Posted by Rebecca McDaniel on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 @ 03:33 PM
From Westwood Press:
"BOSTON - State government in Massachusetts has dialed back staffing in some environmental agencies to 1980s levels, cutting back far enough to impede project permitting, threaten a series of new ambitious laws, and require unstaffed parks and closed public pools, environmental advocates and a former top state official said Thursday.
State spending on environmental line items has been slashed from $225 million in fiscal 2001 to the roughly $175 million appropriation recommended in the fiscal 2011 budget Gov. Deval Patrick filed last month and represents 0.6 percent of total spending of the state's $28.2 billion operating budget, down from 1 percent in fiscal 2001, according to a report released Thursday by the Environmental League of Massachusetts."
Full article here.
Posted by Rebecca McDaniel on Mon, Oct 26, 2009 @ 07:10 AM
From the NY Times:
"WASHINGTON - The Senate bill aimed at reducing global warming pollution will initially grant billions of dollars of free emissions permits to utilities and industry but will require the bulk of the money be returned to consumers and taxpayers, according to newly released details.
The bill will also provide a cushion to energy-intensive manufacturing companies to ease the transition to a lower-carbon economy and to help them compete internationally, although the subsidies will disappear over time. The measure also sets a floor and ceiling on the price of permits to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases."
Full article here.
Posted by Rebecca McDaniel on Mon, Oct 19, 2009 @ 11:54 AM
From The NY Times:
"WASHINGTON - As the Senate prepares to tackle global warming, the nation's energy producers, once united, are battling one another over policy decisions worth hundreds of billions of dollars in coming decades.
Producers of natural gas are battling their erstwhile allies, the oil companies. Electrical utilities are fighting among themselves over the use of coal versus wind power or other renewable energy. Coal companies are battling natural gas firms over which should be used to produce electricity. And the renewable power industry is elbowing for advantage against all of them.
Some supporters of global warming legislation believe that the division in the once-monolithic oil and gas industry, as well as other splits among energy producers, could improve the prospects for the legislation."
Full article here.
Posted by Rebecca McDaniel on Mon, Oct 19, 2009 @ 11:43 AM
From The NY Times:
"The federal government made billions of dollars available in the stimulus package for weatherizing homes of low-income people. But what about everyone else?
A report to be released later this morning, from the office of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Council on Environmental Quality, outlines a strategy for persuading more Americans to retrofit their homes to make them more energy efficient. Such improvements could save up to $21 billion each year, the report said.
The 14-page document, entitled "Recovery through Retrofit," does not commit additional dollars, although the billions in February's stimulus package for state energy offices will help. But it does emphasize ways that the government can help homeowners to overcome some of the difficulties in getting access to information and financing for efficiency improvements."
Full article here
Posted by Rebecca McDaniel on Mon, Oct 19, 2009 @ 10:19 AM
From The Boston Globe:
"The US Environmental Protection Agency is recommending that owners of older buildings - including schools - test brittle, aging masonry and window caulking for high levels of likely cancer-causing chemicals.
The recommendations are targeted at thousands of buildings constructed or renovated between 1950 and 1978, when polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, were banned. Several Massachusetts schools and colleges have recently found high levels of PCBs in caulking.
The federal agency said the danger to schoolchildren is unknown but "we're concerned about the potential risks associated with exposure to these PCBs and we're recommending practical, common sense steps to reduce this exposure as we improve our understanding of the science,'' said EPA administrator Lisa. P. Jackson."
Full article here
Posted by Rebecca McDaniel on Wed, Oct 14, 2009 @ 09:50 AM
From Environment 360:
"It's taken a long time, but the issue of global climate change is finally getting the attention it deserves. While enormous technical, policy, and economic issues remain to be solved, there is now widespread acceptance of the need to confront the twin challenges of energy security and climate change. Collectively, we are beginning to acknowledge that our long addiction to fossil fuels - which has been harming our national security, our economy and our environment for decades - must end. The question today is no longer why, but how. The die is cast, and our relationship to energy will never be the same.
Unfortunately, this positive shift in the national zeitgeist has had an unintended downside. In the rush to portray the perils of climate change, many other serious issues have been largely ignored. Climate change has become the poster child of environmental crises, complete with its own celebrities and campaigners. But is it so serious that we can afford to overlook the rise of infectious disease, the collapse of fisheries, the ongoing loss of forests and biodiversity, and the depletion of global water supplies?"
Full article here
Posted by Rebecca McDaniel on Wed, Oct 14, 2009 @ 09:28 AM
From ENN:
"Soil remediation is finished while groundwater remediation remains to be done, at the Middlesex Sampling Plant site in Middlesex, NJ. This site had first been added to the National Priorities List (Superfund) in 1999, ten years ago.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has signed an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Department of Energy (DOE) covering federal facilities, which details responsibilities for completing the cleanup of the site. The property was used by the Atomic Energy Commission as part of the nation's early atomic energy program to handle various radioactive ores."
Full article here
Posted by Rebecca McDaniel on Wed, Oct 14, 2009 @ 08:45 AM
From TreeHugger:
Top Ten Greenhouse Gas Equivalent (GHG-e) Emission Sectors In The USA, Estimates From Proposed EPA Option, 2006 Data. Image credit:derived from EPA's Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA), Table 5-1.
On January 1, 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will, for the first time, require large US greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters to measure and report greenhouse gas equivalent (GHG-e) emissions data. "This new program will cover approximately 85 percent of the nation's GHG emissions and apply to roughly 10,000 facilities." You read that correctly: 85% of US' emissions, amounting to approximately 3.9 billion MtCO2e, originate from a few thousand facilities. Total estimated national costs of EPA's measurement and reporting rule will be $132 million in the first year, and $89 million in subsequent years ($2006). (via Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA), downloadable as pdf file here).
Full article here
Posted by Rebecca McDaniel on Wed, Oct 14, 2009 @ 08:30 AM
From the NY Times:
"Homeowners are doing such a good job at conserving water in some drought-stricken areas that water agencies, particularly in California, have been forced to adjust to lost revenues and layoffs.
"You're out there showing people how to conserve water. What happens to your revenues? Your revenues go down," said Darron Poulsen, a customer service officer with the Cucamonga Valley Water District, which is east of Los Angeles, by phone this summer.
His district, he said, has had to lay people off because of revenue shortfalls as customers cut their usage."
Full article here
Posted by Rebecca McDaniel on Wed, Oct 14, 2009 @ 08:22 AM
From the NY Times:
"After falling for two years, global oil demand is expected to grow in 2010, once the economy kicks back to life. But oil consumption in developed nations - including the United States, Europe and Japan - probably reached a high point in 2005, well before the current downturn, and consumption has been falling since, according to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm.
Thanks to efficiency gains in the transportation sector, aging populations and the growth in renewable fuels and electric vehicles, demand was unlikely to return to its peak level, the Cambridge Energy researchers noted."
Full article here