pollution

An electric car plugged into a charging station.

Ahead of climate conference, U.S. House panel tussles over curbs on emissions

BY: - November 29, 2023

Republicans on a U.S. House panel argued Wednesday against aggressive moves to meet carbon reduction goals, saying U.S. fossil fuel companies are working to make their products cleaner. Democrats on the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment, Manufacturing and Critical Minerals countered that to achieve further reductions, federal policies should be continued […]

An aerial view of a blue-tinted coal ash pond, with a power plant in the background and woods and a river in the foreground.

The danger upstream: In disposing coal ash, Alabama is not like other states

BY: - October 10, 2023

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here.  At an EPA meeting in Montgomery, a cup of water took center stage. In a modest hotel a stone’s throw from the Alabama River, dozens of […]

An oil refinery on a river, against a mostly-overcast sky. A bridge can be seen in the background.

Report faults EPA for not enforcing limits on toxic benzene emissions at oil refineries

BY: - September 11, 2023

The federal Environmental Protection Agency must do a better job ensuring that oil refineries that exceed emissions limits for benzene, a toxic, carcinogenic pollutant, cut those concentrations, the agency’s inspector general found. “Thirteen of the 118 refineries we reviewed had benzene concentrations above the action level in 20 or more weeks after the initial exceedance,” […]

Cars and trucks move along the Cross Bronx Expressway, a notorious stretch of highway in New York City.

It may have just gotten harder to protect minority communities from pollution

BY: - August 29, 2023

In recent years, some states have invested in air quality monitoring, applied extra scrutiny to permitting decisions and steered cleanup funding to minority communities that have borne the brunt of pollution for decades. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down race-conscious college admissions policies, state lawmakers are facing a […]