Rena Steinzor Steps Down after Seven Years at Helm, Succeeded by Loyola  University New Orleans College of Law Professor, Former EPA Official 

The board of directors of the Center for Progressive Reform today announced the appointment of Robert R.M. Verchick to be the organization’s third president, succeeding Rena Steinzor, who has served in the post for the past seven years.

Verchick holds the Gauthier~St. Martin Eminent Scholar Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, and is also the Faculty Director of Loyola’s Center for Environmental Law. In addition, he is a Senior Fellow in Disaster Resilience Leadership at Tulane University. He is an expert in climate change law, disaster law, and environmental regulation. In 2009 and 2010, he served as Deputy Associate Administrator for Policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In that role he helped develop …

This morning, the House Judiciary Committee is holding a markup on the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2015, or REINS Act (H.R. 427).  Even among the many extreme antiregulatory bills that Congress has considered this session, the REINS Act still stands out for its breathtaking audacity.  If enacted, this bill would block the most important environmental, safety, and public health regulations from taking effect unless Congress affirmatively approves them within the extraordinarily short period of 70 session days or legislative days.  It is not a stretch to say that many regulations that are now benefitting millions of Americans—such as those limiting lead in gasoline or requiring air bags in automobiles—would never have seen the light of day had the REINS Act been in place.  Versions of this bill have been introduced in both chambers of Congress over the last …

Background:  Tomorrow, the full House Judiciary Committee will be holding a markup of the H.R. 1759, the All Economic Regulations are Transparent Act of 2015 (ALERT Act), sponsored by Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.).  The House of Representatives considered a similar bill during its last session.  (The hearing is also noteworthy, because the committee will be marking up H.R. 427, the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2015, or REINS Act.  For more information on the REINS Act, see here.)

What the ALERT Act does:  The bill would impose a series of new burdensome reporting requirements on agencies and the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) regarding the progress and impacts of the agencies’ pending rulemakings.  Once a month, agencies would have to provide detailed information about any rules that they are working on, while OIRA would have to …

As climate scientists have been telling us for years, and as all but the most obstinate climate deniers acknowledge, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels are contributing to climatic changes.  These changes have taken the form of melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, changes in wind and ocean current patterns, and increases in the frequency of severe weather events, to name but a few effects.  Rising temperatures linked to GHG emissions also exacerbate public health problems associated with the release of more conventional air pollutants, because temperature increases facilitate the formation of tropospheric ozone, which can cause breathing difficulties and cardiovascular problems.  It is not a stretch to characterize climate change as the most challenging environmental problem of our time.

Since taking office in 2009, the Obama Administration has taken important steps to reduce GHG emissions, both in the U.S. and through …

When it comes to the size of the federal workforce, most of the rhetoric in Washington revolves around how to cut it. That’s particularly true where Republicans are concerned, and perhaps nowhere truer than with the Environmental Protection Agency, a favorite GOP target. What they almost never mention is that cutting staff means making sacrifices in protecting the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, bathe, swim and fish in, and the many individuals—including infants, the elderly, pregnant women, and those who already suffer from illness—whose health can be severely impaired by environmental pollution.

The recent testimony of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy at a hearing of a House Appropriations subcommittee is a case in point. McCarthy informed the panel that EPA’s staffing has now declined to its lowest level since the late 1980s, now “down in the 14,000s.” “I …

In the run-up to this morning’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule to limit hazardous air pollutants from fossil-fueled power plants—and indeed throughout the oral arguments themselves—opponents repeatedly pointed out that the benefits of the rule in reducing mercury pollution were “only” between $4 million and $6 million.  Putting aside the ethically problematic question of trying to put a dollars-and-cents value on achieving improved public health and environmental protection, it is worth pondering this number and what it reveals about the significant methodological flaws that are endemic to cost-benefit analysis.  (For the record, this number is supposed to represent the “value” of lost earning potential of children that the rule would protect against IQ point degradations.  Do you see what I mean about ethically problematic?)

Opponents of the rule claim that this $4-million figure is the only …

When it comes to public safeguards, industry never wants to talk about keeping people healthy and protecting the environment; they’d much rather have a conversation about how safeguards will cut into their profits — the costs in the cost-benefit equation.  Even on matters where Congress, by statute, has made the discussion of regulatory costs legally irrelevant or a matter of only secondary importance, you can rest assured that industry will still be there talking exclusively about costs.  That is largely what is at issue in Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency, which is being argued today before the U.S. Supreme Court—another attempt by polluting industries to inject discussions of costs where they don’t belong.

But, for the EPA’s rule to limit mercury and other toxic pollutants from fossil-fueled power plants, the subject of the case, perhaps the most critical issue is the regulatory benefits …

In the United States, a handful of large corporations including Perdue and Tyson direct and oversee nearly every step in the poultry production process, essentially serving as overlords to the tens of thousands of small farmers with whom they contract to raise their chickens for slaughter. While deriving the lion’s share of the profit, these corporations have so far managed to avoid all responsibility for the pollution their chickens produce. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state agencies have been largely afraid to tackle the issue because of the well-heeled and politically powerful farm lobby. A new CPR Issue Alert urges government to hold these bad actors accountable and explains how to do so under existing law.

These companies, known as “integrators,” own virtually all aspects of poultry production—from hatching the chicks, to processing and retailing them, even transporting poultry products to grocery stores and …