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Why Our President Pulled the Plug on Ozone Rule
A few months ago when the Obama Administration abruptly scrapped a stronger ozone standard, we were blindsided. Turns out, we weren’t the only ones. This New York Times article gives an illuminating look at the political wrangling behind the scenes of the decision, and indicates that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson herself was blindsided. So much…
Read MoreMore Appliance Listings Missing Energy Efficiency Information
Back in July, I wrote about the lengths to which shoppers sometimes have to go in order to find legally required energy efficiency information about appliances for sale online. In response, more than 10,000 of you wrote in supporting our petition telling the Federal Trade Commission to require online retailers to display that information front…
Read MoreThe Nation Is Sick of Soot
Sometimes, little things cause big problems. The tiny particles in soot pollution are 1/30th the width of a strand of your hair, and yet those tiny particles may be responsible for the premature deaths of tens of thousands of Americans every year. Earthjustice, Clean Air Task Force and the American Lung Association released a report…
Read MoreTr-Ash Talk: Calling On All Skeptics
This week, the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Energy and Environment will investigate how the Environmental Protection Agency incorporates science into its rulemaking process. Given that the EPA has been Public Enemy Number 1 for the GOP-controlled House, this is likely to be another opportunity for Republicans and their comrades to target the…
Read MoreCreek Memories & Our Fight For Clean Water in America
From early morning tadpole pursuits to sunset creek walks, my summer days started and ended in the creek that ran behind my home. My dad built a bridge across the creek, but for our neighborhood gang of rascals, well, there was no use for such bridges when we could splash and wade right through that…
Read MoreNew Jersey Rally Protests Dirty Energy Power Lines
There was more than the usual lurking going on Thursday afternoon in Lurker Park in East Hanover, New Jersey. More than 50 people turned out to protest the Obama administration’s fast-tracking of a proposed electrical power line that would bring coal-fired power to New Jersey. The protesters say we should be using less, not more, coal-fired…
Read MoreFriday Finds: Tax Evasion Exxon Style
Energy companies dodge taxes while getting rich off subsidies Most people try to pay as little in taxes as possible, but energy companies like Exxon Mobil and PG&E have taken tax dodging to the extreme by actually making money off taxpayers while paying zero dollars in taxes, reports ThinkProgress. According to an analysis by the…
Read MoreSure, Inhaling Mercury Is Fine for Your Health
As part of the Poisoned Places: Toxic Air, Neglected Communities series, NPR investigated the toxic air pollution being pumped out of the Ash Grove cement plant in Chanute, Kansas, a town of roughly 9,000 people. The Ash Grove facility, which emits some 500 pounds of mercury a year when operating full blast, is not violating…
Read MoreOccupy the Earth
It’s not every day that you see a “stop police brutality” sign coupled with signs about protecting the environment, but that was the scene I came upon last week while attending an Occupy Oakland. If you’ve been paying any attention to the Occupy Wall Street movement that now spans100 U.S. cities, you know that many…
Read More"How Wall Street Occupied America"
“Wall Street owns the country…. Money rules…. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.” So sayeth the pupulist firebrand Mary Elizabeth Lease in 1890. “She should see us now,” comments Bill Moyers in…
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