Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Category Archives: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
In a story May 10 about Environmental Protect Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's proposals for enforcing the Clean Air Act, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Rep. Pete Olson was a Democrat. He is a Republican.
Executives from 10 auto companies will meet with President Donald Trump and cabinet officials on Friday to discuss the administration's plan to reduce gas mileage and pollution requirements enacted during the Obama administration. The auto industry wants to relax the standards, but not so much that they provoke a legal fight with California, which has power to impose its own stricter tailpipe pollution limits.
An email casts doubt on a key detail of The New York Times's profile on Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's former head of security - a detail that impugned the impartiality of a top official in the EPA inspector general's office. Pruitt's former security head Nino Perrotta and Assistant Inspector General Patrick Sullivan were "spotted drinking beers together at Elephant & Castle, a bar across the street from the EPA headquarters," despite "concerns" raised over Perrotta's "oversight of Mr. Pruitt's security," The New York Times reported in April.
Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, left, and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt listen to President Donald Trump speak during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Wednesday, May 9, 2018, in Washington. Image credit: AP Photo/Evan Vucci Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt is overhauling the way his agency sets pollution limits under the Clean Air Act, announcing Thursday that regulators will seek input on the economic impact of enforcing the landmark federal law.
Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, left, and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt listen to President Donald Trump speak during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Wednesday, May 9, 2018, in Washington. less Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, left, and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt listen to President Donald Trump speak during a cabinet meeting at the White ... more WASHINGTON - Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt has met with families of two men whose deaths were linked to a toxic compound in a widely sold paint stripper, weeks after lawmakers pressed him about an Obama-era rule that would limit sales to consumers.
President Donald Trump will allow year-round sales of renewable fuel with blends of 15 percent ethanol as part of an emerging deal to make changes to the federal ethanol mandate. Republican senators and the White House announced the deal Tuesday after a closed-door meeting, the latest in a series of White House sessions on ethanol.
Democrats mischaracterized emails between top Environmental Protection Agency officials to claim Administrator Scott Pruitt wanted "misuse" of taxpayer dollars by creating a new agency office in his hometown. Pruitt directed his staff "to establish a new EPA office in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma," sparking a wave of media coverage that added to the growing list of complaints against Pruitt, House Democrats claimed .
Auto executives visiting the White House Friday, May 11, will to try to save the national fuel economy and emissions program from a Trump administration buzz saw that they fear could usher in years of litigation and uncertainty rather than the leeway they sought. Clean-air advocates have sounded alarms about a dramatic weakening of Obama-era efficiency and emissions standards described in a leaked draft proposal by federal transportation and environmental agencies.
Democrats are jumping on new revelations about lobbyists planning Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's lavish trips to Morocco, Australia, and Israel to show conflicts of interest. "The outsized role you have given lobbyists and non-governmental individuals in setting both your domestic policy agenda as well as your international travel is concerning and leads to even more questions about your ability to objectively serve the American people," said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in a sent Friday to Pruitt asking for a full list of industry representatives that the agency has collaborated with on planning his overseas excursions.
The U.S. government has fined Enbridge Inc. more than $1.8 million US after accusing the Calgary-based oil transport company of missing deadlines for pipeline inspections following a gigantic oil spill in southwestern Michigan. A worker monitors the water in Talmadge Creek in Marshall Township, Mich., near the Kalamazoo River as oil from a ruptured pipeline, owned by Enbridge Inc, is vacuumed out of the water in 2010.
Desperate to divert attention from Scott Pruitt, an Environmental Protection Agency employee recently tried to feed negative news stories about President Trump's Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, drawing the ire of the White House, according to a report. Michael Abboud, a member of the EPA press team, has tried to pitch stories reflecting badly on Zinke to multiple news outlets, hoping they would take the "heat off Pruitt," according to sources and correspondence reviewed by the Atlantic .
Scott Pruitt's top spokesperson is leaving the Environmental Protection Agency, the latest high-profile departure from the embattled agency. Liz Bowman, EPA's associate administrator for public affairs, has confirmed that she is stepping down.
The lobbyist whose wife rented a condo to Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt at $50 a night sought EPA committee posts for a lobbying client, according to a newly released EPA memo. J. Steven Hart's seeking those appointments from his wife's former tenant, Pruitt, shows "the extent to which the special interests providing him with gifts have sought specific favors from EPA in return," said Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The lobbyist whose wife rented a condo to Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt at $50 a night sought EPA committee posts for a lobbying client, according to a newly released EPA memo. J. Steven Hart's seeking those appointments from his wife's former tenant, Pruitt, shows "the extent to which the special interests providing him with gifts have sought specific favors from EPA in return," said Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
A Washington consultant who has lobbied for foreign governments in the past helped the Environmental Protection Agency prepare for a trip that administrator Scott Pruitt and his staff were to take last year, according to emails obtained by the Sierra Club and subsequently CBS News. According to those internal EPA emails, first reported by the New York Times , Matthew Freedman, the CEO of the firm Global Impact, Inc., was closely involved in the details of planning the trip, in which Pruitt was supposed to meet with Australian officials about environmental issues.
The lobbyist connected to a controversial living arrangement for Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt emailed the agency on behalf of a client last year, seemingly contradicting his earlier assertion that he did not lobby the EPA in 2017. For much of his first year in Washington Pruitt stayed in a room in a Capitol Hill townhouse co-owned by Vicki Hart, the wife of veteran D.C. lobbyist J. Steven Hart, paying $50 for each night he used it.
Eighteen states Tuesday sued President Donald Trump's administration over its push to "reconsider" greenhouse gas-emission rules for the nation's auto fleet, launching a legal battle over one of former President Barack Obama's most significant efforts to address climate change. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt in April said he would revisit the Obama-era rules, which aim to raise efficiency requirements to about 50 miles per gallon by 2025.
In this April 19, 2017, file photo, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt speaks at a news conference with Pasquale "Nino" Perrotta, left, in East Chicago, Ind. Pruitt is announcing the departure of two top aides amid ethics investigations at the agency.
The two top officials in charge of security and toxic-waste cleanups at the Environmental Protection Agency have abruptly left their jobs, days after EPA administrator Scott Pruitt told lawmakers his subordinates were to blame for ethics problems that have imperiled his political future and prompted more than a dozen federal investigations. In statements Tuesday, Pruitt praised the two men - Pasquale "Nino" Perrotta, the security chief, and Albert Kelly, who ran the EPA's Superfund program - and gave no reason for their unexpected departures.
Two Democratic lawmakers asked Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt on Monday for documents related to proposed changes to vehicle fuel emission standards and California's authority to set its own measures, and accused him of misleading Congress of the agency's plans. FILE PHOTO: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt speaks during an interview at his office in Washington, U.S., July 10, 2017.