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...That's why a decision issued on Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Appeals Board is so important. Responding to a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club over a new coal plant being build on American Indian reservation land in Utah, the board ruled that the EPA has no valid reason to refuse to regulate the CO2 emissions that come from new coal-powered plants. The decision pointed to a May 2007 ruling by the Supreme Court that recognized CO2, the main cause of climate change, is indeed a pollutant under the federal Clean...
Another approach is to rely on alternative energy sources. According to the EPA, hospitals could shift 30% of their energy requirements to renewables, like wind and solar, without sacrificing quality of care. In terms of how they buy energy, "hospitals have a choice," says DeDominicis. "The choice can impact human health - buy it right, impact it right, use it right...
...reflect reality, by raising the standard to 35 m.p.g., it mandates a relative increase in fuel economy of about 40%. But the government's double bookkeeping still matters - especially with the NHTSA set to issue final regulations that will help guide automakers to meet the new standard. An EPA analysis from September shows that the 35-m.p.g. CAFE standard will translate to 27 to 28 m.p.g. under real-world conditions - about the same fuel efficiency that the current CAFE standard purports to enforce. "The program is undermined and the public confidence in policymakers is undermined," says Mike Walsh, the former...
...EPA's new tests account for faster driving, acceleration and deceleration and air-conditioning use - in other words, the way most real people drive. As a result fuel-economy ratings have dropped about 12% for city driving and about 8% for highway driving. When the new tests kicked in, a 2006 Toyota Prius, for instance, went from having a 55 m.p.g. combined efficiency rating to 46 m.p.g. - overnight...
That's partly due to the fact that while the EPA rates the fuel economy of vehicles on a model-by-model basis, the calculation of CAFE falls to the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA), part of the Department of Transportation. Under the laws that have created and modified CAFE, the NHTSA isn't allowed to revise its tests - meaning it's stuck using tests that haven't really been updated since CAFE was established...