#epa

[mysharona1987]

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall-Free

"The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule Tuesday [October 8, 2024] requiring water utilities to replace all lead pipes within a decade, a move aimed at eliminating a toxic threat that continues to affect tens of thousands of American children each year.

The move, which also tightens the amount of lead allowed in the nation’s drinking water, comes nearly 40 years after Congress determined that lead pipes posed a serious risk to public health and banned them in new construction.

Research has shown that lead, a toxic contaminant that seeps from pipes into the drinking water supply, can cause irreversible developmental delays, difficulty learning and behavioral problems among children. In adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lead exposure can cause increased blood pressure, heart disease, decreased kidney function and cancer.

But replacing the lead pipes that deliver water to millions of U.S. homes will cost tens of billions of dollars, and the push to eradicate them only gathered momentum after a water crisis in Flint, Mich., a decade ago exposed the extent to which children remain vulnerable to lead poisoning through tap water...

The groundbreaking regulation, called the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, will establish a national inventory of lead service lines and require that utilities take more aggressive action to remove lead pipes on homeowners’ private property. It also lowers the level of lead contamination that will trigger government enforcement from 15 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb.

The rule also establishes the first-ever national requirement to test for lead in schools that rely on water from public utilities. It mandates thatwater systems screen all elementary and child-care facilities, where those who are the most vulnerable to lead’s effects — young children — are enrolled, and that they offer testing to middle and high schools.

The White House estimates that more than 9 million homes across the country are still supplied by lead pipelines, which are the leading source of lead contamination through drinking water. The EPA has projected that replacing all of them could cost at least $45 billion.

Lead pipes were initially installed in cities decades ago because they were cheaper and more malleable, but the heavy metal can wear down and corrode over time. President Joe Biden has made replacing them one of his top environmental priorities, securing $15 billion to give states over five years through the bipartisan infrastructure law and vowing to rid the country of lead pipes by 2031. The administration has spent $9 billion so far — enough to replace up to 1.7 million lead pipes, the administration said.

On Tuesday, the administration said it was providing an additional $2.6 billion in funding for pipe replacement. Over 367,000 lead pipes have been replaced nationwide since Biden took office, according to White House officials, affecting nearly 1 million people...

Environmental advocates said that former president Donald Trump, who issued much more modest revisions to the lead and copper rule just days before Biden took office, would have a hard time reversing the new standards.

Erik Olson, the senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that the Safe Drinking Water Act has provisions prohibiting weakening the health protections of existing standards...

Olson added that the rule “represents a major victory for public health” and will protect millions of people “whose health is threatened every time they fill a glass from the kitchen sink contaminated by lead.”

“While the rule is imperfect and we still have more to do, this is by far the biggest step towards eliminating lead in tap water in over three decades,” he said."

-via The Washington Post, October 8, 2024

[empireofthestates]

What You Need to Know about Project 2025

The GOP's Radical Plans for America's Future

graphics from @/pinballwizardess on tiktok

[snarkysciurus]

These pictures show what things were like BEFORE these regulations. We cannot go back.

Manhattan 70s, The Cuyahoga River, and Cuyahoga River fire - 1969 (there were multiple fires on this river!)

We have 30 days until the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) laws are rescinded. This is the 50-year bedrock of American conservation. Normally, these actions take years but the administration has provided 30 days for public comment gutting clean water and clean air. Drop what you’re doing, before you make any more calls or read any more social media posts, please populate the Federal Register with dissent.

A. Go to https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/02/25/2025-03014/removal-of-national-environmental-policy-act-implementing-regulations

B. Click on the green rectangle in the upper right corner ("SUBMIT A PUBLIC COMMENT") .

C. Fill in your comment, and info at the bottom, and SUBMIT COMMENT.

[theonion]

Responding to a dramatic increase in cases of starry-eyed gazing and spontaneous poetry, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a general health warning Tuesday for hazardous levels of atmospheric romance across the entire North American continent.

“Early indications of romantic exposure include a flushing of the skin around the face, neck, and chest, accelerated heartbeat, rapid eyelash batting, and sighs,” EPA administrator Steven Johnson said at a morning press conference. “Left untreated, the ailment progresses rapidly, leading to aimless strolls, floral purchases, and a form of acute and regressive aphasia in which the victim’s speech degenerates into that of a young child.”

According to Johnson, teens, recently married couples, and people who have not yet had all of the hope drained out of them by bitter life experience are at the greatest risk.

Full Story

[liberalsarecool]

Republicans are malware.

[saywhat-politics]

RFK, Jr., Once Poisoned by Mercury, Is Silent as EPA Weakens Rules against It

RFK, Jr. fought mercury pollution for years, but he is now in an administration that wants to make it easier for industries to dump it into the air and water

CLIMATEWIRE | The last time President Donald Trump tried to roll back a mercury regulation, he faced a high-profile opponent: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy railed against EPA at an August 2017 public hearing for going along with the Trump administration’s demands to repeal wastewater limits. He warned that allowing more power plant pollution to enter waterways would poison people through mercury-contaminated fish — a problem he experienced personally after a period of eating tuna.

"It is really troublesome for those of us who will suffer from your irresponsibility," Kennedy said at the time. "The law says the waterways of this country, the fisheries of this country, belong to the people."

Eight years later, Kennedy has been silent as the Trump administration is again rolling back those same mercury regulations, along with at least a dozen other pollution controls announced last week in what EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has called the agency's "biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history."

[gwydionmisha]

This May Look Small, But Trump is seizing control of the judiciary, persecuting political opposition, and removing checks that prevent Autocracy.

He is calling openly for political prosecutions.

Donald Trump demands 'accountability' for his pursuers in Justice Department speech

They are criminalizing non-violent political speech.

Luckily, push back is having an effect.

Because what Ed Martin's doing is illegal and unethical.

They need to do this because Ed Martin is in danger of being disbarred for all the illegal and unethical things he is doing to persecute people Trump doesn't like.

[victusinveritas]

[climatecalling]

The sleeping giant of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stirred.

In the past month, an avalanche of anti-pollution rules, targeting everything from toxic drinking water to planet-heating gases in the atmosphere, have been issued by the agency. Belatedly, the sizable weight of the US federal government is being thrown at longstanding environmental crises, including the climate emergency.

On Thursday, the EPA’s month of frenzied activity was crowned by the toughest ever limits upon carbon pollution from America’s power sector, with large, existing coal and gas plants told they must slash their emissions by 90% or face being shut down.

The measure will, the EPA says, wipe out more than 600m tons of carbon emissions over the next two decades, about double what the entire UK emits each year. But even this wasn’t the biggest pollution reduction announced in recent weeks.

In April, new emissions standards for cars and trucks will eliminate an expected 9bn tons of CO2 by the mid-point of the century, while separate rules issued late last year aim to slash hydrofluorocarbons, planet-heating gases used widely in refrigeration and air conditioning, by 4.6bn tons in the same timeframe. Methane, another highly potent greenhouse gas, will be curtailed by 810m tons over the next decade in another EPA edict.

In just a few short months the EPA, diminished and demoralized under Donald Trump, has flexed its regulatory muscles to the extent that 15bn tons of greenhouse gases – equivalent to about three times the US’s carbon pollution, or nearly half of the entire world’s annual fossil fuel emissions – are set to be prevented, transforming the power basis of Americans’ cars and homes in the process.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

The Trump administration intends to eliminate Environmental Protection Agency offices responsible for addressing the disproportionately high levels of pollution facing poor communities, according to a memo from Lee Zeldin, the agency administrator.

In the internal memo, viewed by The New York Times, Mr. Zeldin informed agency leaders that he was directing “the reorganization and elimination” of the offices of environmental justice at all 10 E.P.A. regional offices as well as the one in Washington.

Mr. Zeldin’s move effectively ends three decades of work at the E.P.A. to try to ease the pollution that burdens poor and minority communities, which are frequently located near highways, power plants, industrial plants and other polluting facilities. Studies have shown that people who live in those communities have higher rates of asthma, heart disease and other health problems, compared with the national average.

“If anybody needed a clearer sign that this administration gives not a single damn for the people of the United States, this is it,” said Matthew Tejada, a former E.P.A. official who is now a senior vice president for environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit organization.

In a statement, Mr. Zeldin suggested that environmental justice — which the agency defined as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income” with respect to environmental laws — was tantamount to discrimination.

“President Trump was elected with a mandate from the American people,” Mr. Zeldin said. “Part of this mandate includes the elimination of forced discrimination programs.”

[mysharona1987]

[reasonsforhope]

"The sleeping giant of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stirred.

In the past month, an avalanche of anti-pollution rules, targeting everything from toxic drinking water to planet-heating gases in the atmosphere, have been issued by the agency. Belatedly, the sizable weight of the US federal government is being thrown at longstanding environmental crises, including the climate emergency.

On Thursday [May 18, 2023], the EPA’s month of frenzied activity was crowned by the toughest ever limits upon carbon pollution from America’s power sector, with large, existing coal and gas plants told they must slash their emissions by 90% or face being shut down.

The measure will, the EPA says, wipe out more than 600m tons of carbon emissions over the next two decades, about double what the entire UK emits each year. But even this wasn’t the biggest pollution reduction announced in recent weeks.

In April, new emissions standards for cars and trucks will eliminate an expected 9bn tons of CO2 by the mid-point of the century, while separate rules issued late last year aim to slash hydrofluorocarbons, planet-heating gases used widely in refrigeration and air conditioning, by 4.6bn tons in the same timeframe. Methane, another highly potent greenhouse gas, will be curtailed by 810m tons over the next decade in another EPA edict.

In just a few short months the EPA, diminished and demoralized under Donald Trump, has flexed its regulatory muscles to the extent that 15bn tons of greenhouse gases – equivalent to about three times the US’s carbon pollution, or nearly half of the entire world’s annual fossil fuel emissions – are set to be prevented, transforming the power basis of Americans’ cars and homes in the process...

If last year’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), with its $370bn in clean energy subsidies and enticements for electric car buyers, was the carrot to reducing emissions, the EPA now appears to be bringing a hefty stick.

The IRA should help reduce US emissions by about 40% this decade but the cut needs to be deeper, up to half of 2005 levels, to give the world a chance of avoiding catastrophic heatwaves, wildfires, drought and other climate calamities. The new rules suddenly put America, after years of delay and political rancor, tantalizingly within reach of this...

“It’s clear we’ve reached a pivotal point in human history and it’s on all of us to act right now to protect our future,” said Michael Regan, the administrator of the EPA, in a speech last week at the University of Maryland. The venue was chosen in a nod to the young, climate-concerned voters Joe Biden hopes to court in next year’s presidential election, and who have been dismayed by Biden’s acquiescence to large-scale oil and gas drilling.

“Folks, this is our future we are talking about, and we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity for real climate action,” [Michael Regan, the administrator of the EPA], added. “Failure is not an option, indifference is not an option, inaction is not an option.” ...

It’s not just climate the EPA has acted upon in recent months. There are new standards for chemical plants, such as those that blight the so-called "Cancer Alley" the US, from emitting cancer-causing toxins such as benzene, ethylene oxide and vinyl chloride. New rules curbing mercury, arsenic and lead from industrial facilities have been released, as have tighter limits on emissions of soot and the first ever regulations targeting the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkylsubstances (or PFAS) in drinking water.” ...

For those inside the agency, the breakneck pace has been enervating. “It’s definitely a race against time,” said one senior EPA official, who asked not to be named. “The clock is ticking. It is a sprint through a marathon and it is exhausting.” ...

“We know the work to confront the climate crisis doesn’t stop at strong carbon pollution standards,” said Ben Jealous, the executive director of the Sierra Club.

“The continued use or expansion of fossil power plants is incompatible with a livable future. Simply put, we must not merely limit the use of fossil fuel electricity – we must end it entirely.”"

-via The Guardian (US), 5/16/23

[socialjusticeinamerica]

[porterdavis]

Make America a toxic dump again

[stevelieber]

You can get alt text and image descriptions at the @stopproject2025comic site, and read a lot of other explainer comics there, too! Comics writers and artists have come together to make a whole bunch of comics explaining what Project 2025 will mean for our country.