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Exclusive — Rep. Paul Gosar Requests HHS and NIH Close Down Fauci’s Rocky Mountain Lab
Republican Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is asking Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jayanta Bhattacharya to shut down former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Chief Anthony Fauci’s Rocky Mountain Lab in Montana after White Coat Waste Project (WCW) exposed scandals including virus smuggling as well as monkey bite incidents, Breitbart News exclusively learned.
Watchdog WCW blew the lid off the lab in May, pointing to a whistleblower letter alleging that the lab is in “full coverup mode” following the allegations, which led to charges against Vincent Munster, the former chief of the virus ecology section at Rocky Mountain Laboratories, as well as associate Claude Kwe. The Department of Justice (DOJ) charged them with smuggling vials of deactivated mpox virus into the country.
The whistleblower letter detailed the smuggling and also alleged “that a monkey bite was the cause of an incident first uncovered by WCW in January that exposed an RML lab staffer to Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever — a deadly, foreign virus used by NIH for maximum-pain experiments on monkeys,” according to WCW. Now, Gosar is demanding that the controversial lab close for good.
USDA Launches Initiative to Expand Healthier School Meals
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is encouraging states and school districts to expand access to healthier meals for students through a new nationwide initiative. The USDA is asking states to join its Healthier School Meals Pledge, committing to serve more whole, nutritious foods in school cafeterias while promoting healthier cooking methods and smarter snack options.
According to the agency, the initiative is designed to help students build lifelong healthy eating habits by increasing access to nutritious breakfasts, lunches and snacks.
The USDA said states are encouraged to work with local school districts to implement the pledge and strengthen school meal programs. More information about the Healthier School Meals Pledge is available through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The EPA Is Writing Permits That Could Let Ohio Data Centers Dump Wastewater Into State Waters
A single hyperscale data center can drink up to 5 million gallons of water per day — roughly what 12,000 people use. Now Ohio wants to make it easier for those facilities to give that water back, and not in great shape. Ohio’s draft replaces individualized environmental reviews with a single statewide blanket permit covering an entire industry.
Under the old system, each data center needed its own discharge permit — an individualized review examining the specific river, stream depth, and watershed receiving the waste. Draft permit OHD000001 replaces that with a statewide general NPDES permit (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System — the federal framework that keeps industrial waste out of public drinking water).
One application, five years of coverage, with significantly reduced site-specific analysis. The draft’s own language anticipates a “decline in water quality” in some waters to accommodate data-center growth. Circle of Blue reporting calls this approach “without precedent” in the Great Lakes region.
Trump EPA Moves to Approve Alabama Coal Ash Program Rejected by Biden Administration
The Trump administration is moving to approve a controversial program in Alabama that could allow millions of tons of toxic coal ash to remain buried in place alongside the state’s rivers, even though much of that material is sitting in groundwater where it can leach into the environment.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced a proposal to approve Alabama’s coal ash permitting program, letting the state oversee the closure of coal ash ponds at its major power plants. It is the same proposal rejected by the Biden administration in 2024 for failing to meet federal standards.
Alabama Power, which operates six major coal ash ponds throughout the state, said it is reviewing the EPA’s proposed approval of Alabama’s permit program. “We remain committed to complying with all state and federal environmental rules and regulations,” the company said in a statement.
He Wanted to Track Microplastics in the Sea. The E.P.A. Fired Him.
Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency was preparing to greenlight the first ever fish farm in federal waters, one that would supply a fish popular in Cajun and Creole restaurants. But the agency had a novel requirement. It wanted to require the company, Ocean Era, to monitor the farm for microplastics, the tiny particles that have become a rising environmental and health concern.
However, some top E.P.A. officials balked. They said that mandating any company to track microplastics could set a cumbersome precedent for other industries, according to interviews and documents examined by The New York Times. So the agency ordered the requirement struck from the permit, and when an E.P.A. official filed a memo laying out his objections to that, the agency fired him.
The Trump administration, as part of its “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, has vowed to tackle microplastics pollution, which can get into the bloodstream and affect the immune system, disrupt hormone regulation and cause chronic inflammation. But the firing of an E.P.A. official over the fish farm permit highlights a collision between the administration’s health pledges and its efforts to lessen regulatory burdens on industries.
