Blog

For decades, politicians, advocates, and the press have lamented America's aging, deteriorating, or even failing infrastructure and called for change – usually to little avail. Perhaps another strategy should be to celebrate success wherever we see it and spotlight achievements to demonstrate that we can change the situation if we choose key public investments over […]

NEWS RELEASE: New Report: When OSHA Gives Discounts on Danger, Workers Are Put at Risk As Agency Prepares to Increase Maximum Penalty Levels for Workplace Health and Safety Violations, It Should Reexamine Settlement Policy Workplace health and safety standards exist for a reason. When companies ignore them, they put their workers in significant danger. Every year, […]

The most important lessons can be the hardest to learn. Sometimes they even take a crisis. We can hope that the sorry saga of Flint, Michigan’s lead-poisoned water will be such a teachable moment for at least some of the anti-government crowd, finally driving home the point that government has a vital role in protecting […]

In a merits opinion issued on June 21, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming (Judge Skavdahl) held that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management–the agency tasked with protecting and preserving federal lands for multiple uses by the public–lacks the authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) on federally-owned and managed lands. Using a Chevron step 1 […]

One of the recurring questions in standing law is the extent to which Congress can change the application of the standing doctrine. A recent Supreme Court opinion in a non-environmental case sheds some light – not a lot, but some – on this recurring question. The Court has made it clear that there is a […]

Earlier this month, revisions to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) cleared the Senate and now await President Obama’s signature. TSCA’s failure to provide EPA with meaningful authority to protect Americans from toxic chemicals was widely recognized, yet the path to revising the law was fraught with controversy. The chemical industry and public health and […]

This morning, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its annual assessments of progress made by the seven jurisdictions in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The bottom line: nothing has really changed in terms of the content or tone from the previous annual assessments, and they do not appear to reflect a shift in strategy by […]

This afternoon, Speaker Paul Ryan is scheduled to announce the House majority’s latest plan to weaken the U.S. system of regulatory safeguards on which all Americans depend. The following is Center for Progressive Reform Senior Policy Analyst James Goodwin’s reaction to this plan:  Speaker Ryan and his anti-regulatory apostles in the House would have you […]

Originally published by the George Washington Law Review The Supreme Court held in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co.1 that a determination by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) that the owners of land used for peat mining were obliged to apply to the Corps for a permit under the Clean […]