Free Republic

Won’t those tax-subsidized electric cars solve heaps of problems? Not exactly. There are two examples that run against the politically correct grain: . . .

Every year, coal-fired power plants produce more than 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants -- including mercury, arsenic, lead and acid gases. Mercury, a potent neurotoxin, is a particular threat to pregnant women and young children. The Environmental Protection Agency has announced plans to issue strong, sensible protections from power plant pollution on December 16th of this year. Unfortunately, industry special interests are trying to block this critical safeguard. Tell President Obama to strongly support the EPA's efforts to clean up mercury pollution and protect the health of mothers, children and families. This is an email that I received from...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Democrat-controlled Senate on Thursday rejected a Republican attempt to block a regulation intended to curb power plant pollution that blows downwind into other states. By a 56-41 vote, senators defeated a resolution by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who said the step was needed to rein in what he called the Obama administration's overzealous job-killing approach to environmental protection. "We are simply asking that the clean air regulations already on the books stay in place and we do not make the regulations so onerous that they put utility plants out of business and we have an...

It is time for Lisa P. Jackson to resign. Last Friday at Howard University, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) railed against the coal industry, saying, “In [the coal industry’s] entire history - 50, 60, 70 years or even 30 - they never found the time or the reason to clean up their act. They’re literally on life support. And the people keeping them on life support are all of us.” This is patently false, of course, as emissions from U.S. coal-fired power plants are quite heavily regulated. Those emissions controls are the reason U.S. air is clean...

SALT LAKE CITY — Motorists who leave their vehicles idling for more than two minutes in Utah's capital city run the risk of being fined. The Salt Lake City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve an ordinance making idling of vehicle engines a crime punishable by a fine of between $50 and $210, depending on the number of offenses and how quickly fines are paid. The goal, city leaders said, is to improve air quality in the Salt Lake Valley, where more than 50 percent of air pollution comes from vehicle exhaust. "Anything we can do to reduce pollution on...

Those bracing dips in the local lake or river may not be as healthy as they were cracked up to be judging by a new list of polluted waterways released last week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Recent tests have found more toxic material, bacteria and pollution in California rivers, streams, bays and lakes than has ever been documented before, according to the federal agency. The study shows a 170 percent increase in the number of waterways showing toxicity in 2010 compared with 2006, the last time the study was done. Less than half of the state's lakes, bays...

Any American watching cable TV over the past few months can hardly fail to have noticed the seemingly ubiquitous advertisements extolling the virtues of extracting oil from Canadian oil sands, which the commentators assure their audience has a carbon footprint largely comparable with traditional fossil fuels, and which, if developed will provide not only millions of new jobs but billions of dollars for governments as well as energy security by weaning the Western Hemisphere off its addiction to terrorism-tainted Middle East oil. But don’t break out your checkbook just yet. Apparently those pesky Eurocrats in Brussels haven’t gotten the message,...

Insisting that “things are much better than most people think,” Vice-President Joe Biden said he is “comfortable with the idea of phasing former President George Bush out of the conversation when it comes to the economy.” “A narrow focus on unemployment and deficits misses the overarching improvements we have achieved since Barack Obama took office,” Biden cautioned. “Look, if you’re among the 9% who are unemployed it’s a bummer. But if you’re one of the 91% who has a job your commute to work is easier since fewer people will be driving to jobs on the streets you use. So,...

Palm oil may not be 'environmentally friendly' as commonly believed, researchers say Thirty years after tropical rain forests were cleared and replaced with oil palms, the amount of carbon being stored is 65 percent less than the original amount, a National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) team has found. Carbon that was once stored in forest is feared to have been released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, contributing to global warming. Oil palm cultivation has expanded dramatically in recent years, as the demand for palm oil in making environmentally-friendly soaps and biofuel has risen. The latest analysis results, which...

(CNSNews.com) - Sept. 30 is the deadline for thousands of American businesses -- including power plants, petroleum refineries, landfills and large engine manufacturers -- to report their greenhouse gas emissions to the U.S. government for the first time. The EPA on Monday announced a new tool that will allow 7,000 companies in “all sectors” of the U.S. economy to submit their greenhouse gas pollution data electronically. Electronic submission of the data is supposed to make the process easier. But the reporting process is complex and cumbersome. For starters, the EPA's ‘Frequently-Asked Questions” Web page includes 21 sections that cover 390...

$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...

Energy: It won't matter which light bulbs we use as the administration's implementation of cross-state pollution rules shuts down coal plants across the country. Where will the jobs be when the lights go out? It's called the Cross-State Pollution Rule, announced last month, and its implementation over the next 18 months will likely result in the loss of a fifth of the nation's electricity-generating capacity. The result will be likely power shortages, skyrocketing rates and inevitable brownouts and rolling blackouts. Based on Bush-era EPA proposals that the federal courts threw out in 2008, this latest example of legislation is designed...

HYANNISPORT — A renter with the famous Kennedy name has some local residents complaining about his allegedly messy ways. This month, the Barnstable police and Barnstable Health Department investigated several complaints about the 70 Longwood Ave. property being rented by Matthew Maxwell Kennedy, one of nine surviving children of Ethel Kennedy and the late Robert F. Kennedy. Neighbors who asked to remain anonymous say the location looks like a "junk yard" thanks to a jumble of boat trailers, pickup trucks, wheelbarrows, coolers, a Wave Runner, and even a huge buoy out in full view. "If it was trash or...

More than a year after the largest oil spill in history, perhaps the dominant lingering question about the Deepwater Horizon spill is, "What happened to the oil?" Now, in the first published study to explain the role of microbes in breaking down the oil slick on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) researchers have come up with answers that represent both surprisingly good news and a head-scratching mystery. In research scheduled to be published in the Aug. 2 online edition of Environmental Research Letters, the WHOI team studied samples from the surface oil slick...

Don't expect to beat the heat this weekend in a canoe, a kayak or a windsurfing board off Manhattan. City officials declared the Hudson River, the East River south of the RFK Bridge and the Harlem River unfit for recreational activity due to raw sewage spilled by a treatment plant fire. "Right now, there's no impact on public beaches," Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Cas Holloway said. "However, you should not be doing contact recreation on the Hudson River." People splashing in the tainted water risk vomiting, diarrhea and fever. The warning to avoid the waterways is in effect through...

<p>BILLINGS, Mont. -- Federal regulators knew potentially contaminated bark and wood chips were being sold from a Superfund site in the asbestos-tainted town of Libby, Mont., for three years before they stopped the practice.</p> <p>That revelation comes in a letter from the Environmental Protection Agency to U.S. Sen. Max Baucus.</p>

At a California Senate oversight hearing yesterday called by Senator Pavley, a joint author of the state's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32), Air Resources Board Chairman Nichols reaffirmed her agency's commitment to proceed with implementation of a robust package of clean energy policies backed up with a cap-and-trade program to cut the state's emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020. Chairman Nichols also announced a major new addition to the AB 32 package - CARB will require that major industrial facilities in California, such as refineries and cement plants, implement cost-effective reduction measures that will provide significant greenhouse...

WASHINGTON (WJZ)—Don’t panic if you see large planes flying unusually low over Maryland roadways next week. It’s all part of a major plan by NASA to help study air pollution over major cities. Derek Valcourt explains where you’ll be seeing some of those low-flying planes. The study will focus on air pollution over many of Maryland’s major roads, from Baltimore’s beltway, to the 95 corridor, even over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. This is no ordinary plane, it’s a specially fitted NASA aircraft designed with equipment to measure air pollution levels in flight. And starting next week the skies over Maryland...

On the heels of a scathing critique by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on Wednesday, President Obama faced pressure from a burgeoning environmental justice coalition demanding stronger action on ozone, a component of smog, in predominantly Latino communities. Fourteen groups sent a letter to Obama expressing dismay at missed opportunities and delays in bringing permissible ozone levels down to between 60 and 70 parts per billion: The EPA estimates that the strongest standard of 60 parts per billion would avoid as many as 12,000 deaths and 58,000 asthma attacks per year. Implementing a weaker standard would mean more lives lost...

For years exponents of climate change theories have used images of deforestation to support their cause. However, the density of forests and woodland across much of the world is actually increasing, according to a respected scientific study. The change, which is being dubbed the 'Great Reversal', could be crucial in reducing atmospheric carbon, which is linked to climate change. In countries from Finland to Malaysia, the thickening has taken place so quickly that it has reversed the carbon losses caused by deforestation between 1990 and 2010. In Britain, forest density has increased by 10.8 per cent from 2000 to 2010...

An international team, of scientists, led by a team at Monash University has found the key to the hydrogen economy could come from a very simple mineral, commonly seen as a black stain on rocks. Their findings, developed with the assistance of researchers at UC Davis in the USA and using the facilities at the Australian Synchrotron, was published in the journal Nature Chemistry on May 15, 2011. Professor Leone Spiccia from the School of Chemistry at Monash University said the ultimate goal of researchers in this area is to create a cheap, efficient way to split water, powered by...

Remember the fog that lingered over Beijing during the 2008 Summer Olympics? It wasn't fog. It was dirty air. Yes, China faces a world-class air quality problem. But before you get too smug about its smog, consider this: 154.5 million Americans, just over half the nation's population, live in areas where air pollution levels are often dangerous to breathe. That's according to the American Lung Association's (ALA) just-released report 2011 State of the Air. The cities ranked worst in air quality? California metros like Los Angeles, Visalia, Hanford and Fresno. Bakersfield, Calif., ranked the worst in terms of short-term and...

Federal officials threatened Monday to block road money and seize control of Utah's air quality management plan because of an exemption for excessive pollution from oil refineries and other sources. Utah officials have about 18 months to change the rule to ensure polluters are cited for a violation first, instead of the state having to investigate a breakdown and then issue a violation, said Monica Morales, the head of the air quality planning unit for the Environmental Protection Agency's Region 8 office in Denver. The current rule "is not in compliance with the Clean Air Act," Morales said.

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — New research suggests that pollution in Southern California may be harming our brains. We already know that pollution can do harm to our lungs, but research from the University of Southern California suggests that residents here are even worse off thanks to our traffic-polluted freeways. “It’s not like what you see in smog and the days when you don’t get to see the mountains,” says Todd Morgan a researcher with USC referring to the type of pollution investigated in the study. Researchers looked at the smallest of particles that are not visible to the naked eye....

The merchant shipping industry has failed a second time to short-circuit California's effort to combat the toll on the health of its population from air pollution caused by oceangoing vessels. The industry is contesting California's authority to regulate fuel used by seagoing vessels up to 24 miles off its coast. The Air Resources Board estimates the vessels' emissions of particulate matter cause 300 premature deaths across the state every year. California mandates that ships "use cleaner marine fuels in diesel and diesel-electric engines, main propulsion engines, and auxiliary boilers" while operating far beyond the traditional three-mile jurisdictional limit. The Pacific...

Industry officials warn 7.3million American jobs will disappear if U.S. President Barack Obama's administration tightens regulations in a bid to reduce smog. The industry-sponsored researcher who came up with the number cautioned, however, that there was uncertainty surrounding that number. Although economist Don Norman pointed out: 'Even if the numbers are half of that, the number is huge.'

Thanks to Ronald Reagan’s legacy and a legal miscalculation by leftist environmentalists, this week a California judge stopped the implementation of California’s Cap and Trade law: better known as Cap and Tax. This is the same type of carbon trading that Al Gore has hawked for years, but failed to get through the most radical Democrat Congress in generations. That’s how bad it was. Of course, that didn’t stop whacked out California from passing a Draconian version of the same job killing scheme.

On the outskirts of one of China’s most polluted cities, an old farmer stares despairingly out across an immense lake of bubbling toxic waste covered in black dust. He remembers it as fields of wheat and corn. (snip) Vast fortunes are being amassed here in Inner Mongolia; the region has more than 90 per cent of the world’s legal reserves of rare earth metals, and specifically neodymium, the element needed to make the magnets in the most striking of green energy producers, wind turbines.

House Republicans have announced a Congressional Review Act resolution that seeks to undo EPA rules to control toxic emissions from cement plants. The rules would reduce cement plants’ emissions of mercury and other toxic substances by more than 90%. EPA scientists have estimated the rules would prevent up to 2,500 premature deaths and thousands of heart and respiratory incidents and save billions of dollars in health costs each year. “Without these important EPA rules, our families will continue to be exposed to mercury and other toxic pollution from the Lafarge plant in Ravena, New York,” said Susan Falzon, with Friends...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – An international team of researchers has found that the atmosphere's ability to cleanse itself of pollutants and other greenhouse gases, except carbon dioxide, is generally stable. The study, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, comes amid a fierce debate over whether, as some experts believe, the atmosphere's self-cleaning ability was fragile and sensitive to environmental changes. The research team, which was led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), measured levels in the atmosphere of hydroxyl radicals, which play a key role in atmospheric chemistry. Levels of the agent only fluctuated a few percentage...

NATURITA, Colo. — The future of nuclear power in America is back on the table, with all its vast implications, as global warming revives the search for energy sources that produce less greenhouse gas. But in this depressed corner of western Colorado — one of the first places in the world that uranium, nuclear energy’s primary fuel, was ever dug from the ground in industrial scale — the debate is both simpler and more complicated. A proposal for a new mill to process uranium ore, which would lead to the opening of long-shuttered mines in Colorado and Utah, has brought...

Regulation: The federal agency declares Texas unfit to regulate its own greenhouse gas emissions and seizes control of the permitting process. Jobs, states' rights and the 2012 presidential election are all involved. While most of America was unwrapping their Christmas presents, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was staring at a lump of coal the Environmental Protection Agency put in his state's stocking. Actually, it wasn't a lump of coal — that causes global warming. And Santa won't be coming down any Texas chimney unless he checks with the EPA first. Two days before Christmas, EPA Regional Administrator Al Armendariz, in a...

Environment: Ignoring both Congress and the voters, the Environmental Protection Agency starts the new year governing by decree with job-killing regulations. Take a deep breath, but if you exhale you're a polluter. Cap-and-trade is dead, long live cap-and-trade in the form of regulations promulgated in the coming year by what George Orwell might call the Ministry of Environment. It claims that the Clean Air Act and a Supreme Court ruling in 2007 let the EPA regulate carbon dioxide as a planet-warming pollutant. We recently commented on the EPA's recent commandeering of the permitting process from Texas, with which it is...

The Arlington Chamber of Commerce wants to see a speedy end to the county's HOT lanes lawsuit, arguing that the cost of suing to stop the construction of high-occupancy toll lanes is damaging the county's reputation and hurting efforts to improve transportation on busy interstates. Chamber President Rich Doud said the lawsuit could undermine efforts to relieve traffic congestion in Arlington, damage the county's relationship with the private sector and drive up the HOT lanes project's cost as the lawsuit drags on. The chamber includes ending the lawsuit on its list of public policy priorities for 2011. The county spent...

What causes of autism? Researchers have blamed vaccines, hereditary factors, and certain heavy metals. And now they're adding another suspect to the list: Air pollution. That's right. A new study shows that children in families who live near freeways are twice as likely to have autism as kids who live off the beaten path. Researchers in Los Angeles looked at 304 children with autism and 259 normally developing children and found that those whose moms were living within 1,000 feet of a freeway when they gave birth had a increased risk for autism. The study was published online in...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that air quality regulators in California's smog-laden San Joaquin Valley have the right to charge home builders a fee to control their pollution emissions. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the local air district's rule requiring developers to reduce emissions from new housing projects by building features like bicycle lanes and energy-efficient cooling systems. If they don't do enough to preserve air quality, they must pay fees that have averaged about $500 per house. The valley, stretching 240 miles from Stockton...

This is a satire on trying to open a trucking business in CA.

CVS Inc. agreed Tuesday to pay nearly $270,000 in penalties for improperly dumping photo-processing chemicals and drugs into wastewater at many of its nearly 140 stores in Connecticut, including locations in Southbury and New Canaan. According to the state Department of Environmental Protection, Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS and its subsidiary, Connecticut CVS Pharmacy LLC, agreed to a settlement that includes paying $223,900 to the state's General Fund and $45,000 to a project to study ways to reduce storm water in sewer systems in Bridgeport and New Haven. The company also agreed to make improvements in its environmental practices. According to DEP...

Arguing that “global climate is my ‘political football,’” former Vice-President Al Gore complained that “Tea Party attempts to use this issue for their own political advantage is an off-side penalty.” Alleging that “I could’ve been bitter when the presidency was stolen from me, but I picked myself up and invented a new career crusading for a cleaner planet,” Gore said. “Now, Tea Partiers are invading my spaceand stirring up skepticism about my message—all for their own selfish interests.” Gore sought to link Tea Party skepticism with the “fossil fuel lobby.” “Virtually every one of the members of the Tea Party...

Officials who have tried and failed to clean the air in California’s smog-filled San Joaquin Valley have seized on a new strategy: getting millions of drivers to shoulder more of the cost. Faced with a fine of at least $29 million for exceeding federal ozone limits, the San Joaquin Valley’s air quality regulators are proposing an annual surcharge of $10 to $24 on registration fees for the region’s 2.7 million cars and trucks beginning next year. A decision is expected when the governing board meets on Thursday. Although the surcharge is not expected to change how much people drive or...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The push to produce more ethanol in Minnesota has come with a cost to the environment. Five ethanol plants in Minnesota have paid nearly $3 million in the past year for violating air and water quality standards. For example, Buffalo Lake Energy in Fairmont was fined for producing ethanol without a wastewater treatment system permit from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Another plant illegally discharged wastewater into a creek. Several have failed to regularly monitor emissions and discharges.

California regulators reportedly are planning to significantly weaken the state’s landmark clean air standards after discovering they miscalculated pollution levels by 340 percent. The estimate played a vital role in the creation of 2007 regulation that forced businesses to make costly upgrades to off-road vehicles with diesel engines in order to cut diesel emissions, the San Franciso Chronicle reported. The California Air Resources Board announced on Thursday a proposal that would delay the deadline to meet the requirements until 2014 and exempt more vehicles. The Chronicle says the announcement was made just as the paper was preparing to publish its...

SITUATION: One indirect consequence of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the impact it may have on the financing of the many tourism projects that have sprouted along the Caspian Sea. Bordered clockwise from the North by Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia, the Caspian Sea is one of the largest bodies of water and an object of strategic ambitions. Though the global financial crisis put may grandiose Caspian Sea tourism projects on hold, some of them are coming back to life, but investors should be alert to tourism trends, corruption, and unanswered questions about demand and potential profit....

if so, will the environmentalists follow suit and stop breathing? lol

Generation Y Giving Cars a Pass The generation gap is a growing, long-term headache for automakers. Buzz Up! By Jim Ostroff Selling cars to young adults under 30 is proving to be a real challenge for automakers. Unlike their elders, Generation Yers own fewer cars and don’t drive much. They’re likely to see autos as a source of pollution, not as a sex or status symbol. Motorists aged 21 to 30 now account for 14% of miles driven, down from 21% in 1995. They’re more apt to ride mass transit to work and use car sharing services -- pioneered by...

Photo by youngsixtas One of our readers, James Raider, left a significant commentary that haunted me all through work yesterday. The discussion centered around the Great Hoax, "Global Warming" and how the Obama Administration is repackaging the idea as Global Climate Disturbance to try and trick the public into falling for a new myth. While we get bombarded by pleadings for money to send food to various corners of the globe, the challenge which should be addressed more effectively is how to get “Education” to these impoverished places. You never see any ads pleading for your cash to send...

Deaths in Moscow have doubled to an average of 700 people a day as the Russian capital is engulfed by poisonous smog from wildfires and a sweltering heat wave, a top health official said Monday. Moscow health chief Andrei Seltsovky blamed weeks of unprecedented heat and suffocating smog for the rise in mortality compared to the same time last year, Russian news agencies reported. He said city morgues were nearly overflowing, filled with 1,300 bodies, close to their capacity. Acrid smog blanketed Moscow for a six straight day Monday, with concentrations of carbon monoxide and other poisonous substances two to...

" Inspectors from China's Ministry of Environmental Protection tested water samples from the country's major rivers and lakes in the first half of the year and declared just 49.3 percent to be safe for drinking, up from 48 percent last year, the ministry said in a notice posted on its website (www.mep.gov.cn). China classifies its water supplies using six grades, with the first three grades considered safe for drinking and bathing. Another 26.4 percent was said to be categories IV and V -- fit only for use in industry and agriculture -- leaving a total of 24.3 percent in category...

Despite literally MILLIONS of ideas being floated by private citizens, non-profit groups, and foreign countries on how to clean up and contain the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, BP decided they would rather fill American landfills with their mess. BP refuses to even consider ideas on how to handle the situation, many of which have been proven to be effective and successful. Harrison County leaders do not approve but BP is still dumping in local landfills and local residents and officials are preparing subpoenas demanding BP appear before their Harrison County Board of Supervisors. Special Thanks to TyneRoseMedia for the...

Cleaning up the environment after chemical spills could be made easier thanks to Argentinean scientists who have developed a material that encapsulates pollutant-destroying microorganisms inside it. Removing organic pollutants from water after a chemical leak or cleaning up industrial waste water remains a challenge. One solution is to use microorganisms to break up organic pollutants, however, this risks releasing foreign or genetically modified organisms into the environment. These microorganisms can rapidly grow, deplete vital nutrients and cause further damage. Now, Sara Bilmes and colleagues at the University of Bunenos Aires, have developed a material that could help break up organic pollutants...