 2020.

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Massachusetts

:{_{Designation of Natural Gas Construction Projects as "Essential"}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:Gov. Charlie Baker has extended the definition of "essential construction" under the state's COVID-19 stay-at-home order to encompass various oil and gas projects, including the Weymouth natural gas compressor, which has no clear customers. Status: Order issued March 23, 2020.

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Michigan

:{_{E}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:nbridge Requests Permit for Line 5 Tunnel A controversial project to update Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, which runs along the Straits of Mackinac—a narrow waterway that connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron—moved one step closer to completion with this filing. If the permit is approved, the Canadian oil pipeline company could begin construction on its Great Lakes Tunnel Project in 2021, with a target operational date of 2024. The tunnel would house _{:{Enbridge’s new Line 5 oil pipeline:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_ and replace a 67-year-old pipeline that transports up to 540,000 barrels a day of natural gas and crude oil. The project _{:{has been criticized:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_ by environmental groups, indigenous rights groups, and Michigan’s own governor, and is currently the subject of a court case, but the judge in that case _{:{ruled last year :(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_that construction could continue while the case is in progress.

Status: Pending. Permit application submitted April 8, 2020.

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Minnesota

:{_{Permitting Process for Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline Moves Forward}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has continued to advance the permitting process for Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline replacement project. The agency extended the public comment period on the project by just a week, and moved in-person town halls to tele-townhalls, which _{:{activists said were stacked :(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_with pipeline supporters. The proposed replacement pipeline would have a capacity of 760,000 barrels a day, double the old pipeline's capacity; meanwhile, tar sands oil has hit a record low of less than $5 a barrel. Status: Pending. Public comment period closes April 10, 2020.
Polluters Can Ask for Waivers of Environmental Regulations The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has instituted a “flexibility” policy on enforcement of environmental regulations: Companies can request compliance waivers and delays, which are approved or rejected on a case-by-case basis. Of 227 requests made so far, only three have been rejected. The agency has also paused rule-making on its CleanCars initiative to regulate vehicle emissions until after shelter-in-place orders are lifted.Status: Effective March 2020.

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Missouri

_{:{Consumer Advocate Requests Suspension of Utility Energy Efficiency Programs:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_ Missouri’s Office of the Public Counsel requested that state regulators suspend utility energy efficiency programs in order to reduce ratepayers’ bills during the COVID-19 crisis. Executive Director James Owen of Renew Missouri, a clean energy advocacy group, told Energy News Network he believes the Office of the Public Counsel l”is trying to use this coronavirus issue to undo MEEIA [Missouri Energy Efficiency Investment Act statute],or to weaken it.”

Status: Pending. Request filed March 2020.

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Montana

_{:{Governor Exempts Keystone XL From Statewide Stay-at-Home Directive:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_Deeming the Keystone XL pipeline “essential,” Montana Gov. (and Democratic candidate for Senate) Steve Bullock gave Canadian firm TC Energy the green light to bring in hundreds of out-of-state workers, in order to begin construction in April. Two counties on the pipeline's route are so far the least-affected in the nation by COVID-19. So county officials have mandated that out-of-state pipeline workers be quarantined for 14 days upon their arrival. But that quarantine does not prohibit them from working, so construction has begun and looks to continue unabated. Status: Effective March 26, 2020.

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Pennsylvania

:{_{Exemption for Mariner East Pipeline}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:Texas-based Energy LP asked the Penn. Department of Community and Economic Development for a waiver from Gov. Tom Wolf's emergency coronavirus shutdown, which would enable the company to continue construction on the controversial Mariner East pipeline, across 17 locations in Pennsylvania. Status: Waiver granted March 25, 2020.

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South Dakota

:{_{Expansion of "Incitement to Riot" Law }_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:Expands the definition of incitement to riot to include “intentional use of force or violence by three or more persons” that causes “any damage to property.” The law's provisions could chill anti-pipeline protests. Status: Enacted March 23, 2020.
:{_{New Law to Designate and Protect Critical Infrastructure}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:The state's new “critical infrastructure” law extends the designation to all oil, gas, and utility equipment, and defines the crime of “substantial interruption or impairment” of such facilities as a felony. Status: Enacted March 18, 2020.

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Texas

_{:{Waiver of Regulatory Requirements:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_Oil and gas operators in the state may apply for a waiver of regulatory requirements on a case-by-case basis. Environmental groups have already documented an increase in methane emissions in the state's shale oil fields. Status: Waiver granted March 24, 2020.

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West Virginia

:{_{C}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:ritical Infrastructure Protection Act Expands definition of "critical infrastructure" to include a wide range of oil and gas production and distribution assets, including pipelines. Slaps fines as high as $20,000 on anyone found guilty of causing “damage, destruction, vandalization, defacing, or tampering” that totals $2,500 or more in damages. Status: Enacted March 27, 2020.

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International

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Canada

New Law Lets Industry off the Hook for Cleaning Up Old Wells A month after Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced a $100 million investment in the Orphan Well Association, the provincial legislature passed a law that has effectively turned the organization into a way for industry to offload its obligations to reclaim and remediate abandoned well sites. Known as Bill 12, the "Liabilities Management Statutes Amendment Act 2020" broadens the list of activities companies can carry out on private property without consent from or compensation for landowners. It also gives politicians, rather than scientists or industry experts, control over how the orphan well funds are spent. Further, it allows the OWA to take over the assets of bankrupt companies, continue operating their wells, and conduct clean-up free without consulting landowners. The new law “lacks any conditions that uphold Canada’s Polluter Pays Principle, ensuring industry pays for cleanup, property taxes and landowner compensation,” _{:{according to a statement }:}_from the Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project. Status: Enacted April 2, 2020.
:{_{Alberta Puts $5.3 Billion Into Keystone XL Pipeline Project}_:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:The provincial government has granted firm TC Energy a $1.1 billion loan and $4.2 billion in government funding for the Keystone XL pipeline, a controversial infrastructure project aimed at transporting tar sands oil to coastal shipping ports. Alberta's support comes at a time when tar sands oil has hit record lows of less than $5 a barrel, making the pipeline's economic justifications questionable. While the Obama administration denied the project a permit to build in the U.S., the Trump administration is trying to advance it. Status: Funding announced March 31, 2020.
_{:{Energy Regulator Waives Fees, Extends Mineral Agreements:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:0px 0px;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);box-sizing:inherit"):}:}_ The Alberta Energy Regulator oversees permitting, operations, and environmental compliance of the provinces’s fossil fuel and mineral extraction operations, collecting administrative fees from industry to fund its operations. But citing the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency has stopped collecting those fees for six months; the loss will total around $113 million. AER also announced that it will automatically extend mineral agreements that were set to expire at the end of 2020. The agency regulates, among other things, more than 181,000 wells, over 258,000 miles of pipeline, 8 tar sands mines and 8 coal mines, _{:{according to its website}:}_. Status: Effective March 21, 2020.
Alberta Waives Environmental RegulationsCiting the COVID-19 pandemic, the Alberta provincial government has suspended some reporting requirements under three laws: the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, the Water Act, and the Public Lands Act, claiming that for industry “there is hardship in having to comply with routine reporting requirements.” That hardship does not extend to continuing construction, which the provincial government has not only allowed, but has helped to fund.Status: Waivers effective March 17, 2020.

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