Pollution

"A new analysis from Earthworks suggests that oil and gas producers in the Permian Basin in Texas, one of the largest oilfields in the world, are routinely emitting carbon dioxide and methane without the correct permits, with offenders including big names like Shell and Exxon."

"Researchers attribute up to 900,000 premature deaths every year to a dangerous component of air particle pollution found in paints, pesticides, and cleaning supplies."

"Local water systems are asking the EPA—for the first time in the Safe Drinking Water Act’s history—for help obtaining chlorine-based water treatment chemicals amid a nationwide shortage."

"The groundwater of at least nine military installations near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia is contaminated with high levels of toxic fluorinated “forever chemicals,” according to a report Wednesday by an environmental group that cites Defense Department records."

"A federal judge ruled Monday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must update nearly three-decade-old regulations about the chemicals that can be used to disperse offshore oil spills, which some environmental groups contend cause serious health problems."

"The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is suing the owner of the Piney Point site that sent 215 million gallons of contaminated water into Tampa Bay earlier this year."

"A wildfire in Northern California spread more than 100,000 acres overnight into Friday — becoming the largest blaze in the country and the third largest in the state's history."

"There's a certain smell that reminds Dianna Cormier-Jackson of her childhood on Leila Street in Houston's Fifth Ward. When she was young in the early 1960s, she recalls the air there feeling "heavy," as if it was thick with oil and gasoline. Some days, the heavy smell would be so strong that her parents would make her and her siblings stay in the house. But on school days, they marched out into the rank air."

"President Biden on Thursday unveiled a far-reaching, multipronged plan to make U.S. cars and light trucks more fuel-efficient and to begin a shift to electric vehicles over the coming decade. The move marks one of the administration’s most consequential pushes so far to combat climate change and tackle the nation’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions."