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One day after officials touted the passage of the Connecticut Clean Air Act, including plans for thousands of electric vehicles to hit the road, one of the state-run electric buses caught on fire over the weekend. The blaze engulfed a CTtransit bus in a Hamden parking lot Saturday morning, sending two workers and a firefighter to the hospital, officials said. “Lithium ion battery fires are difficult to extinguish due to the thermal chemical process that produces great heat and continually reignites,” Hamden fire officials said. Two transit workers were hospitalized as a precaution after being exposed to the smoke. A...

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham would get real traction combating climate change, as well as ground-level ozone – which can aggravate conditions like asthma, bronchitis and emphysema – by ensuring the Clean Car Promise she signed with 23 other governors brings more states into the fold and provides a unified standard for vehicle emissions. Instead, she is mandating vehicles sold in New Mexico average 52 miles per gallon by model year 2022 – three years away. ... it doesn’t make sense to set fuel standards piecemeal, as the air we all breathe doesn’t acknowledge state boundaries. And it is...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Tuesday that New Mexico will adopt stricter vehicle emissions standards by the end of next year that would go into effect in 2022. “To combat climate change, to keep New Mexico's citizens safe, to protect the air we all breathe, it's essential we adopt more stringent clean car standards that increase fuel economy and reduce emissions,” ... In July, Lujan Grisham signed on to the Clean Car Promise with 23 other governors in the bipartisan U.S. Climate Alliance. The statement criticized the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to reverse nationwide vehicle emissions standards...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Dismantling the Clean Power Plan could get messy. The plan meant to curtail carbon dioxide emissions and battle global warming, one of the Obama administration’s signature achievements, already has been the subject of legal battles in federal court. Now a group of state attorneys general, including West Virginia’s Patrick Morrisey, is promoting a multi-step process to eliminate the plan, starting with the suggestion that President-elect Donald Trump declare it unlawful on the first day he takes office. Another group of attorneys general has issued a statement in response, saying they’ll fight the plan’s elimination tooth and nail....

The IBEW has filed suit to prevent the implementation of new federal regulations on power plants. The IBEW petition joins the 27 states, several utilities and two other labor unions that are already challenging the regulation. "The EPA is creating energy policy and they have neither the expertise nor the legal authority to do it," said International President Lonnie R. Stephenson. "We worked with the EPA for years to address greenhouse gas emissions with a plan that is both effective and legal. Unfortunately, we don't believe this regulation is either." "Human-caused climate change is real, and a real threat, but...

The Supreme Court overturned the Obama administration’s landmark air quality rule on Monday, ruling the Environmental Protection Agency did not properly consider the costs of the regulation. In a 5-4 ruling, the justices ruled that the EPA should have taken into account the costs to utilities and others in the power sector before even deciding whether to set limits for the toxic air pollutants it regulated in 2011. The case, Michigan v. EPA, centers on the EPA’s first limits on mercury, arsenic and acid gases emitted by coal-fired power plants, known as mercury and air toxics (MATS). Opponents, including the...

Over the past 12 years, John C. Beale was often away from his job as a high-level staffer at the Environmental Protection Agency. He cultivated an air of mystery and explained his lengthy absences by telling his bosses that he was doing top-secret work, including for the CIA. For years, apparently, no one checked.

A federal court on Tuesday upheld a 2008 air pollution standard the Obama administration vowed to strengthen, but later reversed itself and kept in place. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington rejected arguments that the ozone standard for public health set by former President George W. Bush was either too weak or too strong. The Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific advisory panel at the time said the standard should have been more stringent to adequately protect health. But referencing Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the court on Tuesday said it cannot demand EPA get things “just right” when it comes...

A UC Riverside study found that commercially cooked hamburgers cause more air pollution than diesel trucks. The study, which focused on commercial charbroilers found in burger restaurants, said the equipment generates grease, smoke, water vapors and combustion products, which emit a large amount of particulate matter into the air.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld the first-ever U.S. proposed rules governing heat-trapping greenhouse gases, clearing a path for sweeping regulations affecting vehicles, coal-burning power plants and other industrial facilities. Handing a setback to industry and a victory to the Obama administration, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that carbon dioxide is a public danger and the decision to set limits for emissions from cars and light trucks were "neither arbitrary nor capricious." The ruling, which addresses four separate lawsuits, upholds the underpinnings of the...

I was listening to Neil Boortz last night and he was talking about this new Carbon EPA stuff. He said that the EPA was hiring, get this, 230,000 new employees whose sole responsibility was to process this new paper work. He said that it was going to cost (I think) 1.4 million jobs right out of the box and companies will have to fold, and that some powerplants that we desparate need will be shut down, electricity is going to go through the roof. C02, a natural occuring Gas, is now pollution. He did say that Hermain Cain said the...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Monday asked President Barack Obama to use his executive authority to prevent or delay implementation of stricter pollution standards, saying they will have an "immediate and devastating" effect on the state. The standards have stirred up Texas' largest energy companies, which say they don't have adequate time to meet the deadlines without shutting down plants and jeopardizing the reliability of Texas' electric grid. Implementation of the rules starts Jan. 1. In the letter, obtained by The Associated Press, Perry said the implementation of the Cross State Air Pollution Rules will have...

The president has found a way to add jobs, after all — 230,000 of ‘em, all within the Environmental Protection Agency. That’s the number of new bureaucrats the federal government will need to hire to implement new proposed greenhouse gas regulations, according to a report by The Daily Caller: The Environmental Protection Agency has said new greenhouse gas regulations, as proposed, may be “absurd” in application and “impossible to administer” by its self-imposed 2016 deadline. But the agency is still asking for taxpayers to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats — at a cost of $21 billion...

The Environmental Protection Agency has said new greenhouse gas regulations, as proposed, may be “absurd” in application and “impossible to administer” by its self-imposed 2016 deadline. But the agency is still asking for taxpayers to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats — at a cost of $21 billion — to attempt to implement the rules. The EPA aims to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the Clean Air Act, even though the law doesn’t give the EPA explicit power to do so. The agency’s authority to move forward is being challenged in court by petitioners who argue that...

Barbara Boxer: I hope greens sue President Obama By: Darren Goode September 7, 2011 09:01 AM EDT Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer said she hopes green groups sue President Barack Obama over his decision to punt a regulation curbing smog-creating emissions until at least 2013. Boxer — whose relatively mild reaction to Obama’s surprise announcement Friday was in contrast to heated rebukes by environmental groups — said she will stand by those groups in any litigation to force the administration to issue a final ozone rule that goes beyond what was enacted by President George W. Bush....

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Friday scrapped his administration's controversial plans to tighten smog rules, bowing to the demands of congressional Republicans and some business leaders. Obama overruled the Environmental Protection Agency — and the unanimous opinion of its independent panel of scientific advisers — and directed administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw the proposed regulation to reduce concentrations of ground-level ozone, smog's main ingredient. The decision rests in part on reducing regulatory burdens and uncertainty for businesses at a time of rampant uncertainty about an unsteady economy.

More dispiriting news, this time about the White House overturning the EPA’s proposed new rules on smog. That comes a few hours after the jobs report from Friday morning, one of the bleakest yet. And it comes a few days in advance of what everyone expects will be a small-thinking, modest, blah jobs speech by the president. It’s not only getting to the point where it’s getting hard to see him winning reelection. It’s getting to the point where it’s hard to imagine people taking him seriously for the remaining 14 months of his current term. The smog decision is...

President Barack Obama announced Friday that he was directing the EPA to withdraw a draft regulation that would tighten air quality standards for Ozone due to concerns about costs. In a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner Tuesday, Obama revealed that the rule under consideration by the Environmental Protection Agency could cost up to $90 billion to implement. Obama said that while he supports the regulation, it will be updated again in 2013, adding, "ultimately, I did not support asking state and local governments to begin implementing a new standard that will soon be reconsidered." The proposed regulation,...

$12 Pollution Assessment To Be Added To Car Registration FeesEvery person who owns a non-commercial vehicle in the San Joaquin Valley will begin paying a fine for violating federal air quality standards starting in October, said the San Joaquin Valley Pollution Control District. The fine will show up as a $12 pollution assessment on a resident's annual car registration bill. "We will pay this fine every year until we go three straight years without violating tougher federal air quality standards," said Anthony Presto, a spokesman for the pollution control district. The reason for the fine is that the San Joaquin...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday finalized stronger regulations for Wisconsin and 26 other states aimed at curbing air pollution from long-distance sources. The rules will help those states fight ozone and particle pollution caused by power plants in Illinois, Indiana and other states. But Wisconsin utilities - whose pollution can contribute to air-quality problems elsewhere - will also need to find ways to reduce their own emissions. The likely result: Higher electric bills in the coming years. A group of power companies known as the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity called the action one of the most...