The Rs 230-crore reduction in the budgetary allocation to the environment ministry has drawn flak from environmentalists who say it may slow down or completely halt green initiatives. Besides the shrunk budget, they also feel that the Centre has not clarified how a separate amount of Rs 2,217 crore, set aside for tackling air pollution in 42 cities with minimum population of one million, will be utilised. The total budget allocated for the ministry this year is Rs 2,869.93 crore while last year it was Rs 3,100 crore. This implies that a number of environmental measures could be slowed down or halted, said Avinash Chanchal, a Climate Campaigner for the Greenpeace India.
Black History Month
February is Black History Month, and DEC joins the rest of the nation in paying tribute to African American men and women whose significant contributions are woven into the fabric of America s culture. Below DEC is bringing attention to some of the most prolific environmental game changers of yesterday and today.
Paying Tribute to a Legacy
Members of the Civilian Conservation Corps
Unit 1251 C II in the 1930s.
In 1933, to combat the turmoil from the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and enlisted thousands of men and women to undertake public works projects and battle significant environmental issues. To address the impact of poor farming practices, deforestation, and destructive pests that destroyed thousands of acres of usable land across the nation, the CCC worked to reforest an estimated one million acres of land to help solve these crises.
Several aspects of a Trump-era EPA policy were found to have let states skirt rules aimed at cutting harmful emissions.
Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner train rumbles over a trestle at Gaviota State Park, California, around sunset in September 2020. (Courthouse News photo / Chris Marshall)
WASHINGTON (CN) The D.C. Circuit agreed with conservationists Friday that the Clean Air Act contained several illegal loopholes that let states manipulate clean air requirements.
Since 1990, the Clean Air Act has required states to demonstrate that they have met emissions-reduction milestones by fixed deadlines. Under a new standard the Environmental Protection Agency introduced in 2018, however, states did not need to show actual data. Instead, they could choose to prove their emission-reduction compliance by showing a few compliance measures from the plan that they have implemented.
[co-author: Dean Brower]
On 19 January 2021, the eve of inauguration for the Biden Administration, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (D.C. Circuit) struck down the Affordable Clean Energy Rule (ACE Rule).
1 Issued under the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the ACE Rule repealed and replaced the formerly enacted Clean Power Plan (CPP)
2 and sought to establish a more narrowly defined framework for the regulation of power plant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
3 As a premise for the ACE Rule, the Trump EPA argued that Section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), codified at 42 U.S.C. § 7411, contains clear and unambiguous language limiting the EPA’s emission reduction measures to improvements “at” and “to” existing GHG emissions sources.
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DC Circuit Vacates Trump s Ace Rule and Deals Biden s EPA New Hand for Regulating Power Plant Greenhouse Gas Emissions Tuesday, January 26, 2021
On 19 January 2021, the eve of inauguration for the Biden Administration, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (D.C. Circuit) struck down the Affordable Clean Energy Rule (ACE Rule).
1 Issued under the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the ACE Rule repealed and replaced the formerly enacted Clean Power Plan (CPP)
2 and sought to establish a more narrowly defined framework for the regulation of power plant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
3 As a premise for the ACE Rule, the Trump EPA argued that Section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), codified at 42 U.S.C. § 7411, contains clear and unambiguous language limiting the EPA’s emission reduction measures to improvements “at” and “to” existing GHG emissions sources.