Air Quality

Republicans on the Senate environment committee, who months ago began criticizing the Obama administration for evaluating federally funded infrastructure projects for their impact on climate change, today introduced legislation that would bar the White House from making climate a factor in environmental reviews.

The federal government can reap significant pollution-reduction benefits by focusing on a national freight plan that replaces older diesel equipment with newer, cleaner-burning train cars while building out regional networks more efficiently, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) said yesterday in a new report [PDF].

Government subsidies for hybrid and electric cars, while "politically seductive," will fail to achieve the Obama administration's national pollution-reduction goals if they are not coupled with a significant increase in fuel prices, according to a new study by Harvard University researchers.

Last week, the New York Times broke the news that Texas based oil companies were funding the ballot initiative that would "temporarily" place the Greenhouse Gas reforms required by A.B. 32 on hold until California's unemployment rate reached 5.5%.  When discussing the news with some of my friends, it was greeted with a yawn.  After all, this is hardly the first time an out-of-state interest has placed a lot of money behind a ballot proposition, and A.B. 32 spends a lot more time promoting clean fuel than it does human powered transportation or transit.

(editor's note: This is Part I of a two part series.  Next week we'll look specifically at how the repeal or delaying of this legislation would effect transportation and Livable Streets. - DN)

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Lisa Jackson extended an olive branch this week to lawmakers who are pushing to block her from regulating carbon emissions in the absence of a congressional climate bill, but Jackson's promise to delay action until next year appears to have made no headway with Republicans and coal-state Democrats. 

Pensacola, Florida. Springfield, Missouri. Fort Wayne, Indiana. All three of those metropolitan areas have populations between 350,000 and 500,000, and all three would have been required to install nitrogen dioxide monitoring stations near major roadways under a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule cracking down on the pollutant.

Obama administration officials "need to align together" to work on reducing the nation's total vehicle miles traveled -- work that should go beyond a pending congressional climate bill -- the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) air-quality chief said today.

Acting under a Supreme Court mandate, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled today that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and contribute to the harmful environmental effects of climate change, paving the way for pollution regulations under the Clean Air Act.