• Water

Clean Water Protections Under President Trump Continue to Be Eroded

• clean water
• Clean Water Act
• regulations
• rollback
• safe drinking water
• WOTUS

The Trump Administration’s severe rollback of the Clean Water Act’s coverage went into effect yesterday with numerous non-profits and states vowing litigation, and Colorado has already successfully pushed back implementing the new rule.  In addition, last week the administration decided not to regulate a chemical used in rocket fuel that has been linked to developmental damage ans the Massachusetts state Department of Environmental Protection failed to send federal regulators reports about the safety of watersheds required by the Act, according to the state auditor.

Why This Matters:  There is not much left of the Clean Water Act with the Trump Administration at the helm of the so-called Environmental Protection Agency.

• Energy

Exxon Climate Accounting Fraud Trial Begins Today in NYC

• climate change
• investors
• oil and gas
• regulations

The Attorney General (AG) of New York state sued Exxon Mobil last fall after a four-year investigation into the question of whether the company misled investors on the costs to the company of future regulation of the industry that would be needed to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and that those misrepresentations caused investors to pay more for the stock than they should have — to the tune of  “between $476 million and $1.6 billion.”

Why This Matters:  Investor disclosure laws are strict — and the government alleges that the decisions regarding what they did not disclose went all the way up to Exxon’s CEO at the time, Rex Tillerson, who is expected to testify.  If NY wins, there will be a slew of additional lawsuits to join the other similar ones pending in New Jersey and Texas.  If the company wins, it will insulate the company and the industry from further climate change legal challenges.

• Air

Houston petrochem fire spews millions of pounds of pollutants into the air

• Chemicals
• oil
• regulations
• Texas

A fire that erupted Sunday afternoon at the Intercontinental Terminals Company’s (ITC) petrochemical facility in Houston, TX is still burning and isn’t expected to be extinguished for two more days. As Grist reported yesterday, self-reported emissions data posted on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s website showed that the blaze had sent more than 9 […]

• Climate Change

Greenhouse gas emissions increasing again for the first time in nearly a decade

• air pollution
• carbon dioxide
• coal
• greenhouse gas emissions
• Paris Agreement
• power plants
• regulations
• rollbacks
• transportation

Toxic carbon dioxide emissions (that are an important contributor to global warming)  increased by 3.4% in 2018 after three years of declines, according to a new report based on government statistics released today, demonstrating that the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction on cleaning up air pollution and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

Why This Matters:  The Washington Post reported that the study’s authors concluded that we are now experiencing the impacts of the Trump Administration’s regulatory rollbacks of the clean power plan, the clean car rule, and dozens of other rules designed to protect health and reduce air emissions that cause global warming.  And recall that these impacts are not harmless — according to a study by Harvard scientists published last summer in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Trump administration‘s changes to air pollution policies will result in an extra 80,000 deaths per decade.  And we no longer are leading the world on battling climate change, despite the best efforts of states, cities, corporations and individuals.  This should give greater impetus to the Green New Deal proposals likely to emerge from the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives.  

• Health

NYT Exposé: Health Risks on the Rise Due to Regulatory Rollbacks

• air
• air pollution
• benzene
• cancer
• carbon dioxide
• coal power plants
• Farm Workers
• fossil fuels
• health
• methane
• Native Americans
• oil and gas drilling
• pesticides
• regulations
• rivers
• sickened
• toxic chemicals
• toxic waste
• water pollution

The New York Times investigated and found that the consequences of the President keeping his promise to deregulate in favor of industry and development, particularly for fossil fuels, are beginning to have real detrimental impacts for those who live or work in proximity to them. The stories of those impacted demonstrate that the U.S. environment is not as clean as most think.