EnviroPolitics Blog

National EPR for batteries discussion kicks off on April 7

The EPA and DOE are holding a virtual meeting on April 7 from 2 PM to 4 PM Eastern to kick off the conversations to develop a national battery extended producer responsibility (EPR) framework.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law requires EPA and DOE to develop a national EPR framework for batteries that addresses battery recycling goals, cost structures for mandatory recycling, reporting requirements, product design, collection models, and transportation of collected materials.

EPA and DOE welcome experts across the battery life cycle, including battery producers, manufacturers of batteries and battery containing products, retailers, recyclers, and collectors or processors; states and municipalities; and others such as environmental, energy, or consumer organizations to participate in the EPR conversations.

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Some Philly-area schools are sticking with DEI, despite Trump

Phoenixville’s school board president says he’s “fighting back.” Other local districts are quietly trying to defy Trump’s orders to end DEI programs.

By Maddie Hanna, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 2, 2025

As President Donald Trump attacks diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and threatens to strip funding from schools that promote “discriminatory equity ideology,” the Phoenixville Area School District has been analyzing everything from its curriculum to after-school activities to see what might run afoul of the new administration’s orders.

But it hasn’t made any changes. “The way we’re fighting back is what we’re not doing,” said Scott Overland, president of the Phoenixville school board. Trump is trying “to bully us into compliance,” Overland, a Democrat, said. “We need to show him that he’s wrong.”

Colleges have been wiping diversity initiatives from websites and overhauling policies as Trump halts their federal fundingand pushes to dismantle DEI efforts. But signs of compliance are less evident in K-12 schools around Philadelphia — and some school leaders say they’re carrying on as normal.

That’s partly because many rely less on federal money: Unlike universities, public schools are largely supported by local and state taxes. Some local officials have also noted they’re navigating conflicts between Trump’s orders and state law, including existing antidiscrimination rules in Pennsylvania.

Trump’s administration has launched investigations into at least two non-Pennsylvania school districts, including the Ithaca City School District in New York, where a complaint alleged that a district event for students of color “reflected systemic discrimination against white students.”

Read the full story here

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No food or bathroom breaks: How Cory Booker is pulling off his Senate talk-a-thon

By Riley Beggin USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – It’s been more than 20 hours.

Sen. Cory Booker has not sat down, or even wandered far from his desk on the Senate floor, where he has been delivering a marathon speech railing against President Donald Trump and his administration’s sweeping policy changes.

Since he started speaking at 7 p.m. on Monday night, the senior senator from New Jersey has not eaten. He has periodically sipped from two glasses of water that sit on his desk near five three-ring binders and a box of tissues. And he has not left the chamber to go to the bathroom.More: How long has Cory Booker been speaking? Senator continues marathon speech Tuesday morning

“I’m going to go for as long as I am physically able to go,” Booker said in a video posted to X before taking to the floor.

He added, “I’ve been hearing from people all over my state and indeed all over the nation calling upon folks in Congress to do more. To do things that recognize the urgency, the crisis of the moment. So we all have a responsibility, I believe, to do something different. To cause, as John Lewis said, ‘good trouble.’ And that includes me.”

Booker can and has allowed other Democratic senators to give short speeches and ask questions to give him a rest from speaking. But he cannot leave the chamber – and as long as he doesn’t, no other senator can force him to stop.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) leaves the Democratic caucus lunch at the U.S. Capitol on March 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. On Wednesday Senate Democrats, not in line with the continuing resolution passed by House Republicans providing a six-month funding extension to avert a government shutdown, proposed an alternate plan that would fund the government in the short term through April 11.

A few hours in, Booker had a Senate page remove his chair to reduce the temptation to sit. By Tuesday afternoon, he was rocking back and forth in his black tennis shoes and leaning lightly on his desk in between monologues.

Booker’s speech is already the fifth-longest in recorded Senate history. If he speaks until 7:19 p.m. EDT, he will break the record for the longest known floor speech: Then-Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1957 speech against the Civil Rights Act went 24 hours and 18 minutes.

Booker’s office says he did not begin speaking with an end time in mind.

But “we have plenty of material left,” said Booker spokesperson Jeff Giertz.

Read the full story here

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Can’t afford a Mar A Lago vacation? Scratch these Pa campground alternatives, too

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that several PA campgrounds and beaches will close for the 2025 season due to Trump/Musk staffing shortages

Read the full story here

Can’t afford a Mar A Lago vacation? Scratch these Pa campground alternatives, too Read More »

Westinghouse scouting sites to build micro nuclear reactors.

Forget Three Mile Island. Imagine, instead, a mini nuclear generator that operates like a battery. Plug it in and it runs for eight years until its fuel is spent

By Anya Litvak, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Westinghouse Electric Co. is scouting the former J&L Steel campus in Aliquippa;, Pa. as a potential home for a large manufacturing plant for its eVinci microreactors.

The Cranberry-based nuclear technology firm is in the process of licensing the eVinci design, which departs from current nuclear power plants in several key ways. It’s much smaller — Westinghouse advertises truck delivery — doesn’t require water or outside power, and comes pre-fueled to generate about five megawatts of power for eight years.

The company is aiming to have the first one up and running by the end of the decade, Leah Crider, Westinghouse’s vice president of commercial operations for eVinci, said at a recent datacenter and energy summit hosted by the Pittsburgh Technology Council.

“The good news about this is that we’re looking to do what Henry Ford did for automobiles with microreactors,” she said. “So, entirely built in a factory, delivered to the sites where they’re needed.

Read the full story here

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Feds Cut $1B In Food Aid, Impacting PA Farmers, Food Banks

PA is losing $13 million from one of their most vital programs supporting local farmers and food banks. The state calls the cuts “unlawful.”

*The Trump administration has announced major agricultural funding cuts that could severely impact Pennsylvania farmers and food banks. (Shutterstock)*

By Justin Heinze, Patch Staff

PENNSYLVANIA — Pennsylvania is seeking to reverse the recent federal funding cuts and pauses by the Trump administration, calling the program which would place severe pressure on already-strained food banks “unlawful.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration already filed an appeal Thursday to reverse the cuts and ensure the USDA maintains its contracts with the state.

“Crops are not planted overnight, and neither are food bank budgets,” Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding said in a statement “Supplier and buyer contracts are sealed months in advance. Whether you’re a farm or a food bank, you plan your operations based on what you have to spend.”

The USDA is dismantling a pair of pandemic-era programs that provided more than $1 billion to local food banks under the The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program (LFPA). At the same time, they also canceled the Local Foods for Schools program.

Pennsylvania’s $13 million contract for the LFPA program is completely eliminated under the new cuts.

“Losing operating dollars means losing crops and losing customers,” Redding added. “Cancelled federal funding hurts Pennsylvania farmers, along with food bank customers — hungry families, children, military veterans, and seniors.”

State leadership said Pennsylvania is hit harder by these cuts than many other states because agriculture is its top industry, and because the Keystone State one of the few states in the nation that relies exclusively upon the LFPA program to support in-state farmers. They say the program ensures federal grants stay within Pennsylvania.

Read the full story here

Feds Cut $1B In Food Aid, Impacting PA Farmers, Food Banks Read More »

National EPR for batteries discussion kicks off on April 7

Some Philly-area schools are sticking with DEI, despite Trump

Phoenixville’s school board president says he’s “fighting back.” Other local districts are quietly trying to defy Trump’s orders to end DEI programs.

No food or bathroom breaks: How Cory Booker is pulling off his Senate talk-a-thon

Can’t afford a Mar A Lago vacation? Scratch these Pa campground alternatives, too

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that several PA campgrounds and beaches will close for the 2025 season due to Trump/Musk staffing shortages

Westinghouse scouting sites to build micro nuclear reactors.

Forget Three Mile Island. Imagine, instead, a mini nuclear generator that operates like a battery. Plug it in and it runs for eight years until its fuel is spent

Feds Cut $1B In Food Aid, Impacting PA Farmers, Food Banks

PA is losing $13 million from one of their most vital programs supporting local farmers and food banks. The state calls the cuts “unlawful.”

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