By Elliott Negin
Two Colorado counties and the city of Boulder are suing ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy, Canada's largest oil company, to hold them responsible for climate change-related damage to their communities.
By Sarah Reinhardt
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced it will hire a new "chief integrity officer" to oversee federal nutrition programs such as the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps).
By Dave Cooke and Elliott Negin
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) recent decision to roll back fuel economy standards for new cars and light trucks could slam the brakes on our nation's most successful climate initiative to date.
The next phase of the standards calls for improving the average fuel efficiency of new cars and trucks in the U.S. to about 50 miles per gallon in lab tests by 2025, which corresponds to a real-world performance of about 36 mpg. By 2030, that would avoid nearly 4 billion tons of global warming emissions, akin to shutting down 140 coal-fired power plants over that time frame.
By Dave Cooke
In what comes as a surprise to absolutely no one following the current administration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt on Monday issued a redetermination of the appropriateness of the EPA's vehicle regulations through 2025 and found that they should be made less stringent. In doing so, he is overturning thousands of pages of hard evidence, and the consequences will be limiting consumer choice, increasing emissions and undercutting the economy.
By John Rogers
A new tool from The Solar Foundation breaks down the latest solar jobs numbers by state, metropolitan area, county and congressional district, and looks at who makes up the solar industry. Here's a taste of what those numbers say, and why they matter.
The number of pollution sources in China has gone up by more than 50 percent since 2010, Reuters reported Thursday, indicating that the country still has a lot of work to do in its efforts to clean up its environment.
The announcement was made Thursday in the first regular press briefing given by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), the newly-enhanced environment ministry which was renamed and given added jurisdiction over marine ecology, agricultural pollution and climate change this month as part of what Chemical & Engineering News reported was the biggest shake-up in the Chinese government in 20 years.
By Yogin Kothari
After a long wait, late Wednesday night, Congress posted a spending agreement for the rest of the 2018 fiscal year. For the most part, we achieved significant victories, especially given the challenging political environment, in repelling proposals that would have directly undermined the role of science in public health and environmental policymaking.
This was a big week for the suit brought by San Francisco and Oakland against the five largest investor-owned fossil fuel companies for the costs associated with adapting to climate change.
First, the five companies in question—Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell—filed a motion Tuesday to dismiss the case, arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had dismissed similar cases in the past because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, not private companies, is responsible for setting and enforcing carbon dioxide levels, Forbes reported.
In the coming weeks, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt is expected to announce a proposal that would limit the type of scientific studies and data the agency can use in crafting public health and environmental regulations.
The planned policy shift, first reported by E&E News, would require the EPA to only use scientific findings whose data and methodologies are made public and can be replicated.
