Why You Can't Get Your Day in Court After a Train Disaster and What the Federal Railroad Administration Needs to Do About It
Cross-posted from ACSblog.
The citizens of Minot, North Dakota suffered a grave injustice on January 18, 2002 when a train derailment bathed much of that small town in a toxic cloud of poisonous gas that killed one person and injured almost 1,500 others. A detailed investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the derailment was most likely caused by fractures in temporary joints that the railroad had installed to repair the track.
When the victims sued the railroad for damages caused by its negligent maintenance, they found the courthouse doors locked. A federal district court held that their claims were preempted by the Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA) of 1970, which contained a "preemption" clause that Congress enacted to prevent states and localities from enacting regulations that were inconsistent with the regulations issued by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the federal agency that Congress created to protect citizens from irresponsible railroads.
The court held that because Congress empowered the FRA to regulate railroad safety, injured citizens could not sue the railroads when they operated their trains unsafely -- whether or not they complied with FRA requirements. Other courts have issued similar decisions in cases involving train collisions, derailments …
FDA scientists have had a chance to develop an assessment of the risks of BPA in food contact applications using a fuller body of low-dose studies and concluded last week that there’s some concern about the potential effects of BPA on the brain, behavior, and prostate gland of fetuses, infants and children (for a helpful analysis of the context of FDA’s decision, see Sarah Vogel’s post at The Pump Handle). Now, it’s time to look at what EPA is doing with respect to the ubiquitous endocrine-disrupting chemical.
In late September, Lisa Jackson announced that EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics would develop “action plans” for four chemicals or groups of chemicals, outlining potential future regulatory actions aimed at protecting the public and the environment from unreasonable risk. BPA was one of the candidates for an action plan, but when EPA released …
This post is the fourth in a series on the new CPR report Obama’s Regulators: A First-Year Report Card.
During the Bush Administration, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) simply fell further and further behind in terms of achieving its regulatory mission of protecting people from unsafe drugs, medical devices and food. A series of high profile mistakes made it clear that the American people could no longer lightly assume that the food they were eating and the drugs they were taking were safe. The challenge for the Obama Administration was to reenergize this demoralized agency, so that it could begin the difficult task of making up lost ground. FDA was able to make up a lot of this lost ground; that it still has so much further to go in order to make our food and drugs adequately safe illustrates how bad things were when …
Senator Murkowski’s proposal to disapprove EPA’s scientifically and legally justified finding that greenhouse gases endanger the public health and welfare would strip the federal government of its primary legal mechanism for addressing catastrophic climate change. If Congress does not think the Clean Air Act (CAA) is the best mechanism for regulating greenhouse gases, it should pass legislation providing a better alternative, not gut the only law that currently applies to still-uncontrolled emissions.
As the Supreme Court found in Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007, greenhouse gases are clearly “air pollutants” as defined by the Clean Air Act. The CAA purposefully crafted a broad definition in order to empower EPA to respond to new threats as they emerge. EPA’s recent endangerment finding was the logical, legally required, and inevitable next step. The science is unassailable: greenhouse gas emissions pose a profound danger to the public health …
This post is the third in a series on the new CPR report Obama’s Regulators: A First-Year Report Card.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the biggest and most powerful of the protector agencies. Consequently, it has also become the agency that was most decimated by regulatory opponents in recent decades. Thus, when President Obama assumed office in January of 2009, he inherited an EPA with its confidence severely dented, but otherwise eager to get back to the important work of protecting people and the environment. As CPR found in its new report, EPA’s performance this past year reflected this disposition: the agency steamed ahead on many important issues, but approached certain controversial issues with visible trepidation.
Looking back, it’s hard not to be impressed by the breadth of EPA’s accomplishments this past year. The agency took protective actions in several areas including …
The EPA announced yesterday that they’re changing the way they treat manufacturers’ claims that certain information about toxic chemicals should be kept secret.
Richard Denison of EDF has a useful explanation and analysis of this good news.
Rena Steinzor and Matt Shudtz explored the dangers of secrecy in chemical science in a 2007 CPR white paper, Sequestered Science: Secrets Threatening Public Health.
Today’s decision in Citizens United was something of a foregone conclusion. Still, it was a bit breathtaking. The Court was obviously poised to strike down the latest Congressional restrictions on corporate political expenditures. But the Court went further and struck down even restrictions that had been upheld thirty years ago. Seldom has a majority been so eager to reach out, address a question that wasn’t presented by the parties and overrule a bevy of prior decisions. The term “judicial activism” is overused but seems entirely appropriate here.
In the end, the Court just doesn’t see any real reason for campaign finance restrictions. It may be willing to tolerate some token restrictions in the name of precedent, but basically, it views economic influence over the political process as altogether natural and appropriate.
The decision was a foregone conclusion because the key supporter for the prior …
A critical test of the Obama Administration’s commitment to reviving the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is teeing up behind closed doors at the White House. Once again, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is cast in the role of regulation killer, supported by a slew of state and other federal agencies that are polluters in this scenario. Other players include a nearly hysterical segment of the electric utility industry, which argues that labeling coal ash as a hazardous waste will prove prohibitively expensive, as well as a coalition of public interest activists that includes Robert Bullard, the father of the environmental justice movement. The story has ample drama: a provable case of racial discrimination, companies as haughty as any on Wall Street, and an appealing heroine, Lisa Jackson, the embattled EPA Administrator, who is the public face of this Administration on the environment but, in …
The New York Times editorial page weighed in on coal ash today, saying:
The EPA’s recommendations, which have not been made public, are now the focus of a huge dispute inside the Obama administration, with industry lobbying hard for changes that would essentially preserve the status quo. The dispute should be resolved in favor of the environment and public safety.
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This debate is being conducted behind closed doors, mainly at the Office of Management and Budget, where industry usually takes its complaints and horror stories. A better course would be to let the E.P.A. draft a proposal, get it out in the open and offer it for comment from all sides. The Obama administration promised that transparency and good science would govern decisions like these.
Two developments to note on coal ash from recent days:
- OIRA extended its review of EPA's not-yet-publicly-proposed regulation on coal ash. That gives it an additional 30-days from the previous Jan 14 deadline. Matthew Madia explains at The Fine Print.
- EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson mentioned coal ash in an appearance Thursday, saying, "There has been a lot of hullabaloo over coal ash, and I'm disappointed that some of the folks, especially on the industry side, haven't taken the time to wait and let us try to craft rulemaking."
