EPA | Grist

AEI compares EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to Clint Eastwood 0
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago Let me get this straight, the right-wing is now saying it’s bad to be like Clint, the quintessential tough guy hero lionized by conservatives because he’ll do whatever is needed to save human life?
Rule will require use of best technologies to reduce greenhouse gases from large facilities when “constructed or significantly modified” — small businesses and farms exempt

New EPA Rule Requirements 0
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago
Loo and Behold

As Philadelphia goes, so goes the nation 1
Posted 2 months ago The City of Brotherly Love has sent the EPA a $1.6 billion proposal for using green roofs, rain barrels, and other eco-tools to prevent the sewage overflow that results from big storms. Will the feds let Philly go with the flow?
forced analogy alert

Why the EPA ‘dissenter’ story needs to die 1
Posted 2 months ago There's a tempting storyline in suggesting the Obama administration manipulates science to suit its own ideology, just as the prior administration did. But in the EPA suppression story, there's no evidence to suggest this is happening.
EPA - Now is the time

Coal’s Ash is On the Line 0
Posted 2 months ago
Head to Toe

Highs and lows from the world of green fashion 2
Posted 2 months ago Runway models get a new organic 'do, and the EPA gives North Face a tongue-lashing over antimicrobial shoes.
Preserve states’ right to fight climate change 1
Posted 2 months ago In his Sept. 22 U.N. speech President Obama got it right: the battle to arrest calamitous climate change can be won only if each of us enlists, perseveres, and fights "for every inch of progress."
If you can’t say something helpful, don’t say anything at all 2
Posted 2 months ago The Washington Post has been editorializing in favor of congressional action to address climate change for more than a decade, but an editorial Monday makes us wonder if they mean it.
Lisa Murkowski’s bid to become a climate outlaw 0
Posted 2 months ago Why is Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) behaving like an outlaw?
Everything old is nuisance again

Connecticut v. AEP: Public nuisance ruling may boost chances of EPA CO2 regulations 1
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago The Second Circuit's recent decision in Connecticut v. AEP, in which a coalition of state attorneys general sued electric power producers to cap and then reduce their carbon emissions, allows the public nuisance case to proceed and gave the environmental plaintiffs virtually everything they wanted. A few aspects of the case stand out (aside from the obviously correct decision that a common-law tort suit is not a nonjusticiable political question). Most importantly, the Court's holding on "displacement," i.e. whether the Clean Air Act "displaces" the common law suit, actually makes EPA regulations somewhat more likely.
Plastics, the Silent Obesogens

Can plastics make us fat? 8
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago Despite rampant skepticism, the data continue to pour in -- chemicals in some of the most common plastics and household products, things that surround us every minute of the day, are major culprits in the obesity epidemic.
CBS’s Declan McCullagh promotes another false CEI attack on clean energy reform 1
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
According to Declan McCullagh, a libertarian blogger who works for CBS Interactive, secret Obama administration documents reveal that the cost of clean energy cap-and-trade legislation would be $1,761 per household -- despite official estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Energy Information Administration of about a postage stamp a day.
EPA revamping rules for toxic releases from coal plants 0
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Tuesday that it plans to revise the existing standards for wastewater discharges from coal-fired power plants. The news came one day after three environmental groups announced they intend to sue the agency for failing to properly regulate such discharges.
With bunnies!

Everything you always wanted to know about EPA greenhouse gas regulations, but were afraid to ask 10
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago

Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the EPA has the authority and the obligation to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. At a stroke, the politics of climate change were changed. The choice was no longer between legislation or no legislation -- it was between legislation or regulation. One way or another, climate pollution would be controlled by a federal program.

Most experts agree that EPA regulations will be complex and somewhat unwieldy. Industry believes they will be onerous and expensive. Conventional wisdom, at least initially, was that fear of regulation would drive utilities and manufacturers to the bargaining table, changing the dynamic in Congress. EPA was supposed to play the role of the big, silent goon in the corner, tapping his baseball bat in his hand.

That theory isn't holding up too well.
Wonkeriffic!

An interview with Jason Burnett, who worked on EPA greenhouse gas regulations 0
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago

The following is an interview with Jason Burnett, who worked in the EPA under President GW Bush, wherein we discuss efforts by the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. Burnett quit the EPA in protest in June 2008, alleging interference from the Office of the Vice President.

The interview is meant as a supplement to the story, "Everything you always wanted to know about EPA greenhouse gas regulations, but were afraid to ask."
EPA turns the lights on mountaintop removal 1
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
The Environmental Protection Agency made good on its promise today to assert greater scrutiny and "use the best science and follow the letter of the law" with regard to controversial mountaintop removal mining permits in the Appalachian coalfields.
Citizens welcome return to sound science, sanity

EPA to hold 79 mountaintop removal permits for further review 0
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
In a move that pleased environmentalists and coalfield residents in central and southern Appalachia, the EPA recommended that none of the 79 permits associated with mountaintop removal coal mining be streamlined for approval.
Stop In the Name of Law

EPA says pending mountaintop-removal permits would likely violate Clean Water Act 9
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
Very big news out of the Environmental Protection Agency this morning: The agency has determined that all 79 mountaintop-removal mining permits submitted to it for review by the Army Corps of Engineers would violate the Clean Water Act.
Climate Change Schizophrenia

Cash for coal clunkers and anthems for natural gas won’t win this epic battle 12
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Those of us worried sick over climate change confronted a depressing piece of excellent reporting in Monday's Washington Post.
Herbicide maker asks that lobbying be excluded from class action lawsuit 0
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Lawyers representing the maker of the herbicide atrazine are asking that documents related to the company's lobbying and trade association activities be excluded from a class action lawsuit being filed by some Illinois water utilities.