Free Republic

Congress should use the appropriations process to reassert its authority over the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a Heritage Foundation issue brief released Tuesday.The report, written by scholar Daren Bakst, identifies three issues on which the EPA has proposed rules and regulations that exceed its authority. In all three cases, Bakst recommends that Congress prohibit the agency from using its funding to implement the proposals. (RELATED: EPA Overrides Congress, Hands Over Town to Indian Tribes)According to the report, “the EPA is using the regulatory process to require greenhouse gas emission reductions even as Congress has been unwilling to take such...

Beijing (AFP) - Beijing on Wednesday closed the first of four large coal-fired power plants that are set to be shut down as part of efforts to curb its choking air pollution, media reported. The 50-year-old Gaojing Thermal Power Plant is to be replaced with a gas-fired power station, one of four that is to be built as the Chinese capital aims to boost its reliance on cleaner energy, Xinhua news agency said. The other three major coal-fired power plants in Beijing will be closed by 2016, the state-run agency added. A five-year plan was introduced in the city last...

Drivers in Paris will only be allowed to use their cars every other day from tomorrow because of dangerous pollution levels. The introduction of the drastic measure follows a grey smog settling over the French capital from the middle of last week. François Hollande’s socialist government decided to introduce alternative driving days after air pollution exceeded safe levels for five days running. …

Beijing’s skyscrapers receded into a dense gray smog Thursday as the capital saw the season’s first wave of extremely dangerous pollution, with the concentration of toxic small particles registering more than two dozen times the level considered safe. The air took on an acrid odor, and many of the city’s commuters wore industrial strength face masks as they hurried to work. The city’s air quality is often poor, especially in winter when stagnant weather patterns combine with an increase in coal-burning to exacerbate other forms of pollution and create days-long periods of heavy smog. But the readings early Thursday for...

More Chinese cities may restrict vehicle purchases in a bid to fight air pollution and traffic congestion, state media reported. With more than 13 million cars sold in China last year, motor vehicles and their emissions have emerged as the chief culprit for the air pollution in large cities. Beijing, Shanghai and two other cities already curb the purchase of vehicles for private use, through lotteries and auctions of a limited number of license plates. …

The Environmental Protection Agency late last month proposed strict new "clean fuel" standards on gasoline. The EPA said the so-called Tier 3 rule would cut emissions of smog-forming pollutants, as well as toxic emissions like benzene. What the EPA didn't say was that levels of these pollutants have been falling steadily for years, and would continue to fall even without the new rule, which the oil industry says will cost tens of billions of dollars. Indeed, a fact that won't get much attention on Earth Day — April 22 — is that pollution has been falling across the board for...

Chinese businessman sells canned air to smog-choked citizens Recently, we told you about the horrendous air pollution problems in Beijing that have forced the Chinese government to advise citizens to stay indoors and has residents wearing facemasks in an attempt to protect their lungs from the smog. In the true spirit of Chinese entrepreneurialism, a Chinese businessman has decided to cash in on the "airpocalypse" by selling his own brand of canned air. Chen Guangbiao, a local entrepreneur known for his publicity stunts, claims he's selling the cans of air in part as a way to bring attention to the...

China's Smog Is So Bad No One Noticed A Factory Was On Fire Adam TaylorJanuary 15, 2013China's smog problem is reaching historically high levels, with air quality in parts of the country now 40 times higher than standards set by the WHO. There's also serious visibility problems — and these can have real ramifications. State news agency Xinhua reported Monday that a fire in a 1,000 square foot factory in China’s Zhejiang province went unnoticed for 3 hours as locals couldn't tell the difference between the smoke and the smog blanketing the area. By the time anyone noticed, the fire...

BEIJING (AP) — China told foreign embassies Tuesday to stop publishing their own reports on air quality in the country, escalating its objections to a popular U.S. Embassy Twitter feed that tracks pollution in smoggy Beijing. Only the Chinese government is authorized to monitor and publish air quality information and data from other sources may not be standardized or rigorous, Wu Xiaoqing, a vice environmental minister, told reporters. China has long taken issue with the U.S. Embassy's postings of hourly readings of Beijing's air quality on a Twitter feed with more than 19,000 followers since 2008. But its past objections...

Greens to EPA chief: Don’t quit over White House smog reversalBy Ben Geman - 09/09/11 08:28 AM ET A group of environmentalists have launched an online petition drive urging Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson not to resign in the wake of the White House scuttling her plans to toughen Bush-era smog standards. The Earth Day Network created the website americaneedslisajackson.com this week. It calls her the “environmental conscience” of the Obama administration. Supporters include Greenpeace USA Executive Director Phil Radford and NASA scientist James Hansen, a longtime advocate of battling climate change. The website cites speculation among “chattering classes”...

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...

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...

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.'

With a hat tip to Jammie Wearing Fool, we find the AP reporting on a rather inflammatory potential job loss number coming out of a new study on the effects of proposed Obama administration smog regulations. WASHINGTON (AP) — Industry officials say with confidence that 7.3 million jobs will disappear if the Obama administration goes through with tighter rules to reduce smog. The industry-sponsored researcher who came up with that number isn’t so sure.“There’s uncertainty around that,” economist Don Norman said of the “shockingly high” job loss number he extrapolated using a study sponsored by the oil and natural gas...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency is delaying new rules that would impose stricter limits on two key pollutants—smog and mercury—drawing complaints from environmental groups who say the Obama administration appears to be caving in to political pressure from congressional Republicans. "It is hard to avoid the impression that EPA is running scared from the incoming Congress," said Frank O'Donnell, president of the advocacy group Clean Air Watch. Republicans took control of the House and gained in the Senate in the midterm elections, and many GOP lawmakers have vowed to target the EPA for what they call a series...

Nearly a third of older-model cars stopped for roadside smog tests in Southern California failed them, despite having received a passing grade at inspection stations within a year, a state audit has found. The results of those surprise inspections of 6,000 models manufactured before 1996 have led law enforcement officials to crack down on unscrupulous stations, step up fines and file more criminal charges. Legislation introduced in the California Assembly this week would allow the state to bar low-performing test stations from conducting smog checks. "We found widespread fraud in the program," said Leo Kay, spokesman for the California Air...

But we all have to drive hybrids. GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Ozone blowing over from Asia is raising background levels of a major ingredient of smog in the skies over California, Oregon, Washington and other Western states, according to a new study appearing in Thursday’s edition of the journal Nature. The amounts are small and, so far, only found in a region of the atmosphere known as the free troposphere, at an altitude of two to five miles, but the development could complicate U.S. efforts to control air pollution.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed the nation's strictest-ever smog limits, a move that could put King and Pierce counties — and possibly others in Washington — in violation of federal air-quality regulations along with large parts of the country. The EPA proposed reducing the allowable ground-level ozone concentration, measured over an eight-hour period, from 75 parts per billion to between 60 and 70. Ozone standards have been the center of a political and legal battle since spring 2008, when the EPA set a looser limit than what its scientific advisers had suggested and President George W. Bush personally...

Los Angeles (AP) - Parts of the country that haven't worried about air pollution may soon be in the fight California has faced for decades: cleaning up smog. Stricter rules proposed Thursday by the Obama administration could more than double the number of counties across the country that are in violation of clean air standards. That would likely have a big impact on other parts of the nation since California already sets stringent standards for cars, ships and trucks. "This kind of levels the playing field," said Leo Kay, spokesman for the California Air Resources Control Board. "In California we've...

Yesterday the EPA proposed the nation's strictest smog limits ever, a move that could put large parts of the county in violation of federal air-quality regulations. Utility companies, refineries and factories may have to spend up to $90 billion to meet the new smog standards depressing the countries an already weak economy. More than 300 counties -- mainly in southern California, the Northeast and Gulf Coast -- already violate the current, looser requirements adopted two years ago by the Bush administration. For the first time, counties in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, the Dakotas, Kansas, Minnesota and Iowa might be forced to...