The House agreed by voice vote to the North Fork Watershed Protection Act of 2013. The bill withdraws federally owned land or interest in land within the North Fork Lands Withdrawal Area in Montana from all forms of location, entry, and patent under mining laws; and from disposition under all laws relating to mineral and geothermal leasing.
The State Department’s environmental analysis of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline severely underestimated carbon emissions, according to a report by the British environmental group Carbon Tracker Initiative, The Hill reports.
Companies will spend about $1.7 million on restoration and monitoring activities, and $130,800 in civil penalties, after EPA Region 4 cited 23 organizations for depositing dredged and fill material into wetlands or other federal waters in violation of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, from October 2012 to September 2013. The companies include Florida Properties III, Northwest Florida Holdings, Peace River Properties Investment, Community Bank of Pickens County, Millrock Farms, Camden USA, Montgomery Group, Hardin County Developers, Hancock County Land, Southwood Developers, and CKC.
Green infrastructure can be a cost effective solution to controlling stormwater while providing numerous economic benefits, an EPA report found. In a case study, the city of Lancaster, Pa., instituted a green infrastructure plan that will reduce gray infrastructure capital costs by an estimated $121.7 million and reduce wastewater pumping and treatment costs by $661,000 per year. It will also provide about $2.8 million in energy, air quality, and climate-related benefits annually, the EPA said.
The EPA’s new fuel standard requiring the use of ultra-low sulfur fuels in ships operating within 200 nautical miles of the North American Emission Control Area will crowd roads and increase onshore air pollution, executives from CSL Group and Eagle Rock Aggregates have argued.
CFMOTO Powersports, Inc., (a successor to CFMOTO America, Inc.) based in Plymouth, Minn., and Zhejiang CFMOTO Power, and Chunfeng Holding Group, both based in China, will pay a combined civil penalty of $725,000 and have agreed to recall and replace fuel tanks in about 1,000 vehicles after the EPA found they imported over 12,000 recreational vehicles and highway motorcycles without the required emissions certification. Of the 12,000, EPA found that 993 vehicles had fuel tanks that did not operate properly to control evaporative emissions.
