Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund The Environmental Protection Agency last week made significant concessions in a lawsuit by NRDC and our partners challenging EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s illegal suspension of rules curbing harmful emissions from landfills. EPA has conceded that its May 2017 stay of the landfill emissions standards had no practical effects and […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund How about this for a disastrous trifecta? President Trump was wrong on the facts, misguided in his emphasis and avoided the real issue when he discussed infrastructure last night. In his State of the Union address, Trump took aim at the environmental reviews required before a federal road […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Buildings codes saves lives. Not only do they keep buildings from falling down or burning up, but they save far more lives by reducing energy use, which in turn reduces the need to burn polluting fuels like coal to make electricity. Air pollution is responsible for 4.5 million […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund A tug of war is taking place this week in Washington DC that will pit environmental health scientists against polluters and their Washington insider allies. The battle ground is the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) – the Nation’s premiere scientific institute providing non-partisan objective guidance for policy makers. […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund The New England Fishery Management Council today approved a plan to protect the region’s highly-vulnerable and ecologically-important deep-sea coral habitat. While better than nothing, I’m not applauding. Here’s why. The New England fishery council actually voted down the better protection plan that had been developed by its scientific […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Beam Reach Today NRDC, together with our Canadian partners, petitioned the Trudeau government for emergency action in the case of southern resident killer whales. Few wildlife species are as iconic as the resident killer whales that inhabit the Salish Sea, off Washington State and British Columbia. They are […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Risky, dirty offshore drilling or clean offshore wind power? The choice couldn’t be starker. The Trump administration is pushing to open the Atlantic Ocean up to dangerous oil drilling—risking a repeat of the BP spill in the Gulf off the East Coast. But New York State is pushing […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund New York is another step closer to realizing its important goal of achieving 2400 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind by 2030. New York State’s energy research agency, known as NYSERDA, along with other key New York State agencies and authorities, has just released its new Offshore Wind Master […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Upper Peninsula Michigan, Lake Superior iStock As Mark Mattson waited to speak to Canada’s minister for the environment, Catherine McKenna, about the Great Lakes last December, he could feel the weight of the 184-page report he carried in his shoulder bag. At the Toronto meeting, McKenna asked Mattson, […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund The gap between how much wind and solar energy we need to install to curb climate change and how much we are projected to add in a business-as-usual case will get wider over the next few decades. To close this “Clean Power Gap,” we must increase our investments […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Letter from Treasurer Chiang Asks First Quantum Minerals to Terminate all Negotiations and Payments The California State Treasurer—in a move to protect its assets—today requested that Canadian mining company First Quantum Minerals “sever any connections—financial or otherwise” with the Pebble Mine, the massive open pit gold and copper […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Commercial ice makers—the kind you see in hotel hallways, restaurants, and hospitals—can churn out anywhere from 50 pounds to 4,000 pounds of ice every day. They can produce regular cubes, ice nuggets for drink machines, or soft flakes used in supermarket displays, and they use a lot of […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Pennsylvania established its first clean energy target 14 years ago by enacting the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act of 2004 (AEPS). At the time – just before the Philadelphia Eagles faced the New England Patriots in the 2005 Super Bowl – the AEPS was a relatively forward-thinking policy. […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Governor Brown released an Executive Order today providing the details of an initiative to put 5 million electric-drive vehicles (EVs) on the road by 2030, part of a new goal announced yesterday in his State of the State address. The ambitious and achievable goal would increase the current number […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund iStock People have been talking about peak oil for more than half a century. But the phrase doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing now as it did back in 1956, when M. King Hubbert, a geologist working for Shell Oil, coined it. For many decades, peak oil meant […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Pruitt reverses course on proposed withdrawal but decision carries no actual protection from dangerous mine In an unexpected development late today, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that, contrary to his formal proposal last fall, he has decided not to abandon proposed oversight of the massive Pebble Mine, an […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund [embedded content] This is a transcript of the video. Aaron Lehman, farmer, Polk County, Iowa: My name is Aaron Lehman. I’m the fifth generation of Lehmans on this farm. We farm about 550 acres in rural Polk County, Iowa. About 12 years ago, we were farming corn and […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Trump taxes the sun while his EPA wants to let industries increase harmful air pollution. Joyce Marrero/iStock And so it came to pass, on the 22nd day of January, late in the second decade of the 21st century, that the leader of the free world imposed a tax […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Cattle rancher Loren Poncia on his Stemple Creek Ranch, in Marin County, California Paige Green The San Francisco Bay Area’s upscale restaurateurs and market owners know Loren Poncia’s Stemple Creek Ranch for its premium grass-finished organic beef and lamb. But during an early fall day on Poncia’s scenic […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund President Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on solar component imports is a shortsighted and counterproductive move, but it’s also consistent with his administration’s attempts to undermine clean energy across the board. The tariffs will raise the cost of solar power, resulting in a slowdown in growth for one […]