Fifteen states sued the Trump administration over its declaration of an “energy emergency,” arguing that there is no emergency and that the order instructs regulators to illegally bypass reviews of fossil fuel projects, potentially damaging the environment. The president’s Jan. 20 executive order, “Declaring a National Energy Emergency,” directed federal agencies to speed up energy projects like drilling for oil …
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States Sue Trump Administration Over Funding Freeze for EV Charging
A coalition of states led by Washington, Colorado and California sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, charging that it was unlawfully withholding billions of dollars allocated by Congress for electric-vehicle charging stations across the United States. The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law provided $5 billion to states to build stations around the country. So far, 71 stations have been built, with …
Read More »Trump Budget Cuts Funding for Chronic Disease Prevention
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, has said that tackling a chronic disease “epidemic” would be a cornerstone of his Make America Healthy Again agenda, often invoking alarming statistics as an urgent reason for reforming public health in this country. On Friday, President Trump released a proposed budget that called for cutting the funding of the Centers for …
Read More »New ‘Climate Superfund’ Laws Face Widening Legal Challenges
Vermont made history last year when it enacted the country’s first climate superfund law. It’s designed to let the state recover money from fossil fuel companies to help pay the rising costs of climate change. If the law can survive intensifying legal challenges, that is. On Thursday, the Justice Department filed federal lawsuits against Vermont and New York, the only …
Read More »Kennedy Offers Qualified Support for Measles Vaccination
In a rare sit-down interview with CBS News, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, recommended the measles vaccine and said he was “not familiar” with sweeping cuts to state and local public health programs. The conversation was taped shortly after his visit to West Texas, where he attended the funeral of an 8-year-old girl who died after contracting …
Read More »The Three States That Are Especially Stuck if Congress Cuts Medicaid
If congressional Republicans go through with some of the deep Medicaid cuts they are considering, three states would be left in an especially tight bind. South Dakota, Missouri and Oklahoma have state constitutions requiring that they participate in Medicaid expansion, the part of Obamacare that expanded the health program for the poor to millions of adults. If Republicans choose to …
Read More »Why Measles Outbreaks May Be the New Normal
As the Trump administration moves to dismantle international public health safeguards, pull funding from local health departments and legitimize health misinformation, some experts now fear that the country is setting the stage for a long-term measles resurgence. If federal health officials do not change course, large multistate outbreaks like the one that has torn through West Texas, jumping to neighboring …
Read More »Entire Staff Is Fired at LIHEAP
The Trump administration has abruptly laid off the entire staff running a $4.1 billion program to help low-income households across the United States pay their heating and cooling bills. The firings threaten to paralyze the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which was created by Congress in 1981 and helps to offset high utility bills for roughly 6.2 million people …
Read More »Trump’s Tariff Agenda Bets on Americans Giving Up Cheap Goods
President Trump’s sweeping tariffs are expected to raise the cost of cars, electronics, metals, lumber, pharmaceuticals and other products that American consumers and businesses buy from overseas. But Mr. Trump and his advisers are betting that it can sell an inflation-weary public on a provocative idea: Cheap stuff is not the American dream. “I couldn’t care less if they raise …
Read More »Trump Administration Abruptly Cuts Billions From State Health Services
The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues. The cuts are likely to further hamstring state health departments, which are already underfunded and struggling with competing demands from chronic diseases, resurgent …
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