"Expect Environmental Battles to Be ‘Even More Significant’ in 2018"
"If 2017 was the Trump administration’s year of grand pronouncements declaring an end to environmental regulations, 2018 will be the year of trying to finish what it started."
"If 2017 was the Trump administration’s year of grand pronouncements declaring an end to environmental regulations, 2018 will be the year of trying to finish what it started."
"A new, highly effective typhoid vaccine — the only one safe for infants — has been approved for global use by the World Health Organization. The approval was given in December but announced on Wednesday."
"While visions of sugarplums danced in some of our heads, the Trump administration had a different vision—of a country unbound by rules that protect people, places, wildlife and the climate. Over the past two weeks, the administration has proposed or finalized changes to how the government and the industries it regulates respond to climate change, migratory birds, clean energy, pesticides and toxic chemicals."
"Since 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency has been embroiled in an enforcement battle with a Michigan-based company accused of modifying the state’s largest coal-fired power plant without getting federal permits for a projected rise in pollution. On Dec. 7, as the Supreme Court was considering whether to hear the case, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a memo that single-handedly reversed the agency’s position."
"The city of Flint, which has been reeling for years over lead seepage from its pipes into its tap water, is accused of violating the terms of a major settlement agreement aimed at improving its water quality. Advocacy groups say the city is failing to disclose information about its efforts to replace its lead pipes."
"The U.S. has abandoned any claim to climate leadership as the only nation to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. In Trump's Cabinet, climate denial is pretty much cause for a Merit Badge. Congressional leadership doesn't acknowledge climate change to be a problem, or even a thing."
"Day-to-day increases in air pollution, even at levels generally considered acceptable, are associated with increased deaths among the elderly."
"The Environmental Protection Agency has ignored many years of evidence of dangerous levels of lead paint in millions of Americans’ homes and must propose tighter standards within 90 days to protect children from lead exposure, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday."
"The Environmental Protection Agency has tasked a banker who was banned from the banking industry for life with oversight of the nation’s Superfund program."
"Anthony Stansbury propped his rusty bike against a live oak tree and cast his fishing line into the rushing waters of Florida’s Anclote River. When he bought a house down the street last year, Stansbury says he wasn’t told that his slice of paradise had a hidden problem."