Air

The U.S. is expected to announce today that it will contribute to a U.N. effort to address the problem of indoor wood cookstoves whose smoke kills an estimated 1.9 million people annually.

"Moscow registered nearly 11,000 deaths due to an unprecedented heatwave this summer, a city official told AFP Friday, as the mortality rate more than doubled in the Russian capital."

"U.S. 9th Circuit panel says Southern California air quality board can't impose restrictions that could interfere with interstate commerce."

Three environmental groups have issued a report detailing some 39 cases across the U.S. where pollution from the ash left from coal-burning electric power plants has cause pollution that often threatens human health. Now as EPA moves to close the electric utilities' longtime exemption from hazardous waste laws, industry lobbyists may have quietly put the fix in at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

"The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has a 'critical responsibility' to the flying public to develop environmentally responsible solutions to the nation's most pressing aviation problems, NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. said Wednesday."

The release of a white, powdery catalyst from a Chalmette refinery that blanketed areas southeast of New Orleans on Monday has prompted a class action suit.

"Duke Energy said Wednesday it might close seven coal-fired units at its Carolinas power plants within five years as environmental regulations intensify."

"It's been the hottest summer on record in many cities on the East Coast. And with that blistering weather has come a lot of days of unhealthy air."

"U.S. EPA won't meet its goal of releasing new nationwide standards for ground-level ozone this month, the agency told a federal court Friday."

"American farmers have been ridiculing a proposal by U.S. regulators to reduce the amount of dust floating in rural air."