Environmental history

Patrick Parenteau

Professor of Law, Vermont Law School

In a highly anticipated but not unexpected 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled on June 30, 2022, that the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act.

The ruling doesn’t take away the EPA’s power to regulate carbon emissions from power plants, but it makes federal action harder by requiring the agency to show that Congress has charged it to act – in an area where Congress has consistently failed to act.

The Clean Power Plan, the policy at the heart of the ruling, never took effect because the court blocked it in 2016, and the EPA now plans to develop a new policy instead. Nonetheless, the court went out of its way to strike it down in this case and reject the agency’s interpretation of what the Clean Air Act permitted.

Having said what the EPA cannot do, the court gave no guidance on what the agency can do about this urgent problem. Beyond climate policy, the ruling poses serious questions about how the court will view other regulatory programs. Continue reading →

Keith Johnson (Jamaica), Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the Conference (left), United Nations Secretary-General U Thant (center) and Maurice F. Strong, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (right). (UN photo).

By Peter Dykstra
Environmental Health News

In 1972, world leaders had gathered in Stockholm in an unprecedented acknowledgement that we were running into trouble. The gathering hammered out a weighty Statement of Principles. It was the first draft of an owner’s manual for planet Earth, but it left much to do.

Two decades later, the site was Rio de Janeiro. World leaders addressed the hopes for Rio:

“There are those who say economic growth and environmental protection are not compatible. Well, let them come to the United States.″ – U.S. President George H.W. Bush

″The ecological debt should be paid, not the foreign debt. Hunger must disappear, not man.” – Cuban President Fidel Castro

“We are ready to assume our share and hope other industrial countries will do the same. … We are determined to live up to our responsibilities to developing countries.” – German Chancellor Helmut Kohl

″Developed countries have a greater obligation to find solutions and to transfer technology. … Protection of the environment must respect the sovereignty and independence of each country.” – Chinese President Li Peng

Journalist George Monbiot was a tad more cynical about Rio’s rhetoric and intentions:

“It sounds lovely, doesn’t it? It could be illustrated with rainbows and psychedelic unicorns and stuck on the door of your toilet. But without any

Continue reading →

By Bill Kovarik 

From The Conversation, Dec. 9, 2021

On the frosty morning of Dec. 9, 1921, in Dayton, Ohio, researchers at a General Motors lab poured a new fuel blend into one of their test engines. Immediately, the engine began running more quietly and putting out more power.

The new fuel was tetraethyl lead. With vast profits in sight – and very few public health regulations at the time – General Motors Co. rushed gasoline diluted with tetraethyl lead to market despite the known health risks of lead. They named it “Ethyl” gas.

It has been 100 years since that pivotal day in the development of leaded gasoline. As a historian of media and the environment, I see this anniversary as a time to reflect on the role of public health advocates and environmental journalists in preventing profit-driven tragedy.

Lead and death

By the early 1920s, the hazards of lead were well known – even Charles Dickens and Benjamin Franklin had written about the dangers of lead poisoning.

When GM began selling leaded gasoline, public health experts questioned its decision. One called lead a serious menace to public health, and another called concentrated tetraethyl lead a “malicious and creeping” poison.

Continue reading →