Environmental Glance
The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission has approved landmark rules to reduce air pollution from oil and gas drilling, including the nation’s first-ever regulations designed to detect and reduce methane emissions.
The ruling concluded a five-day public hearing that began Wednesday at the Aurora Municipal Center. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Air Pollution Control Division initiated the process more than a year ago.
On top of the methane restrictions, the approved rules include controls on smog-forming pollution.
Colorado First State to Clamp Down on Fracking Methane Pollution
Oil spill closes Port of New Orleans, 65-mile stretch of Mississippi
U.S. Coast Guard said the source of an oil spill was secured but 65 miles of the Mississippi River including the Port of New Orleans remained closed Sunday.
The Coast Guard said in a news release the oil spill occurred Saturday when a barge collided with another vessel near Vacherie, between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
"Lightering operations on the damaged barge concluded early Sunday morning and the source of the spill was secured," the release said. "Oil spill response vessels and recovery equipment are deployed in the river."
Exxon Mobil CEO: No fracking near my backyard
Exxon Mobil's CEO has joined a lawsuit to stop construction of a water tower near his home that would be used to in the fracking process to drill for oil.
While fracking -- hydraulic fracturing of rock to release pockets of oil -- has raised complaints from environmentalists around the country, Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson's opposition to a project in his own neighborhood is interesting, given how deeply Exxon Mobil is involved in the process.
Supreme Court Climate Case Looks At EPA's Power
As President Barack Obama pledges to act on environmental and other matters when Congress doesn't, or won't, opponents of regulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases cast the rule as a power grab of historic proportions.
Plutonium detected half-mile outside New Mexico nuclear waste facility
Four days after a radiation alert shut the nation’s only underground nuclear waste facility, an independent monitoring center said Wednesday it found radioactive isotopes in an air sensor about a half mile from the southeastern New Mexico plant.
A filter from a monitor northwest of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad had trace amounts of plutonium and americium, said Russell Hardy, director of the Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center.
Law allowing Keystone pipeline in Nebraska struck down
The controversial Keystone XL pipeline hit another obstacle Wednesday when a judge struck down a Nebraska law that allowed the oil pipeline to cross the state.
Lancaster County Judge Stephanie Stacy issued a ruling that invalidated Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman's approval of the route. Stacy said the law unconstitutionally gave the governor authority to approve the route and to allow the oil pipeline company to seize land via eminent domain from Nebraska landowners.
Stacy, siding with three landowner plaintiffs, said authority rests with the Nebraska Public Service Commission, which regulates pipelines and other utilities. His ruling bars Heineman from using the law to advance the pipeline.
Supreme Court asked to clear the air about greenhouse gas rules
The Supreme Court’s hottest environmental case of the year pits Texas against California on Monday, and that’s just for starters.
More than half of the nation’s states have taken sides in a dispute over federal authority to regulate stationary greenhouse gas emissions. Conservative lawmakers such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., hold one position. Southern California air pollution managers defend another.
Miners and frozen food industry leaders serve up their arguments; respiratory health care experts counter them.
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