Where do all those recyclables actually go? This week’s TipSheet dives into the trash to find a story worth telling — of troubling overseas dumping, problematic local incineration and a fraying patchwork of U.S. regulation. Plus, several dozen questions you might want to ask, a pair of pro tips and a dozen resources to track the story in your area.
"Last November, oil industry representatives huddled with conservative state lawmakers at a hotel a few blocks from the White House. The gathering was a covert affair. Reporters were barred from the room. Attendees cast votes in secret."
"A top government watchdog reported that political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency delayed reviews of toxic chemicals like formaldehyde for months last year during a review to see if the agency’s work met the leadership’s priorities."
"EPA's action plan on toxic chemicals found in drinking water did not satisfy several states that plan to push forward with their own policies."
"Delaney Tercero, 3, was sitting on her family's couch with her father and sister that summer day. Her mother was doing laundry. They didn't know a pipeline with a dime-sized hole a few yards from their front door was filling their mobile home with raw natural gas."
"Facing a showdown vote as early as this month over the embattled “Green New Deal,” Senate Democrats are preparing a counteroffensive to make combating climate change a central issue of their 2020 campaigns — a striking shift on an issue they have shied away from for the past decade."
"As the longest offshore oil spill in U.S. history creeps toward its 15th year, the federal government is preparing to launch a determined effort to contain the oil and cap the leaking wells."
"A federal appeals court today [Friday] rejected the Army Corps of Engineers' approval of a 17-mile transmission line across the James River, determining the corps did not properly analyze the full impacts of the power line that critics say degrades the site of the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Va."
"Eric Perez and his wife, Mari, live with their five children in the Wenatchee Valley in central Washington state. Their house is just feet from an orchard. A couple of years ago, the kids were having an Easter egg hunt in the yard when they smelled something 'plasticky,' Perez remembers — like 'rotten eggs.'"
"Renewable tax credits behind the massive deployment of wind and solar technologies during the past few years may get a second life as Democrats are expressing interest in extending them beyond their upcoming sunset dates."
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