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EPA's Wheeler Responds to Renewable Fuel Standard Questions
January 22, 2019The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held its confirmation hearing for acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler on January 16th. The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) was a significant part of the discussion. Several corn-belt senators—Joni Ernst (R-IA), Mike Rounds (R-SD), and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)—focused particularly on two RFS issues: year-round sales of E-15 and small refinery exemptions. Both sought administrative changes by EPA that would favor corn growers and ethanol producers. -
Environmental Protection Agency Proposes Changes to Mercury Air Rule
January 8, 2019On December 28th, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed to rescind the Obama EPA’s justification for its 2012 Mercury Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule. MATS established first-ever maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards for mercury and other hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions from coal- and oil-fueled power plants. MATS is among the most expensive regulations in the history of the Clean Air Act. -
EPA Takes on Costly, Unnecessary Wood Heater Regulations
December 17, 2018The Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency cranked out so many bad major rules that it was hard to pay attention to all the also-bad, but relatively small, rules. One such measure set emissions standards for wood heaters. Thankfully, the Trump administration has proposed some useful revisions. -
Is Particulate Matter Air Pollution as Dangerous as Cancer?
October 18, 2018Yesterday the Competitive Enterprise Institute published Steve Milloy’s new policy brief on the impact of revised federal rules for auto mileage and emissions, “Will the Trump Fuel Economy Reform Proposal Create Deadly Air Pollution?” This reform to the Obama-era policy on corporate average fuel economy standards is one of the current administration’s biggest (de-)regulatory initiatives, so the debate over what effects it’ll have on Americans is particularly important.
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Bricks and Wood Heaters Also Need Relief from Obama-era Overreach
October 9, 2018Several of the Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency’s most expensive and far-reaching Clean Air Act regulations are back in the news now that the Trump administration is trying to scale them back. While there is little doubt that potential changes to the Clean Power Plan, Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology, and Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules could save billions of dollars and countless jobs, they are far from the only Obama EPA rules in need of review.
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Three States Join California in Raising Air Conditioning, Refrigeration Costs
September 14, 2018Maryland, New York, and Connecticut are following California’s lead in proposing restrictions on hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the class of refrigerants widely used in home and car air conditioners as well as the refrigeration equipment in millions of small businesses like restaurants and convenience stores. State legislators and governors are doing so on the grounds that HFCs contribute to global warming.
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EPA Proposes Rule To Replace 'Clean Power' Plan
August 26, 2018The Environmental Protection Agency on August 21st released its proposed rule to replace the “Clean Power” Plan (CPP). The rule, which is called the Affordable Clean Energy Rule (ACE), would get rid of the CPP’s takeover of the grid and concentrate on “inside the fence” regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from individual coal and natural gas power plants.
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Will Trump Auto Rule End California's Regulation of Fuel Economy?
August 1, 2018The Trump administration is expected tomorrow to release its proposed revisions of the Obama administration’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) and motor vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards for model years 2021 and later. On Saturday, July 28, The New York Times posted a leaked draft that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sent in May to the White House for review. The question of the hour is whether the final draft released tomorrow will retain or retreat from the May draft’s bold initiatives.
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Misfiring on All Cylinders: New York Times' Attack on Pruitt's Fuel Economy Reset
April 6, 2018Greenhouse gas/fuel economy standards encourage automakers to reduce average vehicle size and weight. That is hardly surprising. It takes less fuel to move smaller, lighter vehicles than it does to move bigger, heavier ones. However, size and weight reduction as a downside. As my colleague Sam Kazman pungently puts it in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, fuel economy mandates kill people. It’s a matter of basic physics. Lighter vehicles have less mass to absorb collision forces, while smaller cars provide less space between the occupant and the point of impact.
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Everything You Need to Know about the Clean Power Plan
March 10, 2018West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, nineteen other state attorneys general, and the head of the Mississippi department of environmental quality recently filed a superb comment letter on the Environmental Protection Agency’s advance notice of proposed rulemaking entitled “State Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Existing Electric Utility Generating Units.” The notice requests information on a potential replacement rule for the so-called Clean Power Plan, which the Environmental Protection Agency plans to repeal...