air pollution
The D.C. Circuit’s Activist Ruling on Interstate Pollution
About ten days ago, the D.C. Circuit struck down EPA’s effort to establish a cap-and-trade system for pollutants that cross state lines. Now that I’ve had a chance to read the lengthy opinion in EMR Homer City Generation v. EPA, I’m struck by the aggressiveness of the court’s intervention, which goes well beyond the customary …
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CONTINUE READINGIs King Coal in Decline?
This revealing graph from Wonkblog has some important lessons. First, power plants last a long time. Most of the generation fleet is twenty to sixty years old. Second, at this point, coal is basically a legacy fuel. It exists because it pays to keep old plants open. They are grandfathered and don’t have to use …
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CONTINUE READINGPublic Health and the Changing Electicity Mix
The electricity mix has changed dramatically, as discussed by my colleagues from the Haas School recently. The following chart tells the tale: Notice that the blue line (coal) is diving, while the orange line (natural gas) is picking up the slack. The change seems to be due to the rapid decline in gas prices. The …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornians and the Environment: PPIC’s New Survey Results
The Public Policy Institute of California this week released the results of its 12th annual “Californians and the Environment” survey. PPIC, a non-partisan think tank, always seems to be generating thought-provoking and cutting-edge scholarship focusing on the nation-state of California. Its latest environmental survey, based on recent polling of 2500 Californians, continues that tradition. The …
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CONTINUE READINGDon’t Knock EPA’s Knack for NAAQS
On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit decided American Petroleum Institute (API) v. EPA, an interesting case dealing with nitrogen oxide (NO2) levels. The standard is supposed to include a margin of safety.Under the Clean Air Act, EPA sets National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for airborne substances that endanger human health or welfare. EPA set such …
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CONTINUE READINGIn the Supreme Court’s Crosshairs: the Ninth Circuit’s Environmental Jurisprudence
All eyes will be on the U.S. Supreme Court this week, as the justices conclude their current Term and, among other things, issue their long-awaited decision(s) on the constitutionality of the newly-enacted federal healthcare law. But the Supreme Court also has some other, key decisions to make as to whether to take up four controversial environmental cases from …
CONTINUE READINGOut With the Old, In With the New
A recent GAO report pulls together a lot of information about electricity generators, which shows how much of our air pollution problems are due to aging plants: Older electricity generating units—those that began operating in or before 1978—provided 45 percent of electricity from fossil fuel units in 2010 but produced a disproportionate share of emissions, …
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CONTINUE READINGOne reason for anti-EPA riders
There’s been a lot of (appropriate) outrage over the efforts in the past year and a half by House Republicans to gut environmental protections through the use of appropriations riders. Those efforts might well continue in the next appropriations cycle, especially since bashing the EPA is apparently a popular election-year activity for Republicans. One of …
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CONTINUE READINGThe PM2.5 Risk: Even Greater Than We Thought
The more we find out about ultra-fine particles called PM2.5, the more dangerous to health they seem to be. E&E News reports: The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center study, published in tomorrow’s Archives of Internal Medicine, found a “strong association” between exposure to fine-particle pollution and strokes. The study was funded in part by U.S. …
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CONTINUE READINGAir Pollution Levels in China
The Economist commissioned a study of particulate pollution in China, using estimates based on satellite data. The results are predictably grim: World Health Organisation guidelines suggest that PM2.5 levels above ten micrograms per cubic metre are unsafe. The boffins have found (as the map shows) that almost every Chinese province has levels above that. Indeed, …
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