WATCH: Inside A Coal Ash Community That Can't Use Its Tap Water

When Sherry Gobble gets anxiety, she’s generally not thinking about work or money. She’s thinking about something most Americans rarely consider: her tap water.

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UPDATE: Three Reasons the REINS Act Must Be Stopped (Again)

If passed, the REINS Act would require congressional approval of all major rules, potentially endangering the most important safeguards to our health, safety, environment, and economy.

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Yellowstone River Spill Shows the Risks of Keystone to Public Health and Natural Resources

On Jan. 17, an oil pipeline leaked an estimated 50,000 gallons of crude oil along the Yellowstone River near Glendive, Montana. The incident contaminated the town's municipal water system, highlighting the risk of building pipelines near water sources and elevating concerns about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

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Keystone Pipeline: Foreign Profits, American Risk

Media coverage of the Keystone XL pipeline is coalescing around a single narrative. It goes like this: environmentalists oppose the pipeline because of climate change concerns, and U.S. construction companies support the pipeline because it creates jobs. Environmentalists warn that tar sands crude oil has three times the global warming potential of conventional crude. Oil industry interests shrug and say Canadian companies will continue to extract tar sands, with or without the pipeline. Pipeline opponents then counter: fewer than 50 permanent jobs will be needed to staff the pipeline, a few thousand temporary construction jobs to build it. But this rendering of the debate misses the larger picture.

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New Legislation Aims to End High-Frequency Trading but Misses Opportunity to Invest in Critical, Underfunded Public Needs

Earlier this week, Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen introduced a much-needed sales tax on Wall Street transactions. The legislation would largely put an end to high-frequency trading by firms seeking to game the market.

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Lawmakers Push to Stop Tax Haven Abuse

On Jan. 13, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) introduced the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. The bill would eliminate incentives for U.S. companies to shift jobs overseas, close offshore loopholes to ensure corporations are paying their fair share in taxes, and change rules on corporate inversions

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Investing in Our Future: President’s Proposal Promises Free Community College Tuition

The White House has released a proposal to allow students to attend community college for free for their first two years if they work hard and keep their grades up. The “America’s College Promise” plan prioritizes public investments in more affordable education and could benefit as many as 9 million American students enrolled in community colleges across the country. The plan would save full-time students an average of $3,800 in tuition each year.

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114th Congress Begins Attack on Public Protections with So-Called Regulatory Accountability Act

On Jan. 7, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) introduced the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2015 (H.R. 185). This measure would cripple our process for issuing and enforcing the rules that ensure we have clean air and water, safe food and consumer products, fair wages and safe workplaces, stable financial markets, state-of-the-art infrastructure, and so many other essential protections.

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EPA Delays Rule to Limit Carbon Emissions from New Power Plants

UPDATE (1/8/2015): The White House has announced that EPA will not meet today’s deadline for issuing a final rule to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants. Instead, the agency will not finalize the rule until mid-summer, skirting a statutory deadline that requires EPA to finalize the rule within one year of its proposal. On a press call Jan.

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UPDATE: EPA’s New Coal Ash Rule Leaves Communities, Environment at Risk

UPDATE (1/8/15):  On Dec. 19, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its long-anticipated coal ash rule, addressing the disposal of toxic waste generated by burning coal.

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