Tag Archives: deregulation

Complying With Right-Wing Supreme Court, Biden EPA Guts Wetland Protections

“Congress and local elected officials must now step in and do more to protect clean water through durable legislation and state-based action,” said one advocate.

By Julia Conley. Published 8-29-2023 by Common Dreams

Located on the western edge of Eugene, Oregon, the West Eugene Wetlands is a beautiful and rare area of grassland habitats. Comprised of less than one percent of the original native wet prairie, Photo: Bureau of Land Management Oregon and Washington/flickr/CC

Under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling condemned by clean water advocates earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday announced a revised rule that could clear the way for up to 63% of the country’s wetlands to lose protections that have been in place nearly half a century under the Clean Water Act.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said he had been “disappointed” by the 5-4 decision handed down in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency in May, but he was obligated under the ruling to issue a final rule changing the agency’s definition of “waters on the United States.”

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Texas GOP On Verge of ‘Egregious Power Grab’ to Crush Local Democracy, Critics Warn

House Bill 2127 “is undemocratic,” said San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg. “It is probably the most undemocratic thing the Legislature has done, and that list is getting very long.”

By Kenny Stancil. Published 5-16-2023 by Common Dreams

Gallery View of House of Representatives Chamber, Texas State Capitol. Photo: Randy von Liski/flickr/CC

Republican state lawmakers in Texas are on the verge of virtually eliminating the ability of Democratic-led cities and counties to enact progressive policies.

At issue is House Bill 2127, which would prohibit municipalities from instituting new local ordinances that go further than what’s already permitted under nine broad areas of state law and also overturn existing regulations that do so, thus preempting democratically elected policymakers from strengthening workers’ rights, environmental protection, and more.

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US Supreme Court Puts Chevron Doctrine ‘Squarely In the Crosshairs’

One legal expert said that overturning the nearly 40-year precedent “would lead to far more judicial power grabs.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 5-1-2023 by Common Dreams

The United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. ruled on June 29, 2022 that authorities in Oklahoma and other states can prosecute certain crimes on sovereign tribal land. Photo: Beatrice Murch/flickr/CC

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will hear a challenge to a nearly 40-year administrative law precedent under which judges defer to federal agencies’ interpretation of ambiguous statutes—a case that legal experts warn could result in judicial power grabs and the gutting of environmental and other regulations.

The Supreme Court said it will take up Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—a case in which fishing companies are seeking to strike down the Chevron doctrine, named after the landmark 1984 Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council ruling that conservatives have long sought to overturn. The case is one of the most cited precedents in administrative law.

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Florida Derailment Strengthens Case for Urgently Needed Railway Safety Proposal

“The culprit is corporate greed, not a secret conspiracy.”

By Julia Conley.  Published 2-28-2023 by Common Dreams

A train derailed in Manatee County, Florida on February 28, 2023.
(Photo: @djcalligraphy/Twitter)

Shortly after two progressive lawmakers unveiled legislation that would require more stringent federal regulations for trains carrying hazardous materials, a train carrying propane fuel through Manatee County, Florida derailed and made the latest case for far-reaching action, according to advocates.

Brittany Muller of WFLA News Channel 8reported that “one tanker carrying 30,000 gallons of propane has rolled off the tracks.”

South Manatee Fire Rescue was responding to the derailment, Muller said, in which at least six train cars had left the tracks. Continue reading

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‘Payoff for 40 Years of Dark Money’: Supreme Court Delivers for Corporate America

“It was the conservative court’s larger agenda to gut the regulatory state and decimate executive powers to protect Americans’ health and safety,” warned one expert.

By Jake Johnson  Published 7-1-2022 by Common Dreams

The interior of the United States Supreme Court. Photo: Phil Roeder/CC

Over the past several decades, corporate lawyers, right-wing activists, Republican officials, and dark money groups with deep pockets have been laying the groundwork for a far-reaching legal assault on the federal government’s ability to regulate U.S. industry—including the oil and gas sector threatening the planet.

On Thursday, their investments bore major fruit.

In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, a Supreme Court packed with right-wing judges handpicked and boosted by some of the same forces leading the yearslong crusade against the power of regulatory agencies—which conservatives often dub the “administrative state”—dramatically restricted the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to rein in greenhouse gas pollution from power plants. Continue reading

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Looming US Supreme Court Climate Decision Could ‘Doom’ Hope for Livable Future

“The immediate issue is the limits of the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases,” said one scientist. “The broader issue is the ability of federal agencies to regulate anything at all.”

By Jessica Corbett  Published 6-27-2022 by Common Dreams

A coal fired power plant on the Ohio River just West of Cincinnati, Photo © 2013 Robert S. Donovan Licensable under the Creative Commons license.

Amid widespread outrage over recent rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue another decision this week that legal experts and activists warn could imperil the Biden administration’s climate goals and thus, the planet itself.

West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—one of the few remaining cases from this term—is “the most consequential climate case in decades,” Sierra Club said Monday. Continue reading

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Our global economic system is broken. Are we headed for a mass revolt?

How long can billionaires continue to amass wealth while the world’s poorest struggle to buy food?

By Paul Rogers  Published 5-28-2022 by openDemocracy

Screenshot: The Today Show

While it has long been blatantly obvious that the global economic model is not working for all, the rate of accumulation of wealth by a small minority is now breathtaking – if not totally obscene.

With the situation only being worsened by the economic impact of the Ukraine War – which has come on top of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic – could we be headed for mass revolts sparked by a desperate need for change? Continue reading

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More Than 130 Groups Call on CFTC to Shut Down ‘Dystopian’ Water Futures Market

“In this time of global-warming-induced drought in California, the last thing we need is to gamble on our precious water resources.”

By Julia Conley.  Published 12-20-2021 by Common Dreams

Drought conditions, at a filtration pond, in Campbell, CA 2014. Photo: Tyler Bell/flickr/CC

Warning Wall Street against commodifying what has been treated since ancient history as “a common right for everyone,” more than 130 civil society groups on Monday demanded that federal regulators shut down the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s water futures market.

Food & Water Watch organized the petition, which was sent to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a year after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) opened the world’s first market for water futures contracts, based on water rights in drought-plagued California. Continue reading

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‘Policy of Death’: Amazon Guardians Sue Ecuador’s President Over Oil, Mining Decrees

“We are fighting to defend our territory, our rivers, our forest, our fish, and our animals,” one Indigenous leader explained. “Without our forest and without water, we cannot live.”

By Brett Wilkins, staff writer for Common Dreams.  Published 10-18-2021

Indigenous Amazon protectors on October 18, 2021 filed the first in a series of lawsuits challenging a pair of decrees by Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso in service of expanding the fossil fuel and mining industries. (Photo: Amazon Frontlines/Twitter)

In a bid to halt what one Indigenous leader called a “policy of death,” communities from Ecuador’s Amazon region on Monday sued the country’s right-wing president, who is planning a major expansion of fossil fuel extraction and mining that threatens millions of acres of pristine rainforest and the survival of native peoples.

In the first of a series of lawsuits against President Guillermo Lasso, Indigenous nations, groups, and advocates allege that Executive Decree 95—which aims to double the country’s oil production to one million barrels per day by deregulating the fossil fuel industry—violates their internationally recognized right to free, prior, and informed consultation and consent. Continue reading

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House Passes Resolution to Reverse ‘Reckless’ Trump-Era Methane Rule

“Biden should direct the EPA to use the full power of the Clean Air Act to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas by 65% by 2025,” said one advocate.

By Kenny Stancil, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 6-25-2021

Gas well flaring in the Marcelus Shale. Screenshot: YouTube

Progressive advocates celebrated the U.S. House’s passage Friday of a resolution to reinstate federal regulations on methane pollution, while also emphasizing that confronting the climate emergency requires implementing stronger safeguards.

The resolution reversed the Trump administration’s rollback last August of the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules governing oil and gas companies’ emissions of the potent greenhouse gas. Continue reading

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