Air

""Major business groups are in the midst of a coordinated, multimillion-dollar effort aimed at sowing opposition to the Obama administration’s smog pollution regulations."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency settled a lawsuit with North Carolina-based Duke Energy Corp., requiring the company to spend more than $5 million in penalties and other costs as it resolves alleged Clean Air Act violations."

"Regional air quality officials have tightened rules on odors and fumes coming from thousands of wells at hundreds of urban oil fields in Southern California. The move comes after coordinated campaigns by people living near oil operations in Huntington Beach, Whittier, and South Los Angeles."

"U.S. crews battling a flurry of wildfires raging unchecked across the Pacific Northwest contended with high winds on Thursday, a day after three firefighters were killed and four others were injured in Washington state."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has tightened standards for the nation's landfills to reduce emissions of methane and other harmful air pollutants."

"Air pollution is killing about 4,000 people in China a day, accounting for 1 in 6 premature deaths in the world's most populous country, a new study finds."

"On Sunday morning, hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic gas were accidentally released from the Shell Oil facility in Deer Park [Texas]."

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to fix by this spring the problem that caused the Supreme Court to rule against its major air pollution regulation in July."

"The air in Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, is expected to clear up now that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finalized agreements with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and port terminal operators that will cut air pollution caused by idling diesel trucks at the port."

EPA is trying to phase out the soil fumigant methyl bromide, on which the commercial strawberry crop has been dependent. Methyl bromide damages the ozone layer of the atmosphere. But the effort to find an adequate substitute has scientists scrambling.