Search

The article reports on the strategies of the Bush administration regarding climate change. It mentions that the first move involves the signing of U.S. President George W. Bush and other leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) industrial powers of a symbolic pledge on July 9, 2008 to help trim global emissions by 2050. The second move happened on July 11, 2008 when the Bush Administration announced that it would not use the nation's leading clean-air law to regulate greenhouse gases. The author declares that both actions reflect the tumultuous relationship of the administration with climate change. Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson proposed that entirely new laws are needed to deal with climate change.

The article reports on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) adjustment of a smog standard to White House preference. The Clean Air Act requires EPA to review the standards for six major pollutants including soot and ozone. Stephen Johnson, the Administrator of the EPA tightened the secondary standard which is intended to protect "human welfare," a broadly defined phrase in the Clean Air Act that includes effects on soil, vegetation, visibility and property. The measurement of the secondary and primary standard for ozone is described.

This article reports on environmentalism in the U.S. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed such a cap-and-trade system last year, it argued that it was the most effective way to cut back the 48 tons of mercury, a known neurotoxin, emitted nationwide each year. Coal-fired power plants are responsible for about 40% of all mercury emissions in the U.S., making them the largest single source. No federal rules on mercury from power plants are in place yet, although EPA determined in 2000 that regulation was appropriate and necessary.

Federal regulators should be allowed to use data from controversial studies in which people are deliberately dosed with pesticides and other chemicals, an expert panel has concluded. The National Research Council report says that even though some consider such tests morally wrong because they expose healthy volunteers to risks, they may be acceptable under certain conditions. The panel recommends that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hold human testing to strict new standards, including review by a new agency ethics panel. Environmental groups charged that the report is full of loopholes and urged EPA to place a moratorium on exposing humans to pesticides and other toxicants.

When Christine Todd Whitman resigned as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on third week of May 2003 she faced a barrage of criticism. Environmental groups said that under her tenure the agency had weakened environmental laws and regulations. Whitman tends to receive higher marks for EPA science under her tenure. A moderate Republican, Whitman came to the agency with a track record of improving New Jersey's environment while governor. During her 2.5 years at EPA Whitman began to strengthen research and boost its role in decision-making.

The article reports that the federal government in the U.S. took two significant steps on the long road to testing the feasibility of burying carbon dioxide to combat global warming. The Department of Energy (DOE) will inject more than a million tons of carbon dioxide from coal plants in an effort to sequester carbon emission from power plants. DOE chose three sites that include Texas, North Dakota and Alberta. On the other side, the Environmental Protection Agency will begin crafting rules on regulating large-scale injection projects.

The article reports on the demand of Representative Edward Markey, chair of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, to closely monitor the $100 million global market for voluntary carbon offsets in the U.S. According to Markey, he feels that offsets could play a positive role. Markey has written a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency that a lack of generally accepted standard has sparked doubts about the credibility of some offset products, and he has also asked the Federal Trade Commission to devise guidelines for those who market such offsets. Meanwhile, some climate scientists claim that offsets are a distraction from cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The article reports on the first national study of air pollutants from dairy cow, swine and poultry farms launched by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Researchers will measure emissions of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and other gases from livestock farms in nine states across the country. The agency will then create a model to enable individual operations to check whether they need a permit. However, some environmentalists opposes the study because for them it is not comprehensive and may underestimate emissions.

The article focuses on the report released by former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Assistant Administrator J. Clarence Davies regarding safety issues on the use of nanomaterials in commercial products. Davies stipulated in his report that there are already 500 commercial products that uses nanomaterials and EPA should start looking into its safety. Moreover, Davies urged congress to allocate more than $50 million annually to be used on research on the impact of nanotechnology on health and the environment. Furthermore, he stressed that revisions should be made on the Toxic Substances Control Act and the establishment of a joint government industry nanoscience research institute.

The article focuses on the regulatory controversy heading toward Susan Dudley's inbox concerning the toxic legacy of lead pollution in the U.S. The controversy highlights on the cost versus benefits in the proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientific advisers to tighten the implementation of air-quality standard for lead, lowering the permissible level from 1.5 µg/m3 to 0.2 µg/m3. The standard of lowering lead amount is proposed to cope up with the lowered intelligence quotient (IQ) among children exposed with lead. Various methods to reduce lead content in the air were considered, depicting the initiative to eliminate contaminated soil from along the road or renovate old house

The article presents information related to the change in process of reviewing health standards for six of the most widespread and dangerous air pollutants by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The decision was announced by officials of EPA in the first week of December 2006. According to the officials the decision is designed to speed the notoriously slow process of revising these standards. National Ambient Air Quality Standards of EPA have enormous consequences, influencing the regulation of vehicles, industry, and agriculture in many ways. Barbara Boxer, Democratic Senator from California and new chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said that the changed review process is a dangerous turn.

This article reports that activists are criticizing a proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to speed up its regular review of air-quality standards. By law, EPA must revisit its National Ambient Air Quality Standards every 5 years. Staff scientists evaluate the latest research and propose ranges for new standards, which are then reviewed by the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. Because EPA regularly misses its deadline and gets sued, an internal EPA committee proposed several suggestions in for speeding up the process. EPA chief scientist George Gray said that the idea behind this proposal is not to have the policy drive the science.

The article focuses on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which is planning to loosen reporting rules for chemicals on its Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) list. Under EPA regulations, companies must tell the agency every year how much of 666 chemicals on the TRI they release to the environment. Under a revised rule, EPA will increase the reporting thresholds and only require reports every 2 years. Those changes will make it harder for the public to track dangerous chemicals, argues the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in Washington, D.C., including five chemicals EWG says, by EPA's own rules, should be subject to even stricter reporting thresholds.

The article informs that critics of revision to air pollution standards, proposed last month by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), say the new daily threshold will only marginally improve public health. In fact, an outside panel that made such a recommendation is not happy with EPA's decision. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson did not answer that question during a 20 December teleconference announcing the standards but said he had thought long and hard about the data. Studies have shown that inhaling the small particles that make up soot, a widespread byproduct of combustion, harms health, although the mechanisms are not all clear. In 1997, the EPA first regulated fine particles measuring 2.5 micrometers or less. As part of a settlement in a suit brought by the American Lung Association, EPA was required to propose revised PM 2.5 rules by the end of 2005. Such a reduction could make a big difference in public health, scientists have found. The EPA models for nine major U.S. cities predict that the tightest daily and annual standards recommended by CASAC would cut the roughly 4700 deaths due each year to PM 2.5 in those cities by 48%.

This article reports that the U.S. Congress has forbidden the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from accepting any toxicity studies in which people were intentionally exposed to pesticides until EPA issues a final rule spelling out its policies. The legislators said draft rules released by EPA last month. The restriction was part of a spending bill finalized last week.

The article reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held its first public meeting in the first week of July 2005 to gauge sentiments about a proposed voluntary pilot program to collect information on new nanomaterials that companies are making. More than 200 people gathered to weigh in on the program, a possible precursor to guidelines that would mark the agency's first attempt to regulate nanotechnology. In a document released before the meeting, a coalition of 18 environmental and health-advocacy groups charged that a voluntary program would be inadequate to protect people from new chemical hazards. But most makers of nanomaterials applauded EPA's initial move as appropriate, because so little is known about the possible hazards of nanosized particles. Nearly everyone agrees that far more information is needed. As a first step, EPA is thinking about asking nanomaterials makers to submit information on just what they are producing, how much is made, and possible worker exposure.

This article focuses on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency accepts data from controversial studies that deliberately dose human volunteers with pesticides. EPA stopped considering such data in December 2001, after the advocacy organization Environmental Working Group challenged them as unethical. A review by the National Academy of Sciences recommended that EPA accept the results of certain human tests if they met strict scientific and ethical criteria. Meanwhile, CropLife America, a Washington D.C.-based industry trade group, had sued EPA arguing that the moratorium was illegal, and in 2003 a judge agreed.

This article reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has asked experts to help it assess the health dangers of a common chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). PFOA and related chemicals are used to make nonstick and stain-resistant coatings, including Teflon. EPA officials trying to assess PFOA's risks also face a host of technical issues, says Charles Auer, director of EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, including how to compare blood levels in humans and animals.

Discusses the environmental regulations set by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Criticisms by various government agencies levelled against EPA's environmental policy; Cited failure of EPA to specify the cost and financing of the environmental regulations.

Reports on the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Science Advisory Board's (SAB) call for the EPA to develop methods to foresee future environmental threats to prevent them from becoming too difficult to handle. EPA's collaboration with industries to develop pollution-prevention strategies; Recommendation on EPA's research and data-collection efforts; Future environmental risks as seen by the SAB.

Reports on Congressional deliberations on the upgrading of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to department status. Impediments to the promotion of EPA administrator Carol Browner to Cabinet rank; Status of the risk-assessment bill.