The Obama Administration, at the urging of chemical manufacturers, withdrew two EPA actions proposed under the Toxic Substance Control Act. The measures would have provided the public more information about the hazards associated with certain chemical substances.
A federal judge rebukes a coal company that sued a miner for filing a whistleblower discrimination complaint; EPA and OSHA have yet to announce formal enforcement activities for the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion; and LA bus drivers say pesticides used on buses are making them sick.
When most of us pass by a new high-rise or drive down a new road, we rarely think: Did the builders and planners consider my health? However, a new report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers evidence that certain types of land use and transportation decisions can indeed limit the human health and environmental impacts of development.
Although EPA banned commercially manufactured PCBs in 1979, it still allows PCBs that occur as manufacturing by-products. Recent research has found these by-product PCBs in air and water samples from across the US. Are workers at risk from exposure to these substances?
EPA delays an announcement about a carcinogen found in some tap water on the advice of a scientific panel that’s ostensibly unbiased — but an investigation into panelists’ backgrounds finds some troubling conflicts of interest.
Cancer
Public Health Classics: Assessing air pollution and health in six U.S. cities, researchers’ findings changed the air we breathe
In the 1974, most of us thought that air pollution was something that just looked and smelled bad. But public health researchers had just launched a study to determine whether air pollution shortened people’s lives. Twenty years later they published their results. It forever changed the way we think about and address air pollutants.
Forty years ago today, the Clean Water Act was enacted. Since then, US waterways have gotten cleaner – but some people seem to be forgetting why we need regulation like this in the first place.
Thanks to regulations limiting the use of lead in gasoline, paint, and plumbing supplies, the median blood lead concentration for US children age five and younger has dropped from 15 µg/dL in 1976-1980 to 1.4 µg/dL in 2007-2008. This is important because lead is a neurotoxicant that can lead to developmental delays and behavioral problems, […]
Making a $10,000 bet, insulting people for wearing plastic rain ponchos, and asserting that $374,000 is not much to earn in speaking fees are just a few examples of Mitt Romney being out of touch. The Republican Presidential hopeful doesn’t seem to have a clue either about how federal agencies like EPA and OSHA conduct […]
Yesterday, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced the agency’s new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which will reduce emissions of heavy metals and acid gases from coal- and oil-fired power plants. The approximately 1,400 units that EPA expects to be affected by the rule (because they aren’t already meeting the standard) will have up to four […]