Air

"The Biden administration pushed through a packed clean air to-do list in 2023, shoring up against a tougher legal landscape and multiple courtroom battles that threaten to delay cornerstone air and climate plans."

"The United States and the state of California have reached an agreement in principle with the truck engine manufacturer Cummins on a $1.6 billion penalty to settle claims that the company violated the Clean Air Act by installing devices to defeat emissions controls on hundreds of thousands of engines, the Justice Department announced on Friday."

"The Supreme Court will soon consider a case that has the potential to deal a massive blow to the Biden administration’s goals of cleaning the air and weaning power plants off of coal."

"Scientists with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were flying a plane equipped with a visible-infrared imaging spectrometer over an oil field in California’s San Joaquin Valley when they made a worrisome discovery. Images produced by the device revealed a large plume of methane lingering in the air."

"Louisiana must strengthen rules over the release of ozone-creating nitrogen oxide air emissions by industries in the Baton Rouge area during startups, shutdowns and malfunctions, or the federal Environmental Protection Agency will write and enforce its own rules, the agency announced this week."

"Concentrations of HFC-23, one of the world’s most potent greenhouse gases, remained elevated in East Asia after China, a known past polluter, agreed to curb emissions."

"Virginia’s largest utility provider has faced a backlash from the state’s environmental community since it announced plans to build a new, large fossil fuel facility in Chesterfield."

"A flesh-eating fungus is expanding its range in the American West - and scientists suspect climate change is driving the spread."