HEADLINES

Ambient Air Quality/EPA/NTAA/Tribes

Gizmodo – UN Tells Canada to Stop Building the Trans Mountain Pipeline

NPR – California Reservation’s Solar Microgrid Provides Power during Utility Shutoffs

CNN – Australia’s indigenous people have a solution for the country’s bushfires. And it has been around for 50,000 years

NPR – With Their Land in Flames, Aboriginals Warn Fires Show Deep Problems in Australia

Lewiston Sun Journal – Sweeping recommendations would overhaul Maine’s Indian land claims act

Indianz – Damming Little Colorado River for power projects is opposed by tribes, environmentalists

The Intercept – The War on the War on Cancer

New York Times – Why Is Air Pollution So Harmful? DNA May Hold the Answer

National Association of Clean Air Agencies – Washington Update

NEPA Changes

The Hill – Critics warn Trump’s latest environmental rollback could hit minorities, poor hardest

NPR – Trump Administration Proposes Major Changes to Bedrock Environmental Law

NY Times – Trump’s Move against Landmark Environmental Law Caps a Relentless Agenda

Utility Dive – Trump infrastructure proposal impacts ‘virtually every’ federal decision on environment: DOI Secretary

Climate Change/Energy

NPR – Hopi Look to Tourism, Ranching For Income after Coal Power Plant Closure

Reuters – BlackRock vows tougher stance on climate after activist heat

Ensia – How Can We Adapt to Climate Change? This Online Hub Has Answers

Ensia – More and More Homeowners Are Renovating Existing Homes to Make Them “Net Zero” Energy Consumers. Here’s How.

E&E News – Scientists see promise in new solar panel material

Utility Dive – Tri-State to shut New Mexico, Colorado coal plants by 2030, but move may not satisfy unhappy members

PR Newswire – Deloitte-Ballard Joint White Paper Assesses Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Solutions for Transportation

E&E News – Kan. should ease costs of aging coal plants – study

E&E News – DOE publishes first new efficiency standards since 2017

E&E News – Warming cost the U.S. an extra $24B – research

Reuters – U.S. coal-fired power plants closing fast despite Trump’s pledge of support for industry

Indianz – Trump administration’s push for U.S. uranium production opposed near Grand Canyon

NY Times – 2019 Was Second Hottest Year on Record

Utility Dive – DOE unveils plan to make US global storage leader by 2030, reduce foreign dependence

Utility Dive – Renewable advocates highlight ‘most effective’ path to net-zero emissions as House releases clean energy proposal

ENN – Pathways to a Low-Carbon Future

Toxics/Mobile Sources

Reuters – Trump administration moves closer to rolling back U.S. vehicle fuel economy increases

EPA – EPA Jumpstarts Cleaner Trucks Initiative

Reuters – Trump administration moves closer to rolling back U.S. vehicle fuel economy increases

Jalopnik – One of Climate Change’s Biggest Contributors Is in Your Car, But its Not Coming From the Tailpipe

EPA – Punch It Performance and Tuning Agrees to Stop Selling Illegal Devices That Defeat Emissions Control Systems of Vehicles in the Wake of Clean Air Act Enforcement Action

Indian Country Today – Drive. Ride. Rethink.

Yes Magazine – What We Could Do With a $5 Carbon Charge on Your Flight

Indoor Air Quality

Vox – Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits

EPA – Prevent Lung Cancer: Test Your Home for Radon

Be sure to subscribe to EPA’s IAQ Bulletins

Virgil Masayesva Excellence Award and TAMS Steering Committee

The TAMS Center is announcing a call for nominations for the Virgil Masayesva Tribal Air Programs Excellence Award and three (3) positions on the TAMS Steering Committee.  Further information and the nomination forms are online and can be accessed at Virgil Masayesva Excellence Award Nomination Form and TAMS Steering Committee Nomination Form. The deadline to submit the nominations is February 28, 2020. We sincerely appreciate your time to consider submitting a nomination. For further information, please contact either Farshid Farsi, TAMS-EPA Codirector ([email protected] or 702-784-8263), or Christopher Lee, TAMS-ITEP Codirector ([email protected]).

Ambient Air Quality/EPA/NTAA/Tribes

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U.S. EPA – EPA at 50: Progress for a Stronger Future

E&E News – Region 5 EPA chief stepping down

High Country News – Young Indigenous activists lead climate justice action in Alaska

The Hill – EPA’s independent science board questions underpinning of numerous agency rollbacks

NY Times – Science Panel Staffed With Trump Appointees Says E.P.A. Rollbacks Lack Scientific Rigor

Indian Country Today – Company to shut down inactive Mount Taylor uranium mine

CNN – Smoke in Australia’s capital is so bad that the agency responsible for emergency management shut down

Indian Country Today – Trump administration’s environmental protection is ‘a regulatory failure’

Sydney Morning Herald – Health impacts of bushfires won’t be known for years, experts say

National Association of Clean Air Agencies – Washington Update

Decade Wrap Up

Grist – We broke down the last decade of climate change in 7 charts

Gizmodo – The Satellite Images That Show a Decade of Climate Change

USA Today – 10 years to save planet Earth: Here are 6 imaginative climate change solutions

USA Today – Were the predictions we made about climate change 20 years ago accurate? Here’s a look

NPR – The Global Stories of 2019 That You Probably Missed

NPR – Reporters Pick Their Favorite Global Stories of the Decade

Climate Change/Energy

Indian Country Today – The sunrise ahead: What’s next for closed Navajo power plant

E&E News – NEPA climate overhaul could unleash energy projects

NY Times – Trump Rule Would Exclude Climate Change in Infrastructure Planning

NY Times – N.A.A.C.P. Tells Local Chapters: Don’t Let Energy Industry Manipulate You

Reuters – Trump to overhaul environmental review process, dismiss climate impacts: sources

ARS Technica – Ditching coal in the US is saving lives, helping crops

NPR – More Ice and Less Snow Gets a Chilly Reception in Anchorage, Alaska

NPR – California Cities Turn to Hired Hooves to Help Prevent Massive Wildfires

Ensia – As the Planet Warms, Unusual Crops Could Become Climate Saviors – But Only If We’re Willing to Eat Them

Ensia – How Can We Adapt to Climate Change? This Online Hub Has Answers

E&E News – N.Y. set to close last coal plant

NY Times – To Fight Climate Change, One City May Ban Heating Homes with Natural Gas

Toxics/Mobile Sources

E&E News – EPA wants to strengthen – not weaken – this truck regulation

The Hill – Critics skeptical of EPA plans for tougher truck standards

E&E News – House makes PFAS bill first order of business

Indoor Air Quality

Indian Country Today – The gift of coal for Hopi and Navajo families

ENN – Potentially Toxic Chemicals from LCDs in Nearly Half of Household Dust Samples Tested

KRSL – Governor Proclaims January as Kansas Radon Action Month

The American Prospect – Death by Recycled Air

This Is Reno – Updates to Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act now in effect

Be sure to subscribe to EPA’s IAQ Bulletins

Yahoo Finance – Emissions Soar As Permian Flaring Frenzy Breaks New Records

NY Times – Climate Change Is Ravaging the Arctic, Report Finds

You can help NTAA publish the 2020 Status of Tribal Air Report! The NTAA STAR helps tell the story of Tribal Air Programs, why additional funding for Tribes is critical to advance air quality, and is a great resource for Tribes. You can help by calling into the STAR planning calls starting on January 8th at 2pm ET. Calls will take place every other week until publication in May of 2020. To learn more, contact NTAA Project Director Andy Bessler.

Ambient Air Quality/EPA/NTAA/Tribes

EPA – Power Sector Programs Progress Report

AP News – Documents: Mining Company writing own environmental report

NY Times – It’s a Vast, Invisible Climate Menace. We Made It Visible.

Reasons To Be Cheerful – Power Struggle

CARB – 2019 Community Air Grants Awardees

Editor’s Note: this year’s awardees include the Blue Lake Rancheria, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, and the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians!

EPA – EPA proposes air quality plan for oil and gas emissions on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation

MPR – North Dakota, tribe to develop Dakota Access pipeline spill plan

National Association of Clean Air Agencies – Washington Update

COP25 Coverage

The Hill – Climate negotiators postpone decision on carbon markets

NPR – U.N. Climate Summit Goes To Extra Time, but Ends with Major Questions Unresolved

Indian Country Today – Breaking: Governments end climate talks with no deal

NY Times – U.N. Climate Talks End with Few Commitments and a ‘Lost’ Opportunity

CarbonBrief – COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid

Climate Change/Energy

Cronkite News – Arctic to Arizona: NAU professor explains how climate change affects everyone

Indian Country Today – ‘No strong sea ice layer’ and the Arctic is ‘unsafe for travel, hunting, our future’

Chicago Daily Herald – Thousands of dead Alaska seabirds are washing ashore, for a fifth year. Experts call that a climate ‘red flag

The Atlantic – How Coal Country Becomes Solar Country

CNN Business – Africa’s ‘first fully solar-powered village’ wants to be a model for a renewable future

NPR – Powered By Faith, Religious Groups Emerge As a Conduit for a Just Solar Boom

E&E News – Fear of famine rises as climate gets hotter

E&E News – Industry warned of tariff ‘devastation.’ That didn’t happen

CarbonBrief – Interactive: When will the Arctic see its first ice-free summer?

U of T News – Halting climate change means a world without fossil fuels – not merely curbing emissions: U of T researchers

CNN Business – Goldman Sachs is first big US bank to rule out loans for Arctic drilling

Financial Times – Bank of England to set up tough climate stress tests

Toxics/Mobile Sources

CNBC – GM expects Cadillac to be majority, if not all, EVs by 2030

Ensia – Opinion: In the Absence of Strong U.S. Government Regulation, Communities Need to Take a Holistic Approach to Pesticide Use

EPA- U.S. Refiners to Deliver Cleaner Marine Diesel Fuel with Key Regulatory Change

AP- Multi-state pact could curb transportation carbon emissions

Indoor Air Quality

NBC – E-cigarettes linked to lung problems, first long-term study on vaping finds

Wired – The Quest for Clean Air

Vice – I Bought an Air-Quality Monitor and My Life Will Never Be the Same

Be sure to subscribe to EPA’s IAQ Bulletins 

TOP STORIES

Time – Person of the Year: Climate activist Greta Thunberg has succeeded in turning vague anxieties about the planet into a worldwide movement calling for global change

Green Car Congress – Study finds rapid health benefits following air pollution reduction

CBS News – “The world from our childhood is no longer here”: Report details drastic changes as Arctic warms

Ambient Air Quality/EPA/NTAA/Tribes

US News & World Report – Montana Tribe’s Quest for Recognition Advances in Congress

Minnesota Daily – Students gather, exploring relationship between climate change, Indigenous peoples

Tahoe Daily Tribune – Nevada tribes awarded $5.4 million in EPA grants

EPA – EPA Takes Further Actions to Improve the NSR Permitting Program

NPR – Big Money Is Building A New Kind Of National Park In The Great Plains

E&E News – Kavanaugh opens door to carbon rule change

E&E News – Air office appointee fought climate, emission rules

Indian Country Today – Arctic climate is changing two and a half times faster than rest of the planet

Reuters – Air pollution tied to hospitalizations for wide range of illnesses

Vox – Air pollution is much more harmful than you know

USA Today – California is home to 15 of the 30 places in the US with the worst air pollution

National Association of Clean Air Agencies – Washington Update

Climate Change/Energy

Tacoma News Tribune – Puyallup Tribe passes resolution declaring climate emergency

Yes Magazine – Alaska’s Melting Glaciers Tell the Story of Climate Change

Colorlines – Yankton Sioux Nation Struggling To Recover From Climate Disasters without Federal Assistance

Reuters – Tech, climate change creating new inequalities, U.N. says

Indian Country Today – Navajo coal company looks to a future without tribal guarantee

NY Times – Florida Keys Deliver a Hard Message: As Seas Rise, Some Places Can’t Be Saved

BBC – Climate change: Oceans running out of oxygen as temperatures rise

NPR – Europe Is Burning U.S. Wood As Climate-Friendly Fuel, But Green Groups Protest

NPR – Alaska Cod Fishery Closes and Industry Braces for Ripple Effect

NY Times – Climate Change Is Accelerating, Bringing World ‘Dangerously Close’ to Irreversible Change

Ensia – Yes, It’s Still Up To You To Do Something About Climate Change

E&E News – Move over, coal: Gas now emits more CO2 in U.S.

Toxics/Mobile Sources

Reuters – Trump says U.S. will finalize new fuel efficiency rules next year

E&E News – How PFAS negotiations fell apart

NY Times – For Moving Mountains, or Climbing Them, Jeep’s Wrangler Goes Diesel

CNN – EPA watchdog says White House budget office blocked part of its investigation into controversial trucks rule

Indoor Air Quality

ACAAI – Prenatal and early life exposure to multiple air pollutants increases odds of toddler allergies

Western Mass News – Stagnant indoor air could be making you sick

Be sure to subscribe to EPA’s IAQ Bulletins