Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour
5 (Recent) Actions That Epitomize Andrew Wheeler’s Caustic Chemical Safety Legacy
Genna Reed, Senior Analyst | January 15, 2021, 12:53 pm EDT
As peoples’ minds have rightfully been on the state of our democracy and the Trump administration has been shedding agency heads left and right after inciting insurrection, the EPA’s administrator Andrew Wheeler has stuck around to finalize a long list of destructive items that represent the administration’s agenda all along: industry profits over public health.
Specifically, in its final days, the administration has taken a wrecking ball to the scientific basis for public protections against hazardous chemicals. Wheeler even had the gall to promote the EPA’s Environmental Justice report, after we know that under his leadership, longstanding inequities have been neglected or made even worse. For example, environmental conta
New Year, New EPA: How the Biden Administration Can Catalyze PFAS Action in 2021
Genna Reed, Senior Analyst | January 6, 2021, 1:53 pm EDT
During the past four years, awareness about per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) has been heightened, but not because of notable government successes. Instead, communities across the country have worked with scientists, legal teams, nonprofit organizations, members of Congress, and even film production companies to raise awareness about the need for remedies. With their leadership, there has been progress made, with dozens of pieces of PFAS legislation introduced and the passage of PFAS provisions in the 2020 and 2021 defense authorization bills, but there’s much more work to do to help us understand the extent of the PFAS public health threat, limit current PFAS pollution, and require polluters to pay for cleanup of legacy contamination.
Punctuating the Product-Safety Year: A Rush of CPSC Activity at the End of a Largely Inactive 2020 Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Like virtually every other institution, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) was profoundly shaped in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenges of a dispersed workforce and operational uncertainty limited the agency’s operations and forced redesign of processes, from virtual Commission meetings to banners on the agency’s website warning consumers that some companies may be unable to provide recall remedies.
The CPSC’s 2020 was also profoundly shaped by political gridlock and instability. The Commission reached consensus on few significant issues – it took two tries to set a Fiscal Year 2021 Operating Plan – and commissioners were unusually pointed in their disagreements, most prominently Commissioner Peter Feldman and Acting Chairman Bob Adler questioning each other’s enforcement bona fides. The agency’s most no
Not the time for in-person county government | Letters to the editor sun-sentinel.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sun-sentinel.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog:
For years consumer product safety advocate groups have bemoaned the seeming lack of aggressiveness from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (“CPSC”). As an example, they complain that the CPSC levied no civil penalties on companies in 2020, 2 in 2019, and only 1 in 2018, penalties being a surrogate in their minds for enforcement. As counsel for many companies, we know that this is not the case and CPSC compliance activity has remained vigorous. But perhaps the ongoing criticisms led Acting Chairman Robert Adler to publicly announce in mid-November the CPSC’s recent vote to refer a case to the DOJ for prosecution of a civil penalty.