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For many years, those of us in the Arctic have been fighting the wood stove ban. The use of PM2.5 particulates has been an issue pursued by local agencies as a way to swipe at those who choose to live beyond the borders of traditional civilization. That attack has now extended to the rest of the United States. In a stunning move, the Environmental Protection Agency decided to ban most of the operational wood stoves in the U.S. In those places where there is you, God, and nature, the wood stove has represented that one thing that can sustain. Going...

More than nine out of every ten employees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are considered "non-essential" and have been furloughed in the federal government's shutdown. Reuters obtained an EPA guidance in which the agency said it would "classify 1,069 employees, out of 16,205, as essential,"...

The former senior EPA adviser who stole $900,000 from taxpayers while posing as a CIA agent pleaded the Fifth on Tuesday morning — shortly before House members expressed outrage upon learning that he’s still due to get his government pension. John C. Beale invoked his right not to incriminate himself when facing questioning from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, just four days after he pleaded guilty to charges that could bring him three years in prison.“Mr. Beale, do you have a statement?” panel Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) asked during the hearing. “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No I do...

As the death toll for Government Shutdown Apocalypse 2013 continues to grow, it appears that the EPA’s plans to make it even more expensive for Americans to drive a car were “shut down” by the government shutdown. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will take one of the biggest hits of any federal agency if the government shuts down this week, operating with under 7 percent of its employees, according to guidance issued by the agency. Just think of how much less the EPA will be able to do with only 7 percent of its employees. That EPA SWAT Team may...

A federal proposal to impose strict new rules on emissions from new coal-fired plants has drawn the ire of critics who are determined to stop regulatory effort from affecting coal-producing states such as Colorado. Last Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new rule for new coal plants: large plants can emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour while smaller plants can emit the slightly higher figure of 1,100 pounds. ... war on coal... Shovel-ready jobs apparently don’t apply to those who work in coal,” Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) quipped, referring to President Obama’s description...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today issued a final rule for the amount of renewable fuels to be added to the nation’s transportation fuel supply in 2013. The most publicized issue related to renewable fuels has been the ethanol “blend wall,” the theoretical point at which ethanol use will be surpassed by the amount of ethanol required by law. As Americans drive less, demand for gasoline falls also reducing demand for ethanol. Because blenders are required either to use the mandated amount, regardless of demand, or pay for credits for the amount they don’t use, the EPA has been...

U.S. Committee on Science, Space and TechnologyHand it over. Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House science committee, signs a subpoena ordering the Environmental Protection Agency to hand over sensitive health data. In a rare step, the science committee of the U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to subpoena the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for data from key studies used to justify air pollution regulations.Following a heated exchange of letters between Committee Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) and ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), the committee approved its first subpoena in 21 years. The vote was strictly along party lines,...

A federal court has struck down an Environmental Protection Agency rule that forces cuts in soot- and smog-forming power plant emissions that cross state lines, dealing a major blow to the White House's air quality agenda. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule that forces cuts from plants in 28 states in the eastern half of the country, finding that it exceeds EPA’s powers under the Clean Air Act. The 2-1 court decision Tuesday is a victory for industry groups, some states and GOP lawmakers, who alleged the rule would...

When I get Paul Bulmahn on the phone rumors are swirling that he’s just days from putting his company, ATP Oil & Gas, into Chapter 11. He can’t confirm it yet, but he wants to make one thing perfectly clear: If it does come to bankruptcy (which it did on August 17) it isn’t his fault. The founder and chairman of publicly traded ATP (Nasdaq:ATPG), Bulmahn wants the world to know that the Obama Administration—and its illegal ban on deepwater drilling in the wake of the BP disaster—is to blame for the implosion of his company. Not him. “It is...

So looks like the EPA is taking a swipe at Romney, which is funny because I thought ads by the government couldn;t be overtly political.... Oh well I guess them insinuating that due to the "higher efficiency standards" pushed down everyone's throat that the dog on Romney's car will have to stay there even longer.... This is a stupendously stupid low blow by the EPA... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgs1XH3PqEM

Al Armendariz's big mouth cost him his job as a regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Now that he's working for the Sierra Club, Armendariz appears even more opinionated about the industry he once regulated.In his first comments since resigning from EPA in April, Armendariz unloaded on the coal industry, called President Obama the most environmental president ever, and attacked the state of Texas for fighting the EPA in court. He also addressed the controversy surrounding his comments comparing the EPA's philosophy to the brutal tactics used by the ancient Roman army to intimidate its adversaries.Armendariz's most pointed comments...

Two coal companies in Pennsylvania blamed President Obama and his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the layoffs announced last week. “[T]he escalating costs and uncertainty generated by recently advanced EPA regulations and interpretations have created a challenging business climate for the entire coal industry,” said PBS Coals Inc. President and CEO D. Lynn Shanks in a statement on Friday, as noted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The company also cited weaker-than-normal demand for coal. Shanks’ comment on the EPA came as he announced a 28 percent work force reduction. “PBS Coals Inc. and its affiliate company, RoxCoal Inc., laid off about...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld the first-ever U.S. proposed rules governing heat-trapping greenhouse gases, clearing a path for sweeping regulations affecting vehicles, coal-burning power plants and other industrial facilities. Handing a setback to industry and a victory to the Obama administration, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that carbon dioxide is a public danger and the decision to set limits for emissions from cars and light trucks were "neither arbitrary nor capricious." The ruling, which addresses four separate lawsuits, upholds the underpinnings of the...

Government regulators, environmental groups and the news media tell us that the air we breathe is polluted, the water we drink is tainted, our orange juice contains a fungicide, and evil corporations are hoping to make a profit at Mother Earth’s expense. They also remind us that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal agencies are protecting us by fighting the greedy capitalists who seek our destruction. Don’t believe it. The United States is among the cleanest nations on the planet.

By Kirk Myers, Seminole County Environmental News Examiner This article, the second in a series, focuses on the misleading performance claims surrounding the “more energy efficient” compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs now replacing traditional incandescent bulbs. These potentially harmful mercury-filled lamps (see my previous column describing the dangers) are being forced on consumers by the U.S. congress with support from the Green Lobby and light-bulb manufacturers like GE, Sylvania and Phillips. These and other manufacturers stand to make huge profits selling the more expensive CFLs (more on that issue in my next column). There is a growing body of evidence...

Gosh, it’s tough to figure out why that recovery is stalled. The Orwellian nightmare of running a business in the shadow of the Obama Administration is nicely captured in this story from the New York Times, which explains why motor fuel companies are about to be fined $6.8 million for failure to use a biofuel that does not exist: In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The most detailed data yet on emissions of heat-trapping gases show that U.S. power plants are responsible for the bulk of the pollution blamed for global warming. Power plants released 72 percent of the greenhouse gases reported to the Environmental Protection Agency for 2010, according to information released Wednesday that was the first catalog of global warming pollution by facility. The data include more than 6,700 of the largest industrial sources of greenhouse gases, or about 80 percent of total U.S. emissions. According to an Associated Press analysis of the data, 20 mostly coal-fired power plants in...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to change how it analyzes problems and makes decisions, in a way that will give it vastly expanded power to regulate businesses, communities and ecosystems in the name of “sustainable development,” the centerpiece of a global United Nations conference slated for Rio de Janeiro next June. The major focus of the EPA thinking is a weighty study the agency commissioned last year from the National Academies of Science. Published in August, the study, entitled “Sustainability and the U.S. EPA,” cost nearly $700,000 and involved a team of a dozen outside experts and about half...

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” ... It’s one of the cornerstones of our entire legal system, with roots dating back at least as far as the Magna Carta, which declared, “No free man...shall be stripped of his rights or possessions...except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.” Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prefers a less venerable form of justice, as the Supreme Court will hear next month during oral arguments in the case...

Psychoanalysis is usually the wrong way to understand politics, but the Obama Administration may be reviving the field with its Freudian slips. The latest to land on the couch is Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson, who gave an unintentionally candid interview this weekend with Thalia Assuras of Energy Now News.