"A bill that would require the EPA to regulate PFAS, an emerging family of chemicals contaminating U.S. municipal and private water supplies, is slated to be the first major legislation that the House will take up in 2020."
"The Trump administration has built up the biggest backlog of unfunded toxic Superfund cleanup projects in at least 15 years, nearly triple the number that were stalled for lack of money in the Obama era, according to 2019 figures quietly released by the Environmental Protection Agency over the winter holidays."
"Lawmakers have reached a deal on federal cleanup standards for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in an annual defense authorization, sources told E&E News."
"A debate over Montana landowners’ potential liability for toxic metals in their backyards, deposited over decades of smelting operations, dominated oral arguments involving the landowners, the U.S. EPA, and Atlantic Richfield Co. before the Supreme Court Dec. 3."
"At least 60 percent of U.S. Superfund sites are in areas vulnerable to flooding or other worsening disasters of climate change, and the Trump administration’s reluctance to directly acknowledge global warming is deterring efforts to safeguard them, a congressional watchdog agency says."
"The Senate is prepared to walk away from provisions of a defense policy bill that would compel the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate a cancer-linked chemical that is leaching into the water supply, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) told reporters Tuesday."
"BUTTE, Mont. — The long-awaited discharge of treated wastewater from a former open pit copper mine into Silver Bow Creek in Butte has started with little fanfare."
"While the Trump administration is not known for velvety smooth relations with the news media, federal agencies are far more likely to ignore reporters than to officially scold them. Not the EPA. Reporters whom the agency deems to have misreported can expect to hear about it, and not just through a polite phone call or an email requesting a correction."
"A mining company says it won’t carry out cleanup work ordered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as part of a Superfund project in southwest Colorado."
"President Trump made the case Monday that he has protected the nation’s air and water in a speech filled with cherry-picked statistics and misleading claims. And he failed to mention that his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord was undercutting efforts to address a fundamental threat to the planet."
