WASHINGTON >> The Trump administration has instituted what it described as a temporary media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding any new contracts or grants. Emails sent to EPA staff since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday and reviewed by The Associated Press detailed specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency’s social media accounts.
Category: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Trump EPA pick pledges more cooperation with industry
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator-designate Scott Pruitt, left, is welcomed on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2017, by Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., prior to testifying at his confirmation hearing before the committee. Our team will redo any room but a bathroom or kitchen.
EPA critic Scott Pruitt faces Senate panel in bid to lead agency
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, the man President-elect Donald Trump wants to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, will ask a select group of senators Wednesday to allow him to lead an agency he has spent much of his career trying to dismantle. Environmental activists call Pruitt dangerous and Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will look to put his views of science and climate change on trial.
Pruitt OK’d as EPA chief over environmentalists’ objections
Over the strong objections of environmental groups, the Senate confirmed Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday, giving President Donald Trump an eager partner to fulfill his campaign pledge to increase the use of planet-warming fossil fuels. In six years as Oklahoma’s attorney general, Pruitt filed 14 lawsuits challenging EPA regulations that included limits on carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.
More
Attorneys generals from six states, including New York’s Eric Schneiderman, have sent a letter urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general. Attorneys generals from six states, including New York’s Eric Schneiderman, have sent a letter urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general.
EPA rejects $1.2B in mine-spill claims
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday that it will not repay claims totaling more than $1.2 billion for economic damages from a mine waste spill the agency accidentally triggered in Colorado, saying the law prohibits it. Attorneys for the EPA and the Justice Department concluded that the EPA is barred from paying the claims because of sovereign immunity, which prohibits most lawsuits against the government.
EPA says it can’t pay economic damages from mine spill
In this Aug. 6, 2015 file photo, Dan Bender, with the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office, takes a water sample from the Animas River near Durango, Colo. after the accidental release of an estimated 3 million gallons of waste from the Gold King Mine by a crew led by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In EPA rebuke, judge orders quick evaluation on coal jobs
A judge has ordered federal regulators to quickly evaluate how many power plant and coal mining jobs are lost because of air pollution regulations. McCarthy had responded to the judge’s previous order in a lawsuit brought against her by Murray Energy Corp. that the EPA must start doing an analysis that it hadn’t done in decades.
Pruitt an Unacceptable Choice, Ohio Scientists Tell Sen. Portman
Scientists, engineers and health professionals in Ohio have delivered a letter today to Sen. Rob Portman’s office expressing their strong opposition to President-elect Trump’s nominee to run the Environmental Protection Agency , Scott Pruitt. Portman, a Republican, will be a key vote on whether the closely-divided Senate puts Pruitt in charge of the EPA, an agency he has repeatedly tried to undermine as Oklahoma attorney general.
VW emissions-cheating deal could put employees in hot seat
The imminent criminal plea deal between Volkswagen and U.S. prosecutors in an emissions-cheating scandal could be bad news for one group of people: VW employees who had a role in the deceit or subsequent cover-up. VW on Tuesday disclosed that it is in advanced talks to settle the criminal case by pleading guilty to unspecified charges and paying $4.3 billion in criminal and civil fines, a sum far larger than any recent case involving the auto industry.
EPA locks in 2025 fuel efficiency rules
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy on Friday finalized a determination that the landmark fuel efficiency rules instituted by President Barack Obama should be locked in through 2025, a bid to maintain a key part of his administration’s climate legacy. Major U.S. and foreign automakers have appealed to President-elect Donald Trump, who has been critical of Obama’s climate policies, to review the rules requiring them to nearly double fleet-wide fuel efficiency by 2025, saying they impose significant costs and are out of step with consumer preferences.
It’s Alaska’s turn for EPA regional administrator, but will Trump listen to tradition?
Some Alaskans are eagerly anticipating the selection of a new regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, hoping that this time, an Alaskan will oversee the regional office. There’s a tradition, but no requirement, of rotation among the states in the region.
Wisconsin’s lakefront counties soon may be out of ozone rule compliance
Counties along Lake Michigan’s shoreline in Wisconsin may soon be out of compliance with new federal standards for ozone pollution. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lowered the ozone standard from 75 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion in 2015 with the regulations effective in October 2017.
States face off over Clean Power Plan
Two weeks after officials in two dozen states asked Republican President-elect Donald Trump to kill one of Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature plans to curb global warming, another group of state officials is urging Trump to save it. Democratic attorneys general in 15 states plus four cities and counties sent a letter to Trump asking him to preserve Obama’s Clean Power Plan, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the lead author, announced Thursday.
Republican attorneys general eager to dism…
As soon as President-elect Donald Trump assumes office Jan. 20, Republican attorneys general who have spent the past eight years battling the Obama administration’s climate change agenda will have a new role: supporting the Republican president’s complex legal effort to roll back that agenda. By contrast, states with Democratic leadership – such as California, where Gov. Jerry Brown has promised all-out war against Mr. Trump on global warming – will go from being environmental partners with the federal government to legal aggressors on their own.
Trump’s choices shouldn’t be surprising
There has been much hand-wringing in some circles about many of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet selections, people who seem to disdain the very agencies he is asking them to direct. Yet Trump, sometimes criticized for not being a true Republican, is making Cabinet choices that line up well with the party’s rhetoric and stated ideology.
Volkswagen Reaches Deal on Final Cars in Emissions Scandal
Volkswagen reached a deal with U.S. regulators and attorneys for car owners for the remaining 80,000 diesel vehicles caught in the company’s emissions cheating scandal, a federal judge announced Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said the settlement for the 3-liter diesel cars will include the option of a buyback for at least 20,000 vehicles and will give all owners substantial compensation on top of any repairs or a buyback.
Kansas farm groups say Trump presidency is a mixed bag
U.S. farmers taking a wait and see attitude on president-Elect Trump’s stands on agriculture. They hope for a less aggressive push on regulations but express over trade and international relastions.
Local briefs, Dec. 20, 2016
The three finalists are William DeFord, Michael Grattan III and Kevin Kennedy, all of Grand Junction. The three were nominated Friday by the 21st Judicial District Nominating Commission.
House Republicans shut down investigation into Flint water crisis, blame EPA instead
As President Obama signed a bill Friday authorizing $170 million to address lead in the drinking water in Flint , Michigan, Republicans in the House quietly closed a nearly yearlong investigation into the disaster before receiving crucial information from Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a pair of letters late Friday afternoon offering no new information and essentially summarizing what was already revealed about the crisis during several high-profile hearings earlier this year to announce the end of his investigation.
The Trump Cabinet: Bonfire of the agencies
Democrats spent the first two decades of the post-Cold War era rather relaxed about Russian provocations and revanchism. President Barack Obama famously mocked Mitt Romney in 2012 for suggesting that Russia was our principal geopolitical adversary.
Outsiders selected by Trump aim to unnerve Washington
President-elect Donald Trump wishes supporters a Merry Christmas to kick off his “thank you” rally in Hershey, Pa., on Thursday. Seven men and one woman named by Trump to run vast government agencies share a common trait: once confirmed, their presence is meant to unnerve – and maybe even outright undermine – the bureaucracies they are about to lead.
Volkswagen, regulators get more time to seek emissions deal
Volkswagen, U.S. regulators and attorneys for vehicle owners have made “substantial progress” on a deal for the remaining 80,000 diesel cars caught in the company’s emissions cheating scandal but need more time to negotiate, a federal judge said Friday. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco gave the parties until Monday to report back on whether they had reached a settlement.
Trump administration orders EPA contract and media blackout
The Trump administration has instituted a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding any new contracts or grants, part of a broader communications clampdown within the executive branch. The prohibitions came to light Tuesday as the agency moved to delay implementation of at least 30 environmental rules finalized in the closing months of President Barack Obama’s term, a potential first step to seeking to kill the regulations.