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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case being brought by a dozen states, several major cities, and environmental groups who want carbon dioxide, widely believed to be contributing to the current global warming trend, to be designated as a pollutant. The plaintiffs are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's decision in 2003 that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant that would come under the regulatory portions of the Clean Air Act. That decision has been upheld by two lower court rulings. A Supreme Court decision siding with the plaintiffs could have wide-ranging consequences, since it would open the...

WASHINGTON, March 17 — A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a clean-air regulation issued by the Bush administration that would have let many power plants, refineries and factories avoid installing costly new pollution controls to help offset any increased emissions caused by repairs and replacements of equipment.

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California violated the Clean Air Act when it decided nine years ago that no regulations were necessary to cut smog-forming compounds in farm and commercial pesticides, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton's decision means that lawyers for environmental groups and the state will meet to discuss possible remedies for the pollution. Lawyers for both groups have been ordered to file briefs in 20 days. "The bottom line is that the state should have had regulations in place to have a 20 percent reduction of these emissions in five basins by this year," said...

Nevada Power Co. can expect to receive $9 million yearly as its share from the sale of sulfur dioxide pollution credits if the coal-fired Mohave Generating Station at Laughlin remains closed. Under the Clean Air Act of 1990, a company that needs to increase its production, and thus increase pollution, can do so if it buys an offset credit from another company that has curtailed air pollution.

BLACK MESA, Ariz. – The gigantic earthmoving crane sits idle, stilled by a legal, cultural and environmental dispute playing out far from the rich vein of coal beneath the desert of remote northeastern Arizona. Some welcome the idling of the crane, calling it a symbol of the rape of the land and precious water below. Others, mostly American Indians who have come to depend on the high-paying jobs at the mine, are furious. For 35 years, the Black Mesa Mine has produced coal for a power plant in southern Nevada. But the plant suspended operations at the end of December,...

LAUGHLIN, Nev. - A large coal-fired power plant will close at the end of the year rather than violate a court-ordered deadline to install an estimated $1.1 billion in pollution-control measures. Southern California Edison said Thursday the Mohave Generating Station, at the center of an environmental dispute several years ago, would close. The plant has provided the utility with 7 percent of its electricity, but the company said its 13 million customers would not be immediately affected because of other power sources. Under a 1999 consent decree won by environmental groups, the aging Mohave plant was required to upgrade its...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration proposed new regulations Thursday that could allow the nation's dirtiest power plants to release more air pollutants each year — and possibly undercut lawsuits aimed at forcing companies to comply with the Clean Air Act. The proposal follows a June federal court ruling that said power plants can throw more pollutants into the air each year when they modernize to operate for longer hours. It's the latest in a series of attempts by the Environmental Protection Agency to make the nearly 30-year-old Clean Air Act rules for coal-fired power plants more industry-friendly. Some changes were...

House Republicans on Wednesday will launch a rapid-fire assault against environmental protections on the pretext of helping the U.S. oil and gas industry recover from hurricane damage, environmental groups charge. The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Resources Committee are holding separate meetings to finalize legislation on Wednesday, with the aim of combining them into a single energy bill for the full House to debate next week. The resources panel, led by Richard Pombo of California, wants to lift a ban on Florida offshore drilling, promote oil shale and sell a dozen national parks for energy development. "This...

Environmental groups have the right to sue state agencies for not controlling pesticide pollution, a federal judge in Sacramento ruled Monday. State air quality agencies violated the federal Clean Air Act,which calls for a 20 percent reduction in smog caused by pesticides between 1990 and 2005, the lawsuit says. The required smog reduction hasn't happened in the San Joaquin Valley, where pesticide-induced smog has increased since 1990. "I'm ecstatic that (the judge) saw it our way," said Teresa DeAnda, an activist from Earlimart whose organization joined four others in the suit. They say the state's approach to pesticide smog pollution...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a government-approved program used by five Western states to improve their air quality and visibility in national parks and wilderness areas. Siding with an industry coalition, the court said the states' program was based on Environmental Protection Agency methods that the court, ruling in a case three years ago, had found to be "inconsistent with the Clean Air Act." Friday's decision deals with efforts by Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming to cut sulfur dioxide pollution that contributes to regional haze, particularly at the Grand Canyon. Mike Leavitt, now...

CLEAN AIR ACT RUNS INTO TURBULENCE FROM CRITICSFeb 04, 2005 - FreeMarketNews.comby staff reportsCongress is getting ready to debate the Bush Administration’s proposed changes to the Clean Air Act, dubbed the “Clear Skies” initiative. At stake are considerations as to how soon reduced emissions should take effect. The Act has run into considerable opposition and energetic sniping. Critics such as Frank O’Donnell, argue for a time frame closer than the Administration’s 2018 target date, with its stated goal about improved air quality through simplified and less costly regulations The Washington Post reports that O’Donnell, former executive director of an organization...

WASHINGTON - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York Gov. George Pataki are pressing Congress to protect key parts of the Clean Air Act as lawmakers and the Bush administration seek to change the law. The two moderate Republicans on Tuesday urged senators considering updating the act not to reduce the powers states have now to enforce environmental regulations or create tougher state regulations. The governors, who both place great emphasis on their environmental initiatives, wrote to members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which will hold a hearing Wednesday to consider changes to the Clean Air Act....

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 - The Defense Department, which controls 28 million acres of land across the nation that it uses for combat exercises and weapons testing, has been moving on a variety of fronts to reduce requirements that it safeguard the environment on that land. In Congress, the Pentagon has won exemptions in the last two years from parts of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. It has sought in recent years to exempt military activities, for three years, from compliance with parts of the Clean Air Act. Also, the Pentagon, which controls about 140 of...

Attorney General John Ashcroft, in a farewell speech yesterday to Justice Department employees, praised their efforts in deterring terrorism since the September 11 attacks on America,...... -snip- "Al Qaeda has not lost its thirst for American blood. ... We know that terrorists will strike when and if they can. For three years, terrorists have not struck at America because you and people who work with you in this law-enforcement community have not let them," he said. Mr. Ashcroft's tenure as the nation's chief law-enforcement officer has been under constant attack from civil rights groups, other liberal organizations and political opponents...

Clean little secret By William Fay If all things we normally associate with air pollution grow — a robust economy and more people and workers consuming more energy and driving more vehicles more miles — we should have more air pollution, right? Wrong. Government data since 1970 (the year the Clean Air Act amendment was enacted) clearly paints a portrait of a healthy and growing economy: 42 percent more people and 95 percent more workers using 43 percent more energy, driving 111 percent more vehicles 151 percent more miles and a 175 percent boost in real gross domestic product. And...

WASHINGTON - Citgo Petroleum Corp. will install $320 million in pollution controls at six refineries and pay a $3.6 million fine to settle a federal lawsuit alleging Clean Air Act violations, the Bush administration announced today. The settlement requires Citgo, the nation's No. 4 gas retailer, to reduce yearly emissions of nitrogen oxide by 7,184 tons and sulfur dioxide by 23,250 tons. Both can cause serious respiratory ailments and worsen cases of childhood asthma. The refineries covered in the agreement among the company, the Justice Department, Environmental Protection Agency and four states, represent 5 percent of the nation's refining capacity....

"Clean Air Act" causes more problems than it solves. Keep congressional scum out of the economy!

Nichols takes critical look at Cheney in biography Associated Press Secret Service agents gave Dick Cheney a code name, "Backseat." In a four-decade career in politics, he has mostly kept a low profile, especially for someone who served as White House chief of staff, member of Congress, corporate CEO and now vice president. For long stretches, he has gone largely unseen, as during his small-town swings in the 2000 presidential campaign and his disappearance to a "secure, undisclosed location" after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Cheney's ability — and inclination — to fly below the news media radar has...

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- According to a report conducted for bar owners in the state, the workplace smoking ban enacted last year led to the loss of 2,000 industry jobs and millions of dollars in wages. Ridgewood Economic Associates of New Jersey conducted the study for New York Nightlife Association based in New York City, and the Empire State Restaurant and Tavern Association based in Albany. The report stated that since the state's Clean Indoor Act took effect on July 24 banning smoking in all workplaces, $28.5 million in wages and salary payments and $37 million in gross state product were...

The journalist has the ultimate power, a cynic once said, the power to choose whom to be co-opted by. That temptation is never greater than when you are writing about environmental policy. You can go to the environmental groups and get one set of facts. Or you can go to the industry groups and get an entirely different set of facts. Both sides have long histories of exaggeration and distortion, and there's no other realm of public policy in which it is so hard to find honest brokers, capable of offering a balanced perspective. Nonetheless, over the past couple of...