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- Costa Rica: A Woman in Charge? http://is.gd/7PUIW 2010-02-06
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- No room for new vehicles http://is.gd/7POzm 2010-02-06
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Tag Archives: epa
Jeff Biggers, Rebecca Traister & Hendrik Hertzberg, and Hoarders
Yet another coal miner was killed on the job this week, and journalist and author Jeff Biggers says that the situation has reached crisis level--that it's a war on miners. He also notes that abuse of the land and abuse of the people who work on it has always gone hand in hand, so as pressure for mountaintop removal and new coal mines mounts, so do safety violations--the latest being a story broken by NPR, that a methane gas monitor at the Little Big Branch mine, where 29 workers died in an explosion in April, had been deliberately shut down.
Posted in News Feeds Also tagged bailouts, banks, bill clinton, bp, coal, Congress, david vitter, democrat, Depression, e.p.a., economy, eliot spitzer, Episodes, f word, financial reform, financial regulation, gulf coast, Hendrik Hertzberg, House, jeff biggers, lisa jackson, little big branch, lousiana, mama grizzlies, methane, mine safety, miners, mines, mountaintop removal, NAACP, New Orleans, Obama, oil, palin, rebecca traister, Recession, Republican, robert reich, Sarah Palin, Senate, tea parties, tea party, The F Word, Video, wall street journal, Warren Buffett, WHite House Leave a comment
Weighing Safety of Weed Killer in Drinking Water, EPA Relies Heavily on Industry-Backed Studies
by Danielle Ivory, Huffington Post Investigative FundCompanies with a financial interest in a weed-killer sometimes found in drinking water paid for thousands of studies federal regulators are using to assess the herbicide’s health risks, records of ...
Posted in News Feeds Also tagged agriculture, Environment, Health, public health, water, water quality Leave a comment
Senate Showdown Over EPA Climate Rules Scheduled for June 10
The Senate is slated to vote June 10 on Sen. Murkowski's resolution to strip EPA's power to regulate greenhouse gases.
The Senate is slated to vote June 10 on Sen. Lisa Murkowski's (R-Alaska) resolution that strips EPA's power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, according to Murkowski's office.
Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Murkowski, said the senator struck a deal with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Monday night on bringing the filibuster-proof resolution to the floor next month, with a vote expected June 10.
About that Murkowski “resolution of disapproval”
Kate Sheppard, for Mother Jones:
Murkowski's office released a statement Friday afternoon reminding reporters that the Alaska Republican still has a resolution of disapproval in reserve. Murkowski is seeking to use the disapproval resolution, a rarely-used procedural maneuver that enables Congress to overturn regulations set by the executive branch, to block the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act. She can attempt to pass the resolution anytime between now and June 7.
Meh.
Here's Murkowski's resolution (PDF).
The first thing you'll notice (if you're me) is that it's styled as a Joint Resolution. That's because Joint Resolutions are the only kind that have the force of law, and if you're going to have the legislature exercise a kind of veto over executive action, you're going to want it to have that force of law in order to overcome constitutional objections about the separation of powers.
Why does it have the force of law? Because Joint Resolutions are passed by both houses and signed by the President. And that signature's handy to have when you're overruling executive action, too, at least constitutionally speaking. I mean, if the Chief Executive is OK with it, then you're not really exercising a legislative veto, which is a constitutional no-no all by itself.
So really, the resolution isn't all that impressive a tool, is it? No, it's not.
And to make it even less impressive, I'll just repeat that Murkowski has to have this thing passed in both the House and Senate, and signed by the President by June 7th. Why in the world would that happen?
She may or may not have the votes in the Senate. I doubt it, but there's always the possibility of freaking out some conservative Dems. But really, not many more than four to six of them.
Then, even if she manages to pass it, I'm not sure why Steny Hoyer would agree to schedule it for a vote in the House before June 7th, or at all, for that matter.
Basically, this procedure is only a danger when you have either a President who's hostile to the executive action being disapproved of, in which case he can probably derail it all on his own, or when you have a veto-proof majority ready to override. I don't see either one in this case.
Putting a Price on Climate Change
The People’s World Conference on Climate Change in Cochabamba, Bolivia kicks off this week (and we will have more from there soon), but you wouldn't know it from the media here in the U.S. Despite the 40th anniversary of Earth Day this month, the subject seems to be falling by the wayside as financial regulation takes center stage.
Posted in News Feeds Also tagged Bolivia, cap & trade, cap and trade, carbon emissions, carbon tax, climate, climate bill, climate change, cochabamba, earth day, Environment, Evo Morales, global warming, justice, katherine kennedy, mark hertsgaard, Natural Resources Defense Council, nrdc, Panel Discussions, people's world conference on climate change, pollution, regulations, Video Leave a comment
EPA May Try to Use Clean Water Act to Regulate Carbon Dioxide
WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency is exploring whether to use the Clean Water Act to control greenhouse gas emissions, which are turning the oceans acidic at a rate that's alarmed some scientists.
With climate change legislation stalled in Congress, the Clean Water Act would serve as a second front, as the Obama administration has sought to use the Clean Air Act to rein in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases administratively.
BP Fights to Limit Controls on Shale Gas Drilling
The London-based oil company wants decisions on drilling techniques such as hydraulic fracturing – which uses high-pressure liquids to force fissures – to be taken at state level, rather than being left to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), whose specialist committee meets on Wednesday to discuss its concerns.
Nation’s Largest Private Water Utility Joins Lawsuit Against Herbicide Maker
The nation's largest private water utility company has joined a federal lawsuit that aims to force the manufacturer of atrazine, a widely-used herbicide, to pay for its removal from drinking water.
Jeff Biggers: In the Midst of a Coal Field War