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BOSTON (CN) – Tensions ran high at First Circuit arguments Tuesday where several judges raised their voices in frustration with the government’s attempts to defend an order that purged scores of academic and nonprofit scientists from the agency’s advisory committees. “You’d like to think that the EPA gave some thought to the effects of its actions, but this was just a fiat,” complained U.S. Circuit Judge William Kayatta Jr., an Obama appointee. Kayatta described the agency’s attitude as: “well, we’re the EPA, and you’re not.” But the judges took issue as well with the lack of specificity in the case...

Several groups that often are at odds over environmental rules are on the same side when it comes to easing methane regulations at oil and gas sites. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection joined major oil and gas companies, environmental groups and lawmakers from both parties last week in urging the Trump administration not to go through with its proposal to eliminate methane control requirements from well sites and pipelines across the country. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to roll back rules adopted in 2016 that require companies to identify and stop methane leaks from new and modified...

The era of secret science at EPA is coming to an end,” Pruitt said when announcing the rule. “The ability to test, authenticate, and reproduce scientific findings is vital for the integrity of the rule-making process. Americans deserve to assess the legitimacy of the science underpinning EPA decisions that may impact their lives.”

A Bushkill, Pa. woman and six other individuals are facing a multitude of charges, including counts of terrorism, assault, and kidnapping, following a failed takeover of the Pine Ridge community on Monday. According to a criminal complaint from Pennsylvania State Police out of Blooming Grove, Tonia Scott, 49, of Bushkill was the alleged ringleader of a group of armed individuals who sought to forcefully take the land occupied by the Lehman Township community on the afternoon of Nov. 18. A police interview with Scott revealed that she had claimed rightful ownership to the land of the Pine Ridge and Saw...

The Environmental Protection Agency will propose easing rules on disposal of coal ash, the residue from burning coal, to make it less likely the federal government would shutter a coal-fired utility plant, in an announcement set for Monday. The move is part of what has been a larger deregulation push by the Trump administration to roll back strict Obama-era regulations that the industry viewed as the previous administration’s “war on coal” that pushed to shut down many coal-fired power plants. “The EPA is no longer picking winners and losers in electric generation,” Peter Wright, assistant administrator for EPA Office of...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday accused the city of San Francisco of violating the Clean Water Act by allegedly dumping untreated wastewater into oceans. In a letter to San Francisco Public Utilities Commission General Manager Harlan Kelly, Regional EPA Administrator Michael Stoker said the city is failing to operate and properly maintain its wastewater collection facilities and failing to comply with water quality standards, among other violations. The letter alleged the city discharged some two billion gallons of untreated sewer water into the ocean annually. “The failure to properly operate and maintain the city’s sewage collection and treatment...

The Trump administration on Tuesday escalated its fight with California over environmental issues by threatening to withdraw billions of dollars in federal highway funds because of poor air quality in the state. In a letter to California Air Resource Board chief Mary Nichols, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the state "has failed to carry out its most basic tasks under the Clean Air Act," and not produced timely plans to meet targets for ambient air quality goals. The EPA said California must withdraw inactive plans that would most likely be denied. If the EPA rejects a...

The Trump administration plans to deliver a notice of environmental violation to San Francisco over its homelessness problem. President Trump said late Wednesday the notice would come from the Environmental Protection Agency. He said waste, specifically used needles, in storm sewers is contributing to ocean pollution. He added: “They have to clean it up. We can’t have our cities going to hell.” In a statement, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said the city has a sewer system that runs effectively, keeping debris from reaching the Bay or the Pacific Ocean.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso and Congresswoman Liz Cheney, all R-Wyo., applauded the Environmental Protection Agency for announcing final plans to repeal and replace the Obama-era Waters of the United States (WOTUS) regulation. "I am glad the administration is repealing the excessively burdensome Waters of the United States rule, which was a massive regulatory overreach that should have never been allowed in the first place," Enzi said. "This rule gave the federal government power to regulate nearly every creek or pond. States know best how to manage our resources. This announcement is good news for...

The Trump administration is moving forward with a proposal to revoke part of California’s authority to set its own automobile gas mileage standards, a government official said Thursday, confronting a state that has repeatedly challenged the administration’s environmental rollbacks. The Environmental Protection Agency was preparing paperwork for the White House for the move, meant to help the administration set a single, less rigorous mileage standard enforceable nationwide, according to the official, who is familiar with the regulatory process and spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not been made public. President Donald Trump has pushed for months to...

BLM’s westward trek and enviros losing water battle Move’em out The Department of Interior is moving forward with their plan to relocate the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to Grand Junction, Colorado. The reorganization would have the top twenty-seven BLM positions make the move to Grand Junction while three hundred or so will be assigned to various positions in the West. Sixty-one positions will remain in D.C. The plan to move BLM headquarters is vehemently opposed by the environmental lobby groups, which means, guess what, it is opposed by the Democrats in Congress. Leading the pack...

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed revoking Obama-era regulations on climate-changing methane leaks from many oil facilities, a move that environmental groups said was meant to renounce the agency’s overall legal authority to regulate the gas in the fight against global warming. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the proposed rule followed President Donald Trump’s directions to remove “unnecessary and duplicative regulatory burdens from the oil and gas industry.” The step would be the latest in a series easing the previous administration’s emissions controls on the oil, gas and coal industries, including a 2016 rule regulating oil-industry methane leaks as...

U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood has handed a victory to the state of Georgia and nine other states that sued the federal government (and to the rest of the nation) by declaring that the WOTUS Rule is unlawful. Wood stated that the rule, which was intended to provide better protection of the nation’s water, violated the Clean Water Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, and she remanded it back to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers for further work. She wrote that while the agencies have authority to interpret the phrase “waters of the United...

Energy recommendations from a government-backed program have gone viral after suggesting that people should keep their home thermostats at least at 78 degrees for cooling. Energy Star, which works with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department to set efficiency benchmarks for appliances, electronics, building materials, lighting and other products, recommends that Americans program their thermostats to at least 78 degrees from 6 a.m. The program then recommends temperatures be raised to at least 85 degrees from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., at which point it recommends again setting temperatures to at least 78 degrees. Thermostats should be then...

Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Tom Harris. There has been a barrage of attacks against the Trump administration for replacing the previous administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) with the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. Last week, for example, the American Public Health Association and the American Lung Association announced that attorneys representing them from the Clean Air Task Force are filing a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for repealing the CPP and bringing in ACE in its place. The three organizations issued a press release in which they asserted, “EPA’s decision to repeal the Clean Power Plan and...

A U.S. appeals court panel sided with the Trump administration Friday in a mining pollution dispute, ruling that state and federal programs already in place ensure that companies take financial responsibility for future cleanups. The ruling came after the administration was sued by environmental groups for dropping an Obama-era proposal that would have forced companies to put up money to show they have resources to clean up pollution. The mining industry has a legacy of bankrupt companies abandoning polluted sites and leaving taxpayers to cover cleanup costs. But the three-judge panel with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District...

Full Header: Alaska Senator: We Can’t Build ‘a Simple Road’ Without ‘Radical Extreme Environmental Groups’ Suing Us Members of Congress who claim that building “a simple road” in his state will harm wildlife, like the porcupine caribou, “don’t know what they’re talking about,” Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan (R) told CNSNews.com in an exclusive interview last Wednesday. “No offense to my colleagues here, but they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Sen. Sullivan said. “There was this notion that the porcupine caribou herd was going to be hurt by a road - that’s literally absurd. That was the big thing that...

U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked .. PETER JAMES SPIELMANN ... June 30, 1989 UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco- refugees,′ ′ threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before...

Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's purported "top climate change expert" and the agency's highest paid employee, John C. Beale, was arrested and convicted of fraud. Turns out that while at EPA, Beale pretended to also work for the CIA and for years had wasted his official employment time while loafing around his house in his underwear. Taxpayers are mad about Beale's theft of their money, and "climate change" advocates are humiliated, because Beale's purported knowledge and expertise about this made-up subject was also similarly made up. Beale was an expert at lying; that is it. I am...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to drill a test well into an inactive mine tunnel in southwestern Colorado to get information for a Superfund cleanup, the agency said Friday. The EPA said it will drill into the American Tunnel next month to measure water levels and investigate how the passage is connected to other shafts. ... The agency designated the Superfund site after it inadvertently ( LOL ) triggered a spill while doing excavation work at the inactive Gold King Mine in August 2015. The spill released 3 million gallons of wastewater, polluting rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and...