Setting Priorities for IRIS: 47 Chemicals that Should Move to the Head of the Risk-Assessment Line, CPR White Paper 1010

Opening the Industry Playbook: Myths and Truths in the Debate Over BPA Regulation, CPR White Paper 1107

Protecting the Public from BPA: An Action Plan for Federal Agencies. CPR White Paper 1202, January 2012, by Member Scholars Noah Sachs, Thomas O. McGarity and Rena Steinzor, CPR Policy Analyst Aimee Simpson and Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Shudtz.

Animas River spill: Root causes and continuing threats, op-ed by Joel Mintz

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

The U.S. tort, or personal injury law, cloaked behind increased judicial review of science, is changing before our eyes. But we cannot see it.  U.S. Supreme Court decisions beginning with Daubert v. Merrell-Dow Pharmaceutical altered how courts review scientific testimony and its foundation in the law. Mistaken reviews of scientific evidence can decrease citizen access to the law, increase incentives for firms not to test their products, lower deterrence for wrongful conduct and harmful products, and decrease the possibility of justice for citizens injured by toxic substances. Even if courts review evidence well, greater judicial scrutiny increases litigation costs and attorney screening of clients, and decreases citizens’ access to the law. Carl Cranor's Toxic Torts: Science, Law, and the Possibility of Justice introduces these issues, reveals the relationships that can deny citizens just restitution for harms suffered, and shows how justice can be enhanced in toxic tort cases.

Writing in Undark, CPR Member Scholar Wendy Wagner and co-author Will Walker write that the existing framework for chemical regulation puts too much burden on EPA and too little on manufacturers.

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.

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 joined the Southern Environmental Law Center and more than 150 other organizations in a letter to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, in support of the Clean Water Standards for PFAS Act of 2021.

Throughout most of the U.S., the public is not protected from spills and other disasters involving storage of hazardous chemicals — including toxic and flammable substances — in aboveground tanks. For decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and most states have refused to act to protect the health and safety of workers and communities, as well as water and natural resources, from the threat of hazardous chemical tank fires, spills, and explosions. In the absence of federal action, 10 states have established comprehensive programs that impose registration, inspection, and design and siting requirements to prevent releases from aboveground chemical storage facilities. Some of these state programs were enacted by lawmakers in response to catastrophic incidents, like a fatal explosion in Delaware or the Elk River leak in 2014 in West Virginia that contaminated drinking water for hundreds of thousands of residents. Several years ago, Virginia studied the issue of unregulated chemical storage and found that aboveground storage tanks pose a threat to the safety of Virginians and their drinking water. At that time, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) recommended action, but policymakers chose instead to wait on an EPA rule that never came.

The Center for Progressive Reform joined other organizations in support of Virginia House Bill 899, which would create a registration program for non-petroleum aboveground storage tanks in the Commonwealth.

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.

In public comments submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Center for Progressive Reform commended the agency for proposing a rule that aims to strengthen toxic spill response measures under the Clean Water Act. However, the Center noted the rule could more rigorously respond to the worsening impacts of the climate crisis and provided evidence and policy suggestions to support that recommendation.