Save EPA’s Office of Research and Development
Congress has a chance to save ORD during the appropriations process By Mayra Reiter, Senior Research and Policy Analyst, Earthjustice Action In yet another attack on science and public health by the Trump administration, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced in July that EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) is…
Read MoreTrump’s Big Ugly Bill is On Its Way to Having Big Ugly Impacts on the Environment
By Raúl GarcÃa, Vice President of Policy and Legislation, Earthjustice Action Last month, President Trump signed H.R. 1, a sweeping bill filled with massive tax cuts for billionaires and handouts to polluting industries. To pay for it, Republicans made deep cuts to our social safety nets and are making up the difference by selling out…
Read MoreState Supreme Court Decisions with Huge Implications for the Future of Environmental Protection
By Grace Wyner, Communications Associate, Earthjustice Action Over the past several years, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly made decisions that diminish the strength and scope of core environmental laws put in place to protect our health and planet. This includes the decision earlier this year in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v Eagle County, which…
Read MorePresident Trump’s Plan to Put a Coal Executive in Charge of Coal Regulations
Earlier this month, congressional Republicans passed, and the president signed into law, the biggest federal giveaway to the coal industry in history. The big, bad budget bill slashed the royalty rate coal companies pay for the value of coal extracted from public lands nearly in half, directed the Department of the Interior to offer up…
Read MoreState Supreme Courts are on the Front Lines of Defense Against Attempts to Roll Back Environmental Protections
By: Coby Dolan, Legislative Director of the Access to Justice Program, Earthjustice Action The Trump administration has challenged, undermined, and even eliminated key environmental protections — from defunding agencies established solely to safeguard people’s health, public lands, and the planet, to implementing massive rollbacks of clean energy investments that will help us reduce emissions and…
Read MoreTrump Is Nominating New Judges for Lifetime Appointments. The Senate has a Constitutional Duty to Rigorously Scrutinize Them
By: Coby Dolan, Legislative Director of the Access to Justice Program, Earthjustice Action Over the first few months of President Trump’s second term, we have witnessed an unprecedented attack on the rule of law, with executive orders, memos, and agency actions seeking to silence dissent from law firms, lawyers, universities, and even federal judges. In…
Read MoreA Bipartisan Senate Confirmed Doug Burgum—Their Job is Not Over
By: Laura M. Esquivel, Senior Legislative Representative Photo: Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0 At the end of January, the U.S. Senate confirmed North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum to lead the Interior Department in a bipartisan vote. Compared to some of Trump’s more erratic picks for Cabinet positions, Burgum’s hearing seemed almost genteel, easily bantering…
Read MoreLee Zeldin is Now the Head of the EPA: Here’s How That Spells Disaster for Public Health and Communities
By: Ranjani Prabhakar, Healthy Communities Legislative Director Photo: Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0 It should be common sense that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) believes in protecting the public from environmental harm, right? Sadly, that’s not the case with Lee Zeldin, President Trump’s recently confirmed Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency,…
Read MoreThe Fight for the Judiciary Continues, and We’re Ready for It
By: Coby Dolan, Legislative Director Let’s face it. Reading the news today can certainly be a downer. In just a short time, President Donald Trump used his executive authority to reverse some of President Joe Biden’s signature achievements—especially concerning the environment. But there’s one thing he can’t undo: Biden’s impact on the federal judiciary. Even…
Read MoreChris Wright is Poised to Be the Next Secretary of Energy Under the Trump Administration: Here’s What That Means for the Future of Climate Action
By: Meg Slattery, PhD, Staff Scientist Photo: Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0 If you watched President Trump’s Energy Secretary nominee Chris Wright’s confirmation hearing, you might have been pleasantly surprised to hear several reasonable statements on climate change. In the typical back-and-forth with Senators, he repeatedly reaffirmed his belief in climate change with statements…
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