Category: Blog

Blog

Fifty Years After the EPA’s Formation, EDGI Releases A People’s EPA

Today the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) launches a collaborative digital project, A People’s EPA (APE). Since December 1970, Congress has charged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with implementing laws that protect us from air pollution, dirty water, and hazardous waste. Launching 50 years after the EPA’s establishment, the new project website helps illuminate the complex history, present day struggles, and future direction of the country’s lead environmental agency.

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Change of the Week: Story of Clean Power Plan Website Removal Underscores Need for Better Information Policies

This week’s change of the week was made in April 2017 and features the redirecting of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan website to a single webpage about a 2017 executive order on “energy independence.” We discussed this issue in our 2018 public comment on the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan, and it underscores the urgent need to develop better web resource policies. 

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Democratizing Data Reports Released by EDGI’s Environmental Enforcement Watch

Seventy-six congressional report cards released by Environmental Data & Governance Initiative’s Environmental Enforcement Watch on October 22, 2020, show a decline in compliance and enforcement for key U.S. environmental laws under the Trump administration. The report cards are summarized in the new report, Democratizing Data: Environmental Enforcement Watch’s Report Cards for Congressional Oversight of the EPA, which provides for the first time an analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data on compliance and enforcement in the districts and states of the representatives and senators serving on the two congressional committees tasked with overseeing the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Bio-Lab’s Toxic Record Presages Chlorine-Fueled Fire Following Hurricane Laura

The blaze at Bio-Lab following Hurricane Laura was not the first release of toxic chlorine from the facility, EDGI’s research into available federal data finds.

As Hurricane Laura tore through Louisiana on the morning of August 27th, a chemical manufacturing facility called Bio-Lab, located in Westlake, caught fire. The facility manufactures chlorine for swimming pools and other cleaning agents. A chlorine leak ignited, setting the facility ablaze. Massive clouds of chlorine gas plumed over Westlake for more than 24 hours, prompting the governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards, to implement a shelter-in-place order for residents living in the vicinity.