In the News

EPN member Jeff Alson, former EPA Senior Engineer and Policy Advisor, Office of Transportation and Air Quality, is quoted in this article about how automakers’ voluntary deal with California could be a model for voluntary environmental initiatives in other sectors, but would not be as protective as federal policies backed by enforcement or oversight.

EPN members Janet McCabe, former EPA Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, and Joe Goffman, former Associate Assistant Administrator for Climate and Senior Counsel, EPA Office of Air and Radiation, are quoted in this article about the new Trump Administration rule proposal that would allow for weaker monitoring of methane, a major greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. Joe was also quoted in similar articles in Earther, the Associated Press, the Independent, and KQED Science.

EPN member Dan Reich, former Assistant Regional Counsel, EPA Region 9, wrote an op-ed published in The Hill about the lack of enforcement for SEC regulations that requirie the disclosure of climate-related impacts.

EPN member Janet McCabe, former EPA Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, is quoted in this article about two parallel proposals EPA has put forth that would stop directly regulating methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, drastically cutting controls on the sector’s greenhouse gases. Janet is quoted in a similar article in Bloomberg, Inside Climate News, The Guardian, Gingdu, and interviewed on Cheddar and CBCNews.

EPN member Roy Gamse, former Deputy Assistant Administrator for Planning and Evaluation and Acting Assistant Administrator for Planning and Management, is quoted in this article about scientists pushing back against a Trump Administration proposal that would block EPA from relying on studies that don’t make their underlying data public.

Roy Gamse, former Deputy Assistant Administrator for Planning and Evaluation and Acting Assistant Administrator for Planning and Management, is quoted in this article about the fact that EPA officials still have no clear answers on how fundamental aspects of the proposed censored science rule would work, according to an update recently provided to the Science Advisory Board.

EPN members Dr. Bernard Goldstein, former chair, EPA Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, and former EPA Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, and Roy Gamse, former Deputy Assistant Administrator for Planning and Evaluation and Acting Assistant Administrator for Planning and Management, are quoted in this article about the Science Advisory Board’s role in consulting with EPA on its Censored Science proposal and the serious practical and ethical problems that arise from it.  

EPN member Janet McCabe, former EPA Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, is quoted in this article about a federal appeals court giving environmentalists a big win with the rejections of industry challenges to Obama-era ozone standards and an order for EPA to take a closer look at one part of the requirements that green groups deemed too lenient.

EPN member Janet McCabe, former EPA Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, is quoted in S&P Global’s article about the recently released final regional haze guidance that gives states more leeway to weigh the cost of pollution controls against the visibility gains the equipment is expected to produce.

EPN member Betsy Southerland, former Director, Office of Science and Technology, EPA Office of Water, is quoted and interviewed in CNN’s broadcast about Americans’ tap water being contaminated with PFAS or “forever chemicals,” which don’t easily break down in the environment or the human body. The piece also ran on WHNT TV.

Chris Zarba, EPN member and former Director, EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB), is quoted in this article about EPA’s SAB missing next month’s deadline for completing independent assessments of several high-profile EPA proposed rules, which raises the odds that the agency could issue the final versions before the reviews are complete. 

EPN member Jeff Alson, former EPA Senior Engineer and Policy Advisor, Office of Transportation and Air Quality, is widely quoted in this article about automakers siding with California’s mileage standards deal and the climate crisis rather than with the Administration’s rollback. This article also ran in High Country News.

EPN members Mark Ryan, former EPA Region 10 Counsel and Special Assistant United States Attorney, is quoted in this  article about EPA’s latest proposal aimed at preventing states from blocking infrastructure projects by limiting state’s authority under the Clean Water Act to block pipeline construction if a project does not meet state standards.

EPN member Janet McCabe, former EPA Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, was interviewed for this special about the devastating impacts of Trump’s deregulation campaign. 

Dan Costa, EPN member and former National Program Director, EPA Air, Climate, and Energy Research Program, is quoted in this article about a recent study by EPA’s Office of the Inspector General that shows the Office of Research and Development isn’t collecting enough feedback from outside groups to know whether its reports, databases, and software tools are useful to them.

EPN member Cynthia Giles, former EPA Assistant Administrator, Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, wrote this op-ed about the Trump Administration encouraging federal agencies to downplay and dismiss the risks of climate change in regulations and policies. For example, the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) draft guidance on how federal agencies should consider climate when they evaluate federal actions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) makes no mention of “climate change.”

Janet McCabe, former EPA Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, was quoted in this article about the fear of exposure to lead and mercury air pollution from a proposed steel-dust recycling facility by many Muncie, Indiana, residents, and in the WebMD article about several Metro Atlanta communities moving forward with plans to test air around two sterilizing facilities amid public pressure and concern about the release of toxic pollution.

EPN members Joe Goffman, former Associate Assistant Administrator for Climate and Senior Counsel, EPA Office of Air and Radiation was also quoted in this article about the legal battle over the Trump Administration’s emissions rules for coal plants revealing a stark divide between states on climate change policy.

EPN members Joe Goffman, former Associate Assistant Administrator for Climate and Senior Counsel, EPA Office of Air and Radiation, and Janet McCabe, former EPA Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, wrote this piece about some of the changes to the New Source Review program and how they weaken public health protections.

EPN is cited in this article about criticism of the draft guidance written by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) that instructs agencies to limit the scope of how they consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts when conducting National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews.

Joe Goffman, EPN member and former Associate Assistant Administrator for Climate and Senior Counsel, EPA Office of Air and Radiation, was quoted in this article about whether the EPA’s draft rule to replace Obama-era curbs on methane produced from the oil and natural gas industry will even cover methane directly. Joe was also quoted in a similar article in Greenwire.

This article discusses and quotes EPN’s comments objecting to draft guidance issued by the Council on Environmental Quality to assist federal agencies in considering greenhouse gas emissions when they evaluate federal actions, like the construction of roads and pipelines, under NEPA.

EPN member Margo Oge, former EPA Director, EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality, was quoted in this article about an agreement between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and EPA to roll back Obama-era fuel efficiency standards, loosening requirements for gas mileage, and the departure of the deputy administrator of NHTSA, who was a proponent of the Trump Administration’s position on these standards.

Janet McCabe, EPN member and former EPA Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, and the Environmental Protection Network (EPN) were quoted in this article about EPN’s comments on the Region 4 proposal to modify exemptions from emissions requirements for startup, shutdown, and malfunction (SSM) events at power plants. A similar article appeared in S&P Global.