The EPA can institute carbon regulations without “shutting down business in its tracks,” EPA administrator Gina McCarthy said yesterday at the IHS CERAWeek conference, the largest meeting of energy executives in the world, Reuters reports.
Barbara Boxer (D-CA), head of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, sharply criticized the Chemical Facility Safety and Security Working Group, which has yet to produce a final report, The Hill reports. “I’m looking for action here, not a lot of words,” Boxer said during a hearing. “And so far, I’ve seen a lot of words.”
Non-profits the Center for Environmental Health, Beyond Pesticides, and Physicians for Social Responsibility sued the EPA, pushing it to progress rules requiring public disclosure of certain pesticide ingredients.
The Sierra Club filed a federal suit on Wednesday against Ameren Corp., alleging 7,880 air quality violations since 2009 at three coal-burning power plants in the St. Louis area, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma on Tuesday ruled against Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company’s efforts to stop Sierra Club’s Clean Air Act lawsuit, the environmental group says. Sierra Club alleges that OG&E broke the law numerous times by pumping out harmful soot pollution beyond what is allowed by state and federal law. But a second suit focusing on the New Source Review portion of the Clean Air Act was dismissed due to a technicality, the Sierra Clubs says.
President Obama signed the National Integrated Drought Information System Reauthorization Act into law. Farmers and businesses, as well as states and cities, rely on the system’s tools and data to make decisions about water use, crop planting and wildfire response, Obama said, according to The Hill.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public comments on its draft Strategic Plan, covering Fiscal Year 2014-2018. The draft provides a blueprint for the agency to plan, implement and monitor work needed to achieve the NRC’s mission for the next four years.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued annual assessment letters to the nation’s 100 operating commercial nuclear power plants regarding their performance in 2013. As of the end of December, 89 plants were in the two highest performance categories. Nine nuclear reactors were in the third performance category with a degraded level of performance. One reactor, Browns Ferry 1 in Alabama, is in the fourth performance category and requires increased oversight because of a safety finding of high significance. Fort Calhoun plant in Nebraska is currently under a special NRC oversight program distinct from the normal performance levels because of an extended shutdown with significant performance issues.
