Tag Archives: United States Environmental Protection Agency

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Attacking the EPA is NOT fiscally responsibl​e …Union of Concerned Scientists


Attacking the EPA is Not Fiscally Responsible

Lately, there has been a lot of talk in Washington, DC, about fiscal responsibility. Under the guise of cutting government spending, some lawmakers are taking a hatchet to many of the landmark laws that protect our health and the environment—such as the Clean Air Act. But attacking the Clean Air Act is both fiscally irresponsible and terribly short-sighted.

This legislation has a 40-year track record of cutting dangerous pollution and, in 2010 alone, helped prevent an estimated 160,000 premature deaths and 1.7 million asthma attacks. On August 2, the total value of the net benefits provided to Americans by the Clean Air Act since its inception reached a staggering $50 trillion.

Yet despite the massive benefits that this landmark piece of legislation provides to the American people, certain members of Congress continue to try to undermine the Clean Air Act by working to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from reducing dangerous global warming emissions and other harmful pollutants. This has grave implications for our health, our children’s health, and the health of Americans for generations to come.

While the House of Representatives is currently on recess, they will return to Washington to continue debate on H.R. 2584, a spending bill that outlines the budget for the Department of the Interior and the EPA. The bill is an all-out attack on our air, water, lands, and wildlife, and includes nearly 40 anti-health, anti-environment amendments—including an amendment that would prevent the EPA from reducing global warming emissions under the Clean Air Act. Protecting our health and the environment is the fiscally responsible thing to do.

Please write today and urge your representative to vote against this anti-health, anti-environment bill.

Take Action Now

Sincerely,

Chrissy Elles

Outreach Associate

UCS Climate & Energy Program

P.S. With the Congressional Recess starting this week, your representative is home in your state until early September. Many representatives will host town halls or be at public events. I encourage you to attend these events and ask your representative, in person, to protect our health and environment and oppose H.R. 2584.

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Breaking news: Major step forward for cleaner cars


July 29, 2011

UCS Applauds Obama Administration Agreement on Fuel Efficiency & Auto Pollution Standards

Statement by Michelle Robinson, Director, Union of Concerned Scientists’ Clean Vehicles Program

WASHINGTON (July 29, 2011) –The Obama administration today unveiled an agreement with major automakers and the state of California on a framework to strengthen the nation’s fuel efficiency and auto pollution standards for new cars and light trucks. This proposal, which will apply to vehicles sold in model years 2017 to 2025, will set a global warming pollution standard of 163 grams per mile by 2025, the equivalent of 54.5 miles per gallon (mpg) if met exclusively with fuel efficiency improvements, or a Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard of 48-49 mpg assuming full use of air conditioning improvements. That would translate to a 2030 window sticker of about 36 mpg, up from 21 mpg today.

These standards build on the successful National Program for model years 2012 to 2016, which allows automakers to build a single national fleet to comply with Clean Air Act standards from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB), as well as Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards administered by the Department of Transportation (DOT).

The following is a statement from Michelle Robinson, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Clean Vehicles program:

“These standards will give our cars and trucks a technology makeover. We will still see the same types of vehicles on the road, but they will be dramatically more fuel efficient, cost less to operate, and produce less pollution. For the second time, President Obama has brought together the auto industry, the states, and other stakeholders to support strong standards that will protect consumers from high gas prices, curb global warming pollution, cut our oil dependence, and create innovative jobs in the American auto industry. We applaud the Obama administration and California for moving forward with these important standards.

“The technology exists to make any car, truck or SUV cleaner and more fuel efficient, and these standards will unleash innovation in the auto industry.

“This agreement is an important step forward, but there are still parts of the plan that need to be resolved. If they aren’t implemented correctly, they could turn into loopholes. If automakers can meet the standards with accounting tricks instead of using better technology, the program’s overall benefits would be eroded. We look forward to working with the administration and different stakeholders to evaluate and revise these standards so they produce the best vehicles possible for consumers, the auto industry, the country and the planet.”

Based on UCS’s current understanding of the proposal and assuming no loopholes, UCS experts anticipate that the standards for model years 2017 to 2025 will deliver the following benefits in 2030 in addition to the benefits from the first round of standards:

  • Cut oil consumption by as much as 1.5 million barrels per day — 23 billion gallons of gasoline annually — by 2030. That is equivalent to U.S. imports from Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 2010.
  • Cut carbon pollution by as much as 280 million metric tons (MMT) in 2030, which is equivalent to shutting down 72 coal-fired power plants.
  • Lower fuel expenditures at the pump by over $80 billion in 2030 — even after paying for the cost of the necessary technology, consumers will still clear $50 billion in savings that year alone.

 

The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading U.S. science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment and a safer world. Founded in 1969, UCS is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also has offices in Berkeley, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

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Urge Obama to protect our health


Unchecked global warming could threaten public health and increase health costs by exacerbating ground-level ozone—the primary component of smog. Fortunately, this fall the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will announce proposed standards to curb global warming emissions from our nation’s dirtiest power plants and later this year will issue similar standards for oil refineries. These standards will help protect the public’s health and our environment from the dangerous consequences of global warming.

However, the Obama administration is under enormous pressure from the coal and oil industries to release weak standards that will do little to nothing to protect our health and environment.

The administration needs to hear from you that the oil and coal lobbyists don’t represent your interests and that you want clear air policies that are based on science—not on the disinformation of corporate lobbyists.

We know the vast majority of the public stands with us on this issue. But sometimes agreeing from the sidelines is not enough. This is a fight worth joining—a chance to step up and really make a difference.

Tell President Obama to protect the health of the American people by ensuring strong Clean Air Act standards reduce global warming emissions.

Take Action Today!  202 456 1111

Sincerely,

Chrissy Elles
Outreach Associate
UCS Climate and Energy Program

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Your Water Might Be Flammable … CREDO


Did you know that oil and gas companies are allowed to pump secret, toxic fluids, through our drinking water – and the EPA is currently powerless to do anything about it?

High Pressure Hydraulic Fracturing (or fracking) is a method of drilling for natural gas by pumping a mixture of water and chemicals, including known toxics and carcinogens, deep underground, and it’s responsible for poisoning water in states across the country.

Fracking wells are spreading at an alarming rate. But even more alarming, thanks to the work of Dick Cheney and his infamous energy policy, frackers don’t have to disclose the chemicals used in their fluid to the EPA, and the process is totally exempt from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The FRAC Act, a bill that has been in the Senate since 2009, would correct both these problems. As public concern over fracking has grown, the bill has gained some momentum, but we still need more senators actively working to pass it. Will you urge your senators to support the bill?

Tell your senators: Co-sponsor the FRAC Act to protect our water from dangerous fracking.

Fracking a single gas well uses as much as millions of gallons of water, and hundreds of tons of chemicals. While the exact contents of the fluid remains largely undisclosed, scientific examination reveals that it can contain diesel fuel, which includes benzene, as well as dozens of chemicals including methanol, formaldehyde and hydrochloric acid.

The fluid is injected thousands of feet underground at extremely high pressure, literally cracking the rock to release trapped gas. Unfortunately, it must pass through our water table, where the fluids, along with methane gas, can leak through well casings into our drinking water.

If you’ve ever seen the picture of the man lighting his tap water on fire from the recent documentary Gasland, that was because of nearby fracking.

Yet somehow, the EPA has been handcuffed from regulating fracking to keep our water clean since 2005, in what has become known as “the Halliburton loophole.” Halliburton, where Dick Cheney was CEO before becoming Vice President, patented fracking in the 1940’s and remains the third largest producer of fracking fluids. And in trademark Bush administration style, Halliburton staff were actively involved in a 2004 EPA report on fracking safety.

The “Halliburton loophole” remains a dangerous legacy of the Bush Administration and if we’re going to protect our water, we need to close it.

Tell your senators: Co-sponsor the FRAC Act to protect our water from dangerous fracking.  http://us.greenpeace.org/site/R?i=eowykN6lXhtd7eIVIF3Kdw..

The oil and gas industry is the only industry in America that is allowed by EPA to inject known hazardous materials — unchecked — directly into or adjacent to underground drinking water supplies.

Thanks in no small part to the continued resistance of industry to disclose the poisons involved in fracking, the risks of this practice are only beginning to be realized. However, an important investigative series by the New York Times recently concluded that “the dangers to the environment and health are greater than previously understood.”

In addition to below ground leaks, fracking also poses serious threats to our rivers and streams from insufficiently treated, and often radioactive, waste water. What’s more, above ground spills of toxic fracking fluids are becoming increasingly common. A large spill this April in Pennsylvania dumped thousands of gallons into fields and streams, eerily, on the one year anniversary of the Deep Water Horizon oil spill.

Fracking is currently underway in 36 states. And while some state regulations do exist, they vary widely. But water contamination isn’t constrained by state boundaries, and we need a baseline national standard to make sure fracking chemicals are publicly disclosed, and to prevent this practice from putting our nation’s drinking water at risk.

Tell your senators: Co-sponsor the FRAC Act to protect our water from dangerous fracking.http://us.greenpeace.org/site/R?i=eowykN6lXhtd7eIVIF3Kdw..

Thanks for fighting the unchecked oil and gas influence threatening our water.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. Fracking,” Food and Water Watch.
2. Hydraulic Fracturing 101,” EARTHWORKS.
3. Burning Tap Water and More: GASLAND Exposes the Natural Gas Industry,” Treehugger, June 25, 2010.
4. Regulation Lax as Gas Wells‘ Tainted Water Hits Rivers,” New York Times, February 26, 2011

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Tell the EPA: Protect us from Toxic Air … Kathleen Rogers, Earth Day Network

1 Comment

Mercury is so toxic… just 1/70th of a teaspoon can  contaminate a 20 acre lake. Imagine the damage 50 tons can do.

Coal-fired power plants emit over 50 tons of mercury into our air every  single year, more than any other source. Today, mercury exposure is so  widespread in our country that as many as 1 in 6 women of childbearing age have  blood mercury levels high enough to put a baby at risk of mercury poisoning.

There are no restrictions on the amount of toxic mercury  that utility companies can emit. But, at long last, the EPA has proposed a critical  rule to reduce the emission of mercury and other toxic chemicals that power  plants are now able to freely dump into our air.

The Power Plant Mercury and Air Toxics Standard is the most  important clean air rule since 1990 — and the EPA is predictably under  tremendous pressure by the coal industry and other polluters to weaken it. Now,  the EPA has asked us – the public – to weigh in on this critical  rule.

Tell the EPA to uphold this rule and protect Americans from dangerous air pollution. Submit your public comment now.

For decades, the electric industry has successfully fought  requirements to reduce these toxics.

They’ve kept releasing mercury into our air, where it finds  its way into the vast majority of our lakes and waterways, into our fish, and  then into our bodies, where the poison accumulates, causing deadly diseases and  impairing fundamental brain functions like the ability to walk, talk, read,  write and learn.

According to the EPA, reduced emissions from this new air  toxics rule will save as many as 17,000 American lives every year by 2015, and  will prevent up to 120,000 cases of childhood asthma. We must put our support  behind this lifesaving new emissions standard!

Tell  the EPA to uphold this rule and protect Americans from dangerous air pollution.  Submit your public comment now.

Thank  you for taking action during this critical comment period,
Kathleen  Rogers