EPA

  • Western Star semi tractor used to promote Fitzgerald Glider Kits

    Last November, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would rescind a rule that banned companies from fitting outdated, older, and dirtier diesel engines into brand-new "glider" chassis-cab trucks. Among the many regulations to limit emissions and other forms of pollution that EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has axed, this one was particularly obscure. As is required by its mandate, the agency's rationale for eliminating the rule was based on science. DON'T MISS: EPA to axe rule banning older, dirtier diesel engines in new trucks: report (Oct 2017) Or at least what it called "science" at...

  • 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel, Bear Mountain, May 2014
    Fiat Chrysler to end diesel engines in cars by 2022 (but not trucks): report

    Fiat Chrysler will abandon the use of diesel engines in all its passenger vehicles by 2022, according to a report Sunday. Demand for diesel versions of passenger cars in Europe is waning and car makers face extraordinarily high costs to get diesel engines to comply with emission limits in...

  • Mercedes-Benz GLS350d spotted testing near Denver
    Mercedes-Benz gets its own diesel emission cheating questions now

    Investigators probing U.S. models of Mercedes-Benz sold with diesel engines have found software, possibly illegal under EPA rules, that helped them pass emission tests. Such software may be similar to that notoriously used in 580,000 vehicles sold by VW, Audi, and Porsche from 2009 through 2015 in...

  • Chrome exhaust pipe
    California, allies ready for emission-law war with Trump EPA, CARB head says

    With the release of proposed new and lower fuel-economy rules expected from the NHTSA by March 30, many eyes have turned to the powerful California Air Resources Board. The state's pioneering role in reducing emissions and cutting air pollution predates even the existence of the U.S. Environmental...

  • Gas pump
    NHTSA could cite safety of heavier cars in slashing CAFE rules: reports

    It's been clear that under the Trump administration, the NHTSA and EPA plan to roll back linked fuel-economy rules and emission limits on new vehicles. Now a possible justification that will be used has emerged—and it's not the one many advocates had expected. According to a Bloomberg report...

  • 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel, Bear Mountain, May 2014
    FCA can settle Jeep, Ram EcoDiesel emission case with fine, recall: Justice Department

    While VW is moving toward the end of buybacks, payments, and fines for eight years of cheating on diesel emission standards, Fiat Chrysler is still in the thick of its own diesel mess involving Jeep SUVs and Ram trucks. On February 2, the U.S. Justice Department offered to let the company move...

  • U.S. Capitol Building

    As automakers await the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's new fuel-economy rules for 2022 through 2025, due March 30, regulators from California and Washington are still hammering out the specifics. A meeting between state and federal regulators on fuel-economy and emissions targets took place on Monday as both sides attempt to avoid a prolonged and costly legal battle that could put the final regulations into limbo for months or years. The current targets see automakers aiming for an average EPA window-sticker rating of roughly 38 mpg across all vehicles by 2025, but the Trump...

  • Achates 2.7-liter opposed-piston gasoline compression-igntion engine in Ford F-150 test pickup truck
    Achates engine in Ford F-150 pickup targets 37 mpg, with Saudi oil company backing

    One year ago at the Detroit auto show, a company called Achates Power unveiled models of a new kind of internal-combustion engine. With opposed pistons in the middle and crankshafts at either end, it was sufficiently different to startle most visitors who paid attention. That engine came with some...

  • 2016 Mazda 3
    Mazda tops EPA fuel-efficiency rankings for fifth year in a row

    Pick-ups and SUVs are rapidly taking over the American automotive landscape, but there's at least one measure in which it benefits an automaker to sell fewer of those vehicles. In the Environmental Protection Agency's latest "Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Fuel...

  • Gas pump
    CAFE proposal coming March 30: automakers hope national rules survive

    It's been hanging out there in limbo for more than six months: the answer to the question of what happens to gas-mileage rules under Trump. Given the daily political turmoil emanating from Washington, D.C., the fate of corporate average fuel economy rules may have gotten lost in the noise. But for...

  • Big square baler harvesting wheat straw for production of cellulosic ethanol
    E10 gasoline now standard, but E15 push stalled, so here comes E30

    Though the Environmental Protection Agency has already ruled on ethanol-blended gasoline mixtures for 2018, that hasn't stopped ethanol advocates from pushing for a higher 30-percent blend for non-flex-fuel vehicles. The latest call for ethanol comes from corn-state ethanol refiners, farmers, and...

  • Non-ethanol gasoline pump
    Renewable-fuel mandate ruling leaves no one happy: the best compromise?

    As they say, the best compromise is usually the one that leaves all parties equally dissatisfied. When it comes to the Environmental Protection Agency's renewable-fuel mandate, it seems regulators have reached equilibrium. The latest skirmish in the long-running battle over the U.S. renewable-fuel...

  • President Donald Trump (Photo courtesy DoD)

    In grade school, students commonly ran through the halls when teachers or other school staff weren't looking. Signs forbidding the act of sprinting past lockers did little to deter the practice, since there was no incentive not to run unless someone present was enforcing the rule. The same can be said for industrial polluters and environmental-law enforcement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald Trump. DON'T MISS: EPA head: new report that climate change is manmade has 'no bearing' on plans to end climate action As the Trump administration abolishes dozens of...

  • EPA administrator Scott Pruitt  [photo from 2014]
    EPA chief Scott Pruitt: 'environmentalism' is use rather than preservation

    EPA head Scott Pruitt will likely go down as one of the most controversial agency chiefs in that agency's history of almost 50 years. The former Oklahoma attorney general, who sued the EPA 14 times on behalf of fossil-fuel interests during the Obama administration, has a radically different view of...

  • EPA administrator Scott Pruitt  [photo from 2014]
    EPA head: new report that climate change is manmade has 'no bearing' on plans to end climate action

    When top U.S. scientists released the fourth National Climate Assessment, it spelled out one blunt conclusion: human activity in releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere caused the climate change that has warmed the globe. Mandated for release every four years, the report will apparently have...

  • Global carbon dioxide emissions, 1850-2030 [CO2 Information Analysis Center, World Energy Outlook]
    Climate change all manmade, say actual scientists: awkward for Trump science deniers

    When the Environmental Protection Agency quietly issued its new four-year plan in mid-October, the phrase "climate change" did not appear anywhere in the 38-page document. It is now clear the Trump Administration intends to delay, halt, or erase government efforts to limit U.S. emissions of carbon...

  • Semi trailer
    EPA to axe rule banning older, dirtier diesel engines in new trucks: report

    The EPA recently announced it will roll back the Clean Power Plan, one of former President Obama's milestone efforts to fight climate change, and now the agency plans to axe another rule limiting emissions. Next on the chopping block is a regulation that limits emissions from large trucks and their...

  • Big square baler harvesting wheat straw for production of cellulosic ethanol
    Proposed ethanol cuts bring EPA up against Iowa's powerful politician

    Following years of debate, the EPA said earlier this month it will study the possibilities of cutting the amount of ethanol in the United States' gasoline supply. Since 2007, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has required growing amounts of ethanol to be blended into U.S. fuel supplies, with...

  • Coal trains by Flickr user Kimon Berlin (Used under CC License)

    EPA head Scott Pruitt told miners in Kentucky on Monday that he intends to begin dismantling former President Barack Obama's signature climate-change agenda effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions from coal power plants. Standing alongside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Pruitt told reporters at an event in Hazard, Ky., that, "The war against coal is over." Pruitt told reporters that on Tuesday, "I’ll be a signing a proposed rule to withdraw the so-called Clean Power Plan of the past administration, and thus begin the effort to withdraw that rule." DON'T MISS: EPA to...

  • EPA administrator Scott Pruitt  [photo from 2014]
    Head of EPA ignores environmental groups, meets only with corporations

    Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, has had a very busy schedule since being confirmed to lead the agency set up to protect America's air, water, and land from pollution. Unlike his predecessors, Pruitt—a climate-science denier and aggressive advocate of fossil...

  • FlexFuel badge on E85-capable 2009 Chevrolet HHR
    EPA to study cutting amount of ethanol in U.S. gasoline

    Since 2007, the Renewable Fuel Standard has required increasing levels of ethanol in gasoline blends sold in the U.S. Most fuel stations across the United States no longer offer pure gasoline, with E10—a blend of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline—prevailing. After years of...

  • Chrome exhaust pipe
    Comment period ends tomorrow on EPA proposal to loosen emission limits on cars

    The period for public comments on the EPA's proposed reconsideration of finalized rules to cut emissions of the climate-change gas carbon dioxide from light-duty vehicles will end on Thursday, October 5. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on August 10 it would reopen the Comment...

  • Electric power plant outside Ithaca, New York
    Coming this week: Trump EPA's plan to neuter Clean Power Plan

    Donald Trump's White House appears to be readying another of its next big climate change overhauls, and like many of the administration's plans, it will weaken or eliminate regulations on industry. Specifically, President Trump touted the undoing of the Clean Power Plan at a rally in Huntsville...

  • U.S. Capitol Building
    States to force emission, fuel-economy rules showdown with Trump Administration?

    Continuing political turmoil and news coverage of the Trump Administration haven't stopped the president's agency heads from drastically reshaping policies on energy, the environment, and emissions. Comments are now being taken on the reopened EPA limits on vehicular carbon emissions for 2022...

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