Environmental Justice

"The first Black chairman of the powerful Agriculture Committee says his team is already lining up several spring hearings on key issues."

"The EPA’s program for cleaning up the nation’s hazardous waste dumps has a backlog of sites that lack funding—the largest in 15 years."

"Of 2020's Atlantic storms, 13 were hurricanes, six of them Category 3 or higher. Warmer ocean waters are fueling an increasing number of storms."

"As the mother of five asthmatic children, Charday Urey knows the drill. When an EPA air quality index tips into the "unhealthy" zone, she closes the windows, turns on the air conditioner and keeps her kids indoors."

"A coalition of Alaska Native tribes and environmentalists filed suit on Wednesday challenging a new Trump administration policy that opens vast swaths of the largest U.S. national forest to logging, mining and other commercial development."

"State prosecutors have announced they will not pursue felony charges against two New Orleans environmental activists who left plastic pellets on the doorstep of a chemical industry lobbyist."

"Ohio lawmakers faced fierce blowback last winter over a bill that would escalate criminal charges on fossil fuel protesters and threaten religious organizations or nonprofits that support such demonstrations with crushing fines."

"Some Hopi families don’t have running water. Many others have water tainted with arsenic. Steps toward fixes are finally taking shape."

"MISHONGNOVI — At the end of a dusty road, beside two water tanks in the desert shrubs, a windmill spins in the breeze.

From a spigot, water flows through a blue hose and gushes into a bucket.

When the water reaches the brim, Kayla Johnson heaves the bucket into the back of her family’s car. Her younger brother, Terron, holds the hose and keeps the stream running into a 5-gallon jug.

"For the first time in three decades, the federal government on Tuesday overhauled a rule aimed at reducing lead in drinking water across the country — a long-standing scourge made worse by the nation’s weathered and crumbling infrastructure." "But the government is allowing many of the nation’s 6 million lead water pipes to remain in service, and health advocates say risks remain".

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday tightened standards for how much lead can remain as dust on surfaces such as floors and window sills after lead removal activities, in a move that environmentalists said doesn't go far enough."