#D.C.] : U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

[pintadorartist]

THE TRUMP-MUSK FUNDING GRAB: THE QUIET COUP

Since taking office, President Trump and Elon Musk have worked together to defund the federal government from the inside while consolidating power into the hands of a right-wing elite. Their goal is clear: gut federal agencies, strip public resources, and redirect power and money into their own hands.

Agencies Are Starved of Ability to Help People: Key federal agencies—including the Departments of Health, Education, and Transportation—have been forced into bare-bones operations, unable to implement vital programs we depend on.

FEMA and Disaster Relief Blocked: Funding for emergency relief programs is being deliberately slowed or denied, leaving communities vulnerable.

Social Security and Medicare Under Threat: Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” has gained full access to the U.S. Treasury's federal payment system, which processes Social Security, Medicare, and tax refunds. His team now has access to millions of Americans’ financial data and can manipulate payments.

DOGE is a Smokescreen for Dismantling the Federal Government: Under the guise of “efficiency,” Musk has proposed cutting $1 trillion in government spending, targeting social programs, education, healthcare, and regulatory agencies that protect consumers and workers.

At the same time, Trump and Senate Republicans are fast-tracking Russell Vought as OMB Director to oversee this attack on federal funding.

VOUGHT IS THE ARCHITECT OF PROJECT 2025

Vought wrote a chapter of Project 2025, which starts by outlining the role that OMB should play in implementing the massively unpopular playbook. If confirmed, Russell Vought will control federal spending. That means he will claim to have the power to:

Freeze funding for critical programs like Medicaid, public schools, environmental protections, and infrastructure.

Redirect federal dollars to right-wing priorities, including tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate handouts.

Defund regulatory agencies that keep corporations in check and protect workers and consumers.

THE PROCESS: HOW THE SENATE WILL PROCEED WITH THE VOUGHT CONFIRMATION VOTE

Monday: Motion to Proceed (MTP) passes, allowing debate on the nomination.

Immediately After: Republican Sen. John Thune can file cloture, starting the two legislative day clock before a cloture vote.

Wednesday: Cloture vote happens, kicking off 30 hours of debate.

Wednesday - Thursday: Senate Democrats must use the full 30 hours to expose this crisis and block the nomination at every turn.

Thursday: Final vote on Vought’s confirmation. If he is confirmed, the Trump-Musk takeover accelerates.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

1.THIS LINK BY INDIVISIBLE LEADS TO A PAGE WITH RESOURCES INCLUDING POSTERS TO USE WHEN PROTESTING AND WHAT TO DEMAND FROM YOUR SENATORS

2. THIS LINK LEADS TO A CALL TOOL THAT PROVIDES A SCRIPT FOR YOU TO USE WHEN CALLING YOUR SENATOR. TELL THEM THAT WE ARE IN A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

3.Fax: use this link and send a fax to your senator

4. Read through the list of Senate leaders and call a number

5. Contact Your State Attorney General by phone and email:

Minimal script for ALL state attorneys general: We are all learning that Elon Musk, a man who can’t even get the security access he needs to enter parts of SpaceX, and a band of unaccountable teenagers and business cronies, walked into the GSA, TTS, the U.S. Treasury and the USAID offices and took whatever private information they wanted, firing any civil servant who tried to stop them. [Your Stateians] records have most likely been invaded in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, and as he’s now embedded himself in the Treasury department computer system, payments for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other federal programs are at risk if the Trump administration decides to punish our state, [as he’s currently doing by holding fire victim funding hostage in exchange for extremist voter ID requirements.] Even the short pause from Trump’s executive order to freeze federal disbursements caused panic. We want you to sue the federal government to stop this corrupt and possibly treasonous attack on the privacy rights of our states’ citizens.

6. Contact the Secretary of the Treasury Department! – 202-622-2000

Minimal script for Secretary Scott Bessent: I’m calling to demand that you remove Musk’s access from all systems under your control, that all his equipment is confiscated, that his team is interrogated as to all actions they took under his direction, and that a computer forensics team is assigned immediately to check the system for integrity of its security systems.

More info on: https://indivisibleventura.org/2025/02/01/the-guy-nobody-trusts-with-a-full-security-clearance-now-has-access-to-all-your-private-data/

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Reich's Substack:

Friends, For years, conservatives have railed against what they call the “administrative state” and denounced regulations. But let’s be clear. When they speak of the “administrative state,” they’re talking about agencies tasked with protecting the public from corporations that seek profits at the expense of the health, safety, and pocketbooks of average Americans. Regulations are the means by which agencies translate broad legal mandates into practical guardrails. Substitute the word “protection” for “regulation” and you get a more accurate picture of who has benefited — consumers, workers, and average people needing clean air and clean water. Substitute “corporate legal movement” for the “conservative legal movement” and you see who’s really mobilizing, and for what purpose.

**

[...] Last week, the Supreme Court made it much harder for the FTC, the Labor Department, and dozens of other agencies — ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Food and Drug Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and National Highway and Safety Administration — to protect Americans from corporate misconduct.

On Thursday, the six Republican-appointed justices eliminated the ability of these agencies to enforce their rules through in-house tribunals, rather than go through the far more costly and laborious process of suing corporations in federal courts before juries. On Friday, the justices overturned a 40-year-old precedent requiring courts to defer to the expertise of these agencies in interpreting the law, thereby opening the agencies to countless corporate lawsuits alleging that Congress did not authorize the agencies to go after specific corporate wrongdoing. In recent years, the court’s majority has also made it easier for corporations to sue agencies and get public protections overturned. The so-called “major questions doctrine” holds that judges should nullify regulations that have a significant impact on corporate profits if Congress was not sufficiently clear in authorizing them.

[...] In 1971, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, then a modest business group in Washington, D.C., asked Lewis Powell, then an attorney in Richmond, Virginia, to recommend actions corporations should take in response to the rising tide of public protections (that is, regulations). Powell’s memo — distributed widely to Chamber members — said corporations were “under broad attack” from consumer, labor, and environmental groups. In reality, these groups were doing nothing more than enforcing the implicit social contract that had emerged at the end of World War II, ensuring that corporations be responsive to all their stakeholders — not just shareholders but also their workers, consumers, and the environment.

[...] The so-called “conservative legal movement” of young lawyers who came of age working for Ronald Reagan — including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — were in reality part of this corporate legal movement. And they still are. Trump’s three appointments to the Supreme Court emerged from the same corporate legal movement. The next victory of the corporate legal movement will occur if and when the Supreme Court accepts a broad interpretation of the so-called “non-delegation doctrine.” Under this theory of the Constitution, the courts should not uphold any regulation in which Congress has delegated its lawmaking authority to agencies charged with protecting the public. If accepted by the court, this would mark the end of all regulations — that is, all public protections not expressly contained in statutes — and the final triumph of Lewis Powell’s vision.

Robert Reich wrote an interesting Substack piece on the history of the right-wing war on regulatory power that began with the infamous Powell Memo by Lewis Powell, and culminated with the recent Loper Bright Enterprises, Jarkesy, and Trump rulings.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Rolling Stone:

As Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to wreak havoc with the internal mechanics of the federal government in its efforts to gut and dissolve vital agencies, the White House is signaling that it has no problem with the richest man on the planet serving as his own ethics watchdog.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt fielded a question about Musk being a special government employee while his various companies have billions in government contracts, and whether the Trump administration was taking steps to curtail the many conflicts of interest that has created. Leavitt replied that the president had already addressed this concern, saying that “if Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, Elon will excuse himself from those contracts.”

Of course, it’s nearly impossible for Musk to direct any action by DOGE in Washington without potentially affecting one of his businesses. X, formerly Twitter, currently faces a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission that alleges he withheld information about the stake he was acquiring in the company ahead of his bid to purchase it. The Department of Labor, which could be next on the chopping block for DOGE, has probed and fined Tesla and SpaceX for unsafe working conditions through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Tesla is also under investigation by the Justice Department for possible securities and wire fraud related to its unsupported claims about fully autonomous vehicles.

SpaceX has additionally been fined by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration — and Musk personally pressured the last FAA administrator to resign, leaving the agency leaderless when a commercial passenger jet and U.S. Army helicopter collided in mid-air over the Potomac River in D.C. last week, killing 67 people. (Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Wednesday that DOGE staff were going to “plug in to help upgrade our aviation system.” Duffy’s department includes the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has its own ongoing investigation into Tesla’s self-driving features.) The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Tesla over alleged racial harassment at a manufacturing plant, and the National Labor Relations Board has tangled with both Tesla and SpaceX, with the result that Musk’s companies and other corporate behemoths are waging a legal battle to see the agency declared unconstitutional and wiped off the map for good.

[sedoretu]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/07/05/chevron-doctrine-overturned-regulations-vulnerable-supreme-court/

8 policies that could be vulnerable to new legal challenges [after Chevron]

The Supreme Court jettisoned longstanding precedent that helped the federal government make regulations. Now broad policies could be determined by judges.

“No policy is at greater risk than the administration’s student loan forgiveness efforts, which spend hundreds of billions of dollars without congressional authority,” said Michael Brickman, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former senior adviser in the Education Department under President Donald Trump. Republican attorneys general in 18 states have sued to stop the Saving on a Valuable Education program, which lowers monthly student loan payments and offers a shorter path to loan forgiveness. They argue that Congress never envisioned anything as expansive as the program in the law underpinning the regulation.

...

A new Biden administration regulation protecting transgender students and laying out how schools must respond to accusations of sexual assault and harassment was already being challenged, and the new ruling gives opponents further ammunition to stop it. The regulation is the administration’s interpretation of the half-century-old Title IX law, which bars discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded K-12 schools, colleges and universities. The administration, citing a 2020 Supreme Court ruling, included discrimination based on gender identity in its definition of sex discrimination, meaning schools might be required, for instance, to allow transgender students to use pronouns and bathrooms that align with their gender identity. The provision was celebrated by LGBTQ+ advocates and derided by conservatives.

...

The Supreme Court ruling almost immediately put a check on the Labor Department’s authority. Hours after the ruling came down Friday, a U.S. District Court judge in eastern Texas cited the decision in an order to block the federal overtime expansion from applying to Texas state employees. The rule went into effect Monday and makes millions more workers eligible for overtime pay nationwide. But labor and employment attorneys say the Texas judge’s decision signals that another court will probably block the rule.

... The Biden administration’s most consequential climate rule could be newly vulnerable: The Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to boost sales of electric vehicles while slashing emissions from gasoline-powered cars and trucks. Republican attorneys general from more than two dozen states had already sued the EPA over the Biden administration’s most consequential climate rule, a sweeping attempt to transform the U.S. auto market. The top trade association for the U.S. oil and gas industry, which could see demand for its products decline as consumers shift to EVs, has also challenged the regulations in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Opponents say the agency has overstepped its authority.

[yetisidelblog]

The news out of Washington, D.C., this week is terrifying and at times overwhelming. Since President Trump took office, four of his executive orders have taken aim at endangered species across the country and seek to decimate Alaska and its wildlife as sacrifices to the fossil fuel industry. More than 1,000 employees of the Environmental Protection Agency who work on life-or-death issues like climate change and clean air and water have been illegally threatened with potential firing. And just yesterday, 170 staff at the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights were placed on administrative leave. This slashing of resources for communities disproportionately harmed by pollution will only increase their health risks.

Most troubling of all, Elon Musk and his lackeys in the pseudo-agency they call the Department of Government Efficiency have destroyed the U.S. Agency for International Development, which had done heroic work to address the illegal wildlife trade; protect elephants, rhinos, and pangolins from extinction; and provided key humanitarian assistance that has saved millions of lives. Now Musk is, in his own words, feeding agencies into the “woodchipper” whenever they don’t agree with him — essentially, launching a hostile private takeover of our country.

This must be stopped.

The federal government and the civil servants who make it run are critical to so many facets of life in the United States. At the Center for Biological Diversity we’re especially concerned about protections for imperiled wildlife, public lands, air, and water — all under threat from Trump, Musk, and the DOGE employees ransacking federal programs and running roughshod over the rule of law.

Tell your representative and senators to act now and stop this takeover by an unelected billionaire.

@upontheshelfreviews

@greenwingspino

@one-time-i-dreamt

@tenaflyviper

@akron-squirrel

@ifihadaworldofmyown

@justice-for-jacob-marley

@voicetalentbrendan

@thebigdeepcheatsy

@what-is-my-aesthetic

@ravenlynclemens

@thegreatallie

@writerofweird

@anon-lephant

@mentally-quiet-spycrab

@therealjacksepticeye

@bogleech

[plethoraworldatlas]

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will have to reevaluate the wildlife and public health impacts of a major 2022 oil and gas lease sale in Wyoming after a federal judge ruled Friday that the agency had overlooked "what is widely regarded as the most pressing environmental threat facing the world today" when it moved forward with leasing 120,000 of federal land.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in Washington, D.C. that the BLM did not halt the lease sale even after it acknowledged that oil and gas drilling on the federal lands could result in the same negative environmental and social impacts as the addition of hundreds of thousands of cars to U.S. roads each year.

Moving forward with one of the Biden administration's largest lease sales despite its likely environmental harm, said Cooper, was illegal under the National Environmental Policy Act and other laws.

Representing The Wilderness Society and Friends of the Earth (FOE), environmental legal group Earthjustice sued BLM over its leasing plans' potential impact on the greater sage grouse, an endangered bird species, and other wildlife, as well as groundwater impacts.

The judge found BLM did not complete a sufficiently detailed review of drilling impacts on the greater sage grouse, and relied too heavily on outdated and overly broad analyses of oil and gas drilling in Wyoming.

[reasoningdaily]

The Associated Press: 22 attorneys general oppose 3M settlement over water systems contamination with 'forever chemicals'

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Twenty-two attorneys general urged a federal court Wednesday to reject a proposed $10.3 billion settlement over contamination of U.S. public drinking water systems with potentially dangerous chemicals, saying it lets manufacturer 3M Co. off too easily.

The deal announced in June doesn’t give individual water suppliers enough time to determine how much money they would get and whether it would cover their costs of removing the compounds known collectively as PFAS, said the officials with 19 states, Washington, D.C., and two territories. In some cases the agreement could shift liability from the company to providers, they said.

“While I appreciate the effort that went into it, the proposed settlement in its current form does not adequately account for the pernicious damage that 3M has done in so many of our communities,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, leader of the multistate coalition.

3M spokesman Sean Lynch said the agreement “will benefit U.S.-based public water systems nationwide that provide drinking water to a vast majority of Americans” without further litigation.

“It is not unusual for there to be objections regarding significant settlement agreements,” Lynch said. “We will continue to work cooperatively to address questions about the terms of the resolution.”

The company, based in St. Paul, Minnesota, manufactures per- and polyfluorinated substances — a broad class of chemicals used in nonstick, water- and grease-resistant products such as clothing and cookware, as well as some firefighting foams.

Described as “forever chemicals” because they don’t degrade naturally in the environment, PFAS have been linked to a variety of health problems, including liver and immune-system damage and some cancers.

3M has said it plans to stop making them by the end of 2025.

Some 300 communities have sued 3M and other companies over water pollution from the compounds. A number of states, airports, firefighter training facilities and private well owners also have pending cases.

They have been consolidated in U.S. District Court in Charleston, South Carolina, where the proposed settlement was filed last month.

Although the company put its value at $10.3 billion, an attorney for the water providers said it could reach as high as $12.5 billion, depending on how many detect PFAS during testing the Environmental Protection Agency has ordered over the next three years.

The law firm representing the water providers did not immediately respond Wednesday to messages seeking comment.

EPA in March proposed strict limits on two common types, PFOA and PFOS, and said it wanted to regulate four others.

In addition to California, states urging Judge Richard Gergel to reject the deal included Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Wisconsin. Also opposed were Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands.

In a court filing, the attorneys general said it would force nearly all public water providers nationwide to participate unless they withdraw individually — even those that haven’t filed suits or tested for PFAS.

“Troublingly, they would have to make their opt-out decisions without knowing how much they would actually receive and, in many cases, before knowing the extent of contamination in their water supplies and the cost of remediating it,” the officials said in a statement.

A provision in the proposed deal would shift liability from 3M to water suppliers that don’t opt out, the statement said. That could enable the company to seek compensation from providers if sued over cancer or other illnesses in PFAS-affected communities, it said.

“As such, the proposed settlement is worth far less than the advertised $10.5 billion to $12.5 billion,” the attorneys general said.

The attorneys general did not take a position on a separate $1.18 billion deal to resolve PFAS complaints against DuPont de Nemours Inc. and spinoffs Chemours Co. and Corteva Inc.

[that-stag-aemilianus]

[ID. A screenshot from Reddit reading:

“THEY ARE TRYING TO KILL YOU

and they’re doing it one program at a time

MEDICAID SLASHED

cut: $880 BILLION

MILLIONs will lose access to any kind of healthcare

FDA GUTTED

thousands fired. new, life-saving drugs will be delayed indefinitely

WORK OR DIE

new medicaid rules require employment. Can’t work? Can’t have any healthcare

CDC SLASHED

cut: $4 BILLION

exclusively from disease prevention, antibiotics, and violence programs

FOOD AID GUTTED

cut: $300 BILLION

MILLIONS of our most vulnerable families will lose their SNAP benefits

MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMS GONE

Over a thousand mental health and public health grants CANCELED eliminating crucial support

ENDING COVID VACCINE

RFK Jr (not a doctor) says pregnant women and kids don’t need the NOVAX COVID-19 vaccine. CDC recommendations are being erased

NO MORE FLUORIDE

Proven to help children’s dental health, this will have so many negative consequences.

NIH FUNDING GUTTED

cut: $18 BILLION

cut from research studies to find cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s, etc

OSHA DISMANTLED

who needs safe workplaces? Not you!

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

remember when they said they weren’t going to go after Roe v Wade and then immediately did that? Women have died and will continue to die from lack of access to abortions

GLOBAL INITIATIVES ELIMINATED

efforts to combat global diseases like measles are gone

THEY WANT YOU TOO TIRED TO FIGHT!”

End ID 1]

[ID 2. Another Reddit screenshot reading:

“This is a summary of some of the worst things in big bs bill

US Protest News

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” isn’t just about tax cuts it quietly guts federal protections and reshapes entire agencies. Here’s what’s buried inside:

Closure of the U.S. Department of Education

25% expansion of logging in national forests, bypassing environmental reviews and fast-tracking timber production

Rollbacks on clean energy incentives, cutting tax credits for EVs and renewable, gutting key climate provisions

More public lands opened up for drilling, mining, and logging, with royalty breaks for fossil fuel companies

Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, ending the U.S. participation in global climate efforts

Executive Order 14215, forcing independent federal agencies to follow White House legal interpretations and centralizing authority under the presidency

Pension changes for federal workers hired before 2014, cutting take-home pay by raising required contributions, reducing future payouts, and eliminating early retirement supplements

REINS Act-style regulation repeal, where major federal rules expire unless Congress re-approves them every 5 years allowing Trump to quietly erase protections without rewriting laws

Expanded executive control over agency budgets, allowing the White House to move federal funds internally without explicit congressional approval

Restoration of impoundment powers, giving Trump the ability to block or delay spending already passed by Congress reviving powers stripped after Watergate

Creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), placing White House-aligned teams inside every federal agency with access to internal systems and influence over hiring and daily operations

Sharp cuts in regulatory enforcement, with agencies like the EPA, CFPB, and Labor and Transportation Departments halting enforcement of key safety, environmental, and anti-discrimination rules

Trump’s personal control over economic policy, strengthening his power to direct tariffs, pressure private companies, and dictate pricing with little resistance treating the U.S. economy like his own business

This bill isn’t just “big.” It’s a roadmap for dismantling oversight, hollowing out federal protections, and handing Trump sweeping, unchecked control. Read the fine print.”

End ID 2]

[ID 3. Another Reddit screenshot reading:

“EMERGENCY 3E PROTEST

#3E #STOPTHEBILLIONAIREBAILOUT

Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

A bill that strips people of food and health care is not a tax policy, it is autogenocide.

Washington DC and every state capitol, city hall, and town hall

Thursday, May 22, 9AM

They are stealing from the bottom 10% and transferring it to the top 10%

END IMPUNITY

END AUTOGENOCIDE

END OLIGARCHY”

End ID 3]

https://5calls.org , find and call your Reps and Senators!

the fucking budget bill of hell passed the house that removes HRT from medicare, general medicare spending cuts, student financial aid cuts, and oh yeah lets the teump regime ignore court orders even harder and lets for even harder executive overreach. they did this shit at motherfucking 2 am so people wouldn’t notice too

it passed house like i said but still needs to pass senate.

tell your senators to invoke byrd rule which is a goddamn real thing apparently

call your goddamn senators i swear to god

and if you’re in DC there’s a protest going on as we speak

go do your civic duty you piece of shit

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 6.22 (after 1940)

1940 – World War II: France is forced to sign the Second Compiègne armistice with Germany, in the same railroad car in which the Germans signed the Armistice in 1918. 1941 – World War II: Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. 1942 – World War II: Erwin Rommel is promoted to Field Marshal after the Axis capture of Tobruk. 1942 – The Pledge of Allegiance is formally adopted by U.S. Congress. 1944 – World War II: Opening day of the Soviet Union's Operation Bagration against the Army Group Centre. 1944 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill. 1945 – World War II: The Battle of Okinawa comes to an end with an American flag-raising ceremony. 1948 – The ship HMT Empire Windrush brought the first group of 802 West Indian immigrants to Tilbury, marking the start of modern immigration to the United Kingdom. 1948 – King George VI formally gives up the title "Emperor of India", half a year after Britain actually gave up its rule of India. 1962 – Air France Flight 117 crashes on approach to Pointe-à-Pitre International Airport in Guadeloupe, killing 112 people. 1965 – The Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea is signed. 1966 – Vietnamese Buddhist activist leader Thích Trí Quang was arrested as the military junta of Nguyen Cao Ky crushed the Buddhist Uprising. 1969 – The Cuyahoga River catches fire in Cleveland, Ohio, drawing national attention to water pollution, and spurring the passing of the Clean Water Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. 1978 – Charon, the first of Pluto's satellites to be discovered, was first seen at the United States Naval Observatory by James W. Christy. 1979 – Former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe was acquitted of conspiracy to murder Norman Scott, who had accused Thorpe of having a relationship with him. 1984 – Virgin Atlantic launches with its first flight from London to Newark. 1986 – The famous Hand of God goal, scored by Diego Maradona in the quarter-finals of the 1986 FIFA World Cup match between Argentina and England, ignites controversy. This was later followed by the Goal of the Century. Argentina wins 2–1 and later goes on to win the World Cup. 1990 – Cold War: Checkpoint Charlie is dismantled in Berlin. 2000 – Wuhan Airlines Flight 343 is struck by lightning and crashes into Wuhan's Hanyang District, killing 49 people. 2002 – An earthquake measuring 6.5 Mw strikes a region of northwestern Iran killing at least 261 people and injuring 1,300 others and eventually causing widespread public anger due to the slow official response. 2007 – The small town of Elie, Manitoba is hit by Canada’s most intense tornado on record. 2009 – A Washington D.C Metro train traveling southbound near Fort Totten station collides into another train waiting to enter the station. Nine people are killed in the collision (eight passengers and the train operator) and at least 80 others are injured. 2012 – Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo is removed from office by impeachment and succeeded by Federico Franco. 2012 – A Turkish Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighter plane is shot down by the Syrian Armed Forces, killing both of the plane's pilots and worsening already-strained relations between Turkey and Syria. 2015 – The Afghan National Assembly building is attacked by gunmen after a suicide bombing. All six of the gunmen are killed and 18 people are injured. 2022 – An earthquake occurs in eastern Afghanistan resulting in over 1,000 deaths. 2025 – The United States conducts airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

[tsmom1219]

Judge orders release of $14 billion that EPA chief called ‘gold bars’ being thrown off the Titanic

Read the full story from the Washington Post (gift article). A federal judgehas temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency from terminating at least $14 billion in climate grants approved under President Joe Biden. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of Washington, D.C., issued a preliminary injunction late Tuesday that prohibits the EPA from “unlawfully…

[aro-as-in-straight-as-a]

#sigh#people don’t read the article and they just clown themselves on Twitter#scotus repealed the end result methodology the EPA was using because it was too confusing for companies to follow#now the EPA has to list out clear steps for what a company should do#people in the enviro sphere are not actually mad about this#it’s the difference of ‘get to Z (or else)’ and ‘get to Z by doing A B C’#also this wasn’t even a 5-4 lib con split#sotomayor kagan and jackson all concurred Pt II and barret dissented#you want to do enviro outrage?? there’s an ACTUAL bill to repeal NEPA on the books rn#go yell about that please

(via melodysoars)

alright so I went to research this myself now bc you got me curious if I was misled, and while I agree with about 99% of this - thank you btw I appreciate fact checking and nuance - I do think it’s worth saying that in the articles I’ve read on the issue there are in fact enviro groups angry about this.

I even found a response by the Sierra Club in a quick search (has their credibility as an organization come into question recently? I was under the impression they were still notable enviro activists):

So I guess I ask - and I do not mean this as an attack, only as a clarifying question - but are you basing your info on ‘people aren’t actually worried about this’ on personal knowledge level of people you know in environmental groups, or was the original article in question indicating as such? I couldn’t find that article and I don’t have twitter so I couldn’t verify that myself.

I do think that if it’s just a case of “the methodology was unclear and the rules in place unreasonable” then I could understand not being concerned about this, but based on other sources I was definitely getting the indication that this had broader and concerning implications as to the application of the Act. This, and the fact that enviro groups were vocally concerned while reportedly oil companies and other fossil fuel industrialists were very cheerful about the whole thing.

None of this intended as an attack - just that if you have alternative information from reliable sources I would welcome the nuance!

[scamandfraud]

Fayat S.A.S. Hit with $11 Million Fine for Massive Clean Air Act Violations, EPA and DOJ Crack Down on Illegal Diesel Engine Imports

[michigantopnews]

EPA Report: Unaffordable Water Bills Impact 19 Million U.S. Households

The EPA report reveals 19 million U.S. households struggle with unaffordable water bills, calling for urgent federal assistance to address this growing crisis.

The EPA’s report highlights the water affordability crisis, with 1 in 7 households struggling to pay their water bills as federal action is called for. WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reveals that 19.2 million U.S. households, or about one in seven, face unaffordable water bills. The findings spotlight a growing crisis impacting millions of…

[nupur26]

Domestic terror

Introduction

Domestic terrorism is a growing threat in the United States and around the world. It involves violent, criminal acts committed by individuals or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature[1][4]. Unlike international terrorism, domestic terrorism is perpetrated by citizens or residents of the nation being targeted[3].

Definition and Scope

The U.S. government defines domestic terrorism as activities involving acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State, appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping, and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States[1].

Domestic terrorism encompasses a wide range of threat categories, with the two largest being racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism and anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism[1]. Other forms include animal rights extremism, abortion-related extremism, and environmental extremism[2].

Trends and Statistics

Domestic terrorism incidents have been rising in recent years. Between 2010 and 2021, there were 231 incidents across the United States, with the greatest number occurring in states with major metropolitan areas like California, New York, and Washington, D.C.[2] Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism made up the largest category at 35% and was also the most lethal[2].

Some key statistics on domestic terrorism in the U.S.:

Over the last 10 years, domestic terrorism-related investigations have grown by 357%[2]

From October 2010 through July 2021, prosecutors charged 1,584 defendants in 1,255 cases in federal district court with crimes related to domestic terrorism[2]

Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives[5]

Radicalization and Online Influence

Domestic terrorists often radicalize online and mobilize to violence quickly[4]. Social media and the internet allow them to gain unprecedented virtual access to people in the U.S. and spread their extremist messaging[4]. Research has found that exposure to radical content online appears to have a larger relationship with radicalization than other media factors[5].

Terrorists and extremist groups use the internet to share propaganda, recruit new members, strengthen commitment to their cause, encourage radicalized individuals to act, and coordinate activities[5]. A 2014 NIJ-funded study aimed to develop a deeper understanding of what domestic terrorists discuss online[5].

Combating the Threat

Protecting the U.S. from terrorist attacks is the FBI's top priority[4]. The Bureau works with partners to neutralize terrorist cells, dismantle extremist networks, and cut off financing and support to foreign terrorist organizations[4]. Key efforts include:

Leading domestic terrorism investigations and intelligence efforts[2]

Tracking terrorism incidents and sharing intelligence on emerging threats with federal, state, local and private entities[2]

Actively investigating and prosecuting acts of domestic terrorism, with a sharp increase in federal charges in FY 2021[2]

Collaborating closely with the Department of Homeland Security and other federal, state and local agencies[2]

Preventing domestic terrorism also requires public awareness and reporting of suspicious activity[4]. Citizens are encouraged to remain alert, protect personal information, and report any concerning changes in behavior that may indicate someone is mobilizing to violence[4].

Conclusion

Domestic terrorism is a complex, evolving threat that requires a comprehensive, collaborative approach to combat. While progress has been made in investigating and prosecuting extremist activity, more work is needed to address the root causes of radicalization and prevent attacks before they occur. Ongoing research, information sharing, and community engagement will be critical to staying ahead of this persistent danger.

Citations: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_terrorism [2] https://www.gao.gov/blog/rising-threat-domestic-terrorism-u.s.-and-federal-efforts-combat-it [3] https://www.rand.org/topics/domestic-terrorism.html [4] https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/terrorism [5] https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/what-nij-research-tells-us-about-domestic-terrorism [6] https://www.csis.org/analysis/pushed-extremes-domestic-terrorism-amid-polarization-and-protest [7] https://www.britannica.com/topic/terrorism [8] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546553.2024.2308223

[theenergyconnection]

The American Petroleum Institute (API) filed a lawsuit in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) heavy-duty (HD) vehicle emissions standards for model years (MY) 2027-2032.