Albany, N.Y.— Eleven various organization submitted comments today supporting the Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) efforts to decrease dangerous smog pollution downstate. Last week, DEC hosted three public hearings in Albany, New York City and Long Island on new nitrous oxide (NOx) pollution limits for over 40“peaker” gas plants, located across Long Island and New York City. “Peakers” only run during times of peak energy demand a handful of days a year, but they emit enormous amounts of toxic pollutants into our air -- harming New Yorkers health and leaving downstate New York with some of the worst air quality in the country.
Activists rallied this afternoon outside BP’s US headquarters to call on the oil company to pledge not to drill in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The rally took place as the company prepares to face shareholders at its annual meeting in Scotland and in the wake of new reporting on BP’s lobbying efforts to see the delicate area opened to destructive drilling.
Recently reported by E&E and Nature, the Environmental Protection Agency is zeroing out funding for a network of research centers focused on environmental threats to kids, leaving several ongoing studies about the impacts of pollution on child development in limbo.
Clean air experts sounded the alarm today as the New York Times reported that former coal lobbyist and EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler plans to abandon peer-reviewed science in order to sell the Trump Administration’s Dirty Power Plan, its attempt to roll back the Clean Power Plan.
Today, Sierra Club, Fresh Energy, Union of Concerned Scientists, Center for Energy and Environment, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Clean Grid Alliance, LIUNA (Laborers’ International Union of North America) Minnesota and North Dakota, and Xcel Energy filed an agreement with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MNPUC) that proposes retirement dates for Xcel’s remaining coal units and includes historic investments in solar energy and energy efficiency.
Today, over 125 people on land and 50 people on water gathered at the “No Methanol Land and Water Action Community Camp-Out” opposing the proposed fracked-gas-to-methanol refinery in Kalama, WA. Speakers called on the Washington Department of Ecology to deny the project, and thanked Governor Inslee for his recent opposition to the project.
Oakland, CA-- Today, after hearing arguments from declarentes from the Sierra Club, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC)’s over their preliminary injunction motion on their challenge of Trump’s emergency declaration lawsuit, a federal judge declined to make a decision on the injunction. The preliminary injunction is a part of the group’s challenge of the president’s national emergency and blocks the administration’s initial transfer of over a billion dollars from the Pentagon for border wall construction.
Columbia, S.C. – Last night, after previously unanimously passing both the South Carolina House of Representatives and the state Senate, Gov. Henry McMaster signed into law the Energy Freedom Act, House Bill 3659, also known as “the solar bill.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, the Environmental Protection Agency Office of the Inspector General (EPA OIG) released its audit of former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s travel expenses. The report found that Pruitt spent $124,000 on first class tickets, excessive travel expenditures, and his unprecedented security detail. The audit recommends the EPA recover the funds from Scott Pruitt. Now lead by coal lobbyist and Scott Pruitt’s handpicked deputy, in a statement Andrew Wheeler’s EPA defended the disgraced Administrator’s travel expenses and made it clear it would not follow the IG’s recommendation to recover the wasted taxpayer money.
Ahead of BP’s annual shareholders meeting, activists plan to rally outside the oil company’s American headquarters in Denver on Monday, May 20 at 12pm to call on BP to pledge not to drill in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.