epa

EPA Watchdog: White House Blocked Part of Truck Pollution Investigation, Caused Lack of Public Information

EPA Watchdog: White House Blocked Part of Truck Pollution Investigation, Caused Lack of Public Information

The Trump administration pushed through an exemption to clean air rules, effectively freeing heavy polluting, super-cargo trucks from following clean air rules. It rushed the rule without conducting a federally mandated study on how it would impact public health, especially children, said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Inspector General Charles J. Sheehan in a report […]

Join our newsletter

The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!

    Coal Plants Get a Pass to Pollute Our Waterways

    Coal Plants Get a Pass to Pollute Our Waterways

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Monday proposed to roll back safeguards that keep one of the nation’s biggest industrial polluters — coal-burning power plants — from discharging harmful substances into the nation’s waterways. In addition, the agency moved to extend deadlines for companies to stop using unlined toxic coal ash ponds, which are prone […]

    California Burns Because of the Climate Crisis While Trump Undermines Efforts to Help

    California Burns Because of the Climate Crisis While Trump Undermines Efforts to Help

    While California wrestles with increased frequency and severity of wildfires due to the climate crisis, President Trump continues to take steps to stop the nation’s most populous state from taking any climate-related action. The state’s leaders have tried to decrease pollution from tailpipe emissions, enter into climate agreements with Quebec and strike emission’s standards deals […]

    EPA to Weaken Public Protections Against Toxic Coal Ash in Water

    EPA to Weaken Public Protections Against Toxic Coal Ash in Water

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will release several new rules in the coming weeks, many of which will relax regulations meant to protect the environment from industrial pollution. In a gift to the coal industry, the EPA will reverse course on regulations meant to reduce the amount of toxic heavy metals that leach into […]

    Lowe’s Joins Home Depot to Tackle Toxic PFAS in Carpets

    Lowe’s Joins Home Depot to Tackle Toxic PFAS in Carpets

    In a win for public health, the home improvement giant Lowe’s announced that it will stop selling carpets and rugs containing toxic PFAS chemicals in the United States and Canada by January 2020. Home Depot recently made a similar commitment, signaling that stores are starting to take this health crisis seriously. “Lowe’s is making home […]

    Maui Mayor Rejects Clean Water Act Settlement, Aims for Supreme Court Hearing

    Maui Mayor Rejects Clean Water Act Settlement, Aims for Supreme Court Hearing

    By Brett Walton Defying a vote of the County Council, Maui Mayor Michael Victorino said on Oct.18 that he will not settle a Clean Water Act lawsuit that holds national implications for water pollution permitting. Instead of the settlement that the council authorized last month, Victorino prefers to have the nation’s highest court decide whether […]

    Tap Water Safety: There’s Good News and Bad News

    Tap Water Safety: There’s Good News and Bad News

    Sometimes our drinking water systems experience dangerous failures, such as the Flint lead poisoning disaster that made major news beginning in 2014. But outside those headline grabbing crises, how safe is our drinking. The nonprofit Environmental Working Group wants to help you answer that question. It has collected all the water-quality information that utilities in […]

    Disbanded Air Pollution Panel Finds EPA Standards Don’t Protect Public Health

    Disbanded Air Pollution Panel Finds EPA Standards Don’t Protect Public Health

    By Gretchen Goldman The Independent Particulate Matter Review Panel has released their consensus recommendations to the EPA administrator on the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter. The group of 20 independent experts, that were disbanded by Administrator Wheeler last October and reconvened last week, hosted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, has now […]