Environment | WPN World People News

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a new annual report, entitled the Automotive Trends Report, which provides the public with a single source of information about new light-duty vehicle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, fuel economy, technology data, and auto manufacturers' performance in meeting the agency’s GHG emissions standards. The report shows that auto manufacturers continue increasing fuel economy and reducing pollution through innovation.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is awarding a Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) Clean Diesel Funding Assistance Program grant totaling $716,115 to the American Lung Association to reduce diesel emissions in fleets of United Parcels Service (UPS) vehicles operating in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

President Trump signed into law S.483, the Pesticide Registration Improvement Extension Act of 2018, also known as PRIA. This newest version of PRIA passed unanimously in the House and the Senate. It provides the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with more resources to evaluate pesticide registrations and ensures the preservation of two rules that are vital to the protection of workers and consumers who are exposed to pesticides in agricultural, residential, and commercial settings: the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard (WPS) and the Certification of Pesticide Applicators (CPA) rule.

North Atlantic whales are dying fast, and scientists warn it’s now or never if we want to keep them from going extinct. Threats facing the whales are variable and complex, and the bipartisan Scientific Assistance for Very Endangered (“SAVE”) Right Whales Act would fund the research urgently needed to identify innovative technologies that could give these whales a chance.

Acting Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt announced a proposal to strip federal Endangered Species Act protections for wolves across nearly the entire lower-48 states, reversing gray wolf recovery in the United States.

For more than a week, devastating fires have raged in Mount Kenya National Park, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1997 and a part of the Mount Kenya Biosphere Reserve since 1978.

IUCN Director General Inger Andersen has been appointed to the post of Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) by the United Nations General Assembly.

Washington, D.C. — News reports indicate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is ending talks with California about limits on climate pollution from cars. The Trump EPA proposed last year to roll back federal carbon pollution limits set during the Obama administration, and also to erase state limits that have been adopted by California and over a dozen other states. Earthjustice — along with numerous other organizations as well as states, cities, and companies — filed comments in October defending the authority of California and other states to limit carbon emissions, and urging EPA to keep and strengthen the federal standards. But the end of talks with California would signal that the Trump EPA intends to finalize the rollback soon.

In a case watched closely both by polluting industries and clean water advocates across the nation, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up an appeal of a Clean Water Act case out of Hawaiʻi concerning treated sewage flowing into the Pacific Ocean from injection wells.

The deal reached between MEPs and the Romanian Presidency of the Council on Monday night provides for a legally binding 30% CO2 reduction target for new lorries by 2030, with an intermediate target of 15% by 2025.