Environmental Health

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday released its newest definition for ambient air in a move critics say will ease burdens on polluting industries. On its surface, the guidance deals less directly with air quality than it does with fencing."

"EPA is poised to leave its national soot standards unchanged after a fractured advisory panel yesterday formally opted to recommend the status quo. While career EPA staff had tentatively concluded that the annual exposure benchmark is too weak to prevent thousands of premature deaths, a majority on the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee found otherwise."

"A new Harvard University study for the first time links hospitalizations for common blood, skin and kidney ailments to short-term exposure to fine particulate matter from fossil fuel combustion and wildfires."

"A debate over Montana landowners’ potential liability for toxic metals in their backyards, deposited over decades of smelting operations, dominated oral arguments involving the landowners, the U.S. EPA, and Atlantic Richfield Co. before the Supreme Court Dec. 3."

"Senate lawmakers this week will question President Trump's pick to lead the White House regulatory review office."

"The hulking wall of rubber was first discovered by a borough maintenance crew. About 6,000 rolled pieces were neatly stacked about 10 feet high, covering more than an acre of private land, according to the mayor of Cleona, Pennsylvania."

"A mandatory evacuation order issued after a series of explosions at a Texas chemical plant has been lifted, a county official said Friday morning."

"A New Hampshire judge ordered that the state suspend at year’s end enforcement of its new rules tightening allowable limits on fluorinated “forever” chemicals, as the 3M company had asked."

"Vermont is turning to its most abundant resource to help meet its renewable energy targets. But the bar for ‘carbon neutral’ may be higher than even skeptics think."