EnviroPolitics Blog

RFK Jr. wants more air pollution research, but EPA shut its lab

Trump administration’s version of Abbott and Costello’s ‘Who’s on First?’

Researching air quality is key to improving kids’ health, according to a new strategy from the Make America Healthy Again Commission unveiled Tuesday by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

There’s just one problem: EPA, under Zeldin’s leadership, has shuttered the preeminent laboratory in the country studying air pollution’s impact on people. What’s more, it has proposed drastic cuts to the agency’s research staff and moved to rewrite regulations to allow more emissions.

“There will be more air pollution to study, and fewer funds and staff with which to do it,” said Laura Kate Bender, vice president of nationwide advocacy and public policy at the American Lung Association.

The so-called MAHA strategy released Tuesday includes 128 recommendations for improving heath and addressing chronic diseases. It specifically says EPA and the National Institutes of Health “will study air quality impacts on children’s health and utilize existing research programs to improve data collection and analysis.”

Both Kennedy and Zeldin spoke Tuesday about using “gold standard science” to fulfill the report’s objectives, with Zeldin saying that includes “the work of our chemicals, air, and water programs.”

EPA’s shuttering of its Human Research Facility in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, this summer undermines that promise, health experts say.

“It was one of the only places in the country where you could put humans in a chamber and measure their reaction to ozone,” Bender said. “Those studies have long informed our understanding of how much of these pollutants are safe to breathe.”

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Pa regulators act to accelerate replacement of old natural gas lines

By Kalee Lindenmth, ABC 27

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission approved a plan Thursday that they hope will accelerate the replacement of older plastic natural gas lines.

The commission voted 5-0 on a final order that institutes a mandatory, granular review of system piping.

“Safety is the foundation of our work as regulators, and today’s action underscores the Commission’s commitment to addressing risks wherever they may be found – including in older plastic materials that have been linked to failures across the country,” PUC Chairman Stephen M. DeFrank said.

“This Final Order ensures that Pennsylvania’s natural gas utilities take the necessary steps to identify and address these concerns, advancing our broader mission of protecting communities and maintaining safe and reliable service.”

The PUC said the order directs natural gas utilities to catalog their older plastic materials, especially materials identified by safety authorities as being prone to cracking.

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Ex-Sen. Menendez’s wife gets 4½ years for role in bribery scheme

Nadine Menendez was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein after she was convicted in April of colluding with her husband, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez.

Nadine Menendez wearing a face mask as she walks into the courthouse — *Nadine Menendez, wife of former Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., arrives at Manhattan federal court, in New York, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)*

By Michael R. Sisak and Larry Neumeister, Associated Press

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez’s sobbing wife told a judge that her husband was “not the man I thought he was” before she was sentenced Thursday to 4½ years in prison for selling the powerful New Jersey politician’s influence in exchange for bribes of cash, gold bars and a luxury car.

U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein sentenced Nadine Menendez, 58, for her April conviction for colluding from 2018 to 2023 with her husband, the former Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a variety of corrupt schemes, some involving assisting the Egyptian government.

Nadine Menendez, tearfully addressing the judge for several minutes before he sentenced her, described her husband as a manipulative liar.

“I put my life in his hands and he strung me like a puppet,” she said. “The blindfold is off. I now know he’s not my savior. He’s not the man I thought he was.”

Standing outside the courthouse afterward, she said she doesn’t plan to divorce her 71-year-old husband, who is serving an 11-year sentence for taking bribes, extortion, and acting as an agent of the Egyptian government.

Stein told the defendant that she wasn’t the person she was portrayed as during last year’s trial of her husband and two New Jersey businessmen, when the judge said she was painted as “the true force behind the conspiracies.”

But he said she also wasn’t the “innocent observer of what was happening around you,” as her lawyer claimed.

“You knew what you were doing. Your role was purposeful,” he said.

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Cornell Students Skin 120-Pound Bear Killed In Their Dorm Kitchen

Two students skinned and butchered a legally hunted black bear in a campus dorm kitchen at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, prompting outcry but no charges, officials said.

On Thursday, Sept. 11, university and state officials confirmed the hunt and the on-campus processing but said no laws were broken.

NBC News reported the pair killed the 120-pound black bear over the weekend and brought the carcass into a residence hall to process it on Saturday, Sept. 6.

The students held valid New York State hunting licenses, a Cornell spokesperson said, adding that a police report was filed after a complaint late Sunday night; no charges have been filed.

The State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) sent an investigator Sunday, Sept. 7, and found no code violations.

The Cornell Daily Sun identified the location as Ganędagǫ: Hall, where a communal first-floor kitchen was subsequently closed “until further notice.”

Images of the skinned bear on a counter spread on Reddit and Sidechat, drawing both backlash and praise.

Some commenters questioned whether the animal was a cub, noting that shooting cubs is illegal in the southern zone, and raised sanitation concerns about butchering in a shared space, noting bear meat can carry trichinosis.

DEC said the bear was taken in Region 4, which includes Delaware, Otsego, Albany, Columbia, Greene, Montgomery, Rensselaer, Schoharie, and Schenectady counties, placing the kill outside Tompkins County, home to Cornell and Ithaca.

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NJ town rejects massive warehouse after 4 years of controversy

By Nyah Marshall | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

A developer’s plan to build one of the largest warehouse projects ever proposed in Somerset County has been blocked by local officials.

Following a lengthy hearing on Sept. 4, the Hillsborough Township Planning Board unanimously rejected the project, which called for two warehouses totaling more than 537,000 square feet.

The proposal, first submitted by Homestead Road LLC in December 2021, would have turned nearly 90 acres of undeveloped farmland in the town into an industrial complex.

The site lies east of the Route 206 bypass, near schools and residential neighborhoods.

Residents and advocacy groups spent the past four years battling the project, speaking out at hearings and circulating a petition that gathered more than 3,000 signatures.

In their final decision, the planning board said the mega-warehouse plan was flawed and did not align with the township’s character.

“Putting this warehouse in the center of town is counter to being compatible with neighborhoods and the peace and solitude of residents,” Mayor John Ciccarelli said before making the motion to deny the application.

Other planning board members chimed in, saying the project was “too massive” and carried “too many” problems.

“Instead of coming in with an application that could fit there and be harmonious with the neighborhood, they decide to go for the biggest building they could find and jam it in there,” said former Mayor Shawn Lipani, who also serves on the board.

Attorneys for Homestead Road LLC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

New Jersey environmental and advocacy groups, including Stop Warehouses and Traffic, the Watershed Institute, and the Sourland Conservancy, also opposed the project.

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‘Zombie’ as pipeline raises environmental fear in New Jersey

By Brenda Flanagan, NJ Spotlight News

Opponents are on guard again over a revived proposal to carry natural gas from Pennsylvania through New Jersey — including along the seabed in Raritan Bay — into Queens, New York.

They call it the “zombie pipeline” because, after being killed twice by legal challenges and permit denials that spanned almost a decade, the project has come back to life.

Oklahoma-based Williams/Transco is behind the attempted revival of the Northeast Supply Enhancement Pipeline. The pipeline, which would generate energy only for New York, would also require a new compressor station in Franklin Township, Somerset County.

Revived natural gas pipeline plan includes major disturbances in Raritan Bay.

Opponents say the construction of an underwater pipeline would expose New Jersey to all of the risks and pollution with zero benefits. Greg Remaud, CEO of NY/NJ Baykeeper, said he believes Raritan Bay would be irreparably harmed.

“Raritan Bay, it’s just an incredible recreational and ecological treasure,” Remaud said. “I mean, there’s boating, sailing, crabbing, world-class fishing for bluefish, striped bass, fluke. It supports kelp, which is what whales feed on, and supports lots of other fish. There’s a commercial crabbing industry here. So, to run a needless pipeline across twenty-three miles of Raritan Bay, going through wetlands and then slicing through marine habitat and clam beds, it makes no sense to us.”

Remaud is concerned that construction would disturb toxic heavy metals, such as copper and mercury, buried in the bay’s sediments — a relic of New Jersey’s industrial past.

Undoing ‘good environmental work’

“Now $175 million is going to clean up the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund site, which is right adjacent to where the NESE pipeline would be going in,” Remaud said. “All this money is being spent to remove lead, but copper, mercury, and other contaminants are being re-suspended into the water column? So it really makes no sense, and the stakes are even higher because we’re undoing really good environmental work on the Raritan Bayshore,” he added.

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RFK Jr. wants more air pollution research, but EPA shut its lab

Trump administration’s version of Abbott and Costello’s ‘Who’s on First?’

Pa regulators act to accelerate replacement of old natural gas lines

Ex-Sen. Menendez’s wife gets 4½ years for role in bribery scheme

Nadine Menendez was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein after she was convicted in April of colluding with her husband, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez.

Cornell Students Skin 120-Pound Bear Killed In Their Dorm Kitchen

NJ town rejects massive warehouse after 4 years of controversy

‘Zombie’ as pipeline raises environmental fear in New Jersey

Undoing ‘good environmental work’

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