Demolition Agenda: A Conversation with Tom McGarity on New Book about Trump Administration’s Corruption
On Thursday, May 19, the Center for Progressive Reform hosted a conversation with Member Scholar and Board Member Tom McGarity on his new book, Demolition Agenda.
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Webinar: The False Promise of Carbon Capture in Louisiana
In this March 10 webinar co-hosted with the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, advocates and experts discussed the latest updates on the proposed rollout of carbon capture in Louisiana and how communities and advocates are responding to this threat. The Center for Progressive Reform's policy brief on the topic served as a springboard for the discussion.
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Webinar: Forced Arbitration, Workers, and Marginalized Communities
Arbitration requires people to go through a private dispute resolution process, is often biased against workers and consumers, and typically slams the courthouse doors on those who are injured or harmed in the workplace. It's a standard condition in most, if not all, non-union employment and consumer contracts, and it's considered “forced” because few consumers or workers are aware that they are agreeing to mandatory arbitration when they sign such contracts. This requires them to resolve many types of alleged violations of state and federal laws through arbitration, including laws passed to protect against harmful and dangerous products, consumer fraud, employment discrimination, and other forms of wrongdoing. In our Feb. 15 webinar, co-hosted with the Workers' Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, experts discussed how workers and historically marginalized communities are adversely impacted by forced arbitration. The Center for Progressive Reform's recent report on the topic served as a springboard for the discussion.
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Author(s): M. Isabelle Chaudry
Webinar: Decades of Unregulated Chemical Storage Harm Communities and the Environment
Tucked away in industrial parks, towering along railways and waterfronts, and on pallets outside neighborhood home improvement and agricultural supply stores, tanks containing hazardous chemicals are everywhere in the landscape. When it comes to public protections for our health and safety, however, these unregulated chemical storage facilities are missing from public policy. In a January 13 webinar, public health and environmental policy experts answered questions about the threat these tanks pose and offered solutions to this longstanding problem. Our recent report on unregulated aboveground chemical storage served as a springboard for the discussion.
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Author(s): Darya Minovi
Making Regulations Work for All: A Webinar on Biden’s First 100 Days
On Wednesday, May 5, CPR held a webinar assessing the Biden-Harris administration’s early moves on reforming how the federal government creates standards and safeguards — both to undo the damaging legacy of the Trump administration and to build a foundation for making regulations work for all people and our planet.
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Author(s): James Goodwin
Webinar: Empowering Workers to Sue Employers for Health and Safety Violations
Workers presently have no right to bring a lawsuit against employers under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) or equivalent state laws when employers fail to provide safe and healthy working conditions. This gap in the law has been especially troubling during the COVID-19 pandemic, as workers across the United States have faced a massive workplace health crisis without any meaningful support from OSHA or most states or territories. Even with an incoming OSHA that is more supportive of workers’ rights and expected to better enforce standards, providing workers a “private right of action” will bolster the agency’s activities. In our March 5 webinar, attendees heard from attorneys who support legislative measures to empower workers by providing them a “private right of action” to enforce the law.
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Author(s): Katie Tracy
Webinar: Protecting Maryland Drinking Water from Toxic Pollution
Dangerous nitrate pollution has contaminated private drinking water wells and public water utilities in several regions across the United States, posing a significant threat to people's health. A recent Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) report indicates that this problem has reached Maryland's Lower Eastern Shore, an agricultural area that's home to hundreds of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that house millions of chickens. In our January 25 webinar, participants heard from state legislators and an environmental health expert who are supporting legislative measures to provide greater protections for Maryland families who drink well water.
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Author(s): Darya Minovi, Katlyn Schmitt
Webinar: Innovative Strategies to Prevent Climate-Driven Pollution and Chemical Disasters
Our current pollution prevention policies are static in a time of great and rapid disruption driven by the climate crisis. The growing risk of harm from climate-driven industrial pollution and chemical disasters demands a just, innovative policy response. In our November 18 toxic floodwaters webinar, participants learned about the legal and policy challenges to addressing these hazards, as well as litigation and regulatory solutions proposed by leading experts and practitioners.
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Author(s): Robin Kundis Craig, David Flores
Webinar: Environmental Justice and Public Health Implications of Extreme Weather and Toxic Chemicals
October 2020 Webinar: High-risk chemical facilities and other hazardous industrial sites are disproportionately located near communities where Black, Brown, and low-wealth families live, learn, and play. In 2012, floodwaters from Superstorm Sandy submerged some of these facilities, carrying chemicals and heavy metals into people’s homes. On October 20, 2020, CPR hosted a webinar featuring experts on the topic.
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Author(s): Rebecca Bratspies, Darya Minovi
Webinar: Protecting Communities and their Water Resources from Extreme Weather and Chemical Disaster
CPR's September 24, 2020, webinar focused on the ways climate impacts are compounding industrial disasters and impacting water resources around the nation. Toxic spills from industrial sites pollute waterways and threaten the safety of communities already burdened by pollution and the climate crisis. Participants discussed collaborative research and advocacy in Virginia and the Gulf Coast, as well as various analytical and regulatory tools for preventing climate-induced chemical disasters.
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Author(s): David Flores, Victor Flatt
Webinar: Supporting Sustainable Farmers During a Pandemic and Beyond
On June 3, 2020, CPR and Fair Farms hosted a webinar discussion with Maryland and Virginia farmers and organizers on supporting sustainable agriculture during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
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Author(s): Laurie Ristino
Webinar: Clean Water: Lessons Learned from the Supreme Court's Maui Decision
In April 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruled in favor of Hawaiian environmentalists who had waged a 12-year battle to ensure that sewage discharged into the Pacific Ocean via groundwater was subject to a Clean Water Act permit. CPR’s Member Scholars played important roles in convincing the Justices that we need a more scientifically relevant conception of the Clean Water Act’s coverage, and they joined key participants in the litigation in a May 28, 2020, webinar on the topic.
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Author(s): Steph Tai, Amanda Cohen Leiter, Robert Verchick
Webinar: Protecting Our Communities Through Sustainable Agriculture
Over the past two decades, Delmarva agriculture has shifted from traditional, diversified family farming to a more industrialized system of raising animals. Large, powerful companies dictate how animals are raised, processed, and sold and bear no responsibility for the public health impacts and environmental degradation in our local communities. The disastrous consequences have been highlighted, and in some cases exacerbated, by the current COVID-19 crisis. During a May 26, 2020, virtual town hall, regional experts and local community members shared the latest science, regulatory and policy actions, community perspectives, and possible solutions. The town hall was presented free with support from the Town Creek Foundation.
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Author(s): Darya Minovi
Webinar: Climate Justice: Vulnerability and Resilience to COVID-19 and the Climate Crisis
On CPR's April 29, 2020, webinar, participants will hear from leading experts on pandemics, public health, and climate change, as part of our series of Climate Justice webinars. Dr. Monica Schoch-Spana is an expert in epidemic and disaster management, with decades of experience advising federal, state, and local officials on health security. Dr. Aaron Bernstein brings experience as a pediatrician on the front lines and cutting-edge expertise on the intersection of public health and climate change. Finally, seasoned environmental lawyer and CPR Member Scholar Daniel Farber offers expertise in legal and policy tools, such as the Stafford Act, that may be used to help protect vulnerable communities from bearing the greatest burden of the pandemic.
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Author(s): Daniel Farber, Darya Minovi
Webinar: Climate Justice: Holding the Fossil Fuel Industry Accountable Through State Tort Law
On March 24, 2020, webinar participants heard from from three leading experts on the climate crisis and tort law about the growing movement of local and state governments, as well as small business owners and workers, seeking climate justice in state courts across the United States. The discussion of these climate justice lawsuits considered recent, ongoing, and prospective litigation, as well as the increasingly clear science showing that the harms of climate change are largely attributable to fossil fuel producers. Presenters also examined the legal, policy, and scientific challenges for plaintiffs, which include local governments in California, Colorado, Maryland, as well as the state of Rhode Island and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.
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Author(s): Alexandra Klass, David Flores, Karen Sokol
Webinar: Climate Justice: How Enforcement Can Help Communities at Risk
On February 26, 2020, CPR Board Member Joel Mintz, Cynthia Rice of California Rural Legal Assistance, and Jon Mueller of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation discussed challenging low-road employers who take advantage of people who face immediate threats from extreme heat, holding polluters accountable for their contributions to the climate crisis, and the challenges of using 1970s-era laws to address community-level impacts of the climate crisis and opportunities for progress.
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Author(s): Joel Mintz
Webinar: What Migration Means for Labor and Communities
On January 31, 2020, CPR President Rob Verchick hosted a webinar featuring CPR Member Scholar Maxine Burkett, Resilience Force's Saket Soni, and Florida State's Matt Hauer -- an engaging discussion about the biggest climate migration and resilience challenges that residents and workers are facing in communities across the U.S., legal and policy barriers, emerging research and solutions, and opportunities for engagement. Watch and listen!
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Author(s): Robert Verchick, Maxine Burkett, Katie Tracy
Webinar: Achieving Social Justice Through Better Regulation
Following up on CPR's June 2019 Regulation as Social Justice Conference, and the subsequent report on it, on December 11, 2019, Anne Rolfes of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and CPR's Amy Sinden and James Goodwin discussed the future of regulation, and how it can do a better job of serving the interests of the political dispossessed.
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Author(s): Amy Sinden, James Goodwin
Webinar: Securing a Nontoxic Work Environment
CPR's May 8, 2019, webinar featuring CPR's Katie Tracy, Joe Santarella of Santarella & Eckert, LLC, and Mike Schade, Director of the Mind the Store Campaign of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.
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Author(s): Katie Tracy
Webinar: Post-Midterms Analysis of the 2018 Farm Bill Conservation Title
In 2018, the U.S. House and Senate passed drastically different versions of the 2018 Farm Bill. Families across the country are anxiously watching as the conference committee tries to reconcile policy differences related to work requirements for SNAP benefits. And conservation-minded farmers are concerned because programs that help them keep their land productive and resilient are on the chopping block. On Thursday, November 15, 2018, CPR hosted a webinar featuring four national experts (Laurie Ristino, Ferd Hoefner, Caroline Kitchens, Alexandra Murdoch) sharing their analysis of what the midterm elections mean for the 2018 Farm Bill, with a focus on the conservation title.
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Author(s): Laurie Ristino
Webinar: From Surviving to Thriving: Equity in Disaster Planning and Recovery
CPR President Rob Verchick, climate resilience expert Joyce Coffee, and Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental journalist Bob Marshall discuss lessons learned about resilience and equity in a world of bigger and stronger storms.
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Author(s): Robert Verchick
Webinar: EPA's Benefits-Busting Proposal
CPR's June 27, 2018 webinar on EPA's benefits-busting proposal to slant EPA's cost-benefit analysis methods even further in favor of pollution, featuring CPR's Amy Sinden and James Goodwin.
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Author(s): Amy Sinden, James Goodwin