Union of Concerned Scientists

NOVEMBER 13, 2023

Second, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of setting regulations for future passenger vehicles—and casting doubt on EV sales is a tactic to push for weaker regulations. Sowing doubt about EVs to influence regulations? Are EV sales actually slowing? So why are we hearing so much about it right now?

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PA Environment Daily

OCTOBER 31, 2024

On October 23, 2024, the Clean Air Council and the Environment Integrity Project filed a notice of intent to sue the Shell Petrochemical Plant in Beaver County for emitting particulate matter (PM 2.5) and nitrogen oxides in violation of the federal Clean Air Act, the state Air Pollution Control Act and the plant's permit. "As

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Union of Concerned Scientists

JUNE 6, 2023

As early as 1966 , the state began to take regulatory action to reduce pollution from passenger cars and trucks. As a result of continuing progress on regulations, the air-polluting emissions of new passenger vehicles currently for sale are thankfully much lower than those of older vehicles. Combining the PM 2.5

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Legal Planet

NOVEMBER 4, 2024

We progress despite regular cries of impending doom from regulated industries and their enablers. None of this would be possible without the market created by a healthy Low Carbon Fuel Standard, and no level of public investment or direct regulation could deliver a similar range of benefits across a wide array of emission sources and sectors.

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Legal Planet

AUGUST 22, 2023

States and local air quality regulators have the legal authority to set particulate matter (PM), ozone, and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions standards and adopt regulations for these pollutants when they are already in attainment of the national ambient air quality standards ( NAAQS ) set by the U.S.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

JULY 9, 2024

To explore a small piece of what is at stake, let’s take a quick look at some of the rules currently under review at the EPA: Air emission reporting requirements If finalized and implemented, this rule will improve the way air pollution emissions are estimated and collected by the EPA.

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Legal Planet

MARCH 15, 2023

Several cities in California, including Los Angeles and in the Bay Area, have outlawed new gas hookups, but these are the first regulations that would effectively ban the sale of gas appliances. Furnaces and water heaters are even bigger polluters, with major contributions to outdoor air pollution in the Bay Area.

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Nitrogen Oxides Air Pollution Ozone 2029 305

Union of Concerned Scientists

SEPTEMBER 30, 2024

It was a big step towards providing adequate health protections, but Environmental regulations need to look at people, not just pollutants—and the way to get there is by assessing cumulative impacts. But the requirements in the rule were developed considering that one carcinogen from that one type of facility.

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Air Pollution Toxic Substances Control Act Environmental Protection Ozone 279

Union of Concerned Scientists

AUGUST 10, 2023

Burning gas and coal leads to carbon dioxide emissions and air pollutants. Air pollutants contribute to all of the leading causes of death, such as heart disease, strokes, cancer, and respiratory illness. Now we have increasing evidence air pollution contributes to dementia as well.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

OCTOBER 6, 2022

Switching from gasoline and diesel engines to electric motors is one of the most effective ways to reduce both global warming emissions and air pollution. This proposal would support both zero- emission vehicle incentive programs and charging infrastructure investments while complementing existing regulations on clean vehicles.

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Legal Planet

JUNE 27, 2024

It is significant because if its huge public health benefits and because it has provided the basis for EPA regulation of greenhouse gases. In public health terms, what makes air pollution distinctive is the millions of people exposes to common pollutants such as particulates and smog. Inflation Reduction Act.

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Law Clean Air Act Endangered Species Act Clean Water Act 290

Union of Concerned Scientists

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023

In a major win for community members in South Memphis, Tennessee, a facility emitting a toxic air pollutant— ethylene oxide (EtO)—announced late last month that it will close its doors. We also estimated that EtO emissions contributed to more than 80 percent of the cancer risk attributable to toxic air pollution around the facility.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

OCTOBER 13, 2022

This new regulation would apply to delivery vans, big rigs, box trucks, and buses. This new regulation would apply to delivery vans, big rigs, box trucks, and buses. Regulate more tractor trucks, including the smaller fleets. and 33 percent of NOx emissions from all on-road transportation in the state.

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Environmental News Bits

MARCH 7, 2025

by Jenni Shearston, University of Colorado Boulder The Globeville, Elyria-Swansea and Commerce City communities in metro Denver are choked by air pollution from nearby highways, an oil refinery and a Superfund site. While these neighborhoods have long suffered from air pollution, theyre not the only ones in Colorado.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

A growing body of scientific evidence supports regulating chemicals with similar structures, functions, and impacts as a chemical class rather than one pollutant at a time. This is particularly important for pesticides since active ingredients are regulated while so-called “inert ingredients” are normally not.

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Air Pollution Regulations Fossil Fuels Environmental Protection 351

Legal Planet

NOVEMBER 12, 2024

One issue in the Seven Counties case is whether the impact statement should discuss air pollution caused by refining the oil shipped over the proposed rail line. The argument is that the Board shouldn’t have to consider that because EPA has authority to regulate air pollution, not the Board.

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Law and Environment

MARCH 22, 2022

The Boston Air Pollution Control Commission has formally adopted its “Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance Phase 1 Regulations.” The Phase 1 regulations are really all about the “disclosure” side of BERDO. The final Phase 1 regulations largely track the draft released late last year.

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Legal Planet

JUNE 28, 2024

For example, there’s a current challenge to EPA’s waiver under the Clean Air Act for the Air Resources Board’s Advanced Clean Trucks regulations (ACT), which require that zero-emission trucks represent an increasing proportion of in-state heavy-duty truck sales. (A

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Union of Concerned Scientists

SEPTEMBER 11, 2024

Switching from fossil fuels like gasoline to increasingly clean electricity sources is vital for hitting climate and air pollution goals. These regulations (both state and federal) that UCS has advocated for have saved drivers money and reduced emissions.

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Carbon Dioxide 2005 Electricity Nitrogen Oxides 317

Law and Environment

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

The Air Pollution Control Commission has authority to suspend some or all of the requirements of BERDO 2.0 upon finding that: a significant obstacle interferes with implementation or that implementation has a significant negative effect on Energy cost burdens, equitable access to housing or other factors set for in the Regulations.

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Regulations Pollution Control Air Pollution Renewable Energy 130

Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

Much of this air pollution comes from diesel trucks rumbling along the state’s many highway corridors, in particular I-95 which connects many major cities along the East Coast. This all makes Maryland one of the deadliest states for diesel particulate pollution. This feasible and commonsense regulation would result in 46.45

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Nitrogen Oxides Air Pollution Electricity Climate Change 317

Legal Planet

OCTOBER 25, 2021

Cost-benefit analysis is required for all major regulations. However, since Ronald Reagan’s first days in office, Presidents have ordered agencies to make cost-benefit analysis for major regulations a major part of their decisions. Q: How does an agency determine the cost of a regulation? Those laws are a minority.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

While the US US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has known that ethylene oxide is a carcinogen since 2016, the agency currently does not account for these cancer risks in regulations for facilities that use ethylene oxide.

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Regulations Air Pollution 2016 Environmental Protection 344

PA Environment Daily

MAY 11, 2023

May 11, the Environmental Integrity Project and Clean Air Council filed a federal lawsuit against the Shell Petrochemical Plant for repeatedly violating permitted air pollution limits from a massive new plastics production plant in Beaver County, which opened last year. In a lawsuit filed in the U.S.

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Legal Planet

AUGUST 26, 2021

The Court then held that greenhouse gases are covered by the Clean Air Act as a type of air pollutant. Lucas appeared at the time to be the start of a sweeping constitutional attack on environmental and land use regulations. EPA , the Obama Administration issued a series of regulations dealing with greenhouse gases.

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Clean Air Act Endangered Species Act Regulations Air Pollution 246

Union of Concerned Scientists

MAY 3, 2023

Because of California’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulation adopted last fall , all automakers will have to achieve ZEV sales above 30% by model year 2026 and be on the way to 100% ZEV sales by 2035. It’s vital that this transition happens rapidly, both to reduce the amount of harmful air pollution and to limit damaging climate change.

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Electricity Regulations 2026 Air Pollution 279

Legal Planet

JUNE 27, 2024

Months ago, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an “emergency” request to stay EPA’s new rule regulating interstate air pollution. A Supreme Court case called EME Homer upheld EPA’s general approach to regulating interstate air pollution. Circuit even had a chance to consider the merits of the challenges.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

OCTOBER 21, 2022

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is currently considering one of the most critical rules for air quality and climate change in many, many years. Regulating big rigs will have big impacts. By regulating just 13 percent of California tractor truck fleets, nearly 90 percent of their emissions will be covered under the ACF.

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Nitrogen Oxides Air Pollution Regulations Climate Change 203

PA Environment Daily

JANUARY 26, 2024

District Court on Monday a proposed consent decree in settlement of their federal Clean Air Act lawsuit against United States Steel Corporation. Clean air is a right, not a privilege, for all Pittsburghers,” said David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment , the citizen-based non-profit and state group for Environment America.

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Air Pollution Clean Air Act Pollution Control 2018 112

Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates emissions of EtO, yet the agency is years behind on updating standards and control requirements, despite mounting evidence of the harm of long-term EtO exposure. A decade overdue , EPA is finalizing updated regulations for commercial sterilizers now.

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Clean Air Act Regulations 2005 Environmental Protection 290

Legal Planet

AUGUST 18, 2022

Economists like carbon taxes better than regulations, and environmental justice advocates like them better than cap and trade. A carbon tax could cover the economy without the need for scores of regulations tailored to each industry. If a carbon tax were politically feasible, there would be a lot to be said in its favor.

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Legal Planet

AUGUST 25, 2022

Energy regulation is increasingly entwined with the need to cut carbon emissions. Energy regulation matters because the economic incentives need to be in the right places for the energy transition to happen. Traditional land use law is tied in with urban sprawl, a big problem in terms of carbon emissions and urban air pollution.

Law 246

Law Endangered Species Act Carbon Emissions Clean Energy 246

Union of Concerned Scientists

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

I’ve written previously about how the truck industry is fighting regulations at the state and federal level with everything they’ve got. One of the scare tactics truck manufacturers have been pushing is the old industry canard of job-killing regulations. Why would truck regulations impact jobs?

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Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

First, there’s air pollution. Gas plants and infrastructure emit nitrogen oxides (NOx) during combustion, which degrade local air quality. Exposure to NOx and other gas infrastructure air pollutants has been associated with respiratory illnesses and an increase in childhood asthma rates.

Clean Energy 359

Clean Energy Nitrogen Oxides Fossil Fuels Electricity 359

Union of Concerned Scientists

APRIL 19, 2023

In late April, California air regulators are poised to pass one of the most meaningful regulations to reduce pollution from commercial trucks, vans, and buses. pollution from vehicles. A full transition to electric drayage truck operations in 2035. After 2036, all new MHDVs sold in California will be electric.

Electricity 279

Electricity Nitrogen Oxides Fossil Fuels Regulations 279

Union of Concerned Scientists

JANUARY 7, 2025

The two leading theories to explain the record-breaking warmth are a reduction in tiny particles in the atmosphere called aerosols due to shipping fuel regulations that reduced sulfur oxide (SOx) emissions, or decreasing cloud cover. This question was a focus at the 2024 annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in Washington, D.C.,

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2024 2023 Fossil Fuels Atmosphere 290

Union of Concerned Scientists

JUNE 1, 2022

And as EPA moves forward with its own proposal to finally strengthen truck pollution regulations, industry has been waging an all-out war on those, too. This fight by industry to delay, obstruct, and otherwise thwart stronger regulation has devastating consequences.

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Clean Air Act 2027 2029 Electricity 279