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Rena I. Steinzor

2010

Environmental Law

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Full-Text Articles in Law

From Ship To Shore: Reforming The National Contingency Plan To Improve Protections For Oil Spill Cleanup Workers, Rebecca Bratspies, Alyson Flournoy, Thomas Mcgarity, Sidney A. Shapiro, Rena I. Steinzor, Matthew Shudtz Dec 2010

From Ship To Shore: Reforming The National Contingency Plan To Improve Protections For Oil Spill Cleanup Workers, Rebecca Bratspies, Alyson Flournoy, Thomas Mcgarity, Sidney A. Shapiro, Rena I. Steinzor, Matthew Shudtz

Rena I. Steinzor

Eleven workers died on April 20, 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform exploded beneath them. Since then, tens of thousands of workers have toiled under difficult conditions to stop the leak and clean up the mess. For these workers, the spill is more than an environmental and economic disaster; it poses straightforward and serious risks to their health and safety. Oil is toxic, as are the dispersants used liberally by BP to contain it. BP’s foul up is not the first significant oil spill in the nation’s history, nor even the first in the Gulf. The oil companies …


Corrective Lenses For Iris: Additional Reforms To Improve Epa's Integrated Risk Information System, Rena I. Steinzor, Wendy E. Wagner, Lena Pons, Matthew Shudtz Nov 2010

Corrective Lenses For Iris: Additional Reforms To Improve Epa's Integrated Risk Information System, Rena I. Steinzor, Wendy E. Wagner, Lena Pons, Matthew Shudtz

Rena I. Steinzor

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) is the most important toxicological database in the world. Not only is it the single most comprehensive database of human health information about toxic substances, it also serves as a gateway to regulation, as well as to a range of public and private sector efforts to protect against toxic substances. IRIS “profiles” of individual substances include a number of scientific assessments of the substance’s toxicity to humans by various means of exposure – by inhalation, contact with the skin, and so on. Federal regulators rely on the assessments to do …


Regulatory Blowout: How Regulatory Failures Made The Bp Disaster Possible, And How The System Can Be Fixed To Avoid A Recurrence, Alyson Flournoy, William Andreen, Rebecca Bratspies, Holly Doremus, Victor Flatt, Robert Glicksman, Joel Mintz, Daniel Rohlf, Amy Sinden, Rena I. Steinzor, Joseph Tomain, Sandra Zellmer, James Goodwin Oct 2010

Regulatory Blowout: How Regulatory Failures Made The Bp Disaster Possible, And How The System Can Be Fixed To Avoid A Recurrence, Alyson Flournoy, William Andreen, Rebecca Bratspies, Holly Doremus, Victor Flatt, Robert Glicksman, Joel Mintz, Daniel Rohlf, Amy Sinden, Rena I. Steinzor, Joseph Tomain, Sandra Zellmer, James Goodwin

Rena I. Steinzor

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is destined to take its place as one of the greatest environmental disasters in the history of the United States, or for that matter, of the entire planet. Like so many other disasters on that list, it was entirely preventable. BP must shoulder its share of the blame, of course. Similarly, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) – since reorganized and rebranded – has come under much deserved criticism for its failure to rein in BP’s avaricious approach to drilling even where it was unable to respond to a worst-case scenario in …


Workers At Risk: Regulatory Dysfunction At Osha, Thomas Mcgarity, Rena I. Steinzor, Sidney A. Shapiro, Matthew Shudtz Mar 2010

Workers At Risk: Regulatory Dysfunction At Osha, Thomas Mcgarity, Rena I. Steinzor, Sidney A. Shapiro, Matthew Shudtz

Rena I. Steinzor

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was born with a heavy load to bear – the obligation of ensuring that every worker in America has a safe and healthful workplace for his or her entire working life. In its early years, OSHA acted with great vigor, establishing important standards for occupational health and safety that have prevented hundreds of thousands of injuries and illnesses. But the agency has not aged gracefully. Today its enforcement staff is stretched thin and the rulemaking staff struggle to produce health and safety standards that can withstand industry legal challenges. In short, OSHA is a …