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Maricel Maffini, consultant, and Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director A federal district court this fall ruled that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the authority to allow food companies to make Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) safety determinations for novel chemicals added to food without notifying the agency. The decision followed a lawsuit by …

Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals EDF this week submitted comments to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), applauding the agency’s recent activities related to its Closer to Zero Action Plan for reducing toxic elements in children’s food and outlining specific steps to strengthen the FDA’s action. The agency’s November 18 public meeting on the …

EDF Statement from Senior Director of Chemical Policy, Maria Doa

When it comes to slowing the warming of our planet, there is no substitute for immediate, dramatic reductions in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. But emissions reductions alone won’t be enough to limit warming to the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal at the heart of the 2015 Paris Agreement, or even to the Agreement’s upper limit of …

Last month, Governor Phil Murphy elevated New Jersey’s fight against the climate crisis this decade by signing Executive Order No. 274, which commits the state to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 50% below 2006 levels by 2030. The Governor’s action is a critical step toward putting New Jersey on a path to do what is necessary to avoid …

An aerial survey of 900 different oil and gas sites in the Permian Basin reveals that massive methane emissions recurred for months on end.

This blog is adapted from an Op-Ed originally published by Environmental Health News on Nov. 23 and is authored by Lauren Ellis, Research Analyst and Maricel Maffini, consultant. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of highly persistent chemicals used in hundreds of products. Many PFAS are toxic and have been detected in the …

Lindsay McCormick, Program Manager This month, EDF published an article along with collaborators from Auburn University and Mississippi State University, based on a pilot we conducted in partnership with local organizations[1] to comprehensively test and remediate lead in water at 11 child care facilities in Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi and Ohio. The study found that while …

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. After nearly 35 years at EDF, I am retiring this week. While I have had the privilege of working on many things in my time at EDF, for the last 20+ years my main focus has been on the Toxic Substances Control Act: making the case for why …

Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director and Maricel Maffini, consultant Over the years, we have seen a disturbing approach being taken by some dietary supplement companies to circumvent the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) oversight. Their strategy undermines both dietary supplement safety and food safety. These companies are leveraging FDA’s decision to allow manufacturers to secretly …

Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director and Maricel Maffini, consultant The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made no apparent progress to comply with the legal requirement that it consider the cumulative effect of chemicals in the diet that have similar health impacts when evaluating the safety of an additive. A year ago, on September 23,

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. [I delivered a shorter version of these comments at the September 22, 2021 webinar titled “Hair on Fire and Yes Packages! How the Biden Administration Can Reverse the Chemical Industry’s Undue Influence,” cosponsored by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), NH Safe Water Alliance, and EDF.  A recording …

Chemicals in food continue to be a top food safety concern among consumers Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director and Maricel Maffini, consultant The latest annual food industry survey demonstrates that U.S. consumers continue to have significant concerns about chemicals in food. Specifically, the survey from the International Food Information Council (IFIC) found: 29% of consumers …

Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director; Maricel Maffini, consultant; and Tom Bruton with Green Science Policy Institute Since 2002, FDA has authorized the use of four types of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) to make plastic food packaging, one as recently as 2016. The PFAS are allowed in plastic at levels up to 2000 parts …

Ann M. Bartuska joins EDF as a Senior Contributing Scientist to help identify pathways for atmospheric carbon removal and storage in forest and agricultural systems.

New program launches to gather and benchmark cover crop data within the largest public farm financial database in the U.S.

New peer-reviewed research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that methane emissions from natural gas infrastructure and buildings in the Boston area have remained consistently high over the last eight years, despite multiple programs aimed at reducing methane pipeline leakage. This study indicates that more action is needed …

It’s critical we prepare now to capture and store water during shorter, intense wet periods so that more water is available during the inevitable increasingly severe drought years ahead. The post Capturing water from atmospheric rivers will help build drought resilience in California. Here’s how. first appeared on Growing Returns.

The urgency of tackling methane is finally being recognized at the highest levels — and new satellite-based tools are coming to make that possible. Here’s how we got to this Methane Moment.

Worldwide, there is considerable interest in developing fishery management options that balance social, economic and ecological goals for multispecies fisheries. Ideally, fisheries management should strive not only to produce good yields from single stocks, but also to avoid serial depletion and prevent adverse impacts of fishing on marine ecosystems — a difficult, but achievable task.

OpenET uses satellites to estimate water consumed by crops, providing critical data for water management in 17 western states for the first time.

Tech can help strengthen climate resilience, sustainability and profitability in global fisheries.

There’s a common misconception that “marginal” or low-producing wells are nothing more than a marginal problem when it comes to the oil and gas industry’s methane emissions. The reality is that these wells make up about 80% of all active wells in the U.S, over 560,000 in total. These are not the mom-and-pop operations some …

My children’s daycare, which is on a commercial strip between supermarkets and restaurants, often has three refrigerated trucks idling outside the front door. These diesel trucks can emit harmful pollution, even when they aren’t moving. The impact of transportation pollution on vulnerable populations is often striking. In downtown Oakland, where more than 70% of the …

Environmental Defense Fund unveiled a new map today that shows the location of every documented orphan well in the United States.