Environmental Protection Agency

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EPA Forecasts Longer, Smoggier Summers for US

Agency warns of effects from global warming

(Newser) - Climate change will bring longer, hotter, smoggier summers in the coming decades across the US, a new EPA reports says. Expect more wildfires and hurricanes, too, along with water problems in the West, the Washington Post reports. The federal report is noteworthy because it refutes the Bush administration's rosier outlook...

Bush, EPA Won't Touch Emissions
 Bush, EPA 
 Won't Touch 
 Emissions 
UPDATED
Jul 11, 2008 2:24 PM CDT

Bush, EPA Won't Touch Emissions

Decision flouts Supreme Court, top government officials

(Newser) - Regulation of greenhouse gas emissions will have to wait until President Bush is out of office, the EPA announced today. Instead, the agency will say it needs months of further public comment to make any decision. The statement is the end result of a protracted White House effort to tone...

EPA Cuts the Value of a Life by $1M
EPA Cuts
the Value of a Life by $1M
Jul 11, 2008 4:13 AM CDT

EPA Cuts the Value of a Life by $1M

Statistical trim makes life-saving regulation harder to justify

(Newser) - The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly reduced the hypothetical value of a human life by almost a million dollars to $6.9 million, reports the AP. The figure is used in cost benefit analyses to weigh the life-saving potential of environmental protection policies. Placing a lower value on human life...

Cheney's Staff Cut Testimony on Climate: EPA Official

VP feared regulations on greenhouse gas

(Newser) - Aides to Vice President Dick Cheney censored congressional testimony on climate change by a top government official, a former official at the Environmental Protection Agency charges. Jason Burnett claims Cheney’s office, fearing testimony would lead to greater regulation of greenhouse gases, excised six pages of text regarding the health...

Polluting Pentagon Rebuffs EPA Orders

Pentagon challenges agency's right to order toxic chemical clean up

(Newser) - The Pentagon is holding out on an Environmental Protection Agency order to clean up pollutants from three military bases where chemicals have become an "imminent and substantial" threat to the public health and environment, the Washington Post reports. The Defense Department also won’t sign contracts to clean up...

White House Ignored EPA Pollutants Email

Bush & Co. refused to open report mandated by Supreme Court

(Newser) - The White House didn’t like the findings in a Supreme Court-mandated report on pollutants from the EPA—so it simply refused to open the email, the New York Times reports. Instead, the administration has successfully pressured the agency into releasing a watered-down, recommendation-free report. Among the omitted sections: analysis...

New Shower Curtains Smell Like Cancer

PVC products linked to wide-ranging and long-lasting ills

(Newser) - Ever wonder about that smell given off by new shower curtains? Well, according to a new study, it’s poisonous. An independent organization has found that PVC shower curtains on shelves at Wal-Mart, Target, Sears and others may give off measurable amounts of dangerous, volatile organic compounds that could linger...

Clean-Air Changes 'Imperil Parks'

Rules make allow power plants nearby

(Newser) - Clean air rules likely to be changed this summer are causing serious concerns about future pollution at some of America's most spectacular national parks, reports the Washington Post. The changes will pave the way for 28 new coal-fired power plants near ten parks, according to a report supported by some...

EPA Plans Tough New Lead Limits
EPA Plans
Tough New
Lead Limits
May 2, 2008 2:37 AM CDT

EPA Plans Tough New Lead Limits

Safety standards unchanged for 30 years

(Newser) - The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing stringent new regulations on lead  levels in the air, which have remained unchanged for 30 years. Some 23 counties in the US would be out of compliance once the new standards are established. Lead has been linked to developmental and learning problems in children.

EPA Scientists Rip Political 'Interference'

Survey finds agency 'under siege' from meddling officials

(Newser) - Hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency scientists say they have come under political pressure to fudge their findings, the Los Angeles Times reports. More than half the scientists who responded to a survey said they had experienced interference over the last five years. The report from a nonprofit scientists' group describes...

National Park, Meet Coal Smog
 National Park, Meet Coal Smog 
Apr 23, 2008 4:03 PM CDT

National Park, Meet Coal Smog

Over own experts' objections, EPA moves to allow power plants closer to rec areas

(Newser) - The Environmental Protection Agency is set to change its rules to allow the construction of coal power plants in previously off-limits areas near national parks, the Christian Science Monitor reports. A draft revision to the Clean Air Act would soften standards of pollution in “Class 1” areas (ie, national...

Cars Must Get 35.7mpg by 2015
Cars Must
Get 35.7mpg
by 2015
Apr 22, 2008 9:03 PM CDT

Cars Must Get 35.7mpg by 2015

Feds toughen fuel standards by 25%

(Newser) - Cars will have to get 35.7 miles per gallon by 2015, and trucks will have to get 28.6 under new standards issued by the federal government today. That means a combined average of 31.6mpg, an increase of 25% from current standards, CNN reports. The feds require automakers...

Bush Climate Plan 'Too Bad'
 Bush Climate Plan 'Too Bad' 
Analysis
Apr 17, 2008 5:05 AM CDT

Bush Climate Plan 'Too Bad'

Only carbon caps will turn industry green

(Newser) - President Bush's new climate change policy announced yesterday is "too little, too slow, too late," writes Bryan Walsh of Time. Bush outlined a plan to gradually rein in the growth of US greenhouse gas emissions by 2025—but rejected mandatory international carbon emissions caps unless they also bind...

Bush to Unveil Greenhouse Gas Goals

Ready with targets, no specifics, ahead of Paris talks

(Newser) - President Bush is expected to propose intermediate goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions today on the eve of climate change negotiations in Paris. The goals won't include proposed legislation or specifics on changes needed to reach the targets, reports the Washington Post. He will also reiterate his opposition to mandatory...

Activists Fight Coal, Plant by Plant

Environmental coalition claims to have killed 65 new facilities

(Newser) - Environmentalists are taking aim at new, high-pollution coal-fired power plants, the Los Angeles Times reports. Whenever a new plant is proposed, lawyers from a coalition of organizations work on killing it any way that they can. "We hope to clog up the system," one said. "It's putting...

Feds Lift Ban on IBM Contracts

IBM withdraws protest of lost EPA contract

(Newser) - The government Thursday lifted a week-old ban that prevented IBM from competing for new federal contracts. In exchange, IBM agreed to withdraw its protest of an $84 million contract with the EPA it lost last year, and to refund any attorney fees and costs the Government Accountability Office paid to...

States Sue EPA for 'Foot Dragging' on Warming

Coalition aims to force agency to take action on global warming

(Newser) - States, cities and environmental groups have teamed up to take on the federal government over global warming, the New York Times reports. The 18-state coalition is aiming to force the EPA to take action in the wake of last year's Supreme Court ruling that the agency should limit vehicle emissions...

IBM Banned from Gov't Contracts
IBM Banned from Gov't Contracts
Apr 1, 2008 8:36 AM CDT

IBM Banned from Gov't Contracts

Big Blue probed over alleged insider info that led to fat EPA deals

(Newser) - A US Attorney in Virginia has temporarily barred IBM from pursuing new government contracts while it investigates three 2006 IBM contracts with the EPA, MarketWatch reports. "The basic issue is whether certain information concerning a contract should have been provided to IBM employees by an EPA employee," said...

EPA's New Rules Allow Wetlands Trade-Offs

Developers can destroy if they create others elsewhere; environmentalists dismayed

(Newser) - The Environmental Protection Agency today issued new wetlands-protection rules with a focus on “mitigation banking”— creating marshes elsewhere in compensation for those destroyed by development, the AP reports. The EPA argues that mitigation banking ensures the most overall wetlands protection because wetlands are often irrevocably damaged by construction,...

Bush Stepped In to Weaken Ozone Rules
Bush Stepped
In to Weaken Ozone Rules
Mar 14, 2008 11:22 AM CDT

Bush Stepped In to Weaken Ozone Rules

President overruled EPA scientists on pollution guidelines

(Newser) - President Bush personally intervened this week to loosen the EPA's new guidelines on pollution-causing ozone, the Washington Post reports. By law, separate ozone standards are mandated for protecting the "public health" and the "public welfare," which includes wildlife, parks, and farmland. According to EPA documents, Bush overruled...

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