Environmental Integrity Project

More than 2,000 coal-ash waste dumps across the U.S. are slowly leaking lead, arsenic, mercury, and other toxic metals into our underground water supplies. Under the Obama Administration, in 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency imposed the nation’s first-ever federal rules for controlling coal ash pollution. But now, the Trump Administration is trying to gut these rules and exempt old ash landfills from cleanup requirements. Environmental groups are pushing back. We talk about this with Abel Russ, Director of law and policy at the Environmental Integrity Project and a coal ash expert.

Photo credit: U.S. EPA.

Although the Trump Administration's war on Iran was not authorized by Congress, President Trump is using it as a pretext to invoke a wartime law and provide subsidies and support to his allies in the U.S. petroleum industry. The White House recently released a memo saying the President is using the Defense Production Act of 1950 to increase domestic petroleum production. We talk about the implications of this with Tyson Slocum, Director of the Energy Program at Public Citizen. Among other things, the Trump Administration is using the Korean War- era law to try to override the opposition of California and re-open a pipeline near Santa Barbara that has been closed since a massive oil spill in 2015.

Wetlands are miracles of nature. They work as the world’s kidneys, filtering and cleaning our water. Wetlands capture carbon dioxide more effectively than even forests and act as cradles of life for biodiversity, sheltering many endangered species. Despite all this, the Trump Administration on November 17 proposed regulations that would strip federal protections from more than 80 percent of wetlands across the U.S., leaving more than 70 million acres of wetlands vulnerable to development. We discuss the issue with Jon Devine, Director of Freshwater Ecosystems at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

On this week's podcast we interviewed EIP's visiting scientist, Dr. Kimberly Terrell. Facing a gag order imposed on her by Tulane University leadership because her study on racial discrimination in petrochemical industry jobs reportedly angered Louisiana’s governor, Dr. Terrell faced a new decision - remain silent and sacrifice her scientific integrity, or resign in protest, speaking out publicly about an important issue and shining a light on the pressure campaign to keep her silent.

The $4 trillion Republican spending bill, signed by President Trump on July Fourth, is packed with giveaways to the oil and gas industry. These include tax breaks, opening more public lands and offshore acres to drilling, and a lowering of royalty rates that oil and gas companies must pay for extracting fuel from government lands. Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful” bill is also full of ugly ironies, including this one: While Trump campaigned on lowering energy prices for consumers, his spending bill is expected to raise average household energy costs by about $280 per year, in part because it slashes support for wind and solar, which are some of the cheapest forms of energy. To break down all the handouts to the fossil fuel industry, we interview Josh Axelrod, senior program advocate at NRDC. (Photo by iStock)