Air

"The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed a stricter standard for smog-causing pollutants that would bring substantial health benefits to millions of Americans while imposing large costs on industry and local governments."

"To ensure that the most vulnerable Americans are better protected from exposure to lead, the U.S. EPA is proposing to revise the monitoring requirements for measuring airborne lead."

"A $93 million court settlement requiring Duke Energy, one of the America's largest electric power companies, to eliminate sulfur dioxide emissions from a coal-fired plant in Indiana, was reached Tuesday, state and federal officials said."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [Tuesday] finalized a rule setting stricter exhaust emission standards and cleaner fuel standards for large marine diesel engines on large U.S.-flagged ships, a part of the agency’s long-term strategy to reduce harmful marine diesel emissions."

"Around the world, whenever airborne particles increase, so do deaths from heart and lung diseases. Now new evidence is emerging that some particles may be more dangerous than others. A growing body of research – much of it in New York City – suggests that breathing nickel and other metals may put acute stress on the lungs and heart, resulting in illnesses and deaths at particulate levels below national standards."

"Government regulators have found high levels of manganese, a dangerous metal that can affect the brain, in the air outside a school in eastern Ohio."

"Pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls are among the contaminants hitching an airborne ride to the United States and other parts of the Western Hemisphere on dust storms blowing out of West Africa. That's according to new research presented at the just-completed annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry."

"U.S. EPA moved closer yesterday to finalizing new engine and fuel standards for the largest ocean-bound ships by sending the draft rules to the White House for review."

"The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed new air quality regulations for sulfur dioxide emissions, which come mostly from power plants and industrial facilities, expecially those that burn coal."