CARB settles with Gemini Coatings for $145,000 for clean air violations

[Source: CARB] The California Air Resources Board reached a settlement agreement with Gemini Coatings, Inc. of Oklahoma for $145,000 for violations of the consumer products regulations that set limits for smog-forming compounds. CARB investigators found that from 2015 to 2018, Gemini Coatings sold, supplied, offered for sale, and/or manufactured noncompliant consumer products in California. One Read More…

Cutting concrete’s carbon footprint

[Source: GTM GreenTech Media] After years of slow headway, building design and industry professionals say sharp reductions in the climate impact of concrete are possible now. That is significant because cement, the critical glue that holds concrete together, is so carbon-intensive that if it were a country, it would rank fourth in the world as Read More…

After a century of growth, have carbon emissions reached their peak?

[Source: GRIST] In late March, approximately a third of the world’s population found themselves under some kind of stay-at-home order due to COVID-19. The effects were dramatic: Virtually overnight, bumper-to-bumper traffic gave way to empty roads; bustling airports became echoing ghost towns; retail stores and restaurants closed their doors and turned off the lights. And Read More…

Trump EPA finalizes rollback making it harder to enact new public health rules

[Source: The Washington Post] The Trump administration finalized a rule Wednesday that could make it more difficult to enact public health protections, by changing the way the Environmental Protection Agency calculates the costs and benefits of new limits on air pollution. The new cost-benefit requirements, which apply to all future Clean Air Act rules, instruct Read More…

Court allows Exide to abandon a toxic site in Vernon. Taxpayers will fund the cleanup

[Source: Los Angeles Times] A bankruptcy court ruled Friday that Exide Technologies may abandon its shuttered battery recycling plant in Vernon, leaving a massive cleanup of lead and other toxic pollutants at the site and in surrounding neighborhoods to California taxpayers. The decision by Chief Judge Christopher Sontchi of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of Read More…

Trump looks to scale back environmental reviews for projects

[Source: Associated Press] President Donald Trump is ready to roll back a foundational Nixon-era environmental law that he says stifles major infrastructure projects, but that environmentalists say has served for decades as a safeguard for low-income and minority communities. Trump was traveling to Atlanta on Wednesday to formally announce changes to the National Environmental Policy Read More…