Public Health
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is desperately in need of reform in its system of inspections and enforcement of living conditions in public housing.
The Southern Illinoisan
Drug overdoses and suicides caused American life expectancy to drop in 2017 for the second consecutive year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most notable is the gap between the urban and rural suicide rate.
The Washington Post
Less dense communities provide specific challenges in providing services to residents in need of extra care. More seniors living in suburban and rural communities will require new and scalable solutions.
Route Fifty
President Trump announced at a campaign rally in Iowa that he would lift the ban on summertime sales of a 15 percent blend of ethanol, expected to increase smog levels. Both environmentalists and the oil industry oppose the action.
PBS NewsHour
Recent electric scooter news is defined by tragedy.
Planetizen
A feature article at the major local daily newspaper in Houston tackles traffic safety and puts the onus on engineers, police, and politicians to come to terms with the destruction they've wrought.
Houston Chronicle
The EPA intends to review the rulemaking process behind the mercury rule, the subject of a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2015, to place more value on a rule's compliance cost to industry and less to its beneficial impact on human health.
The New York Times
Unlike prior initiatives that sought drilling bans, Prop. 112 would greatly increase setbacks from buildings to such an extent that it could doom much of the industry. A competing initiative would make the change a "taking" and require compensation.
Colorado Public Radio
Extreme heat, rising seas, and other impacts of climate change are turning deadly faster than predicted, California officials warn.
Los Angeles Times
A 2016 rule approved by a specialized agency of the U.N. is forcing large ships that burn bunker oil, the dirtiest type of fuel, to either burn a more costly low-sulfur variety, apply scrubbers, or turn to LNG.
The Wall Street Journal
At the center of the EPA's newly proposed Affordable Clean Energy rule is doing away with a permitting process known as New Source Review that requires coal power plants to add scrubbers and other expensive pollution control equipment when upgraded.
The New York Times
The Guardian sounds the alarm about deadly heat exposure in poor communities around the world.
The Guardian
On Tuesday, EPA released its new rule to regulate emissions from existing power plants, essentially leaving it to the states to determine appropriate emissions levels rather than setting actual standards each state has to meet like the current rule.
The New York Times
The ruling puts another stain on former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's legacy as it rebukes his denial of a petition to ban a pesticide that causes neurodevelopmental damage in children. Pruitt had rejected his own scientists' recommendation.
The New York Times
Umair Irfan provides a post-mortem, of sorts, on the tenure of Scott Pruitt at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Vox
A new study builds an even stronger case for setting pollution controls at PM 2.5 to prevent increased risk of diabetes. The EPA's clean air regulations set a threshold much less restrictive than that level.
The Atlantic
Friday may have been disgraced EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's last day in office of the agency in charge of protecting the nation's environment, but he still managed to roll back a regulation to create lasting air pollution far greater than VW did.
The New York Times
The U.S. has lower average life expectancy than most peer countries. New research indicates that this results in part from sprawl. Life expectancy, economic mobility, mobility options, personal health and safety all improve in less sprawling areas.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Blog post
There are many ways that city planning and urban design can mitigate, or exacerbate, the spread of public health risks.
The city's failure to deliver public restrooms is not the first sign of trouble for its sweeping homelessness plan, but it’s a painful one for the residents of Skid Row.
Los Angeles Times
