The 436 scientists who spend their days testing new vehicles and enforcing environmental rules at the National Fuel Emissions Lab in Ann Arbor, Michigan, face a very uncertain future. The lab sits in the crosshairs of President Trump's proposed budget, which eliminates 99 percent of its funding, as part of a 31-percent cut to the overall... EPA’s Ann Arbor test lab threatened; emission tests in the balance
The 436 scientists who spend their days testing new vehicles and enforcing environmental rules at the National Fuel Emissions Lab in Ann Arbor, Michigan, face a very uncertain future. The lab sits in the crosshairs of President Trump's proposed budget, which eliminates 99 percent of its funding, as part of a 31-percent cut to the overall...
California began regulating vehicle emissions within its boundaries before the Environmental Protection Agency was even a gleam in President Richard Nixon's eye. Since that agency was founded in 1971 with an executive order by Nixon, the state has retained the right to set its own—more stringent—emission rules. Now, under President...
Anniversaries often provide an opportunity to reflect on important past events, review what has happened since, and reflect upon the future. April 2 of this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts vs EPA in which the EPA was forced to regulate carbon emissions. The passing of this anniversary was marked by an...
While much of the nation's capital is preoccupied with the unpredictable Trump administration and its possible ties to Russia, the fate of the Environmental Protection Agency generates less news coverage. That's not to say there hasn't been news. Administrator Scott Pruitt is proceeding swiftly with a radical plan to restructure—critics...
Barbie never said "Math is hard!" The talking doll did, notoriously, say "Math class is tough!" in 1989, sparking a media firestorm over gender roles in childrens' toys and then a voluntary recall by Mattel for offended parents. Reworded, however, the point remains accurate: many people don't understand math. DON'T MISS: Costs to meet fuel-economy...
On Saturday, tens of thousands of people joined a Science March in Washington, D.C., to support use of data-based science to set government policy on climate change. The day before, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency removed detailed climate data and scientific information because it appeared to conflict with the "beliefs" of the Trump...
The Trump administration is either having a robust internal debate on its climate positions or floundering incoherently as various interests vie for the president's attention. Its intentions for the Paris Climate Agreement that the U.S. signed last year remain entirely unclear. On Monday, Trump's EPA administrator Scott Pruitt reportedly asked a...
The current EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, does not accept the scientific consensus on human contribution to climate change, though he has given some contradictory statements on that matter. His views correspond closely to those of his boss, President Donald Trump, who notoriously compared the science to bovine excrement in a tweet and called...
If you're a diehard diesel fan, you now have one last chance to buy a brand-new Volkswagen TDI diesel car. Well, almost brand-new, anyhow: the cars in question are 2015 models, and about 11,000 of them will go on sale after they have been modified. Once they're sold, there will likely be no more new Volkswagen diesels sold in the...
The Clean Power Plan’s future looks uncertain at best under President Donald Trump. The commander-in-chief appears to be urging American utility companies to pivot back towards burning coal to produce electricity. Ending the so-called “war on coal” is intended to create jobs in the mining sector, at the expense of the...
If you have your eyes on a used Volkswagen or Audi TDI turbodiesel, you may wind up having to pay more today for 2009 through 2015 models than you would have when they were new. At least right now, only 2015 model-year versions of VW and Audi vehicles sold with the 2.0-liter turbodiesel 4-cylinder TDI engine can be modified to comply with...
The prospect of ongoing operations as usual continues to darken for the Environmental Protection Agency. According to a detailed internal budget document published in the The Washington Post, the Trump administration wants to eliminate virtually all federal funding for the agency’s vehicle emissions and fuel-economy testing budgets. If the...
The new U.S. president, Donald Trump, is working to eradicate every Obama policy to limit the carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. Having variously called the science behind climate change a "Chinese plot" to hurt the U.S. and referred to it using an expletive for bovine excrement, this shouldn't come as a surprise. He pledged to do...
It was clear well before November's election that candidate Donald Trump did not believe in the accepted science of climate change. He referred to it using an excremental epithet, and also claimed that it was a Chinese hoax created to hurt the U.S. Scientists around the world and the majority of Americans accept the science of climate change, but...
The California Air Resources Board voted Friday to confirm its stricter emissions standards for 2025, setting up a potential clash with the Trump Administration. The CARB vote reaffirms a decision by the EPA in the waning days of the Obama Administration to lock in emissions standards for vehicles in model years 2022 through 2025. Under Trump, the...
While political control in Washington has changed, the debate over a mandate to blend specific volumes of ethanol into the U.S. fuel supply has not. Since its passage in 2007 as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act, the ethanol-mandating Renewable Fuel Standard has attracted controversy. Its requirement of specific volumes of ethanol...