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Stormwater is growing problem in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, creating toxic runoff and flash flooding. The Maryland Department of Environment has the opportunity to protect people, but it hasn't yet.

A recent Maryland law requires the state's Commissioner of Labor and Industry, in consultation with its Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board, to develop and adopt regulations that require employers to protect employees from heat-related illness caused by heat stress. Those standards are due by October 2022. The law also requires the state to hold four public meetings to collect input from residents. This month, the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health Division (MOSH) scheduled those meetings, and I testified at the September 20 session.

Addresses by national leaders to the United Nations General Assembly are often broad expressions of lofty ideals, and President Joe Biden's speech Tuesday fell squarely into that category. It covered an extraordinary panoply of global challenges and policy concerns, including controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, rebuilding and strengthening global alliances and regional initiatives, curbing terrorism, protecting human rights (including the rights of women and workers) and lifting up democracy. Biden also committed the United States to advancing human dignity, combating corruption and seeking peace in areas of conflict around the world.

On August 29, Hurricane Ida pummeled Louisiana’s coastline with winds as high as 150 miles per hour and a storm surge of up to nine feet, flooding communities and destroying homes. The Category 4 storm displaced thousands of people and left 1 million without power -- all as the coronavirus surge overwhelms hospitals across the state. Amid this chaos, Louisianans faced yet another hazard -- the risk of exposure to toxic pollutants from explosions, flares, and accidental releases at disabled, damaged, or flooded industrial facilities.

Ask just about any New Orleanian to name the most exasperating thing about the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, and you’ll get the same answer. It isn’t the floodwater. Or the roof damage. It’s something more familiar but equally as threatening to life, health and property: power failure.

Environmental justice advocates have long recognized that procedural fairness is just as important as substantive fairness. That’s why they are concerned with not only how environmental benefits and harms are distributed, but also how those decisions are made. Given its attention to procedural fairness, the National Environmental Policy Act breathes life into environmental justice principles, even though it preceded the formal launch of the environmental justice movement by more than a decade.

Virginia is home to thousands of unregulated and aging aboveground hazardous chemical storage tanks, which, when exposed to storms or floods, may be at greater risk of failing or spills. This risk — and the threat it poses to our health and safety — is rising as our climate changes.

In the first segment of its Sixth Assessment, issued earlier this month, the IPCC report states that it "provides a full and comprehensive assessment of the physical science basis of climate change that builds upon the previous assessments ... and considers new information and knowledge from the recent scientific literature, including longer observational data sets, new scenarios and model results." This authoritative document draws conclusions that are deeply alarming. While (like all prior assessments) the report does not recommend specific remedial actions, the latest report implicitly suggests an urgent need for collective action to avoid natural devastation and massive future human catastrophes.

The Interdisciplinary Panel on Climate Change report released Aug. 9 declared that evidence is now unequivocal that human activity is driving global warming, and immediate steps must be taken to mitigate profound changes. Karen C. Sokol, professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and CPR Member Scholar, says two essential international policies must be taken -- ending fossil fuel production and providing communities with the resources to adapt.