Two words the Trump Administration can’t say: climate change

Donald TrumpDuring President Donald J. Trump's half-hour meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican yesterday, the pope gave the president a copy of his 2015 encyclical calling for urgent, drastic cuts in fossil-fuel emissions. It is unclear whether the U.S. president will peruse the document. Back at home, however, his administration is continuing unabated in...

EPA gets 29,000 comments on proposed elimination of environmental rules

Smog obscures George Washington Bridge, 1973 [From EPA Documerica series]Much of the news out of Washington, D.C., these days has to do with the possibility of political scandal. But the wheels of government keep turning, and significant changes are happening at numerous agencies charged with missions as diverse as collecting intelligence, supporting education, and protecting the environment. Few groups are seeing...

EPA’s Ann Arbor test lab threatened; emission tests in the balance

The White House, Washington, D.C.  [Creative Commons license by dcjohn]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 science advisers axed; execs from regulated industries to replace them

Natural gas flaring from oil well [licensed under Creative Commons from Flickr user Sirdle]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...

Pruitt won’t kill EPA ‘endangerment’ finding on climate change

Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, 2014The 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...

Trump budget slashes EPA emission testing, hits makers with higher fees

2017 Ford F-150 Raptor strapped to a dynoThe 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...

Green groups gird for battle with White House: is it ‘war’?

The White House, Washington, D.C.  [Creative Commons license by dcjohn]Last Wednesday, a broad coalition of environmental groups sued the Trump Administration over an executive order that lifted a moratorium on issuing new leases for coal mining on federal lands. That order would have eliminated the requirement for an environmental impact study on the impacts of any form of coal extraction across a wide swath of...

CARB reaffirms state emission, electric-car rules for 2025

California Air Resources Board chair Mary Nichols (via Twitter)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...

E15 gasoline faces stronger headwinds as more states move to ban it

Big square baler harvesting wheat straw for production of cellulosic ethanolWhile 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...

Bill making it harder for scientists to sit on EPA Science Board advances

U.S. Capitol BuildingSince the election of Donald Trump, considerable attention has focused on how a candidate who campaigned on promoting fossil fuels would treat the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies charged with regulating those industries. But potential changes to the EPA do not come solely from the Executive Branch. Over the past few...