The Environmental Protection Agency has put out a call for peer-reviewed studies on hydraulic fracturing. The request, published this week in the Federal Register, seeks information that would relate to the EPA’s fracking study. The scope of the study includes the full hydraulic fracturing water lifecycle—from water acquisition, through the mixing of chemicals and injection [...]
Environmental groups from across the country have signed on to a petition asking the EPA to include the oil and gas industry in a national database of chemical releases. The Toxics Release Inventory requires companies to report the quantity of chemicals that end up in the air, water, land, landfills, and treatment facilities. Congress established [...]
Should two refineries be considered one? That’s the question raised by a lawsuit filed last week by the Clean Air Council against the state Department of Environmental Protection. The case has to do with a couple of refineries in southeast Pennsylvania, one in Philadelphia and the other near the Delaware border in Marcus Hook. The [...]
Imagine what you’d like to do when you retire. Spend more time with the grand kids, travel, garden, relax? A lot of retirees living in natural gas drilling areas of the state have these same dreams. But they’re now finding themselves fighting the gas industry. Rick and Marianne Atkinson live on 100 acres in Brady [...]
A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. threw out new rules aimed at reducing smog and acid rain. The Cross-State Air Pollution rule created new limits on nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, and applied to pollution that crossed state lines. The rules would force aging coal-fired plants to either install [...]
Republicans, utility companies, and the coal industry have pushed back on new air pollution rules, saying they will kill jobs and compromise reliability within the electrical grid. But a new report published last week by the Government Accountability Office says reliability won’t be too challenging to manage. “Regarding reliability, these actions are not expected to [...]
Coming Up This Week: EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Heads to Congress – The House Committee on Science will hold a hearing this Thursday, June 28, to look at “strengthening the scientific backbone of the EPA.” Expect questions for Jackson about how her regulatory agency kills jobs. Tour de Frack, or “Freedom Ride for Awareness and Community [...]
Efforts by environmentalists to block an interstate natural gas pipeline project in northeastern Pennsylvania have been rejected by a federal appeals court. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that federal regulators properly permitted the Marc 1 Hub line for Bradford, Sullivan, and Lycoming counties. A group of residents, along with the Pennsylvania [...]
Things aren’t going well for U.S. coal producers these days. The sharp drop in the price of natural gas, combined with newly proposed federal emissions standards is making the construction of any new coal-fired plants nearly impossible. A report published by Bloomberg Government this month predicts their ultimate demise. Bloomberg News also recently reported on [...]
The Environmental Protection Agency has released the results of 16 additional water tests from Dimock, Pa. In a short statement, the EPA says none of the 16 water results showed contamination that would require additional federal action. But the agency says one well did contain “elevated” levels of arsenic and offered clean water deliveries. But [...]
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