The EPA on Friday granted a waiver of its traditional summer ban on the sale of gasoline with 15-percent ethanol — or “E15” — to continue mitigating the disruption of fuel commerce around the globe caused by the conflict in Ukraine.
Ethanol is made by fermenting the sugar in the starches of grains such as corn, sorghum, and barley, and the sugar in sugar cane and sugar beets. The vast majority of gasoline sold in the United States is “E10,” or gasoline with 10-percent ethanol …
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California has been pushing hard recently to lose its status as the second-largest contributor of the nation’s greenhouse gases (still comfortably behind Texas.)
In 2020, the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) enacted the Advanced Clean Trucks (“ACT”) rule, the world’s first zero-emissions commercial truck requirement. Specifically, ACT required large-capacity vehicle (truck) manufacturers to phase out gasoline and diesel trucks, which account for the largest single source of pollution in the world’s fifth-largest economy, by replacing them with ever-larger volumes of vehicles with zero emissions. By …
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In 2021, an unidentified person hacked the computer controlling the water system in Oldsmar, Fla., and increased the concentration of sodium hydroxide 100 times the normal amount, in an attempt to poison people.
That same year, an unidentified hacker used a stolen password to delete certain programs from a water treatment program in the San Francisco Bay area.
Part of the reason attacks like these are increasing in number and sophistication is because there quite simply may not be a sufficient apparatus to prevent them. …
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With names like “boiler slag” and “bottom ash,” it’s no wonder that anyone who has ever heard of coal ash, or the coal combustion residuals (CCRs) produced from burning coal, assumes they are the basest forms of pollution. And they’re not entirely wrong; bottom ash is the burn-up matter that is too large to be carried up into the smoke stacks so it collects in the bottom of a coal furnace. Boiler slag is the glassy pellets that form in the bottom of coal stoves …
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The pendulum of policy on the environment was sent pounding back toward regulation again when the Biden administration issued new directives for greenhouse gas emissions.
The Interim Guidance on Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change (“Interim Guidance”) seeks to:
The Biden administration in April gave a large boost to vehicle-fuel-economy standards when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced its intention to increase Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (“CAFE”) standards by 8 percent for the 2024 and 2025 model years, and 10 percent in 2026.
This aggressive initiative took a large step in reversing the Trump administration’s rollback of regulations targeting gas mileage and pollution reduction put in place during the Obama era. However, this large step also may have just tripped over the …
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The principals of electrochemical power have been known for more than 200 years. Two specific chemicals are stored in a battery, separated by a third chemical called an “electrolyte.” When placed in a closed circuit (the device needing power), one of the chemicals reacts with the electrolyte and produces a higher concentration of electrons at the negative terminal, the “anode,” than at the positive terminal, the “cathode.” The electrons then run from the anode, through the device powering it, to the cathode, until the concentration …
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Last week, four environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to assess the hard-data consequences of pesticides in its approval process.
Back in 1987, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) created lists of pesticides, dividing inert ingredients into four categories based on their toxicological concern; List 1-Inerts of toxicological concern, List 2-Potentially toxic inerts/high priority for testing, List 3-Inerts of unknown toxicity, and List 4-Inerts of minimal concern.
Despite this list clearly demonstrating that the EPA has been aware—for decades—of the potential for …
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The Delaware River Basin Commission (“DRBC”), the first government-and-state joint venture in river basin planning since the birth of the nation, itself, won a substantial—but narrow—victory on Friday when the 3rd Circuit ruled that individual state senators did not have standing to challenge the fracking ban in Northern PA inacted by DRBC in February of 2021.
The DRBC was created in 1961 when the governors of New Jersey, New York, Delaware and Pennsylvania joined President Kennedy and signed concurrent legislation creating a regional legal …
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In June 1989, then-President George H. W. Bush proposed revisions to the Clean Air Act designed to reduce what were perceived as three of the largest threats to the environment at the time: toxic air emissions, acid rain, and urban air pollution.
More specifically, Section 112r of what became the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 required the EPA to publish guidance and regulations for chemical accident prevention by entities using compounds that posed the greatest risk of harm from accidental releases. These regulations were …
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