Read the full story in the National Law Review.
On June 12, 2019, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) announced its seven enforcement and compliance assurance priority areas for fiscal years 2020-2023. One of the National Compliance Initiatives includes “Stopping Aftermarket Defeat Devices for Vehicles and Engines.” Specifically, the Agency expressed that it will have a focus on reducing aftermarket defeat device manufacture, sale, and installation across vehicle types.
Read the full story from Michigan Radio.
A Michigan science advisory workgroup released recommendations on Thursday for the state to implement some of the strictest standards in the nation for PFAS.
Read the full story from New Hampshire Public Radio.
State environmental officials on Friday proposed what would be some of the lowest limits in the country for four types of PFAS chemicals in public water supplies and groundwater.
The numbers are far lower than what the state originally had planned, and lower than the federal advice New Hampshire currently uses as law.
The proposals are now much closer to advice from the Centers for Disease Control, and to pending plans from states like Michigan and New Jersey.
Read the full story at The Hill.
Eleven Democratic attorneys general from across the country have filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), arguing the agency has failed to effectively regulate asbestos.
The agency announced a rule in April to restrict the substance but stopped short of banning it outright, a move critics say could open the door to new uses of asbestos.
Read the full story from the Washington Post.
When you watch a local television weather forecast Friday, look closely. You might spot your hometown meteorologist showing his or her stripes.
Some weather presenters don ties or earrings, a pattern of red-and-blue stripes draped across the articles. Others might project an image of the corresponding stripe array behind them via a monitor or green screen, the colorful assortment of lines resembling a tie-dyed bar code. And in a sense, each collection of stripes is a sort of bar code, containing vitally important information: climate information.
The simple graphics — originally created by climate scientist Ed Hawkins — leave a striking visual impression. In general, the bars transition from cool deep blues and azures on the left to warm yellows, oranges and even reds on the right. Each vertical stripe represents a year, its color corresponding to temperature anomalies. It’s an easily accessible way to convey an alarming trend.
Read the full story from Sandia National Laboratories.
New insights about how to understand and ultimately control the chemistry of ignition behavior and pollutant formation have been discovered in research led by Sandia. The discovery eventually will lead to cleaner, more efficient internal combustion engines.
“Our findings will allow the design of new fuels and improved combustion strategies,” said Nils Hansen, Sandia researcher and lead author of the research. “Making combustion cleaner and more efficient will have a huge impact, reducing energy use around the globe.”
The work, which focuses on the chemical science of low-pressure flame measurements, is featured in the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute and was selected as a distinguished paper in Reaction Kinetics for the 37th International Symposium on Combustion. Authors include Nils, Xiaoyu He, former Sandia intern Rachel Griggs and former Sandia postdoctoral fellow Kai Moshammer, who is now at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Germany. The research was funded by the DOE’s Office of Science.
Read the full story in the New Hampshire Union Leader.
The state Department of Justice has lined up six nationally known law firms to represent New Hampshire in its landmark lawsuit against major chemical companies over contamination from chemicals used in products with trade names like Teflon and Scotchgard.
Read the full story from UPI.
Corals can help scientists track ancient climate patterns, but new research suggests that traditional analysis methods for analyzing coral’s ancient growth aren’t as accurate as previously thought.
Luckily, scientists have developed an improved method, a combination of high-resolution microscopic analysis and geochemical modeling. Researchers described the new technique this week in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.
View the comic at The Guardian.
Until recently we didn’t know how much plastic was piling up around us. When we found out, the picture wasn’t pretty
Read the full story in Forbes.
Innovators are being invited to enter a Circular Economy Challenge, one of MIT’s “Solve” initiatives, as part of a growing push towards products that generate zero waste with minimal environmental impact.
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