Reporting by CNN today reveals that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is pushing for a road to be built through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The road would be the first constructed through a Wilderness area, and marks the latest in a long string of decisions by the Interior Department to roll back protections for wild places.
A coalition of environmental groups filed a petition for review with the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to overturn Virginia’s unlawful approval of the fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Today’s action comes just a day after the Virginia State Water Control Board issued a certificate under the Clean Water Act that MVP needed to obtain to begin construction.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Yesterday, during EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s congressional hearing, Pruitt announced the EPA will be partnering with Toyota on an operational review. Toyota’s vehicles are regulated by the EPA under vehicle emission standards (clean car standards). Toyota is currently urging the EPA to weaken these standards. In March of 2003, the EPA reached a settlement with Toyota for failing to disclosure information about a faulty part that increased ozone pollution in 2.2 million vehicles sold in the U.S.
In yet another setback for Enbridge, the company behind the proposed Line 3 tar sands pipeline, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) ruled today that the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) on the pipeline is inadequate. The Department of Commerce must answer narrow questions about Karyst Typography and clarify shortcomings in the analysis.
Today, the Virginia State Water Control Board allowed construction of the fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), despite public opposition and evidence the pipeline would irrevocably degrade pristine streams and waterways.
Johnstown, P.A.--Yesterday, operators of the Colver Power Project announced plans to close the waste coal burning plant in September of 2020 when its contract to sell electricity to Penelec expires. This will be the 268th coal plant to retire since 2010.
Anchorage, AK -- Yesterday, what the Trump administration had billed the “Largest Ever” lease sale for fossil fuel development on public lands, covering 10.3 million acres, generated minimal interest. Only seven bids were made, covering less than 1% of the proposed sale.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged this week to make Washington, D.C. carbon-neutral and climate resilient by 2050. The announcement came while Mayor Bowser was attending the North American Climate Summit in Chicago.
Mayor Bowser announced that D.C. will:
• develop a plan to make D.C. greenhouse gas emission neutral by 2050;
Washington, DC -- The Trump administration is rolling back safety standards for trains carrying highly explosive materials such as oil. The rule, established by the Obama administration, came after a number of deadly and dangerous explosions from such trains in the US and Canada, including the Mosier, Oregon fire which forced the evacuation of nearly the entire town and the Lac Megantic disaster, which killed 47 people and resulted in the destruction of more than 30 buildings.
In a notice to be published to the Federal Register tomorrow, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will finalize a one-year delay of a rule designed to limit methane pollution from oil and gas operations on public lands. The rule has already withstood legal attack from industry, as well as an attempted repeal in Congress.