‘Energy Bad Boys’ Analysts are Exposing the Impacts of Green Energy on Reliability, Affordability

Mitch Rolling and Isaac Orr in front of the EPA headquarters (composite image)

Critics of the Biden administration’s energy policies have often pointed out the lack of forethought that goes into the challenges in bringing President Joe Biden’s vision to fruition. Whether it’s the misguided effort to build out charging stations to support its EV mandate, or the impacts of its offshore wind goals on marine wildlife, the administration has seemed more interested in goals than thoughtful planning and analysis of impacts.

A pair of analysts have been conducting research on federal and state green energy policies on the grid and finding what they call short-sighted thinking when it comes to the policies’ impacts on energy reliability and affordability. The business they’ve founded offering these services, Always On Energy Research, had so much demand, they didn’t start advertising until a few months after they opened their doors.

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GOP Senators Accuse Biden-Harris Admin of Diverting Small Business Resources to ‘Green New Deal Handouts’

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

A trio of top Republican senators accused the Biden administration for allegedly shuffling resources intended for small businesses into a “climate slush fund” in a letter exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Senators Joni Ernst of Iowa, James Risch of Idaho and Marco Rubio of Florida on August 9 sent a letter to Small Business Administration (SBA) head Isabel Guzman, accusing her agency of undermining Community Advantage, a program intended to provide loans to small businesses, by enrolling new lenders that will focus on “support[ing] small businesses’ efforts to reduce climate change.” The group of lawmakers also voiced suspicion regarding the SBA’s recent collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Reduction Fund, noting that the SBA’s July 22 announcement that it would be coordinating with the multi-billion dollar green energy grant program came right after Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

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Research Widely Cited to Support Pausing LNG Exports Riddled with Errors, Analysis Says

Robert Howarth

At the beginning of this year, the Biden administration enacted a pause on liquified natural gas (LNG) permits. The policy created regulatory uncertainty in the industry, impacting jobs and billion-dollar investments.

The announcement of the policy followed a coordinated effort by activists at nonprofits and in academia, as well as dozens of Democratic members of congress, to hasten an energy transition away from fossil fuels by blocking exports of America’s abundant natural gas resources to countries abroad.

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Biden EPA Cuts Big Check for Pro-Defund the Police Activists to Pursue ‘Climate Justice’ for Convicts

Climate Protest

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is sending up to $3 million to an activist group that advocates for slashing police budgets and prison closures to pursue “climate justice” for convicts and “reentry communities.”

The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (Baker Center) and the Insight Garden Program were selected for receipt of between $1 million and $3 million to pursue “Environmental and Climate Justice in Prison and Reentry Communities.” The Baker Center has previously endorsed or advocated for left-wing activist positions like defunding the police, effectively decriminalizing shoplifting, closing prisons and more.

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Biden Admin Cuts Multi-Billion Dollar Check to Push ‘Community-Driven’ Green Projects All Over America

Heat Pump Installer

The Biden administration announced Monday that it is sending billions of dollars across the country to advance climate change-related projects.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Monday that it is sending a combined $4.3 billion to help fund 25 applicants build “community-driven” climate projects across 30 states. The projects include electric vehicle (EV) charging station construction, funds to help local governments expedite green energy siting and programs to enhance heat pump adoption.

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Bureaucrats Worry Behind Closed Doors They’ll Be Sent Packing Under Trump

Donald Trump

Government workers are reportedly in a state of panic over the prospect of former President Donald Trump winning another term in office, according to E&E News.

Bureaucrats up and down the federal hierarchy are concerned that a second Trump administration could cost them their jobs and put an end to liberal programs they worked to implement under President Joe Biden, E&E News reported. Trump has, if elected, pledged to implement reforms that would allow him to fire up to 50,000 civil servants at will, with the former president singling out workers who are incompetent, unnecessary or undermine his democratic mandate.

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Huge Percentage of EV Owners Want to Go Back to Normal Cars, Study Finds

Tesla Charging

Nearly half of American electric vehicle (EV) owners want to buy an internal combustion engine model the next time they buy a car, according to a new study from McKinsey and Company, a leading consulting firm.

Approximately 46 percent of Americans who own an EV want to go back to a standard vehicle for their next purchase, citing issues like inadequate charging infrastructure and affordability, according to McKinsey’s study, which was obtained and reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The study’s findings further suggest that the Biden administration’s EV push is struggling to land with American consumers, after 46 percent of respondents indicated that they are unlikely or very unlikely to purchase an EV in a June poll conducted by The Associated Press and the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute.

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Industry Groups Sue over Biden Regulation Requiring Electric School Buses, Trucks

Rich Moskowitz, AFPM General Counsel

A coalition of industry groups have filed a lawsuit challenging a Biden administration rule.

A dozen groups joined together to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for the Biden administration’s new rule, finalized earlier this year, which requires model 2027 trucks to meet strict emissions standards that critics say are meant to push out diesel and gas vehicles and to replace them with electric vehicles.

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New EPA Rules Will Require Carbon Capture Technology on All Existing Coal and New Gas Plants

Coal fired power plant

The administration’s announcement refers to carbon capture as “proven and cost-effective control technologies,” but critics have argued that the technology is expensive to scale up to a degree it can have any impact on carbon dioxide emissions and will drive up energy costs.

The Biden administration finalized four rules regarding power plants Thursday. One of the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules will require all existing coal plants and new natural gas-fired power plants to implement carbon capture technology.

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Commentary: Biden Weaponizes the Federal Government for His Own Reelection Campaign

President Joe Biden has taken every part of the federal government and transformed it into his personal reelection machine, creating a hyper-partisan election apparatus out of supposedly neutral federal agencies. And American taxpayers pay for all of it.

Just since the beginning of April, several explosive revelations have surfaced that show the extent to which Joe Biden has weaponized the federal government in election matters. This should come as no surprise, as the administration continues to unfairly weaponize the federal courts against January 6 defendants, and state and federal courts maliciously prosecute Donald Trump, his rival in the presidential election.

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Commentary: Remembering Nixon’s Legacy 30 Years After His Death

Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, died 30 years ago this week—on April 22, 1994. And while it may be hard to remember a Republican the left despised more than Donald J. Trump—Nixon probably takes the cake.

It was not so much how the former California Congressman and two-term Vice President governed or his introverted personality but rather his adversarial relationship with a hostile media, his sheer determination, intelligence, lawyerly command of the facts, exceptional understanding of both foreign and domestic policy, and his effectiveness as commander in chief that caused the left to view Nixon as persona non grata.

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Biden EPA Giving Millions to ‘Immigrant Justice’ Groups Registering, ‘Mobilizing’ Dem-Leaning Voting Bloc

New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice public assembly

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is handing out millions of taxpayer dollars to a coalition featuring two immigration-focused activist organizations, one which pushes voter registration for traditionally Democrat-leaning demographics.

As part of a $600 million round of grant funding issued in December 2023 to advance “environmental justice,” the EPA gave out $50 million to a Fordham University-led coalition including the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) and the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice (NJAIJ). The NYIC explicitly engages in “nationally recognized” voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts and pushed for a New York City law that allows non-citizens to vote, while the NJAIJ has advocated for same-day voter registration and maintains a voter registration portal on its website.

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‘The Swamp is Getting Deeper’: EPA Awards Billions from Biden’s Landmark Climate Bill to Organizations Loaded with Democrat Insiders

President Biden signing a bill

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded nearly $14 billion Thursday to three organizations with deep ties to the Biden administration and the Democratic Party.

The EPA announced the winners of $20 billion of funding from the massive Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a program created by President Joe Biden’s signature climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act. Among the selected awardees are Climate United, the Coalition for Green Capital and Power Forward Communities, three groups that are taking home almost $14 billion combined to establish financing operations for a wide variety of green technology and energy projects under the GGRF’s National Clean Investment Fund.

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‘Entirely Unachievable:’ Biden EPA Locks In Stringent Emissions Rule for Heavy-Duty Vehicles to Fight Climate Change

Joe Biden

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized aggressive emissions standards Friday for heavy-duty vehicles that will effectively require huge increases in the numbers of electric or zero-emission buses and trucks sold over the next decade.

The agency is projecting that the heavy-duty vehicle emissions standards for model years 2027 to 2032 could result in zero-emission or electric vehicles (EVs) making up 25 percent of new long-haul trucks sold and 40 percent of all new medium-sized truck sales by 2032, according to The New York Times. The EPA’s final emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles complements the agency’s recent release of the final tailpipe emissions standards for light- and medium-duty vehicles that has been characterized as an “EV mandate.”

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Biden EPA Locks in Stringent Emissions Rule for Heavy-Duty Vehicles to Fight Climate Change

Garbage Truck

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized aggressive emissions standards Friday for heavy-duty vehicles that will effectively require huge increases in the numbers of electric or zero-emission buses and trucks sold over the next decade.

The agency is projecting that the heavy-duty vehicle emissions standards for model years 2027 to 2032 could result in zero-emission or electric vehicles (EVs) making up 25% of new long-haul trucks sold and 40% of all new medium-sized truck sales by 2032, according to The New York Times. The EPA’s final emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles complements the agency’s recent release of the final tailpipe emissions standards for light- and medium-duty vehicles that has been characterized as an “EV mandate.”

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Biden Admin Finalizes Stringent Tailpipe Emissions Standards

Mechanic underneath car

The Biden administration unveiled its final tailpipe emissions standards for vehicles Wednesday, effectively requiring about 67 percent of all light-duty vehicles sold after model year 2032 to be electric vehicles (EVs) or hybrids.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) finalized standards rolled back some of the de facto EV production benchmarks for manufacturers proposed initially, but still require automakers to reach the final standards set forth in the agency’s April 2023 proposal. The agency finalized the standards as the American EV market is struggling: demand has not grown as quickly as expected, manufacturers are losing billions on their EV product lines, executives have backed away from near-term production targets and Biden administration subsidy programs to facilitate the creation of a nationwide EV charging network have so far failed to make much of an impact.

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Maine’s Public Schools Purchased Taxpayer-Subsidized Electric Buses but Say They are Defective

School Bus Driver

Maine’s Department of Education is reportedly urging school districts to stop using taxpayer-subsidized electric school buses that were purchased within the last year.

The districts reported problems with the new buses, which were supplied by Canada-based Lion Electric Co., last fall, according to CentralMaine.com. The windshields on the buses would leak whenever it rained, as the glass didn’t appear to be securely in place.

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Foreign Billionaire-Backed ‘Climate Power’ Pressuring Broadcasters to Censor Ads Critical of Biden’s EV Mandate

President Joe Biden

A green nonprofit that is indirectly funded by a foreign billionaire is pressuring broadcasters to drop advertisements that criticize the Biden administration’s massive electric vehicle (EV) agenda.

Climate Power wrote to numerous broadcasters this week demanding that they stop airing American Fuel and Petrochemicals Manufacturers (AFPM)-funded advertisements in swing state markets that rail against President Joe Biden’s plans to impose widespread EV adoption in the coming years. The charitable organization affiliated with Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss health care mogul and billionaire philanthropist, donates millions of dollars to the Fund for a Better Future, which was the fiscal sponsor for Climate Power until 2023, a spokesperson for Climate Power previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Biden’s Electric School Bus Program Faces the Daunting Challenge of Inadequate Utility Power

President Joe Biden’s signature $5 billion program to convert the nation’s school buses to an electric fleet has collided with a formidable challenge: a lack of charging infrastructure and power generation from local utilities.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s internal watchdog issued a report just before the New Year’s holiday that offered the latest evidence of a cart-before-horse dynamic in the Democratic push for green energy.

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Biden Admin Doles Out $600 Million to Activist Groups, Universities for ‘Environmental Justice’

Climate Protest

The Biden administration is shelling out $600 million in taxpayer funds to grantmaking organizations to distribute for “environmental justice” projects all across the country, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Wednesday.

The funds will go to 11 different organizations, which include universities and left-wing groups that focus on advancing social justice causes in addition to their environmental advocacy, according to the EPA’s announcement. Each of the recipients will in turn use the money to provide sub-grants to local organizations to pursue thousands of “environmental justice” projects like environmental jobs training programs and “healthy homes” initiatives.

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$33 Million in Federal Funding to Support Tucson Area Water Resources

Funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will be used to for water cleaning resources by developing a new treatment center in Tucson. 

Specifically, the facility would focus on PFAS chemicals, which the United States Environmental Protection Agency describes as “widely used” and “long-lasting,” but could also have negative health consequences when they make their way into water and other consumables. Out of $10 billion targeted toward getting chemicals out of water in the act, $33,520,000 is Tucson bound, according to a news release. 

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Rep. Eli Crane Leads Three Arizona Republicans in Warning New EPA Rule Will Increase Water Rates

Four of Arizona’s congressional Republicans submitted a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday, warning that a new rule about so-called “forever chemicals” will result in higher water rates and legal liability for Arizona businesses.

Representative Eli Crane (R-AZ-02) was joined by Representatives Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05), Paul Gosar (R-AZ-04), and Debbie Lesko (R-AZ-08) in a letter requesting the EPA modify its new rule to keep Arizonan citizens and businesses from bearing “the economic burden of any necessary remediation when they have had no association with water pollution.”

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U.S. Senator JD Vance Frustrated by Pace of East Palestine Derailment Cleanup

U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) is frustrated by the slow pace of cleanup from Norfolk Southern’s February train derailment and chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio.

Vance visited the derailment site and met with local leaders to discuss the cleanup status on Monday evening. According to Vance, the cleanup was supposed to be completed in July but now in the middle of August, it’s still nowhere near completion.

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2024 Presidential Hopefuls Address Questions About the Future of the EPA and Biden Administration’s Climate Legislation

Several 2024 Republican presidential candidates would defund the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and repeal President Joe Biden’s signature climate law if elected, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Gas prices are rising, power plants are closing and regulations are impacting internal combustion engine vehicles and appliances like water heaters. Along with slashing the EPA and repealing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), many GOP hopefuls also pledged to withdraw from the United Nations Paris Climate Agreement if they secure the White House in 2024, several candidates told the DCNF.

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Commentary: The Biden Admin Has a Bad Regulation for Every Room in Your House

2023 began with federal regulators targeting gas stoves, but we have since seen a host of other proposals going after washing machines, refrigerators, dishwashers, ceiling fans, water heaters, and others. They are all part of the Biden administration’s prioritization of the climate change agenda over the interests of consumers. Each runs the risk of boosting appliance prices, limiting choice, and compromising performance. And cumulatively, they add up to substantial headaches for homeowners that will only grow in the years ahead.

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EPA Targeting Companies for Bypassing Vehicle Emission Controls

In the last two years, the Environmental Protection Agency has fined companies millions of dollars across the U.S. for installing illegal mechanisms that bypass vehicle emission controls known as “defeat devices.” 

One manufacturer, Sinister Diesel agreed on Aug. 1 to pay the $1 million after pleading guilty to conspiracy and the manufacturing and selling of illegal defeat devices over the last ten years.

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EPA Poised to Turbocharge Biden’s Climate Agenda After Ripping Up Trump-Era Rule

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on July 7 rescinded a Trump-era EPA rule which required the agency to conduct benefit-cost analysis of any significant new air pollution rules.

While it was in effect, the rescinded benefit-cost analysis rule required the EPA to identify the specific problem a new air pollution regulation addresses, explain why market alternatives cannot solve that problem and distinguish between direct and indirect health benefits that an air pollution emission is expected to generate. The Biden EPA will be able to more freely pursue its regulatory agenda against fossil fuels using the Clean Air Act after issuing a final rescission of the benefit-cost rule.

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GOP Lawmakers Introduce Bills to Disarm Federal Bureaucrats

Several Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation which would disarm enforcement agents from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana introduced the No Funds for Armed Regulators Act of 2023 on June 30, joined by seven co-sponsors. The bill would disallow the use of taxpayer dollars to hire or retain armed regulatory enforcement agents in the EPA, DOL and IRS if it becomes law.

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Arizona Republican Lawmakers Oppose the Biden Administration’s Proposed EPA Regulations

Arizona Republican lawmakers are fighting back against the “disastrous impacts” the proposed changes to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules will have on Arizonans.

Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) and House Speaker Ben Toma (R-Peoria) sent two letters to the U.S. EPA in opposition to the EPA’s proposed regulations which would mandate a transition to electric cars and trucks from model year 2027 through model year 2032.

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Republican AGs Push Back Against ‘Reckless’ Plan from Biden’s EPA That Could Further Hobble American Coal

by Nick Pope   Several state attorneys general are engaging in legal battles against President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine whether or not his administration will be able to impose its costly plan for implementing a regulation designed to further incapacitate the American coal industry. Multiple states have already achieved early success in their legal challenges against the EPA’s federal implementation plan (FIP) for meeting ambient ozone standards of the 2015 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), the implementation of which could further restrict coal-fired power generation in 22 states, according to the FIP’s Federal Registry entry. Numerous state attorneys general are seeking to follow their own state implementation plans (SIPs) rather than the comparatively restrictive FIP the EPA wants to impose in order to have the states meet the ambient ozone standards. “President Biden doesn’t care if his radical agenda undermines our economy. His EPA’s reckless regulation will wreak havoc in the Commonwealth, forcing the shutdown of many of Kentucky’s coal-fired power plants—killing jobs and raising utility rates for Kentuckians—while further undermining American energy independence,” Republican Kentucky Attorney General David Cameron said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. Kentucky’s challenge has so far resulted in a stay against the EPA’s disapproval of its SIP, a…

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GOP House Settles Rift, Returns to Conservative Agenda in Passing Bill Protecting Gas Stoves

The rift with within the Republican House Conference that shut down floor votes last week appears to have been resolved enough for the chamber to resume voting, with the Tuesday passage of a marquee conservative bill to stop Biden administration initiatives to further regulate gas-powered stoves.

The Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act passed 248-180, after failing to get a final vote last week because 11 conservative-leaning conference members – in a nearly unprecedented move – blocked a preliminary procedural vote, essentially over what they considered House GOP leadership’s mishandling of the debt-ceiling agreement with Democrat President Joe Biden.

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Norfolk Southern Seeks to Dismiss Lawsuit Over East Palestine Train Derailment

Norfolk Southern Railway seeks to dismiss a mass class action lawsuit against it following the catastrophic train derailment that occurred in East Palestine, Ohio earlier this year.

The class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in Youngstown, is a collection of 31 separate lawsuits that residents and businesses from East Palestine and the surrounding areas brought against the railroad corporation. Earlier this year U.S. District Judge Benita Pearson ordered that all 31 cases be consolidated to streamline proceedings.

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House Follows Senate in Voting for Resolution to Halt Tougher EPA Vehicle Emission Standards

The GOP-led House on Tuesday voted in favor of a resolution to strike down the Environmental Protection Agency’s  emissions restrictions for heavy-duty trucks. 

The joint-chamber resolution, which passed the House by a 221-203 vote, was introduced by Republican lawmakers in February via the Congressional Review Act (CRA) – a law that allows Congress to reverse rules made by a federal agency.

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Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw Testifies at Ohio Statehouse

Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw testified to the Ohio Senate Select Committee on Rail Safety on Tuesday, over two months after the February 3rd train derailment in East Palestine.

Ohio Senators questioned Shaw over a wide range of topics related to the derailment and subsequent controlled release of toxic chemicals that negatively impacted the environment and the health and safety of residents, including long-term community assistance programs, two-person crew requirements, and safety requirements for tanker cars.

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Americans Less Concerned about Environment as Battle over Far-Reaching ‘Waters of the U.S.’ Hits Fever Pitch

As the battle over the controversial federal Waters of the United States environmental rule heats up, new polling shows that Americans are growing less concerned about the environment.

Newly released Gallup polling found a dip in environmental concerns, even though the Biden administration continues to push increasingly far-reaching policies.

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Biden Still Hasn’t Visited Derailment Area; Pennsylvania Legislators Wish He Would

Well over two months have passed since a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, less than a mile from Pennsylvania’s border, and President Joe Biden hasn’t visited affected communities in either state. Pennsylvania lawmakers are urging him to do so. 

Six weeks ago Biden said he would “be out there at some point.” The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether he has yet scheduled a visit. (Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg first went to the site more than two weeks after the derailment.)

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EPA Proposes New Standards to Require Two-Thirds of New Car Sales by 2032 Be EVs

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced what is being considered its strongest-ever proposed pollution standards for gas-powered vehicles – which if enacted would effectively mandate that 67 percent of new passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2032 must be zero-emission ones.

The rule has been expected for weeks and is a dramatic, proposed increase from President Biden’s stated goal of 50 percent zero-emission passenger car sales – including battery-powered electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles – by 2030. It would also likely and dramatically increase EV sales, which accounted for just 5.6 percent of new car sales in the U.S. last year, according to Road & Track.com.

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Commentary: The ‘Lower Energy Costs Act’ Could Be a Big Win for Americans

Before they scooted out of lawless and increasingly dangerous Washington, DC, for the Easter recess, the House of Representatives passed the most important energy legislation (emphasis on “energy”) Congress has considered in almost a decade.

The Lower Energy Costs Act is a buffet of various energy and permitting provisions ranging from an affirmation of the wisdom of exporting crude oil (which strengthens the United States’ own domestic oil and natural gas production) to a remedy for a nettlesome provision in the Clean Water Act that has given States a de facto veto over energy projects.

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Federal and State Environmental Protection Agency Officials Testify on East Palestine Derailment at U.S. House Hearing

Federal and state Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials were questioned about the East Palestine train derailment at a Tuesday hearing of the U.S. House Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials Subcommittee over a month after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio.

Debra Shore, the regional administrator of the U.S. EPA Region 5, and Anne Vogel, the director of the Ohio EPA, both gave testimony and detailed the actions they have taken in reaction to the incident.

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Hazardous Dioxin Chemicals Were Produced During the East Palestine Burn ‘It’s Not a Question of Maybe,’ Chemist Says

Although the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ordered rail company Norfolk Southern to test for dioxins following the catastrophic February 3rd train derailment, and says that East Palestine suggests a “low probability” of dioxin contamination a retired chemist told The Ohio Star that dioxins “were produced” during the burn “it’s not a question of maybe.”

The EPA has maintained there is a “low probability” that dioxins were released from the derailment based on its sampling for “indicator chemicals” that it says would signal the presence of dioxins in East Palestine.

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Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance Demands Biden Administration and EPA Remove Toxic Waste from East Palestine

On Monday, U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) pushed the Biden administration and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to transport dangerous waste to authorized facilities after seeing a pile of toxic waste in East Palestine, Ohio.

Vance visited the waste site after giving testimony at a March 9th U.S Senate railroad safety hearing regarding how the waste was still in East Palestine weeks after a railway catastrophe caused dangerous chemicals to contaminate the community.

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Ohio Governor DeWine Calls on U.S. EPA and Norfolk Southern to Authorize More Sites to Take East Palestine Contaminated Soil

The cleanup at the toxic train derailment site in East Palestine last month has stalled because Ohio is having problems locating sites to accept the 24,400 tons of excavated contaminated soil. According to Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s office only 2,980 tons have actually been removed so far.

DeWine says that some states with sites that are certified to take in hazardous materials aren’t accepting the soil. He said that refusing the soil is unfair to the residents of East Palestine, which isn’t where it belongs.

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Commentary: Pro-Market Reforms Lead to Fewer Chemical Spills

East Palestine Train Wreck

The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio has attracted the ire and attention of the public and government officials. Unfortunately, train disasters are just one of many contributors to the threat posed by environmental contamination. According to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data analyzed by The Guardian, the U.S. is averaging one chemical accident every two days. Some of the top culprits are water treatment plants, which regularly use hazardous inputs such as chlorine and sulfur dioxide in their operations. (Mostly) government-owned plants fail to place proper safeguards on these chemicals, resulting in dangerous exposures to the public. Policymakers should consider alternative approaches that incentivize careful treatment operations at affordable prices for consumers.

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Norfolk Southern CEO Tells US Senate Committee Vinyl Chloride Controlled Burn Decision ‘Made by a Unified Command Under the Direction of the Incident Commander,’ East Palestine Fire Chief Drabick

Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw faced questions about who authorized the controlled burn at a Senate hearing on Thursday as Washington lawmakers held their first hearing on railroad safety about a month after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio.

U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullins (R-OK) asked Shaw “when the vent and burn process was being made, who made those decisions and what were the considerations other than just burning it and letting the material burn off.”

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National Transportation Safety Board to Investigate Norfolk Southern Following Train Derailments

After a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed last month in East Palestine, Ohio, and a number of other “significant accidents,” the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced Tuesday that it will begin an investigation into Norfolk Southern.

The organization declared that it would investigate the railroad’s safety procedures and culture.
Only a few hours earlier, the railroad had reported that a conductor had been fatally injured at a steel mill in Ohio.

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