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For Immediate Release
January, 14 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Erin Fitzgerald, efitzgerald@earthjustice.org
EPA Challenged for Shirking Duty to Protect Communities From Lead
Civil rights and environmental groups sue to ensure protections for millions who rely on lead-piped drinking water.
WASHINGTON
Today, a coalition of civil rights and environmental groups represented by Earthjustice sued the EPA for failing to protect children's health and the safety of the drinking water of millions of people. The lawsuit comes as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the final -- but flawed --Lead and Copper Rule Revisions in the Federal Register.
The lawsuit comes a day after ex-governor Rick Snyder and eight other former Michigan officials were chard for the 2014 Flint water crisis.
The Lead and Copper rule, or LCR, regulates the control and monitoring of lead in drinking water. These revisions dramatically slow down the rate at with lead pipes are required to be replaced. The new rule also allows small public water systems required to replace lead service lines to avoid replacing them altogether, even if those systems continually exceed the lead action level.
The NAACP, United Parents Against Lead, Newburgh Clean Water Project, and the Sierra Club are the groups challenging the revised rule. They are calling on the Biden administration to immediately start a new rulemaking process that follows the law, science and principles of environmental justice. The Natural Resources Defense Council filed a similar but separate lawsuit.
"These revisions ensure that generations of children will continue to be poisoned by lead-tainted water," said Queen Zakia Shabazz, executive director of United Parents Against Lead, a nonprofit from Richmond, Virginia. "Lead poisoned children grow up to be lead poisoned adults. It's past time for the EPA to revise the Lead and Copper Rule in favor of children's health and stop childhood lead poisoning once and for all."
Most of the lead found in drinking water comes from lead service lines, according to the EPA. Lead service lines naturally corrode when water flows through them. EPA estimates there are as many as 10 million lead service lines in the country, and researchers estimate lead pipes serve as many as 22 million people. Communities of color are disproportionately affected. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 11.2 percent of African American children and 4 percent of Mexican American children are poisoned by lead.
Still, EPA's new lead rule requires water systems to replace only three percent of lead service lines annually after certain lead action level exceedances, in contrast to the seven percent rate in the former rule.
"This rule is a major disappointment," said Suzanne Novak, Earthjustice attorney. "Communities exposed to dangerous levels of lead in water expected the new rule to focus on removing lead pipes from the ground, the actual remedy to keep families safe. Instead, the new rule took a huge step backwards by slowing down the replacement rate of lead service lines. The Trump administration is failing the country once again, this time as it walks out the door. Children will continue to be poisoned, with no end in sight."
There is no safe level of lead exposure for children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even in small amounts, lead can cause irreversible brain damage in children, learning disabilities, and impaired hearing.
"EPA had the opportunity to instate a lead rule that would truly protect families, especially children. Instead, it's putting our most vulnerable at risk, exposing them to serious irreversible brain and nervous system development issues, and potentially life-long learning and behavioral challenges," says Gabrielle Hill of the Newburgh Clean Water Project, a Hudson Valley New York community organization. "EPA must act on the health data and take appropriate action to protect the future of communities like ours, which have experienced multiple toxic exposures."
"Lead in water is still a major problem for families and their children all over the country. Yet EPA today finalized a lead rule that doctors and scientists say falls short," said Dalal Aboulhosn, Sierra Club Deputy Director of Policy Advocacy and Legal. "If this EPA is serious about stopping children from drinking lead-tainted water, then it can't slow down the rate at which lead pipes are required to be replaced."
Groups say the Biden administration must hold required public hearings in affected communities; and put out a rule that includes a maximum contaminant level for lead, monitor and control for lead using best scientific practices, publicize the constant risk of exposure to lead in water and the limitations of the LCR, and require the expedited removal of all lead service lines across the country. They are also calling on Congress to prioritize full lead service line replacement by water utilities in infrastructure packages and other legislation to ensure that disadvantaged, low-income communities don't foot the bill for contaminated water.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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Critics Urge Senate to Reject Trump's Deadly Rescission Package, Regardless of AIDS Funding
One humanitarian leader pointed out that the bill contains $1.3 billion in cuts to initiatives "every bit as lifesaving" as the AIDS prevention program that Republicans spared amid public pressure.
Jul 15, 2025
Progressives and public health advocates on Tuesday were among those urging U.S. senators to vote against Republican legislation that would let President Donald Trump claw back billions of dollars already appropriated by Congress, even as GOP lawmakers ditched plans to cut funding for an HIV-AIDS prevention program that has saved tens of millions of lives in Africa.
Politico reported that Senate Republicans will remove $400 million in funding cuts to the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), an initiative of former President George W. Bush credited with saving more than 25 million lives in Africa since its implementation in 2003.
However, the rescission package—a version of which was passed last month by the House of Representatives—still includes $1.3 billion in cuts to humanitarian aid programs that Jeremy Konyndyk, president of the advocacy group Refugees International, called "every bit as lifesaving as PEPFAR."
These include programs to fund public health, emergency food and shelter assistance, peacekeeping, economic development, and other essential aid that helps stabilize war- and disaster-stricken populations in the Global South.
"Even though the Senate has removed $400 million in PEPFAR funding from the rescissions package, another $500 million in global health funding could still be cut," Think Global Health managing editor Nsikan Akpan noted Tuesday.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said Tuesday that the White House has agreed to an exemption for PEPFAR funding via a substitute amendment.
"It's substantially the same package and the Senate has to work its will and we've appreciated the work along the way to get to a place where they've got the votes," he explained.
Jacob Leibenluft and Devin O'Connor, respectively senior adviser and senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted that in addition to cuts to critical programs, the rescission package, combined with the Trump administration's wider campaign of unlawfully impounding funds, "could also make it far more difficult for Congress to fund the government in a bipartisan way in the future."
As the pair explained:
Most of the funds in the rescission package were enacted in March legislation that was passed by Congress—including on a bipartisan basis in the Senate—and signed into law by the president to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2025. To provide the 60 votes required to avoid a Senate filibuster, at least eight Democratic senators needed to join with 52 Republican senators to invoke cloture on the funding bill.
But presidential rescission requests operate under different rules and require only 51 votes to pass the Senate, so no Democratic votes are needed. If the Senate approves the package (which passed the House on a party-line vote), this would show that Republicans could quickly revise on a partisan basis, with merely 51 votes in the Senate, a bipartisan funding agreement reached only a few months earlier that required support from no fewer than 60 senators.
"Senators should keep those consequences in mind as they consider the president's current rescission request," Leibenluft and O'Connor advised.
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen cited both PEPFAR and the billions of dollars in other cuts to foreign aid contained in the package as reasons to oppose it.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took aim at the bill's $1.1 billion in cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which funds PBS and NPR.
"Like all authoritarians, Trump doesn't like criticism or objective reporting. He just wants flattery," the senator said on social media. "That's why he wants to defund NPR and PBS. We need media in this country that is not owned by billionaires and corporate interests. I will vote to support public broadcasting."
The chairs of the Congressional Tri-Caucus—Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.)—on Tuesday led a letter urging senators to reject the rescissions bill due to CPB cuts.
"CPB's elimination would decimate public media infrastructure, as the vast majority of its funding goes directly to local stations, many of which rely on it for over half their operating budgets," the lawmakers wrote. "In rural and tribal areas, this would shut down stations that serve as lifelines for public safety, education, and culturally relevant programming. Eighty percent of Native American and Alaska Native communities are rural or remote, and public television is often the only station reaching them consistently."
Polling published Tuesday by Data for Progress revealed that the proposed cuts in the rescission package are deeply unpopular, with a majority of respondents saying that funding for global health programs, public broadcasting, and developmental aid should be maintained at current levels or increased.
NEW: As Senate Republicans approach the Friday deadline to pass Trump’s rescissions package, voters reject the proposed billions of dollars in cuts to global aid and public broadcasting.We find that less than 30% of voters want cuts to these programs.www.dataforprogress.org/datasets/pol...
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— Data for Progress (@dataforprogress.org) July 15, 2025 at 6:54 AM
GOP senators—who are under pressure, as the proposed cuts must be approved by Friday under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) of 1974, the law they are using to skirt a Democratic filibuster—say they hope to pass the entire package before next month's summer recess.
On Monday, a coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration, alleging it violated the ICA and demanding the release of $6.8 billion in approved education funds that the suit argues have been illegally withheld.
"Courts across the country have made it clear to Donald Trump that he and his administration do not have the authority to unilaterally block funding that Congress has already approved," Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement. "These education grants are designed to help Michigan students thrive. By freezing them, the Trump White House is not just breaking the law but jeopardizing our kids' future."
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'Unconstitutional. Unethical. Authoritarian.' ICE Bars Millions of Immigrants From Bond Hearings
One watchdog said the new policy "seems like a blatant attempt to stop them from exercising their right to due process."
Jul 15, 2025
In yet another controversial move from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons recently told officers that immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally are no longer eligible for a bond hearing as they fight against deportation and should be detained "for the duration of their removal proceedings."
The Washington Post first revealed Lyons' July 8 memo late Monday. He wrote that after the Trump administration "revisited its legal position on detention and release authorities," and determined that such immigrants "may not be released from ICE custody." He also said that rare exceptions should be made by officers, not judges.
The reporting drew swift and intense condemnation online. One social media user said: "Unconstitutional. Unethical. Authoritarian."
In a statement shared with several news outlets, a spokesperson for ICE confirmed the new policy and said that "the recent guidance closes a loophole to our nation's security based on an inaccurate interpretation of the statute."
"It is aligned with the nation's long-standing immigration law," the spokesperson said. "All aliens seeking to enter our country in an unlawful manner or for illicit purposes shall be treated equally under the law, while still receiving due process."
The move comes as President Donald Trump and leaders in his administration, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, attempt to deliver on his promised mass deportations—with federal agents targeting peaceful student activists, spraying children with tear gas, and detaining immigrants in inhumane conditions at the so-called "Alligator Alcatraz."
In a statement about the ICE memo, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that "President Trump and Secretary Noem are now enforcing this law as it was actually written to keep Americans safe."
"Politicians and activists can cry wolf all they want, but it won't deter this administration from keeping these criminals and lawbreakers off American streets—and now, thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill, we will have plenty of bed space to do so," she added, referring to $45 billion for ICE detention in Republicans' recently signed package.
According to the Post:
Since the memos were issued last week, the American Immigration Lawyers Association said members had reported that immigrants were being denied bond hearings in more than a dozen immigration courts across the United States, including in New York, Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina, Ohio, and Georgia. The Department of Justice oversees the immigration courts.
"This is their way of putting in place nationwide a method of detaining even more people," said Greg Chen, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "It's requiring the detention of far more people without any real review of their individual circumstances."
Rebekah Wolf of the American Immigration Council told NBC News that her group has also received reports of some immigration judges "accepting the argument" from ICE, "and because the memo isn't public, we don't even know what law the government is relying on to make the claim that everyone who has ever entered without inspection is subject to mandatory detention."
The Post reported that "the provision is based on a section of immigration law that says unauthorized immigrants 'shall be detained' after their arrest, but that has historically applied to those who recently crossed the border and not longtime residents."
The newspaper also noted that Lyons wrote the new guidance is expected to face legal challenges. Trump's anti-immigrant agenda—like various other policies—has been forcefully challenged in court, and there has been an exodus from the Justice Department unit responsible for defending presidential actions.
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'There Is Something Rotten in Washington': House Republicans Unanimously Reject Releasing Epstein Files
Rep. Ro Khanna said the vote was about: "Are you on the side of America's children? Or are you on the side of the rich and powerful who have had their thumb on the scales and shafted Americans for decades?"
Jul 15, 2025
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously voted against forcing the Department of Justice to release its full files on deceased financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, just hours after the GOP-led Rules Committee rejected the measure.
The vote was 211-210 along party lines. While nine Republicans—and two Democrats—did not participate, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) voted with his party, after joining Democrats for the Monday night panel vote on Rep. Ro Khanna's (D-Calif.) amendment, which would require the DOJ to release the records within 30 days while protecting abuse survivors' identities.
"Wow. Republicans in the U.S. House just voted UNANIMOUSLY to not release the Epstein files. Every. Single. One. Genuinely surprised it was unanimous," said Nina Turner, who previously ran for Congress as a progressive Democrat in Ohio.
Speaking ahead of the full chamber's vote, Khanna called out the Rules Committee's other Republicans, saying that "they voted to protect rich and powerful men who were abusing, assaulting, and abandoning young women. That's what this vote is about. A nation that chooses impunity for the rich and the powerful at the expense of our children is a nation that has lost its moral purpose."
"So you ask, Why did they vote this way? Let's speak plainly," the congressman continued. "Because these rich and powerful men donate to the politicians in Washington, D.C., play golf with the elites in Washington, D.C. They are foreign leaders who we don't want to offend. They interact with our intelligence agencies that we don't want to disobey. There is something rotten in Washington."
"And this is a question of, Whose side are you on?" he argued. "Are you on the side of the people? Are you on the side of America's children? Or are you on the side of the rich and powerful who have had their thumb on the scales and shafted Americans for decades?" he asked. Khanna also praised Republicans, including Norman, who have previously supported releasing the files.
Khanna—who has been laying the groundwork for a 2028 presidential run—emphasized that "it's not a question just of Epstein, it's a question of trust in our democracy. It's a question of restoring a government of the people, by the people, and for the people."
A nation that chooses to protect rich and powerful men who abandon, abuse, and assault young girls is a nation that has lost its moral purpose.
We get a vote this afternoon.
I will continue to fight for the release of the Epstein files. pic.twitter.com/kKf8YLH7It
— Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) July 15, 2025
Khanna pledged Tuesday he "will continue to fight for the release of the Epstein files," a vow echoed by other congressional Democrats. House Rules Committee Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) told Axios, "That was probably not the last time that you're going to see us deal with this issue."
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) led a Tuesday letter from panel's Democrats urging Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to investigate how President Donald Trump's administration has handled the Epstein files. The letter requests that the committee invite—and, if necessary, subpoena—Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel, and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino to testify publicly.
"Mr. Epstein reportedly took his own life to escape justice, robbing his victims and the public of an opportunity to hold him accountable for his shocking crimes," the Democrats wrote. The New York City medical examiner ruled his 2019 death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center a suicide by hanging, but that determination has been met with widespread skepticism.
"In the absence of facts and evidence related to Mr. Epstein's sex trafficking enterprise and the 'vast network' of underage victims he created, the public will turn to conspiracy theories to fill the void of credible information," the Democrats warned. "Alas, President Trump and his team, acting out of personal and political self-interest or some other more inscrutable motive, have suppressed the release of information in their possession and, in so doing, fed yet more conspiracy theories and advanced conjecture to explain this about-face."
After tech billionaire Elon Musk left the Trump administration, he claimed in early June that the president "is in the Epstein files" and "that is the real reason they have not been made public." The DOJ then released a two-page memo about Epstein and some video footage from the jail where he was found dead. Trump—who palled around with Epstein in the 1980s and '90s until a reported falling out in 2004—has since encouraged the media and public to stop paying attention to the dead sex offender.
"At this point, the public has no idea if new information on the Epstein case even exists, why it was repeatedly promised to us if not, and if it does, what it may contain or mean for public safety and the victims of the Epstein ring," the Democrats wrote. "The Trump DOJ and FBI's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein matter, and President Trump's suddenly shifting positions, have not restored anyone's trust in the government but have rather raised profound new questions about their own conduct while increasing public paranoia related to the investigation."
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