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Facing a federal contempt citation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Florida to take immediate and dramatic attempts to reduce water pollution in the Everglades, according to documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). If EPA cannot get Florida to accept its conditions, it may lead to a federal takeover of state water pollution controls.
On October 7, 2010, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson will personally appear before U.S. District Court Judge Alan Gold in a contempt hearing into repeated violations by EPA and Florida of a 2008 ruling to comply with phosphorous limits for sensitive Everglades waters. On the September 3rd deadline set by Judge Gold, EPA announced that it had a plan to comply with the order and avert a contempt finding but the agency did not release any details. This coyness may be explained by the fact that this new set of EPA Everglades dictates, called the "Amended Determination," go far beyond any previous actions, including -
The EPA Amended Determination also flatly declares that Florida is violation of the Clean Water Act and can no longer be allowed to ignore nutrient standards for the Everglades Protection Area. It indicates that if Florida does not take the stipulated steps EPA will directly impose these actions under federal law.
"We welcome this no-nonsense approach. Our only question is where the heck has EPA been for the past twenty years? These woeful conditions did not suddenly appear overnight," stated Florida PEER Director Jerry Phillips, a former state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) enforcement attorney, who obtained the EPA plans under Florida's Sunshine Act. "EPA does leave one big loophole, however, by allowing variances or exceptions to avoid compliance schedules, raising the possibility that under political pressure exceptions could grow to swallow the rule."
The EPA-imposed deadlines are especially aggressive, and include the completion of state rulemaking by the first of the year - a timeline that assumes no major challenge or litigation. There is already sharp resistance by business groups and the DEP to an earlier, more modest move by EPA to set numeric water quality standards in Florida. This more extensive federal intervention could set off even broader and more intense opposition.
"The chances that Florida will actually abide by this new tough regime are about as likely as a major snowfall down here in August," added Phillips. "Without Judge Gold holding officialdom's feet to the fire things would remain business as usual."
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Read the EPA Amended Determination
Look at the issues in October 7 contempt hearing
View the EPA Notice of Filing
Examine the fight over numeric standards for Florida
See cryptic EPA press release announcing but not detailing actions
PEER protects public employees who protect our environment. We are a service organization for environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers, and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values. We work with current and former federal, state, local, and tribal employees.
"The American people understand that Donald Trump poses a direct threat to our Constitution and to the rule of law and must be impeached and removed from public office," said the head of Free Speech for People.
After just 14 months of President Donald Trump's return to the White House, polling released Monday found that a majority of likely US voters support impeaching him a historic third time—which one pollster called "an unprecedented result this early in a presidential term."
Lake Research Partners conducted the poll March 26-30 for Free Speech for People, a legal advocacy organization that has launched a campaign to "Impeach Trump. Again." As part of that effort, FSFP gathered more than 1 million supportive signatures ahead of the latest "No Kings" rallies and has publicly detailed over 25 grounds for impeachment.
First on that list is that "in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East, Trump is abusing his role as commander of the US military to commit atrocities that violate US and international law." The president notably spent the weekend threatening to commit more war crimes in Iran if it doesn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz to all ship traffic—which it only closed in response to the joint Israel-US attack on February 28.
Another key argument for impeachment on the FSFP list is that "Trump has militarized and weaponized federal law enforcement, particularly US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to punish the opposition party, disrupt local communities, instill fear in the civilian population, and quell lawful political dissent."
Pollsters noted both of those grounds in their question, asking respondents: "Several members of Congress have recently come out in support of impeaching President Donald Trump for violating Americans' constitutional rights and the law, including actions by ICE in the US and the war he started with Iran. Do you support or oppose President Trump being impeached?"
Overall, 52% of all voters said they support impeachment, including 84% of Democrats, 55% of Independents, and even 14% of Republicans. Just 40% opposed, including 8% of Democrats, 34% of Independents, and 81% of Republicans.

"The result is quite striking," David Mermin of Lake Research Partners said in a call with reporters. "It's a clear majority. It's a solid majority. And it reaches across all demographics and across partisan lines as well."
The 800 respondents represented a variety of perspectives in terms of age, gender, racial identity, education, region, and partisanship. The margin of error is +/-3.5%.
Putting the finding in a historical context, Mermin noted that there were majorities in favor of impeachment in the mid-1970s, when then-President Richard Nixon was approaching impeachment and then resigned, well into his second term. Nearly a quarter-century later, during the proceeding that led to the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, "most of that period, we did not see majorities in favor of impeaching him, even during that process," the pollster explained.
"For President Trump, in his first term, there were two impeachment proceedings against him, and in the first one, near the end of 2019... some of the polls disagreed, but there were some polls showing him slightly about 50% approval of impeachment," he continued. "And then the second proceeding that happened after the January 6th coup attempt, there was a clear majority... during those last few weeks of his term prior to his when he left office in January of 2021."
As with Clinton, the House of Representatives impeached Trump, but the Senate declined to convict him. Now, both chambers of Congress are narrowly controlled by Republicans who have demonstrated an unwillingness to stand up to the president—including by refusing to advance war powers resolutions challenging his various unauthorized military actions abroad.
Mermin said that "this appears to be the earliest in a presidential term that you've seen a majority of Americans in favor of impeachment."
FSFP co-founder and president John Bonifaz highlighted that the polling comes when there is not even an impeachment proceeding in the House.
Since Trump's return to office last year, Reps. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) and Al Green (D-Texas) have introduced articles of impeachment against him, though those efforts have not gone anywhere. However, in the lead-up to the November midterm elections, even Trump has acknowledged that Democrats winning congressional races could lead to him being impeached a third time.
"You gotta win the midterms, 'cause if we don't win the midterms... they'll find a reason to impeach me," Trump told Republicans in January. "I'll get impeached."
The new survey shows even higher figures for disapproval of Trump's job performance: 57% of all voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing, including 92% of Democrats, 56% of Independents, and 16% of Republicans.
Bonifaz said that "this poll confirms what we are seeing across the country: The American people understand that Donald Trump poses a direct threat to our Constitution and to the rule of law and must be impeached and removed from public office."
“There’s a new kind of brazenness in declaring an intent to commit unlawful attacks,” said a researcher for Human Rights Watch. “It appears impunity has emboldened the Israeli military."
Doctors in Lebanon are warning that the Israeli military appears to be waging a campaign of deliberate destruction on their country's healthcare system.
In an interview with The Associated Press published Monday, Sidon-based surgeon Dr. Mohammed Ziara, who previously worked in Gaza City, said that he believes Israel is trying to inflict the same kind of damage on the Lebanese healthcare system that it inflicted in Gaza, when it regularly bombed hospitals and other healthcare facilities.
“I’ve lived this before,” Ziara told the AP, referring to Israel's attack on Gaza that has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians. "I cannot go back to Gaza now. But I can be here, in Lebanon."
The AP noted that Israel is justifying bombings of Lebanese hospitals by claiming that Hezbollah is using them as headquarters for storing weapons and plotting attacks. Israel made the same claims about Hamas militants being stationed in Gaza hospitals.
"Israel has increasingly targeted Lebanese first responders and medical centers, forcing several hospitals to evacuate," the AP reported.
Human Rights Watch researcher Ramzi Kaiss told the AP that, while Israel has launched attacks on Lebanon before, the country now seems even more willing to attack civilian infrastructure than in the past.
“There’s a new kind of brazenness in declaring an intent to commit unlawful attacks,” Kaiss explained. “It appears impunity has emboldened the Israeli military."
Human rights activists for the last several weeks have been trying to draw attention to Israel's attacks on Lebanese healthcare.
Kristine Beckerle, deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said in March that Israel is using "the same deadly playbook it used in 2024 in Lebanon to kill dozens of health workers and devastate healthcare services."
Beckerle also slammed Israel's justifications for bombing healthcare infrastructure.
"Throwing out accusations claiming that healthcare facilities and ambulances are being used for military purposes without providing any evidence," Beckerle said, "does not justify treating hospitals, medical facilities or medical transport as battlefields or treating doctors and paramedics as targets. Under international humanitarian law parties to a conflict must ensure to distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects."
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, recently flagged reports from Lebanese healthcare workers who "say Israeli bombing has deliberately targeted medical workers and facilities in southern Lebanon" in "a systematic effort to make the area unlivable."
"We stand firmly against war crimes, deliberate starvation, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and ecocide," said one Greenpeace campaigner.
Greenpeace International said Monday that the MY Arctic Sunrise—one of its largest and most storied vessels—will be taking part in the upcoming Global Sumud Flotilla relaunch in order "to directly challenge Israel’s ongoing blockade of aid to Gaza."
The green group said the Arctic Sunrise, an icebreaker that's been part of Greenpeace's fleet since 1995, will be "sailing alongside more than 70 vessels and over 1,000 participants" in the second Global Sumud Flotilla, which is scheduled to set sail from Barcelona on April 12, with subsequent stops in Syracuse, Italy, and Lerapetra, Greece en route to Gaza.
Greenpeace said the Arctic Sunrise "is providing operational and technical support" for the flotilla.
“The devastation inflicted on Gaza has become a dangerous doctrine of impunity, now spreading to Lebanon through relentless destruction and deepening human suffering," Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa executive director Ghiwa Nakat said in a statement. "The Greenpeace ship is joining this people-led mission to demand safe, unhindered humanitarian access to Gaza and to challenge the illegal blockade that continues to devastate civilian life."
"We stand firmly against war crimes, deliberate starvation, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and ecocide," Nakat added. "This flotilla is a call to governments around the world to end their silence, protect humanitarian action, and act with urgency and principle to uphold international law, human dignity, and justice.”
Global Sumud Flotilla organizers said the spring 2026 mission will focus on specialized medical care, with more than 1,000 healthcare professionals aiming to deliver lifesaving medicines and equipment to Gaza, where 29 months of Israeli war and siege have left the Palestinian exclave's medical infrastructure in utter ruins.
Last year, dozens of boats carrying hundreds of activists from over 40 nations took part in the last Global Sumud Flotilla—sumud means “perseverance” in Arabic—as it attempted to break Israel’s naval blockade and deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid including food, medicines, and baby formula to starving Gazans amid a growing famine.
Israeli forces intercepted and seized the flotilla vessels in international waters in early October, arresting all aboard the boats and temporarily jailing them in Israel, where some including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg said they were physically and psychologically abused by their captors.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition has made numerous attempts to break Israel’s blockade by sea, all of which ended in more or less the same way. In 2010, Israeli forces raided one of the first convoys carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza by sea. The Israeli attackers killed nine volunteers aboard the MV Mavi Marmara, including Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doğan.
Numerous experts and the entire United Nations Security Council except the United States have called the starvation of Gaza deliberately created by Israel, whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
Israel—whose assault and siege of Gaza have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead or wounded—is also facing a genocide case in the International Court of Justice filed by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 countries, including Spain, the mission's country of departure.
“At this time of escalating war, triggered by US and Israeli militaries and cascading into a cycle of destruction and pain across the Middle East, we are honored to answer the call to join the Sumud Flotilla," Greenpeace Spain executive director Eva Saldaña said Monday. "While world governments have lacked the courage and conviction to uphold international law and their obligation to prevent genocide in Gaza, the Sumud Flotilla has been a shining light of humanitarian solidarity and a symbol of hope in action.”
Global Sumud Flotilla leaders applauded Greenpeace's decision to participate in its spring mission.
“Greenpeace’s history of defending the seas, confronting injustice, and taking action in defense of life makes them a powerful addition to our 2026 spring mission," Global Sumud Flotilla Steering Committee member Susan Abdullah said Monday. "We sail together in the same direction, with a shared determination to help break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza.”