regulation
September 2, 2022 -
Scores of the coal ash landfills that federal regulators have exempted from oversight are located in Southern states, and they're disproportionately located in low-income communities and communities of color.
October 27, 2021 -
After being pressed for decades by environmental health advocates, the EPA recently announced a plan to regulate toxic PFAS chemicals widely used in consumer products, from non-stick cookware to dental floss. But the FDA still hasn't banned the cancer-causing substances from fast-food wrappers and containers, and Southern states have been reluctant to take action on their own.
January 29, 2021 -
Tied for the hottest year on record globally, 2020 also brought the most $1 billion disasters ever in the U.S., and they took a disproportionate toll on the South's most vulnerable communities. With most states in the region controlled by a party whose platform downplays climate change, environmental advocates are looking to the new president for help. Here's what the Biden administration has done so far.
April 1, 2016 -
North Carolina's carcinogen-contaminated drinking water near Duke Energy's coal ash dumps — and the political fight over what to do about it — should serve as a warning for problems to come in other historically coal-dependent states due to a lack of federal oversight for drinking water and coal ash disposal.
May 22, 2015 -
The disaster near Santa Barbara, the site of a 1969 oil spill that sparked the modern environmental movement, comes amid a push to open the Atlantic and Eastern Gulf to oil and gas drilling. It underscores the risk presented by coastal energy development coupled with weak regulation.
May 13, 2015 -
Traditional colleges and universities have become unlikely allies of the beleaguered for-profit industry as each group tries to fend off the government's push for more accountability.
February 20, 2014 -
Duke Energy has long fought strict federal regulations on coal ash, which is in the spotlight again following a spill from one of the company's North Carolina plants. Duke got help from the American Legislative Exchange Council, the controversial corporate-interest advocacy group that has counted the utility among its members.
