EPA

  • Smokestacks pollution air quality

    After wiping out plans to continue boosting fuel economy standards earlier this month, the EPA on Tuesday proposed rolling back emissions standards on electric power plants. The new proposed rule, which the EPA calls the "Affordable Clean Energy" rule, would eliminate Obama-era standards that would have required power plants to reduce carbon emissions either by converting from coal to cleaner sources of energy or by building carbon-capture technologies. The new proposal was first revealed this morning by the AP and detailed by the Washington Post. The Affordable Clean Energy rule would...

  • Petro-Canada gas station, Crossfields, Alberta, with electric-car charging station
    Commentary: Fuel-economy standards don't need to be rolled back to make cars SAFER

    Smaller, lighter cars always get the blame when politicians want to lower fuel-economy standards. They lobby that too many Americans will be driving lighter cars and that that will lead to more deaths on America's roadways. That's exactly the argument that the Trump administration made earlier this...

  • Exhaust emissions from tailpipe [photo: Simone Ramella, 2005, used under Creative Commons 2.0]
    OpEd: Who pays for principle in Trump's war on lower emissions and trade?

    Last week the Trump administration unveiled a broad drawdown of fuel-economy regulations that had been aimed at cutting emissions from passenger vehicles. In the 978-page proposal, administration officials argued those rules implemented by the Obama administration would create lighter, potentially...

  • Traffic at the I-10 & I-405 interchange in Los Angeles, California (by Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz)
    California warns it won't follow lower EPA fuel economy, emissions rules

    In response to an EPA proposal to freeze emissions and fuel economy standards, California said it will not honor federal vehicle certifications if the proposal goes through. "The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has proposed amending the California Low-Emission Vehicle III Greenhouse Gas...

  • Teen driver - busy street- AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety
    Multi-speed transmissions and turbochargers don't save much fuel–oh, really? Analysis (Updated)

    In President Trump's plan to freeze fuel economy standards last week, the EPA and NHTSA made a strange statement. They said that two of the main technologies used to improve fuel economy standards—turbocharging and multi-speed transmissions—were not as effective as had been expected...

  • Tesla Model 3 bought [Photo by reader AH]
    Tesla sales, rebates ending, oil studies, and dirty tricks: The Week in Reverse

    Which brand's electric cars won't get a tax credit after next year? Which electric car is in extremely short supply? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending July 13, 2018. Friday, we listed the best deals on green cars for July...

  • EPA administrator Scott Pruitt  [photo from 2014]

    Following an 18-month tenure filled with a cascade of scandals, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned Thursday. President Donald Trump acknowledged Pruitt's resignation in a tweet and announced that EPA Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler will run the agency in the interim, starting Monday. Pruitt was known most for his denial of climate change, his efforts to repeal tightening emissions standards that led to increasing fuel economy standards, for threats to roll back California's right to set tighter emissions (and resulting higher fuel economy) standards, and his rollback of the Clean...

  • Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy
    Supreme Court retirement could have impact on environmental protection

    The retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced on Wednesday could have dramatic and detrimental effects on environmental quality. Since the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 2006, Kennedy has been a pivotal vote on the court, siding with the majority on at least two...

  • EPA administrator Scott Pruitt  [photo from 2014]
    EPA loses 10 percent of enforcement staff under Trump

    If the EPA wants to reduce federal involvement in environmental protection, it may not need to roll back emissions requirements or cancel California's environmental waiver. It could just quit enforcing the law. That is already happening to a degree, according to new data from Public Employees for...

  • CARB ZEV vehicle game board 2018
    Automakers play high-stakes CARB game to earn zero emissions vehicle credits

    Editor's note: Green Car Reports covers a lot of electric cars—and there are a lot more to cover these days, thanks to California's complex requirements that major automakers produce zero emissions vehicles for sale. For fans of clean cars—as well as opponents—it's difficult to...

  • Gas pump
    How high should fuel-economy standards be set? Take our Twitter poll

    The four choices included are: The same as set by the Obama Administration (59.4 mpg), an even higher level, the minimum 35 mpg required by Congress under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, or at some lower level down to and including repealing Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules...

  • Gas pump
    Carmakers want emission, CAFE tweaks, not huge rollbacks, but won't say so publicly

    As promised, the Trump administration has embarked on regulatory rollbacks across many fronts, some immediate and others taking longer. It remains unclear whether the EPA's plan to loosen carbon-dioxide emission limits for 2022 through 2025 vehicles will survive inevitable court challenges...

  • National Plug-In Day 2012: San Francisco, with 60 Nissan Leafs in front of the Golden Gate Bridge

    Over the many months EPA administrator Scott Pruitt signaled his intention to revisit the Obama administration's emission limits for 2022 through 2025 vehicles, California warned that it would not go along with any reductions. The state has been allowed to set its own emission standards for decades, it noted, and it has every intention of sticking with the reductions in greenhouse gases it pioneered. Now that Pruitt has officially issued a determination to engage in new rulemaking that will allow vehicles to emit more carbon dioxide, automakers are deeply fearful they will have to comply with...

  • Gas pump
    EPA does not set fuel-economy limits: get this right, journalists!

    Journalism as an industry is under great pressure these days. There are far more people writing "content" than in past decades, and in general they are having to produce more of it for less money than they did 10, 20, or 50 years ago. That's no excuse, however, for getting the basics wrong. DON'T...

  • EPA administrator Scott Pruitt  [photo from 2014]
    Pruitt's EPA emission rollback reasoning may well fail in court

    Despite the sturm und drang around the announcement by embattled EPA chief Scott Pruitt that he will relax emission limits for 2022 through 2025 vehicles, not much will happen immediately. His determination last week that the Obama administration was "incorrect" and that the limits on those...

  • Flooded Car
    Pruitt's EPA decision: 38-page intention vs 1,217 pages of analysis

    While the name of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt is often preceded by "embattled" these days, his agency is now on record as rejecting its own recommendation of just 16 months ago. It concluded in July 2016 that the auto industry had handily met lower carbon-emission limits from 2012 through...

  • 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 outside the Detroit auto show
    Why trucks aren't a CAFE problem for carmakers, despite their lobbying claims

    The automakers claimed that the standards were unrealistic given that consumers are flocking to crossovers and pickup trucks as gas prices remain low. According to a new report by the American Council for an Energy Efficient economy, and to our own analysis, trucks aren't the reason.

  • Chrome exhaust pipe
    8 things you should know about EPA plan to let cars emit more (cutting fuel economy as well)

    EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said yesterday the agency plans to modify rules limiting carbon-dioxide emissions for light-duty vehicles in model years 2022 through 2025. The agency, he said, had reached a determination that the limits put in place in 2012 under the Obama administration were...

  • Flooded car in parking lot. Photo via Flickr user waitscm/CC2.0

    EPA administrator Scott Pruitt would be controversial even if he hadn't flown to Morocco in December (first-class, on the taxpayer dime) to lobby the country on the benefits of liquified natural gas while living in a condo owned by a lobbyist for the country's largest LNG exporter. He is likely the first EPA head to axe scientists from the agency's Science Board so he could replace them with lobbyists for the industries the agency is supposed to regulate. And, of course, he has routinely denied and downplayed the accepted science of climate change and human contributions to it through massive...

  • Chrome exhaust pipe
    EPA to ease emission limits, reports say, setting up clash with California

    The omens have been accumulating for months, as bits of information dribble out of the regulatory rumor mill in Washington, D.C. Now we have the most concrete reports yet that the U.S. EPA plans to modify exhaust emission limits for vehicles in model years 2022 through 2025. The EPA delivered its...

  • National Plug-In Day 2012: San Francisco, with 60 Nissan Leafs in front of the Golden Gate Bridge
    CA attorney general: we will fight looser fuel-economy, emission rules

    Last Tuesday, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said the agency does not intend to let California set the agenda for national emission limits on vehicles. He suggested to Bloomberg the EPA plans to cut emission rules aggressively to respond to carmakers' pleas for easing of the corporate average fuel...

  • Chrome exhaust pipe
    Pruitt won't let California set emission standards; EPA not looking at post-2025 rules

    Now, it's war, in the words of California's lead emission regulator. In what Bloomberg News called a "wide-ranging interview" with EPA chief Scott Pruitt, he indicated the agency does not intend to let California set the agenda for national emission limits on vehicles. Bringing California into line...

  • 1970s Los Angeles smog depicted in the Honda short film "Never Ending Race."
    Cars now clean enough that household products rival them for air pollution

    The first major emission controls on motor vehicles were introduced in 1975 with the advent of the catalytic converter. Today's cars emit less than 1 percent of the three "criteria" pollutants that came out of their tailpipes half a century ago. They emit relatively so little carbon monoxide...

  • Volkswagen turbodiesels await their fate near Pikes Peak International Raceway in Colorado Springs
    In pictures: Volkswagen TDI diesels await their fate in Pike's Peak shadow

    It might be the world’s largest single-company junkyard and pick-a-part business, if not for the prominent "No Trespassing" and "Drone-Free Zone" signs. Instead, it’s a massive storage facility in Colorado for thousands of disgraced VW and Audi TDI diesel vehicles awaiting whatever fate...

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