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Forget about lighting up a crackling fire for your Thanksgiving dinner guests. A Spare the Air alert has been issued by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District for the full 24 hours of the holiday. The ban covers Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa and southern Sonoma and southwestern Solano counties. The midnight-to-midnight alert bans the burning of wood, manufactured firedogs or any other solid fuel, indoors and outdoors.The daylong ban covers woodstoves and inserts, pellet stoves, outdoor fire pits or any other wood-burning devices.

TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- The Humane Society of the United States and other groups are petitioning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to start regulating confined-animal feeding operations under the Clean Air Act. The groups submitted the 69-page petition late last month asking that emissions of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and other gases be curbed. EPA spokesman Dave Ryan said the agency will review the petition and respond within 120 days. The EPA is wrapping up a study of emissions at 24 U.S. feedlots, but doesn't have enough information yet to decide whether confined-animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, need more regulation. "We...

The Obama administration signaled Wednesday that it would scrap a controversial Bush-era rule that set stricter limits for smog but fell short of scientific recommendations. In a notice filed Wednesday in a federal appeals court, the Justice Department says there are concerns that the revision made by the Bush administration does not adhere to federal air pollution law. The Environmental Protection Agency will propose revised smog standards to protect health and the environment in late December.

The greater Los Angeles area is emitting more than double the amount of methane than previously estimated, according to a new study. A greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2), most man-made methane (CH4) emission comes from agriculture -- rice paddies, livestock, and biomass burning are all big contributors. As a result studies have largely ignored the methane coming from urban areas, and regulatory agencies have had to rely on guesswork to fill in the gaps. Debra Wunch of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and a team of researchers measured greenhouse gas emissions in the...

It's not just indoor public places in Eau Claire where lighting up is prohibited. Now residents of a south side, owner-occupied housing complex will have to snuff out smoking in their homes, the most recent sign of public anti-smoking sentiment. Members of the Fairfax Parkside Homeowners Association on Wednesday voted to outlaw smoking inside residences that are part of the 34-unit development. The ban also prohibits smoking in shared spaces, such as porches and garages, but does allow it in yards and on patios. Of the 19 association members who voted on the issue, 15 favored the anti-smoking regulation proposed...

CHICAGO -- Researchers for the first time have linked air pollution exposure before birth with lower IQ scores in childhood, bolstering evidence that smog may harm the developing brain. The results are in a study of 249 children of New York City women who wore backpack air monitors for 48 hours during the last few months of pregnancy. They lived in mostly low-income neighborhoods in northern Manhattan and the South Bronx. They had varying levels of exposure to typical kinds of urban air pollution, mostly from car, bus and truck exhaust.

You may want to think twice before taking your next deep breath. Every time you exhale, you’re supposedly endangering the planet -- by contributing to global warming. The Environmental Protection Agency says global warming poses a “serious threat to public health and safety.” That sets the stage for the EPA to regulate, through the Clean Air Act, almost anything that emits carbon dioxide. CO2, of course, is a naturally-occurring gas. It’s produced whenever a person breathes and, yes, whenever we use any sort of fossil fuel. Driving a car, mowing a lawn, boiling a cup of water, even flipping on...

Regulation: Ignoring the first rule of holes, a bankrupt state passing out IOUs welcomes an EPA waiver allowing it to further kill its economy. Too bad the state can't stop the air pollution imported from a growing China. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday granted California its long-standing request — denied by the Bush administration — for a waiver to allow it to impose even more stringent air pollution rules than currently required by the federal government.The way is now clear for implementation of a 2002 state law requiring new cars to increase their fuel economy 40% by 2016....

As the Obama administration considers further steps to fight air pollution, a recent report from a Washington think tank shows that air quality in the United States has improved significantly over the last decade. The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research analyzed data collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and concluded that levels of numerous gases linked with air pollution have fallen off since 2001.

New federal greenhouse gas emission regulation could expose a raft of smaller emitters to litigation, a nominee for a key post in the Environmental Protection Agency told lawmakers Thursday. The potential for smaller emitters to be regulated under the Clean Air Act is one reason why business groups warn that EPA regulation of greenhouse gases could create a cascade of legal and regulatory challenges across a much broader array of sectors. The Obama administration has said that isn't their intent. Regina McCarthy, nominated to be EPA's Director of Air and Radiation, told lawmakers that even while the government has flexibility...

What better source could you have than N.A.S.A. about a significant cause of "global warming" on the eve of "Earth Day 2009"? It is now official - clean air regulations have prevented sulfates (from coal and oil), which have a cooling effect, from entering the atmosphere. The sulfates are antagonists to the effects of black carbon from diesel and biofuel, which contribute to warming. Read below: Aerosols May Drive a Significant Portion of Arctic Warming - 04.08.09 http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html Synopsis: Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate...

January 27, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Climate Policy CrashThe EPA is poised to regulate greenhouse gases without a legislative fix. By Jonathan H. Adler Climate change remains at the top of President Obama’s agenda, current economic woes notwithstanding. Obama recently inveighed against energy sources that “threaten our planet,� and several of his early appointments—including Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, science adviser John Holdren, and White House energy czar Carol Browner—signal the importance of climate-change policy to this administration. During the campaign, Obama endorsed an 80-percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she hopes to move...

Here’s an environmental impact story you’re not likely to see in the mainstream media. Neither NBC’s chief environmental affair correspondent Anne Thompson, nor ABC correspondent Bill Blakemore nor CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley – all of whom have been eager over the years to expose so-called crimes against the environment – have rushed to report on the massive carbon footprint of the Obama inauguration. But a comprehensive new study by The Institute for Liberty (IFL) took an in-depth look at each component of the Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington, D.C., and estimated that 575 million pounds of carbon dioxide...

EPA Exempts Factory Farms From Emissions Reporting Rule By STEPHEN POWER WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration exempted certain large factory farms from a requirement to report emissions of noxious gases caused by animal waste, angering environmentalists and delivering another policy victory to business interests before President-elect Barack Obama and his environmental team take office. Under a rule change announced Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency will allow so-called concentrated animal feeding operations -- large scale factory farms -- not to disclose to authorities when air emissions of hazardous substances like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide exceed certain levels when the source of...

The EPA believes a 1990 amendment to the Clean Air Act gave the agency the unchecked authority to centrally plan our entire economy. The Advanced Notice for Proposed Rulemaking the EPA released earlier this year envisions federal regulations that would bring heavy burdens to one-fifth of all food service businesses, a third of all health care businesses, half of the entire lodging industry, and even 10% of all buildings used for worship. The EPA even claims the power to set speed limits and regulate your lawnmower.

While Detroit executives beg for bailouts, Japanese automakers speed through turns in a race whose winner could dominate the next generation of car sales.

Lowering air pollution in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley would save more lives annually than ending all motor vehicle fatalities in the two regions, according to a new study. The study, which examined the costs of air pollution in two areas with the worst levels in the country, also said meeting federal ozone and fine particulate standards could save $28 billion annually in health care costs, school absences, missed work and lost income potential from premature deaths. The price tag amounts to $1,600 annually per person in the San Joaquin Valley and $1,250 in the South Coast Air...

> There are plans to boost the current 133 control stations around the country to more than 300, said EPA spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn, adding that by October 2011 the agency will designate areas that must take additional steps to reduce lead air emissions. States will then have five years to meet these new standards after designations take effect, the EPA said.

For the first time in 30 years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has tightened limits on lead emissions, a move that will require states to crack down on polluters that spew more than 1,300 tons of the metal annually. The new standards, announced by the agency yesterday, limit emissions to 0.15 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air (ug/m3). The previous standard, set in 1978, was 1.5 ug/m3. "America's air is cleaner than a generation ago," EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said in a statement. "With these stronger standards, a new generation of Americans are being protected from harmful lead...

Seattle is in violation of the Clean Air Act for the first time since the 1990s. Going over the legal limit for smog over the weekend means officials here will have to start hammering out a plan to improve air quality. That could feature a number of measures to put the brakes on pollution, including requiring reformulated, more expensive gasoline for the region. The final violation of the smog standard needed to push the Emerald City and the Puget Sound region into official violation of the act occurred Saturday afternoon, when a monitor at Enumclaw in south King County went...

A federal ban on ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), to conform to the Clean Air Act, is, ironically, affecting 22.9 million people in the United States who suffer from asthma, says Scientific American. Generic inhaled albuterol -- the most commonly prescribed short-acting asthma medication that requires CFCs to propel it into the lungs -- will no longer be legally sold after December 21, 2008. As more patients see their prescriptions change and costs go up -- the reformulated brand-name alternatives can be three times as expensive, raising the cost to about $40 per inhaler -- many question why this ban must begin...

MINNEAPOLIS -- A new ordinance in Minneapolis limits vehicle idling at three minutes. Mayor R.T. Rybak says the idea is to reduce air pollution. City Council member Sandy Colvin Roy says cars don't need more than one minute to warm up, even in the winter. The ordinance limits most vehicles idling to three minutes, except in traffic.

The Minneapolis City Council and Mayor R.T. Rybak approved changes Friday, to the city’s vehicle idling ordinance that aims to reduce air pollution. The ordinance limits most vehicle idling to three minutes, except in traffic. "Most of the air pollution in Minneapolis comes from vehicles and cutting down in idling is one easy thing we can all do for our environment, our health, and the health of our neighbors," said Mayor R.T. Rybak. Vehicle motors release particulate matter, dirt, nitrous oxides, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide into the air. These chemicals are linked to increased rates of cancer, heart...

State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst said it’s time for Texas transportation officials to talk about real reforms to address the public outrage over the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor. The Brenham Republican’s reaction followed Thursday’s actions taken by the Texas Transportation Commission. The panel adopted a set of guiding principals and policies which will govern the development, construction and operation of all toll road projects on the state highway system and the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor. Bob Colwell, Texas Department of Transportation public information officer for the Bryan district, said the adoption of the guidelines does not reflect the final approval of Interstate 69...

Albany, N.Y.- New York environmental officials have proposed a statewide ban on open burning, to reduce pollution and the risk of wildfires. Current rules exempt the state's 850 towns with fewer than 20,000 people. The Department of Environmental Conservation says burn barrels release 17 times more dioxin and 40 times more ash than permitted incinerators. The proposed ban would make some exceptions, including small campfires and cooking fires, ceremonial fires and certain types of agricultural waste burning. The DEC has scheduled seven public hearings across the state between June 23 and July 2.

Air pollution interferes with the ability of bees and other insects to follow the scent of flowers to their source, undermining the essential process of pollination, a study by three University of Virginia researchers suggests. Their findings may help unlock part of the mystery surrounding the current pollination crisis that is affecting a wide variety of crops. [...] This phenomenon triggers a cycle, the authors noted, in which the pollinators have trouble finding sufficient food, and as a result their populations decline. That, in turn, translates into decreased pollination and keeps flowering plants, including many fruits and vegetables, from proliferating....

As the state's population continues to grow in its urban centers, expansion plans for the highway system continue to be the focus for transportation improvements. The Trans Texas Corridor proposal is aimed to alleviate traffic congestion, improve air quality and provide safer traveling for drivers, among other goals. In 2002, Texas Governor Rick Perry released the plan to create the passageway, which spans northeast from Laredo to Oklahoma and is set to total 4,000 miles in the next 50 years. The $140 billion project calls for the incorporation of new toll roads, commuter railways, power lines and gas pipelines, while...

Kern County supervisors have approved plans to build a corn-powered ethanol plant north of Bakersfield. The project from Cilion Inc., approved Tuesday night, is slated to generate as many as 55 million gallons of the fuel additive each year. Environmental justice advocates rallied against the project, saying it would pump out nitrous oxide emissions that would worsen air quality in the polluted San Joaquin Valley. Planners say the project's value to the community trumps the environmental concerns. Two weeks ago, Hanford city leaders approved another ethanol plant to be based in Kings County, but agreed to pay a $1 million...

South Texas is not only going to get its first interstate - it is also going to get a second and a third. State transportation officials knew one of three southern highways - U.S. Highway 281 in Hidalgo County, U.S. Highway 77 in Cameron County or U.S. Highway 59 in Webb County - would eventually become part of an interstate stretching from the Texas-Mexico border to Texarkana, in the northeast part of the state. Only Webb County is currently served by an interstate. The state's Trans-Texas Corridor plan calls for an Interstate 69 extension linking South Texas to points north,...

One major concern I discussed a few weeks ago regarding the Trans Texas Corridor is where the land will come from. Another concern is where the money will come from. Official government websites for the TTC assure that public-private partnerships will shield the taxpayer from bearing too much of the cost burden, but a careful reading shows the door is definitely open to public funding sources, while at the same time there is no doubt of the intention to charge tolls on the road. Taxpayers already pay for their transportation system through hefty gasoline taxes, vehicle registration fees, and other...

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court today struck down a market-based effort by the Bush administration to regulate emissions of mercury from coal- and oil-fired power plants, agreeing with critics that the Environmental Protection Agency had violated the Clean Air Act when it established the rule. A coalition of environmental groups and 17 states, California among them, challenged the policy, which was slated to take effect in 2010. The EPA had planned to establish a mandatory national cap on mercury emissions and then allow power plants that fail to meet their targets to buy credits from less-polluting plants. Environmentalists have...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been notified by one of the nation's largest American Indian tribes that it intends to sue over the agency's lack of action on an air permit application for a proposed coal-fired power plant. The Navajo Nation's Dine Power Authority and Houston-based Sithe Global Power have partnered to build the $3 billion Desert Rock plant, which would be capable of producing electricity for more than 1 million homes across the Southwest. Navajo Deputy Attorney General Harrison Tsosie told The AP on Wednesday that the tribe and Sithe applied for an air permit in May 2004...

A U.S. Senate committee has passed landmark legislation aimed at combating global warming by limiting carbon dioxide emissions. The vote was timed to coincide with the U.N. conference on climate change taking place in Bali, Indonesia. VOA's Deborah Tate reports from Capitol Hill. The bill would set caps on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from electric utility, transportation and manufacturing industries beginning in 2012 with the goal of cutting emissions 60 percent by 2050. It would create an incentive system that would give credits to industries that cut pollution. Industries that failed to reduce emissions would be forced to buy credits...

New Mexico is cruising into the legal fight over California's "clean car" program. The state and local air-quality boards voted about midnight Tuesday to enact strict low-emission standards for new cars and trucks. But the sweeping regulations already face a legal challenge from the auto industry and four state lawmakers. Their lawsuit— filed earlier Tuesday, before the regulations had been adopted— says the state Environmental Improvement Board lacks authority to adopt the regulations. If successful, the suit could result in the pollution regulations going before the Legislature next year. "The point is not whether those emission regulations are a good...

PHOENIX -- State environmental officials took the first steps Monday to banning the sale of vehicles that don't meet standards for reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The state Department of Environmental Quality started crafting a rule to adopt the same vehicle emission standards approved by the California Air Resources Board. That state has directed that all manufacturers reduce greenhouse gas emissions of their vehicles by an average of 30 percent by 2016. DEQ Director Steve Owens said he is looking at something a little less aggressive, perhaps phasing in the new emission standards beginning in 2011 and not hitting that 30...

First the people in the towers died. Then the rescue workers. Now first responders are succumbing to a 9/11 illness. The next victims: tens of thousands of ordinary citizens who worked and lived in Lower Manhattan—all of whom were told that the air was safe. While the people who died in the towers and the first responders have gotten much attention from the nation and the press—witness the lead feature from 60 Minutes last night on first responders—the ordinary citizens have gone relatively unnoticed. So Discover has released a package that focuses directly on this final group of 9/11 victims....

A report left out of the public spotlight for more than six months reveals that officials at the Texas Department of Transportation want to toll interstate highways and shelter private investors from paying income taxes on toll revenue. On Feb. 28, Texas transportation officials submitted the report to the 110th Congress entitled “Forward Momentum.� The report did not attract much attention at the time. State lawmakers have only recently begun to speak out about it. Texas state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, called the recommendations a form of double taxation, according to The Associated Press. In the report, TxDOT urges federal...

UN official: Rich countries pay poor to cut CO2 By Paul Eccleston Last Updated: 1:01pm BST 22/08/2007 A top UN official has triggered a row by claiming rich countries should be allowed to buy their way out of cutting carbon emissions. Two men fish in a lake next to a copper-smelting plant in Chelyabinsk, Russia Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said developing countries could be paid to make the cuts. But environmental groups condemned the remarks and said the consequences of climate change could only be solved by all countries - both...

Beijing's overall air quality improved during the four-day test period ahead of next August's Olympic Games in which more than a million cars each day were barred from the roads, according to the Beijing Environment Protection Monitoring Center. A police officer stops a car with an even-numbered license plate on a main thoroughfare in Beijing during the first of a four-day air quality experiment for the Olympics, August 17, 2007. [Xinhua]  The test resulted in the removal of cars from roads in downtown Beijing and the air quality was classified as "fairly good" for the duration of the four days. "The index of inhalable particular matter...

The eyes of New Jersey's 9/11 responders will be on Washington today as former governor and EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman will appear before a congressional committee to testify about her then-agency's role in protecting the safety of recovery workers in lower Manhattan during the days and weeks following the World Trade Center's destruction. Whitman has been accused by some members of Congress, 9/11 recovery workers and their unions of misleading them about the levels of airborne toxins caused by the Twin Towers' collapse and for failing to ensure all recovery workers wore respirators. In fact, the chairman of the...

DMV probe keeps bikers off road Orange County kit bike owners aren't sure when they'll be able to ride or sell hand-built vehicles. Friday, June 22, 2007 BRIAN JOSEPH SACRAMENTO -- Dain Gingerelli says he locked up a sure sale of his motorcycle in April – about $10,000 for a kit bike he built himself. But two months later, the bike is gathering dust in his garage and the cash is in someone else's pocket. What happened? The state Department of Motor Vehicles, Gingerelli said, blocked the sale. It turns out Gingerelli used a kit made by Custom Chrome Inc....

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Air quality remains a major concern for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a top official organizing China's first Games said Wednesday. Factories belching pollution as they fuel breakneck economic growth and dust blowing from thousands of local work sites and western deserts frequently brown the sky over China's capital. While pollution controls are having an effect — Beijing experienced 241 "good air quality days" last year, up from 100 in 1998 — there's room for progress, said Wang Wei, secretary general of the Games' organizing committee. "We want to make sure the athletes have the best air...

For days, the dramatic story gripped the nation: Cesar Borja, a retired NYPD officer who had worked at Ground Zero after 9/11, died of pulmonary fibrosis just hours before his son and namesake - campaigning for ailing first-responders - was a guest at President Bush's State of the Union Address. Days later, the younger Borja met with the president, who pledged an additional $25 million in federal aid (on top of the $75 million already allocated) for first-responders. High drama? Try hype, courtesy of The Daily News, the circulation-starved daily which had seemingly gotten its hooks into a good one....

The South Coast Air Quality Management District sued state public utility officials, claiming the liquefied natural gas that officials approved for use in California could worsen air pollution. Energy providers plan to spend about $3 billion on the construction of seven natural gas terminals on the coast of California and Baja in Mexico. The air-quality agency alleges that natural gas could set back progress toward clean air. The lawsuits were filed with the California appeals court and the state Supreme Court. The California Public Utilities Commission has approved a standard that will allow oil companies and other energy providers to...

The French painter Claude Monet is being used as an environmental monitor, for scientists believe his legendary paintings of the Houses of Parliament can serve as a useful indicator of smog levels in late 19th-century London. Monet's so-called London series was painted during visits between 1899 and 1905, capturing scenes that are often astonishing for their grey and purplish haze. Many experts have assumed, though, that this extraordinary effect was an Impressionistic embellishment. Environmental researchers at the University of Birmingham in central England analyzed nine out of 19 Monet paintings of the Houses of Parliament, painted between 1899 and 1901....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. residents can breathe a bit easier than they did a decade ago, as the number of days that air quality was deemed unhealthy has fallen, according to a report by the American Lung Association on Thursday. The report found real improvement in air quality over much of the United States, due in part to reduced emissions from power plants. Significant benefits were seen in the eastern United States, said Janice Nolen, the association's director of national policy. "It's encouraging news, we're very pleased at the improvement," Nolen said by telephone. "However, cleaner is not clean enough."...

April 27, 2006 -- People in the U.S. are breathing cleaner air than a year ago, but there's still plenty of room for improvement. So says the American Lung Association's (ALA) "State of the Air 2006." The annual report focuses on particle pollution (soot) in the air, as well as ozone levels (smog). Last year's winners and losers for year-round soot pollution didn't change. Cheyenne, Wyo. still has the least year-round soot pollution, while the Los Angeles area has the most year-round soot pollution, according to the ALA. Sooty air showed a "general decline" since the ALA's 2005 report, largely...

New Yorkers and Californians breathe in the dirtiest air in the nation and face higher cancer risks than the rest of the nation, according to the latest data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Oregon, Washington, D.C. and New Jersey had the third, fourth and fifth worst air in the nation, respectively, the EPA said. Rural residents of Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana breathed the cleanest air. New York's cancer risk is estimated to be 68 residents per million. In California, the risk is 66 residents per million.

Sharp rise in CO2 levels recorded By David Shukman BBC science correspondent Scientists fear high carbon levels will trigger sudden changes US climate scientists have recorded a significant rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, pushing it to a new record level. BBC News has learned the latest data shows CO2 levels now stand at 381 parts per million (ppm) - 100ppm above the pre-industrial average. The research indicates that 2005 saw one of the largest increases on record - a rise of 2.6ppm. The figures are seen as a benchmark for climate scientists around the globe....

'Open skies' air treaty threat · Draft pact curbs UK power to fight global warming · Restricting night flights would need US approval Andrew Clark, transport correspondent Monday February 20, 2006 Guardian Britain could lose its ability to impose environmental taxes, restrictions and safeguards on airlines under a draft treaty between the EU and US which curtails the power of national governments. The draft treaty, meant to liberalise aviation, includes a little noticed clause requiring EU states to reach agreement with each other and with the US before taking measures to tackle noise or pollution from airlines. The text of...