Coming this week: Trump EPA’s plan to neuter Clean Power Plan

Electric power plant outside Ithaca, New YorkDonald Trump's White House appears to be readying another of its next big climate change overhauls, and like many of the administration's plans, it will weaken or eliminate regulations on industry. Specifically, President Trump touted the undoing of the Clean Power Plan at a rally in Huntsville, Alabama, which foreshadowed a formal announcement...

Shell bashes bans on gasoline cars, proposes carbon pricing instead

Shell fuel station in EuropeThe prospect of bans on gasoline and diesel new-car sales have become a much greater threat not only to automakers but to oil companies as well, now that China has said it is studying such a move. The world's largest car market has not announced any timetables for such a ban, which will likely be implemented to give domestic automakers the maximum...

2020 Mazda electric car to share Toyota underpinnings, technology

2017 Mazda Mazda3 4-Door Sport Auto GrilleMazda is a tiny carmaker on a global scale, producing just 1.6 million vehicles a year. It competes with four companies (GM, Nissan-Renault, Toyota, and VW Group) that each sell around 10 million a year, as well as numerous other smaller makers still larger than Mazda. In a world where reducing the carbon emissions from road vehicles is...

Exxon knew climate change was real, ads told public it wasn’t

Oil well (photo by John Hill)Sometimes it's best not to dare the public to do the research, especially if you're trying to persuade them of something that isn't true. Almost two years ago, Inside Climate News published a significant expose that confirmed Exxon's own scientists had agreed that human carbon emissions contributed to global warming as early as July 1977. But as...

Here’s how to comment on EPA proposal to loosen emission limits on cars

Chrome exhaust pipeOn August 10, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it would reopen the Comment Period for the vehicle-emission standards for model years 2022 through 2025 it had finalized in January. The auto industry and its lobbyists had complained that the agency had moved too quickly, despite its issuance last summer of a voluminous Technical...

Are Eco settings on cabin ventilation systems a safety hazard?

2013 Jaguar XK 2-door Convertible XKR Air VentsAs corporate average fuel economy requirements that started in 2012 continue to tighten, automakers have turned to an entire arsenal of tactics to reduce the fuel their vehicles burn. Downsized and turbocharged engines, transmissions with many more gears, lighter-weight structures, better aerodynamics and more all add incrementally to efficiency...

Trump EPA to hold unneeded ‘critique’ to challenge climate science

Coal, by Flicker user oatsy40 (Used Under CC License)The best analog to EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's latest action might be for the U.S. Geological Survey to undertake a "scientific critique" of theories that the world is round. After all, numerous authoritative sources over the years have raised doubts that the Earth is not flat. Surely their views deserve to be aired. Late last week, it...

Electric cars cleaner than any gas-only car for 97 percent of U.S. drivers

Electric-car wells-to-wheels emission equivalencies in MPG, May 2017 [Union of Concerned Scientists]Electric cars have no tailpipe emissions when running. But unless they're charged entirely on renewable energy—still statistically unlikely today—there are emissions associated with generating the electricity used to charge their batteries. For several years now, rigorous "wells-to-wheels" analyses of the carbon-dioxide emissions...