Must-read recap: The New Lede's top stories

Holding oil and gas accountable; scientists issue "call to arms" to protect children's health; PFAS in drinking water; fluoride and IQ; Mexico's GM corn ban; an electric car showdown.

As Los Angeles fires rage, states battle over effort to make oil and gas industry accountable for climate change harms

As fires rage through southern California, the costs of extreme weather events linked to climate change are forecast to keep climbing – adding fuel to growing efforts by some US states to make the oil and gas industry liable for helping foot the bill despite looming legal challenges.

Vermont fired the first shot against the industry last year when it enacted a novel “climate superfund” law aimed at recovering state costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions that drive harmful climate change. New York passed similar legislation last month.

Similar legislation has been introduced in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California, as well as at the federal level. While the federal bill is not expected to make headway in a Republican-controlled Congress, climate activists are pushing Democrat-led states to embrace the legislation as a way to show climate leadership amidst a second Trump administration that has promised to promote the interests of the oil and gas industry and roll back environmental regulations. (Read the rest of the story.)

Scientists issue “call to arms” to protect children’s health from chemicals causing disease

Children are suffering and dying from diseases that emerging scientific research links to chemical exposures, findings that require urgent revamping of laws around the world, according to a new paper published Jan. 8 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Authored by more than 20 leading public health researchers, including one from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and another from the United Nations, the paper lays out “a large body of evidence” linking multiple childhood diseases to synthetic chemicals, and recommends a series of aggressive actions to try to better protect children.

The paper is a “call to arms” to forge an “actual commitment to the health of our children,” said Linda Birnbaum, former director of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and a co-author of the paper. (Read the rest of the story.)

Fluorinated drugs, a type of PFAS, widely contaminating US drinking water

New research suggests that fluorinated pharmaceuticals — a category that includes well-known medications such as Prozac and Flonase — are showing up in the water supply of millions of people. These drugs and their breakdown products are technically classified as being per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals,” which as a chemical class is the subject of worldwide health concern.

A study published January 6 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the bulk of PFAS entering and exiting wastewater treatment plants is made up of these fluorinated drugs. Notably, the researchers determined that the pharmaceuticals were largely not removed from the water by conventional wastewater treatment practices.

This pharmaceutical material “doesn’t get treated in the wastewater treatment plant, and it doesn’t break down,” said Bridger Ruyle, study co-author and researcher at New York University. “And we know [these chemicals] can be re-entering drinking water supplies.” (Read the rest of the story.)

Landmark study affirm’s fluoride’s link to lowered IQ, adds to debate

Fluoride exposure is consistently linked with lowered IQ, according to a landmark analysis of more than 70 published studies on the subject.

The paper, published January 6 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics and authored by scientists with the National Institutes of Health, found a significant inverse relationship between measures of fluoride exposure and IQ in 64 of 74 studies.

The study, the largest meta-analysis of its kind, found that those exposed to high levels of fluoride have measurably lower IQs, equivalent to a difference of nearly 7 IQ points, compared to those in the low fluoride groups. This conclusion came from 59 studies. Most, but not all, of these examined people who live in areas with naturally-occurring levels of fluoride higher than that used in fluoridation.

Importantly, however, the paper found the link between fluoride and IQ loss persisted even at low levels of fluoride, as measured in human urine samples. (Read the rest of the story.)

Tribunal says Mexico violated trade agreement in banning GM corn

An international tribunal set up to resolve disputes between the United States, Mexico, and Canada has ruled that Mexico violated the terms of the international trade agreement in banning the import of genetically modified (GM) corn for human consumption.

The decision, handed down by a commission set up under the auspices of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), was criticized by over a dozen civil and environmental groups, who argue that Mexico is well within its rights to restrict the import of this material for health precautions and others reasons.

Mexico has argued that it needs to ban GM corn to protect its citizens and the environment. Earlier this year, it filed a 189-page document with the tribunal outlining what it sees as the risks posed by GM corn and glyphosate. (Read the rest of the story.)

Postcard from California: State and feds head for showdown over electric cars

(Opinion columns published in The New Lede represent the views of the individual(s) authoring the columns and not necessarily the perspectives of TNL editors.)

Of California’s dozens of landmark laws to curb climate-heating greenhouse gases and health-threatening air pollution, none is more ambitious than the rule that by 2035 all new passenger cars and trucks sold must be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) that run on electricity.

Contrary to the inflammatory rhetoric of its critics, the ZEV rule does not create a total ban on gasoline or diesel vehicles. In 2035 and beyond, Californians could still drive their existing gasoline cars or buy used ones.

But by electrifying the state’s fleet over time, the rule would steadily reduce tailpipe emissions, which are by far the largest source of greenhouse gases in California. It would also slash emissions of smog-forming air contaminants, averting thousands of heart attacks and strokes and hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks. (Read the rest of the opinion column.)