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Friday Finds: An Oceanic-Sized Miracle
Mexican government saves miracle reef Cabo Pulmo, an ecological treasure and the jewel of California, recently received a stay of execution after the Mexican government announced its decision to cancel a mega-resort development project near the reef in Baja California Sur, reports the LA Times. The cancelled Cabo Cortes resort development was by far the…
Read MoreTr-Ash Talk: Two Years is Too Long
Although the EPA’s proposed coal ash rule was published two years ago, a final rule is nowhere in sight. Two years is more than enough time for the EPA to decide on a set of reasonable, health-protective standards for the country’s second largest industrial waste. The EPA blames the delay on 450,000 public comments. However,…
Read MoreA Community Being Poisoned from Within
Last year, the EPA proposed an air rule that would finally limit the amount of cancer-causing chemicals residents in Mossville, Louisiana would have to breathe from the polyvinyl chloride plant nearby. So it came as a blow when the EPA released a final rule that imposes weaker limits at the CertainTeed plant in Mossville—a facility…
Read MoreSoot Gets Editorial Ink
The historical significance of the Environmental Protection Agency’s recently proposed new limits on fine particle pollution, colloquially called soot, wasn’t lost on a number of editorial pages.
Read MoreDeadly Air Bill Voted Down in Senate
There are some straight spines left in the U.S. Senate, which today voted down a resolution from Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) that would have effectively exempted coal-fired power plants—the nation’s worst air polluters—from Clean Air Act controls that limit mercury and other toxic emissions. This is a critical victory in the decades-long effort to protect…
Read MoreTr-Ash Talk: We’re Watching Your Vote
It’s Groundhog Day in the House of Representatives. Once again, coal company allies are leading a charge to pass a symbolic vote that would reinforce their disdain for any plans to clean up coal ash ponds and landfills with federal minimum safeguards. But the symbolism has real-world impacts: nearly 200 coal ash sites have already…
Read MoreTipping Toward Point of No Return
An increasing number of experts are reaching consensus on the devastating and possibly irreversible effects of climate change linked to human activity, according to the Nature journal. The “tipping point” – that moment when the planet’s capacity to support all of its systems collapses – could be near, scientists say. Environmental conditions on Earth that…
Read MoreBill Will Protect Communities, Families From Mountaintop Removal
Big news today in our fight to end destructive mountaintop removal mining: 13 congressional leaders joined to introduce legislation to protect communities and families from the dangerous health effects of our nation’s most extreme form of coal mining—mountaintop removal mining. The Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act is the first federal legislation to address the human…
Read MoreAdvocate for Clean Air Dies
Edgar Mouton lived much of his 76 years in Mossville, Louisiana, and for the past decade fought doggedly to obtain federal protections from the toxic pollution that pours into Mossville from the largest concentration of PVC and vinyl manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and a host of other hazardous industrial facilities. As a great-grandfather and…
Read MoreWhite House Vows Veto If Deadly Air Bill Passes
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is spearheading an egregious effort in the Senate to exempt the nation’s worst air polluters from the Clean Air Act. He is floating a resolution that would block recently finalized limits on the amounts of mercury, arsenic and other health-damaging pollutants that coal- and oil-fired power plants can emit. It’s up…
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