California regulators are weighing whether to effectively ban the fabrication of artificial stone amid mounting evidence that even rigorous safety measures may not protect workers from silicosis, an aggressive and often fatal lung disease.
The Trump administration's argument was that California's egg laws contributed to the historic rise in egg prices and have diminished the purchasing power and prosperity of the American worker, but were illegal because they were preempted by the federal Egg Products Inspection Act (EPIA).
A California state agency won't meet Governor Gavin Newsom's year-end deadline to finish long-delayed regulations to protect homes from wildfires, rules that experts say could have limited the destruction of the January Los Angeles firestorms. At a meeting of the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection on Monday, chair Terrence O'Brien said officials would wait until March 2026 to continue work on regulations to require ember-resistant zones, called Zone Zero, around some 2 million houses in high-risk wildfire areas.
The new rules will eventually require landfill operators to take action when a satellite or airplane detects a methane leak, improve routine leak monitoring and reporting and mandate stronger action on recurring issues. The protections will add to a suite of regulations the state passed in 2010, which made California the first state to develop stricter standards than the federal government.
"We need your help!", reads the email GM sent to thousands of its non-hourly employees last week. "Emissions standards that are not aligned with market realities pose a serious threat..."
