Derrick Z. Jackson

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Derrick Z. Jackson is a UCS Fellow in climate and energy and the Center for Science and Democracy. He is an award-winning journalist and co-author and photographer of Project Puffin: The Improbable Quest to Bring a Beloved Seabird Back to Egg Rock, published by Yale University Press (2015). See Derrick's full bio.

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Derrick's Latest Posts

Action Needed to Address the US Military’s PFAS Contamination

September 25, 2018 9:30 AM EDT

There was dead silence at a community meeting last week in Portsmouth, New Hampshire after Nancy Eaton spoke before a panel of top federal health officials planning a study of per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) contamination at the former Pease Air Force Base. She described how her husband David, who was healthy all his life, died quickly in 2012 at 63 from pancreatic cancer. Eaton’s sentiments were echoed by Andrea Amico, a co-founder of Testing for Pease, a group of parents whose children drank contaminated water at the site’s daycare center, and whose demands for a thorough investigation of PFAS harms have now resulted in establishing Pease as a key location in the first nationwide federal study of those harms. Read more >

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Photo: Senate EPW

How Dangerous is New EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler? Very. Here’s Why.

July 6, 2018 12:12 PM EDT

With Scott Pruitt’s resignation as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency amid a slew of ethics scandals, environmentalists who long campaigned for his ouster should be careful what they wished for. Read more >

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Photo: NAVFAC/CC BY 2.0 (Flickr)

As Asbestos Toll Mounts, Trump’s EPA Ignores It

June 22, 2018 2:03 PM EDT

Two years ago, President Obama signed a successful bipartisan effort to update the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA). It was called the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, named for the late New Jersey senator who had long championed it. The new act was intended to give the federal government more power to regulate dangerous chemicals that the chemical industry had previously been able to shield under the cloak of confidential business information and a misplaced priority on minimizing costs to businesses over public health. Obama said those hurdles made it “virtually impossible” for the Environmental Protection Agency “to actually see if those chemicals were harming anybody.” Read more >

Photo: NAVFAC/CC BY 2.0 (Flickr)
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The New Farm Bill’s Pesticide Provisions are a Sneak Attack on the Environment

May 10, 2018 1:41 PM EDT

If fish could wail, they would scream over the lethal powers granted to the Environmental Protection Agency in part of the draft farm bill recently rolled out by the House Agriculture Committee. Read more >

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Workers dwarfed by offshore wind blade tips and towers at Siemens deployment dock in Hull. Offshore wind is part of the revival of many port cities in Europe. Photo: Derrick Z. Jackson

Trump Onboard for Offshore Wind?

April 12, 2018 1:18 PM EDT

The dramatically dropping costs of offshore wind, which is now cheaper than nuclear power and closing in on parity with fossil fuels in Europe, have sparked an explosion of renewed interest in the US. Read more >

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