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Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

  UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

 

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas production on public and tribal land. The rule would contribute to the Obama administration’s strategy for cutting methane emissions while also reducing waste of this non-renewable resource.

Methane naturally occurs in oil wells and is released during the drilling process. Well operators can capture the gas at the well site and send it to processing plants where it is refined and sold as natural gas. But many operators instead burn the gas onsite (which causes air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions) or simply vent it. Methane has several times the global warning potential of carbon dioxide, so venting the gas significantly contributes to climate change.

Additionally, state, federal, and tribal governments lose out on royalty revenue when methane is vented or flared. In 2013, an estimated $330 million worth of methane was leaked, vented, or flared from federal and tribal lands – money that could have gone toward repairing infrastructure and improving schools.

The BLM rule would require operators to adopt available technology that would reduce flaring and venting while also correcting leaks in infrastructure. Additionally, it would establish guidelines for paying royalties to governments when gas is flared.

Unlike the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed rule, which only addresses new and modified sources, BLM’s rule would cover all new and existing oil and gas infrastructure. Existing sources, including wells, pipelines, and compressor stations, contribute 90 percent of the industry’s methane emissions.

We applaud BLM’s efforts to curb climate change and protect our natural resources.

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UPDATE (Aug. 20, 2015): Earlier this week, the Obama administration announced its proposed rule to cut future methane emissions from oil and gas production. Methane contributes 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities that are warming the earth, so the rule is a step towards meeting our climate change targets.

However, disappointingly, the rule does not apply to existing wells, pipelines, refineries, and other infrastructure, which together contribute 90 percent of current total methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. The oil and gas industry produces almost a third of all methane emissions, so exempting existing facilities is problematic.

The rule also targets the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that pollute the air and contribute to smog formation, but as with methane, it only cuts them at new and modified oil and gas sources, and a limited number of existing sources.

Last week the, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced plans to reduce methane emissions from landfills, which contribute nearly one-fifth of all U.S. methane emissions.

To date, however, there are only voluntary guidelines for limiting methane from the agriculture industry. Agriculture produces 36 percent of total methane emissions and is the single largest source of methane in the U.S. 

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On Jan. 14, the Obama administration announced its strategy to reduce oil and gas industry methane emissions by 40-45 percent over the next decade. This is a key element of the administration's Climate Action Plan for reducing greenhouse gases and curbing climate change.

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Pennsylvania Residents Near Fracking Sites Report Health Problems

Last week, Food & Water Watch released the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s log of health complaints from communities living near fracking sites. The logs include many of the health complaints that critiques have linked to fracking for years – and the state’s inadequate response. 

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Boosting Energy Efficiency Can Combat Climate Change and Protect Our Health

Cutting carbon emissions from U.S. power plants will help combat climate change, but it can also substantially reduce illnesses and deaths from other types of air pollution. Scientists from Syracuse, Harvard, and Boston universities compared the health impacts of three alternative policies related to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed carbon standards for existing power plants, and they found that increasing energy efficiency would be one of the most effective ways to cut power plant emissions and protect our health.

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Breathing Easier Because of the Clean Air Act

Today is the birthday of the Clean Air Act, legislation signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon forty-four years ago. This law is the centerpiece and platform for protecting the quality of the air we breathe. It took decades of work to get clean air laws passed, and over time amendments have been added to strengthen our air quality standards and to respond to new risks. This is the story of how we established standards to protect a public good that we all need, but most of us take for granted.

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Outgoing Maryland Governor Proposes Strongest Fracking Protections in the Nation

UPDATE (June 2, 2015): A Maryland bill establishing a two-and-a-half year moratorium on fracking became law on May 30. Both the state House and Senate passed the bill by veto-proof margins. Republican Governor Larry Hogan declined to either sign or veto the bill, allowing it to go into effect. Along with temporarily banning fracking, the bill also requires the state to create fracking regulations that will go into effect when the ban is lifted.  

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EPA’s War on Toxic Pollution

A central theme of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) recent re-election campaign was attacking the Obama administration’s so-called “war on coal.” This framing was an attempt to stigmatize the critically important efforts by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce the impacts on public health and the environment of burning coal in power plants and heavy industry. In fact, EPA is conducting a war on the health impacts caused by pollution and industrial waste, using science and technology as its weapons.

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Cleaning Up CAFOs with the Civil Rights Act

For decades, minority communities in North Carolina have suffered with the odors and pollution of industrial pig farms. They may finally get a reprieve thanks to a complaint submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Civil Rights.

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White House: Act Now or Pay More Later to Stem Climate Change

Acting now to address the impacts of climate change would produce far more benefits at a much lower cost than waiting until a later date, according to a new White House report, titled The Cost of Delaying Action to Stem Climate Change. Based on a rigorous analysis of existing studies, the report estimates a 40 percent increase in the cost of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas linked to climate change, for every decade of delay.

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Outdoor Air Pollution Identified As Major Cause of Lung Cancer

In a groundbreaking Oct. 17 announcement, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency of the World Health Organization, classified outdoor air pollution as a known cause of lung cancer.

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Resources & Research

Living in the Shadow of Danger: Poverty, Race, and Unequal Chemical Facility Hazards

People of color and people living in poverty, especially poor children of color, are significantly more likely...

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A Tale of Two Retirements: One for CEOs and One for the Rest of Us

The 100 largest CEO retirement funds are worth a combined $4.9 billion, equal to the entire retirement account savings of 41 percent of American fam...

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