The GOP-led House on Tuesday voted in favor of a resolution to strike down the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions restrictions for heavy-duty trucks.
The joint-chamber resolution, which passed the House by a 221-203 vote, was introduced by Republican lawmakers in February via the Congressional Review Act (CRA) – a law that allows Congress to reverse rules made by a federal agency.
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As the battle over the controversial federal Waters of the United States environmental rule heats up, new polling shows that Americans are growing less concerned about the environment.
Newly released Gallup polling found a dip in environmental concerns, even though the Biden administration continues to push increasingly far-reaching policies.
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The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced what is being considered its strongest-ever proposed pollution standards for gas-powered vehicles – which if enacted would effectively mandate that 67 percent of new passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2032 must be zero-emission ones.
The rule has been expected for weeks and is a dramatic, proposed increase from President Biden’s stated goal of 50 percent zero-emission passenger car sales – including battery-powered electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles – by 2030. It would also likely and dramatically increase EV sales, which accounted for just 5.6 percent of new car sales in the U.S. last year, according to Road & Track.com.
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Before they scooted out of lawless and increasingly dangerous Washington, DC, for the Easter recess, the House of Representatives passed the most important energy legislation (emphasis on “energy”) Congress has considered in almost a decade.
The Lower Energy Costs Act is a buffet of various energy and permitting provisions ranging from an affirmation of the wisdom of exporting crude oil (which strengthens the United States’ own domestic oil and natural gas production) to a remedy for a nettlesome provision in the Clean Water Act that has given States a de facto veto over energy projects.
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Two recent proposals that the federal government are considering in the name of consumer safety have Uncle Sam coming after products millions of Americans use every day. While a potential gas stove ban has received several headlines in recent days, millions of Americans may not know that the government has also had a role in beginning the phasing out of a chemical that is a component in so many products that it will likely impact every American in the country.
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new rules on Friday that would restrict the use of refrigerators, air conditioning equipment and heat pumps that utilize hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).
The EPA’s proposed rule would crack down on the manufacturing and importing of goods containing HFCs, which would restrict the use of HFCs in refrigeration units, air conditioning systems and heat pump equipment starting in 2025, according to an agency press release. In accordance with the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, a global climate treaty that the Senate ratified in September, the agency intends to reduce the production and consumption of HFCs by 85% by 2036.
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Republican Ranking House Judiciary Committee Member Jim Jordan told Biden administration authorities Tuesday to show how their agencies are obeying the Supreme Court’s June West Virginia v. EPA decision limiting the EPA’s power to unilaterally regulate emissions.
The court ruled in West Virginia v. EPA that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could not set carbon dioxide emissions caps for power plants to force a national transition away from coal power without explicit congressional authorization. Jordan sent letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property Kathi Vidal, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan asking whether their agencies are complying with the decision.
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The Democrats’ massive climate spending package, which President Joe Biden signed into law on Tuesday, will give over $40 billion to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), just as the bill allocates almost $80 billion to expand the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The bill, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, includes $369 billion in total climate spending, and will give the EPA more than $40 billion in the current fiscal year to combat climate change, enforce environmental standards and secure “environmental justice,” according to a Congressional Research Service report. The EPA’s enacted budget for 2022’s fiscal year was about $9.5 billion, according to the agency figures, meaning the bill will more than quadruple the EPA’s current annual spending.
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President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is placing new emissions regulations on coal plants to shut down the nation’s remaining coal-fired power stations, according to a Reuters interview with EPA Administrator Michael Regan published on Friday.
The EPA will implement regulations on coal ash and ozone to further target coal plants’ carbon emissions and environmental pollution, according to Reuters. Regan’s strategy is part of the Biden administration’s ambitious climate plan to decarbonize the power sector in the face of the Supreme Court’s recent decision to limit the regulatory powers of the EPA.
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The Biden administration is expanding restrictions on carbon emissions that could impact half the liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity in the U.S.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expanding a rule under the U.S. Clean Air Act called the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Pollutants (NESHAP), which places restrictions on the emission of formaldehyde and benzene from stationary combustion turbines. Starting in August, the rule will now apply to two types of gas-fired turbines that were previously left out of the regulation, the EPA announced in February.
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The left-wing assault on American energy was just dealt a swift defeat by the United States Supreme Court. And President Donald Trump’s confirmations to the bench paved the way for it to happen.
Never in my life would I think that gas prices would rise so steeply in such a short period of time that stations would run out of space on the pump screen to display the price. But the Biden Administration’s assault on American energy is simply unprecedented. They will try to pass the blame, but the American people know what’s happening. Green New Deal advocates are pushing for a great energy reset in America, and they don’t care how much it hurts you.
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Democrats and far-left climate activists have privately complained in recent weeks that the White House climate office is increasingly blocking key priorities, Politico reported.
The White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy has prioritized politics ahead of actual progress on its own climate agenda, nine anonymous Democrats both inside and outside the White House told Politico. Some activists have even suggested that the office, headed by President Joe Biden’s climate czar Gina McCarthy, should be abolished altogether.
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The Biden administration proposed stringent clean water restrictions on a watershed in southwest Alaska Wednesday, a potential fatal blow to a planned critical mineral development project.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it would review a proposal to prohibit the use of the Bristol Bay watershed as a discharge site for the Pebble Project, a mining project that would produce about 1.5 billion tons of critical minerals, including copper and molybdenum, over 20 years. The rule, which the agency will publish Thursday, would protect Bristol Bay rivers, streams and wetlands that support the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world, according to the announcement.
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The federal government has assembled a 21-agency working group to study and assess the environmental impacts of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The “Interagency Working Group on Environmental Damage in Ukraine” — which was assembled by the Department of State and includes officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Department of Defense — has met weekly for about a month, Axios first reported Friday.
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On Thursday, two of Joe Biden’s Cabinet members announced plans to create a new division within the Department of Justice that will focus on fighting for “environmental justice.”
As reported by Fox News, the joint announcement was made by Attorney General Merrick Garland and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan. The new Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) will serve as a “central hub” for a “comprehensive environmental justice enforcement strategy,” and will soon lay out a “series of actions” that will be taken in order to ostensibly “secure environmental justice for all Americans.”
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The Biden administration is reportedly considering clamping down on a widely-used herbicide that farmers and industry groups have argued is key for maintaining low prices.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering tighter restrictions on the use of atrazine, a key herbicide often applied to corn, soybeans and sorghum, according to a March letter from the Triazine Network obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Triazine Network is a coalition of more than 20 industry groups including members of the National Corn Growers Association, the National Grain Sorghum Producers Association and the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association.
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The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General found that a laboratory contractor with the Office of Research and Development inappropriately manipulated air filter data and failed to follow the appropriate guidance for data of 95 air filter samples, rendering them unusable.
The EPA said the data “drives regulatory decisions, and therefore, it is crucial to accurately assess the quality of data being collected.”
According to the Feb. 16 OIG report, in November 2018, the contractor “misidentified” a subset of filters that they had weighed “during either the loading process in the automated weighing system or by the manner of recording the weight of the filters after they were weighed.”
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The top House Republican on a key oversight subcommittee has pushed a series of conflict-of-interest probes into the Biden administration over its ties to the renewable energy industry.
Republican South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, the ranking member on the Oversight Subcommittee on Environment, has probed leadership in the White House, Department of Energy (DOE) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), demanding accountability for potential conflicts of interests since President Joe Biden took office more than a year ago. While committee Democrats haven’t cooperated with the investigations, Norman and Oversight Ranking Member James Comer have forged ahead.
“The people in the administrations have no regard for the office that they hold,” Norman told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.
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After the Environmental Protection Agency dumped advisers from regulated industries, the federal agency appears to have prioritized gender and ethnic diversity to replace them, EPA documents show.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia heard arguments Wednesday in the case of Young vs. EPA. The lead plaintiff in the case, Stanley Young, was ousted in March from the EPA’s Science Advisory Board weeks after President Joe Biden took office.
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The Biden administration rolled out a series of new emissions regulations for passenger vehicles and light trucks that it said would “unlock” $190 billion in benefits for American consumers.
The regulations will be enforced beginning with 2023 car models and will be revised with more stringent standards in 2027, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced. The EPA said the new emissions standards would ultimately quicken the transition from traditional engine vehicles to zero-emission cars.
“This day is truly historic,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said during an event on Monday.
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The Biden administration rolled out broad new regulations that it said will substantially reduce U.S. methane emissions within 15 years.
The sweeping regulations would cut methane emissions, which account for roughly 10% of the greenhouse gasses emitted by the U.S., by 41 million tons between 2023 and 2035, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Tuesday. Such a reduction is equivalent to 920 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, or the amount emitted by all cars and commercial aircraft in 2019.
“As global leaders convene at this pivotal moment in Glasgow for COP26, it is now abundantly clear that America is back and leading by example in confronting the climate crisis with bold ambition,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.
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Michael Regan began his tenure as President Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator by dismissing dozens of outside scientific advisers appointed during the previous administration — part of an effort to “ensure the agency receives the best possible scientific insight to support our work.”
At the time, Regan (pictured) called it a “reset.” Opponents grumbled that it looked more like “a purge.” Now, one of those advisers, Stanley Young, has filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the agency of violating U.S. law; the suit also seeks an injunction to halt the work of his former committee.
The legal dustup is the latest rearguard action from the right on environmental issues. Conservatives see the case as their best chance to thwart the Biden administration’s multi-agency approach to combating climate change, seen as hostile to the fossil fuel industry.
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A high-ranking Environmental Protection Agency political appointee received approval to maintain his professional relationship with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology while serving in the Biden administration, according to documents obtained by a watchdog group.
EPA Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science Policy Dr. Christopher Frey disclosed in his May 11 ethics recusal statement that he had taken a two-year unpaid leave of absence from Hong Kong University following advice by the agency’s Office of General Counsel, records obtained by the watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) show. The ex officio chancellor of the university, Carrie Lam, is also Beijing’s hand-picked bureaucrat to serve as the chief executive of Hong Kong.
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The family jet of climate czar John Kerry has emitted 30 times more carbon so far in 2021 than the average vehicle in a year, Fox News reported.
The private jet emitted 138 metric tons of carbon between Jan. 10 and Aug. 6. It took off 20 times, according to flight data Fox News obtained, updating a previous count of 16 flights.
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Attorney General Mark Brnovich is leading a coalition of attorneys general in filing a petition challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s “Delay Rule,” which postponed the Trump Administration’s Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR).
“While the Biden Administration talks a lot about preserving clean air and water for future generations, they have failed to ensure clean drinking water for our children now,” Brnovich said in a news release on Friday.
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President Trump recently finalized an overhaul of one of the most important environmental laws in America. Credited by some as the “Magna Carta” of environmental legislation, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is one of America’s main legislative weapons in fighting climate change. It mandates an extensive review process, including the drafting of a lengthy Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and subsequent legal challenges, before the commencement of infrastructure projects. But Trump’s revision of the law through regulatory reinterpretation dramatically weakens the bill’s potency, greatly simplifying the procedure for getting federal approval on many infrastructure projects.
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The Environmental Protection Agency will propose easing rules on disposal of coal ash, the residue from burning coal, to make it less likely the federal government would shutter a coal-fired utility plant, in an announcement set for Monday.
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by Robert Romano The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President Donald Trump has finally rescinded the Obama era Clean Power Plan that sought to end coal as a form of electricity and puts states in the driver’s seat in terms of regulating carbon emissions rates. But because Congress has left the 2009…
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by Mike Howell The Senate will soon get a chance to put its stamp of approval on the great work of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald Trump. Andrew Wheeler, the current acting administrator, will soon be up for a vote to be confirmed as the EPA’s 15th administrator.…
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by Robert Romano In 1963, Karl Popper proposed that the central criterion of the scientific method should be its testability, or the ability to falsify a theory. Absent that, he wrote that such a theory could not be considered scientific. Popper wrote, “A theory which is not refutable by…
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by Tim Pearce Federal investigators are probing into a 2017 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report that claimed refurbished trucks emitted significantly more pollution than new models. The EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) announced Tuesday that it would look into allegations that EPA officials improperly colluded with truck manufacturer Volvo to…
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by Michael Bastasch The battle over the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) plan to repeal an Obama-era regulation has been reignited. The Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund and Center for Biological Diversity sued EPA on Tuesday to prevent the agency from repealing regulations on refurbished truck engines, called glider kits. Their suit…
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by Michael Bastach Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt cited “unrelenting attacks” against himself and his family in his resignation letter that was delivered to President Donald Trump on Thursday. Pruitt thanked Trump for allowing him to serve at EPA, but says “the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my…
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By Natalia Castro The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been plagued with inefficiency for years. The Partnership for Public Service has ranked the EPA 22 out of 23 ineffective leadership for a mid-sized agency for the last two years in a row. The Resource for the Future, an environmental, energy, and natural resource…
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