Public Citizen

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) filed an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit against one of President Trump’s deregulatory efforts. Executive Order 13771 (EO) requires an agency to rescind two regulations for each one it wants to adopt, and have the action's combined incremental costs total no more than $0, regardless of the benefits. When the President announced it in January 2017, I called it the "one step forward, two steps back" edict. A lawsuit filed in February by Public Citizen, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Communications Workers of America argues that the EO…
Hearing someone describe a situation as “one step forward, two steps back” is never a good thing.  When it involves efforts to protect people’s health or public safety, the consequences can be dire. President Trump doesn’t care. He’s making good on a ludicrous campaign pledge that for every one regulation issued by a federal agency, the agency will have to offset the cost by eliminating two existing regulations. He issued that order today. The nonsense goes something like this: FAA: “We need to enhance testing requirements to protect against flocking birds affecting airplane engines. That's…
by Elizabeth Grossman One might assume that when a government agency awards a private company a contract to do construction work - for bridge or sewer work or other public utility repairs, for example - evaluating the company's safety and health record would be a prerequisite. This is, however, not the case. As the government watchdog organization Public Citizen details in a new report, numerous government contracts have been awarded to companies with chronic poor health and safety records. In a number of cases, such contracts have gone to companies with long histories of serious workplace…