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The Environmental Protection Agency moved Thursday to beef up air quality regulations for oil refineries, an action officials said would cut toxic emissions by 5,600 tons per year. The agency maintained the updated standards would protect public health with negligible impacts on the cost of petroleum — a contention immediately disputed by the oil and gas industry. Under the proposed changes, companies would for the first time be required to monitor concentrations of benzene, a chemical compound linked to an array of health problems, surrounding the refineries. Results of the monitoring would be made available to the public. The new...

In case you ever wonder why the debate over global warming is important, remember that the left’s pushing of this notion has nothing to do with science and has everything to do with the big government expansion for which they need a rationale. And if you want a look at the real-life effect of this agenda, you can see it right now in the form of the EPA’s proposed carbon dioxide limits on new power plants. Not that liberals will listen, but the American Coal Council is doing what it can to warn of the effects this proposal will have...

The House Oversight Committee under Darrell Issa is slated to hear testimony today on another Obama administration cover-up. ... A unit run by President Barack Obama's political staff inside the Environmental Protection Agency operates illegally as a "rogue law enforcement agency" that has blocked independent investigations by the EPA's inspector general for years, a top investigator told Congress. The assistant EPA inspector general for investigations, Patrick Sullivan, was expected to testify Wednesday before a House oversight committee ... The office of about 10 employees is overseen by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy's office, and the inspector general's office is accusing it...

House Republicans have run out of patience with President Obama's administration, Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Wednesday. Issa, who has been investigating employee misconduct at the Environmental Protection Agency, demanded that deputy administrator Bob Perciasepe produce documents within one month.

Inspector general's office accuses EPA of blocking internal probes citing national security WASHINGTON (AP) -- A unit run by President Barack Obama's political staff inside the Environmental Protection Agency operates illegally as a "rogue law enforcement agency" that has blocked independent investigations by the EPA's inspector general for years, a top investigator says.

Mark Levin reported on his radio show tonight that an illegal law enforcement unit run by Obama’s henchmen are blocking the Inspector General at the EPA from investigating any wrongdoing at the EPA and they’ve been doing it for years! This is from testimony that will be given tomorrow by the Assistant EPA Inspector General for Investigations: ASSOCIATED PRESS – A unit run by President Obama’s political staff inside the Environmental Protection Agency operates illegally as a “rogue law enforcement agency” that has blocked independent investigations by the EPA’s inspector general for years, a top investigator told Congress. The assistant...

The American coal industry is accusing the Obama administration of using the Environmental Protection Agency to end the use of coal despite the president's claim of having an "all of the above" energy policy. ... the EPA's MATS rules, which go into effect in January 2016, will devastate coal production in America and .. about 60 gigawatts of coal-fired generation coming off-line .. One of Monseu’s issues is the way she said the administration is targeting coal, which currently fuels around 40 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S. "Increasingly we face a situation where policy is dictated not...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the Environmental Protection Agency's first emission standards for mercury and other hazardous air pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants. In its ruling, the court rejected state and industry challenges to rules designed to clean up chromium, arsenic, acid gases, nickel, cadmium as well as mercury and other dangerous toxins. The EPA’s determination in 2000 that regulating emission standards is appropriate and necessary, and the agency’s reaffirmation of that determination in 2012, “are amply supported by EPA’s findings regarding the health effects of mercury exposure,” said the court. Congress did not specify what...

The federal government threatens a Nevada rancher with the loss of his private property. A Long Island man loses his life to Obamacare while a Virginia woman’s family says, “Obamacare killed my sister." IRS bureaucrat Lois Lerner is held in contempt of Congress, having emerged as the key figure in a scheme to deprive conservatives of their rights. With these stories and endless others spilling into the news cycle, F.H. Buckley’s new book — The Once and Future King: The Rise of Crown Government in America — could not be better timed. Mr. Buckley’s writings are familiar on these pages...

In a stunning admission, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy revealed to House Science, Space and Technology Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) that the agency neither possesses, nor can produce, all of the scientific data used to justify the rules and regulations they have imposed on Americans via the Clean Air Act. In short, science has been trumped by the radical environmentalist agenda. The admission follows the issuance of a subpoena by the full Committee last August. It was engendered by two years of EPA stonewalling, apparently aimed at preventing the raw data cited by EPA as the scientific...

The clock is ticking for Minnesota's indoor ice rinks. By 2020, the refrigerant chemical now used at half the state's 240 arenas to make ice no longer will be manufactured or imported into the U.S. as part of a global effort aimed at ridding the world of greenhouse gases linked to depletion of the ozone layer. The phaseout of the odorless gas R-22 is expected to be costly for arenas -- most of which are publicly owned -- because of an anticipated rise in its cost. After the deadline, arenas still will be able to use the refrigerant gas for...

Seven months after being subpoenaed by Congress, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy conceded that her agency does not have - and cannot produce - all of the scientific data used for decades to justify numerous rules and regulations under the Clean Air Act.

Mad Science: The Environmental Protection Agency has been deliberately exposing people — including children — with asthma and other health issues to pollution to justify ever-more-stringent air quality standards. 'Improvements to EPA Policies and Guidance Could Enhance Protection of Human Study Subjects," released by the EPA's Office of Inspector General on March 31, confirms that the agency "exposed 81 human study subjects to concentrated airborne particles or diesel exhaust emissions in five EPA studies conducted during 2010 and 2011." According to the report, obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, the human subjects, said to have given their "informed consent,"...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not consistently disclose health risks to human test subjects it used to study the risks of pollutants, sometimes keeping information about cancer possibilities from participants, the agency’s internal watchdog said Wednesday. The EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the agency obtained the proper approvals from participants before exposing them to airborne exhaust and diesel pollutants, including particulate matter, in 2010 and 2011. However, the consent forms were inconsistent in their disclosures and did not warn of potential long-term risks of exposure to the gases. “This was because they only planned to perform...

Obama EPA’s Monstrous Human Experiments Posted By Matthew Vadum On April 4, 2014 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has been subjecting unknowing human guinea pigs to high levels of carcinogens and potentially lethal pollutants in order to justify tough new air quality standards. To make matters worse, EPA has been carrying out these egregiously immoral and unethical human experiments in which subjects are made to inhale freshly pumped-in diesel truck exhaust fumes without advising them of the risk to their health. Such EPA-funded studies have reportedly been carried out at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill,...

The Environmental Protection Agency has been conducting dangerous experiments on humans over the past few years in order to justify more onerous clean air regulations. The agency conducted tests on people with health issues and the elderly, exposing them to high levels of potentially lethal pollutants, without disclosing the risks of cancer and death, according to a newly released government report. These experiments exposed people, including those with asthma and heart problems, to dangerously high levels of toxic pollutants, including diesel fumes, reads a EPA inspector general report obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The EPA also exposed people...

Report: EPA tested deadly pollutants on humans to push Obama admin’s agenda Posted By Michael Bastasch On AM 04/02/2014 The Environmental Protection Agency has been conducting dangerous experiments on humans over the past few years in order to justify more onerous clean air regulations. The agency conducted tests on people with health issues and the elderly, exposing them to high levels of potentially lethal pollutants, without disclosing the risks of cancer and death, according to a newly released government report. These experiments exposed people, including those with asthma and heart problems, to dangerously high levels of toxic pollutants, including diesel...

Regulation: The White House has released a Climate Action Plan that includes the targeting of methane emissions from cows and other barnyard animals that threaten the planet through belching and other, er, activities. It's our lust for cheeseburgers that's dooming the planet through climate change, the Obama administration said in a Climate Action Plan released Friday that seeks to save us all from ruminant livestock. Having already blamed the Industrial Revolution for what we used to call weather and temperatures that have flat-lined for 15 years, the White House is now targeting American agriculture abundance by slashing methane emissions from...

We have to first assume that global warming, or climate change, or whatever it's called this week, is caused by us. That is a big assumption, one that Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama embraces. Plus, as reinforcement, we have this Fact Sheet from Obama about methane gas as a contributor to global warming, I mean climate change, uh, I mean ... : ... last June, President Obama issued a broad-based Climate Action Plan, announcing a series of executive actions to reduce carbon pollution, prepare the U.S. for the impacts of climate change, and lead international efforts to address global climate...

Environmental Protection Agency and FBI agents raided the ammunition company USA Brass over alleged “environmental violations” early Thursday morning. NBC Montana was tipped off by witnesses that federal investigators were there until at least 4 a.m. on Thursday. Federal agents could be seen going through the company’s building and taking items to a truck parked outside. EPA lead criminal investigator Bert Marsden said that the agency was looking into alleged “environmental violations” by USA Brass. “We are investigating alleged violations of environmental law,” Marsden said on Thursday. “An investigation takes as long as it takes, and I can’t provide any...