Acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, just signed his first major regulatory amendment — making it easier for corporations to discard coal ash however they see fit.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday finalized a rule that rolls back standards for disposing of the toxic ash produced by burning coal, The Hill reports. The amendment was in the works for several months, but when Wheeler took over for Scott Pruitt earlier this month, he took the reins. Pruitt resigned as EPA administrator following a string of ethics scandals.
The amendment backpedals on regulations put in place by the Obama administration, which mandated strict federal standards for coal ash disposal in 2015. In a statement, the EPA said relaxing the standards would save $31.4 million a year in regulatory costs, as states are given authority to loosen or waive requirements for companies.
"These amendments provide states and utilities much-needed flexibility in the management of coal ash, while ensuring human health and the environment are protected," said Wheeler in the statement. Environmental groups disagree, reports The Hill, and immediately condemned the measure as dangerous to groundwater and air pollution.
Companies with lax standards may not be required to monitor whether coal ash leaches into surrounding groundwater and will have extended deadlines to reduce coal ash disposal. The EPA has also loosened pollution standards on acceptable levels of lead, lithium, cobalt, and molybdenum in groundwater. Read more at The Hill. Summer Meza
Saturday's third annual Women's March is expected to draw smaller crowds than in previous years thanks to accusations of anti-Semitism among national organizers.
Former Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.) formally withdrew her participation Friday, saying she "cannot associate with the national march's leaders and principles, which refuse to completely repudiate anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry."
Other prominent speakers and sponsors from past years — including Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the Democratic National Committee, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and NARAL — have cut ties as well. Most did not issue specific statements explaining their decision.
For those who do participate, events are organized in Washington, D.C., as well as hundreds of other cities nationwide and around the world. Policy focuses this year include the minimum wage, health care, and opposition to President Trump.
Read The Week's Shikha Dalmia here on the controversy and divisions within the march's ranks. Bonnie Kristian
President Trump may not be the only one in legal jeopardy after BuzzFeed News' bombshell report.
In Friday's report, sources told BuzzFeed News that Trump directed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow Trump Tower project. But before that, the report says Trump's children "Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. received regular, detailed updates about the real estate development from Cohen" — something Donald Trump Jr. has denied to Congress.
Cohen — who was reportedly in charge of the Trump Tower project — once said discussions with Russia about the project stopped in January 2016. He took that back in a guilty plea last November, saying he lied to Congress and affirming that discussions actually continued beyond January. That statement contradicted Trump Jr.'s insistence that discussions ended earlier, though as Trump Jr. claimed to the Senate Intelligence Committee in September 2017, he knew "very little" about what was happening with the project anyway.
BuzzFeed News' Friday report explicitly contradicts that statement, meaning Trump Jr. would've lied to Congress just like Cohen has admitted to doing. It also provides a potential explanation for a smattering of contacts Trump Jr. has had with various Russians, as pointed out by Axios. And it all helps solidify an August 2018 report from The Washington Post, which says the president worried Trump Jr. "inadvertently may have wandered into legal jeopardy."
Read more about the BuzzFeed News report's consequences for Trump Jr. at Axios. Kathryn Krawczyk
Less than a year ago, all but three Senate Democrats were willing to give President Trump $25 billion for his border wall. But what looked like an inconsequential "no" vote at the time could drive a winning campaign in 2020, Bloomberg reports.
It seems almost unthinkable that in February 2018, 44 out of 47 Senate Democrats said they'd give Trump wall funding in exchange for citizenship for the undocumented Dreamers. The government is currently shut down over one-fifth of the money Democrats were once willing to relinquish, and party leaders are now uniformly opposed to funding more than $2.7 billion of it.
But Democrat weren't so united a year ago. Potential 2020 candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) co-sponsored the 2018 border compromise, and nearly every other senator rumored to be or officially running in 2020 backed it. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif), though, voted against the failed 2018 bill, saying she wouldn't use "taxpayer money ...to implement this administration's anti-immigrant agenda." Immigration activist Frank Sharry thinks Harris was thinking about 2020 when she made the choice. It would make for a perfect "30-second ad coming in the primary" to say all these other Democrats "voted for" a wall, Sharry told Bloomberg.
Even Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) former campaign press secretary, Symone Sanders, conceded to Harris' "winning message," telling Bloomberg she "was on the right side of history when it came to that vote." After all, in this ongoing shutdown squabble, Democrats don't want to be seen "giv[ing Trump] the money to make him stop hurting people," as MSNBC's Joy-Ann Reid puts it.
Harris isn't officially running yet, but has reportedly decided to announce her decision soon — perhaps around Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Read more about Harris' advantage at Bloomberg. Kathryn Krawczyk
The White House may not be worried about climate change, but the Pentagon sure is.
About two-thirds of the U.S. military's priority installations are vulnerable to current or future effects of climate change, a report from the Department of Defense found.
The report warned about rising sea levels flooding coastal bases and the dangers of drought-fueled wildfires spreading to bases inland, Bloomberg reports. Coastal bases on the East Coast and in Hawaii are in the most jeopardy, but drought vulnerabilities are widespread across the U.S., per the report.
The Pentagon's findings contradict President Trump's previous denial of climate change's devastating effects. Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis recognized the importance of evaluating climate change, saying during his confirmation hearings that "the Department of Defense must pay attention to potential adverse impacts generated by this phenomenon."
The report says the Pentagon now plans on incorporating climate resilience in all future decision-making processes regarding resources, rather than making climate a separate program. Marianne Dodson
Immigrant detainees have to use three days worth of wages to purchase tuna or a miniature deodorant at a California immigrant detention center, Reuters reports.
Daily wages may be as little as a few cents an hour at the Adelanto Detention Facility in California, and a can of commissary tuna costs $3.25 — more than four times the price at a nearby Target, per Reuters.
Immigration activists say facilities like Adelanto intentionally limit access to essentials like toothpaste and even food in an effort to force or coerce inmates into cheap labor. The paltry wages are then redirected back into commissaries where detainees buy ramen noodles and soap. A spokesman for the Geo Group, which owns the Adelanto facility and is the nation's largest for-profit prison operator, denied these allegations, saying the meals served are approved by dieticians, the labor program is strictly voluntary and wage rates are federally mandated, Reuters reports.
Concerns about commissary in U.S. immigration lockups aren't new — a 2017 report from the U.S. Office of the Inspector General documented problems at ICE lockups, finding spoiled, moldy and expired food at some, per Reuters.
Eleven U.S. senators sent letters last November to Geo Group and CoreCivic, the nation's second-largest for-profit prison operator, calling out the "perverse profit incentive at the core of the private prison business," Reuters reports. Marianne Dodson
The mystery of when Unsolved Mysteries would finally receive a reboot has just been solved.
Netflix will bring back the classic true-crime show with the original co-creators returning, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Also on board are Stranger Things producers Shawn Levy and Josh Barry. This new version will tackle one case per episode, and Netflix says it will "maintain the chilling feeling" that characterized the original run while "telling the stories through the lens of a premium Netflix documentary series." Also like the original, Netflix says the reboot will "look to viewers to help aid investigators in closing the book on long outstanding cases."
Unsolved Mysteries originally aired on NBC for nine seasons starting in 1987, with Robert Stack taking viewers through a series of strange cases that sometimes had a paranormal bent and sometimes leaned more toward standard true-crime. CBS picked it up for two more seasons starting in 1997; it later had a two-season run on Lifetime and a short-lived revival on Spike in 2008. After Stack died in 2003, the Spike reboot was hosted by Dennis Farina. Classic episodes are currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime and Hulu — but not on Netflix.
This, is course, is just the latest in a long series of examples of Netflix bringing back classic shows, and it will add to Netflix's ever-growing catalogue of true-crime series like Making a Murderer. The streaming service has ordered 12 new episodes of the show but has not yet announced a new host or given the reboot a release date. Brendan Morrow
