Posts tagged with ‘EPA’
The Integrated Risk Information System is an Environmental Protection Agency database of information on the human health effects of exposure to environmental contaminants. Before getting cataloged in the system, a contaminant must go through the IRIS process, a set of steps to evaluate the substance that include EPA review, interagency science consultation, and external peer [...]
Congressional action on climate change may be the preferred method for mitigating the impact of global warming and moving the United States to a clean energy economy, but the Environmental Protection Agency just turned up the pressure to act. Administrator Lisa Jaskson just announced that carbon dioxide is among six greenhouse gases that “contribute to [...]
The United States boasts a huge corps of public-servant scientists devoted to going where the evidence takes them and who, as of Wednesday, will for the first time in years be respected by the highest officials in the land for what they do.
Here’s a look back at the most popular features we ran in the past year. Some of them dealt with major controversies over political interference with science at the Environmental Protection Agency, the teaching of creationism, and access to reproductive health services. Others tackled challenges of a networked world, or considered how policy can better harness the talents of a burgeoning scientific workforce.
The seven science advisers Barack Obama has chosen are surely the most distinguished group of scientists at the highest levels of government in decades.
Major news outlets have been reporting since yesterday afternoon that Steven Chu is President-elect Obama’s choice to head the Department of Energy. Chu currently directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he has led a drive to develop clean and renewable sources of energy to combat global climate change. If confirmed, he would be the first Nobel laureate in the cabinet to go into the job with a medal in hand.
The Washington rumor mill is buzzing with names of possible science appointees—and there are dozens of major science-related positions to fill. The questions appointees will face are an opportunity for a clear break with past approaches.
In the waning days of the Bush administration, there’s a final rush to implement a slate of polluter-friendly rules, as The Washington Post reported on Halloween.
In a surprising move last week, the Environmental Protection Agency sided with science, environmentalists, and America’s children. It has been 30 years since the United States saw a reduction in lead emissions standards, but on October 15, EPA reduced the limits from 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter to 0.15. Here’s a timeline of lead regulation in the United States over the past 100 years.
It’s entirely possible for research to thrive even as the influence and relevance of science, in policy and to the average citizen, decline. Reflections on a dramatic conversation to elevate science in America.
This afternoon, the Senate Environment and Public Works committee will hold a hearing examining the Bush administration’s environmental record. Our Center for American Progress colleagues took a hard look at the president’s legacy on this issue earlier this year. Their conclusion? “Seven Years of Failure: Bush gets an F for the Earth.” While the interactive timeline they prepared only runs through May 2008, you still get a pretty clear picture.
No one is expecting an executive order mandating federal regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act between now and January, but it is promising to have the Senate Committee on Environmental and Policy Works addressing the issue this morning.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that Dr. Deborah Swackhamer will be the new chair of the EPA Science Advisory Board. Unfortunately, the only thing that may save the EPA is a new administration.
Here’s a roundup of some of the science and technology policy events happening around Washington D.C. from September 15 to September 19.
Science and tech commentary from around the web: climate change health impacts, the bioethics of voting technology, evolution teaching tools, the wind in NYC, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, scivee.tv, and Green Chemistry in CA.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided on Tuesday in
Sierra Club v. EPA to throw out a rule that prevented states from implementing their own pollution-limiting permits.
How many more sordid tales concerning the Environmental Protection Agency can actually come out before November?
The Pentagon’s dismissal of the EPA’s demand that it clean up Fort Meade and two Air Force bases is just the latest chapter in the saga of the administration’s denial and inaction on environmental and climate protection.
David Michaels speaks at a Center for American Progress event to discuss his book,
Doubt Is Their Product, explaining the “tricks of the trade” used by cigarette makers, drug companies, and climate change deniers to delay regulation that would make Americans safer.
In his new book,
Doubt Is Their Product, Michaels chronicles the “tricks of the trade” that mercenary scientists and product defense firms employ to delay or prevent regulation of chemicals that kill. Their tactics put them in the good company of cigarette companies and global warming deniers.
The Environmental Protection Agency identifies key steps to cope with the shrinking Rocky Mountain snow mass and subsequently depleted sources of water in the West.
“The future is likely to be very similar to the past, regardless of who the President is,” said Dr. John Marburger, the President’s science advisor at the AAAS S&T Policy Forum last Thursday. He was talking about funding, but let’s hope things are very different for scientific integrity under the next administration.
Tuesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing pitted environmentalists, corn producers, oil refiners, grocery manufacturers, and renewable fuel advocates against one another in a contentious debate over the future of the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Science Progress tries to make sense of it all. First up, what’s right with the RFS and ways to make it better.
The Environmental Protection Agency continued its fall from grace at a Senate hearing earlier this week that investigated political meddling with the Agency’s toxic chemical policies. But in the midst of a rain of criticism, there were suggestions of future policy that could better allow the EPA to protect citizens from hazardous materials.
There has been a near-complete breakdown at our central environmental regulatory agency under the Bush administration.
The latest news on industry obfuscation of scientific research and government complicity is that the Food and Drug Administration relied on studies funded by trade groups in decisions on an unsafe compound in common plastic products.
The Associated Press quickly picked up on a report released yesterday by the Union of Concerned Scientists revealing that 889 of nearly 1,600 staff scientists who responded to an online survey indicated that they experienced political interference with their work at some point in the last five years.
The Bush administration appeals court ruling on mercury pollution; the EPA faces congressional subpoena in wrangle over emissions regulations; Greenwire profiles CDC whistleblower; Tech companies call for increased H-1B visa cap; Al Gore launches new climate awareness campaign.
A quick look at some of the policy-related stories making the rounds on the science and technology blogs.
The Washington Post reports that unions at the Environmental Protection Agency have broken with management over Administrator Stephen Johnson’s disregard for scientific integrity. The news comes only a two weeks after Johnson published the official explanation for the agency’s refusal to allow California’s emissions reduction standards, despite the fact that the ruling ignored the “unanimous recommendation of the EPA’s legal and technical staffs.”
Provisions in the Lieberman-Warner bill would allow companies to meet some of their emissions targets by purchasing “offset” credits from reductions in emissions not covered under cap-and-trade. But current offsets markets are unregulated and unreliable. Hayes explains how to regulate offsets that will enable verifiable emissions cuts.
A strong judicial rebuke to the Bush administration’s indefensible behavior on mercury pollution may mark the end of an embarrassing era during which the toxin poured into our ecosystems.
The Minnesota legislature recently approved funding for biomonitoring research, which will track environmental contaminants found in the tissue of children and adult volunteers. In related news, the EPA eased reporting requirements for companies that dump toxic chemicals into the environment.
U.S. labs that handle deadly germs have reported “100 accidents and missing shipments since 2003,”
reports the AP. No one was hurt, but the number of incidents are going up with number of labs approved to handle the pathogens. The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a
hearing today.
