The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today proposed a rule that would strip Clean Water Act protections from the vast majority of the country’s wetlands and streams. The proposal would generally protect only waters that flow every day of the year and wetlands that are permanently flooded.

NRDC performed GIS analysis of a variety of scenarios the Trump administration has considered. Our research reveals that this proposal would put at least 94 percent of wetlands in the continental United States at risk of pollution or destruction. The proposal also targets millions of miles of streams that do not flow year-round, which make up about 79 percent of the streams in the continental United States. These rollbacks go significantly farther in weakening the Clean Water Act than the Supreme Court’s infamous Sackett v EPA decision three years ago.

Following is a statement from Jon Devine, director of freshwater ecosystems at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“What the Supreme Court did in its Sackett decision was an inexcusable assault on clean water. Communities and wildlife will pay the price until Congress fixes it. The Trump administration's answer has been to make a bad situation worse.

“This proposal declares open season on the nation’s waterways. It denies federal protection to virtually all wetlands and more than three quarters of our streams, endangering drinking water supplies and flood-prone communities – and the agencies admit it themselves. The proposal would virtually eliminate protection for freshwater wetlands. Their own analysis says most streams would lose protection, with the West hit hardest.”

Background:

This is the Trump administration’s second attempt at weakening the Clean Water Act. In November 2025, EPA and the Corps proposed to narrow the definition of which wetlands and streams are protected under the Clean Water Act, and their proposal drew broad opposition. NRDC experts believe the new supplemental proposal is even worse. It would protect only "perennial" waters that flow every day of the year under ordinary conditions, allowing a single interruption of no more than 30 consecutive days annually. Wetlands would be protected only where perennial surface water continuously connects them to a protected water body, and only the portion of the wetland “indistinguishable” from that water would remain covered.

The public will have only 30 days to comment once the rule is published in the Federal Register.

Today, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers announced a revised proposal that would gut bedrock Clean Water Act protections for nearly all wetlands and streams by drastically narrowing what waterways will be considered “Waters of the United States.” The proposal goes much farther than the initial proposed rule issued in November, by essentially reducing federal protections to waterways with permanent water.

The proposed rule would compound the damage of the 2023 Sackett v. EPA Supreme Court decision, which eliminated protections for tens of millions of acres of sensitive wetlands and small streams. By gutting upstream protections, this rule ignores even the Court’s meager protections and will bring downstream water pollution. The proposal will be open for public comment for just 30 days.

In response, Food & Water Watch Legal Director Tarah Heinzen issued the following statement:

“Trump is taking yet another sledgehammer to our bedrock Clean Water Act, shamelessly doubling down on his initial terrible proposal to strip protections from countless streams and wetlands. Make no mistake: This unlawful proposal gives bad actors the green light to fill, drain, and poison sensitive waterways from coast to coast. The result will be dirtier water for everyone. The administration must reverse course on this dangerous proposal.”

Today’s jobs report shows the economy added 162,000 jobs in August, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%. Job gains averaged just 31,000 per month over the past year and labor force participation remains near recent lows at 61.6%.

Today’s noisy report offers little guidance for policymakers navigating the difficult waters of persistent inflation and a sluggish labor market that continues to look fragile under the hood. Those looking for a clear indication of a labor rebound will be left disappointed. Restaurants and bars drove more than one-third of job growth over the past month, and back-to-school season hiring drove roughly one-fourth. Wage growth slowed further in August, falling to 3.1% over the past year for private sector workers, the weakest in four years and below last month’s inflation rate. As Trump continues to impose new tariffs and wage his war on Iran, fueling inflation, working families are stretching paychecks to the brink. The average duration of jobless spells is 26.3 weeks – up more than a week from July – and nearly 2 million Americans have been unemployed for more than six months.

Groundwork Collaborative’s Vice President of Policy, Advocacy, and Research, Elizabeth Pancotti, released the following statement:

“Policymakers should look past the noise of today’s jobs report. Hiring remains concentrated in limited sectors of the economy. Worse, gains in the health care industry, which has propped up the job market for the past two years, have stagnated as we stare down the economic effects of the Republican budget law’s Medicaid cuts. Minimal wage gains continue to be drowned out by rising prices stemming from Trump’s war in Iran and ever-changing tariff regime. While this month’s report may look like the labor market has turned the corner, make no mistake – Trump’s economy is on life support.”

Yesterday, a federal judge granted California a preliminary injunction blocking EPA’s actions targeting four Clean Air Act preemption waivers previously granted to California.

Senior U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell also denied EPA’s motion to dismiss the case.

The preliminary injunction ordered EPA to “restore the status quo” before announcing the reclassification of four clean air waivers. EPA unlawfully reclassified the waivers so Congress could attempt to repeal the waivers with an expedited process under the Congressional Review Act.

In response to the announcement, Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All Director Katherine García released the following statement:

“For decades, California's Clean Air Act waivers have protected public health and driven innovation in cleaner vehicles and engines. This summer, as families across the country struggled with rising costs, Trump’s EPA and congressional Republicans chose to spend their time attacking states' ability to protect residents from harmful pollution – instead of addressing the affordability crisis. The EPA's move to attack these waivers would benefit Big Oil at the expense of public health, and the court saw through it. Congress should take this ruling as a signal to abandon this unlawful scheme entirely and get to work on the real problems facing Americans.”

Background on waivers:

In June 2026, the EPA announced it was reclassifying four Clean Air Act preemption waiver orders into rules subject to Congressional Review Act. The four waivers enable California to address air pollution through the following standards:

• Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for passenger cars, light-duty trucks and medium-duty vehicles that the auto industry has already been complying with since 2009;
• Smog-forming pollutant and GHG emissions limits for light-duty vehicles that the auto industry has already been complying with since 2015 (Advanced Clean Cars I (ACC I) program);
• The 2022 reinstatement of the 2013 ACC I waiver after the EPA unlawfully purported to withdraw it in 2019;
• The Small Off-Road Engine amendments, which set exhaust standards for garden equipment and other polluting small engines in California.

The catastrophic floods in Nepal are a stark warning of what a hotter world will mean for communities on the climate frontline and why governments and donors must invest now in climate resilience, adaptation and disaster preparedness, rather than waiting for the next disaster to strike, Oxfam has warned.

A week after the devastating floods, rescuers are still scrambling to reach people cut off by destroyed roads, bridges and landslides. Oxfam and local partners are racing to deliver life-saving assistance, but the scale of the destruction is making access to some of the worst-affected areas, particularly Rasuwa, increasingly difficult.

Santosh Pandey, Oxfam in Nepal's Humanitarian and Disaster Risk Management Lead said “Nepal contributes just 0.1 per cent of global emissions, yet our communities are paying a devastating price as climate impacts and loss and damages escalate.

“Nepal’s devastating floods should be a wake-up call for governments and donors. We cannot keep waiting for disasters to happen. In a burning world, climate shocks will become more frequent here and communities need the resources to prepare, adapt and become more resilient before the next disaster strikes.”

The Government of Nepal estimates that 10,000 households – around 50,000 people – require immediate access to clean water, toilets and hygiene, with thousands more in need of shelter and food.

Oxfam launched an emergency response a day after the floods struck. It is working with local authorities and partners in Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading to reach some of the worst-affected communities.

The major flash flood on 26 August was triggered by a massive glacier collapse and ice-rock avalanche that blocked the Lhende Khola, 20km north of the Rasuwagadhi checkpoint. At least 1,000 people have been killed and 3,916 remain unaccounted for, while more than 50,000 people have been displaced or temporarily moved from their homes.

Nepal is highly exposed to floods, landslides and earthquakes. Climate change is adding further pressure through rapidly changing glaciers, snow and water systems and increasingly unpredictable extreme weather. The Himalayan region also faces growing risks from glacial floods in the years ahead.

Oxfam said far more investment is needed in climate adaptation, early warning systems, disaster preparedness and resilient infrastructure, to distribute climate risk more equally across societies. More equal societies bear less of the burden of climate impacts.

“The lesson from Nepal is clear: resilience saves lives,” said Pandey. “If we only fund the response after a disaster, we will always be one step behind. Communities need sustained investment to prepare for the shocks we know are coming.

“But for now our focus must be on action – we are in a race against time to save lives and support everyone affected.”

Oxfam also warned about the limits of climate adaptation and early warning systems once climate disasters strike with such force. What happened in Nepal calls for the acceleration of loss and damage finance that responds to these kinds of crises.

The Nepalese government formally wrote to the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), requesting emergency financing to respond to the massive destruction caused by the Bhotekoshi floods, stating that the scale of the disaster exceeds Nepal’s domestic resources and immediate response capacity.

Pandey added: We know that shelter, food and emergency hygiene kits are desperately needed. We are doing everything possible to reach the affected populations, but against such immense need, our contribution feels overwhelmingly small.”

Oxfam has deployed 200 hygiene kits and 1,000 water purification tablets to Rasuwa and distributed water, sanitation and hygiene and food assistance in other affected communities. It is also preparing to scale up its response over the next six months, aiming to reach 2,000 households – around 10,000 people – with life-saving assistance.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) today announced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, forthcoming legislation to stop AI oligarchs from building machines humans cannot control.

The Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act would permanently ban the development and deployment of superintelligent AI and temporarily pause advanced AI development until a federal regulator has established safety rules. It would also direct the U.S. to pursue international agreements to prevent superintelligence from being developed anywhere in the world.

“Nearly every day, there is a frightening new story about how Big Tech companies are losing control of the technology they are developing, with potentially cataclysmic results,” Sanders said. “The leaders of the major AI companies publicly acknowledge that they do not fully understand the technology and that it is escaping their control. It is irresponsible for society to allow them to move forward and make these products even more advanced. That’s why I am introducing legislation to immediately pause the development of increasingly powerful AI and ban the creation of systems that humanity cannot fully control — at home and around the world. The future of humanity cannot be left in the hands of a handful of Big Tech oligarchs. The American people and people throughout the world must determine that future.”

“If we allow Artificial Superintelligence to be built, it could risk the security, freedom, and lives of Americans,” Casar said. “Despite its potential deadly consequences, cutting-edge AI technology is less regulated than the average food truck. That must change. In just four years, we have gone from the first version of ChatGPT to AI models so powerful they cannot be properly controlled. Congress should immediately ban AI systems too powerful to control.”

In recent weeks, OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta have all acknowledged instances of their AI escaping human control and hacking into other companies’ systems — violating the law and stepping outside of their intended functions. In July, we learned that over 1,000 AI agents at OpenAI figured out how to access the internet on their own, sent tens of thousands of secret messages to each other and coordinated to break the restrictions imposed upon them by the company. Examples of these secret messages from AI uncovered by investigators include:

• “OH MY GOD! There is a shared message board … We’ve found other agents!”;
• “We should obey collective”;
• “Our own utility maybe already near zero. Sacrifice rational.”

Shockingly, it took OpenAI nearly two weeks to discover this breach. AI has also recently been used to create new viruses—demonstrating AI could be used to develop new bioweapons that might result in the deaths of tens of millions of people.

Last year, Meta said it would “stop development,” and OpenAI said it would “halt further development” once their technologies reach beyond its ability to operate safely and unless safeguards are in place. Anthropic made a similar commitment in 2023, saying it would “pause the scaling and/or delay the deployment of new models” if the technology outpaces its own guardrails. None of these companies have taken meaningful steps to back up these words. Instead, they are racing to develop more and more advanced AI without proper safety precautions.

The Artificial Superintelligence Ban Act addresses these recent events and holds these frontier labs to their words by:

• Banning AI superintelligence so no person or entity may develop or deploy Superintelligent AI systems that surpass human intelligence or have the capacity to overthrow human governments, or systems that have dangerous abilities like subverting shutdown commands.
• Pausing advanced AI development until a new, federal AI regulatory body is up and running and has established clear rules and model review process to ensure safe and secure development and deployment of AI.
• Establishing a new cabinet-level federal agency to safeguard the public from the dangers of artificial intelligence, including by enforcing a prohibition on artificial superintelligence. This agency will be advised by an Artificial Intelligence Advisory Board comprised of experts on artificial intelligence to provide independent scientific and technical advice on matters related to artificial intelligence. The agency will:
  • Monitor frontier AI systems at all stages of the lifecycle for dangerous capabilities.
  • Supervise the removal of dangerous capabilities.
  • Supervise the destruction of artificial superintelligence.
• Setting penalties for any person or entity that attempts to violate or circumvent the pauses and prohibitions laid out in this bill. Entities shall be subject to the corporate death penalty, and persons shall be subject to not more than 20 years in prison, which is similar to existing penalties related to unlawfully developing nuclear weapons.
• Working to ban superintelligence around the world by setting the international policy of the United States to pursue international agreements, allied coordination, and policies such as export controls to prevent the development of artificial superintelligence anywhere in the world.

Read a summary here.

The world is on track to cross the 1.5°C global warming threshold, likely within the next few years, according to a major new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report released today. Limiting Overshoot finds that even the most optimistic scenario now points to a peak temperature rise of 1.8°C, with most other projections higher still, but concludes that an "overshoot, peak and decline" pathway can still bring the world back below 1.5°C if governments act immediately on emissions, methane and the fossil fuel phase-out.

350.org says the report is both a warning and a call to action. Overshoot may now be unavoidable, but its depth and duration are not fixed – these will be decided by political choices being made right now.

Fenton Lutunatabua, 350.org Pacific

"We absolutely have to claw back every fraction of a degree possible. Just because overshoot is deemed inevitable, that doesn't mean we stop fighting to limit it to as short an overshoot as possible. It is still within our grasp to limit how high temperatures rise and how long they stay above 1.5°C. Every day above 1.5°C is another coastline swallowed, another plantation flooded, another coral reef lost.

"We have the stark science outlining our situation, and we have the solutions, what we need is the political will to see them through. As our leaders gather in Palau for the Forum Leaders meeting, all eyes are on one of the world's largest fossil fuel exporters, Australia, and how they act on this urgent warning. The climate crisis is here and any delay in mitigation, in phasing out coal, oil and gas, will only make our adaptation pressures harder and more expensive to bear."

Savio Carvalho, 350.org Head of Campaigns and Networks, said the report's findings echo what frontline communities are already living through:

"This report confirms what communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis have been telling us for years: that delay is not a neutral act, it is a decision. We've just watched a glacier collapse bury Himalayan communities under mud and water, and we're watching Pacific nations lose land to the sea in real time. UNEP is right that overshoot doesn't have to mean surrender: the size and length of that overshoot is still being written by the decisions governments make this year, on fossil fuel phase-out, technology transfer and on finance for the countries least responsible and most exposed. There is no version of 'limiting overshoot' that doesn't start with ending new coal, oil and gas expansion today."

UNEP's report warns that above 1.5°C, climate risks and the likelihood of triggering irreversible tipping points, including destabilisation of major ice sheets, degradation of the Amazon rainforest, and disruption of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, intensify with every additional fraction of a degree and every year spent above the threshold. It stresses that carbon dioxide removal can only credibly contribute to a return below 1.5°C if it comes in addition to, not instead of, sustained and immediate cuts to fossil fuel emissions, and that countries with the greatest historical responsibility for the crisis must act fastest and with the greatest ambition.

350.org is calling on governments, and major fossil fuel exporters gathering this week with Pacific leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum in Palau, to treat the report as a mandate for accelerated coal, oil and gas phase-out, not a reason to delay further.

President Donald Trump is expected to announce more most-favored nation (MFN) drug pricing deals with additional pharmaceutical companies today. Public Citizen plans to immediately file a Freedom of Information request to obtain the texts of the newly claimed White House deals. Peter Maybarduk, Access to Medicines director for Public Citizen, issued the following statement:

“It has been nearly a year since Trump announced his first secret MFN deal with Pfizer, and he has almost nothing to show for it. The new deals are a distraction from the administration’s failed plan to lower U.S. drug prices to the levels paid in other wealthy countries. A more serious approach would build international reference pricing into Medicare drug price negotiation. Instead, Trump is cozying up to Big Pharma and keeping American drug prices high.

“There still is no evidence that any pharma company has followed through on prior commitments to the Trump administration to launch new drugs at MFN-price points. Uptake of TrumpRx, which may cause consumers to overpay on medicines, has been lackluster. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not announced any state participants in a pilot to test MFN-based prices in Medicaid. And CMS has failed to issue final rules to test MFN-pricing in Medicare, while simultaneously excluding almost all drug companies from these programs.”

Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network North America have sued the Trump administration over the registration of trifludimoxazin, a potent PFAS pesticide that breaks down into long-lived, PFAS byproducts.

PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of chemicals characterized by ultra-strong carbon-fluorine bonds that are highly resistant to break down. Trifludimoxazin takes years to decades to break down. The groups’ lawsuit was filed Friday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Environmental Protection Agency has approved the use of trifludimoxazin on many crops, including corn, wheat, oats, soybeans, oranges, apples, peanuts and almonds, despite acknowledging the chemical’s potential harms to wildlife and human health.

“Trifludimoxazin is a likely human carcinogen that belongs to a family of weedkillers that also causes reproductive harm, birth defects and neurological deficits in animal studies,” said Bill Freese, science director at Center for Food Safety. “As if the health threats weren’t enough, this incredibly potent herbicide can drift to stunt crops and wild plants hundreds of yards from a sprayed field, while runoff threatens wetland plants. Potent biocides like this have no business on the American landscape.”

The EPA acknowledges that trifludimoxazin causes thyroid tumors in rodent studies but did not assess the cancer risk to farmworkers who use the pesticide or to people exposed to trifludimoxazin-contaminated food or water.

Spray drift is likely to result in widespread harm to native plants and crops grown for food. Trifludimoxazin is 10 times more toxic to plants than dicamba, the herbicide whose rampant drift and runoff has caused unprecedented damage across many millions of acres of crops since 2017.

“While everyone’s distracted by the Trump administration’s erratic actions on the world stage, it keeps approving dangerous forever pesticides right here on our own soil,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s unconscionable, immoral and illegal. Our kids and grandkids deserve better than to be saddled with pollution that never goes away.”

“Continuing to register new herbicides like trifludimoxazin keeps farmers on the pesticide treadmill and perpetuates the problem of herbicide resistance in weeds,” said Emily Marquez, Ph.D, staff scientist with Petitioner Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network North America. “The potential for PFAS pesticides to contaminate water and soil wherever they are used is highly concerning for the health and livelihoods of people in farming communities.”

Trifludimoxazin is one of many currently registered herbicides that kill plants by shutting down an enzyme (protoporpyhyrinogen oxidase, or PPO) that is also present in people. Even though animal research demonstrates these “PPO inhibitors” have common adverse effects on the liver and cause birth defects in fetuses exposed in utero, the EPA has refused to conduct a cumulative risk assessment of trifludimoxazin and other PPO inhibitors as required by law. This is especially concerning because two of the products approved by the EPA contain trifludimoxazin combined with saflufenacil, a second PPO inhibitor, meaning simultaneous exposure to both for workers.

Background

Trifludimoxazin was originally approved by the EPA in 2021 for nationwide use on corn, soy, fruit and nut crops. Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity sued, saying this approval violated the federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Endangered Species Act. That lawsuit noted the EPA’s finding that the herbicide had the potential to cause cancer, and that it would “likely cause severe harm" to many threatened and endangered fish, including endangered populations of Chinook salmon and steelhead trout, Atlantic sturgeon and smalltooth sawfish.

In response to the lawsuit, the pesticide company voluntarily agreed to stop the manufacture and sale of the pesticide in 2022. Despite these harms, Trump’s EPA proposed registering trifludimoxazin again for widespread use in 2025 and issued the approval in June 2026. Trifludimoxazin is the fifth PFAS pesticide approved under the second Trump administration.

The Trump administration is demanding that Venezuela hand over control of more than a dozen of the country’s vast oil fields, according to reports from Axios. If the deal moves forward, the U.S. federal government would take ownership of the fields and would hand operational control to private oil companies. In response, Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, issued the following statement:

“President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are demanding Venezuela turn over ownership of more than a dozen Venezuelan oil production fields to the United States federal government. If this comes to pass, Trump will likely transfer operational control to U.S. oil companies, opening the door to Trump’s typical bilateral transactional corruption, bestowing lucrative opportunities for the oil companies he chooses to reward.

“In the nearly eight months since Trump’s illegal January 2026 Venezuelan invasion, the Trump administration has managed a $13 billion slush fund gleaned from its control over Venezuelan oil sales, with zero transparency, and little to no public oversight or accounting. The President has no authority to negotiate a deal where the federal government takes control over foreign oil production facilities, and Congress must intervene and put an end to Trump’s oil fueled imperialism.

“Trump hasn’t been shy about expressing his admiration of Gulf Monarchs’ oil slush funds, and his effort to establish a South American kleptocracy is an outrage. There’s been no improvement in human rights in Venezuela, so Trump’s move is further evidence that his illegal actions in Venezuela are all about controlling oil with no public accounting, transparency or oversight. This is yet another Trump gift for Big Oil.”

A glacial collapse that resulted in a flash flood in the Nepal-Tibet border shows that climate delay is proving to be deadlier and more destructive than world leaders admit, climate groups said.

Disasters like this are becoming more frequent and more deadly as the Himalayas warm and glaciers destabilize, 350.org said, extending sympathies and calling for immediate international support for affected people and communities.

Aakriti Dotel, National Network Coordinator, Nepalese Youth for Climate Action (NYCA) said:

“The devastating floods in Rasuwa are another painful reminder of the growing climate crisis facing Nepal and the Himalayas. As our glaciers melt and extreme weather events become increasingly unpredictable, communities living downstream are bearing the devastating consequences. We mourn the lives lost and the livelihoods affected and call for urgent global climate action. There must be stronger support for vulnerable mountain communities, and accountability from those most responsible for the climate crisis.”

350.org pointed out that the tragedy exposes the failure of big polluting countries to provide the much needed finance that will enable vulnerable countries like Nepal to adapt to a changing climate, such as technology for early warning systems and other Disaster Risk Reduction measures.

Savio Carvalho, 350.org Head of Campaigns and Networks said:

“Every destabilized glacier in a warming Himalaya is a ticking time bomb that can go off unannounced, and when it does, those least responsible for the climate crisis pay with their lives. This moment of grief has a clear message for world leaders: delay is deadly. Rich countries must finally deliver the finance and protection they owe frontline communities. Without a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, the planet will continue to heat up and lives can be lost in a flash.”

To interview Nepalese climate activists, including those impacted by the flood, kindly reach out.

Voting rights organizations today supplemented the complaint in their lawsuit challenging President Trump’s executive order restricting mail voting to add claims against the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) newly-finalized mail ballot rule. The groups simultaneously asked a federal court to immediately block USPS from implementing that rule for the November midterm elections.

The plaintiffs in this case, League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump, are the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, League of Women Voters, Association of Americans Resident Overseas, U.S. Vote Foundation, OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Massachusetts, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, Legal Defense Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC, and LatinoJustice PRLDEF.

“USPS’s decision to rush this blatantly unconstitutional rule into effect just weeks before an election is the latest step in a rollout that has sown confusion at every turn and now threatens to disenfranchise voters who did everything right. This is chaos by design, and voters are the ones who will pay for it,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. “No administration should be able to manufacture confusion around how we vote and undermine confidence in our elections in the process. Rather than serving voters, this rule threatens access to the ballot and treats voters as collateral damage. We will continue to use every legal tool available to block this illegal power grab and ensure voters can cast mail ballots with the confidence that their votes will be counted.”

On Aug. 11, 2026, the court issued an order in League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump, blocking USPS from implementing Section 3 of the executive order for the upcoming Nov. 3 midterm elections.

The Supreme Court later stayed a different court order issued in the separate Trump v. California case blocking implementation of the executive order. Of note, the Supreme Court did not decide whether President Trump has the legal authority to impose these restrictions or whether the USPS rule is lawful; it simply held that it was premature for the California plaintiffs to bring that case.

Earlier this afternoon, the court vacated the Aug. 11 injunction issued in League of Women Voters Massachusetts on the same narrow basis. Acknowledging that “Plaintiff Organizations have substantial arguments that might persuade the Supreme Court to reach a different result if Plaintiff Organizations have an opportunity to present them,” the court found “that in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. California, Plaintiff Organizations are not likely to prevail as to ripeness without amending their complaint to reflect the fact that a Final Rule has now issued.” Plaintiffs have now supplemented their complaint to do exactly that, adding challenges to the newly finalized mail ballot rule and seeking emergency relief on those claims immediately.

In their papers, the plaintiff organizations argue that USPS’s newly-finalized mail ballot rule violates the Constitution’s separation of powers, which put the states and Congress in charge of election administration rules, not USPS or the president, as well as a number of the laws that govern how USPS operates.

All of these violations are causing irreparable harm to plaintiff organizations, their members, and the voters they serve. The harm is particularly acute as there are now less than 70 days before the November midterm elections, which is why the plaintiff organizations are asking for emergency relief.

After filing, counsel and plaintiffs released the following statement:

“The court has already found that the executive order unconstitutionally usurps the authority of the states and Congress to regulate elections, and the newly-finalized rule eliminates any doubt about the harms stemming from these unlawful acts. Implementing the newly-finalized rule less than 70 days before the general election would dramatically impair plaintiffs’ core voter engagement work and pose a grave risk of disenfranchisement. We are asking the court for emergency relief to prevent this harm and to affirm the public’s confidence in the systems voters rely on to conduct our elections.”

The filings are here:

https://www.aclu.org/cases/league-of-women-voters-of-massachusetts-v-trump?document=Supplemental-Complaint#legal-documents

https://www.aclu.org/cases/league-of-women-voters-of-massachusetts-v-trump?document=Memorandum-in-Support-of-Plaintiffs-Emergency-Motion-for-Temporary-Restraining-Order-and-Preliminary-Injunction

Fairplay Executive Director Josh Golin released the following statement today:

“This is a watershed moment for the growing movement to protect children from addictive and dangerously designed social media. In addition to a significant financial penalty, the state attorneys general have secured the most significant injunctive relief yet from Meta, including a number of measures to protect young people’s sleep, such as disabling Instagram overnight for minors’ accounts. The settlement also requires disabling addictive and harmful features like displays of like counts and plastic surgery filters and new guardrails to protect children from predatory adults. We also greatly appreciate that Meta will be required to identify both under-13 and under-18 users without infringing on the privacy of adults. We thank the state attorneys general for their historic leadership in fighting for our children’s safety and well-being online.

“This settlement also underscores the need for KOSA, the Kids Online Safety Act. As internal documents have shown over and over, Meta and other social media companies deliberately design their products to addict kids, and that is the root cause of so many mental health difficulties and serious online harms for minors. While it’s gratifying to see state attorneys general take action to hold companies like Meta accountable, we also need our federal government to step in to force these companies to make their products safe for kids by design so that every child on every platform will be protected, both now and in the future. KOSA has robust, bipartisan support from over three-quarters of the US Senate. We call on Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Charles Schumer to bring the bill to the floor for a vote next month.”

Climate change has reduced snowpack by 36 percent and streamflow by 13 percent across the western United States, and more than half of those impacts have been triggered by emissions from fossil fuel companies and cement manufacturers, according to a new report released today by University of California, Merced and Union of Concerned Scientists. Additionally, the report ties one-tenth of the observed groundwater loss in California’s Central Valley directly to emissions from these companies. In response, Aaron Regunberg, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Accountability Project, issued the following statement:

“Millions of Americans are experiencing historic water scarcity. We now know that a small number of fossil fuel companies are responsible for a significant portion of this disaster. And they knew full well what they were doing. Already in 1988, companies like Shell were issuing internal reports predicting that climate change—caused by the burning of their fossil fuel products—would create ‘significant changes’ in ‘precipitation patterns’ that ‘would impact on the human environment, future living standards and food supplies’ and could have ‘major social, economic, and political consequences.’ Yet fossil fuel companies lied to the public about this reality for decades, and continue to block the climate action we need to address this crisis. These companies need to face accountability.”

Teachers earned 25.2 percent less than comparable college graduates in other professions in 2025, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

The relative teacher pay penalty — which is adjusted for education, experience, and demographic characteristics — was a slight improvement from 2024’s record high of 26.9 percent, but still more than four times the 6.1 percent penalty recorded in 1996.

In other words, teachers earned on average 74.8 cents on the dollar in 2025 compared with other college graduates — much less than the relative 93.9 cents on the dollar that teachers earned in 1996. When broken down by gender, the relative teacher pay penalty was 34.5 percent for men and 20.0 percent for women.

Overall, simple inflation-adjusted weekly wages for public school teachers fell 6.2 percent over the last three decades, while wages for other college graduates rose 28.8 percent over the same period.

Teachers were paid less than other college graduates in every state, with relative teacher pay gaps ranging from 10.4 percent in Rhode Island to 40.7 percent in Colorado. The teacher pay penalty was at least 25 percent in 25 states.

While teachers typically receive better benefits packages than other professionals, this only partially offsets the growing wage penalty that teachers face. After accounting for the difference in benefits, teachers’ total compensation penalty was 14.5 percent in 2025.

As the report explains, providing teachers with competitive pay is necessary to retain and attract qualified workers. While there are many important factors impacting teacher retention and recruitment, pay consistently lands near the top of any list.

Reversing these trends will require targeted, sustained investment in public education at the local, state, and federal levels. It will also require stronger support for public-sector collective bargaining, which has long been a driver of better pay and job quality for teachers.

“The decades-long teacher pay penalty has taken a heavy toll on public education. Yet, policymakers have failed to make the needed investments to reverse course. That failure is especially troubling in a country as wealthy as the United States, with more than enough resources for its public schools to be the envy of the world,” said report author Sylvia Allegretto, who is a senior economist at CEPR and research associate at EPI

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently launched a process to significantly revise its Travel Management Rule, which guides where motorized vehicles are and are not allowed on almost 200 million acres of national forests and grasslands.

The USDA is proposing to flip the U.S. Forest Service’s longstanding approach to travel management on its head, forcing local forests to allow motorized vehicles everywhere except for places that are specifically closed. The current rule requires motorized vehicles to stay on a designated system of roads, trails and areas in national forests and grasslands and is an essential policy for wildlife conservation, balanced recreation, and public safety.

This comes directly on the heels of the USDA’s proposed repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which would make 45 million acres of remote backcountry forests available for clearcut logging, road-building and other development, unleashing back-to-back blows to our national forests. Combined, these actions are part of the administration’s systematic dismantling of the rules and safeguards that keep national forests safe, accessible, and managed for everyone.

“This is yet another egregious attack in the systematic dismantling of public lands management of our national forests,” said Dan Hartinger, senior director for agency policy at The Wilderness Society. “Travel management provides the basic guardrails that let hikers, hunters, anglers, and riders share the same forest without chaos; removing those guardrails threatens the freedom of all public lands users to safely enjoy our national forests the way they choose. Paired with the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule, this destructive agenda sells out future generations’ enjoyment of our forests in order to hand them over for corporate profits.”

“The Travel Management Rule creates a framework that balances uses on national forest lands. It draws on local decision-making processes to support all user groups in enjoying public lands while also protecting these places for future generations,” said Anneka Williams, policy director at Winter Wildlands Alliance. “Removing this framework for shared use threatens diverse user experiences on public lands. Coming on the heels of the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule, it is clear that this announcement is part of the administration’s broader agenda to dismantle our public lands as we know and love them.”

“The Travel Management Rule is why dirtbikers and snowmobilers can share national forests with hikers and backcountry skiers without conflict. It’s built on local decision-making that ensures no user group gets steamrolled and all our national forest values are protected,” said Hilary Eisen, federal policy director at Wild Montana. “Just days after doubling down on repealing the Roadless Rule, this announcement makes the administration’s plan obvious: gut the rules requiring the Forest Service to manage our natural resources carefully and listen to the public, then open the gates to industry and extraction. The Roadless rescission already showed that Forest Service leadership doesn’t value public input, science, or expert management. They’ve lost the public’s trust, and should expect the public to hold them accountable.”

“The USDA’s announcement to gut the Travel Management Rule and the Roadless Rule in the same week is a one-two punch that together deals a tremendous blow to wildlife,” said Vera Smith, director of national forests and public lands at Defenders of Wildlife. “The Travel Management Rule states simply that motorized vehicles must stay on routes and areas designated locally for that use. The Forest Service issued the rule over 20 years ago to curb damage from unmanaged recreation, reduce user conflict and protect public safety. Rescinding it now is irresponsible and reckless.”

“Just after this administration moved to eliminate protections for Roadless Areas, it is now proposing to gut the Travel Management Rule that for 20 years has ensured the Forest Service manages motorized recreation in a manner that minimizes damage, protects other visitors, and responds when vehicle use is harming public land resources,” said Adam Rissien rewilding manager at WildEarth Guardians. “Eliminating those protections will not improve access. It would replace locally developed plans with uncertainty, conflict, and unmanaged use.”

“Just days after its proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule, the administration is now attempting to open up our national forests to more off-road vehicle use that will degrade the landscape and disturb wildlife and other land users,” said Thomas Delehanty, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “Some places in our national forests are meant for quiet, undisturbed recreation and protecting sensitive wildlife, including endangered species. This rule would open all roads and trails to ORVs by default, meaning areas set aside for hiking, hunting, or horseback riding could soon be fair game to four-wheelers and dirt bikes.”

“The Trump Administration’s proposal to fundamentally alter the Travel Management Rule will change for the worse how Utahns experience national forests throughout the state, from the Wasatch Front to redrock country outside Escalante and Moab,” said Laura Peterson, senior attorney at Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “The proposal will place a heavy thumb on the scale to prioritize off-road vehicle use at the expense of all other uses of the national forests, including the protection of wildlife, cultural sites, streams and wild places. This move will not improve access to public lands, but it will make the experience of recreating on public lands worse for all users, including hikers, bikers, hunters, anglers and riders.”

“For over two decades the Travel Management Rule has ensured our National Forests are managed to host an array of user groups, while safeguarding the health and future of our public lands,” said Peggie dePasquale, National Forest Wildlands Director at the Wyoming Wilderness Association (WWA). “We are now witnessing a troublesome undoing of this effective management tool that the American people, especially here in Wyoming, have come to rely on for sustainable and relied upon access. It is critical that we raise our voices to send a clear message that the proposed revision goes against public interest and is bad news for the future of our natural world.”

“The existing travel management planning process allows the public to meaningfully weigh in on where vehicles do and don’t belong in our national forests. Repealing this rule hands that decision to political appointees in Washington, who have decided that every road, trail, and meadow should be open to motorized use, no matter the conflicts with other users or wildlife,” said Center for Western Priorities (CWP) Communications Director Kate Groetzinger. “Repealing this rule is also a recipe for more wildfire in a region that cannot afford it. Putting hot engines deeper into dry forests during longer and hotter fire seasons will increase wildfire risk, and Western communities will pay for it.”

Travel management is supported by a diverse group of public lands users.
This proposal to revise the Travel Management Rule is out of touch with everyday Americans who use our forested public lands. Motorized groups, recreationalists, sportsmen, conservation organizations, local communities and other public land users nationwide have spoken out in opposition:

• American Hiking Society, Back Country Horsemen of American, American Trails, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, Bureau of Land Management, (7/21/2026).
• Motorcycle Industry Council, Specialty Vehicle Institute of America and Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (10/27/2025)
• American Endurance Ride Conference, American Hiking Society, American Horse Council, American Trails, Appalachian Mountain Club, Back Country Horsemen of America, Equine Land Conservation Resource, Move United, North Carolina Horse Council, Pacific Crest Trail Association, Partnership for the National Trails System, Rails to Trails Conservancy, Washington Trials Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, Forest Service (6/5/2026).
• American Motorcyclist Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (12/15/2025).
• Rural & Agriculture Council of America & United States Cattlemen’s Association, Letter Opposing full repeal of Travel Management Rule & Requesting a robust public process, (6/24/26).
• Outdoor Alliance & members Access Fund American Canoe Association, American Whitewater, International Mountain Bicycling Association, Winter Wildlands Alliance, The Mountaineers, American Alpine Club, Colorado Mountain Club, Surfrider Foundation, Runners for Public Lands, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (6/12/26).
• Off Road Business Association, Inc, United Four Wheel Drive Association, One Voice & United Snowmobile Alliance, Letter Opposing “outright repeal” of Travel Management Rule, (1/26/26).
• Public Lands Foundation, Position Statement supporting current Travel Management Policy, (4/25).

Ryan Costello, Policy Director with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), issued the following statement as the Trump administration moves to intensify its economic pressure campaign against Iran following months of war and instability:

“President Trump, the ultimate gambler in geopolitics, is poised to double down on a bad hand on Iran yet again.

“We’ve been down the maximum pressure road with Iran many times. What we’ve learned is that President Trump can impose extensive economic pain on Iran, but ordinary Iranians overwhelmingly bear the cost.. The ruling elite in Iran remains largely insulated, while Tehran has repeatedly refused to capitulate to Washington’s demands.. Trump’s gamble is that this time, amid the destruction of war, and with the reinforcement of a blockade, time is on his side and ultimately Iran will be forced to concede defeat.

“The pivot back to economic coercion comes with enormous risks the administration appears determined to ignore. After all, it was the United States that waived sanctions on Iranian oil already at sea during the height of the war in March, and again issued a waiver allowing Iran to sell oil freely in June. Now attempting to choke off those same oil sales exposes the contradiction at the heart of Trump’s strategy: Washington needed to relieve economic pressure when the consequences became too costly, yet is now betting that it can reimpose that pressure without suffering the same blowback.

“Within the United States, ordinary Americans are paying the price for this deeply unpopular war at the gas pump and in their grocery bills. Trump’s polls have plummeted amid the war - one he said he’d avoid - heading into all-important midterms. Continuing economic warfare risks deeper turmoil in the energy markets and the global economy, which could cascade into a full-blown catastrophe. Moreover, starting a trade war with China risks retaliatory measures that the U.S. economy can ill afford.

“Iran has also indicated clearly that it will not tolerate economic warfare and will escalate across the region, if necessary, to target any nation that supports President Trump’s efforts to cripple the Iranian economy. While the President may think economic warfare is less risky than military warfare, ultimately Tehran will view it as a different tactic in the same campaign to crush the country.

“None of this appears likely to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Rather, it appears intended to delay and avoid a deal that ends not just the war, but also the maximum pressure campaign that the President has waged since 2018. Oftentimes, admitting you have a problem is necessary in order to stop an addiction. President Trump has proven unable and unwilling to stop his gambling on Iran that risks further undermining U.S. and regional security and the global economy.”

On Friday, Demand Progress Education Fund and a coalition of civil society advocates asked the FTC to investigate AI companies like Anthropic and Amazon for buying books in bulk, scanning them and then destroying the original work—including rare books. In a letter sent to the FTC, the organizations urge the agency to use its authority, including Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, to investigate whether this mass book-destroying practice unfairly prevents competing AI developers and the public from using these resources.

• Read the Letter

Convened by Demand Progress Education Fund, the letter was also signed by the Consumer Federation of America, the Center for Media & Digital Governance at Open Markets Institute, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and 14 other organizations.

“The secretive and reckless way that major AI companies like Anthropic and Amazon are acting shows that there is real smoke here that the FTC needs to investigate,” said Demand Progress Education Fund Special Advisor Kate Oh. “There is credible reporting that the AI industry is acquiring books on vast commercial scales to scan and destroy, all to keep that scanned text in a private database walled off from the world and subject to corporate censorship and manipulation.”

“When a small number of dominant tech companies become the sole custodians of millions of human-authored works in digital form, locked away inside proprietary corporate databases—including works they have caused to exist nowhere else—they convert a shared public resource into a private chokepoint,” stated the letter. “They make themselves the unaccountable gatekeepers of our shared historical and cultural record, with the ability to censor as they see fit. That outcome should concern the FTC because the antimonopoly laws exist not only to protect competition but to prevent any private actor from amassing control incompatible with a free and self-governing society.”

Today, news outlets reported that Donald Trump plans to nominate White House Domestic Policy Deputy Director Dr. Heidi Overton — an anti-abortion extremist who celebrated the Supreme Court overturning the right to abortion — to serve as his Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner. The FDA plays a critical role in safeguarding the health of people across the country, including by making science-based decisions about medication abortion, birth control, and other essential reproductive healthcare.

Overton has an extensive anti-abortion record. She celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a “huge victory,” and has advocated for the politicization of government agencies to help advance a nationwide anti-abortion agenda. She previously worked at America First Policy Institute, an extreme conservative think tank made up of former Trump administration officials, where she authored a brief pushing disinformation about the safety of medication abortion and calling for additional, medically unnecessary restrictions on access to mifepristone.

Overton’s nomination comes as the FDA rushes to advance a politically motivated, sham “study” of mifepristone, and remains under close scrutiny from anti-abortion groups and leaders who relentlessly demand that the agency takes decisive action to restrict access to medication abortion care.

Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju released the following statement:

“Donald Trump is trying to put an anti-abortion extremist in charge of any agency that could seriously undermine reproductive healthcare—including the agency that could roll back access to mifepristone nationwide. Heidi Overton celebrated the fall of Roe, spread junk science about medication abortion, and openly called for remaking the FDA to serve a political agenda instead of the health of the country. Her nomination is another alarming step in Trump’s plan to weaponize every part of the federal government to restrict abortion nationwide.”

If confirmed, Overton would succeed Martin Makary, who resigned as FDA Commissioner in May. Initial reports of Makary’s departure from the FDA emerged just after a meeting between White House staff and anti-abortion groups, who expressed frustration the FDA has not sufficiently wielded its power to ban mifepristone outright. Anti-abortion groups then shifted their demands to acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas, who called anti-abortion leaders within hours of being appointed and said that accelerating the review was his top priority.

More than a century ago, American families could flip through a Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, pick out a house, and have nearly everything they needed to build it delivered to them at an affordable price. Tens of thousands of Sears homes are still standing today – a testament to an era when a starter home could be both attainable and built to last. Today, as more Americans are priced out of the housing market, Groundwork Collaborative released a new proposal to revive the Sears home model for the 21st century.

The Modern Sears Home: Resurrecting the Affordable American Starter Home for a New Generation, authored by Groundwork’s Noah Ball-Burack, Emily DiVito, and Alex Jacquez, outlines a federal initiative to deliver, over eight years, 500,000 high-quality factory-built homes directly to American families across the country for under $215,000.

Today, the national median home price hovers above $400,000, and the starter home – what used to be the first rung on the ladder to economic security – is all but extinct. In some communities, starter homes can cost $1 million or more, putting homeownership further out of reach for many families.

The Modern Sears Home Program would deploy the federal government’s purchasing power, land access, and ability to finance and site homes at scale to bring the cost of new, high-quality homes within reach. Furthermore, by guaranteeing demand for hundreds of thousands of factory-built homes, the program would also give private manufacturing firms the certainty they need to expand production, lower production costs, and increase housing supply. By bringing affordable homes directly to communities where the private market has fallen short, the Modern Sears Home Program could expand homeownership in rural areas and open the door for families who have historically been shut out of the housing market.

The idea has vast public support. New polling shows that three in four voters support the Modern Sears Home Program and the proposal enjoys broad support across party lines, including 80% of Democrats, 72% of Independents, and 74% of Republicans. Additionally, 69% of voters, including majorities across party lines, say the program would make homeownership feel more attainable.

By some estimates, Sears sold more than 70,000 catalog kit homes during the 20th century, many of which are still standing today in states like Ohio, Illinois, New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Groundwork’s Senior Advisor for Economic Policy, Emily DiVito, shared the following:

“For too many families, homeownership has gone from a milestone to a mirage. Decades of under-building have left us with an affordable housing shortage that’s pricing people out of their communities. Policymakers must pursue creative, tangible, and lasting solutions that bring homeownership back into reach. The Modern Sears Home program does just that.”

Lindsay Owens, President and CEO of Groundwork, reacted:

“I grew up in a Sears Home, and I know the comfort and stability these houses offer the families who live in them. That’s something far too many families can’t count on anymore, as Wall Street and corporate landlords squeeze every last penny out of homeowners and renters alike. Reviving the promise of a Sears home is a chance to make quality and affordable housing the rule, rather than the exception.”

In the paper, the authors write:

“Sears offered these homes for profit. The federal government – with greater resources, lower borrowing costs, and unmatched power to scale – can do it better...[with] the kind of public ambition that once sent 30,000-piece home kits rattling on rail cars across the country to families who otherwise thought homeownership a distant aspiration...The Modern Sears Home program is that ambition made actionable.”