A chemical excise tax to fund Superfund toxic waste site cleanups nationwide will go into effect on Friday, reinstating one of several “polluter pays” taxes that had been allowed to lapse 26 years ago. The EPA’s Superfund program is responsible for cleaning up the country’s most hazardous waste sites.
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By a unanimous vote, the Philadelphia City Council passed legislation Thursday requiring the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) to replace all of its old drinking fountains with lead-filtering hydration stations by 2025.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland issued an order on Wednesday, World Oceans Day, to phase out single-use plastic products on lands managed by the Department of the Interior by 2032. The order is intended to reduce -- and eventually eliminate -- plastic and polystyrene food and beverage containers, bottles, straws, cups, cutlery and disposable plastic bags at national parks and on other public lands.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will mark up a discussion draft on the Food and Drug Administration’s user fee legislation next week. In response, U.S. PIRG joined over 35 health experts and other advocacy groups in a letter released on Friday recommending stronger enforcement of post-market clinical trials for accelerated approval drugs to better protect patients.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is unveiling its historic, $5 billion Clean School Bus Program on Friday. This new program, created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law by President Joe Biden last November, will help school districts replace polluting diesel buses with zero-tailpipe-emission, electric school buses.
On May 4th, administrators from the School District of Philadelphia presented the 2022-2023 budget for City Council and announced a detailed plan to replace old water fountains with lead filtering hydration stations by 2025. Following the announcement, PennPIRG Education Fund, the PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center, and the Black Church Center for Justice and Equality, released a letter co-signed by 70 community organizations.
U.S. PIRG Education Fund and NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) launched a campaign on Tuesday calling on outdoor gear and apparel brand Columbia Sportswear to phase out the use of PFAS in its products and supply chains. Last month, the company received low marks in a scorecard report released by the advocacy groups. The report found that Columbia Sportswear has failed to adopt policies that ban PFAS chemicals or provide up-to-date, publicly available information on any ongoing efforts to phase out these toxic chemicals from their products.
Lead contamination of school drinking water is more pervasive than previously thought, according to testing data from across the nation published on Thursday by Environment America Research & Policy Center and U.S. PIRG Education Fund on a new interactive map. The groups urged public officials to take swift action to “get the lead out” of schools’ drinking water.
