Want to pinpoint all the facilities regulated by the EPA in your ZIP code? Or scope out every U.S. operation owned by a particular industrial company? Or learn which polluter might be facing fewer enforcement actions under the current administration? Reporter’s Toolbox has a database for you — in effect, a master index to potential polluters.
The enforcement of environmental laws suffered a dramatic collapse during the Trump administration’s first year, several studies have found. Even the most serious violations, typically referred to the Department of Justice, are left unpursued because of DOJ staffing declines. The latest Backgrounder has the details, a look at the administration’s rationale for the decline and the implications for the environment and public health.
The new book by renowned thinker and author Jeremy Rifkin, “Planet Aqua,” immerses the reader in a fascinating premise: that we live not on a land planet but within a great hydrosphere, and that water is no mere resource but a life-sustaining source. BookShelf editor Tom Henry explores how Rifkin’s wide-reaching narrative strives to upend conventional wisdom about our Earth.
"A bill banning the sale and use of plastic and metallic glitter has yet to go through in Brazil as the capital’s sandy shores bear cost of carnival’s shine"
"The Center for Biological Diversity filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Feb. 11 for failing to make a preliminary decision about whether to expand protection for the saltmarsh sparrow, a bird whose population is in sharp decline around the Chesapeake Bay and the marshes along the East Coast."
"When an international organization sought to create guidelines on climate risk, insurance lobbying groups pushed back."
"The beautiful marine mollusks have international protections, but sale of their shells continues by the tens of thousands."
"Donald Trump approved a federal emergency declaration Saturday related to a sewer main break north of Washington DC that threatens to put a stink on the US’s 250th anniversary celebrations in the US capital this summer."
"A declaration recognizing whales as legal rights-holders is influencing legislation in New Zealand and sparking an international push to translate Indigenous customs into binding protections."
"Peggy Shepard walked into her living room on Tuesday morning when her husband told her Jesse Jackson, the civil rights titan from South Carolina, had died. “Immediately tears started coming,” said Shepard, co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, a New York City-based nonprofit."
