Tag: epa

Federal Court Strikes Down Landmark Fluoride Ruling on Technicality — ‘Not the Science’

 A federal appeals court has vacated a landmark decision that found fluoridated drinking water poses an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not challenge the substance of the lower court’s findings — that fluoride is toxic to children and ought to be regulated. Instead, the court based its decision on procedural issues related to the lower court’s handling of the litigation.

The case will now go back to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where District Judge Edward Chen will be required to exclude all scientific evidence that became available after 2020.

Michael Connett, attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender the court “instructed Judge Chen to travel back in time to 2020 and make this ruling based on a stale factual record.”

Connett said the directive to ignore years’ worth of evidence on fluoride’s dangers runs counter to the intent of the TSCA — which is to protect hundreds of millions of Americans from substances that are harmful to human health.

The federal appeals court ruling, handed down late Thursday, stemmed from a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) brought by consumer advocacy groups including Food & Water Watch, the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), and Moms Against Fluoridation.

The groups sued after the EPA refused to consider their 2016 citizens’ petition asking the agency to regulate fluoride.

After two bench trials, Chen ruled that fluoride at the federally recommended concentration of 0.7 milligrams/liter (mg/L) posed an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health and ordered the EPA to regulate it accordingly.

However, the 9th Circuit panel said the lower court violated the “party presentation principle” — a legal doctrine requiring courts to act as neutral arbiters rather than taking control of a case’s factual development.

Connett said the decision was “a very expansive and unprecedented application of the party presentation principle.” He said that to date, “this principle has really only been applied to situations where judges raise new legal issues, not where judges use procedural mechanisms to resolve the issues presented.”

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Residents of Polluted Areas Say Trump’s Regulatory Rollbacks Are “Getting Really Scary”

ita Robles’s life is ruled by allergies, the worst effects from which can last for months at a time. She uses rescue inhalers, a nebulizer, and a maintenance inhaler — on top of a slew of other medications. Even then, it’s often not enough.

“There are times when I’m outside just walking to the driveway and it’ll feel like something catches in my throat, and it causes me to go into a choking fit,” Robles told Truthout. “It’s miserable.”

Robles lives in a Houston, Texas, neighborhood suffocated by heavy industry — Denver Harbor, the largest petrochemical hub of the U.S. Robles, 56, calls the neighborhood a “disaster.”

She’s just one of millions of Americans, however, living in communities where people’s quality of life is secondary to the hum of big business — communities at the front line of the government’s regulatory rollbacks and budget cuts.

Since Donald Trump came back into office in January 2025, the federal government has either succeeded in, or is attempting to, weaken and roll back many of the country’s key environmental regulations and other broader programs. Things could get worse if the proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget is approved, with its 52 percent cut in funding under the latest agency head, former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin.

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Vermont Applauded for Banning Parkinson’s-Linked Neurotoxic Herbicide Paraquat

In a move cheered by advocates for public health and the environment, Vermont on Tuesday became the first US state to ban paraquat, a neurotoxic herbicide banned in over 70 countries but protected by the Trump administration despite being linked to Parkinson’s disease.

Democratic Vermont Gov. Phil Scott signed H. 739, which bans the sale and use of paraquat, after the legislation was passed by the state Legislature with strong bipartisan support. The ban—which contains a provision allowing for limited use of the chemical on fruit orchards through the end of 2030—is set to take effect on November 1.

As Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) campaigner Liam Sacino recently noted, the US Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] acknowledges that “even a small amount” of paraquat “can be fatal, and there is no known antidote.”

“The agency has also decided that due to health risks, it should never be used around home gardens, schools, recreational parks, golf courses, or playgrounds,” Sacino added. “Regardless of these conclusions, the EPA still allows paraquat to be sprayed on farms, posing a potentially increased risk to those who work on the farms and live nearby.”

The EPA paradoxically calls paraquat “an important tool for the control of weeds in many agricultural and non-agricultural settings,” a stance promoted by the chemical industry, some of whose highly toxic products the pesticide-friendly Trump administration has designated as vital to US national security.

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“You Don’t Have the Right to Say Climate Change is a Hoax!”- Purple-Haired Democrat LOSES IT as Lee Zeldin Schools Her on Two Landmark Supreme Court Cases

Congress’s purple-haired congresswoman had a near-complete meltdown after EPA administrator Lee Zeldin completely embarrassed her during an an exchange on ‘climate change’ and the law.

On Monday, Zeldin testified before the House Appropriations Committee regarding President Trump’s 2027 budget request. As The Washington Examiner notes, the proposed budget would cut the agency’s budget in half if approved by Congress.

During the hearing, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) angrily attacked Zeldin for “appeasing polluters” and ignoring Americans under “the false flag of economic growth.”

Zeldin responded by explaining that he’s following the law, pointing out that it says nothing about fighting climate change.

Then, he asked DeLauro if she was familiar with the Loper Bright Supreme Court case.

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo is a landmark Supreme Court case in 2024 which overturned the long-standing Chevron doctrine, fundamentally altering the balance of power between the judiciary and federal agencies.

The Chevron doctrine, established in the 1984 case Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, has long been a source of contention. It granted deference to federal agencies in interpreting ambiguous statutes, effectively allowing unelected bureaucrats to make laws through their regulatory actions.

However, by a 6-3 majority, SCOTUS declared that such power is unconstitutional and goes against the principles of democratic governance.

DeLauro had no clue what Zeldin was talking about and went berserk:

“You do not, excuse, you don’t have the right to say climate change does not exist, that it’s a hoax!” she yelled at the EPA Administrator.

The exchange got even worse for DeLauro when Zeldin exposed her for not knowing about another landmark Supreme Court decision: West Virginia Vs. EPA.

In this 2022 case, The Court determined by a 6-3 margin that Congress did not authorize the EPA to compel existing power plants to combat climate change using the Clean Air Act, thereby curbing the agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from them.

All DeLauro could do was yell at Zeldin and finally snapped completely by saying, “I don’t have to listen to this BS!”

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MAHA Leaders Demand EPA Protect Americans From Toxic Chemicals

Leaders, farmers and organizations aligned with the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement are calling on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin to protect the health of the American public from pesticides, plastics and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, chemicals that are contributing to infertility, cancer and other chronic diseases.

The 36 MAHA organizations and leaders sent a letter urging the EPA to walk their talk in the forthcoming “Make America Healthy Again” agenda — which may be released any day — with concrete actions that will reduce Americans’ exposure to toxic chemicals, curb the influence of corporations over the agency and address rising rates of chronic disease.

“The American people were promised a Make America Healthy Again agenda that would finally confront the root causes of chronic disease in this country. That must include tackling the toxic chemicals Americans are exposed to every day through pesticides, PFAS, and plastics,” said Vani Hari, Author & Food Activist.

“We desperately need the EPA to put the health of families and children ahead of the interests of chemical companies.”

The letter demands, among other actions, that EPA initiate an emergency review of pesticides that are allowed in the U.S. but banned in the European Union — a policy supported by 87% of Americans.

The groups are also calling for tighter scrutiny of persistent, toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” and better monitoring of microplastics in drinking water.

The MAHA leaders point to industry influence at the EPA as the heart of the failure to protect the public from harmful chemicals.

They noted that revolving-door appointments, industry-funded science and regulatory loopholes have become the norm at the agency. EPA needs to chart a new course, they said, and that means prioritizing human health over the interests of chemical corporations.

“The EPA’s public support for glyphosate and pesticide liability protections in the face of growing evidence of scientific harm by independent scientists is a major betrayal of MAHA’s mission and President Trump’s campaign promise to RFK, Jr. [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] to reign in toxic chemicals in our food system,” said David Murphy, the founder of United We Eat and a longtime advocate for food and agricultural reforms.

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EPA Failed to Warn Public of Pesticide Cancer Risks Even When Agency Found High Risk

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has routinely failed to put cancer warnings on pesticide products even when its own assessments have found a high risk of those products causing cancer, according to two new analyses released today by the Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Center for Food Safety analyzed the level of risk the EPA permitted for both currently approved and legacy pesticide active ingredients.

The analysis found that pesticides have been allowed on the market with a cancer risk as high as 1 in every 100 people exposed, a far greater level than the EPA’s benchmark of a 1 in a million chance of developing cancer.

Over the last 40 years, the EPA has approved 200 active ingredients that are “likely” or “possible” carcinogens.

The Center for Biological Diversity analysis examined pesticide product labels for all currently approved pesticide products. The EPA has instituted cancer warnings on only 69 of 4,919 pesticide labels (1.4%) containing an active ingredient that the agency has designated a “likely” human carcinogen.

And the agency has instituted cancer warnings on just 242 of the 22,147 pesticide labels (1.1%) that contain an ingredient the agency has designated as a “possible” human carcinogen.

“It’s bad enough that the EPA approves cancer-causing pesticides,” said Bill Freese, science director at the Center for Food Safety.

“But if the agency is going to allow such chemicals to be freely sold at Home Depot, Wal-Mart and farm-supply stores, the very least the EPA must do is require a clear cancer warning on the label. Warnings save lives by incentivizing users to wear protective equipment that reduces risk.”

“It’s dumbfounding that the EPA has failed to require any cancer warning on thousands of pesticide products sold to the public that the agency itself has linked to cancer,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health program director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Why should anyone have confidence in the EPA’s ability to keep tabs on the pesticide industry and protect us all from harmful poisons when it won’t even compel companies to put long-term health warnings on pesticides it knows are really dangerous?”

These new analyses come before the April 27 oral arguments in the Supreme Court case Monsanto Company v. John L. Durnell.

Monsanto, since acquired by Bayer, is seeking substantial immunity from future lawsuits brought by Americans who used glyphosate-based products like Roundup and contracted rare cancers that numerous studies have linked to the pesticide.

The case hinges on whether the EPA has sole authority to implement pesticide label warnings.

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Industry lobbies Congress to weaken protections against toxic chemicals

Months after a federal judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate fluoride over risks to children’s brains, industry-backed lawmakers are pushing legislation that would weaken the nation’s primary law governing toxic chemicals.

The proposed changes would overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a law first passed in 1976. Legal experts say the effort would block future citizen petitions, shield the EPA from court scrutiny, and dismantle the legal tools that made the fluoride case possible.

Citizen petitions allow the public to ask the EPA to regulate chemicals it has failed to address and to sue the agency if those petitions are denied. It was a citizen petition filed in 2016 that led to a landmark federal court ruling in September 2025, when a judge found that current levels of fluoride in drinking water pose an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health.

The judge ordered the EPA to take regulatory action. The agency is appealing the ruling.

Former EPA deputy administrator Robert Sussman said the proposed TSCA changes appear designed to prevent courts from intervening as they did in the fluoride case.

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Fluoride Lawsuit Plaintiffs Push Back Against Trump EPA In Ongoing Litigation

On November 17, 2025, attorneys representing Food & Water Watch (FWW), Fluoride Action Network (FAN), and individual plaintiffs filed its response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) appeal of U.S. District Judge Edward Chen’s September 2024 ruling, which held that fluoridation at the current U.S. level of 0.7 mg/L “poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children.”

The response comes nine years after the plaintiffs first filed a civilian petition under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in November 2016. After the EPA denied the petition, the groups sued, triggering a nearly decade-long legal saga between the EPA, and parents of children impacted by water fluoridation, the FAN, and FWW. In September 2024, Judge Chen ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor and ordered the EPA to take regulatory action.

In the final days of the Biden administration the EPA filed their appeal, and now, under leadership appointed by President Donald Trump, the EPA has decided to continue fighting the judge’s ruling.

Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs, responded to the three main arguments made by the EPA in its July appeal: that the plaintiffs lack standing, that the judge improperly considered new evidence, and that the district court went beyond its authority in its management of the case.

The EPA contends that at least one plaintiff’s water contains naturally occurring fluoride and that the plaintiffs therefore cannot prove injury caused by community water fluoridation. The agency also claims that the Judge’s decision to admit studies which were published after the original 2016 TSCA petition violated the act.

Regarding the question of standing, the EPA claimed in its appeal that plaintiff Jessica Trader cannot establish standing because her drinking water in Leawood, Kansas, “naturally contains fluoride at levels 0.4 mg/L, and her water utility adds only as much fluoride as necessary for her tap water to reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L”. Essentially, the EPA is stating that the naturally occurring fluoride could be to blame for any harm caused to Trader.

Connett argues that the plaintiffs do indeed have proper standing and have demonstrated sufficient injury and connection to the case. “Even if the new “facts” are considered, Jessica Trader’s injury is still traceable/redressable: the district court found (and EPA does not dispute) that fluoridation poses a credible threat of neurodevelopmental harm to her children, and regulatory action would, at a minimum, reduce that threat, including the costs of avoiding it,” Connett wrote in his response.

He further noted that, even without Trader, the remaining plaintiffs also have standing based on credible threats of harm from fluoridation, as supported by findings from the National Research Council (NRC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and National Toxicology Program (NTP).

When it comes to the EPA’s claim that the court improperly considered new evidence in the form of studies published after the original petition, Connett reminded the court that Section 21 of TSCA provides that petitioners “shall be provided an opportunity to have such petition considered by the court in a de novo proceeding”. A de novo proceeding is a legal process where a case is heard “fresh” or from the beginning, without considering the previous court’s decision.

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EPA Greenlights Second ‘Forever Chemical’ Pesticide in Two Weeks

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the highly persistent pesticide isocycloseram on Thursday for golf courses, lawns and food crops such as oranges, tomatoes, almonds, peas and oats.

The pesticide is a “forever chemical” — one of a group called PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

Today’s announcement marks the second approval of a PFAS pesticide since President Donald Trump took office, with the first approval coming just two weeks before. The administration plans to approve three more PFAS pesticides in the coming year.

“To approve more PFAS pesticides amid the growing awareness of the serious, long-term dangers from these forever chemicals is absurdly shortsighted,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“The undeniable reality is that the Trump administration is knowingly putting the nation’s children at greater risk of developing serious reproductive and liver harms for generations to come.”

Isocycloseram is classified as moderately persistent to persistent and is known to transform into 40 smaller PFAS chemicals, some of which are much more highly persistent.

Among the most concerning harms from isocycloseram is reduced testicle size, lower sperm count and liver toxicity.

While the agency found that people would not be exposed to enough isocycloseram in their diet to cause these harms, it opted not to implement a child-safety buffer to account for the fact that children are more sensitive to chemical pollutants than adults.

If that safety buffer were included, as it is with some other pesticides, young children would have been found to be at high risk of those effects from dietary exposure.

“For all of the rhetoric about caring about children’s health and well-being, this administration is quick to throw them under the bus whenever it suits their polluting benefactors,” said Donley.

“Instead of erring on the side of safety, we get a quick, reckless approval of a new forever chemical without any real thought given to its serious harms.”

Isocycloseram is also highly toxic to bees and other pollinators, with the EPA finding that vital pollinators could be exposed to 1,500 times the lethal level of the pesticide just by collecting nectar and pollen near treated fields.

One out of every three bites of food we eat — and nearly all nutrient-dense foods like fruits and vegetables — come from plants that need to be pollinated by bees and other pollinating animals.

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EPA Accused Of Protecting Itself, Not Public Health, As Water Fluoridation Battle Heats Up

The legal battle over fluoridated drinking water escalated today when attorneys for Food & Water Watch (FWW), Fluoride Action Network (FAN) and other plaintiffs filed a brief accusing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of trying “to protect the EPA from the public” rather than protecting public health.

The outcome of the agency’s appeal will shape federal oversight of community water fluoridation and also determine how much power citizens have to force regulatory action when new scientific evidence emerges.

At the center of the dispute is the citizen petition process, which allows citizens to file lawsuits demanding restrictions on toxic chemicals that aren’t effectively regulated. Congress created the process under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

In July, when the EPA appealed a 2024 federal court ruling that ordered it to take action to address the risk posed by water fluoridation, the agency didn’t challenge the court’s finding that current fluoridation levels pose an “unreasonable risk” of neurodevelopmental harm to children.

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