After finalizing in April fuel efficiency standards for cars manufactured in model years 2012 through 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation are back to work, laying out options for model years 2017 through 2025.

As Yogi Berra's redundant saying goes, "It's déjà vu all over again." Back in 1994, congressional Republicans unveiled what they called the "Contract with America." The Contract was chock-full of policy proposals intended to shrink the size of government, kneecap agencies' ability to protect the public, and decrease the burden on taxpayers, especially the rich.

Happy belated birthday to the Clean Air Act which turned 40 on Tuesday, Sept. 14. In honor of the occasion, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson gave a speech touting the many accomplishments of the act. Among them, health and life-saving benefits of gigantic proportions. EPA says that, in the act’s first 20 years alone, clean air programs prevented 205,000 premature deaths and 18 million respiratory illnesses among children.

Witnesses from across the country yesterday urged the EPA to set strong public health standards for coal ash. In an all-day hearing in Arlington, VA, environmental and public health advocates and members of the general public asked EPA to regulate coal ash, a toxic byproduct of coal combustion that can contain arsenic, lead, and other toxics, as a hazardous waste.