skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The Palestinian Ambassador calls on the UN to stop Israeli attacks. Impacts continue from agency funding cuts and state bills mirror federal pushback on DEI programs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The Palestinian Ambassador calls on U.N. to stop Israeli attacks. Impacts continue from agency funding cuts, and state bills mirror federal pushback on DEI programs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Cuts to Medicaid and frozen funding for broadband are both likely to have a negative impact on rural healthcare, which is already struggling. Plus, lawsuits over the mass firing of federal workers have huge implications for public lands.

CA local leaders protest massive rollback of federal environmental protections

play audio
Play

Monday, March 17, 2025   

Local leaders in California are slamming the Trump administration's moves to gut dozens of environmental policies on climate change and pollution in low-income communities.

Last week Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin said the agency will loosen restrictions on oil and gas and reconsider the "endangerment finding" underpinning regulations on greenhouse gases.

Felipe Perez, city council member and former mayor of Firebaugh, said farmworkers in the Central Valley rely on the feds to limit air pollution from nearby oil rigs.

"The people that work in the field, we have to go to work even though the pollution is too high," Perez pointed out. "We have to go because we have to feed our families."

The EPA also eliminated the department that fights for environmental justice and killed the Biden-era Justice40 plan, which directed 40% of infrastructure money to low-income communities of color.

Daniel Ramos, mayor pro tem of Adelanto in San Bernardino County, said the Trump administration has frozen millions of dollars earmarked by Congress for improvements to the city's wastewater treatment facility.

"Stripping away funding and programs that have already been signed into law, counted on and, in our case awarded, will definitely have a detrimental impact on those Justice 40 communities," Ramos stressed.

Igor Tregub, a city council member in Berkeley who was born in Ukraine, said the move to lift rules promoting electric vehicles increases reliance on oil and gas, which he called a threat to national and international security.

"This is a boost to the kinds of fossil-fuel industries that fund authoritarian forces like Putin's, that have a desire to take over peaceful democracies like Ukraine's," Tregub noted.

Zeldin defended the moves, insisting they will "usher in a golden age of American success" and calling former President Joe Biden's environmental policy a "green new scam."

Disclosure: Elected Officials to Protect America contributes to our fund for reporting on Climate Change/Air Quality, Energy Policy, Public Lands/Wilderness. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


get more stories like this via email
more stories
Nationally, veterans are 1.5 times more likely to die by suicide than are nonveteran adults, with an average of almost 18 veteran suicides per day in 2021. (flysnow/Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan is home to more than 470,000 veterans, yet many have never accessed the military benefits to which they are entitled. The gap in support …


Health and Wellness

play sound

By Ramona Schindelheim for WorkingNation.Broadcast version by Isobel Charle for Oregon News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Servic…

Social Issues

play sound

An Illinois documentary takes a deep dive into the Illinois Prisoner Review Board and the politics that influence its decision-making through one man'…


As of November 2024, the U.S. Postal Service employed more than 7,000 people in Kentucky. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is joining forces with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to cut costs at the Postal Service, this week …

Environment

play sound

For decades to come, South Dakotans can make use of an expanded wilderness in the southeastern part of the state, as a new land deal will keep …

Research shows students' sense of belonging improves academic outcomes, increases continuing enrollment in school and is protective for mental health. (Monkey Business/Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

As the immigration debate continues, many children of immigrants in Texas who are American citizens are caught in the middle. An elementary school …

Social Issues

play sound

Coloradans with low bank balances would be on the hook for an extra $225 a year if Congress votes to roll back a new rule capping overdraft fees at $5…

play sound

By Ramona Schindelheim for WorkingNation.Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Virginia News Connection reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021