Blog

You can never step in the same river twice, the saying goes. According to a new report about how climate change is expected to affect the Chesapeake Bay, that saying may become truer than ever.   In Climate Change and the Chesapeake Bay, a group of scientists and water quality experts found that, because of […]

Climate change is such an unprecedented challenge that sometimes it can seem overwhelming to think through its full range of impacts, let alone develop policy solutions to address them. Yet as policymakers delve into the details of the many ways in which climate change will impact global societies and the environment, the most promising solutions […]

In CPR’s recent white paper, Saving Science from Politics, Rena Steinzor, Wendy Wagner and I proposed reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to strengthen the Act’s “adverse effects” reporting requirements.  Under TSCA, registration of a chemical with EPA triggers a continuing obligation on regulated firms to submit to EPA any information they obtain that […]

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that could give a boost to the Bush Administration’s backdoor “tort reform” efforts – an increasingly transparent effort to shield industry from litigation over defective products. The issue in Wyeth v. Levine is whether the Food and Drug Administration’s labeling requirements preempt […]

Next year, Congress is all but certain to try to tackle climate change legislation again, and the stakes are higher than ever. Further delay in federal action would only compound the problem. But while Congress has been sitting on its hands for more than a decade, many states have taken action, seeing climate change not […]

Halloween—a day on which not everything is as it seems—offers a fitting occasion to ponder the possible effects of globalization on the U.S. regulatory system and its ability to protect Americans.    Globalization is a complex subject, and, like the bandages of a reanimated mummy, its ramifications could probably be unwound indefinitely.  Its proponents wax […]

The battle over bisphenol A (BPA) in plastic baby bottles took another interesting turn today when the FDA’s own scientific advisory panel issued a stinging rebuke of the agency for its determination that the toxic substance is not harmful.   According to the Washington Post, FDA did not take into consideration scores of studies that […]

Imagine being told that the global economy had lost between $2 trillion and $5 trillion in the last year. Presented with this information, you would probably think immediately of the seemingly ever-worsening economic crisis now sweeping the globe. In fact, that number refers to the annual economic losses attributable to global deforestation. For the record: […]

Earlier this month, and after six years of delay, EPA announced that it had decided not to regulate perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel and munitions that has leached into water supplies in various parts of the country, often near military bases. As it happened, the announcement came just a few days before the release […]