Who is Donald Trump trying to impress with his demands to slash spending on scientists and scientific research, and his twitter-blizzard attacks on established science (climate change, as but one of many examples)? In the environmental field in which I work, the results of research studies done by federally-funded scientists…
This month in Germany, the world’s biggest industrial nations are meeting to discuss what to do about increasingly threatening climate change. A good idea, right? Except it turns out that the meeting will be disgraced by the presence of some 270 business lobbyists, most of them there to protect trillions…
Scott Pruitt has repeatedly stated that he’s cutting the EPA’s budget for Clean Air programs because those programs are not the EPA’s job and that he expects the states to do more to ensure clean air. This is a lie. Here’s what Scott Pruitt knows: (1) The states don’t have…
What do you suppose happens when a town cuts its police force and no longer tries to catch people speeding on the most dangerous roads in the town? More speeding, more danger, right? In fact, if the town didn’t want to catch speeders any more on those roads, what is…
A recent article titled “Righting Civil Wrongs” sadly describes how the poor, minority residents of communities throughout the United States have been left with no choice but to sue their government (the US EPA, specifically). Years ago, these residents formally claimed that they were the victims of environmental racism because…
More than perhaps anything else he does, a president’s budget proposal tells us what he thinks is important. By that measure, President Trump’s just proposed massive budget cuts for the EPA tell us that Trump does not value the EPA mission of ensuring clean air and water for Americans, and…
Pro-business forces in Congress have proposed laws aimed at restricting, or even eliminating, the rights of injured Americans to join together in bringing their claims in the form of a single “class action” lawsuit. A class action is a kind of lawsuit in which those who have been injured…
Two things that Scott Pruitt just said prove that he is so deep into the pocket of big oil company polluters that he can’t find his way out. He’s not fit to head the EPA. Here’s what Pruitt said: (1) “I think people across this country look at the EPA…
It’s hard to say what’s worst about Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s choice to head the EPA. Among the choices are: ·He’s a paid shill for big oil companies who masqueraded as a public servant, i.e., the Attorney General of Oklahoma. ·He used his public office to do what big oil…
The recent resignation-in-disgrace of Trump Administration National Security Advisor (NSA), Michael Flynn, and the resulting damage to the country could have been avoided. If the President and his advisers had looked at Flynn more carefully before he was appointed to head the NSA (and assuming that they even cared about…