Free Republic

The Biden Administration’s regulations are coming so fast and furious that it’s hard even to keep track, but we’re trying. On Thursday the Environmental Protection Agency proposed its latest doozy—rules that will effectively force coal plants to shut down while banning new natural-gas plants. “With the announcement today, the power sector can make planning decisions with a full array of information,” EPA’s press release declares. Translation: Get moving with the green-energy transition because we’re determined to eliminate fossil-fuel power. Barack Obama’s regulation spurred a wave of coal plant closures. Now President Biden is trying to finish the job by tightening...

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.On February 3, a 141-car Norfolk Southern train derailed in the eastern Ohio town of East Palestine. About 50 of the rail cars were damaged, including five tank cars carrying toxic and carcinogenic vinyl chloride. Safety crews vented and burned the vinyl chloride. The town was ordered evacuated, ‘Leave Now’: Hundreds of Residents Near Site of East Palestine, Ohio Train Derailment Ordered to Evacuate.To call the official response tepid would give it too much credit.The Biden White House has essentially ignored the issue. Our...

On Thursday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Surveillance,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan stated that he doesn’t think the 2022 midterms will change the fact that the agency has been given power “to pursue the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to protect public health and protect the planet” through regulations and that the agency got a boost in its goals from the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Regan said, “Well, the president has had a historic two years in passing historic legislation, with the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Inflation Reduction Act, resources coming to EPA to help with and enhance the regulations...

WARRENTON, N.C. (AP) — President Joe Biden’s top environment official visited what is widely considered the birthplace of the environmental justice movement Saturday to unveil a national office that will distribute $3 billion in block grants to underserved communities burdened by pollution. Forty years after a predominantly Black community in Warren County, North Carolina, rallied against hosting a hazardous waste landfill, Michael Regan, the first Black administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced he is dedicating a new senior level of leadership to the environmental justice movement they ignited. The Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights — comprised...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has temporarily suspended a federal rule for fuel sales in four states, including Indiana, in response to a fire that occurred at an oil refinery in Indiana last week. It is feared that the incident may cause disruptions in both gas pricing and supply, AP reported. “As part of the Federal Government’s response to a fire and shutdown at the BP Whiting Refinery in Whiting, Indiana, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan today issued an emergency fuel waiver to help alleviate fuel shortages in four states whose supply of gasoline has been impacted...

The Department of Justice is establishing a new “Office of Environmental Justice.” Attorney General Merrick Garland made the announcement at a press conference with EPA Administrator Michael Regan Thursday. Garland said that the new office, which will also be known by the initialism OEJ, would “oversee and help guide the Justice Department’s wide-ranging environmental justice efforts.” The office was created as part of the Department’s “comprehensive environmental justice enforcement strategy,” in compliance with the Biden administration’s January 2021 executive order directing the Attorney General to develop such a strategy in conjunction with the EPA. Garland said that OEJ would initially...

President Biden and a third of his Cabinet will be at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Scotland that starts Sunday, a high-profile show of force amid pressing domestic issues. Attendees at the conference include Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, USAID Administrator Samantha Power, NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Eric Lander, and EPA Administrator Michael Regan. Biden climate advisers John Kerry and Gina McCarthy will...

JunkScience.com founder Steve Milloy ripped President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency for filling a core committee with compromised eco-partisans. The junk science buster is vowing to sue the Biden administration as a result. Milloy published a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan headlined “Milloy to EPA Administrator: Pick a new [Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC)] or see you in court.” CASAC is supposed to provide “independent advice to the EPA Administrator on the technical bases for EPA's National Ambient Air Quality Standards.” Milloy reminded Regan: “The law requires that CASAC be constituted as a fair and balanced independent panel....

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday finalized a rule to end a "secret science" regulation that was imposed under former President Donald Trump that excluded certain studies that didn't make all data publicly available. The agency announced the end of the rule on Wednesday. The move allows the EPA to consider studies that don't make available all data, which is sometimes done to protect privacy. Trump's administration billed the restriction as a transparency measure, but critics argued that it might ultimately do more harm than good for an agency that values such varying scientific data like the EPA. "This action...