On October 1, 2025, the US government shut down for the 11th time since 1980 and has become the longest government shutdown in US history. Despite the ongoing media stories and funding negotiations, the impact of the shutdown on government accountability has gone largely unnoticed.
Following a lengthy legal battle, Government Accountability Project has obtained a previously undisclosed Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) report exposing a wide array of unmet medical, infrastructure, and economic recovery needs in East Palestine, Ohio.
Documents show the EPA tracked whistleblower Scott Smith from East Palestine, Ohio to Conyers, Georgia where he tested soil and water after the BioLab fire in 2024.
Instead of looking out for the residents impacted by the 2023 train derailment, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) used resources to look into the social media movements of those residents, a government watchdog group claims.
An EPA spokesperson, in a statement attributed to the Trump Administration, said the emails in question are from 2023 during the Biden administration.
Researchers for the East Palestine health study say that for human-caused disasters, response programmes should provide more attention to community health, and stress and uncertainty.
A whistleblower group has claimed that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) helped Norfolk Southern Railway manipulate soil testing data after the catastrophic 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, to hide the scale of the disaster’s environmental contamination.
In this installment of our politics series, “If You Can Keep It,” we discuss weakening whistleblower protections under President Trump and what this means for those who rely on the information they share.
Through a Freedom of Information Act, whistle-blowing organization Government Accountability Project obtained a letter it says exposes changes the EPA made to Norfolk Southern's dioxin sampling plan.
A new report alleges that soil samples following the 2023 fiery train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio were manipulated by the EPA and Norfolk Southern.
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