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Issues: Health and the Environment

What explains the Bush administration's air pollution agenda for power plants?

August 15, 2008

Posted by John Walke

Tags:
airpollution, bulwer-lytton, bushadministration, powerplants

Does President Bush, powerfully astride a proverbial aircraft carrier rocking on the ocean's perspiring surface undulating like waves, survey the nation’s hoary horizon of power plants erect like smokestacks, not misunderestimating the dirty deed he did for these dischargers, and...

EPA’s “Clean Air Mercury Rule” and the Dog Days of Summer

August 11, 2008

Posted by John Walke

Tags:
cleanairact, cleanairinterstaterule, cleanairmercuryrule, EPA, mercury, powerplants, supremecourt

In late May, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied EPA and utility industry requests to rehear the original court panel’s unanimous decision overturning EPA’s so-called Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR) for power plants.  I said at...

Words That Utility Pollution Apologists Dare Not Utter

August 7, 2008

Posted by John Walke

Tags:
airpollution, cleanairinterstaterule, EPA, newsourcereview, powerplants

I usually don’t bother responding to utility lobbyists’ air pollution talking points. Much less re-publish their propaganda, thereby adding to the abuse of reason, facts, and good sense in the world today.But I’m making an exception today, because the latest talking...

Demise of the Clean Air Interstate Rule (Part 3): EPA's "Clear Skies" Straitjacket

July 29, 2008

Posted by John Walke

Tags:
airpollution, cair, cleanairact, cleanairinterstaterule, clearskies, EPA, powerplants

And now the story can be told of the Bush administration's 8 year long agenda for air pollution from power plants.Once upon a time, to be exact in the year 2000, then-Governor Bush ran for the office of the Presidency...

Demise of the Clean Air Interstate Rule (Part 2): Today's Senate Hearing

July 29, 2008

Posted by John Walke

Tags:
airpollution, cair, cleanairact, cleanairinterstaterule, clearskies, EPA, powerplants

I testified this morning before the clean air subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at a hearing about the D.C. Circuit's July 11th decision overturning EPA's "Clean Air Interstate Rule."This is the second in a series...

Bush Environmental Era: Like a Kidney Stone, This Too Shall Pass

July 15, 2008

Posted by John Walke in Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
bushadministration, globalwarming, kidneystones

But not without considerable harm to the body politic, public health and the environment, with 6 long months left for that painful passage.Turns out there is another connection between kidney stones and Bush administration environmental policies. Global warming -- about...

Demise of the Clean Air Interstate Rule: Blame, Shame, Thy Name is Duke Energy

July 15, 2008

Posted by John Walke in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , The Media and the Environment , U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:
airpollution, cleanairact, cleanairinterstaterule, dukeenergy, powerplants, smog, soot

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”– Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, 230. On Friday July 11th, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the Bush administration’s signature air quality accomplishment, the “Clean Air Interstate Rule.”  CAIR...

Science Decider in Chief

March 17, 2008

Posted by John Walke in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:
bushadministration, cleanairact, environmentallaw, EPA, ozone, ozonestandard, presidentbush, science

The Clean Air Act reserves to "the judgment of the [EPA] Administrator" alone, as a matter of law, the revision of the secondary “public welfare” standard for ozone and other air pollution. This legal standard must be based on what...

The Mercury Fallout Continues

February 19, 2008

Posted by John Walke

Tags:
airpollution, EPA, mercury, powerplants

The AP's Joe Hebert has written a powerful article on a scandal emerging from EPA in the wake of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously overturning EPA's mercury rules for power plants.  The AP article appeared...

F.A.Q. About the Court Decision Overturning EPA’s Illegal Mercury Rule for Power Plants

February 10, 2008

Posted by John Walke in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:
cleanairact, EPA, mercury, powerplants

On February 8th, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sided with NRDC and a coalition of public health groups, tribes, and states, ruling that EPA had illegally evaded the protective Clean Air Act safeguards requiring deep and timely...

On “average,” there is no air pollution

October 16, 2007

Posted by John Walke in Greening China , Health and the Environment , The Media and the Environment , U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:
airpollution, china, EPA

What do Chinese Communist Party air pollution officials share in common with Bush administration air pollution officials?Resort to the rhetoric of “averages” when it comes to obscuring and excusing air pollution.A front page story in today’s Washington Post examines the...

The Two Faces of Steve

October 15, 2007

Posted by John Walke in Health and the Environment , U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:
AEP, airpollution, enforcement, EPA, newsourcereview

“This is a true story.”  -- Opening line in 1957’s film, The Three Faces of Eve.Administrator Steve Johnson's Environmental Protection Agency has a split personality. And obsessive compulsive disorder probably should be added to that diagnosis too.The root cause -- or is...

Smog, EPA and NAM

June 21, 2007

Posted by John Walke in Health and the Environment

Tags:
airpollution, EPA, healthhazards, industrialpollution, NAM, ozone, ozonestandard, SCOTUS, smog

NAM, industry's illegal war, and the smell of ozone in the morning: Industry is waging a carpet-bombing lobbying campaign, led by the National Association of Manufacturers or NAM, urging EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to defy the law and adopt a...

John Walke
John Walke
Clean Air Director/ Senior Attorney
Washington, D.C.
As a senior attorney and the Director of NRDC's Clean Air Program, I work on...
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