EarthBlips - Latest Environmental Protection Agency News Articles

Verizon Wireless Violates Environmental Regulations In 655 Facilities, To Pay Nearly Half A Million In Fines

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:50:18 +0000

The EPA has just announced that Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay a penalty of $468,000 for violating environmental regulations at 655 facilities in 42 states. From the press release from the EPA: Verizon voluntarily entered into a corporate audit agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and conducted environmental compliance audits at more than 25,000 facilities nation-wide. The Environmental Appeals Board at EPA has approved an administrative settlement resolving violations Verizon found through its compliance audits. Verizon audited facilities that include cell towers, mobile switch centers, call centers, and administrative offices. As a result of its audit, the company reported violations of clean water, clean air, and emergency planning and preparedness regulations to EPA. Verizon promptly corrected the violations found during its audit, which included preparing and implementing spill prevention, control, and countermeasure plans, applying for appropriate air ...

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Carl Pope: Tax the Guy Behind the Tree

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:37:56 +0000

I was the second witness yesterday morning as the EPA opened its hearing process on Clean Air Act regulation of greenhouse pollutants. The first was from the American Petroleum Institute (API). He made one point over and over: the EPA shouldn't use the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide and other climate pollutants; it should wait for Congress to act. Of course, just across the Potomac River, on Capitol Hill, API lobbyists were fanning out even as he spoke, telling senators just why it would be a really terrible idea to enact the Kerry-Boxer climate bill, which would do precisely what the API is telling the EPA it favors. This all reminds me of the old adage, "don't tax me, don't tax thee, tax the guy behind the tree." Big Carbon is fighting for its life and seems determined to do as much damage as it can before it faces the inevitable. The world will move on to a clean-energy, post- coal-and-oil economy. But these last-ditch efforts are hugely damaging, because although the EPA is moving ...

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US and China ink emission reporting co-operation deal

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:55:00 +0000

BusinessGreen.com Staff, BusinessGreen , Thursday 19 November 2009 at 11:55:00 EPA to help Chinese counterparts improve mechanisms for reporting on national greenhouse gas emissions The flurry of bilateral environment agreements signed this week between the US and China delivered a significant new deal yesterday designed to improve China's ability to monitor its greenhouse gas...

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Bruce Nilles: Time to Speak Out Against the Biggest Polluters

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:05:30 +0000

This is the weekly post from Bruce Nilles, director of Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign . Wednesday and Thursday of this week are big days if you live in Arlington, Virginia, or Chicago, Illinois. Those are the two days of public hearings on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) "Big Polluters" rule. But of course, this whole issue is huge whether you live in Virginia, Illinois, or anywhere else in the U.S. - it affects everyone. Right now only a handful of pollution sources, including coal-fired power plants, are responsible for more than half of all of the global warming pollution in the United States. Cleaning these up is a large step towards stopping global warming, so EPA is proposing a new rule to start cleaning up these Big Polluters under the Clean Air Act . By targeting the worst offenders, the Big Polluters rule is an important step that will cut global warming pollution while still helping our economy grow. That's why we've helped organize crowds of folks to turn out to the ...

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George Voinovich (R-Ohio) [UPDATED]

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:21:24 +0000

by Grist George Voinovich At a hearing on the Kerry-Boxer climate bill in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Nov. 3, Sen. George Voinovich was the only Republican to show up (for a whole 15 minutes!). He explained that Republicans were boycotting the proceedings because they wanted to wait until the EPA completed a more thorough economic analysis of the bill. He insisted that he did “ want to work on a bipartisan basis ” and that requesting further EPA analysis was “not a stalling tactic.” Voinovich has been arguing for further economic analysis ever since the House passed its version of a climate bill , Waxman-Markey, this summer. He made the point in a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson [PDF] in July. When the Kerry-Boxer bill was unveiled in late September, he called for “ time [to be] allowed for a thorough vetting of what has been proposed .” And in late October, in remarks to the Environment and Public Works ...

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Jeff Biggers: Where's the Love? Will Lisa Jackson and Nancy Sutley Ever Visit a Mountaintop Removal Site?

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:46:48 +0000

I think at the Obama administration we all believe that everybody has the right to live in a clean, healthy environment and a prosperous economy. And we're working towards that. We need to reach out to communities whose voices have been ignored and where there are disproportional impacts, whether it's environmental protection or promoting [a] clean energy economy. --Nancy Sutley interview , July 31, 2009 Question of the week: Given all of their agencies' beautiful rhethoric about "reaching out to communities whose voices have been ignored and where there are disproportional impacts," why haven't EPA chief Lisa Jackson and CEQ administrator Nancy Sutley found three hours in the schedules to visit a mountaintop removal site--the most egregious environmental tragedy in their administration? Will they ever visit Coal River Mountain in West Virginia--the mountaintop removal battleground for clean energy and a healthy environment? On June 11, in responding to the national outcry over the ...

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Gina Solomon: Contaminated Soil in New Orleans: New Research Finds Arsenic is from Katrina Flood

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:46:21 +0000

"The arsenic was probably there all along." That's what our team of scientists kept hearing from EPA and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) staff in the months and years following Hurricane Katrina. As a public health advocate, I didn't see that it mattered: After all, tests by EPA and others in 2005-2006 repeatedly showed significant levels of arsenic in sediment and soil in New Orleans. These levels exceeded State and Federal clean-up standards, and posed a risk of cancer and chronic illness to returning residents, especially children who play in the dirt and put their hands in their mouths. It turns out it did matter, since clean-up funds were earmarked for contamination that was from the storm, not preexisting contamination, regardless of the public health significance. So the government didn't clean the arsenic up, and the residents returned. The problem gnawed at me. I worried about the health risks, and I wondered where all that arsenic came from. I searched the ...

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One reason Congress might consider scrapping the filibuster

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:54:22 +0000

by David Roberts Lester Brown came to our office today and had a nice chat with us Gristers. (Have you watched my diavlog with Brown? It’s must-see tv!) The guy is wicked smart. You really, really should buy his book Plan B 4.0 —it’s the best summation of humanity’s converging ecological problems and the best roadmap to solving them, all in one compact package. One thing from our chat jumped out at me. In the context of a debate about the clean energy bill in Congress (he thinks it’s worse than nothing), Brown made the point that there’s actually a lot of good carbon policy in the pipeline, which will get us some big gains in the short-term. He cited the boost in fuel efficiency standards from the EPA and DOT; green stimulus spending flowing through DOE and states; EPA’s denial of recent coal mining and power plant permits; new federal enforcement of appliance efficiency standards; EPA’s new CO2 reporting requirements; and various state-level ...

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David Vitter's Obstruction Exposes Dirty Relationship With Formaldehyde Industry

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:55:36 +0000

In May, President Obama nominated a renowned scientist known as the "father of green chemistry" to head the EPA's Office of Research and Development. For an administration that supports ambitious climate change legislation and stresses the importance of sustainability, the nomination of Paul Anastas, director of Yale's Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering and a former White House environment director, was very much in keeping with its broader agenda. Anastas' nomination was unanimously approved in committee in July, and his confirmation seemed all but assured. Yet six months later Anastas still isn't confirmed. Standing in his way is Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), whose block on Anastas' nomination raises questions about Vitter's close ties to the formaldehyde industry.

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