Pollution

"The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday strengthened a rule limiting toxic air pollution from factories, refineries and other industrial facilities, reversing one of former president Donald Trump’s major environmental rollbacks."

"The charging yard for electric trucks at the Port of Long Beach is bright and sunny and full of semitrailer tractors—the truncated front ends of big rigs without their big-box loads. It’s also quiet. Elsewhere at the port, wherever there are trucks, there’s the near-deafening rumble of diesel engines. But the trucks here aren’t combusting; they’re filling up with electrons to power their next trip to Southern California’s Inland Empire, the constellation of cities to the east with one of the heaviest concentrations of warehouses in the world."

"San Diego Congress members are calling on the U.S. State Department to press Mexico to address unprecedented levels of sewage pollution spilling over from Tijuana, causing unbearable rotten-egg odors for residents in the region."

"The Navajo Nation has approved emergency legislation meant to strengthen a tribal law that regulates the transportation of radioactive material across the largest Native American reservation in the U.S."

"The number of fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest region for the month of August surged to the highest level since 2010, government data showed on Sunday, after a record drought that has been plaguing the biome."

"A year and a half after a catastrophic Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical fire in East Palestine, Ohio, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has announced plans to monitor private drinking water wells for Pennsylvania residents living within one mile of the accident site for the next decade."

"Fertilizer made from city sewage has been spread on millions of acres of farmland for decades. Scientists say it can contain high levels of the toxic substance."

"Yemen’s Houthi rebels released footage on Thursday showing their fighters boarded and placed explosives on a Greek-flagged tanker, setting off blasts that put the Red Sea at risk of a major oil spill. The vessel was abandoned earlier, after the Houthis repeatedly attacked it."

"The plastics industry uses a controversial accounting method to inflate the recycled content it advertises in products. A new EPA policy won’t allow it for any products it endorses as a “Safer Choice.”"

"The unprecedented move highlights regulatory tensions between Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, and an environmental rule-making commission controlled by appointees of Republican state legislative leaders."