Do we really need all the regulatory programs at the federal and state levels of government?

Do they really work to improve the quality of our air and water? Are they worth their cost in terms of regulatory burden and costs of compliance? In short, yes! To some extent, our regulatory programs are a trial and error affair. We can’t always know the ultimate effectiveness of a new program nor its ultimate costs. We can’t always predict the economic benefits of new regulations either since they invariably lead to innovation and generate new inventions and jobs.

The US has been monitoring the quality of our air and water for decades, so we can track the effectiveness of our programs. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is making the most recent data available. Air pollution impacts public health, the environment, and the Earth’s climate, and understanding these impacts are important priorities for the agency.

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The Web has been a valuable source of information on the releases of toxic chemicals our communities, and for citizens and environmental action groups to see what companies and facilities are emitting air pollutants, discharging  water pollution, and generating hazardous wastes.

Finding the information you were looking for was not always easy, and not always free. Now things are getting a little easier, and more information is obtainable for free.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it is providing Web access, free of charge, to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory. This inventory contains a consolidated list of thousands of industrial chemicals maintained by the agency. (more…)

Oil supply is not infinite. Sooner or later it will run out. The interesting speculation is when that will happen. In a recent publication  of ACS Energy and Fuels, several Kuwaiti scientists have studied this matter with a multicycle Hubbert model. The original Hubbert model in 1956, accurately predicted that oil production would peak in the United States around 1970.

The model has since gained in popularity and has been used to forecast oil production worldwide. However, recent studies show that the model does not take into account more complex oil production cycles of some countries. (more…)

According to the United Nations, an estimated 40 percent of the global population, or close to 2.6 billion million people do not have access to a toilet of any sort, even a pit latrine.

This has created a public health crisis in developing countries, both in terms of contaminated drinking water and poor sanitation techniques. More than one million children mostly under the age of five die each year from diarrhea resulting from this lack of sanitary conditions. While the technology exists to solve this problem, it is expensive and sometimes hard to install.

But Swedish architect and entrepreneur, Anders Wilhelmson is hoping to tackle the issue with his invention: a safe, affordable, biodegradable plastic bag called the Peepoo that can be used as a single-use toilet. (more…)

More than one-third of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with consumer goods used in developed nations is actually emitted in other nations where the products are made, according to a new study.

In the United States, about 2.5 tons of carbon produced per person annually — or about 11 percent of U.S. per capita emissions — are emitted elsewhere, researchers at the Carnegie Institution for Science say.

In Europe, it’s about four tons of carbon per person. In fact, in smaller European nations like Switzerland, the emissions associated with products manufactured outside the borders exceed the actual emissions produced at home. (more…)

Two billion people worldwide do their cooking on open fires, producing sooty pollution that shortens millions of lives and exacerbates global warming. If widely adopted, a new generation of inexpensive, durable cook stoves could go a long way toward alleviating this problem.

With a single, concerted initiative, says Lakshman Guruswami, the world could save millions of people in poor nations from respiratory ailments and early death, while dealing a big blow to global warming — and all at a surprisingly small cost.

“If we could supply cheap, clean-burning cook stoves to the large portion of the world that burns biomass,” says Guruswami, a Sri Lankan-born professor of international law at the University of Colorado, “we could address a significant international public health problem, and at the same stroke cut a major source of warming.”

Sooty, indoor air pollution from open wood or other biomass fires has long been linked to health problems and deaths. More recently, scientists have been surprised to learn that black carbon — not only from biomass fires but from dirty diesel engines and other sources — is a far larger contributor to global warming than previously suspected: The dark particles absorb and retain heat close to the Earth’s surface that might otherwise be reflected. (more…)

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Friday that the United States needs to come up with a better system for storing or disposing of radioactive nuclear waste than a planned repository near Las Vegas.

“The president has made it very clear that we are going to go beyond Yucca mountain. You should go beyond Yucca mountain,” Chu said. “But instead of wringing my hands, let’s go forward and do something better.”

The Obama administration, in January, announced it was stopping the license application for a long-planned multi-billion dollar nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas, which is opposed by environmental groups. (more…)

When New York State’s environmental agency came out with a draft environmental review of drilling in the Marcellus Shale in September, it set off a flurry of action for environmentalists, industry advocates and the general public.

People were given 30 days — later extended to 90 — to digest the highly technical 800-plus-page document and submit comments. They could also voice their opinions at four public hearings.

At stake was the future of gas drilling in New York’s portion of the Marcellus Shale, which could produce vast amounts of natural gas, but which some residents fear also could contaminate drinking water sources and the air.

Since the comment period ended on Dec. 31, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation has been assembling and evaluating the public’s response, which included a stinging analysis of the plan by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. DEC officials aren’t saying when the final version of the review will be unveiled, but two department representatives, Yancey Roy and Maureen Wren, did agree to walk us through the process. (more…)

Former New York Rangers goalie and Sierra Club member Michael T. Richter has a great op-ed piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune discussing the future of Winter Olympics, global warming, and Canada’s oil sands industry.

This publicity follows action taken in February when champion winter athletes joined with international environmental groups calling on Canada to save the Winter Olympics. Amongst the athletes were snowboarder Jeremy Jones and Skier Alison Gannett.

“Canada has some of the best snowboarding in the world, but the oil sands industry is going to blow it. This is the dirtiest oil on earth. If want to save our snow, we have to stop it,” Jones said.

Increasing concern over the impact of global warming on the future of snow sports is putting a spotlight on Canada’s oil sands industry, the country’s fastest growing source of global warming pollution and the dirtiest form of oil in the world. (more…)

The personal care industry has long demanded stricter standards for products labeled “natural,” and in February, the Natural Products Association (NPA), the group representing retailers and manufacturers including Whole Foods and Clorox Co., has released new standards for home-care products.

These include household cleaners for bathrooms and kitchen countertops and laundry detergents.  Up until now, there has been no definition of the term “natural” within the home-care products industry.

Daniel Fabricant, NPA vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs, has been quoted as saying that many so-called natural cleaning products contain largely synthetic ingredients.  And consumers are already confused about what makes products natural as well as organic.

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