EPA

03/09/2010 -- WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking public comment on the annual Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2008 draft report. This report will be open for public comment for 30 days after the Federal Register notice is published.

The draft report shows that in 2008, overall greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions have decreased by 2.9 percent. This downward trend was attributed to a decrease in carbon dioxide emissions associated with fuel and electricity consumption. Total emissions from GHGs were about 6,946 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent. Overall, emissions have grown by 13.6 percent from 1990 to 2008.    » read more »

03/04/2010 -- WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released today the annual summary of the Superfund program’s fiscal year (FY) 2009 progress. The report shows that the program continues to make significant progress in achieving its mission of cleaning up the country’s most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites and protecting the health of nearby communities and ecosystems from harmful contaminants.    » read more »

EPA Administrator to Face Senate Appropriators Tomorrow

March 2, 2010 -- Washington, D.C.--Half of the House Republican caucus, led by Minority Leader John Boehner, is set to back legislation that guts the Clean Air Act in order to bail out Big Oil.

The legislation, mirroring the unprecedented assault against the Clean Air Act being led by Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, would stall new fuel economy rules that will cut America's oil use by 1.8 billion barrels and save consumers nearly $500 a year at the gas pump.    » read more »

Clean Energy Project Aims to Benefit Local Economies and Create Jobs

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are evaluating the feasibility of developing renewable energy production on Superfund, brownfields, and former landfill or mining sites.    » read more »

Global Warming Does Threaten Public Health

March 2, 2010 -- More than 500 scientists sent a letter to Congress yesterday, urging lawmakers to oppose House and Senate resolutions that would reverse the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) finding that global warming endangers public health. The letter was organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

"Because the EPA's finding is based on solid science, this amendment also represents a rejection of that science," the letter stated. "The EPA's endangerment finding is based on an exhaustive review of the massive body of scientific research showing a clear threat from climate change."    » read more »

FY2011 Request: $10 billion; FY2010 Enacted: $10 billion

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is committed to protecting human health and the environment. The Budget requests $10 billion for EPA, a substantially higher annual amount than requested under any previous Administration. This amount will strengthen the EPA’s program implementation, research, regulation, and comprehensive enforcement activities. EPA’s budget also provides more funding for state and tribal program implementation grants than any previous budget.

Create Healthier, Safer Communities

* $3.3 billion total for the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs) for states to provide low-interest loans to communities to finance wastewater and drinking water infrastructure.    » read more »

EPA’s Budget Proposal Seeks Efficiencies, Increased Environmental Protection: Budget proposal aligned with Administrator Jackson’s key priorities

02/01/2010 -- WASHINGTON - The Obama Administration today proposed a budget of $10 billion for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This budget heeds the president’s call to streamline and find efficiencies in the agency’s operations while supporting the seven priority areas EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson outlined to guide EPA’s work.    » read more »

Demand U.S. EPA to Release Regulations As Promised

WASHINGTON (January 28, 2010) - Grassroots environmental advocates joined with national groups the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, Sierra Club, and the Environmental Integrity Project to raise awareness across the country of the dangers of coal ash and to call for federal regulations of the toxic waste.

Today’s Coal Ash Day of Action was marked with an overwhelming grassroots effort to generate letters to newspapers and opinion leaders, as well as thousands of emails and phone calls to the White House and members of Congress.    » read more »

Subcommittee Chairman Continues to Push for Comprehensive Air Quality Legislation

January 25, 2010 -- WASHINGTON – Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Clean Air and Nuclear Safety subcommittee, today applauded the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to strengthen a four-decades-old nitrogen dioxide air quality standard to better protect public health. This decision comes on the heels of other proposals over the last two months to tighten national sulfur dioxide and ozone air quality standards.    » read more »

January 24, 2010 -- Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell announced today she is urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to quickly adopt its proposed new and more stringent standards on smog that would improve the air quality in the Northeast and sanction upwind states to the south and west where smog-causing pollutants are generated.

“All of us in Connecticut look forward to the day when we are able to put an end to what is a great and unacceptable irony,” the Governor wrote in a letter to federal EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “The irony is that industry, electrical power generating facilities and other sources in states to our west and south generate pollutants that cause smog, which is carried into Connecticut by prevailing winds.    » read more »

01/21/2010 -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today sent the following letter to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urging them to oppose any effort in the Senate to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to enforce the Clean Air Act to fight global climate change.

January 21, 2010

The Honorable Harry Reid
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Minority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Reid and Senator McConnell,    » read more »

01/25/2010 -- SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today that Santa Clara Calif., based semiconductor chip maker Intel Corporation has increased its purchase of green power and ranks No. 1 on EPA’s National Top 50 List of green power purchasers.

“The race to reduce greenhouse gas emissions requires moving to renewable energy. EPA's Green Power Partners are leading by example.” said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s newly appointed Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. “Intel, and companies like it, show that you can save the planet and your bottom-line by ditching polluting power sources and switching to green power.”    » read more »

01/25/2010 -- WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s top 10 Green Power Partners increased their voluntary green power commitments by more than 1.5 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2009, while 300 new organizations joined the Green Power Partnership. Overall, the 1,200 partners are buying nearly 18 billion kWh of green power annually, equivalent to the annual carbon dioxide emissions from electricity use of more than 1.6 million average American homes.    » read more »

First new NO2 standard in 35 years will improve air quality for millions

01/25/2010 -- WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced a new national air quality standard for nitrogen dioxide (NO2). This new one-hour standard will protect millions of Americans from peak short-term exposures, which primarily occur near major roads. Short-term exposures to NO2 have been linked to impaired lung function and increased respiratory infections, especially in people with asthma.    » read more »

Emissions to Be Cut by More Than 75,000 Tons Annually

January 25, 2010 -- WASHINGTON -- Westar Energy has agreed to spend approximately $500 million to significantly reduce harmful air pollution from a Kansas power plant and pay a $3 million civil penalty, under a settlement to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act, the Justice Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today. As part of the settlement, Westar will also spend $6 million on environmental mitigation projects.

The agreement, filed in federal court in Kansas, resolves violations of the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review requirements at the company’s Jeffrey Energy Center, a coal-fired power plant near St. Marys, Kan.    » read more »