epa
Latest
19 states vow to sue over proposed fuel efficiency rollbacks
Yesterday, the Trump administration unveiled its plan to roll back fuel efficiency standards and soon thereafter, multiple states vowed to fight the move in court. Nineteen states and Washington, DC announced they would sue to prevent the changes from being put into place, Reuters reports. "The Trump administration has launched a brazen attack, no matter how it is cloaked, on our nation's clean car standards," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said following the publication of the proposed plan. "CA DOJ will use every legal tool at its disposal to defend today's national standards and reaffirm the facts and science behind them."
Even automakers don’t want Trump’s emissions rollback
The Trump administration unveiled its proposal to weaken Obama-era fuel efficiency standards, and it's as bad as you would expect.
Trump administration reveals plans to roll back vehicle fuel standards
Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it wanted to roll back vehicle efficiency standards put into place by the Obama administration, and today the Trump administration revealed its plan to do so. While the previous policies stated that automakers have until 2025 to get their average fuel efficiencies for passenger vehicles to over 50 miles per gallon, the Trump administration rules would freeze standards after 2021 and average fuel efficiency requirements would then remain around 37 miles per gallon. Further, the plan aims to revoke a waiver that allows California to set its own vehicle efficiency standards.
Trump proposal would end California's tougher car emission standards
It's no secret that the Trump administration is bristling at the Clean Air Act waiver that lets California apply stricter car emissions standards -- the state effectively determines the standards for the rest of the country, negating any federal attempts at rolling back anti-pollution efforts. And the administration has apparently had enough. Bloomberg sources have learned of an imminent proposed standards revision that would strip California of its extra authority. The EPA would suggest revoking California's waiver, while the NHTSA would maintain that California isn't allowed to regulate emissions under the law that established federal-level fuel efficiency requirements.
California has already hit its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions goal
The EPA may be in shambles after Scott Pruitt's short but brutal tenure, but California actually has some good news on the global warming front. The state is well ahead of its schedule for cutting greenhouse gases. According to data released by the California Air Resources Board this week, greenhouse gas emissions dropped to 429.4 million metric tons in 2016, below the target of 431 metric tons for 2020. The total in 2015 was 441.4 million metric tons.
Scott Pruitt resigns as head of the EPA
After months of scandal and more than a dozen separate investigations into his lavish spending habits while in office, Scott Pruitt has tendered his resignation as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. President Donald Trump broke the news on Thursday via Twitter.
11 states sue EPA over attempt to reverse ban on ozone-harming HFCs
The Scott Pruitt-era EPA is facing yet more legal action over its attempts at reversing US environmental regulations. A group of 11 states (including New York and California) and the District of Columbia have sued the EPA for violating the Clean Air Act by "effectively" lifting a ban on climate-changing hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The states contend that the agency's April "guidance" document illegally removed the entire HFC ban rather than going through the necessary public rulemaking process.
Trump's gutted EPA might lead to 80,000 more deaths per decade
Since the moment Trump entered office in January 2017, government-mandated environmental protections have been on the chopping block. Now we have an estimate for how many more people might die when some are repealed. According to two Harvard scientists, changes proposed or in process to EPA policies will lead to over 80,000 additional deaths over the next decade -- and respiratory problems for over a million people.
EPA scientific advisory board to review agency's recent rollbacks
This week, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) met to discuss some of the changes the agency has proposed under Administrator Scott Pruitt. And ultimately, the 44-person board voted to review a number of the EPA's proposals and write a letter to Pruitt. "The leadership of the board was chosen by Pruitt himself, so their decision today is a sharp rebuke of his leadership and this dangerous proposal," Ana Unruh Cohen, managing director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Bloomberg.
Regulation has helped, not hindered California’s green economy
Earlier this year, California raked in $2.7 trillion gross state product, overtaking the UK as the world's fifth largest economy -- only Germany, Japan, China and the US itself produce more annually. It isn't just our lush farming regions or the technological wonders coming out of Silicon Valley that have made California an economic bellwether, the state's strict adherence to environmental regulations, which go far and above what the rest of the nation demands, have certainly helped as well.
EPA faces lawsuit from 17 states over reversing car emissions rules
The EPA under Scott Pruitt may have dreams of undoing Obama-era car efficiency targets, but it's not going to go unopposed. A group of 17 states, including California and New York, is suing the EPA in DC over its bid to drop clean car emissions standards for model years between 2022 and 2025. The lawsuit accuses the EPA of violating the Clean Air Act, failing to follow its own rules and acting "arbitrarily and capriciously" without evidence to support its decision.
Google wants the Clean Power Plan to stick around too
If we don't want the seas to boil and the skies to burn, we need to stop polluting the world with climate altering gases. Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to gut the Clean Power Plan, legislation aimed at curbing America's carbon emissions by almost a third by 2030. And it's something that, like Apple, Google has decided to fight, making a public statement in support of the Clean Power Plan just before the deadline closed.
Apple voices support for Clean Power Plan ahead of pending repeal
In October, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced he would sign a proposed rule that would withdraw the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan (CPP). The environmental regulations have had a contentious history since initially being proposed in 2014 and now they face the strongest threat to their implementation yet. In October, Pruitt said during a speech, "Here's the president's message: The war on coal is over." As is typical with these sorts of proposed rule changes, the plan to repeal the CPP was subject to public comment, deadlines for which have been extended multiple times. Now, ahead of the April 26th deadline, Apple has filed its comment, opposing the repeal of the CPP.
EPA wants to roll back Obama-era auto efficiency guidelines
Under the Obama administration, the EPA instituted a set of goals for automakers aimed at improving vehicle efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The terms state that companies have until 2025 to get their fuel efficiencies up to a fleet average of 51.4 miles per gallon. But automakers have been asking Donald Trump to change those regulations ever since he took office and now it looks like the EPA will attempt to relax those standards.
Trump’s science and tech report focuses on deregulation
Today, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a report on what it considers to be the Trump administration's achievements in advancing science and tech over the past year. "The Trump administration is committed to advancing technological development and conducting research and development to ensure national security, grow the economy, create well-paying jobs and improve the lives of Americans across this great nation," says the report. "Over the past year, OSTP has led coordinated administration efforts to promote emerging technologies, empower Americans to innovate and defend American technologies abroad."
EPA approves 'good guy' mosquitoes to battle Zika
Soon, a startup called MosquitoMate will be releasing a plethora of mosquitoes across the US -- not to start a bug-pocalypse, but to prevent it. The US Environmental Protection Agency has just approved the use of the startup's mosquitoes as biopesticide against their Zika-, dengue- and other disease-carrying counterparts in 20 states and Washington DC. You see, MosquitoMate's insects carry a common bacterium called Wolbachia pipientis that infects a wide range of invertebrates. By releasing them into the wild, they can spread bacteria to the wild population of Aedes albopictus or Asian tiger mosquitoes.
Federal report says humans are the cause of climate change
Today, over a dozen federal agencies released the Climate Science Special Report, which is a product of the National Climate Assessment -- a congressionally mandated review that takes place every four years. In it, hundreds of scientists from dozens of government agencies and academic institutions present evidence that supports the existence of a human-caused warming planet and all of the consequences that come with it. "This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century," the report stated. "For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence."
EPA cancels scientists' climate change talk at the last minute
If there were any lingering doubts that the Environmental Protection Agency under Scott Pruitt would suppress any mention of climate change by its scientists, they've just been erased. The agency has cancelled an October 23rd climate change talk in Rhode Island mere hours before it was slated to take place. A spokesman didn't offer an explanation, but the three EPA scientists were expected to speak primarily about climate change and its effect on Narragansett Bay. The decision came from the EPA's Office of Public Affairs.
Car makers ask US officials to loosen fuel economy requirements
It's no secret that automakers believe the US' recently-instituted fuel efficiency requirements are too stringent, but now they've made those views official. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which includes companies like GM, Toyota and VW, has made official comments to both the EPA and NHTSA asking the regulators to loosen Obama-era rules intended to raise a fleet's average fuel economy to 51.4MPG by 2025. They don't object to the targets as such -- rather, they don't like the projected costs of reaching those targets.
EPA will no longer sponsor the annual climate leadership awards
It's no secret that Scott Pruitt is a climate change skeptic, and the Environmental Protection Agency has been undoing Obama-era policies ever since he took office. The agency's latest move follows that trend: the EPA has announced that it's no longer sponsoring the 2018 Climate Leadership Awards program, which recognizes companies that take steps to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and publicly report their progress. As a result, the awards program itself and the Climate Leadership Conference that usually goes with it have both been canceled for next year.