coal ash

A Loss for Trump — and for Coal

Trump Administration Loses Yet Another Environmental Case

Understandably, most of the attention at the beginning of the week was devoted to the rollout of the Trump Administration’s token effort to regulate greenhouse gases, the ACE rule. But something else happened, too. On Tuesday, a D.C. Circuit ruling ignored objections from the Trump Administration and invalidated key parts of a rule dealing with …

CONTINUE READING

Obama’s Remarkable Environmental Achievements

When you look at the whole of his legacy, it’s a stunning record.

When he leaves office in January, President Obama will have compiled a remarkable record of environmental achievements. The record spans everything from climate change to endangered species and ocean protection. We can only hope that next Tuesday’s election doesn’t undo many of these gains. Here is a list, in no particular order, of twenty of …

CONTINUE READING

EPA Waters Down Final Rule for Coal Ash

EPA will improve new disposal sites for coal ash, but will have limited effect on old ones.

Exactly six years ago today, a dike ruptured near Kingston, Tennessee, dumping into the Clinch River some 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash slurry — or to use the more technical term, coal combustion residue. Last Friday, EPA issued a new regulation to deal with the issue.  The rule is intended to protect groundwater from leaching from the ponds, …

CONTINUE READING

The Debt Ceiling and the Environment

The House GOP plans to require a rollback of environmental regulations as a condition for raising the debt ceiling. This would be a massive power-grab by the House at the expense of the President and the Senate.

It slipped under the radar screen due to all the furor over the impending government shutdown, but the NY Times ran an important article two weeks ago about the debt ceiling.  The Republican plan is apparently to condition their agreement to raise the debt ceiling and save the country from default on a massive regulatory rollback. …

CONTINUE READING

EPA dithers on coal ash

UPDATE: Over at CPRBlog, Rena Steinzor and James Goodwin have a nice analysis of the red-lined version of the proposal EPA has posted at regulations.gov, showing the difference between what it wanted to do and what OIRA was able to bully it into doing. Transparency really is a wonderful thing. Looks like EPA was ready …

CONTINUE READING

TRENDING