Key West The Newspaper

Trump rolling back safeguards affecting water, air and pesticides

• EPA’s Scott Pruitt is rolling back a rule that limits how much toxic waste power plants can release into water, threatening drinking water supplies with chromium, lead, and mercury contamination.
• New documents show that Scott Pruitt’s EPA obeyed industry requests to reverse a proposed ban on a pesticide linked to autism and ADHD.
• Citing “unnecessary regulatory burdens,” the Trump EPA is delaying action on lead contamination in drinking water like that which threatened Chicago in 2015.
• The Trump Administration is planning rolling back greenhouse gas and efficiency standards for cars and trucks
• Fears are growing that Trump could ignore Congress and simply not spend budgeted money if his spending cuts are ignored

Shutting out science and health experts in favor of industry and politics

• Trump disbanded a federal panel created to advise policymakers and the private sector on how to plan for climate change.

–  Meanwhile, Ryan Zinke’s Interior Department is quietly breaking up a scientific group established to advise him on climate change, with its website now referring to it in past tense.

– Chemical industry campaign supporters of EPA’s Scott Pruitt are happy that he is weakening rules governing the toxic chemical review process – but environmental groups are suing.

– Pruitt is directing all grant requests to a Trump political appointee, trading scientific and institutional knowledge for politics and cronyism for polluters.

– After stonewalling by the Administration, top Senate Democrats asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate Trump’s appointments at the EPAand CEQ for potential ethics violations.

– California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is suing the EPA for failing to provide records that could expose Pruitt for violating ethics laws.

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