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Court Ruling Puts Millions of People at Risk from Potentially Deadly Air Pollution

Statement from Andy Darrell, Senior Advisor, Environmental Defense Fund

Statement from Vickie Patton, General Counsel for Environmental Defense Fund

To better understand the disproportionate burden associated with warehouses and other major truck-attracting facilities in New Jersey, Environmental Defense Fund deployed a peer-reviewed framework called Proximity Mapping, which helps identify communities living close to facilities of concern.

A report released Tuesday, June 18, 2024 by Environmental Defense Fund and the Coalition for Healthy Ports NY/NJ traces the growth of mega-warehouses in New Jersey and associated pollution from diesel trucks across New Jersey.

Earthjustice clients and Environmental Defense Fund moved to intervene in a lawsuit designed to stop an Environmental Protection Agency action that would significantly reduce cancer-causing pollution. 

Environmental Defense Fund is urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reject attempts to block EPA protections against climate pollution from power plants.

(This post was co-authored by EDF analyst Jolie Villegas) The Environmental Protection Agency’s recent updates of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards include several steps that provide substantial public health benefits by reducing toxic air pollution from coal plants. In our last blog post we wrote about one of those steps – closing the “lignite …

A broad coalition of health and environmental groups, including Environmental Defense Fund, will help defend EPA’s updated and strengthened Mercury and Air Toxics Standards against a court challenge.

The Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are the most ambitious environmental laws in U.S. history — and already, they’re improvin

Ten of the nation’s leading health and environmental groups, including Environmental Defense Fund, plan to go to court to defend EPA’s pollution standards for new heavy-duty vehicles like freight trucks and buses.

Medium and heavy-duty vehicles (MHDVs) are major sources of harmful air pollution and greenhouse gases, and disproportionately burden communities of color. To study the impact of potential policy interventions, EDF estimated pollution changes and health impacts for the 7-county Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) region for two policy scenarios: 1. Implementation of the Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) regulation, and 2. a full transition to 100% zero tailpipe emission medium and heavy-duty vehicles (eMHDVs).

White paper from EDF provides details on the capabilities of new technologies for detecting landfill methane – including satellites, remote sensing technologies, and drones – and describes advances at the state level.

(This post was co-authored by EDF’s Peter Zalzal) When organic waste ends up in landfills, it produces methane — a powerful climate pollutant —as it decomposes. In the U.S., landfills are our third largest source of methane and a major driver of climate change. They also emit large amounts of health-harming and even cancer-causing pollution,

  By Neda Deylami Misinformation about zero-emission vehicles and confusion around federal Environmental Protection Agency standards versus those states can adopt under the Clean Air Act waiver has left many manufacturers, small businesses and fleet managers wondering what market-based policies like the Advanced Clean Trucks rule could mean for their operations and bottom line.  The …

By Neda Deylami. This blog was co-authored by José Acosta-Córdova, Senior Transportation Policy Analyst at LVEJO Transportation accounts for almost one-third of Illinois’ greenhouse gas emissions — the sector responsible for the most GHG emissions in the state. Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, such as delivery vans, transit buses and large tractor-trailers are a disproportionate contributor …

As the impacts of climate change reveal themselves to North Carolinians in the form of heat, flooding, wildfires, drought, and increasingly intense and more frequent tropical storms, the case for urgent action to combat climate change is strengthening. Our state has made important strides, setting vehicle electrification goals and power sector emissions reductions directives, but …

The spring of 2024 saw a flurry of new, historic U.S. climate regulations.

Hazel Chandler and her daughter Jen have made fighting for the climate a family tradition.

Statement of EDF President Fred Krupp

To better understand the disproportionate community health burden associated with warehouses in Illinois, Environmental Defense Fund deployed a peer-reviewed framework called Proximity Mapping. Findings include that at least 1 in 6 Illinois residents lives within a half mile of a mega-warehouse.

A new report released Wednesday, April 24, 2024 by the Environmental Defense Fund traces the growth of mega-warehouses in Illinois communities, driven in-part by the e-commerce boom.

A chemical company has dropped its plans to burn plastic waste in a small Pennsylvania town, but the industry is still pushing this risky, polluting technology. With the world’s first global plastics treaty on the line, health and environmental advocates are pushing back against the industry’s fake plastic recycling solution. 

Statement of Alice Henderson, EDF Director and Lead Counsel for Transportation and Clean Air

The number of liquid natural gas export terminals along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas is growing. President Biden has issued a temporary pause on approvals for new facilities to better assess the risks they pose to climate and the health of local communities.