Health
Guest Bloggers Amy Vanderwarker and Kay Cuajunco: Equity at the Center: SB 775 and AB 378 Create New Path Towards More Equitable, Effective Climate Policy
By Prioritizing Equity, We Fight Climate Change, Improve Local Air Quality and Public Health, and Deliver Economic Benefits
California is at a crossroads in our strategy to fight climate change. With the current form of cap and trade due to end in 2020, our state is deciding to what extent carbon pricing will play a role in meeting the 2030 targets enacted in 2016, and if so, what the program will look like. …
CONTINUE READINGScott Gottlieb and the FDA
The FDA nominee compares favorably with some of Trump’s choices. But there are still problems.
There was a time when it might not have seemed particularly noteworthy that a presidential nominee was competent and sane. But we do not live in those times. So it is actually worth taking notice of the fact that Scott Gottlieb, Trump’s nominee to head FDA, is competent and sane. And unlike some other Trump …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Trump Administration’s False Stories About the Environmental Protection Agency Are Meant to Take the Agency Down
Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt Distort the Facts About EPA’s Mission, History, and Success
The Trump Administration has made clear its plans to systematically dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency. Destroying the EPA will be a key element of the administration’s fight, in the words of White House policy advisor Steve Bannon, to achieve the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” [Update 8/22/17: Bannon is out, but that doesn’t change the Administration’s …
CONTINUE READING“States’ Rights” and Environmental Law: California on the Front Lines
EPA’s Assault on Air Quality Protection Will Aim at California’s Standards, While Other States Have Given Up Their Authority to Protect Public Health and the Environment More Strictly
This article just published in the Atlantic explains well one of the many ways that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt may attempt to deeply harm our environment for decades to come: through declining to grant, or revoking, the waivers that allow California to regulate air pollution from new motor vehicle engines more strictly than the federal government does. …
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CONTINUE READINGWillful Ignorance
As with climate science, Trump is in denial about public health issues.
Anti-vaxxers are a lot like the climate denial crowd, but with two differences. First, there hasn’t been any corporate money fomenting skepticism about vaccines, unlike climate denial. Second, anti-vaxxers are sprinkled across the ideological spectrum. Still, the similarities between these two forms of anti-scientism are greater. One big similarity: both anti-science views have the support …
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CONTINUE READINGObama’s Remarkable Environmental Achievements
When you look at the whole of his legacy, it’s a stunning record.
When he leaves office in January, President Obama will have compiled a remarkable record of environmental achievements. The record spans everything from climate change to endangered species and ocean protection. We can only hope that next Tuesday’s election doesn’t undo many of these gains. Here is a list, in no particular order, of twenty of …
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CONTINUE READINGWill EPA Finally Ban Asbestos?
A look at the risks the substance presents, efforts to ban its continued use in the United States, and the role of TSCA reforms
Today millions of people will tune in to watch the first 2016 Presidential Debate. I’m popping the popcorn for what promises to be quite the spectacle! But while the debate takes center stage, other events make today significant as well. Most important for me, September 26th marks the 12th annual Mesothelioma Awareness Day in the …
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CONTINUE READING157 Days. . . And Still, Congress Has Not Acted
The President requested emergency funding to fight Zika on Feb. 22. Now the virus is starting to spread.
This just in from the Washington Post: “Florida officials on Friday announced the first local spread of Zika virus through infected mosquitoes in the continental United States. “Gov. Rick Scott made the announcement during a press conference Friday after a health department investigation into four suspected cases in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.” On Wednesday, the FDA …
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CONTINUE READINGAnother California Regulatory Agency in Crisis: Southern California’s Air Quality Management District Fires Longtime Executive Officer
Barry Wallerstein’s Ouster from SCAQMD Signals Tilt Away from Protection of Public Health
In a move that shocked the environmental advocacy community and low-income communities of color that suffer most from the impacts of poor air quality in Los Angeles, the governing board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District fired its longtime executive officer Barry Wallerstein today, voting 7-6 in closed session to remove him from …
CONTINUE READINGThe Tricky Problem of Cumulative Exposures
A new UCLA report finds reason to be concerned about cumulative risk, and notes that under CA law regulators are required to act
We are all exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of chemicals through consumer products, air pollution, drinking water, and occupational exposures, just to name a few. Yet chemicals and pollutants are largely assessed and regulated individually. Increasingly, environmental health professionals have been attempting to grapple with assessing the risk of exposure to multiple chemicals. New …
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