Air

"More electric vehicles could soon be for sale on Minnesota car lots after an administrative law judge ruled Friday that the Walz administration can set new emissions standards without the OK of lawmakers."

"Southern California air quality officials have adopted first-of-their-kind rules on warehouse distribution centers in an effort to cut truck pollution, increase electrification and reduce health risks in communities hit hardest by lung-damaging diesel exhaust."

"The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it was weighing whether a controversial refinery on St. Croix posed “an imminent risk to people’s health” after a third accident in the span of three months sickened local residents and forced three schools to close."

"Coal-fired power generation and its notoriously dirty emissions are rapidly declining, but the potential health gains from cleaner air are being stymied by biomass burning and combustion sources, Harvard University researchers found in a new study."

"A giant oil and gas refinery was served with a “notice of violation” by the Environmental Protection Agency following two major accidents that released noxious fumes and a chemical-filled vapor cloud over nearby neighborhoods in the U.S. Virgin Islands."

"Black, Latino and Asian Americans face higher levels of exposure to fine particulate matter from traffic, construction and other sources".

"Nearly every source of the nation’s most pervasive and deadly air pollutant disproportionately affects Americans of color, regardless of their state or income level, according to a study published Wednesday. The analysis of fine-particle matter, which includes soot, shows how decisions made decades ago about where to build highways and industrial plants continue to harm the health of Black, Latino and Asian Americans today.

"Thirteen U.S. oil refineries released the cancer-causing chemical benzene in concentrations that exceeded federal limits last year, according to government data published by the green group Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) on Wednesday."

"By some accounts, Pennsylvania has the worst accumulation of old, unplugged, ownerless oil and gas wells in the nation. There are an estimated 200,000 of them, and the cost to plug them could exceed $6 billion. The state’s orphan well plugging program has been underfunded for decades, but it is primed to take advantage of an influx of cash."