Tag Archives: Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Five Takeaways From Trump’s Plan to Rescue Coal

Five Takeaways From Trump’s Plan to Rescue Coal

Hard hats are back. So is “beautiful, clean” coal. President Trump signed four executive orders on Tuesday to try to bolster the country’s declining coal industry, including the lifting of restrictions on mining and burning of the dirtiest fossil fuel. In addition to waiving air pollution limits and other regulations on coal imposed by the Biden administration, Mr. Trump directed …

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NOAA Staffing Cuts Threaten Years of Salmon Harvests

NOAA Staffing Cuts Threaten Years of Salmon Harvests

In Washington State, April is when millions of young Chinook salmon are released from hatcheries, where they started as tiny, pink globes, to swim downstream and rebuild the salmon population. They are part of an ecosystem that affects tribal, commercial, and recreational fishing and are a main source of food for endangered killer whales. But this year, almost a dozen …

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‘Getting Heavier’: Climate Change Primes Storms to Drop More Rain

‘Getting Heavier’: Climate Change Primes Storms to Drop More Rain

The severe storm system that has inundated the central and southeastern United States with heavy rain and high winds for days fits into a broader pattern in recent decades of increasing rainfall across the eastern half of the United States. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for 1991 through 2020 show that the Eastern part of the country …

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Trump to Sign Order Aimed at Reviving a Struggling Coal Industry

Trump to Sign Order Aimed at Reviving a Struggling Coal Industry

President Trump plans to sign an executive order Tuesday aimed at expanding the mining and use of coal in the United States, in an effort to revive the struggling industry. The order will direct federal agencies to remove barriers to coal leasing and mining, loosen environmental reviews of coal projects and explore whether coal-fired electricity could help power new A.I. …

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Chemical Industry Asks Trump for Exemption From Pollution Limits

Chemical Industry Asks Trump for Exemption From Pollution Limits

Two chemical industry groups are asking President Trump for a complete exemption to free their factories from new limits on hazardous air pollution. Under a new rule finalized by the Biden administration last year, chemical plants would soon be required to monitor and reduce emissions of toxic pollutants, like ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing ingredient used in antifreeze and plastics. Now …

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How Trump’s Tariffs Could Hobble a U.S. Battery Boom

How Trump’s Tariffs Could Hobble a U.S. Battery Boom

The sweeping tariffs that President Trump announced on Wednesday could hobble the use of giant batteries that energy companies are increasingly installing to help them tap more wind and solar power and make the broader electric grid more reliable. Over the past five years, grid batteries have become one of the biggest growth industries in the U.S. energy sector. In …

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Coal Plant Ranked as Nation’s Dirtiest Asks for Pollution Exemption

Coal Plant Ranked as Nation’s Dirtiest Asks for Pollution Exemption

The nation’s most polluting coal-burning power plant has asked President Trump to exempt it from stricter limits on hazardous air pollution after the administration recently invited companies to apply for presidential pollution waivers by email. The aging Colstrip power plant in Colstrip, Mont., emits more harmful fine particulate matter pollution, or soot, than any other power plant in the nation, …

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Entire Staff Is Fired at LIHEAP

Entire Staff Is Fired at LIHEAP

The Trump administration has abruptly laid off the entire staff running a $4.1 billion program to help low-income households across the United States pay their heating and cooling bills. The firings threaten to paralyze the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which was created by Congress in 1981 and helps to offset high utility bills for roughly 6.2 million people …

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A Quarter-Billion Dollars for Defamation: Inside Greenpeace’s Huge Loss

A Quarter-Billion Dollars for Defamation: Inside Greenpeace’s Huge Loss

When the environmental group Greenpeace lost a nearly $670 million verdict this month over its role in oil pipeline protests, a quarter-billion dollars of the damages were awarded not for the actual demonstrations, but for defaming the pipeline’s owner. The costly verdict has raised alarm among activist organizations as well as some First Amendment experts, who said the lawsuit and …

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E.P.A. Offers a Way to Avoid Clean-Air Rules: Send an Email

E.P.A. Offers a Way to Avoid Clean-Air Rules: Send an Email

Last year, the Biden administration required coal- and oil-burning power plants to greatly reduce emissions of toxic chemicals including mercury, which can harm babies’ brains and cause heart disease in adults. Now, the Trump administration is offering companies an extraordinary out: Send an email, and they might be given permission by President Trump to bypass the new restrictions, as well …

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