webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

EWG

lost data?

MERRI OK

prolly neglected (ie i don't cross post art'l just reguister via link/filament)

new lede 10 25 chem nancy beck brian.bienkowski@thenewlede.org

carey.gillam@thenewlede.org / 913-526-6190 @careygillam

SEE MAHA

SEE GLYPHOSATE

BAK 2 26

---

REF 2 GUK

Trump has signed an executive order protecting production of glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Roundup, which some bodies and studies have linked to cancer and which are the subject of widespread US litigation.

The president’s move, which also seeks to provide “immunity” for makers of the herbicides, was strongly criticized by health and environmental advocates including some figures in the “Make America healthy again” (Maha) coalition.

The order also protects domestic production of phosphorus, which is used in making glyphosate and other agricultural chemicals, as well as a range of other products, including some in military defense.

Ensuring “robust domestic elemental phosphorus mining and United States-based production of glyphosate-based herbicides is central to American economic and national security”, the order states.

[

Bayer agrees to pay $7.25bn to settle Roundup weedkiller cancer lawsuits

Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/feb/17/bayer-proposed-settlement-roundup-cancer-lawsuits)

The 18 February order cites authority under the Defense Production Act and instructs US Department of Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins to issue orders and regulations as “may be necessary to implement this order”.

The White House said “the threat of reduced or ceased production” of phosphorous and glyphosate herbicides “gravely endangers national security and defense, which includes food-supply security”.

Neither the executive order nor the fact sheet the White House put out accompanying the order discloses that glyphosate-based herbicides have been linked to an array of cancers and other health problems in multiple independent research studies and by cancer experts of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The move by the White House comes as Roundup maker Bayer is facing tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging the company’s glyphosate herbicides cause cancer and the company failed to warn farmers and other users of the risks.

The company, which inherited the litigation when it bought Monsanto in 2018, has already paid out billions of dollars in settlements and jury verdicts and said this week it was proposing to pay $7.25bn in a class action settlement to try to head off future lawsuits.

Bayer has said that if it cannot find relief from the litigation, it may stop making glyphosate herbicides for the US agricultural market.

“This executive order reads like it was drafted in a chemical company boardroom,” said Vani Hari, a food activist, author and one of the grass roots leaders of the Maha coalition. “Calling it ‘national defense’ while expanding protections for toxic products is a dangerous misdirection. Real national security is protecting American families, farmers, and children.”

Kelly Ryerson, another key actor in the Maha movement who has been lobbying US regulators and lawmakers for restrictions on glyphosate and other pesticides, said the move by Trump is an insult to those who have largely supported the administration because of promises that Maha issues would be taken seriously.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, who was appointed by Trump as secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and who heads a Maha commission set up by the White House, has a long history of criticizing glyphosate and its maker over the health harms tied to the herbicide. Both Trump and Kennedy had pledged to address health concerns about glyphosate and other pesticides.

“The President is making a mockery of the very voters who put his administration into office,” Ryerson said. “Expanding the production of glyphosate, a pesticide derided by the Maha movement, is a commitment to perpetuating the toxic, chemical food system that has created a sick and infertile American population.”

In response to questions about the executive order, Kennedy issued a statement saying that the order “puts America first where it matters most – our defense readiness and our food supply”.

Lori Ann Burd, environmental health program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the executive order “a sickening love letter from Trump to the largest pesticide companies in the world.

“It’s more proof that Trump doesn’t care at all about Americans’ health,” she said. “While he’s pandering to chemical companies the rest of the country, especially those who’ve been poisoned by pesticides, is rightfully asking ‘what about us?’”

[

Trump’s EPA reapproves contentious weedkiller dicamba for some GM crops

Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/08/epa-reapproves-contentious-weedkiller-dicamba)

Trump’s order contains a clause that “confers all immunity provided for in section 707 of the Act (50 U.S.C. 4557)” and states that “domestic producers of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides are required to comply with this order.” The act cited states that “no person shall be held liable” for “any act” resulting from compliance with an order issued pursuant to that law.

Bayer did not respond when asked how involved the company was in Trump’s executive order. But the company issued a statement saying: “President Trump’s Executive Order reinforces the critical need for US farmers to have access to essential, domestically produced crop protection tools such as glyphosate. We will comply with this order to produce glyphosate and elemental phosphorus.”

Bayer maintains that its glyphosate herbicides do not cause cancer and has been engaged in an array of tacticsto try to lift the litigation pressure, including pressing Congress for language in the farm billand other legislation that would restrict the ability of people to sue the company for failing to warn of cancer risks if the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doesn’t require such warnings.

The company has already succeeded in getting laws protecting it from lawsuits passed in two states and is pressing for more state laws. It has also asked the US supreme court to rule in its favor on the issue of federal preemption of failure-to-warn lawsuits, and the high court has set a hearing for 27 April.

This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group}:

---

---

Another PFAS-containing pesticide headed for US registration

By Brian Bienkowski

US regulators are poised to approve a pesticide made with a controversial class of toxic chemicals, stoking concerns of new risks for farms across the country.

---

White House announced Tuesday that it plans to veto the PFAS Action Act of 2019, which aims to keep harmful forever chemicals out of groundwater,as Newsweek reported.

'Forever' chemicals, which are often referred to as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals), are a class of heat and water-resistant chemicals used in a variety of industrial products, flame retardants and nonstick products, such as raincoats, cookware and packaging and have leeched into water supplies in almost every state in the country, according to The Hill.They are known carcinogens and do not degrade in the environment nor in the human body.

The bill before congress is sponsored by congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan)with the intention of reducing unintended, involuntary exposure to PFAS.

"PFAS is a clear threat to human health and our environment," wrote Dingell in a November 2019 statement, as Newsweek reported.

"The reality is a lot of contamination is connected to military sites and the Defense Department," Dingell's statement continued. "We are continuing to champion strong provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act to identify PFAS as a hazardous substance for the purpose of clean up under the EPA's Superfund program and facilitate coordinated response between local communities and the military."

The sweeping legislation that Dingell proposed came after there was no mention of regulating PFAS in the annual defense policy bill. Furthermore, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it would decide whether or not to regulate PFAS by the end of 2019, but it missed its own self-imposed deadline, according to The Hill.

A vote on Dingell's bill is scheduled for Thursday, where it is expected to pass the Democratic-controlled House. However, it is likely to face a backlash in the Republican-controlled Senate, according to The Hill. It also may never come up for a vote in the Senate after the White House announced its intention to veto the legislation.

The White House dismissed the bill as not cost-effective and as an affront to the power structure in place, saying in a statement that the bill would "supersede existing statutory requirements" that would prevent the EPA from making proper decisions about the treatment of PFAS in the environment, as Newsweek reported.

"By doing so," the statement read, "the bill would create considerable litigation risk, set problematic and unreasonable rulemaking timelines and precedents, and impose substantial, unwarranted costs on Federal, State, and local agencies and other key stakeholders in both the public and private sectors."

Environmental activists were aghast at the White House's decision to veto legislation that would require making drinking water safer.

"Enough is enough," said Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, in a statement. "For too long, the EPA has failed to treat the PFAS contamination crisis like a crisis. Trump's EPA has sunk to a whole new level of failure."

The EPA currently recommends that water supplies not have more than70 parts per trillion of PFAS, but there is no firm requirement in place.Critics say that not only is a requirement needed, but one that is much lower than the current recommended level, as The Hill reported.

"Just days after failing to meet a PFAS deadline, the Trump administration has threatened to veto legislation that would set PFAS deadlines," said Faber in a statement. "It's never been clearer that it's time for Congress to set tough deadlines to reduce PFAS releases into the air and water, set PFAS drinking water standards, and clean up legacy PFAS pollution. If the Trump administration won't take the necessary steps to protect the public from PFAS, it's up to Congress to act."

---

==

1219

report by the Environmental Working Group reveals that an estimated 2,000 untested chemicals, several of them known or suspected carcinogens, are legally present in conventional packaged foods sold in U.S. supermarkets. But this major public health concern is largely unrecognized by the Food and Drug Administration, which operates under a policy on food additives dating back to 1958.

By Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner, Independent Media Institute

A major but largely glossed over report by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), an environmental and public health nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., shows that thousands of untested chemicals (an estimated 2,000, to be exact) are found in conventional packaged foods purchasable in U.S. supermarkets. And yes, all of them are legal.

The extensive collection of permissible additives includes several known or suspected carcinogens, such as synthetic sodium nitrate, found in processed meats and considered probably carcinogenic by the World Health Organization, and butylated hydroxyanisole, also known as BHA, a chemical listed as a cancer-causing chemical by the state of California and found in commonplace items like frozen pepperoni pizza. Other unappealing chemicals are commonly found in our food packaging, such as polypropylene, sulfuric acid and bisphenol A—all of which can have impacts on human health and the environment.

How much should consumers panic before their next supermarket trip? “It really depends on what level of risk consumers are comfortable with,” says Dawn Undurraga, a nutritionist at EWG and co-author of the study. “The more we learn about what is in conventional foods, the more evidence for concern we accumulate.” Independent laboratory tests commissioned by EWG, for example, found glyphosate, a probable carcinogen, in every sample of conventional oats tested.

The fact that dangerous chemicals are legal for use in our food is a major public health concern that goes largely unrecognized by the U.S. government. “Unfortunately, our current policy on food additives was written in 1958 and has been completely co-opted by food and chemical companies,” Undurraga says. “Additives that are deemed ‘Generally Recognized as Safe,’ or GRAS, by a food or chemical company or trade association are exempt from the food additive petition process where the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviews the safety of the additive.”

Originally, this GRAS exemption was created to cover ingredients widely known to be safe, like vinegar, but with advancements in food science, the provision has been applied to thousands of chemicals. As a result, questionable substances have been allowed into a host of conventional foods. In 2017, EWG joined several other public health groups to file a lawsuit against the FDA in an effort to eliminate the GRAS loophole.

“Rather than close the loophole, the FDA has instead allowed companies to voluntarily notify the agency about food chemicals and to allow companies to summarize the industry science supporting their conclusions,” reads the EWG study, elucidating that many scientists who conduct these reviews have been paid by the industry. Plus, the FDA does not subsequently review underlying biological and chemical data, leaving consumers to literally do the dirty work. The FDA did not respond toTruthout’s request for comment.

“Consumers shouldn’t have to be toxicologists to be able to grab something at the grocery store that doesn’t contain questionable or dangerous ingredients,” Undurraga says. Even so, toxicology literacy won’t help in the frozen food aisle. According to Undurraga, there are absolutely no defining signs on food packaging to indicate that any of the 2,000 synthetic chemicals approved for use in food are present in that specific item.

In fact, the only way to minimize exposure to these chemicals is to purchase certified organic packaged foods and look at EWG’s Food Scores, which measure nutrition, ingredient and processing concerns in more than 80,000 common foods, from frozen vegetables and baby food to packaged nuts, berries and grains across hundreds of popular brands; and EWG’s Dirty Dozen List of Food Additives, which ranks the worst food additives common in U.S. supermarket food and where you’ll likely encounter them, like potassium bromate in packaged loaves of bread and propylparaben in packaged tortillas and muffins.

If additives don’t have you worried enough about what we’re legally permitted to consume, know that pesticides, found to be carcinogenic and also severely damaging to the environment, are still more than prevalent alongside the packaged food chemicals at your grocery store. Every year, EWG reviews the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s pesticide residue tests on conventional produce.

“Last year, nearly 70 percent of conventionally grown produce was contaminated with pesticide residues,” says Undurraga. “This is especially concerning for pregnant women and small children.”

Sure, organic packaged food and organic produce are typically more expensive than their conventional counterparts, but you’re paying for more rigorous additive standards and investing in your long-term health and the health of the environment. Currently, fewer than 40synthetic ingredients are permitted in organic packaged foods—and this is only after each chemical has been reviewed by both independent and government experts. And yet only around 3 percent of packaged food sold in the U.S. is organic. Perhaps this is because people who shop organic are not interested in pre-packaged meals. More likely, it’s because the dangers of conventional packaged food are not well-known.

Those who want to plan their supermarket trips with a budget in mind can look to EWG’s shopper’s guide to know what to prioritize in their carts. Beyond opting for organic packaged goods when going the pre-made route, consumers can elect to buy organic versions of fruits and vegetables whose conventional counterparts have made EWG’s “Dirty Dozen” list, which calls out those conventionally grown items found with the most pesticide residue: strawberries, spinach, kale, nectarines, apples, grapes, peaches, cherries, pears, tomatoes, celery and potatoes.

On the flip side, consumers can opt for conventional versions of the produce items that are listed on EWG’s “Clean Fifteen”—those with relatively little pesticide residue: avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, frozen sweet peas, onions, papayas, eggplants, asparagus, kiwis, cabbages, cauliflower, cantaloupes, broccoli, mushrooms and honeydew melons.

Though it’s unlikely Americans are going to stop buying conventional packaged food in the near future (or ever), pressure on the government to make packaged food actually safe to eat is necessary to enact change. And with so little information readily available about what we’re actually eating when these chemicals aren’t disclosed, keeping up with research by independent groups like the EWG remains imperative to educate consumers.

Combining their research and policy platform, EWG has launched a petition to encourage food companies like General Mills, Quaker and Kellogg’s to remove cancer-linked glyphosate from our food. And that’s just the beginning. Other consumer safety advocates, including the Environmental Defense Fund and the Center for Food Safety, both represented by Earthjustice, have challenged the FDA’s GRAS interpretation in court earlier this year.

Ignorance may bring peace of mind to grocery shoppers, but as more information about the hazards in our daily food purchases comes to light, it’s likely we’ll see more consumer pushback against dangerous practices that have become the norm.

==

audio interview 12/19

1/3 US drink only bottled, 1/3 rarely drink tap; OC model 30$/yr

newark NJ putting in PVC, not tested, plastic feedstock lobbyist pushing

https://kpfa.org/episode/the-ralph-nader-radio-hour-december-2-2019/

seth siegel  What's Wrong w what we drink: troubled water book

On Tap: Seth Siegel's Masterful Examination of America's ...

https://www.ewg.org › news-and-analysis › 2019/11 › tap-seth-siegel-s-ma...

1.

Nov 1, 2019 - That's just the start of the story that Seth Siegel masterfully explores in his latest book, “Troubled Water: What's Wrong With What We Drink.

====

==

https://www.alternet.org/scott-pruitt-burying-his-radical-pro-polluter-agenda-under-oceans-boring-legalese

Despite being weighed down by increasingly ridiculous corruption scandals, EPA head Scott Pruitt has never slowed down in his efforts to cripple the actual work of the agency Donald Trump handed over to him to destroy. Last week, as most of the media focused on admittedly hilarious scandals regarding Pruitt using government resources to get nice mattresses, fancy lotions and gourmet meals, Pruitt quietly moved to start redefining how the EPA handles the cost-benefit calculations the agency uses to determine what kinds of regulations it imposes on polluting industries.

"Many have complained that the previous administration inflated the benefits and underestimated the costs of its regulations through questionable cost-benefit analysis," Pruitt said in a press release. This failed to note that Pruitt himself was one of the main complainers, during his repeated efforts to sue the EPA while serving as Oklahoma's attorney general.

The agency announced an advance notice of proposed rule-making on Thursday, which is the first step towards rewriting standards the agency has used to determine the value of new regulations for years. The advance notice is written in dry legalese, the sort of thing that doesn't play as well as a story about moisturizer-hunting. But hidden inside all that dense language is the prospect of seriously gutting the EPA's ability to do the work necessary to protect public health

"It’s clearly a precursor to scaling back the way EPA quantifies and monetizes the benefits of its rules and safeguards," John Walke, director of federal clean air, climate, and energy programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Salon. 

"How EPA weighs and calculates the costs and benefits of any particular action has significant regulatory implications," explained Melanie Benesh, the legislative attorney for Environmental Working Group. “To the extent that you’re changing that the way the agency has to do that, and if you’re increasing the burden on the agency to justify actions they’re taking to protect the environment and public health, that’s potentially very significant.”

While the concept of "cost-benefit" can be complex in its details, the general concept is simple enough: EPA weighs the costs of a regulation to the industry versus the health and environmental protective benefits to the public. The latter is generally measured in lives saved and reductions in negative effects from pollution, including emergency-room visits, missed work days and other such costs.

As such, the calculus really should be understood more as a question of industry costs vs. public costs,and Pruitt's evident interest in moving as much cost as possible from industry to the shoulders of the taxpayers.

"Those costs are going to occur one way or another," Walke said. "Either industry is going to get away with not cleaning up its own pollution and forcing those costs upon the public in the most  hazardous and dangerous ways possible to human health, or the costs are going to be internalized by the company.”

As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt sued to block the**mercury**rule, arguing, in part, that these kinds of ancillary benefits should not count towards the benefit bottom line. He lost that challenge, as he typically did with these actions against the Obama-era EPA. Now he's trying to get his bogus legal challenge turned into an EPA regulation of its own.Currently, the EPA's definition of "benefits" includes not just the most direct benefits of a regulation, but also what are considered indirect or ancillary benefits. For instance, one recent regulation, which the advance notice directly cites, directly addressed measures to reduce mercury emissions from power plants. Since the devices that plants must install to reduce mercury emissions also reduce other forms of pollution that cause health problems and deaths, the EPA included those reductions in the benefits column as well when calculating the worth of the regulation.

Walke suspects Pruitt might have even grander plans for reducing what the EPA is allowed to consider a public health benefit, by making it difficult for EPA officials to include. what's called the "social cost of carbon" — i.e., the damage done by global warming to human health and wellbeing.

“Carbon pollution is a different sort of beast," Walke explained. "It’s not like particulate matter is causing direct lung harm when CO2 is emitted.”

Instead, EPA officials currently measure the benefits of carbon reduction through indirect methods. For instance, reducing carbon emissions by a certain amount is assumed to slow global warming, leading to fewer floods, droughts and other catastrophic weather events related to climate change. But industry apologists and conservative pundits have insisted that this sort of broad assessment of the damage of pollution is cheating and want the EPA to be stingier in what it considers a benefit, even if the so-called secondary effects of pollution and environmental degradation cause real damage to real people.

As Vivek Wadhwa and Mark Muro argued in the Washington Post in December 2016, "Far from being a prohibitive drag on economic growth, decarbonization, or making the way that we get energy less dependent on burning fossil fuels that release carbon emissions, has gone hand-in-hand with output growth in most of the United States, according to research by the Brookings Institution."What makes this entire situation even more distressing is that many experts believe the current cost-benefit analysis of the EPA, even under Obama, was already exaggerating the economic costs of regulation.

Other expert analyses show similar results. While there are certainly industry costs to environmental regulation, they are not merely offset by public health benefits. Its even true that regulation often leads to job creation and economic innovation that helps stimulate the economy.

By putting even more emphasis on direct industry costs and minimizing the agency's ability to look at the big picture, Benesh said, Pruitt is "taking an existing problem and making it worse."

"We hear a lot about the everyday things, like there’s a new scandal, but those will go away," she added. But these kinds of "fundamental shifts" in how the EPA does its work "could take years to undo, if they’re undone at all

==

=

http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-ebell-epa-advisor-2097121562.html

ref no link img

By Alex Formuzis and Sonya Lunder

Myron Ebell, head of President-elect Donald Trump's U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team, is a notorious denier of global warming whose biography unashamedly notes that he's considered a "climate criminal" by activists and "a superstar of the denialosphere" by The Climate War author Eric Pooley. But he's also director of environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which touts "the life-enhancing value of chemicals"—chemicals like arsenic, DDT and PCBs.

One of the the Competitive Enterprise Institute's projects is SafeChemicalPolicy.org. The site is bursting with articles and reports that cast doubt on the dangers of toxic chemicals and pesticides in food, water and consumer products, and disparage the work of public health advocates, with Environmental Working Group (EWG) one of the site's favorite targets

Here are just a few examples:

SafeChemicalsPolicy.org downplays the risks of arsenic in drinking water and toxic pesticides found on foods young children love to eat.

An article on the site says it's wrong for schools to notify parents before pesticides are sprayed inside and around schools.

It disparages public health advocates' concerns over fetuses being exposed to endocrine disruptors in the womb, including Monsanto's notorious PCBs and the now-banned pesticide DDT.

It actually makes the claim that glyphosate—the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, which the World Health Organization considers probably carcinogenic to humans—has "liberated" children from having to work in corn fields, pulling weeds.

There's much more: Anti-BPA Packaging Laws Jeopardize Public Health, Silent Spring Was Wrong and Erin Brockovich's Toxic Fearmongering.

"The simple reality," says the site, "is that modern living means living with chemicals." We couldn't agree more. The problem is that too many of those chemicals are hazardous to our health. The EPA is supposed to protect us from dangerous chemicals, not defend them, as Ebell would almost certainly do if he ran the agency.

As it turns out, EWG is a popular target among Trump's other top advisers. Steve Bannon, the former campaign CEO and incoming chief White House strategist attacked us when he was running the alt-right website Breitbart News.

We're used to it. In fact, when science deniers like Ebell and Bannon regularly get worked up over something you've said or done, it usually means you've said or done something right.

==

==

JUST HOURS after EWG released our 2016 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™, the Alliance for Food and Farming, a chemical agribusiness front group, launched an all-out media blitz to try to discredit the guide and silence us!

For years, the Alliance has been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars claiming that EWG “scares people fat” and alleging we are “anti-fruits and veggies.”

==

Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a national public interest organization co-founded by Ken Cook and Richard Wiles. Its mission, according to its Web site, is "to use the power of public information to protect public health and the environment."[1]

View EWG Muckety Map

Contents

  [hide] 

EWG's Role with Chez Panisse Foundation in the San Francisco Toxic Sludge Controversy

On March 17, the SFPUC would write EWG and Cook into its PR management plan of the toxic sludge issue, titled "Draft Biosolids Compost Strategy." ^[4]^ ^Tyrone Jue proposed to utilize the Environmental Working Group when the SFPUC launched its media campaign around the test results, writing: "Contact Environmental Working Group (Becky Sutton - soil scientist in East Bay; Ken Cook - Washington)." PDF of PUC 3/17 Draft StrategyOn March 3, 2010, Alice Waters, a member of the EWG Advisory Board, appeared with Ken Cook and Drummond Pike at a gala event in San Francisco. "EWG staff and key supporters gathered ... to introduce the audience of environmental stalwarts to the increasing convergence of EWG’s two major fields of work -- how common toxic chemicals find their way into the bodies of America’s children and the impact of modern agriculture on the environment and human health. ... Alice Waters (pictured with Mr. Cook), celebrated chef, advocate, author, mother and pioneer of “The Edible Schoolyard” program in Berkeley, Calif, attended the Earth Dinner event. Mr. Cook payed homage to her impact on cuisine and the food system as a whole in his presentation." ^[2] The San Francisco Chronicle would report, "EWG President and co-founder Ken Cook welcomed new EWG advisory board member Edible Schoolyard founder Alice Waters and City Attorney Dennis Hererra as he unveiled EWG's 2010 Right to Know Campaigns. ^[3]

On April 1, EWG released a statement defending Francesca Vietor and Alice Waters of the Chez Panisse Foundation from criticism regarding their failure to publicly oppose growing food in toxic sewage sludge. Francesca Vietor is no longer with the Chez Panisse Foundation. The EWG report relied upon and repeated false claims in an April 1, 2010 statement by the Foundation.[5] Their release admitted, however, "advocacy organizations have been right to oppose the distribution of composted sewage sludge from the SFPUC for use on Bay Area gardens and farmland." (emphasis added) ^[6]

The Food Rights Network released a major investigative report on July 9, 2010 titled: Chez Sludge: How the Sewage Sludge Industry Bedded Alice Waters. ^[7] It examines collusion between the Chez Panisse Foundation and the SFPUC based on an extensive open records investigation of the SFPUC internal files. (To view the internal documents see: SFPUC Sludge Controversy Timeline.)

In the winter of 2010/2011 Francesca Vietor left her position at Chez Panisse Foundation, rose from Vice President to President of the SFPUC, and took a position on the Board of Directors of the Environmental Working Group.

EWG Board of Directors

This information below is from the EWG website. ^[8]

Other SourceWatch resources

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

References

  1. Jump up↑ Environmental Working Group About the Environmental Working Group, Organizational Web site, accessed July 16, 2010
  2. Jump up↑ EWG Website Accessed August 23, 2010.
  3. Jump up↑ Catherine Bigelow, In School Kitchens with Alice Waters & the Environmental Working Group, San Francisco Chronicle website, March 30, 2010.
  4. Jump up↑ PDF of PUC 3/17 Draft Strategy
  5. Jump up↑ SFPUC Sludge Controversy Timeline, See April 1st in the timeline.
  6. Jump up↑ EWG To Monitor San Francisco Sludge Policy, Criticizes Unfounded Accusations Aimed At Vietor, Waters, April 1, 2010.
  7. Jump up↑ John Stauber, Chez Sludge: How the Sewage Sludge Industry Bedded Alice Waters, PRWatch.org, July 9, 2010
  8. Jump up↑ Board of Directors, July 4, 2010

---

Conservatives target the Environmental Working Group

The **Environmental Working Group** (EWG), a watchdog group working on issues such as chemicals in food and consumer products, has been the target of complaints to the IRS fromRon Arnold's Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and singled out by the conservative Capital Research Center.

In February 2002 Arnold filed a complaint with the IRS seeking the revocation of its tax-exempt status and dispatched a letter of complaint to one of the EWG's foundation funders. [1] [2]

In December 2003 the conservative Capital Research Center newsletter Foundation Watch published an article by Gretchen Randall and Tom Randall, the founders of the Chicago-based PR company Winningreen.

Aside from reviewing the Tides Foundation, the Randalls bemoaned EWG's success in protesting against the reporting of John Stossel in a special on environmental education. The Randalls took issue with concerns raised by EWG in a July 2003 report on PCB concentrations in farmed salmon, which were higher than in beef. "Less emphasised is the fact that the PCB level is considered safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and that the EWG test considered only 10 samples of farm raised salmon," they wrote reassuringly.

It was a lead taken up the next month by Bonner Cohen in a 5-page feature in the same publication. The success of EWG in getting media coverage on the report on farmed salmon irked Cohen, who turned to critiques from Elizabeth Whelan from the American Council on Science and Health and the National Fisheries Association for rebuttal. The themes they emphasised was that the PCB levels were "trace" amounts of no great significance.

For background on EWG, Cohen turned to Ron Arnold, the Executive Director of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, Rick Berman's ActivistCash.com website and Professor Bruce N. Ames. Cohen concluded that "the public is repeatedly told - in the absence of any supporting data - about the dangers to people, particularly children, caused by exposure to tracel elements of pesticdes."

Cohen also sought to portray EWG as an adjunct of trial lawyers. The basis for the claim rested solely on the fact that some of the topic areas class action lawsuits were being considered for included some of the hazardous substances that EWG investigated. (The alternative explanation, that substances such as asbestos, lead, mercury and pesticides were widepread environmental hazards known to cause serious health problems, is ignored). While accusing EWG of using "junk science", Cohen grudgingly acknowledges that the organisation might have a relatively small budget compared to larger environmental non-profits but has more impact. "It's an effective voice for an irresponsible cause," he concluded.

Other SourceWatch resources

External links

---

Gretchen Randall is a senior partner in the environmental and energy policy communications firm, Winningreen LLC, based in Chicago Illionois.

Winningreen LLC is a public relations firm. According to its website it "is a campaign communications company founded on the principle that conservative positions can win, even on issues thought to be the property of the other side. We do this by selling voters on your positions so elected officials can be confident they have the backing of their constituents."[1] It is an "environmental and energy policy communications firm, Winningreen LLC, based in Chicago Illinois." [1]

On its spartan website it describes itself as "a consulting firm dedicated to the development and promotion of sound environmental public policy, based on sound science, respect for the American people and constitutional principles."

Contents

  [hide] 

Clients

According the website its clients "are legislators, appointed officials in agencies which deal with the environment, their aides and few other selected individuals. We do not accept businesses, organizations or other special interests as clients."

"Our policy development is based on a network of nearly fifty organizations and over 100 experts covering all aspects of the environment as well as related regulatory affairs," it states.

For clients Winningreen releases "issue briefs" with background information and quotes that can be attributed to the officials and politicians they work for. Some briefs have been supporting drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, dismissing calls for increased water releases into the Klamath River and warning consumers against hybrid petrol/electric cars such as the Toyota Prius.

Personnel

Contact details

3712 N. Broadway - PMB 279

Chicago, IL 60613

Phone: 773-477-8633

Web: http://www.winningreen.com

Related SourceWatch resources

References

  1. Jump up↑ About page, Winningreen, accessed February 2008.

---