New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood
It’s fortunate that we have a group of state attorneys general who is willing to keep challenging President Trump and his cronies as they try to tear apart the structures of our government institutions. Here are three actions filed Monday by attorneys general on behalf of consumers:
Clean water
Twelve attorneys general called on the Trump Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers Monday to abandon their proposal to dismantle the Clean Water Rule, a regulation adopted in 2015. The coalition said that the repeal of the rule and reestablishment of the old, ineffective regulations that the rule replaced wouldn’t be in accordance with the law. The coalition calls on EPA and ACOE to stop the repeal.
“New Yorkers’ health, environment, and economy depend on clean water,” New York Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood said. “Yet the Trump EPA continues to turn its back on the science and law, threatening New York’s decades-long fight to ensure our residents’ access to safe, healthy water.”
Joining Underwood are the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
The Clean Water Rule clarifies what types of waters are covered by – and protected under – the Clean Water Act.
The coalition said that the proposed repeal fails to consider important issues, lacks factual and legal support, and ignores and directly contradicts the agencies’ previous findings and conclusions without a reasoned basis.
Big pharma
Underwood and New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced a lawsuit Monday against Purdue Pharma, Purdue Pharma Inc., and Purdue Frederick Company Inc. It alleges a decades-long and continuing pattern of deceptive and illegal conduct, in which Purdue misled prescribers and patients about the risks of its opioids, including OxyContin, intentionally understating the risks and overstating the benefits of the drugs.
The lawsuit alleges that Purdue made – directly and through third-party groups –numerous misrepresentations about its products. They included concealing the link between long-term use of opioids and abuse and addiction, masking the signs of addiction by referring to them as “pseudoaddiction,” falsely claiming that withdrawal from its products can be easily managed, overstating the risks of alternative pain relief therapies as compared to opioids, and misrepresenting the extent to which opioids improve body function. These representations were part of Purdue’s efforts to increase sales of its opioid products and directly affected prescribing, public opinion, and consumption of those products.
“Our investigation found a pattern of deception and reckless disregard for New Yorkers’ health and wellbeing – as Purdue lined its own pockets by deliberately exploiting our communities and fueling an opioid epidemic that’s destroyed families across the state,” said Underwood.
Purdue continued to engage in deceptive marketing of its opioid products even after pleading guilty to criminal conduct in 2007 and pledging to correct its misleading marketing, and after entering into an Assurance of Discontinuance with the New York Attorney General in 2015, according to the lawsuit.
Purdue’s conduct contributed to the over-prescription and overuse of Purdue’s opioid products, including the opioid epidemic impacting communities across New York, Underwood said. In New York, there were 3,086 deaths from overdoses involving opioids in 2016; 2,399 of those deaths were the result of opioid painkillers, including those sold by Purdue.
The lawsuit seeks an order requiring Purdue to stop its practices and pay for the damage they’ve caused. The lawsuit also seeks civil penalties and damages to the state.
Environmental and public health protections
A coalition of 13 attorneys general and state agencies called on the EPA Monday to drop it’s proposed to overhaul of how the agency values environmental and public health protections. The coalition submitted comments to Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler on a notice of proposed rulemaking that is supposedly aimed at increasing consistency and transparency in how the agency addresses benefits and costs in its rulemakings, Underwood said.
The coalition charges that the changes to EPA’s “cost-benefit” analysis proposed in the notice are “unnecessary, ill-conceived, and unworkable.” Along with the Trump EPA’s proposed rule to limit the use of scientific evidence in rulemakings, and former Administrator Scott Pruitt’s directive forbidding many qualified experts to serve on EPA science advisory panels, the attorneys general argue that the administrator’s notice signals yet another effort by the Trump Administration to undermine EPA’s mission to protect public health and the environment.
“The Trump EPA’s ‘cost-benefit’ proposal is a classic example of a solution in search of a problem,” said Underwood. “EPA says its proposal would increase consistency and transparency in its decision making – but there’s absolutely no evidence in the notice that previous EPA’s analyses lacked consistency or transparency. Environmental and health protections have consistently proven their enormous value to New Yorkers and all Americans. The EPA shouldn’t be searching for ways to cook its books to favor polluters over the public.”
Joining Underwood in the comments are the attorneys general of California, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Good for them, glad to see some states are acting inthe public interest.
Now if only they’d start going after just about every corporation in the US that deals w/”consumers” to prevent them from forcing mandatory arbitration/agreement not to participate in class actions provisions. Every single corporation (such as Consumer Cellular, Nordstrom’s et al) is including such a provision in all of their so-called “agreements” /contracts with consumers.