Trump’s EPA Rollbacks: Trading Clean Air for Wealthy Plant Owners’ Profits
#EnvironmentalProtectionAgency
Trump’s EPA Plans to Claim US Power Sector Emissions Are Insignificant. It’s absurd.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is asking Texas residents for input on a new rule change that environmental advocates say would use money paid by motorists to offset pollution caused by industry.
#Business #EnergyEnvironment #Galveston #Houston #Local #News #Texas #Transportation #AirPollution #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency #KERANews #Ozone #PublicCitizen #TexasCommissionOnEnvironmentalQuality
Slashed federal grants under President Donald Trump’s administration affected $62 million in grant funding for Houston’s health department along with $67 million for environmental justice projects across 13 coastal counties.
#CityOfHouston #EnergyEnvironment #EnvironmentalJustice #HealthScience #Houston #Local #News #AirAllianceHouston #AirPollutionInHouston #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency #FederalGrants #HoustonHealthDepartment #TrumpFundingCuts
Trump Administration Aims to Roll Back Limits on Toxic “Forever Chemicals” in Drinking Water
As Trump’s administration slashes federal spending deemed wasteful, the EPA cancelled $1.5 million in funding for a project to build out a solar energy farm, create a resilience hub and plant trees in Houston’s long-polluted Fifth Ward.
#CityOfHouston #EnergyEnvironment #Houston #Local #News #AirAllianceHouston #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency #FifthWardHouston #HoustonHealthDepartment #HoustonPollution #SolarFarm
The Economic Case for Preserving America’s Wetlands
"The first #EarthDay in 1970 sparked a movement in the #UnitedStates that led to the #CleanAirAct, the #CleanWaterAct and the creation of the #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency. Today, the U.S. may be run by those who seem willing to squander the #economicopportunities of the #greeneconomy, but #cities around the world are already seizing them."
https://www.newsweek.com/if-nations-wont-fight-global-warming-cities-can-will-opinion-2061588
#netzero
#greenagenda
#emissions
#pollution
#climatecrisis
#climatechange
#Greencities
#environmentpolicy
#SadiqKhan
Cultural connection to the region allows EPA staff to bring value to the Great Lakes, former EPA executive Dave Ullrich says.#chicago #environmentalprotectionagency
Experts explain criticality of regional EPA office | Great Lakes Now
Experts explain criticality of regional EPA office | Great Lakes Now
Ellie Hagen is a scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency. She worries proposed cuts at EPA will put people’s health at risk.#chicago #environmentalprotectionagency #pollution
‘Everyone deserves clean air,’ says a Chicago EPA worker who fears her job will end | Great Lakes Now
‘Everyone deserves clean air,’ says a Chicago EPA worker who fears her job will end | Great Lakes Now
"My takeaway from this story is that all of us need to rethink using chemical pesticides at our homes and businesses. Even so-called organic pesticides like Bacillus thuringiensis, or BT, are highly toxic to monarchs and other butterflies.”—Pam Marino / @pammarino, #MontereyCountyNow https://www.montereycountynow.com/blogs/opinion_blog/monarchs-face-an-uphill-battle-for-their-survival-it-s-up-to-us-to-help/article_cf7fe0b8-e8d8-11ef-b7c8-9f30411eb64b.html#tncms-source=mosaic
#butterflies #MonarchButterflies #XercesSociety #MontereyCounty #MonarchSanctuary #PacificGrove #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency #EPA #CaliforniaDepartmentOfFishAndWildlife #CDFW #USGeologicalService #insecticides #fungicides #herbicides #PyrethroidInsecticides
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found levels of toxic chemical contamination in the soil at Julia C. Hester House, a community center in Houston’s Fifth Ward, that exceed the agency’s screening levels for children.
#EnergyEnvironment #EnvironmentalJustice #HarrisCounty #Houston #Local #News #Dioxin #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency #FifthWard #JuliaCHesterHouse #KashmereGardens #UnionPacific
Notorious US #ChemicalPlant polluting water with toxic #PFAS, lawsuit claims
Complaint says #Chemours factory dramatized in Hollywood movie #DarkWaters continues to pollute #WestVirginia river
by Tom Perkins, January 27, 2025
"The chemical giant Chemours’s notorious West Virginia PFAS plant is regularly polluting nearby water with high levels of toxic 'forever chemicals', a new lawsuit alleges.
"It represents the latest salvo in a decades-old fight over pollution from the plant, called Washington Works, which continues despite public health advocates winning significant legal battles.
The new federal complaint claims #WashingtonWorks has been spitting out levels of PFAS waste significantly higher than what a discharge permit has allowed since 2023, which is contaminating the #OhioRiver in #ParkersburgWestVirginia, a town of about 50,000 people in #Appalachia.
"The factory was the focal point of a Hollywood movie, Dark Waters. It dramatized the story of how the pollution widely sickened Parkersburg residents, and the David v Goliath legal saga in which a group of residents and attorneys took on Chemours, then part of DuPont.
The findings ‘highlight the importance of careful scrutiny of novel chemicals’, said Irene Jacz, a study co-author and Iowa State economist.
"An epidemiological study stemming from the case blew the lid off of the health risks of PFAS, and ultimately cost #DuPont about $700m.
"Though the landmark case still reverberates across the regulatory landscape, the suit started almost 25 years ago, concluded in 2016, and Chemours’s pollution continues. The new lawsuit is part of other legal actions related to the facility that have filled the gap left by weak regulatory action, local advocates say. The never-ending struggle 'wears you out', added Joe Kiger, a Parkersburg resident who was one of the original litigants in 2001.
"'We have put up with this for 24 years, and [Chemours] is still polluting, they’re still putting this stuff in the water,' Kiger said.
"The new lawsuit, filed by the #WestVirginiaRiversCoalition, alleges 'numerous violations' since the level of PFAS the company is permitted to discharge per a consent order was lowered in early 2023. Among the contaminants are #PFOA, a PFAS chemical to which virtually no level of exposure in drinking water is safe, the #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency (#EPA) has found. It also includes #GenX, a compound for which the EPA has similarly found very low exposure levels can cause health problems.
"The EPA ordered Chemours to take corrective action, but the company has done nothing in response, and the agency has not taken further action, the suit states. The complaint does not mention drinking water, which is largely filtered. But the suit alleges the ongoing pollution prevents residents from using the river for recreation.
"In a statement, Chemours said the 'concerns are being addressed' through the consent order. It also noted it was renewing discharge permits with the state, and was working with regulators 'to navigate both the consent order and the permit renewal process'.
"'Chemours recognizes the Coalition as a community stakeholder and invites the Coalition to engage directly with the Washington Works team,' a spokesperson wrote.
"The EPA and West Virginia Rivers Coalition declined to comment because litigation is ongoing.
"Kiger and others who have taken on Chemours and DuPont railed against the company, accusing it of 'greed' and putting profits above residents’ health. Some in Parkersburg refer to the waste as the 'Devil's Piss'.
"'They do what they can to make money,' said Harry Deitzler, a West Virginia attorney who helped lead past lawsuits.
"'The officers in the corporation sometimes don’t care about what’s right and wrong – they need to make money for shareholders and the lawsuits make everyone play by the same rules.'
"Still, most residents are not aware of the ongoing pollution, those who spoke with the Guardian say. Chemours is a large employer that still wields power locally, and spends heavily on charitable giving. Many remain supportive of the company, regardless of the pollution, Kiger said.
"'That’s the kind of stuff you’re up against,' he added. 'People put a blind trust in them. It could be snowing out and Chemours would tell everyone it’s 80F [27C] and sunny, and everyone will grab their tan lotion.'
"The saga began in the late 1990s when the plant’s pollution was suspected of sickening nearby livestock, and an investigation by attorneys revealed the alarming levels at which PFAS was being discharged into the water and environment.
"A class action lawsuit yielded about $70m in damages for area residents in 2004, but the litigation did not prove DuPont’s PFAS pollution was behind a rash of #cancer, #KidneyDisease, stubbornly high cholesterol and other widespread health problems in the region.
"Instead of dividing the settlement up among tens of thousands of residents, which would have only provided each with several hundred dollars, the money went toward developing an epidemiological study with independent scientists to verify that widespread local health issues were caused by DuPont’s pollution.
"The move was a gamble that ultimately paid off – the study of about 70,000 people showed by 2012 that PFOA probably caused some forms of cancer, #ThyroidDisease, persistently #HighCholesterol, pregnancy-induced #hypertension and #autoimmune problems.
"Subsequent studies have shown links between the chemical and a host of other serious health problems – #BirthDefects, #neurotoxicity, kidney disease and #LiverDisease – that residents in the area suffered.
"DuPont and Chemours in 2017 settled for $671m in costs for about 3,500 injury suits, and have paid more to install water-filtration systems throughout the region. Separately, Chemours in 2023 settled with the state of #Ohio for $110m for pollution largely from Washington Works.
"The EPA and state regulatory agencies have at times been staffed with former DuPont managers or industry allies, and litigation has been the only way to get any meaningful movement, said Rob Bilott, the attorney who led the original class-action suit.
'"It’s infuriating,' Bilott said. 'It took decades of making DuPont documents and internal data public, and getting the story out through movies, news articles, books and public engagement, and that’s what finally pushed the needle here. This is the impact of citizens forcing it through decades of litigation.'
"The latest lawsuit is a citizen’s suit under the #CleanWaterAct. Such suits give citizens the power to ask a judge to enforce federal law when a polluter is violating it and regulators fail to act.
"The lawsuit asks a judge to order the company to pay $66,000 for each day it has been in violation, which is stipulated in the permit. That would total around $50m, but the main goal is to stop the pollution.
"The EPA has acknowledged Chemours is violating the law, but has 'taken no further enforcement action regarding Chemours’s violations as of the date of this complaint', the suit reads."
Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/27/chemours-pfas-pollution-lawsuit
Archived:
https://archive.ph/p3wA6
#Environment #PFASPollution #PollutionRunoff #WaterIsLife #DevilsPiss
Likely a precursor to closing it down completely: “The Trump administration plans to place over 100 workers who are employed with the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights on administrative leave, according to Wednesday reporting from The Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed sources.”
#Politics #USPolitics #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency #EPA #EnvironmentalJustice #CivilRights #TrumpIsARacist #Project2025
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-environmental-justice-offices
As the Trump Administration makes federal budget cuts and reportedly considers firing more than 1,000 EPA employees, there are concerns about what that could mean for a contaminated railyard site in Houston.
#EnergyEnvironment #Houston #Local #National #News #CancerCluster #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency #Epa #FifthWard #KashmereGardens #UnionPacificRailroad
Senate Confirms Lee Zeldin to Head E.P.A.
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/climate/lee-zeldin-epa-confirmation.html
A new report shows that the EPA's enforcement of federal environmental law will likely decrees under Trump if he sticks Project 2025's plan.
#EnergyEnvironment #EnvironmentalJustice #News #Politics #DonaldTrump #EnvironmentalIntegrityProject #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency #HoustonShipChannel #Project2025 #TexasCommissionOnEnvironmentalQuality
The Environmental Protection Agency extended a deadline for Union Pacific to collect soil samples for potential cancer-causing chemicals near a contaminated railyard in Houston's Fifth Ward.
#EnergyEnvironment #Houston #Local #News #CancerCluster #Creosote #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency #Epa #FifthWard #UnionPacific
#Trump’s Pick To Lead The #EPA is An Anti-Environmentalist
#LeeZeldin is little more than a Trump sycophant, and he's about to do a ton of damage to the #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency.
Trump campaigned on pledges to “kill” and “cancel” the EPA’s rules and regulations meant to combat #globalwarming by regulating how much #pollution our cars, businesses and industries are pumping into the atmosphere, according to the New York Times
https://jalopnik.com/trump-s-pick-to-lead-the-epa-is-an-anti-environmental-b-1851695812
Aside: how GOP crushed Democrats
https://mastodon.social/@persagen/113448643612890152
Republicans nurture younger base
https://therealnews.com/the-infernal-triangle-destroying-us-democracy
Trump2 EPA pick Lee Zeldin: https://mastodon.social/@persagen/113470956012478722
* launched Leadership America Needs"
* PAC aimed at increasing Republican turnout among young/voters of color
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Zeldin#Other_political_activism
#LeeZeldin #GOP #Trump2 #fascism #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency #EPA #Project2025
#billionaires #capitalism #libertarianism #EcologicalDestruction #ClimateDenial #GlobalWarming #ExtremeWeather
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