Citing Maine Morning Star reporting, Pingree presses EPA on PFAS grant terminations
Rep. Chellie Pingree outside the U.S. Capitol. (Rep. Chellie Pingree via Facebook)
Citing Maine Morning Star's reporting, Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine pressed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on conflicting statements about why it cut grants for forever chemical research in Maine.
Earlier this month, the EPA terminated all of the grants it had awarded for research into reducing per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, otherwise known as PFAS, in the food supply, including to three Maine-based teams led by the Mi'kmaq Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe and the University of Maine. The three grants for Maine projects amounted to almost $5 million. The termination notices read, 'The objectives of the award are no longer consistent with EPA funding priorities.'
In a statement to Maine Morning Star, the EPA Press Office equated the grants to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion measures. However, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin publicly stated the grants were important and already congressionally appropriated when questioned by Pingree. Overall, the agency has highlighted combating PFAS contamination as a priority in recent weeks.
Despite saying PFAS contamination is a priority, EPA cut millions in funding for research in Maine
In a letter to Zeldin on Thursday, Pingree requested he address these inconsistencies and clarify EPA priorities by May 30.
'Do you and the EPA consider tribes – which are sovereign governments to which we have trust and treaty responsibilities – 'DEI?' If so, under what basis do you make that claim?' one of Pingree's questions to Zeldin in the letter reads.
When asked why the grants no longer aligned with agency priorities, the EPA Press Office sent a statement on May 16 to Maine Morning Star, which read:, 'As with any change in administration, the EPA has been reviewing all of its grant programs and awarded grants to ensure each is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars and to understand how those programs align with administration priorities. Maybe the Biden-Harris administration shouldn't have forced their radical agenda of wasteful DEI programs and 'environmental justice' preferencing on the EPA's core mission of protecting human health and the environment treating tribes and Alaska Natives as such.'
Pingree and several of the researchers pushed back on this response, pointing out that the research objectives do not involve DEI or environmental justice and are about protecting public health. PFAS have been linked to long term adverse health outcomes, such as cancers and weakened immune systems, and their pervasiveness in agriculture is not fully understood.
The statement is also directly at odds with the response Zeldin gave to Pingree about the grant terminations during an Appropriations subcommittee hearing on May 15.
After Zeldin told the subcommittee that addressing PFAS contamination is a priority for the agency and him personally, Pingree asked, 'Since these grants are consistent with the EPA priorities, do you know why they were terminated?'
Zeldin responded, 'It's an important program. It's something that's congressionally appropriated. The agency's going through a reorg, so the way that the program and these grants are administered are going to be different going forward. But these are important grants. I look forward to working with you, and your team as we're able to continue that good work going forward.'
In light of these conflicting responses, Pingree asked Zeldin in her letter to confirm that addressing PFAS is a priority for the agency.
'If PFAS is a priority, which I believe you have stated many times, please provide more
information about why the above listed grants were terminated,' the letter reads. 'They are not 'DEI' grants and they meet a key priority of the Agency so I would like some clarity as to the exact reasoning for these grant terminations.'
The grantees have 30 days from their termination notices to make the case that their work is in compliance with the EPA's priorities. The team headed by the Mi'kmaq Nation filed its appeal on Wednesday. If the agency determines the grants are in line with agency priorities, Pingree also requested information on how and when the awards will be reinstated.
Referring to the agency's work as a whole, Pingree additionally pressed Zeldin about the agency's plans for PFAS research beyond these grants.
'Without grants that fund research and scientific advancement for PFAS remediation, how will the EPA make determinations about effective remediation for PFAS in agriculture, water systems, and contaminated lands?' she wrote in the letter.
Read more about the grants here.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Vox
16 minutes ago
- Vox
The Supreme Court's blessedly narrow decision about religion in the workplace, explained
is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. He received a JD from Duke University and is the author of two books on the Supreme Court. In 2018, shortly before Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation shifted the Supreme Court drastically to the right, Democratic Justice Elena Kagan laid out her strategy to keep her Court from becoming too ideological or too partisan. The secret, she said, is to take 'big questions and make them small.' Since then, Kagan and her Democratic colleagues have had mixed success persuading their colleagues to decide cases narrowly when they could hand right-wing litigants a sweeping victory. The Court has largely transformed its approach to religion, for example, though it does occasionally hand down religion cases that end less with a bang than with a whimper. SCOTUS, Explained Get the latest developments on the US Supreme Court from senior correspondent Ian Millhiser. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Catholic Charities v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission will likely be remembered as such a whimper. The opinion is unanimous, and it is authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of Kagan's few fellow Democratic justices. The case could have ended in a sweeping decision that severely undermined the rights of many workers. Instead, Sotomayor's opinion focuses on a very narrow distinction between how Wisconsin law treats some religious groups as compared to others. Catholic Charities involved a Wisconsin law that exempts some nonprofits from paying unemployment taxes. This exemption applies only to employers that operate 'primarily for religious purposes.' Wisconsin's state supreme court determined that a 'religious purpose' includes activities like holding worship services or providing religious education, but it does not include secular services like feeding the poor, even if those secular activities are motivated by religion. Related The Supreme Court is leading a Christian conservative revolution The upshot is that Catholic Charities — an organization that is run by the Catholic Church but focuses primarily on secular charitable work — was not exempt from paying unemployment taxes. Sotomayor's decision reverses the state supreme court, so Catholic Charities will now receive an exemption. The Court largely avoids a fight over when businesses with a religious identity can ignore the law In a previous era, the Court was very cautious about permitting religious organizations to claim exemptions, in part because doing so would give some businesses 'an advantage over their competitors.' Such exemptions could also potentially permit employers with a religious identity to exploit their workers. In Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor (1985), for example, the Court considered a religious cult that operated a wide range of commercial businesses. These businesses paid no cash salaries or wages, although they did claim to give workers food, clothing, and shelter. The cult sought an exemption from minimum wage laws and similar workplace protections, but the Court disagreed. A too-broad decision in Catholic Charities could have potentially undermined decisions like Alamo Foundation, by giving some employers a broad right to ignore laws protecting their workers. But Sotomayor's opinion reads like it was crafted to hand Catholic Charities the narrowest possible victory. Under the state supreme court's decision in Catholic Charities, Sotomayor writes, a church-run nonprofit that does entirely secular charity work may not receive an exemption from paying unemployment taxes. But a virtually identical nonprofit that does the exact same work but also engages in 'proselytization' or limits its services to members of the same faith would receive an exemption. This distinction, Sotomayor says, violates the Supreme Court's long-standing rule that the government 'may not 'officially prefe[r]' one religious denomination over another.' The state may potentially require all charities to pay unemployment taxes. But it cannot treat religious charities that seek to convert people, or that limit their services to members of one faith, differently from religious charities that do not do this. In Sotomayor's words, an organization's 'eligibility for the exemption ultimately turns on inherently religious choices (namely, whether to proselytize or serve only co-religionists).' The crux of Sotomayor's opinion is that the decision whether to try to convert people, or whether to serve non-Catholics, is an inherently 'theological' choice. And states cannot treat different religious organizations differently because of their theological choices. Unfortunately, Sotomayor's opinion, which is a brief 15 pages, does not really define the term 'theological.' So it is likely that future courts will have to wrestle with whether other laws that treat some organizations differently do so because of theological differences or for some other reason. It's not hard to imagine a cult like the one in Alamo Foundation claiming that it has a theological objection to paying the minimum wage. But the Catholic Charities opinion also does not explicitly undermine decisions like Alamo Foundation. Nor does it embrace a more sweeping approach proposed by dissenting justices in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, who argued that nonprofits whose 'motivations are religious' may claim an exemption — regardless of what that nonprofit actually does.
Newsweek
18 minutes ago
- Newsweek
AOC Scrambles New York City Mayoral Race With Endorsement
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made her endorsement in New York City's mayoral race as more progressive Democrats in the city work to consolidate support against front-running former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Why It Matters Ocasio-Cortez remains popular with younger, more progressive voters in New York City, so her support could convince some of those voters to head to the polls for the June 24 primary. Whoever prevails in the primary would become the favorite to win in November, as the city remains a Democratic stronghold. What To Know The progressive congresswoman announced in The New York Times that she is ranking Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who has polled second behind Cuomo and emerged as a favorite among many left-leaning voters, first in the Democratic primary. New York City uses ranked choice voting in their local elections. She said she will be ranking New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams second, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander third, former Comptroller Scott Stringer fourth and state Senator Zellnor Myrie fifth in her endorsement, the Times reported. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York speaks during a rally in Denver on March 21, 2025. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York speaks during a rally in Denver on March 21, 2025. JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty Images "Assemblymember Mamdani has demonstrated a real ability on the ground to put together a coalition of working-class New Yorkers that is strongest to lead the pack," Ocasio-Cortez told the newspaper. "In the final stretch of the race, we need to get very real about that." Newsweek reached out to the Mamdani and Cuomo campaigns, as well as Ocasio-Cortez's office, for comment via email. Cuomo has established a polling lead over other candidates and is viewed as the leader with less than a month until the primary, as progressives seek to rally behind other candidates to prevent him from becoming the party's nominee because of his more moderate policy positions. A recent Emerson College poll found Cuomo and Mamdani as the top two Democratic candidates. On the first round of voting, 35 percent of respondents said they'd vote for Cuomo, while 23 percent would back Mamdani. By the final round, however, Cuomo had support from 54 percent of respondents, while Mamdani had 46 percent. The poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters from May 23-26 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Cuomo resigned as governor in 2021 after a report from Attorney General Letitia James' office alleged that he sexually harassed multiple female employees and created a toxic working environment, allegations Cuomo has denied. In May, he accused the Trump administration of "election interference" after The New York Times reported it launched a criminal investigation into whether Cuomo lied to Congress about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mamdani has engaged more progressive voters with a more left-leaning platform, emphasizing issues like a rent freeze to deal with rising rent and housing in the city and the establishment of a network of city-owned grocery stores intended to combat rising grocery costs for New Yorkers. Ocasio-Cortez's endorsement comes just one day after the Democratic candidates faced off in their first debate, during which each sought to portray themselves as the strongest to lead the city of more than 8 million people. "I am Donald Trump's worst nightmare, as a progressive Muslim immigrant who actually fights for the things that I believe in and the difference between myself and Andrew Cuomo," Mamdani said during the debate. What People Are Saying New York City mayoral candidate and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, in a post on X, formerly Twitter: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a once-in-a-generation leader who has led the fight for working people in Congress. In 2018, she shocked the world and transformed our politics. On June 24, with @AOC's support and this movement behind us, we will do the same." Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told The New York Times: "Even if the entire left coalesced around any one candidate, an ideological coalition is still insufficient for us to win. We have to have a true working-class coalition." What Happens Next The New York City mayoral primary is set for Tuesday June 24. The winner will face off against a Republican, as well as Mayor Eric Adams, who is seeking reelection as an independent, in November.
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Federal judge blocks Trump administration's efforts to gut AmeriCorps
A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from dismantling AmeriCorps in two dozen Democratic-led states, another blow to President Donald Trump's efforts to shrink vast swaths of the federal government. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, a Joe Biden appointee, came after a coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia sued the administration in April, accusing the Department of Government Efficiency of illegally gutting the volunteer agency. At the behest of DOGE, AmeriCorps terminated close to $400 million in grants, amounting to nearly half of the agency's grant funds, impacting more than 1,000 grantees and 32,000 AmeriCorps members. Boardman's ruling said the administration 'likely violated' the Administrative Procedure Act by not providing an adequate notice-and-comment period, and that it must restore the affected AmeriCorps programs in the 24 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia. She declined to rule on the widespread personnel cuts at the agency, which have impacted 85 percent of the workforce. The administration must reinstate members from the Volunteers in Service to America and National Civilian Community Corps, the judge ruled. Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said the ruling would not be the final say on the matter. 'AmeriCorps has failed eight consecutive audits and identified over $45 million in improper payments in 2024 alone," she said in a statement. "President Trump has the right to restore accountability to the entire Executive Branch." The administration could appeal the decision to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Boardman set a deadline of 5 p.m. Friday for when the grants must be reinstated. But with the skeleton crew remaining at the agency, 'no one at this time understands how that is supposed to happen,' one AmeriCorps staffer who was placed on administrative leave said. 'It's very difficult to imagine how this reinstatement can work,' the person said.
