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Sixty-eight coal plants can now release more mercury, arsenic, and other heavy metals known to damage children’s brain development, trigger asthma attacks, and cause cancer.

A Republican-run Congress attempted to repeal lead exposure protections, endangering millions of lives in the U.S. We fought back — and won.

New moves by the Trump administration and its congressional allies threaten to increase air pollution and harm public health.

Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, Attorney, Toxic Exposure & Health Program: “The EPA knows that the risks from ethylene oxide extend far beyond the walls of the sterilization facility. EPA had a legal obligation to address those risks.”

Tosh Sagar, Attorney, Toxic Exposure & Health Program: “These are basic statutory requirements that EPA has been flip-flopping on for a while, it’s causing real harms. It means that protections are not being put in place. It’s this court’s job to say what the law is, to clarify the rules of the road.”

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.”

A group of health advocates, represented by Earthjustice, sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to force the agency to reevaluate its decades-old authorizations for the use of certain phthalates in food packaging and food production materials.

Los ftalatos, un grupo de sustancias químicas altamente tóxicas, entran en contacto con productos de consumo mediante empaques o envases, entre otros materiales.

Phthalates leach from packaging and other products into food and drinks

DecaBDE, linked to cancer and harm to children’s brain development, threatens Indigenous and frontline communities due to inadequate EPA regulations