Pollution

"Maryland’s clean energy ambitions are crumbling under the weight of its policy missteps, environmental advocates suggest in a new report."

"A chaotic back-and-forth over President Donald Trump’s freeze on federal grants and loans has farmers, activists, organizations and businesses wondering whether they will receive the funding they rely on. It’s funding that among many other things is being used to address environmental problems or tackle climate change."

"The Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday confirmed Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, a key role to help President Donald Trump fulfill his pledge to roll back major environmental regulations, including those aimed at slowing climate change and encouraging use of electric vehicles."

"Hours after being sworn in as the new U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy took aim at the main way the federal government regulates miles per gallon for cars and pickup trucks — also a principal way that it regulates air pollution and addresses climate change. Duffy ordered the federal agency in charge of fuel economy standards to reverse them as soon as possible. The standards have been in place since the 1970s energy crisis and were intended to conserve fuel and save consumers money at the gas pump."

"Acting EPA Administrator James Payne has ousted all members of two of the agency’s most influential science advisory panels, giving President Donald Trump’s administration the opportunity to reshape them with its own appointees."

"Over the past month, the popular Black Sea resort beaches of Russia’s Krasnodar region have been transformed into a scene out of a dystopian sci-fi film, with thousands of workers in white hazmat suits swarming the blackened coast amid dead birds and dolphins."

"The Florida mayor said the threat of legal challenges and other expenses made building a new waste-to-energy facility too difficult. She now recommends landfilling to meet long-term capacity needs."

"Oil giant Marathon Petroleum is fighting an expanded class-action lawsuit fueled by an investigation by the Guardian and Forensic Architecture, which examined a huge toxic blaze at the company’s sprawling refinery in south-east Louisiana in 2023."

"The chemical giant Chemours’s notorious West Virginia PFAS plant is regularly polluting nearby water with high levels of toxic “forever chemicals”, a new lawsuit alleges."

"In the summer of 1975, Trenton’s public water utility experienced so many failures that its reservoir ran dry and residents had no water, forcing fire trucks to line up for miles to pump water from the suburbs and civil defense to truck in water, too. ... Fifty years later, little has changed at Trenton Water Works, according to two new independent reports the state Department of Environmental Protection issued Monday."