Free Republic

New rules could outlaw lawn mowing, add a parking tax and declare national parks "toxic." Image via Shutterstock Next month, the Obama administration may roll out the most expensive regulation in history, ignoring scientific data that cutting ozone rates will not improve public health. In the name of fighting asthma, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requested permission to decrease the ozone standard — the amount of ozone allowed in the atmosphere — to a level some scientists say is physically impossible to achieve. One organization estimates the cost to implement these new rules will be $1.1 trillion. Even worse, data...

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials refused for weeks to share water-quality data with their state counterparts following a blowout of toxic wastewater from a Colorado mine that fouled rivers across the Southwest, New Mexico's top environmental regulator testified Thursday. The move by federal agencies aimed to downplay the severity of the spill, hobbling the state's response to the high levels of arsenic, lead and other contaminants involved in the spill, New Mexico Secretary of Environment Ryan Flynn said. His criticisms, aired before a U.S. House committee investigating the Aug. 5 accident, offered more fodder for congressional Republicans eager to find...

The recent Gold King Mine wastewater spill could breathe new life into a conversation about state control over federal lands. A meeting of the Water Resources Review Committee on Tuesday offered a glimpse into the issue, as state lawmakers had their first opportunity since the Aug. 5 spill to ask questions as an official panel. An Environmental Protection Agency-contracted team was performing reclamation work on the Gold King Mine near Silverton when an error during excavation caused an estimated 3 million gallons of orange sludge to pour into the Animas River. The water initially tested for spikes in heavy metals....

The Environmental Protection Agency was accused Wednesday of doctoring footage from the Gold King Mine spill, removing the audio of a worker saying, “What do we do now?” During a House committee hearing on the accident, Rep. Bill Johnson, Ohio Republican, showed what he said was an original on-site video taken the day of the Aug. 5 spill, which includes the audio, and then the same video posted on the EPA’s website that beeps out the audio. “The last few seconds of the audio has been removed to prevent the viewers from hearing the team on the ground saying, ‘What...

A Colorado coal mine slated for closure due to a technicality has gotten a reprieve from the federal government in a move that could save hundreds of jobs. The Colowyo coal mine, which has provided hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars to the economy of the city of Craig and the northwestern region of the state since 1977 was in danger of being closed because a renewal permit drafted eight years ago did not take into account the mine's impact on climate change. An environmental group sued in a bid to invalidate the permit. A court-ordered review by the...

Sunday the Navajo Nation Office of the President and Vice President released a statement to the public in regards to FEMA and the EPA's refusal for assistance in cleaning up the toxic water in the San Jaun River. "We are extremely frustrated with the news that both FEMA and the U.S. EPA have declined our urgent requests to continue assistance to the Navajo Nation. U.S. EPA caused this entire disaster, they have harmed the people, the water and the land. I appreciated the fact U.S. EPA took responsibility and I was hoping for the U.S. EPA to prove to the...

A federal judge on Friday declined to halt the Obama administration's controversial water rule nationwide, rebuffing the request of 13 states that are battling with the Environmental Protection Agency.Judge Ralph Erickson of the North Dakota U.S. District Court ruled that there are “significant prudential reasons to limit the scope” of the injunction he already gave the 13 states last week. Other courts have denied injunctions, he said, and some states want to implement the “Waters of the United States” rule. “On the one hand, there is a desirability for uniformity regarding a national rule with national application,” Erickson wrote. “On...

Because you are buying now two appliances, a water heater and air conditioner, “heat pump heaters are twice as expensive” as the old electric water heater If you ask an engineer, he will tell you that CO2 is not a pollutant, and burning fossil fuels has made the Earth greener because their emissions are rapidly assimilated by sunlight. As Dr. Klaus Kaiser had explained, “incomplete combustion can cause air quality problems, not because of CO2 but due to soot particles and nitrogen oxides,” particularly in high density urban areas where the air tends to be stagnant. There is a reason...

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) reacted to a recent injunction that blocked a new regulation that would have granted the federal government jurisdiction over some waterways across the United States. “I wasn’t surprised by the injunction even though other courts were sort of failing to see the logic of states’ cases in other filings,” Cramer exclusively told Breitbart News. On Friday, North Dakota’s U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson ordered a temporary injunction against the Obama administration’s rule, which would grant the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), along with the Army Corps of Engineers, authority over...

The very same crew which recently dumped three million gallons of toxic sludge out of an abandoned mine and turned the Animas River in Colorado the color of a yellow banded poison dart frog for roughly a week has just issued a whole new set of rules to “protect” small pools of water. They would also like you to know that these rules are going into effect even though a federal judge put them on hold in 13 states, too. This new batch of regulations is going to “protect” bodies of water which may include the ditch in front...

A federal judge in North Dakota on Thursday blocked a new Obama administration rule that would give the federal government jurisdiction over some smaller waterways just hours before it was set to go into effect. U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson in Fargo issued a temporary injunction requested by North Dakota and 12 other states halting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers from regulating some small streams, tributaries and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. The rule, which has prompted fierce criticism from farmers among others, was scheduled to take effect Friday. North Dakota Attorney General Wayne...

BISMARCK, N.D. — A federal judge in North Dakota on Thursday blocked a new Obama administration rule that would give the federal government jurisdiction over some state waterways. U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson of North Dakota issued a temporary injunction against a the rule, which gives the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers authority to protect some streams, tributaries and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. The rule was scheduled to take effect Friday. “The risk of irreparable harm to the states is both imminent and likely,” Judge Erickson said in blocking the rule from taking effect....

A federal judge has ruled that a controversial regulation that would give the Environmental Protection Agency jurisdiction over small streams and ditches is bureaucratic overreach and has halted the implementation of the rule. The judge was not pleased with the EPA, who said they would go ahead and implement the regulation in the 37 states that did not sue to end it.

“It is disappointing, but not surprising, that the EPA failed to meet the House Science Committee’s reasonable deadline in turning over documents pertaining to the Gold King Mine spill,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). “These documents are essential to the Committee’s ongoing investigation and our upcoming hearing on Sept. 9. But more importantly, this information matters to the many Americans directly affected in western states, who are still waiting for answers from the EPA.” ... For several days, the EPA didn’t notify the states of Utah, New Mexico or the Navajo Nation that the spill was coming their way. McCarthy...

Managers at the Environmental Protection Agency were aware of the possible risk for a catastrophic “blowout” at an abandoned mine that could release “large volumes” of wastewater laced with toxic metals, according to internal documents released late Friday. EPA released the documents following weeks of prodding from news organizations like The Associated Press. EPA and contract workers accidentally unleashed 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater on Aug. 5 as they inspected the idled Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado. Among the documents is a June 2014 work order for a planned cleanup that noted that the old mine had not...

The chief environmental regulator in the United States had some blunt words of reality regarding the administration’s climate change regulations. The Clean Power Plan that will require drastic cuts in 47 states’ carbon dioxide emissions – consequently shifting America’s energy economy away from affordable, reliable coal – will adversely impact poor, minority families the most. When speaking about the higher energy prices caused by the administration’s climate regulations on power plants, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said, “We know that low-income minority communities would be hardest hit.”

Here in my adopted home state of Colorado, orange is the new Animas River thanks to the blithering idiots working under President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency. It's just the latest man-caused disaster from an out-of-control bureaucracy whose primary mission is not the Earth's preservation, but self-preservation. As always, the government cover-up compounds the crime -- which is why the agency's promise this week to investigate itself has residents across the Rocky Mountains in stitches. Or tears. After the EPA and officials and their contract workers accidentally spilled three million gallons of pent-up toxic sludge on August 5 from a defunct...

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy's history of managerial neglect, malfeasance and outright incompetence has been capped by her agency unleashing one of the worst environmental disasters of the 21st century. EPA clean-up crews breached a waste storage dam that produced a torrent of heavy metal-laden toxic waste, potentially fouling an entire western river system and impacting the drinking water of tens of millions of people. While McCarthy didn't personally bulldoze the dam, it's no surprise to those who have followed her Peter Principle-driven career that this would occur on her watch.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon pollution, contains an antipoverty transfer program to help offset the harm it does to the poor, a Wall Street Journal editorial explained.According to WSJ, the EPA has stated that they are concerned about low-income communities and wants to ensure that they benefit from the implementation of their regulations.“At the federal level, the EPA is creating a program that gives twice as large a subsidy for renewable and efficiency projects that are built in inner-city neighborhoods and disadvantaged rural areas,” states the article. “There will be job retraining...

U.S. households are saving hundreds of dollars a year because natural gas prices are low, but that’s about to change. Astudy by NERA Economic Consulting has found new regulations on power plants mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) will increase natural gas prices to 2007 levels, virtually guaranteeing these savings will soon be wiped out. A study by the Brookings Institution found natural gas prices have plummeted as horizontal hydraulic fracturing, also known as horizontal “fracking,” has caused U.S. natural gas production to skyrocket to all-time highs, making the United States the world’s top producer of...