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For Immediate Release
February, 01 2018, 08:00am EDT
Thursday February, 01 2018, 08:00am EDT
Contact:
Brian Willis, 202.253.7486, Brian.Willis@sierraclub.org
American Communities Cannot Delay Having Access to Clean Water
The Office of Budget and Management recklessly suspended the implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 2015 Clean Water Rule today, delaying it by at least two years. The Clean Water Rule, also known as the "Waters of the United States Rule", provides vital clean water protections against dangerous pollution contaminating America's waterways and drinking water supplies.
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON - The Office of Budget and Management recklessly suspended the implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 2015 Clean Water Rule today, delaying it by at least two years. The Clean Water Rule, also known as the "Waters of the United States Rule", provides vital clean water protections against dangerous pollution contaminating America's waterways and drinking water supplies.
It was created after the EPA held more than 400 meetings with stakeholder groups across the country and published a combination of more than 1,200 studies in peer-reviewed scientific publications. The rule's strong grounding in the Clean Water Act and reliance on the significant scientific evidence showed the need for strong and clear protections against pollution in America's rivers, lakes, and waterways to protect families from dangerous toxins in their water.
In response, Dalal Aboulhosn, Deputy Legislative Director for Land and Water, released the following statement:
"This reckless decision by the Trump Administration to suspend the implementation of the Clean Water Rule will put the drinking water for one in three Americans in danger, all so Trump and Scott Pruitt continue to pander to polluters intent on spewing their noxious waste into America's waterways without accountability.
"Communities across our country can't just "suspend" their need for clean water anymore than they can suspend their need for the sun to come up, which makes this ridiculous giveaway to polluters all the more galling. We will fight this despicable action today with all the resources we have and continue to fight for clean water protections across America."
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
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'No Sh*t, Sherlock': WSJ Reports DOJ Told Trump He's in Epstein Files in May
"It was always the simplest explanation," said one Democratic congressman.
Jul 23, 2025
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told President Donald Trump in May that he appears in the Department of Justice's files for Jeffrey Epstein, according to The Wall Street Journal—which Trump is currently suing over previous reporting about his relationship with the dead sex offender.
Citing unnamed senior administration officials, the Journal reported that during a "routine briefing that covered a number of topics," Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, told Trump that his name appeared multiple times in the "truckload" of documents.
"They told the president at the meeting that the files contained what officials felt was unverified hearsay about many people, including Trump, who had socialized with Epstein in the past," the newspaper detailed. "They also told Trump that senior Justice Department officials didn't plan to release any more documents related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender because the material contained child pornography and victims' personal information."
It was always the simplest explanation.www.wsj.com/politics/jus...
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— Congressman Don Beyer (@beyer.house.gov) July 23, 2025 at 3:20 PM
There have been mounting calls for the DOJ to release the files while protecting victims' identities—particularly since billionaire Elon Musk claimed in early June, shortly after leaving the Trump administration, that the president "is in the Epstein files" and "that is the real reason they have not been made public."
Congressional Democrats—and a handful of Republicans—have joined the growing demands for the full release, but both chambers are controlled by the GOP, and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) this week sent lawmakers home for summer recess early to avoid a vote on the Epstein files until they return in September.
Meanwhile, journalists in recent weeks have continued to publish revelations about Trump's ties to Epstein—whose suspicious 2019 death in jail while facing a federal sex trafficking case was ruled a suicide, a conclusion met with widespread skepticism.
Trump's public comments suggest the two men met in the late 1980s and remained friends until a reported falling out over a business deal in 2004, before Epstein was indicted in 2006. CNN on Tuesday published photos confirming that Epstein attended Trump's 1993 wedding to Marla Maples, and footage from a 1999 Victoria's Secret fashion event in New York in which the two men are talking and laughing.
That followed the Journal's reporting last week that Trump wrote a "bawdy" letter for a leather-bound album that Ghislaine Maxwell—now serving a 20-year prison sentence for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors—prepared for Epstein's 50th birthday.
Trump—a well-documented liar—denied writing the letter and threatened to sue the paper, as he has ABC and CBS. He then filed a $10 million libel lawsuit against the journalists who wrote the piece; Dow Jones & Company, which publishes the Journal; its parent company News Corp; and the company's billionaire founder, Rupert Murdoch. The publisher plans to defend against the suit.
While Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, claimed that the Wednesday reporting "is another fake news story, just like the previous story by The Wall Street Journal," Bondi and Blanche said in a statement to the paper that "as part of our routine briefing, we made the president aware of the findings."
According to the Journal, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel privately told other officials that Trump's name appeared in the files. He declined to answer the paper's inquiry but said in a statement that the Justice Department's recent memo explaining why it won't release more Epstein files was "consistent with the thorough review conducted by the FBI and DOJ."
Amid heightened scrutiny over Trump's relationship with the sex criminal, the president said on social media last Thursday: "Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval. This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!"
U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg—an appointee of former President Barack Obama in the Southern District of Florida—concluded Wednesday that she had to dismiss the DOJ's request because of grand jury secrecy rules with few exceptions.
The decision is a setback for the president and Bondi's effort to "stave off the fury of Trump's MAGA base, which has demanded public disclosures of evidence," Politico noted, but "DOJ leaders have also asked two federal judges in New York, where prosecutors brought cases against Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, to unseal grand jury transcripts. And New York's federal courts have generally taken a less stringent approach to grand jury secrecy."
'There Is No Evidence': Judge Orders Kilmar Abrego Garcia's Release While Ripping Trump DOJ
Judge Waverly Crenshaw argued that there is "slim evidence demonstrating Abrego is a member of MS-13" in a Wednesday ruling.
Jul 23, 2025
A federal judge on Wednesday had scathing words for the Trump administration as he ordered the government to release Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant wrongly sent to El Salvador's infamous Terrorism Confinement Center.
In his ruling, Judge Waverly Crenshaw of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee stated that the government's allegations that Abrego Garcia was a member of the gang MS-13 "border on fanciful" and were far from sufficient to prove that he is too dangerous to release ahead of his trial on human smuggling charges.
In fact, Crenshaw contended that proof of Abrego Garcia's gang affiliations are "entirely absent from the record" and further stated that "there is no evidence before the court that Abrego: has markings or tattoos showing gang affiliation; has working relationships with known MS-13 members; ever told any of the witnesses that he is a MS-13 member; or has ever been affiliated with any sort of gang activity."
The judge then picked apart testimony from cooperating witnesses who claimed that Abrego Garcia in the past had provided transportation to Salvadoran immigrants who were members of both MS-13 and of rival gang Barrio 18, which for years has engaged in a bloody feud with MS-13.
"This cuts against the already slim evidence demonstrating Abrego is a member of MS-13," wrote Crenshaw. "Based on the record before it, for the court to find that Abrego is member of or in affiliation with MS-13, it would have to make so many inferences from the government's proffered evidence in its favor that such conclusion would border on fanciful."
Shortly after Crenshaw's ruling, Judge Paula Xinis of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland issued an order that expressly prohibited Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials from taking Abrego Garcia back into custody during the period leading up to his trial and said the government could not initiate deportation proceedings against him without going through standard due process.
Abrego Garcia was brought back to the United States last month after the Trump administration complied with a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate his return after it acknowledged months earlier that he had been improperly deported to El Salvador. Upon his return, the United States Department of Justice promptly hit him with human smuggling charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Nonpartisan Watchdog Agency Finds Trump Admin Illegally Withheld Head Start Funds
"The Trump administration broke the law and denied communities the funding they need to create jobs, grow their economies, and support working families," said one Democratic lawmaker.
Jul 23, 2025
The Trump administration has violated at least two federal laws by withholding close to $1 billion from Head Start, the program that provides preschool education to low-income families, a nonpartisan watchdog agency found on Wednesday.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) illegally impounded crucial funds from Head Start between January 20 and April 15 of this year, when it distributed only 65% of the money it had provided to the early childhood education program over the same period in 2024.
Head Start lost more than $825 million over that time period, forcing some centers to close.
The GAO found that withholding the funds violated the Head Start Act and the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), which restricts the president's ability to rescind or delay funding that has already been appropriated by Congress.
"HHS has not provided the information we requested regarding factual information and its legal views concerning the potential impoundment of appropriated funds," said the GAO. "Yet publicly available evidence, including data recorded by HHS on its Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System, indicates that between January 20, 2025, and April 15, 2025, HHS withheld from disbursement funds appropriated for Head Start. Based on this evidence, we conclude that HHS violated the ICA."
The office added in its decision that "the Constitution grants the president no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation... If the administration wishes to make changes to the appropriation provided for Head Start, it must propose legislation for consideration by Congress."
Previously, the GAO has advised Congress that the Trump administration illegally withheld funds for an electric vehicle charging system and for the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
"Today's legal opinion from the nonpartisan GAO reaffirms a simple truth: The power of the purse belongs to Congress, not the president," said U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), ranking member of the House Budget Committee. "By blocking these investments, the Trump administration broke the law and denied communities the funding they need to create jobs, grow their economies, and support working families."
"Instead of trying to destroy preschool programs and breaking our laws to hurt working families, President Trump needs to ensure every penny of these funds get out in a timely, consistent way moving forward."
The administration has proposed entirely eliminating Head Start, which provides education to more than 750,000 children. Earlier this month it announced that children who are undocumented immigrants will no longer be accepted into the program—prompting a lawsuit that was filed this week by 21 Democratic state attorneys general.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who serves as vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, condemned President Donald Trump for "stealing money from preschool programs."
"No president in modern history has demonstrated such contempt for working and low-income American families as Donald Trump," said Murray, noting that a Head Start program in her state's Lower Yakima Valley was among those that had to temporarily close earlier this year, impacting more than 400 children and more than 70 staffers.
"Today, a top government watchdog confirmed what we've known for months: President Trump has illegally held up vast sums of funding for Head Start programs across America—blocking funding that working families count on every day for pre-K and so many critical services Head Start offers," said Murray.
"Trump has signaled he would like to eliminate Head Start—but that's not his choice to make," she added. "Congress delivered this funding for Head Start on a bipartisan basis, and instead of trying to destroy preschool programs and breaking our laws to hurt working families, President Trump needs to ensure every penny of these funds get out in a timely, consistent way moving forward—and he must also finally get out the rest of the investments he has been robbing the American people of."
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