air pollution

Two weeks of protest against Keystone XL ends Saturday

Two weeks of civil disobedience and protest against the Keystone XL pipeline ends this Saturday (Sept. 3), with a rally and final sit-in. Over 1,000 people have been arrested, including my former professor , Gus Speth. The protestors want President Obama to deny a permit to construct a pipeline to bring oil from Canadian tar …

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Lost in the Ozone Again

Should Perry get credit for any recent downward trend ozone?The State’s reported downward trend in ozone levels began in 2006 at the earliest, whereas Perry took office in 2000 when Bush resigned.

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New nonprofit Harbor Community Benefit Foundation launches, seeks Executive Director to oversee millions of dollars in community benefits projects in Los Angeles’s near-port communities

A historic agreement between the Port of Los Angeles and various stakeholders has resulted in the founding of a new nonprofit organization, the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation.  HCBF’s mission is “to carry out mitigation and other public benefit projects that assess, protect, and improve health, quality of life, and the natural environment, with a focus …

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Bring Out Your Dead!

For instance, if you’ve been married five times, and each of the five spouses has drowned in the bathtub soon after writing a will in your favor, that “statistical” evidence is enough for a conviction. Similarly, if hospital admissions and ER visits for asthma go up on days when air pollution spikes, it would be irresponsible for the government to ignore that evidence.

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Anti-coal satire (with My First Inhaler) punks Peabody Energy

Peabody Energy — last seen on this blog as the real party in interest whose proposal to mine more coal on Indian land in Arizona had to go back to the drawing board because of this UCLA environmental law clinic case , and immortalized in the John Prine song “Paradise”  — has been punked.  (I’ve …

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The Huge Benefits of Air Pollution Regulation

EPA has a new report on the benefits from the increased pollution controls required under the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act.  According to E&E, A two-decade-old crackdown on smog and soot under the Clean Air Act will yield about $2 trillion in annual benefits by 2020, according to a study that was released …

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Happy Birthday, EPA!

Forty years ago, President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency by Executive Order.  Here are some of the achievements that EPA lists on its EPA@40 website: [W]e’ve reduced 60% of the dangerous air pollutants that cause smog, acid rain, lead poisoning and more. clean air innovations like smokestack scrubbers and catalytic converters in automobiles have …

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Jerry Brown and the Environment

During the campaign, Jerry Brown stressed environmental issues.  His campaign website has a very extensive list of proposed environmental policies.  It’ no surprise that he favors AB 32 and renewable energy, as well as vigorous enforcement of other existing environmental laws.  Some  of the other policies are a little less familiar.  Here are some that …

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California Clearing House on Scientific Review Panel

The California Report correspondent Amy Standen recently recounted the dismissal (or failure to reappoint, depending on your perspective) of a group of scientists from CalEPA’s Scientific Review Panel.  Little explanation for the action were given, although Standen notes that John Froines, a professor in the UCLA School of Public Health, also chaired a committee that …

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California Supreme Court decides in favor of accurate environmental impact analysis (and cleaner air)

The California Supreme Court just issued an important decision interpreting public agencies’ obligations under the California Environmental Quality Act.  This case will result in cleaner air in southern California.  It also establishes that public agencies must measure environmental impacts from a new project against actual existing conditions, rather than against theoretical conditions (based on permits …

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