Environmental Justice

"The messages, made public in a lawsuit, suggest the E.P.A. rescinded a requirement on methane at the behest of an executive just weeks after President Trump took office."

"WASHINGTON — Not long after President Trump’s inauguration, the head of a fossil fuels industry group requested a call with the president’s transition team. The subject: Barack Obama’s requirement that oil and gas companies begin collecting data on their releases of methane.

That outreach, by Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, appeared to quickly yield the desired results.

"Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder (R) helped pass a controversial nuclear bailout bill in exchange for almost $61 million in bribes, federal prosecutors said Tuesday as they announced racketeering charges against the official."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to remove hundreds of once-contaminated East Chicago properties from its National Priorities List to spur development in the northwestern Indiana city that could potentially qualify homes for interior lead abatement."

"A group of Democratic senators is expressing concerns over reports that Facebook is exempting climate change misinformation from fact-checking."

"At the dawn of the Trump era, Republicans in the White House and Congress turned an old law into a potent new weapon. An obscure 1996 statute was harnessed to wipe out 14 Obama-era regulations in 16 weeks, before President Trump set out to enact the most significant deregulatory agenda in the modern presidential era. ... Now Democrats are eager to show that turnabout is fair play ..."

"The roots of the nation’s current inability to control the pandemic can be traced to mid-April, when the White House embraced overly rosy projections to proclaim victory and move on."

"Low-income Black and Latino communities will be pummeled by the Trump administration’s changes to the nation’s permitting rules for federal infrastructure projects, according to environmental justice leaders across the country."

"The Trump administration has taken control of COVID-19 data in the United States, leaving public health experts gravely concerned about whether anyone outside the administration will be able to access the vital information moving forward."

"Researchers link air pollution from burning off excess natural gas to preterm births for babies; with the most pronounced impacts among Hispanic families."

"President Trump finalized a major overhaul Wednesday of one of the country’s most consequential environmental laws on the grounds that it has slowed the construction of highways, pipelines and other major projects across the country. The sweeping changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act, which opponents have vowed to fight in court and reverse if Democrats regain control of the executive and legislative branches this fall, underscore the stakes in this year’s election."