Politics

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...

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...

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...

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...

Pity Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the man now running the cabinet department he couldn't remember that he wanted to eliminate altogether during a notorious 2011 presidential debate. He has pulled off an unusual feat, by uniting lobbyists for fossil-fuel interests with their counterparts advocating...

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...

You may not have heard it happen, but the global automotive industry changed forever on Thursday. China released its plan to require substantial sales of plug-in electric cars by all makers who want to sell in the world's largest car market, and they start in little more than a year. The levels far...

With China mulling an eventual ban on sales of cars with gasoline or diesel engines, the world's largest car market made it clear earlier this month that it intends to force a conversion to zero-emission vehicles. Now California, which has led the U.S. in environmental awareness and emission...

Connecticut ushered in a unique electric-car incentive in 2014, and the first points of data on its effectiveness have now been published. The Connecitcut Hydrogen and Electric Automobile Purchase Rebate (CHEAPR) program not only provides a direct incentive for consumers to buy electric cars, it...

With the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president last November, it became clear that the regulatory environment for businesses would change once he took office. Indeed, dozens of regulations limiting corporate activities involving emissions, fossil-fuel exploration, hiring and firing, and a host...

The prospect of bans on gasoline and diesel new-car sales have become a much greater threat not only to automakers but to oil companies as well, now that China has said it is studying such a move. The world's largest car market has not announced any timetables for such a ban, which will likely be...

China's announcement 10 days ago that it was assessing a timetable for ending sales of new cars with gasoline or diesel engines continues to reverberate. The country intends to dominate global production of lithium-ion battery cells and electric vehicles, for a host of reasons from industrial power...

It was quaint and adorable when Norway did it, saying it would end sales of cars with internal-combustion engines by 2025. The Netherlands followed suit, with little fanfare. More recently, France and the U.K. have enacted various forms of bans on non-electrified vehicles, on varying schedules. Now...

General Motors CEO Mary Barra met with reporters in Shanghai on Friday, discussing the company's vision of the future: "a world with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion." The company doesn't think, however, that China should be quite so hasty in pushing to ban cars that actually do...

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...

Tesla has once again ruffled the feathers of the California New Car Dealers Association with a new round of referral programs. The Silicon Valley automaker has used referral programs for years; they usually provide perks for current owners who get friends, coworkers, and colleagues to buy a new...

The auto industry has now grudgingly accepted that battery-electric cars will make up some portion of the world's new vehicles in years to come. But a milestone in that trend may have come today, in news from China. Policy makers in the world's most populous country, and largest car market, are...

The state of California has officially launched its legislative push for stricter heavy-duty truck and bus emission regulations. Following calls for the state to use its recently-extended carbon cap-and-trade program to fund updates to fleets of semi trucks and other commercial vehicles, four state...

Efforts to loosen regulations on the oil industry now underway have met with public approval from fossil-fuel companies. But while the Trump administration has moved swiftly to create a more friendly regulatory environment for big oil, some executives have urged a slowdown behind the scenes. That's...

As a Tesla lawsuit over the state of Michigan's dealership franchise law grinds on, the Silicon Valley automaker scored a recent legal victory. A federal magistrate has ordered two Michigan lawmakers to turn over their communications to the company's lawyers, including emails they sent to lobbyist...