[Source: The WashingtonPost/PowerPost] Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s announcement that he will soon step down from the Supreme Court sent shock waves through Washington on Wednesday. Should President Trump and Senate Republicans succeed in replacing the swing-vote jurist with a stalwart conservative, the ideological shift could bring seismic changes to federal environmental policy. As with so many other issues, Kennedy served as Read More…
Category: U.S. News
2 key environmental policies Scott Pruitt was dismantling this week amid his scandals
[Source: VOX] Video by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt made his staff run personal errands like fetching Greek yogurt and protein bars. He had his full-time security detail hunt for a Ritz-Carlton lotion. He had an aide ask for a used Trump hotel mattress. He tried to score a Chik-fil-A franchise for his wife. Read More…
California’s Brown to Trump: see us in court
[Source: Bloomberg] The legal battle over California’s nation-leading auto emissions standards, which U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has threatened to dismantle, may continue throughout President Donald Trump’s tenure in office, Governor Jerry Brown said. Brown, who filed suit against the EPA with more than a dozen other states to preserve the tailpipe emissions Read More…
California air-quality official takes a swipe at Trump
[Source: Bloomberg News] California’s top air-quality official disputed the Trump administration’s description of a meeting about the future of fuel economy standards, suggesting it was actually a dud. “Sounds like a great meeting based on the WH press release. Too bad it’s not the one we attended,” Mary Nichols, the chair of the state’s Air Resources Board, tweeted Thursday, Read More…
Trump has an auto emissions plan, but this negotiator calls it ‘crap’
[Source: Bloomberg] Mary Nichols was in classic blunt mode last week, calling the latest Trump administration’s challenge to Obama-era auto-emission targets “a piece of crap” and dismissing as “nonsense” the industry claims that fighting pollution costs too much. “Give me a break,” Nichols said ahead of a California Air Resources Board symposium in the Los Angeles suburb Read More…
Supreme Court rules employers can ban class action lawsuits in arbitration
[Source: POLITICO] The Supreme Court, dealing a potential blow to the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment, ruled that employers can require as a condition of employment that workers waive their rights to participate in class action lawsuits. In a 5-4 ruling on a trio of cases penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court’s Republican majority Read More…
Trump’s EPA proposes to block regulators from considering a wide range of scientific studies
[Source: Los Angeles Times] The Trump administration launched an attack on the science behind many of the nation’s clean air and clean water rules, announcing a proposal Tuesday that would in effect prevent regulators from considering a wide range of health studies when they look at new regulations. The plan by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Read More…
Trump targets smog standards, ordering EPA to make it easier for companies to comply
[Source: Los Angeles Times] President Trump took aim at federal air quality standards Thursday, directing the Environmental Protection Agency to relax restrictions on state governments and businesses that have been key to cutting smog. In a memo, the president instructed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to more quickly review states’ smog-reduction plans, make it easier for businesses Read More…
Trump wants to reshape the courts – a liberal judge unwittingly helped him
[Source: The New York Times] In the spring of 2014, a friend tried to nudge Judge Stephen Reinhardt, then an 83-year-old liberal stalwart on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, into stepping aside from full-time duties so President Barack Obama could nominate a successor. The friend, Erwin Chemerinsky, now the dean Read More…