Items Tagged with 'environment.'

A new proposal released by the EPA yesterday would reduce the frequency of methane leak inspections required of oil and gas companies, and give those companies more time to fix leaks when they find them – changes the agency admits could harm public health. The move is the Trump administration’s latest effort to relax Obama-era regulations intended to combat climate change.

A new report from the American Lung Association (ALA) finds 133.9 million Americans at risk from air pollution – much of it ozone pollution that is worsening significantly due to warmer temperatures. The ALA’s 2018 "State of the Air" report found that the four in ten Americans (41.4 percent) who live in counties with unhealthful levels of either ozone or particle pollution are at greater risk for premature death and other serious health effects such as lung cancer, asthma attacks, cardiovascular damage, and developmental and reproductive harm.

Trumpworld to Government Scientists: No Science for You! This falls into “The Onion or Real News” category. Imagine my alarm when I read in The Intercept that “Republicans on the House Science Committee are accusing Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, of lobbying.” Lobbying, as any political appointee or high level government official can tell you, is strictly verboten for government employees.

OSHA has cited Tampa Electric Co. and Critical Intervention Services, a security services provider, for $43,458 in total proposed penalties, following a release of anhydrous ammonia – a chemical refrigerant – at its Gibsonton facility. OSHA responded to the incident on May 23, 2017 and determined that the ammonia release occurred when a relief valve activated after a pipeline became over pressurized. As a result, four workers were taken to the hospital for observation and released.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and the federal government have settled a case arising from the company being charged with violating the Clean Air Act due to air pollution violations at eight petrochemical plants in Texas and Louisiana. News sources say the company has agreed to pay a $2.5 million civil penalty related the violations and spend approximately $300 million to install new equipment to improve operation and monitoring of industrial flares at the facilities.

On the heels of a new report from Government Accountability Office (GAO) noting that climate change is costing the federal government billions, the EPA this week canceled speeches by three agency scientists, who were scheduled to discuss climate change at a conference in Providence, Rhode Island.