In the News

Despite the widespread support this important environmental law has received over the years, the Trump administration announced recently that it wants to gut core protections this law provides. And it has proposed a new rule that could effectively take climate change considerations off the table.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette on Wednesday slammed the chiefs of five e-cigarette companies over their role in enabling an estimated 5 million youths — 28% of all high school students — to vape in the past year.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) met with a group of Denver high school students for a discussion about vaping. Degette talked with more than a half-dozen students at South High School about their experiences using various vaping products, what drew them to try the product in the first place, and why they believe it’s become so popular among students in Colorado and around the country.

On Monday morning, DeGette held a forum at South High School in Denver with six students about teen vaping. The discussion came two days before DeGette will chair a congressional hearing to question the heads of the five e-cigarette companies that control 97% of the vape market: JUUL, NJOY, Fontem, Logic and Reynolds American.

Politicians are saying enough. Leading the charge in Congress is Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette, whose daughter Francesca, 25, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 4. Among the stories DeGette has heard about the price increases was one mother who implored, “Insulin doesn’t make [my son] better. It keeps him, literally, alive.”

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., said the report confirmed what she had suspected about treatment there. “We need to take a hard look at ICE’s use of these private prisons and, at the very least, make clear to the agency that outsourcing its responsibility to physically hold these detainees does not absolve it of its obligation to properly care for them,” she wrote.

"There’s no federal regulatory limit on hydrogen cyanide the way there is for sulfur dioxide, ozone and particulates. DeGette, D-Denver, recently launched legislation in Congress that would compel the EPA to set a national limit and enforce it."

“If it’s going to ignore how a new rule would benefit public health going forward, then our committee – which is charged with overseeing the EPA – has serious questions as to whether it would still be acting in the public’s best interest.”