Enforce environmental laws before there's a fire, op-ed by Victor Flatt

Relax: Green New Deal Means Practical Innovations, op-ed by Joseph P. Tomain

Joint comments from CPR's Dan Farber, Catherine O'Neill, Rena Steinzor, and James Goodwin on the EPA's effort to undercut the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (MATS rule), by eliminating consideration of "co-benefits," and with it, to lay groundwork for eliminating consideration of co-benefits from cost-benefit analyses for future environmental regulation, April 17, 2019.

Joint comments from CPR and other institutions to the National Archives and Records Administration's on the Department of Interior's natural resources planning and development document records schedule, November 26, 2018.

Trump Trashes the Environment, Calls It Leadership, op-ed by Joel Mintz

Bush White House blocks information to EPA libraries, op-ed by Joel Mintz and Rebecca Bratspies

Closing Agency libraries deals serious blow, op-ed by Joel Mintz

CPR's Sidney Shapiro and Rena Steinzor's August 3, 2004 response to the paint industry's Information Quality Act challenge to state rules on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in paint: "Wrong in principle, wrong on the law, and wrong on the facts."

Business as Usual in the Gulf, by Rena Steinzor

Why are polluters getting discounts?, op-ed by Rena Steinzor

Joel Mintz op-ed in Miami Herald: New EPA administrator, same menace to the environment

Another Trump rollback that will harm Texans, op-ed by Thomas McGarity

Trump Administration Rollbacks Disable Environmental Planning and Democracy, op-ed by Alejandro Camacho in The Hill

Can the Appalachian Trail Block a Natural Gas Pipeline?, op-ed by Noah Sachs in American Prospect

With Port Neches burning, do we really think gutting the EPA is wise?, by Thomas McGarity, November 29, 2019, The Houston Chronicle

The rise and quick fall of the West tragedy's EPA rule, by Thomas McGarity, December 7, 2019, in The Waco Tribune

The Port Neches disaster shows the risk of Trump rolling back environmental regulations, by Thomas McGarity, December 5, 2019, The Dallas Morning News

CPR's Sandi Zellmer previews a case over regulation of navigable waters and public lands.

Writing in the Houston Chronicle, Victor Flatt challenges Trump's EPA.

Joel Mintz, writing for The Revelator, examines the Trump EPA's feeble substitute for the Clean Power Plan.

Writing in the Bay Journal, David Flores focuses on Maryland's pollution permitting and its impact on the Chesapeake Bay

Writing in The Hill, Robert Glicksman and Alejandro Camacho dissect the Trump administration's latest effort to enfeeble environmental protections, this time by devising new regulations intended to undercut the National Environment Policy Act.

CPR Perspective: Cost-Benefit Analysis by Frank Ackerman and Lisa Heinzerling. CPR's Perspectives Series is a set of monographs by CPR Member Scholars on timely and important health, safety, and environmental topics. Each Perspective provides a thumbnail sketch of the competing arguments concerning a substantive or procedural principle for developing appropriate health, safety and environmental policies, and closes with the Member Scholar-author's proposed approach to the issue.

Center for Progressive Reform Perspective by Douglas Kysar on cost-benefit analysis and its "cousins." CPR's Perspectives Series is a set of monographs by CPR Member Scholars on timely and important health, safety, and environmental topics. Each Perspective provides a thumbnail sketch of the competing arguments concerning a substantive or procedural principle for developing appropriate health, safety and environmental policies, and closes with the Member Scholar-author's proposed approach to the issue.

CPR Perspective: 'The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment,' by Bill Funk. CPR's Perspectives Series is a set of monographs by CPR Member Scholars on timely and important health, safety, and environmental topics. Each Perspective provides a thumbnail sketch of the competing arguments concerning a substantive or procedural principle for developing appropriate health, safety and environmental policies, and closes with the Member Scholar-author's proposed approach to the issue.

CPR Perspective: 'Statutory Design: The Advantages of Technology-Based Standards in Protecting Health, Safety, and the Environment,' by Robert L. Glicksman. CPR's Perspectives Series is a set of monographs by CPR Member Scholars on timely and important health, safety, and environmental topics. Each Perspective provides a thumbnail sketch of the competing arguments concerning a substantive or procedural principle for developing appropriate health, safety and environmental policies, and closes with the Member Scholar-author's proposed approach to the issue.

Writing in The Revelator, CPR's Joel Mintz describes yet another White House effort to weaken environmental safeguards, this time by "quietly and ominously ask[ing] polluters to help identify new opportunities for deregulation."

"Presidential emergency powers could provide useful tools for addressing climate change, but taking this route sets an important precedent," Dan Farber writes for The Conversation. "If presidents increasingly make free use of emergency powers to achieve policy goals, this approach could become the new normal – with a serious potential for abuse of power and ill-considered decisions."

Nearly half a century after Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring helped launch the modern environmental movement, the nation’s environmental statutes are showing signs of age. New challenges have arisen – climate change, most notably, but others that also threaten the safety of the air we breathe, water we drink, food we eat and more. In their new book, Beyond Environmental Law: Policy Proposals for a Better Environmental Future, CPR Member Scholars David Driesen and Alyson Flournoy compile original chapter contributions by leading environmental scholars assessing how to craft effective environmental standards to combat the environmental challenges of the 21st Century. Published in March 2010 by Cambridge University Press, Beyond Environmental Law proposes two new statutes: an Environmental Legacy Act to preserve a defined environmental legacy for future generations, and an Environmental Competition Statute to spark movement to new clean technologies. The first proposal would require for the first time that the federal government define an environmental legacy that it must preserve for future generations. The second would establish a market competition to maximize environmental protection.

CPR joined dozens of environmental and social justice organizations in writing to Congress urging that legislation responsive to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic account for environmental justice concerns.

For the Bush administration, mercury contamination is the regulatory equivalent of the perfect storm. Four separate fields - science, law, economics, and justice - have combined to demand strict and timely controls on the intolerable hazards mercury poses for public health and the environment. While many expected the Bush administration to search for escape routes that favor its friends in the chemical and energy industries - which produce the lion's share of mercury - none were prepared for its headlong plunge into the tallest waves. Just as the doomed fishermen of the Andrea Gail sailed into the storm despite clear warnings, the administration is likewise proceeding with business as usual. This means no requirements for industrial plants to reduce pollution at the smokestack and no expectation that the oldest, dirtiest plants install modern pollution controls. Meanwhile, the clear and present danger posed by mercury is being ignored.

Materials on the Environmental Protection Agency's Web site – buried deep inside hundreds of pages of internal documents – reveal the extent to which the White House was willing to override expert scientific conclusions to justify a weak proposal to control mercury emissions from power plants. Federal agencies are required to obtain approval for all major regulatory proposals from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (led by the president's regulatory czar John Graham) within the White House Office of Management and Budget. In flyspecking EPA's mercury proposal, OMB economists and White House officials systematically downplayed scientific conclusions that methyl-mercury exposure causes brain damage in children.

Writing on ACSBlog, Joel Mintz describes the several ways that the Trump EPA has seized on the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to undercut a range of environmental protections.

Writing on AlterNet, Catherine O'Neill observes that " Scant attention has been given to the Bush administration's embrace of risk avoidance as the supposed 'solution' to public health hazards and environmental contamination." She makes the case that the burden to avoid unhealthy exposure to pollution should not fall on individuals, but rather on polluters -- but someone needs to explain that to the Bush administration.

Clifford Rechtschaffen, writing on the Center for American Progress website: "The federal government relies in great measure on state agencies to enforce many of the key provisions of the Clean Water Act, including the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), a system by which polluters are issued permits to emit specific quantities of pollution into waterways. The sorry truth is that the system doesn't work very well, and enforcement of NPDES provisions is inadequate. That's the conclusion I'm forced to draw from a survey of state environmental protection agencies I conducted earlier this year."

Writing in the Baltimore Sun, Rena Steinzor takes Maryland Governor Larry Hogan to task for his efforts to put business executives in charge of an effort to identify state regulations to be gutted, including those protecting the Chesapeake Bay.

On the Center for American Progress website, Rena Steinzor writes that Maryland's Department is moving "ever so glacially toward developing enforceable standards for a key provision of the Clean Water Act."

Testifying at a virtual hearing hosted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, James Goodwin laid bare the feeble legal underpinnings of EPA's "censored science" rule.

Writing for SCOTUSBlog, CPR's Lisa Heinzerling discusses the Supreme Court's April 2020 ruling in a Clean Water Act case from Hawaii. The ruling requires a permit when a point source of pollution adds pollutants to navigable waters through groundwater, if the addition of pollutants is "the functional equivalent of a direct discharge" from the source into navigable waters. She writes that "Perhaps the most striking feature of Justice Stephen Breyer's opinion for the majority is its interpretive method. The opinion reads like something from a long-ago period of statutory interpretation, before statutory decisions regularly made the central meaning of complex laws turn on a single word or two and banished legislative purpose to the interpretive fringes."

In comments to the EPA on its proposed 'Censored Science' rule, CPR's Goodwin and Minovi write, "EPA’s rulemaking rejects widely accepted scientific standards and will allow the agency to cherry-pick studies that align with the administration’s agenda ... [and] will be prohibitively costly to the agency, both in terms of taxpayer dollars and the unnecessary and avoidable harms to public health and the environment. Furthermore, the EPA has incorrectly identified ... the legal authority for this rulemaking."

Writing for Just Security Rebecca Bratspies discusses efforts by Senate Republicans to amend the law to allow lawsuits against China related to the spread of the coronavirus, noting that conservatives have in the past been generally hostile to tort litigation in the past. She goes on to discuss the implications of the Trail Smelter Arbitration between Canada and the United States as it relates to coronavirus disputes.

CPR joined with other members of the Chespeake Accountability Project, urging the Maryland Department of the Environment to gather and share information about polluters' alleged inability to comply with permit requirements because of the coronavirus pandemic, and to ensure strong whistleblower protections.

In the Regulatory Review, Robert Glicksman and Alejandro Camacho write that, the Trump administration's anti-environmental and anti-democratic practices converged in [its] recent revisions to the Council on Environmental Quality’s regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act.

In an op-ed in The Hill, CPR's William Buzbee and co-authors take the Trump administration to task for its deregulatory disregard for law and science.

In The Revelator, CPR Member Scholar Dan Farber explains that the incoming Biden administration can leverage energy industry and state policy trends to advance an ambitious climate agenda.

Writing in The Hill, CPR Senior Policy Analyst James Goodwin highlights several of the anti-safeguards landmines the Trump administration has placed at EPA — and how the Biden administration can defuse them.

Writing in The Revelator, CPR Board Member Joel Mintz provides recommendations to the incoming Biden-Harris administration for repairing the damage Donald Trump, Scott Pruitt, and Andrew Wheeler have caused at the EPA.

In a commentary for The Hill, CPR Member Scholar David Driesen examines the need to use science in policymaking, environmental and otherwise. He also lays out the consequences of ignoring or censoring science.

Joe Biden got a big judicial win for his climate agenda just hours before his inauguration as U.S. president. The case involved federal plans for cutting power plant emissions and a big gamble by the Trump administration.

CPR joined dozens of public health, environmental, and other public interest organizations in urging the Biden White House and the EPA to strengthen air pollution standards for ozone and particulate matter. Both substances can cause or worsen a wide range of serious health problems, including asthma, other lung diseases, and cardiovascular conditions.

It’s past time to address “double disasters” — hazardous chemical releases by industrial facilities that are worsened by inadequate action in the face of conditions of climate change and natural disasters. As the global climate crisis intensifies, coastal and inland communities are increasingly at risk of natural disasters. When industrial facilities in these communities fail to adequately prepare for extreme storms, wildfires, earthquakes, heat waves, floods, rising sea levels, and other natural disasters, hazardous chemicals stored onsite can ignite, explode, and there may be dangerous and even catastrophic releases that threaten the health and safety of workers and the public. This can lead to a cascading series of harms, including toxic chemical exposures, on top of the effects of the storm itself. This brief spotlights this urgent issue, proposes policy solutions, and calls on federal leaders to take bold and prompt action to solve this problem.

The Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) is pleased to announce three new members on its Board of Directors. Each brings a wealth of experience and unique perspectives to CPR and will enrich and strengthen the organization’s work toward racial justice and a sustainable planet. Joining the Board are Alejandro Camacho, a law professor and longtime CPR Member Scholar; Sekita Grant, a leader in environmental health and justice; and Ajulo Othow, a leader in equitable renewable energy solutions.

In a comment to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), CPR Senior Policy Analyst James Goodwin urges the agency to use any eventual rulemaking within the Risk Management Program to rework how cost-benefit analysis is used to evaluate rules. Goodwin encourages EPA to work with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to take otherwise unquantifiable benefits into account and maximize protections from chemical disasters.

A few weeks ago, the Army Corps of Engineers made a startling announcement: It would give Sharon Lavigne and her neighbors in St. James Parish, La., a chance to tell their stories. The fact one of the world’s largest chemical companies has fought for years to keep Lavigne quiet tells you how commanding her stories are. Those stories may stop this particular company from building a multi-billion dollar chemical plant surrounding her neighborhood. for this, we can thank a simple law, signed by President Nixon in 1970, called the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Unlike other environmental laws, NEPA doesn’t tell agencies what choices they must make — like where to erect a levee or whether to permit a plastics plant. But it does insist their choices be informed. So, before the Army Corps can approve a company’s wetlands development permit it has to study whatever effects that chemical plant might have on the health of people in that community and on the properties they own. Corporate polluters recognize the power of process, too. For decades, they have waged a stealthy campaign to rig key procedural rules in their favor. Not surprisingly, NEPA is one of the main targets in this campaign. Corporate interests are using fast-moving infrastructure legislation as a vehicle for dismantling crucial procedural safeguards afforded by NEPA, wrongly claiming that the law stands in the way of a green energy grid, expanded mass transit, and other aspects of a green economy.

CPR Policy Analyst Katlyn Schmitt joined the Virginia Environmental Justice Collaborative in a public comment urging the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to update its public participation guidelines. They urged DEQ to ensure meaningful public involvement in the regulatory activities of the state — including the relative state boards that make decisions related to air pollution, water pollution, and waste management.

On Feb. 28, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the first of an expected wave of cases challenging governmental action to address the climate crisis. The court’s grant of four petitions seeking review in this case—two by coal companies and two by states—portends that the six conservative justices will erect significant barriers to meaningful climate policy and will continue to interfere with democratic governance in disregard of the rule of law.

Center for Progressive Reform Senior Policy Analyst James Goodwin testified on the importance of reinstating the "necessary and appropriate" finding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's mercury and air toxics rule. The finding, rolled back during the Trump administration's deregulatory frenzy, is essential to ensure the rule stands and continues protecting all Americans — particularly children — from mercury and other dangerous toxins.

It is past time for federal regulatory agencies to better engage the public and incorporate their unique on-the-ground perspectives to inform their work and make better, fairer decisions. To its credit, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is taking steps to do so and has created a new leadership role focused on environmental justice and equity. A major structural change is also underway: after decades of delay, FERC is now creating a new Office of Public Participation (OPP) to empower the public through more inclusive and responsive policymaking processes. This report provides core constituencies — agency policymakers, advocates for energy justice, and members of the public who are concerned about our energy future — with the information they need to ensure the OPP achieves its goal of promoting greater energy democracy at FERC. It begins by describing FERC’s role in energy policy and how its actions impact Americans; it then reviews FERC’s progress thus far in constituting the OPP. Finally, it offers recommendations to ensure the OPP achieves its goals and lessons to enhance regulatory democracy and equity across all federal regulatory agencies.

Once again turning its back on bedrock precedent and the will of the American people, the U.S. Supreme Court today sent a wrecking ball through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to protect us all from climate change. More than that, though, even the still-settling dust cannot conceal the extent of the damage this decision does to our system of regulatory safeguards, as it threatens our ability to take common-sense actions to protect public health, safety, financial security, and the environment.