EPA

As expected, today, the Obama administration announced the release of final rules creating the Clean Power Plan. In announcing the CPP, President Barack Obama said this generation is the first “to feel climate change – and the last that can do something about it.”

One of the country's largest environmental groups has accused the federal government of failing to follow pipeline safety planning laws, alleging that for more than two decades the Department of Transportation (DOT) has illegally allowed companies to operate oil pipelines that cross waterways without adequate preparation for spills and other disasters. The National Wildlife Federation, which filed a notice of its intent to sue on Tuesday, accused the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), part of the DOT, of failing to properly enforce the Oil Pollution Act, enacted by Congress in the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill.

Not that we should expect any better from a group funded by the Koch brothers and other fossil fuel interests, but the bizarre "60 Plus Association" has really outdone itself on this one. The group is crying wolf on an EPA study showing that electricity prices will rise under the new regulations by 2020, but ignoring the fact that the actual cost to consumers will dip by as much as 8.7 percent.

Jay Lehr, "Science Director" for the Koch brother-funded Heartland Institute, is calling out the EPA for fraud on Fox News. Funny, didn't Lehr just do jail time for defrauding that same agency?

OIRA operates largely in secret, exempt from most requests under the Freedom of Information Act. It routinely declines to release the changes it has proposed, the evidence it has relied upon to make them, or the identities and affiliations of White House advisers and other agencies' staff it has consulted. OIRA doesn't even disclose the names and credentials of its employees other than its two most senior officials. Maybe that's why you've never heard of OIRA.

Denver is playing host Tuesday and Wednesday of this week as the EPA opens its LEED-certified doors, inviting testimony from all over the region and nation on the agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan, which would cut overall carbon pollution from existing power plants to 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The proposal is billed as part of the President’s Climate Action Plan and carried out through the EPA’s rulemaking authority under the Clean Air Act.

On Monday, in one of those infamous "5-4" decisions, the Supreme Court signaled something of a change in the weather. This time, the "five" sided with progressive interests rather than against. The question was whether or not the (Bush administration) EPA would be allowed to impose regulations controlling greenhouse gasses.

One of the most intractable problems related to fracking is that each well drilled creates millions of gallons of radioactive and toxic wastewater. For the past several years, the EPA has faced enormous public pressure to ensure this dangerous waste stops ending up dumped in rivers or causing contamination in other ways. But the drilling boom has proceeded at such an accelerated pace in the United States that regulators have struggled to keep up, to control or even track where the oil and gas industry is disposing of this radioactive waste.

The EPA scored a huge court victory recently, with the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that the agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (MATS) is within the its realm of enforcement. Estimates show that almost 60 percent of the coal-fired power plants in the country are either using mercury capture and cleaning technology, or their emissions are so low that they do not qualify. And contrary to industry claims, the cost of the new equipment has almost no effect on consumer electricity prices and the companies’ bottom line.

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe continues to berate the Environmental Protection Agency with sweeping generalizations and political sloganeering. Inhofe's contrarian demeanor as a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee doesn't really accomplish anything, but it does give all of us a preview of what could happen if Republicans take control of the Senate in the November midterm elections.