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Abigail Dillen, President of Earthjustice: “It is hard to imagine a more sweeping agenda to make Americans less healthy. The most important thing to understand is that we are seeing a wholesale approach to eradicating environmental protections.”

Deena Tumeh, Attorney, Washington, D.C., Office: “The Trump EPA’s decision to drop this enforcement case leaves the St. John community without sufficient federal protection, and it leaves them at the mercy of industry. It allows these emissions to continue harming people who’ve already been breathing it for years. The Trump EPA claims to care about…

Over 120 community, environmental, public health, and other organizations from across the United States write to urge the Environmental Protection Agency to reinstate its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) trichloroethylene (TCE) final rule, currently on hold, and avoid a protracted delay in implementation that will expose countless Americans to TCE’s serious risks of harm, including multiple cancers and Parkinson’s disease.

Lawmakers want to over turn a life-saving ban that phases out the potent carcinogen trichloroethylene (TCE)

Katherine O’Brien, Attorney, Toxic Exposure & Health Program: “Despite calculating very high cancer risks for people in their homes and also fence-line community residents, EPA has completely written off those risks, and set the stage for no regulation to address those risks. That’s deeply disappointing and very hard to comprehend.”

Lawmakers are trying to overturn a ban on trichloroethylene, a widely-used solvent linked to cancer and Parkinson’s disease. Here’s what it is, and one family’s story after being exposed.

Adam Kron, Attorney, Washington, D.C., Office: “It would mean a real disservice to communities, first responders and workers. It would put them in greater harm’s way from these chemical disasters.”

Hillary Aidun, Attorney, Northeast Office: “The reason that DEC required Brookhaven to do this analysis in the first place is that the town owns the landfill, and PFAS is coming from the landfill.”

Earthjustice will use the power of the law to defend the right to a healthy environment.

Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, Attorney, Toxic Exposure & Health Program: “You have contamination that extends back to the 1800s. These aren’t abstract concerns.”

Cumulative impacts are an integral part of the risk evaluation process, which is needed to account for the real-world risks and stressors that people in fenceline communities and elsewhere experience daily. The science for evaluating cumulative impacts and risk has evolved, as evidenced by the National Research Council of the National Academies as well as state-based environmental laws and policies. Commenters urge the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to incorporate the assessment of cumulative impacts and risk into all assessments and evaluation methods where it is scientifically possible. Finally, it is integral for the EPA to take careful consideration of public comments and to incorporate them into the final framework document without delay.

Julian Gonzalez, Senior Legislative Counsel, Policy & Legislation Team: “You’re going from a much stronger [drinking water] regulation to a weaker one and as a result, lots and lots of children and adults and fetuses are all going to be threatened with really irreversible health harms.”

Adam Kron, Attorney, Washington, D.C., Office: “This is information that the public deserves to know — what the facilities are that are near them, what types of chemicals they deal with.”

“Notwithstanding the overt cruelty of this decision, no one wants an unhealthier and more polluted America, coopted by industry.”

Hillary Aidun, Attorney, Northeast Office: “Brookhaven should not release Covanta from liability for a small amount of money especially given the need for remediation and the fact that there are a number of pending lawsuits against Brookhaven resulting from the landfill.”

Black plastic items may contain a deadly flame retardant. We’re suing the government to keep it out of our homes.

We’ve come too far on strengthening lead protections to back down. Communities drinking contaminated water because of lead pipes should not have to wait decades for help.

Major rail car explosion risk now averted throughout American communities