environmental protection agency (epa)

Electric Car via Shutterstock

The EPA calculates CO2 emissions of plug-in hybrids by using a metric of mile per gallon equivalent values, based on 33.7 kWh per gallon of gasoline. The energy consumption of a vehicle is determined by the EPA's five standard drive cycle tests simulating varying driving conditions. But is this metric really the best way to calculate CO2 emissions and mileage efficiency?[read more]

EPA Headquarters via Shutterstock

Steven Hayward makes the unremarkable observation that the EPA is politicized followed by the somewhat surprising recommendation to fix things by adding more political appointees at the top! He recommends a five-person commission structure within which no more than three are of the same party affiliation, similar to the arrangement...[read more]

Thousands of contaminated tracts of land labeled brownfields by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may eventually provide the valuable real estate needed for renewable energy projects, and New Jersey is at the forefront of using such sites to bolster its status as a leader in solar energy.The utility PSE&G is installing 4,000...[read more]

Industrial Pollution via Shutterstock

The full U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington today rejected petitions from industry and state challengers to revisit a three-judge panel’s unanimous ruling last June, in Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA, upholding the Environmental Protection Agency’s landmark endangerment finding and its first carbon pollution limits for...[read more]

Ethanol Nuzzle via Shutterstock

Last Friday the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rejected the petitions of a bi-partisan group of state governors for a waiver of the federal ethanol mandate, resolving one of several energy-related issues that had been deferred beyond the presidential election.  The waiver requests filed in August cited...[read more]

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the latest follow-up tests of water surrounding natural-gas-drilling sites near Pavillion, Wyo., October 10, they appeared to confirm how water can be contaminated by hydraulic fracturing. The operator of the gas field in question, Encana Corp., last week re-asserted it is not...[read more]

Regulation Concept via Shutterstock

In its blueprint for American-made energy – a plan based on safe and responsible oil and natural gas development – API calls for common-sense energy regulation. What a sharp contrast with the regulatory landscape fostered by the administration, which simply has not made good on promises to promote regulatory predictability and reduce...[read more]

Judging Gavel via Shutterstock

A Federal Appeals Court for the District of Columbia threw out the US EPA Cross State Air pollution Rule (CSAPR) also commonly referred to as the Transport Rule telling the agency that it cannot create new law through the regulatory process but must live with the law the way Congress wrote it or go back to Congress to get them to change...[read more]

Flag & Map of Texas via Shutterstock

Don’t Mess with Texas!  That was the bottom line in a 23-page opinion by Circuit Judge E. Grady Jolly who headed a three judge panel from the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals based in New Orleans reviewing the appeal by the State of Texas of the US EPA action denying approval of a state requested Flexible Permit Program under the...[read more]

Pincasso/Shutterstock

The Economist has an interesting set of articles in a recent special report on U.S. energy and in particular, energy from shale. Though the primary audience is European, the report makes a number of important points about shale energy and the hydraulic fracturing methods used to collect it.Natural gas, much of it unconventional, is...[read more]

Loskutnikov/Shutterstock

The Obama administration is poised to make one of the biggest climate policy decisions of its entire administration – and it’s not about coal, oil, or gas, but rainforests. EPA is deciding whether or not palm oil should be included in the Renewable Fuel Standard, which mandates that American motorists use 36 billion gallons of biofuel in their cars and trucks by 2022.[read more]

NeonLight /Shutterstock

Despite being similar processes and posing similar risks to the environment, the way hydraulic fracturing is regulated is very different from the way the underground injection of other fluids is regulated.  This difference was made even more apparent when, on the same day, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the...[read more]

E15 – gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol that has EPA approval  – is one of those ideas that looks good on paper but seems headed for problems in the real world. API’s Bob Greco, director for downstream and industry operations, outlined some of them for reporters during a conference call:Testing so far shows the higher...[read more]

Via Wikimedia Commons

Image via WikipediaA new bi-partisan survey released yesterday claims Americans trust the EPA not Congress to protect them from pollution. The survey was released just one day before the US House of Representatives votes on a bill that would curtail the EPA's ability to protect public health from air pollution. The American Lung...[read more]

It’s Groundhog Day today.  In the movie of the same name, the hero is condemned to relive the same day over and over, until he straightens out his life. The movie’s plot line came to mind on Monday when Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) re-introduced his bill from last year to block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from doing its...[read more]