skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Monday, March 18, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Texas Moms Testify to Keep Mercury Protections

play audio
Play

Thursday, March 21, 2019   

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Mothers from 15 states including Texas traveled to the nation's capital this week to testify against moves by the Environmental Protection Agency to roll back the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which set limits on mercury and other toxic pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Dee Dee Balmares, a San Antonio mom and a field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force, says the standards are working, and in Texas mercury pollution has been reduced by 77 percent.

"Mercury is a very dangerous neurotoxin that can affect a woman who is pregnant, can affect her baby,” she stresses. “It has serious health impacts, so it's so important to keep those standards in place."

Mercury exposure in children is linked to delays or dysfunction in language, attention and memory well into adolescence.

The standards were implemented in 2012 under the Obama administration, and the Trump administration maintains the cost of mitigating pollution outweighs the benefits.

Opponents of the rollback, including many utility companies, point out that many plants already have installed the technology. Other experts add that the costs of installation were lower than expected.

Belmares maintains the agency charged with protecting the nation's air and water should not be prioritizing the profits of the coal industry.

She points to the EPA's own analysis, which shows that the standards have produced positive health outcomes, including the prevention of up to 11,000 premature deaths.

"Twenty-eight hundred cases of chronic bronchitis, 4,700 heart attacks,” she points out. “Their own math is saying that these standards are working, they're protecting our health, they're protecting our environment."

Monday's event was the only public hearing set for the proposed rollback, but Belmares and others are urging the EPA to allow more moms to chime in by holding additional hearings outside of Washington.

The EPA also is taking public comments on its proposal online through mid-April.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Corporate partners sign contracts to offer a graduate assistantship and pay the students. In turn, MSU pays the graduate assistant's tuition, fees and salary, so the assistantship is directly tied to the academic experience. (pressmaster/Adobe Stock)

play sound

By Victoria Lim for WorkingNation.Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Missouri News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Service Col…


Social Issues

play sound

A new report brands Connecticut's tax system as "regressive" for low- to middle-income residents and uses a report from the state to make its point…

Environment

play sound

Backers of a new federal rule said it will increase fairness for livestock and poultry producers, in North Carolina and across the country. The U.S…


A study by the advocacy group Inseparable showed one in five adults said at any given time, they consider their mental health to be either 'fair' or 'poor.' (Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Mental health care advocates are encouraging federal agencies to adopt a proposed update to regulations which would expand access to psychological car…

Social Issues

play sound

With hotter summers bringing hotter working conditions, the Maryland Department of Labor is implementing a heat stress standard to protect workers …

Social Issues

play sound

By Jimmy Cloutier for OpenSecrets.Broadcast version by Roz Brown for Texas News Service reporting for the OpenSecrets-Public News Service Collaboratio…

Environment

play sound

Recreational fishermen in New England say commercial trawlers are threatening the survival of smaller businesses relying on a healthy stock of Atlanti…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021