Pollution

Some chemicals that are common in commercial products and processes are known to find their way into the environment and seriously (even fatally) harm human health. Yet current U.S. law makes it hard for EPA to keep companies from using them. Sometimes the chemicals used to replace them are just as bad, but the law does not even require those to be tested. A vast regime of secrecy based on unchallenged claims of "confidential business information" makes the danger to public health worse. Often, not even the EPA employees responsible for protecting people can access information about the toxic chemicals. The chemical reform bills now pending in Congress won't fix the problem.

"In a significant victory for the Obama administration, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Thursday refused to block an Environmental Protection Agency regulation limiting emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants."

"Since the early 1990s, thousands of York County residents have played softball and soccer on acres of well-manicured fields at Chisman Creek Park and the adjacent Wolf Trap Park."

"Mining company Samarco and its owners, BHP Billiton and Vale SA, reached a deal with the Brazilian government on Wednesday to pay an estimated 20 billion reais ($5.1 billion) in damages over 15 years for a deadly dam spill in November."

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ended a five-year legal challenge to the Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan, rejecting without comment the American Farm Bureau Federation’s request that the court hear its argument that the federal government is effectively seizing land use authority from state and local governments. The decision removes any legal cloud from the pursuit of the Bay pollution reduction strategy imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

"Facing hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits, the giant biotechnology company Monsanto last year received a legislative gift from the House of Representatives, a one-paragraph addition to a sweeping chemical safety bill that could help shield it from legal liability for a toxic chemical only it made."

"America's Car-Battery Waste Is Making Mexican Communities Sick".

"Two state agencies leading Oregon's emergency response to toxic air pollution concerns in Portland have known for a month that a soil test at Cleveland High School found high levels of arsenic and lead contamination. Yet neither the Oregon Health Authority nor the Department of Environmental Quality have shared the soil result with Portland Public Schools, which instead learned about it Friday from The Oregonian/OregonLive."

"Following the Aliso Canyon methane disaster, Congressional lawmakers want PHMSA to create the first federal standards for underground gas storage."

"HOOSICK FALLS, N.Y. — One resident called 911 asking whether the village’s water would burn his skin off. Families have lined up to have their blood drawn and their wells tested. Banks stopped giving out mortgages, and some local residents stopped washing their dishes, their clothes and themselves. Erin Brockovich has been to town."