[Ronald Stein, PTS Staffing Solutions] Fuel prices in California are among the highest in the country, as a result of some of the highest taxes in the country, plus the costs associated with compliance with various State environmental laws, which trickle down to the consumer, resulting in Californian’s paying as much as $1 more per Read More…
Tag: regulations
With air-quality standards, is the cure worse than the disease?
[Source: Orange County Register] Have we reached the point where air pollution regulations are harming people more than air pollution itself? That’s the question at the heart of the dispute between the Trump administration and California about the Environmental Protection Agency’s air pollution program known as NAAQS, the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. President Trump Read More…
Cancer-causing coffee? Proposition 65 warnings becoming too common
[Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune] A preliminary decision by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Elihu M. Berle — that coffee should carry a warning that it is potentially carcinogenic because it has trace amounts of acrylamide — should be maddening to those who care about public health. That’s not just because it’s a decision that Read More…
Opinion: The ‘secret science’ that distorts air-quality studies
[Source: Orange County Register] See if you can spot the flaw in this logic: Disease-causing bacteria can be spread by hand contact. Boiling water kills bacteria. Plunge your hands into boiling water several times a day to prevent disease. If you can see the flaw in the logic, you have better eyesight than a lot Read More…
The SCAQMD wants to raise your taxes
[Source: OC Register] In what appears to be the very definition of an out-of-control government agency, the staff of the South Coast Air Quality Management District has decided to pursue its own plan for raising the sales tax in four counties by a quarter-percent. The SCAQMD doesn’t have the authority to put tax-increase proposals on Read More…
Expect environmental battles to be ‘even more significant’ in 2018
[Source: The New York Times] If 2017 was the Trump administration’s year of grand pronouncements declaring an end to environmental regulations, 2018 will be the year of trying to finish what it started. Despite President Trump’s proclamation in the Rose Garden that the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, the United States Read More…
A year-end look at Scott Pruitt’s EPA
[Source: The Washington Post] Given the pace at which the Environmental Protection Agency chief has rolled back his predecessors’ work (or at least attempted to), Scott Pruitt secured his place as a one of the most consequential Cabinet-level officials within the Trump administration with an aggressive first year at the helm. The Post’s Brady Dennis Read More…
E.P.A. officials, disheartened by agency’s direction, are leaving in droves
[Source: New York Times] More than 700 people have left the Environmental Protection Agency since President Trump took office, a wave of departures that puts the administration nearly a quarter of the way toward its goal of shrinking the agency to levels last seen during the Reagan administration. Of the employees who have quit, retired Read More…
Trump’s environmental rollbacks hit California hard, despite Sacramento’s resistance
[Source: Los Angeles Times] When 50,000 acre-feet of water went gushing out of the Sacramento River last month, it fast became a test of California’s ability to protect its environmental policies from an increasingly hostile Trump administration. The episode proved humbling. Heeding the calls of big agriculture interests and area congressional Republicans, the administration pumped Read More…