Free Republic

The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to hire 15 “Diversity and Inclusion Specialists,” each of whom will make $100,000 or more per year. The agency will hire employees to set up diversity and inclusion “advisory bodies” across the country, according to a government job posting. “Earth Day is every day at EPA!” the agency said. “At EPA, you can protect human health and the environment of all Americans, and you’ll discover that EPA is one great place to work!” “We offer great benefits and work flexibilities, and our diverse workforce connects to more than just a career—we share a common...

When farmers plow their land, it produces grooves called "furrows," bordered by small ridges of dirt. But in pursuit of new regulatory powers, federal agencies refer to the little dirt mounds by another term: “mini mountain ranges.” That seemingly absurd distinction is being used to impose more federal control over private land use decisions made by U.S. farmers. That was the claim described in a U.S. Senate committee report released Sept. 20. The committee reviewed the powers held by the nation’s two largest environmental regulation agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency, and a proposed...

The Environmental Protection Agency Thursday unveiled its new online tool to help local officials deal with climate change, and it warns that no state in the nation is safe from disaster. The "Climate Change Adaptation Resource Center," or "ARC-X," provides a map that break the country into eight regions and every single one comes with a threatening warning and long list of threats to human life. "From floods and droughts to dangerous heat islands and other public health effects, communities are facing the very real impacts of climate change," said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in unveiling the portal. While the...

Donald Trump is tapping a high-profile climate change skeptic to lead administration transition efforts for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Myron Ebell, director of energy and environment policy at the conservative think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute, is heading Trump’s EPA transition preparation, E&E Daily reported Monday. Ebell is an outspoken, longtime skeptic of the scientific consensus that human activity is dramatically changing the climate. He often refers to warnings about global warming as climate “alarmism” and is a vocal critic of President Obama’s climate change regulations. Ebell has argued that the Clean Power Plan is illegal and that the Paris...

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument next Tuesday, September 27 on the Environmental Protection Agency’s so-called Clean Power Plan. The centerpiece of resident Obama’s climate policy agenda, the Plan establishes first-ever carbon dioxide (CO2) emission standards for “existing” (already built) coal and natural gas power plants. The Plan will increase consumer energy prices and impede job and GDP growth yet have no discernible effect on global temperatures or sea levels. However, that’s not why the Court should strike it down. The Court should overturn the Plan because it is an unlawful power grab. The Plan will...

The Environmental Protection Agency has violated the personal privacy of tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers, according to a unanimous ruling issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The ruling in American Farm Bureau Federation and National Pork Producers Council vs. EPA concerned the federal agency's 2013 release to three environmental groups of a vast compilation of spreadsheets containing personal information about farmers and ranchers who raise livestock and poultry in 29 states. The case also related to similar personal information from farmers and ranchers in seven additional states that had yet to be...

A former senior EPA official known for coordinating with environmentalists slammed the White House for pushing back on agency plans to regulate hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas, text messages show. Michael Goo, EPA’s policy chief at the time, texted Sierra Club lobbyist John Coequyt that if environmentalists “want any hope of regulation of fracking then give us more time to try and remove the gun from our head and talk sense into OMB dickheads.” “If you want the oil and gas nsps to give fracking a free pass, as OMB would like then don’t give us the extension,”...

The Environmental Protection is admitting to a spill from a treatment plant it set up after it dumped 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater into a Colorado river last year. The EPA said Thursday night that the spill happened on Tuesday, and officials are still attempting to determine how much and what metals were contained in the sludgy discharge, ... The Navajo Nation sued the agency over the spill last week after the EPA inspector general and the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into the incident a few days before the Aug. 5 anniversary of the 2015 spill. The...

The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration jointly issued a new regulation last week that is meant to help protect the world from “climate change” by limiting “greenhouse gas emissions” and improving fuel efficiency in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles operated in the United States. The 1,690-page regulation is approximately 700,000 words long. A “regulatory impact analysis” published by EPA and NHTSA estimates the regulation will add an average of as much as $13,749 to the cost of a tractor truck and $1,370 to a trailer, making some tractor-trailer combinations $15,119 more expensive in 2027 than they...

President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is going after Harley-Davidson for allegedly selling motorcycles that emit more air pollution than the almighty federal government allows, and is punishing them by making them pay for people’s stoves. The federal tree-hugging watchdog complained that the motorcycle company “manufactured and sold approximately 340,000 illegal devices, known as ‘super tuners,’ that, once installed, caused motorcycles to emit higher amounts of certain air pollutants than what the company certified to EPA.” “Since January 2008, Harley-Davidson has manufactured and sold two types of tuners, which when hooked up to Harley-Davidson motorcycles, allow users to modify certain aspects...

American truckers, and the big rigs they drive, are literally the lifeblood of this nation, transporting food, raw materials and finished goods from one end of the country to the other and back again, delivering what is needed where it is needed when it is needed on a daily basis. But those truckers just had a major roadblock placed in their way, courtesy of President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency, and the consequences for not only the trucking industry, but America as a whole, could be devastating. According to The Daily Caller, the EPA just announced on Tuesday that it...

My dishwasher and my washer are victims of the EPA and the DOE. I need the dishwasher to let in more water to wash correctly I need the washer to have a higher level in the tub, in order to meet guidelines

President Obama signed a bill into law Wednesday that places stronger regulations on chemicals present in nearly every product Americans use, including detergents, clothing, paint thinners, cleansers and automobiles. The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act passed by Congress early this month in a rare bipartisan vote. It updates the Toxic Substances Control Act, which had not been reauthorized since the Ford administration in the mid-1970s. The new law gives the Environmental Protection Agency more oversight and stronger tools to monitor chemicals that in some cases could cause cancer and other health problems in adults and...

A federal judge ruled Friday that a lobbyist and former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official can testify for a coal company in its lawsuit against the agency. The EPA had sought to block Jeff Holmstead, who led the EPA’s air pollution office under then-President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, from appearing as an expert witness in Murray Energy Corp.’s case. The agency argued that Holmstead’s time at the EPA is a significant conflict of interest and his testimony would amount to little more than unreliable legal conclusions. The EPA “effectively argues that, because Mr. Holmstead once worked at...

Environment: President Obama's "Clean Power Plan" is on pause, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling in March after more than two dozen states filed suit to stop it. A new report shows why the plan should be scrapped entirely, and the EPA sued for fraud.

The White House’s Clean Water Act requires property owners to surrender possession of land that falls under its jurisdiction. The law, which has frustrated landowners for 40 years, was expanded last year when the Obama administration issued new rules for which bodies of water can be claimed as government property. Hawkes Co., Inc. was one of the businesses affected by the White House’s environmental guidelines. The company, which provides peat for golf courses, was prevented from using property in Marshall County, Minnesota, because it had been deemed federally controlled wetlands by the United States Corps of Engineers. The Supreme Court took up...

Back in January, 26 states asked the Supreme Court to put a halt to the EPA’s new “Clean Power” Plan based on the extraordinary cost it imposed on states, stress to the power grid and a variety of other factors. The Court agreed to that request, instructing the involved parties to put on the brakes until ongoing litigation made its way through the court system. Unfortunately, EPA chief Gina McCarthy never seemed to get the memo and the agency has continued work on the program, drafting plans to reward states which exceed the mandated targets in carbon emissions and punishing...

Energy: The EPA’s proposal to increase the amount of ethanol that must be blended into gasoline is a trifecta of regulatory abuse. It will do nothing for the environment, it will do nothing for energy security, and it could wreck millions of car engines

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to increase the amount of ethanol and other biofuels in the nation’s fuel supply. But the volumes proposed Wednesday under the renewable fuel standard (RFS) still fall under targets written into the 2007 law that created the program. That ended up angering both the ethanol industry, which wants more of its product to be mandated, and the oil industry, which wants the program rolled back. The agency plans to mandate that 18.8 billion gallons of biofuels be blended into the country’s gasoline and diesel supply next year. Of that amount, 14.8 billion gallons can...

Oil and gas industry groups on Thursday sued federal agencies over revisions to land management plans in Colorado and other western states to protect the greater sage-grouse. The Western Energy Alliance and the North Dakota Petroleum Council filed the suit in North Dakota, saying the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service failed to follow proper procedures for public involvement in adopting the land use plan amendments. They also say the plans ignore sound science and will hurt western economies. Plan revisions being challenged include ones in northwest Colorado, where greater sage-grouse habitat substantially overlaps with oil and gas...