Environmental Health

"A couple of years ago, Charlie Brethauer started to smell gas in the backyard of his home."

"In its decision to approve two drugs for orange and grapefruit trees, the E.P.A. largely ignored objections from the C.D.C. and the F.D.A., which fear that expanding their use in cash crops could fuel antibiotic resistance in humans."

"The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it calculates the health risks of air pollution, a shift that would make it easier to roll back a key climate change rule because it would result in far fewer predicted deaths from pollution, according to five people with knowledge of the agency’s plans."

"Despite repeatedly expressing public support for children's health, EPA is ending funding for a network of research centers focused on environmental threats to kids, imperiling several long-running studies of pollutants' effects on child development."

"New York’s Suffolk County had a trash problem. Facing brimming landfills and public pressure, legislators took a first-in-the-nation step: They banned plastic bags. But what the county saw as part of the solution, the plastics industry took as a threat."

"In 40 years of behind-the-scenes advocacy for electric companies, the Utility Air Regulatory Group became ubiquitous in legal dockets and courtroom fights over the future of federal regulation. The group, which last week announced plans to disband, led the charge against dozens of EPA policies deemed too costly or unworkable by industry."

"More than a dozen states are moving to strengthen environmental protections to combat a range of issues from climate change to water pollution, opening a widening rift between stringent state policies and the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda."

"BOKOSHE, Okla. — Susan Holmes’ home, corner store and roadside beef jerky stand are right off Oklahoma Highway 31, putting them in the path of trucks hauling ash and waste from a power plant that burns the high-sulfur coal mined near this small town."

"A proposal pushed by Louisiana’s oil and gas industry to let refineries and other industrial plants keep some environmental violations secret fell a handful of votes short of House passage Thursday, amid fierce opposition that it could hide the impacts of the state’s petrochemical industry."

"The director of Illinois' environmental agency abruptly reversed positions last year on a key air quality compliance recommendation after being contacted by Clint Woods, the deputy head of EPA's air office, according to public records cited in federal court litigation."