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"More than three dozen Democratic senators have begun an independent inquiry into the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following a huge change in how the agency measures the health benefits of reducing air pollution that is widely seen as a major setback to US efforts to combat the climate crisis."
"When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rescinded its bedrock endangerment finding Thursday, it explicitly excluded a controversial report issued last year by the U.S. Department of Energy that argued the dangers of human-induced climate change were being overstated."
"The United States will essentially have no laws on the books that enforce how efficient America’s passenger cars and trucks should be."
"President Donald Trump’s campaign to quash climate change policies notched its biggest win yet Thursday, as EPA eliminated the legal basis for regulations aimed at restricting greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes and smokestacks that are heating the planet."
"A new Republican House bill proposes sweeping changes to US toxic chemical laws that would gut protections for consumers, workers and the environment, public health advocates mobilising against the legislation warn."
"Lawyers for residents say that zoning that concentrates pollution in Black districts is a violation of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery."
"When one couple’s water turned toxic, state oil regulators delayed key tests that could find a source of contamination. The state didn’t tell the couple for over a month that tests showed their drinking water was contaminated with high levels of barium, which can cause heart problems."
"President Donald Trump has nominated a hotel and food management executive to be director of the National Park Service."
"A year ago, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he wanted to rebuild trust in federal health agencies, and vowed to employ “radical transparency” to do it. But many types of health information that steadily flowed from the government for years or decades has been delayed, deleted and in some cases stopped all together."
"A wastewater spill into the Potomac River that began last month now appears to be one of the largest in American history."
"The US Supreme Court has set an April hearing in a closely watched case brought by Bayer that seeks to make the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the ultimate arbiter of warning labels on pesticides such as the company’s popular Roundup weed killer."
"Russia continues to bomb Ukraine’s fossil-fueled power plants, leaving much of the nation shivering during a brutal winter. But Ukraine’s new emphasis on developing decentralized power — from solar panels to wind turbines — is advancing an unexpected green energy transition."
"Billions of American chestnut trees once covered the eastern United States. ... But by the 1950s, this venerable tree went functionally extinct, culled by a deadly airborne fungal blight and lethal root rot. A new study out Thursday in the journal Science provides hope for its revitalization, finding that the genetic testing of individual trees can reveal which are most likely to resist disease and grow tall, thus shortening how long it takes to plant the next, more robust, generation."
"The requirement would be next to impossible for federally funded charging stations to meet, industry advocates say."
"The Trump administration is proposing to require that federally funded electric vehicle chargers be fully U.S. made — an all-but-impossible target that could kill a multibillion-dollar effort to build a nationwide charging network.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Tuesday that raising the threshold to 100 percent domestic manufacturing — up from 55 percent — would advance U.S. manufacturing and improve national security.
"Following three of the warmest years on record, as scientists reckon with climate tipping points and states and cities grapple with the escalating cost of extreme weather and more intense wildfires, the Trump administration this week is expected to formally eliminate the U.S. government’s role in controlling greenhouse gas pollution."
