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    US climate envoy says fight against climate crisis does not end under Trump

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    The US climate envoy John Podesta said the fight “for a cleaner, safer” planet will not stop under a re-elected Donald Trump even if some progress is reversed, speaking at the Cop29 UN climate talks on Monday as they opened in Baku, Azerbaijan.“Although under Donald Trump’s leadership the US federal government placed climate-related actions on the back burner, efforts to prevent climate change remain a commitment in the US and will confidently continue,” said Podesta, who is leading the Biden administration’s delegation at the annual talks.Trump has pledged to deregulate the energy sector, allow the oil and gas industry to “drill, baby, drill”, and pull the US from the Paris climate agreement, which committed countries to taking steps to avoid the worst impacts of the crisis. Yet while Trump will try to reverse progress, “this is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet”, Podesta said.Last week’s re-election of Trump to the White House, which will see him inaugurated for a second term in January, has cast a shadow on the UN talks after the Republican defeated Kamala Harris. Harris had been expected to continue the climate policies of Joe Biden, who passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest down payment on the green transition seen in US history.Experts say Trump’s second term could be even more destructive, as he will be aided by an amenably conservative judiciary and armed with detailed policy blueprints such as the Project 2025 document published by the rightwing Heritage Foundation.Trump’s incoming administration is already reportedly drawing up executive orders to erase climate policies and open up protected land for ramped-up oil and gas production. “We have more liquid gold than any country in the world,” the president-elect said on Wednesday.Staff at the US Environmental Protection Agency, which was targeted the last time Trump was president, are already bracing for a mass exodus. Swaths of work done by the EPA under Biden, such as pollution rules for cars and power plants, as well as efforts to protect vulnerable communities living near industrial activity, are set to be reversed.A June analysis warned that Trump’s forthcoming rollbacks could add 4bn additional metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere by 2030 when compared with a continuation of Biden’s policies. That “would be a death sentence to our planet”, said Jamie Minden, the 21-year-old acting executive director of Zero Hour, the US-based youth-led climate non-profit, at a press conference about the election result in Baku on Monday.Trump’s looming presidency could also place a damper on other countries’ climate action plans, said Todd Stern, who was the US special envoy for climate change and the United States’ chief negotiator at the 2015 Paris climate agreement – especially China, which is currently the top global contributor to planet-warming emissions.“The two biggest players in the ring are the US and China, and China is extremely aware of that. It has just got a guarantee that the US president won’t be bringing up climate change with them for the next four years and that means something,” he said. “It will make things easier on China and that can’t help but have some impact.”Yet “the fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country,” said Podesta. The UN climate conference in Baku represented a “critical opportunity to cement our progress”, he said.At Cop29, activists are pushing the Biden administration to file a bold climate plan under the Paris climate agreement – known as a nationally determined contribution – and to make big pledges to support global climate finance efforts.And the president “still has critical opportunities to cement his climate legacy” on the domestic level as well, said Allie Rosenbluth, co-manager of the climate NGO Oil Change International, including by rejecting pending permits for fossil fuel projects.At least $1tn is needed to help poor countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, shift to a low-carbon economy and adapt to the impacts of climate disasters. If the US fails to meaningfully contribute, other countries can also fill the climate finance gap left by the US, noted Teresa Anderson, the global climate justice lead at the climate non-profit ActionAid, at another Monday press conference.“This is a test for rich countries,” she said. “If they believe in the climate emergency then they should be willing to pay more than their fair share, not less.”The US senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a climate hawk who will arrive at Cop29 later this week, said Trump and other US Republicans were “aiming a torpedo” at climate progress, but that the pressure to slash US emissions would stay strong.“I’m heading to Baku to reassure the international community that large swaths of the US remain committed to steering the planet away from climate catastrophe, a catastrophe that is already doing massive economic harm and driving up prices for insurance, food, and other goods and services,” he wrote in an email.Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, noted that the Paris agreement had 195 signatories and “will not collapse in the face of a single election result”.“The Paris agreement has survived one Trump presidency and it will survive another,” she said. 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      in US Politics

      RFK Jr says Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr, a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives, said Saturday that the former president would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected.Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear-and-tear, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.Kennedy made the declaration Saturday on Twitter/X alongside a variety of claims about the heath effects of fluoride.“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S​. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote. Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, “want to Make America Healthy Again”, he added, repeating a phrase Trump often uses and links to Kennedy.Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he had not spoken to Kennedy about fluoride yet, “but it sounds OK to me. You know it’s possible.”The Republican nominee declined to say whether he would seek a cabinet role for Kennedy, a job that would require Senate confirmation, but added: “He’s going to have a big role in the administration.”Asked whether banning certain vaccines would be on the table, Trump said he would talk to Kennedy and others about that. Trump described Kennedy as “a very talented guy and has strong views”.The sudden and unexpected weekend social media post evoked the chaotic policymaking that defined Trump’s White House tenure, when he would issue policy declarations on Twitter at virtually all hours. It also underscored the concerns many experts have about Kennedy, who has long promoted debunked theories about vaccine safety, having influence over US public health.

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      In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later. Though fluoride can come from a number of sources, drinking water is the main source for Americans, researchers say.Officials lowered their recommendation for drinking water fluoride levels in 2015 to address a tooth condition called fluorosis, that can cause splotches on teeth and was becoming more common in US kids.In August, a federal agency determined “with moderate confidence” that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water.A federal judge later cited that study in ordering the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to further regulate fluoride in drinking water. US district judge Edward Chen cautioned that it’s not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be. He ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didn’t say what those measures should be.In his X post Saturday, Kennedy tagged Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the plaintiff in that lawsuit, the environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionKennedy’s anti-vaccine organization has a lawsuit pending against news organizations including the Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about Covid-19 and Covid-19 vaccines. Kennedy is on leave from the group but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.What role Kennedy might hold if Trump wins on Tuesday remains unclear. Kennedy recently told NewsNation that Trump asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and some agencies under the Department of Agriculture.But for now, the former independent presidential candidate has become one of Trump’s top surrogates. Trump frequently mentions having the support of Kennedy, a scion of a Democratic dynasty and the son of former attorney general Robert Kennedy and nephew of John F Kennedy.Kennedy traveled with Trump on Friday and spoke at his rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin.Trump said Saturday that he told Kennedy: “You can work on food, you can work on anything you want” except oil policy.“He wants health, he wants women’s health, he wants men’s health, he wants kids, he wants everything,” Trump added. More

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      in US Politics

      Biden’s green policies will save 200,000 lives and have boosted clean energy jobs, data shows

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      The environmental policies of Joe Biden’s administration will save approximately 200,000 Americans’ lives from dangerous pollution in the coming decades and have spurred a surge in clean energy jobs, two independent reports outlining the stakes of the upcoming US presidential election have found.The first full year of the Inflation Reduction Act, the sprawling climate bill passed by Democratic votes in Congress in 2022, saw nearly 150,000 clean energy jobs added, according to a new report by nonpartisan business group E2.Nearly 3.5 million people now work in these fields in the US, more than the total number of nurses nationwide, with 1m of these jobs centered in the US south, a region politically dominated by Republicans.Clean energy jobs grew by 4.5% last year, nearly twice as fast as overall US employment growth, and account for one in 16 new jobs nationally, the report found. New roles in energy efficiency led the way, followed by an increase in jobs in renewable energy, such as wind and solar, electric car manufacturing and battery and electric grid upgrades.But the future of the IRA, which provides tax credits and grants for new clean energy activity, is a flashpoint in the election campaign, with Donald Trump vowing to “terminate Kamala Harris’s green new scam and rescind all of the unspent funds”.The former president and Republican nominee has accused Harris, his Democratic opponent, of waging a “war on American energy” and called for an end to incentives encouraging Americans to drive electric cars.Harris, who has promised in unspecified ways to build upon the IRA, has attacked Trump for “surrendering” on the climate crisis as well as in the US’s attempts to compete with China, the world’s clean energy manufacturing powerhouse.Bob O’Keefe, executive director of E2, said the IRA has helped lead “an American economic revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations”.“But we’re just getting started,” Keefe added. “The biggest threats to this unprecedented progress are misguided efforts to repeal or roll back parts of the IRA, despite the law’s clear benefits both to American workers and the communities where they live.”Should Trump return to the White House, he will need congressional approval to completely repeal the IRA, although his administration could slow down and even claw back funding allocated but not yet released for clean energy projects, such as the $500m pledged for a green overhaul of a steel mill in JD Vance’s home town of Middletown, Ohio.A new Trump administration would have more discretion, though, over the future of air pollution regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Biden. “One of the things that is so bad for us is the environmental agencies, they make it impossible to do anything,” Trump has complained while on the campaign trail.Any major rollbacks will have a heavy toll upon public health, however, with a new analysis of 16 regulations passed by the EPA since Biden’s term started in 2021 finding that they are on track to save 200,000 lives and prevent more than 100m asthma attacks by 2050.The analysis, conducted by the Environmental Protection Network, a group founded by retired EPA staff, calculated the public health benefits of the suite of new rules that aim to limit pollution flowing from cars, power plants and oil and gas operations.Jeremy Symons, a former climate policy adviser at the EPA and a co-author of the report, said the findings were “jaw-dropping”. He added: “The EPA’s accomplishments have been nothing short of lifesaving over the last four years. These are real people who wouldn’t be alive if not for the non-partisan work of the EPA to start doing its job again after the last administration.”It’s unclear what Trump’s exact plan for the EPA would be should he regain power but he attempted to radically cut the agency’s budget when he was president, only to be rebuffed by Congress, and oversaw the elimination and weakening of a host of pollution rules.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump has directly promised oil and gas industry executives a fresh wave of deregulation should he return to the White House, in return for $1bn in campaign contributions.Project 2025, a conservative blueprint authored by many former Trump officials but disavowed by the Trump campaign, demands the dismantling of parts of the agency, a rollback of environmental rules and a politicization of decision making.“This would put polluters in charge of air regulations and put millions of Americans at needless risk of cancer, heart disease and asthma,” said Symons.“Several of the authors of Project 2025 used the years of working at the EPA under Trump as a training ground for more reckless plans should they get their hands on the agency again. This plan would be a wrecking ball to the EPA.”Asked to comment, the Trump campaign criticized the Biden-Harris administration on inflation and what it called its “war on energy”.“Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate for the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, which actually created the worst inflation crisis in a generation. She proudly helped Joe Biden implement all of his disastrous policies including his war on American energy that is driving up prices astronomically for American consumers,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary.“President Trump is the only candidate who will make America energy dominant again, protect our energy jobs, and bring down the cost of living for all Americans,” Leavitt added.An EPA spokesperson said: “We appreciate the work of the Environmental Protection Network and look forward to reviewing their report. EPA remains committed to protecting public health and the environment by implementing science-based pollution standards that address climate change and improve air quality for all Americans.” More

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      in US Politics

      Government shutdown could hurt weather disaster responses, Fema says

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      The budget deal Republicans and Democrats reached in the House on Saturday included a 45-day funding extension for disaster relief funds. Lawmakers had been warning that without that provision, a government shutdown would hamper responses to any new weather disasters, leave hazardous waste sites uninspected, and stop work at federal Superfund clean-up sites.“Federal emergency management agency (Fema) staff will still respond to emergencies, but all long-term projects will be delayed due to a lack of funding in the disaster relief fund,” warned the Illinois Democrat Lauren Underwood on Friday.Underwood warned that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would stop inspecting drinking water and chemical facilities too. Also affected, she said, would be efforts to contain polyfluoroalkyl substances – “forever” chemicals, or PFAS – and cleanup activities at Superfund sites.The warnings came a day after New York was hit by torrential rains that shut down parts of the city’s mass-transit system, flooded parts of Brooklyn and triggered the state governor, Kathy Hochul, to declare a state of emergency.Wide-ranging impacts of a federal freeze come amid warnings that there is little left in the primary government relief fund, after 23 confirmed US weather events related to the climate disaster so far in 2023 have cost at least $1bn each.The events included two flooding events, 18 severe storms, one tropical cyclone, one wildfire and one winter storm, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. For comparison, the 1980–2022 annual average was roughly eight events.According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US has seen more billion-dollar weather disasters in 2023 than in any previously recorded year.Fema spent an average of $4bn annually between 1992 and 1999 on disaster aid. Since 2000, excluding years that saw disasters like 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and the response to Covid-19, the emergency management agency’s spending has jumped to around $10bn annually.With three months of the year to go and disaster costs running at $23bn, the Fema administrator Deanne Criswell testified before the House transportation and infrastructure subcommittee on emergency management last week that the agency would have difficulties responding to any natural disaster in the event of a shutdown.Criswell pointed to decreasing funding levels for the disaster relief fund, climate change and the need for its mitigation, the costs of flood insurance and border security as among the agency’s concerns. She also said in her testimony that the agency’s mission had become “more challenging”.“We can no longer really speak of a disaster season. With atmospheric rivers in January to tornadoes and wildfires in December, we now face intensified natural disasters throughout the year, often in places not used to experiencing them,” she said.Citing the Maui wildfires and the California tropical cyclone, she warned that disasters required outsized funding.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We are in such a moment today,” Criswell added and said she had instituted an “immediate needs funding” mandate of $16bn.The agency had already cut off more than $1bn in funding to 1,000 public assistance projects, Criswell said.The warnings come as the Biden administration directs more funds toward disaster relief and away from reconstruction grants. Fema has already delayed around $2.8bn, including $555m for long-term recovery projects in Florida, $101m in Louisiana and another $74m in California, as its disaster fund dropped to just over $2.4bn, the Washington Post reported last week.While it is likely the fund will be boosted – disasters affect both red and blue states – Criswell warned that any failure to restock agency disaster relief coffers would leave Fema unable to fund a response to new emergencies.“It is vital that Fema – and the American people – be able to tap into an adequately funded Disaster Relief Fund so that we can continue to respond as soon as disaster strikes, rebuild in their aftermath and prepare for future disasters,” she said. More

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      in US Politics

      Green investment boom and electric car sales: six key things about Biden’s climate bill

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      The US’ first serious legislative attempt to tackle the climate crisis, the Inflation Reduction Act, is hitting its first anniversary both lauded for turbocharging a seismic shift to clean energy while also weathering serious attack from Republicans.Joe Biden hailed the bill, which despite its name is at heart a major shove towards a future dominated by renewable energy and electric vehicles, as “one of the most significant laws in our history” when signing it on 16 August last year.And the White House is trying to use the first year marker to extol it as a pivotal moment in tackling the climate emergency.“It’s the largest investment in clean energy in American history, and I would argue in world history, to tackle the climate crisis,” John Podesta, Biden’s chief clean energy advisor, told the Guardian. “With any legislation it takes time to get traction, but this is performing above expectations.”Podesta said there has been an “enormous response” in take-up for the tax credits that festoon the $369bn bill, directed at zero-carbon energy projects such as solar, wind and nuclear, grants for bring renewables manufacturing to the US and consumer incentives to purchase electric cars, heat pumps and electric stoves.Here are the key points to know about the impact of the act so far as it approaches its anniversary on August 16:1A boom in clean energy investmentThere has been around $278bn in new clean energy investments, creating more than 170,000 jobs, across the US in the first year of the Inflation Reduction Act, according to an estimate by the advocacy group Climate Power. The White House claims that there will be twice as much wind, solar and battery storage deployment over the next seven years than if the bill was never enacted, with companies already spending twice as much on new manufacturing facilities as they were pre-IRA.“It’s been more impactful than I or other observers would’ve thought,” said James Stock, a climate economist at Harvard University.Stock said that while the Inflation Reduction Act won’t by itself eliminate planet-heating emissions in the US, it is the “first substantive step” towards doing so and should help propagate the next generation of hoped-for clean fuels, such as hydrogen, in its 10-year lifespan. “As the tax credits are uncapped, too, we will see a lot more invested than we expected,” he said. “We could easily see $800bn to $1.2tn.”2More people are buying electric vehiclesThe Inflation Reduction Act includes rebates of up to $7,500 for buying an electric vehicle, and this incentive appears to be paying off – EV sales are set to top 1m in the US for the first time this year. Moreover, over half of US drivers are considering an EV for their next purchase, polling has shown.This transition isn’t without its hurdles, however – there has been a shortage of key parts in the EV supply chain, many models still remain prohibitively expensive and unions have been unhappy at the lack of worker protections for many of the new plants that are popping up. Climate advocates, meanwhile, have questioned why similarly strong support hasn’t been given to public transit or e-bikes to help get people out of cars altogether.3It will slash US emissions, but not by enoughThe US is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the Inflation Reduction Act is widely forecast to slash these emissions, by as much as 48% by 2035, from 2005 levels, according to one analysis.These forecasts have a relatively wide range of estimates due to uncertainties such as economic growth but even in the most optimistic scenario the US will require further measures if it is to get to net zero emissions by 2050, as scientists have said is imperative if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate impacts.“Even though we passed the IRA you ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, in promising a fresh climate bill recently. But given the riven nature of US politics, the prospects of such legislation is remote in the near term.A more likely way to bridge the emissions gap will be a raft of regulatory actions by the Environmental Protection Agency, such as new standards to cut pollution from cars, trucks and power plants, as well as progress by individual states. “We basically need everything to go right,” said John Larsen, a partner at Rhodium group, an energy analysis organization4The IRA has so far escaped Republican cuts – but Biden is fighting to get creditThe legislation was a breakthrough moment following decades of obfuscation and delay by Congress despite increasingly frantic warnings by climate scientists over global heating, with the bill itself borne from months of torturous, comprise-laden negotiations with Joe Manchin, the coal baron senator from West Virginia who held a swing vote for its passage.But the legislation has already faced the threat of repeal from Republicans, who universally voted against it, with the GOP’s first bill after gaining control of the House of Representatives this year gutting key elements of the Inflation Reduction Act. This is despite the majority of clean energy investments flowing to Republican-led districts.Biden has also faced the ire of climate progressives for somewhat undercutting his landmark moment with an aggressive giveaway of oil and gas drilling leases on public land, including the controversial Willow oil project in Alaska, and for incentivizing the use of technologies such as carbon capture that have been criticized as an unproven distraction at a time when the world is baking under record heatwaves.“Biden has an atrocious track record on fossil fuels, and that needs to change,” said Jean Su, an attorney and climate campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity who called on Biden to declare a climate emergency. There needs to be a “sea-change in this administration’s approach” on the climate crisis, according to Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator. “No more green lighting fossil gas projects. No more stalling on a climate emergency. Now is the time for us to live up to the full promise of the Inflation Reduction Act.”Polling shows the majority of American voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the climate crisis and only three in 10 have heard that much about the Inflation Reduction Act at all. Such perceptions will need to be turned around if the US president is to help secure the legacy of the bill in next year’s election.“We are going at a record clip to try to address this climate crisis,” said White House adviser Podesta. “I know people want us to hurry up and I wish we could produce a net zero economy immediately but this is a global transition that’s never occurred in human history. We need to get this job done.”The IRA act has not pleased leaders in the EU who have attacked it for being “protectionist” though some have argued they should instead be investing along similar lines.Clean energy investment has gone to red statesNo Republican voted for the Inflation Reduction Act but most of the investment that has been triggered by the bill has been funneled into projects in GOP-held Congressional districts. An emerging ‘battery belt’ is forming in the US south, with battery and electric vehicle plants popping up in states such as Georgia, Tennessee and Texas.“The IRA has been absolutely critical for us in terms of giving market certainties to go bold and big in our investment,” said a spokeswoman for QCells, a solar manufacturer that has embarked upon a major expansion in Georgia.5Renewables are booming – but there’s a transmission bottleneckIf the future wasn’t renewables before the IRA, it certainly is now – more than 80% of new electricity capacity this year will come from wind, solar and battery storage, according to federal government forecasts. The framers of the legislation hoped it will create a sort of virtuous circle whereby more renewable capacity will push down the cost of already cheap clean energy sources, seeding yet further renewable deployment.Solar panels may be dotting California and wind turbines sprouting off the east coast, but without the unglamorous build-out of transmission lines much of the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act may be lost.Not only is there a lack of physical poles and wires to shift clean energy from one part of the country to another, many clean energy projects are facing interminable waits, lasting several years, to be connected to the grid at all. There is more than 1,250 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity actively seeking grid connection, which is about equal to the entire existing US power plant fleet.“Something’s going to have to change to get this deployment online,” said Larsen. “Beyond that it will be about building stuff at scale, very, very quickly.” More

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      in Elections

      January 6 grand jury to hear testimony from Trump aide – US politics live

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      From 2h agoA federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election will hear testimony from an aide who was with the former president for much of the day on 6 January 2021, according to multiple reports.William Russell, a former White House aide who now works for Trump’s presidential campaign, is scheduled to testify before he grand jury convened by special counsel Jack Smith, both CNN and NBC reported.Russell, who has previously testified before the grand jury, served in the Trump White House as a special assistant to the president and deputy director of advance, before moving to Florida to work as an aid to Trump after he left office.Multiple former senior Trump White House officials have testified before the grand jury in the special counsel’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection. Among those who have testified are Trump’s son-in-law and former White House senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and former top Trump aide, Hope Hicks.In April, Mike Pence testified for seven hours behind closed doors, meaning the details of what he told the prosecutors in the case remain uncertain.House speaker Kevin McCarthy has denied he privately promised former president Donald Trump that he would get legislation passed that would erase Trump’s two impeachments.According to a Politico report, Trump was outraged at McCarthy for withholding his endorsement of his presidential run in the 2024 election. In an interview last month, McCarthy expressed doubt that Trump was the “strongest” candidate to defeat Joe Biden and win back the White House next year.“He needs to endorse me – today!” Trump is said to have fumed to his staff on his way to a campaign event in New Hampshire. McCarthy called Trump to apologize after the interview, claiming he misspoke, sources told CNN at the time.In return for delaying that endorsement, according to Politico, McCarthy pledged that he would get the House to vote to expunge” both impeachments against the former president. The outlet said McCarthy had promised to do so before Congress leaves for an August recess. Recess begins in less than two weeks.In 2019, a Democrat-controlled House voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he asked Ukraine to investigate his presidential election rival, Joe Biden, and his son on unsubstantiated corruption accusations.The House impeached Trump for a second time in 2021 for his actions ahead of the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters. The Senate acquitted him both times, thanks to the votes of Republicans. McCarthy voted against impeaching Trump both times.“There’s no deal,” McCarthy told a reporter in the Capitol on Thursday, Reuters reported.The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate judiciary committee, accused Democrats of trying to “destroy” the supreme court and said the ethics bill “is an assault on the court itself”.Congress should stay out of the court’s business, Graham said.Opening the committee meeting, Senate judiciary chair Dick Durbin said the legislation would be a “crucial first step” in restoring confidence in the court.Graham vowed, in response, that “all of us are going to vote no”. From NBC’s Sahil Kapur:Here’s a rundown of the ethical controversies supreme court justices have been involved in.Real estate transactionsClarence Thomas’s friend Harlan Crow, the Texas Republican billionaire mega-donor, bought three properties that the conservative justice and his family owned, including Thomas’s childhood home in Savannah, Georgia, where Thomas’s mother still lives. Crow made significant renovations, cleared blight and let Thomas’s mother live there rent-free. The cost was more than $100,000 but was not disclosed.Justice Neil Gorsuch sold a 40-acre property he co-owned in rural Colorado after he became a justice, Politico reported. Brian Duffy, the chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, which has had more than 20 cases before the supreme court, bought the property in 2017. Gorsuch disclosed the sale and reportedly made between $250,000 and $500,000, but he left blank the buyer’s identity.School supportCrow paid thousands of dollars in private school tuition for two boarding schools that Thomas’s great-nephew attended, ProPublica reported. The transaction was not disclosed.An investigation by the Associated Press revealed how colleges and universities attract supreme court justices to campuses as a way to generate donations for institutions, raising ethical concerns around a court that, unlike other government agencies, does not have a formal code of conduct. The visits have resulted in all-expenses-paid teaching opportunities and book sales.Money to partnersThe Republican activist Leonard Leo paid Thomas’s wife, Ginni, $25,000 for polling services in January 2012, telling the Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway to make “no mention of Ginni”, the Washington Post reported. It’s unclear whether that is a direct ethical concern for Clarence Thomas but it may constitute a conflict of interest.Ginni, who also attended the January 6 attack at the Capitol, reportedly exchanged text messages with the then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, encouraging him to support then president Donald Trump’s false election fraud claims aimed at subverting the results of his 2020 electoral defeat. The Judicial Education Project, a law firm tied to Leo, filed a brief to the supreme court in the landmark case that eventually gutted the Voting Rights Act not long after the payment was made.Roberts’ wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, ran a legal recruiting firm that raised ethical concerns since she made millions of dollars in commissions from placing lawyers at firms, some of which appeared before the court. The New York Times obtained a letter from a former colleague of Roberts to the US justice department and Congress inquiring about the connection.Luxury tripsFor more than two decades, Thomas accepted millions of dollars’ worth of luxury trips on private planes and “superyachts”, and vacations from his friend Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms, ProPublica reported. Crow has said that he did not attempt to influence Thomas politically or legally nor did he discuss pending supreme court cases. Thomas said he was told he was not required to disclose the trips. Notably, a company linked to Crow was involved in at least one case before the US supreme court, Bloomberg reported. Thomas did not recuse himself from the case.Justice Samuel Alito reportedly took a private jet to an all-expenses-covered fishing trip to Alaska, paid for by the hedge fund billionaire and conservative mega-donor Paul Singer. NPR reports that Singer has been involved in 10 appeals to the supreme court. In an unprecedented move, Alito defended himself in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, declaring he did not have to recuse himself and followed what he “understood to be standard practice”.The Senate judiciary committee is expected to vote today on a bill that would require the supreme court to adopt a code of ethics.Senate Democrats have called for a measure to establish a code of conduct for the supreme court justices similar to those that other government agencies must follow.The bill, unlikely to pass in a divided Congress, would demand the court create a code within 180 days and establish rules on recusals related to potential conflicts of interest and disclosure of gifts and travel.The panel vote comes after months of scrutiny on the court over ethical controversies supreme court justices have been involved in.Senate judiciary committee chair, Dick Durbin, said this week:
      Just about every week now, we learn something new and deeply troubling about the justices serving on the supreme court, the highest court in the land in the United States, and their conduct outside the courtroom.
      Let me tell you, if I or any member of the Senate failed to report an all-expense paid luxury getaway or if we used our government staff to help sell books we wrote, we’d be in big trouble.
      The bill would need at least nine GOP votes to pass, and Republicans appear united against it, arguing that the legislation would undermine the separation of powers and “destroy” the court.Twice impeached and now twice arrested and indicted. Donald Trump faces serious charges in New York and Florida over a hush-money scheme during the 2016 election and his alleged mishandling of classified documents.And more criminal charges could be on the way for Trump in Georgia and Washington DC. Here is where each case against Trump stands:Classified documents case in FloridaStatus: Trump pleaded not guilty; trial scheduled for AugustCharges: 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements and representations, among othersHush-money case in New YorkStatus: Trump pleaded not guilty; trial forthcomingCharges: 34 felony charges of falsifying business recordsJanuary 6 case in WashingtonStatus: Subpoenas issued by grand juryPotential charges against Trump: Obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the government and incitement of an insurrection2020 election meddling case in GeorgiaStatus: Grand jury report finished; charging decisions expected this summerPotential charges against Trump: Election code violationsE Jean Carroll lawsuits in New YorkStatus: First lawsuit going to trial; second lawsuit on appealAllegations against Trump: Defamation and sexual abuseRead the full story here. Donald Trump has said he has until midnight tonight to testify before the federal grand jury deciding whether to indict him over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Targets of criminal investigations rarely speak to grand juries, as they are usually advised by their attorneys to not take up invitations to meet with the grand jury because any statements provided in that setting could be used to help build a case against them in the event that they’re charged.Trump has not exercised that right in the two other criminal cases in which he’s been charged, Politico’s Kyle Cheney writes. Recent witnesses who have appeared before the grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election were reportedly asked about the former president’s state of mind surrounding the January 6 insurrection.Federal prosecutors asked multiple former senior Trump White House officials to speak to Trump’s mindset in the days and weeks after losing the 2020 election, leading up to 6 January, according to a New York Times report. Witnesses including Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were asked if he had privately acknowledged that he had lost the election, it said. Kushner is understood to have said that it was his impression that Trump truly believed the election was stolen.The line of questioning suggested prosecutors were trying to determine if Trump acted with corrupt intent as he sought to remain in power, the paper said.A federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election will hear testimony from an aide who was with the former president for much of the day on 6 January 2021, according to multiple reports.William Russell, a former White House aide who now works for Trump’s presidential campaign, is scheduled to testify before he grand jury convened by special counsel Jack Smith, both CNN and NBC reported.Russell, who has previously testified before the grand jury, served in the Trump White House as a special assistant to the president and deputy director of advance, before moving to Florida to work as an aid to Trump after he left office.Multiple former senior Trump White House officials have testified before the grand jury in the special counsel’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection. Among those who have testified are Trump’s son-in-law and former White House senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and former top Trump aide, Hope Hicks.In April, Mike Pence testified for seven hours behind closed doors, meaning the details of what he told the prosecutors in the case remain uncertain.What the potential charges means for Trump is unclear.Prosecutors have been examining various instances of Trump pressuring officials like his former vice-president Mike Pence, but Trump’s efforts to obstruct the transfer of power could also be construed as conspiring to defraud voters more generally.The other two statutes, meanwhile, suggest a core part of the case against Trump is focused on the so-called fake electors scheme and the former president’s efforts to use the fake slates in a conspiracy to stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win on 6 January 2021.The target letter did not cite any seditious conspiracy, incitement of insurrection or deprivation of rights under color of law – other areas for which legal experts have suggested Trump could have legal risk.Last year, the House select committee that investigated the Capitol attack concluded that Trump committed multiple crimes in an attempt to reverse his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding.The committee issued symbolic criminal referrals to the justice department, although at that point the justice department had since stepped up its criminal investigation with the addition of new prosecutors in spring 2022 before they were folded into the special counsel’s office.House investigators also concluded that there was evidence for prosecutors to charge Trump with conspiracy to defraud and obstruction of an official proceeding. They also issued referrals for incitement of insurrection, which was not listed in the target letter.Should prosecutors charge Trump in the federal January 6 investigation, the case could go to trial much more quickly than the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case – before the 2024 election – because pre-trial proceedings would not be delayed by rules governing national security materials.Federal prosecutors investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results have evidence to charge the former president with three crimes, including section 241 of the US legal code that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights, two people familiar with the matter said.The potential charges detailed in a target letter sent to Trump by prosecutors from the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who also charged Trump with retaining classified documents last month, was the clearest signal of an imminent indictment.Prosecutors appear to have evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States based on the target letter, two statutes that the House select committee examining the January 6 Capitol attack issued criminal referrals for last year.The target letter to Trump identified a previously unconsidered third charge, the sources said. That is section 241 of title 18 of the US code, which makes it unlawful to conspire to threaten or intimidate a person in the “free exercise” of any right or privilege under the “Constitution or laws of the United States”.The statute, enacted to protect the civil rights of Black voters targeted by white supremacy groups after the US civil war, is unusual because it is typically used by prosecutors in law enforcement misconduct and hate crime prosecutions, though its use has expanded in recent years.Donald Trump has until Thursday midnight to respond to special counsel Jack Smith and tell his office whether he will appear before a grand jury in the justice department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.A letter sent to Trump by prosecutors from Smith’s office on Sunday identified the former president as a “target” in the probe into the January 6 insurrection, Trump posted to his Truth Social website on Tuesday. He wrote:
      Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter … stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and an Indictment.
      People who receive target letters from federal authorities are usually advised by their attorneys to not take up invitations to meet with the grand jury because any statements provided in that setting could be used to help build a case against them in the event that they’re charged.Good morning, US politics blog readers. The former president, Donald Trump, has quietly added a criminal defense attorney to his legal team as he faces a potential indictment in the justice department’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection.Attorney John Lauro, who has also represented Trump attorneys Christina Bobb and Alina Habba, is joining Trump’s legal team alongside Todd Blanche, according to sources, CNN reported late on Wednesday.Lauro will be solely focused on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to remain in office following his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden, including the deadly 6 January 2021 riot in which his supporters overran the Capitol building in Washington DC.Federal prosecutors have evidence to charge the former president with three crimes, including section 241 of the US legal code that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights, the Guardian reported last night, citing two people familiar with the matter.Trump faces being charged with obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States, two statutes that the House select committee examining the January 6 Capitol attack issued criminal referrals for last year.The target letter also identified a previously unconsidered third charge, the sources said. That is section 241 of title 18 of the US code, which makes it unlawful to conspire to threaten or intimidate a person in the “free exercise” of any right or privilege under the “Constitution or laws of the United States”.The potential charges detailed in a target letter sent to Trump by prosecutors from Smith’s office, who also charged Trump with retaining classified documents last month, was the clearest signal of an imminent indictment.Here’s what else we’re watching today:
      9am ET: Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.
      9am ET: The House will hold a hearing on online censorship. Democratic presidential hopeful, Robert F Kennedy, is expected to testify.
      10am ET: The Senate will meet to resume consideration of an EPA nomination and the NDAA.
      10.20am ET: Biden will leave for Joint Base Andrews, where he will fly to Philadelphia.
      10.45am ET: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will hold his weekly news conference.
      1pm ET: Biden will speak about “Bidenomics”. He will depart Philadelphia to return to the White House in the afternoon. More

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      Biden team to propose strict vehicle pollution limits to boost EV sales

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      The Biden administration will propose strict new automobile pollution limits requiring that all-electric vehicles account for as many as two of every three new vehicles sold in the US by 2032 in a plan that would transform the US auto industry.Under the proposed regulation, expected to be released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday, greenhouse gas emissions for the 2027 through 2032 model years for passenger vehicles would be limited to even stricter levels than the auto industry agreed to in 2021.“This is a massive undertaking,” said John Bozzella, the president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, told the New York Times, which first reported on the proposed limits. “It is nothing short of a complete transformation of the automotive industrial base and the automotive market.”The auto industry is expected to push back against the plan, which comes nearly two years after carmakers pledged to make electric vehicles comprise half of US new car sales by 2030 as part of a history-making transition from gasoline-powered engines to battery-powered vehicles. Environmental groups have applauded the ambitious limits proposed by the Biden administration.The proposal would require at least 54% of new vehicles sold in the US to be electric by 2030, four percentage points higher than the 2021 goal that the industry previously agreed to, and up to 67% of new vehicles by 2032. The 2021 agreement came after strong pressure from President Biden, who signed an executive order setting a target for half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 to be zero-emissions vehicles.The president also wants automakers to raise gas mileage and cut tailpipe pollution between now and model year 2026, which would be a significant step toward his pledge to cut US planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.Electric vehicles accounted for only 7.2% of US vehicle sales in the first quarter of the year, but the share of EV sales is on the rise – last year it was 5.8% of new vehicle sales.The EPA declined to offer details ahead of Wednesday’s announcement, but confirmed in a statement that, as directed by Biden’s order, it is “developing new standards that will … accelerate the transition to a zero-emissions transportation future, protecting people and the planet”.The proposed regulation isn’t expected to become final until next year. More

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      Trump appointees interfered to weaken EPA assessment of toxic chemical

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      Trump administration appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) meddled in agency science to weaken the toxicity assessment of a dangerous chemical, a new report by the US body’s internal watchdog has found.In response to what it labeled “political interference”, the Biden administration in February 2021 pulled the assessment, republished it months later using what it said is sound science, and declared it had resolved the issue.But EPA scientists who spoke to the Guardian say several employees willingly worked with the Trump appointees to weaken the assessment, and they were never reprimanded or fired.The scientists say the controversy is part of a deeper problem afflicting the EPA: industry influence on career staff, and an unwillingness from the EPA to address it.“The issue is part of the larger rot at the agency of career staff working with industry to weaken the EPA,” a current agency scientist familiar with the situation said. The scientist did not use their name for fear of reprisal.The controversy centered around a 2021 toxicity report for PFBS, a type of PFAS compound that is toxic at low levels. Research has linked the chemical to kidney disease, reproductive problems and thyroid damage, and it has been found throughout the environment, including in an estimated 860,000 Americans’ drinking water.PFAS are known as “forever chemicals” due to their longevity in the environment, and are a growing health hazard.In its recent report, the EPA’s office of inspector general described “unprecedented” interference by former Trump-appointed EPA chief Andrew Wheeler and other political appointees, who ordered the alteration of the PFBS toxicity value just as the assessment was about to be published in late 2020. The revised assessment went live just four days before Trump left office in 2021.The assessment would have been used by regulators to establish drinking-water quality standards and other environmental cleanup targets that companies must meet when addressing pollution. Instead of a specific target number, Wheeler ordered a range of toxicity values for PFBS, which meant companies required to clean up pollution could choose to leave higher levels of the chemical in the environment.That could have led to a “less costly, but possibly insufficient” cleanup, the inspector general wrote in its report, and the change’s critics say it put human health at risk. It is unlikely the revised assessment was used in the few weeks that it was publicly available, the inspector general wrote.The changes were “something that industry has always wanted”, former EPA scientist Betsy Southerland previously told the Guardian.The disagreement about the toxicity value centered around the uncertainty factor used in PFBS’s assessment, which was developed by career scientists in the EPA’s office of research and development (ORD). Uncertainty factors are designed to fill in gaps in data on chemicals’ effects on the human body. In PFBS’s case, studies on how the compound affects thyroid hormone levels and neural development were not available. The uncertainty factors would help account for those gaps.The inspector general noted the ORD’s development of the assessment was twice peer-reviewed, followed EPA review protocol, and the office of chemical safety and pollution prevention (OCSPP) had twice reviewed and signed off on the assessment.“There was a lot of rigor, a lot of involvement across the agency,” said Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, then an ORD science adviser.Still, at political appointees’ behest, the OCSPP alternative uncertainty factors were inserted just days before the assessment was published. The new numbers were inserted without being fully scientifically vetted, and they lacked “technical and quality assurance review”, the inspector general wrote.The range of toxicity values was framed by political appointees as a “compromise” to resolve the alleged dispute between the OCSPP and the ORD, the inspector general said. The appointees also defended it as a “policy” decision, not an alteration of scientific data.After the Biden EPA pulled the assessment, it issued a statement declaring the process was “compromised by political interference as well as infringement of authorship”.During its review, the administration took no action against career employees who implemented the political appointees’ changes. Those employees “made the changes happily”, according to Kyla Bennett of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), but remained at the agency.An internal email thread from the Trump EPA’s waning days and comments in the inspector general report illuminate how career employees in the OCSPP either requested the changes or did not object to alterations.Among the career employees were Ana Lowit, Todd Stedeford and Tala Henry. Henry and Stedeford were previously accused by whistleblowers of altering scientific documents at industry’s behest to make other chemicals appear less toxic.Stedeford said he “adamantly opposed” the PFBS changes, and denied wrongdoing in previous allegations made against him by whistleblowers.The thread opened on 7 January 2021 with an email from Henry, then a deputy director in the OCSPP, sent to political appointees and career employees within the ORD and the OCSPP. She told the group the alterations are “something [Wheeler] has requested”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe only career EPA employee to oppose the order to change the assessment was Orme-Zavaleta, who in a response from the same day noted the assessment had already been reviewed twice and was considered “final”. Further changes would delay it for months because it would need to go through the review process, she told the group.In response to Orme-Zavaleta’s emails, a Trump political appointee said the assessment needed to be published in the next week because Wheeler had a media interview on PFAS and wanted to be able to “highlight” the assessment.“They were trying so hard to get it out before Trump left office,” Bennett said.On 8 January, a Trump appointee said Wheeler had allowed the review process to be “expedited”, and the altered assessment would be published before Biden took over the EPA.“Great news!” the appointee wrote.Wheeler’s decision “flew in the face of scientific integrity”, Orme-Zavaleta told the Guardian.The inspector general report suggests OCSPP career employees such as Stedeford, Henry and Lowit did not object to the changes: “We found no evidence that intimidation or coercion took place.”However, the three career staffers were in an “awkward position”, Orme-Zavelta said.“Career staff report to political leadership, and they were directed to make these changes,” she said. “It was a very tough position for them to say no, because that would have been insubordination.”Bennett said the employees should have pushed back: “Having been a whistleblower at the EPA myself, I understand it is not a fun place to be, but it’s better than just shrugging your shoulders and making the changes. They could have, and should have, fought back.”Lowit now works as a science adviser in the OCSPP and did not respond to a request for comment.Stedeford has since left the EPA to work for a law firm that represents chemical manufacturers.Henry retired amid the inspector general investigation late last year.Orme-Zavaleta said the controversy was “demoralizing” for ORD scientists, and some remain “bitter”.The inspector general report failed to address how to protect employees from political leadership pressure, she added. And with the EPA deeming the incident “political interference” instead of a larger problem, employees who spoke with the Guardian fear more of the same.“People know what happened, and they know there were no consequences, so there’s no deterrent,” said an employee familiar with the situation. “It’s only going to make people more brazen about doing this kind of thing in the future.” More

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      Ohio is facing a chemical disaster. Biden must declare a state of emergency | Steven Donziger

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      Ohio is facing a chemical disaster. Biden must declare a state of emergencySteven DonzigerA train derailed and flooded a town with cancer-causing chemicals. But something larger, and more troubling, is at work Earlier this month, a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in eastern Ohio, exploding into flames and unleashing a spume of chemical smoke on the small town of East Palestine. The train’s freight included vinyl chloride, a chemical known to cause liver cancer and other sicknesses.In response, government and railway officials decided to “burn off” the vinyl chloride – effectively dumping 1.1m lbs of the chemical into the local community, according to a new lawsuit. Officials said that they did so to avert the vinyl chloride from exploding; in contrast, an attorney for the lawsuit has said that the decision was cheap, unsafe, and more interested in restoring train service and appeasing railway shareholders than protecting local residents.East Palestine residents are reporting headaches, sore throats, and burning eyes; dead pets and chickens; and thousands of fish corpses in nearby waterways. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has said that approximately 3,500 fish, of 12 different species, died across 7.5 miles.In other words, Norfolk Southern’s “controlled burn” may have caused a mushroom cloud of poison to spread over eastern Ohio. The situation demands immediate action from President Biden. Without it, thousands of people – including children and the elderly – and animals will be at continued risk of premature death. Biden must declare a state of emergency and create an independent taskforce to take over the remediation of this eco-catastrophe.Norfolk Southern “basically nuked a town with chemicals” to “get a railroad open”, a former hazmat technician told a local news outlet. It certainly seems like a company with a $55bn market cap chose to sacrifice the health of thousands of people to keep its profits flowing.We need to try to understand how this happened.For one thing, even the initial derailment wasn’t necessarily just an “accident.” It was a function of our out-of-control corporate culture in the United States, which has neutered effective government oversight of hazardous activities – including the rail transport of highly flammable and carcinogenic chemicals. The EPA’s response thus far has been to send a feckless letter to Norfolk Southern pleading it pay for clean-up.That’s not going to cut it. We need to do better.In terms of the sheer quantity of carcinogenic chemicals being released over an area of hundreds of miles, the catastrophe in Ohio is a major, unprecedented public health crisis. Biden must publicly recognize it as such and act to protect the people who live in the affected area. This requires a rapid, all-of-government response overseen not by the EPA but by independent scientists and taskmasters who will be immune to pressure from industry. This sort of taskforce must be willing to threaten the suspension or even nationalization of Norfolk Southern if it does not cooperate.After battling an oil company over the discharge of toxic waste in the Amazon, I can say with some assurance that Norfolk’s response to this crisis so far comes from a time-tested corporate strategy: manage the situation as a public relations challenge and not the humanitarian and ecological catastrophe that it is. Norfolk’s leadership bailed out of a townhall meeting this week, blaming security risks, and has refused to face residents to answer questions.That’s certainly cowardice. But it is also a function of the fact that industry does not respect the power of government to regulate it. Government is supposed to protect us from the excesses of industry; instead it often acts like its partner.If the consequences of not attending had included a sufficient threat to his bottom line, Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw – who earns a reported $4.5m a year – probably would have been at the town hall. And if the government had been doing its job in the first place, there is a good chance this accident would not have happened. During the Trump administration, Norfolk successfully lobbied to repeal a safety rule requiring new electronic brakes. The train was also dangerously long – with only two crew members, and a trainee, supervising its 1.7-mile length.I’m not a scientist. But I know a fair amount about toxicology and how the world’s polluters use a playbook invented by law firms and consultants to downplay the impact of major disasters and lower their legal liability. Local and state officials – who may be under enormous pressure from these industries in the form of campaign donations – often work alongside polluters to “manage” disasters’ political fallout.It’s a one-two punch of disaster mismanagement that is playing out now, in Ohio, with awful consequences for people and the planet. Here are three takeaways about what is really happening and what needs to be done:Be skeptical of claims by authorities that it is “safe” to return to the area. The EPA and state environmental officials have been opaque about what chemicals are being tested for and by what methods, and news reports haven’t indicated any plans so far for any sort of environmental restoration. We also do not know what new chemical compounds the so-called “controlled” burn may have created, and whether tests have been run for those chemicals. In fact, test results have not even been released publicly.Bottom line: there is no transparent scientific or public health basis for declaring the area safe. Until there is, I wouldn’t go near the site of the disaster.The EPA can help, but cannot oversee a clean-up. Corporate lobbying in recent years has undermined the ability of the EPA to regulate industry. Under the Trump administration, chemical lobbyists took over important jobs on the inside and the agency is severely understaffed. Further, the EPA is required by Congress to “balance” industry needs with public safety. It is not focused solely on protecting the community. It sent a letter to Norfolk pleading with it to pay for a cleanup; a real government would have sent a disaster management team to Ohio to take over.Longer-term, the railway industry needs to be revamped. We have civil-war era braking systems on trains carrying deadly chemicals though our communities. Railway unions and whistleblowers have repeatedly raised safety concerns only to be ignored. A new industry concept called “precision scheduling” has pushed trains and workers to the breaking point to extract greater profits for shareholders, which include some of the largest hedge funds on Wall Street.Our government institutions as currently constituted are unable or unwilling to respond effectively to industrial disasters. It is preposterous for any ostensibly advanced country to let a massive chemical polluter clean up a mess like this on its own terms and without effective oversight. This is not an isolated incident. Unless we demand accountability, it will happen again.President Biden: the ball is in your court.
      Steven Donziger is a human rights and environmental lawyer, a Guardian US columnist, and the creator of the Substack newsletter Donziger on Justice
      TopicsPollutionOpinionOhioUS politicsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS Environmental Protection AgencycommentReuse this content More