Latest news with #EPA
UPI
2 minutes ago
- Politics
- UPI
Lithuanian Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas resigns in face of corruption probe
Lithuanian Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas resigned Thursday amid a corruption probe. File Photo by Valda Kalnina/EPA July 31 (UPI) -- Lithuanian Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas resigned on Thursday following investigations of his unethical financial dealings that prompted protests. "Just over an hour ago, I informed the president that I have made the decision to resign from the position of prime minister," Palcukas said in a statement. "I also announce that I have decided to step down from my position as leader of the LSDP." His resignation is expected to trigger the fall of the Cabinet, as they are potentially leaving the country, leaving no government. Paluckas was given a two-week ultimatum following his scandal involving EU loans and questionable business ties linked to his relatives, which led to an investigation. "As prime minister, I do not feel that I have made any fundamental mistakes or violations. I have carried out my duties honestly, to the best of my understanding and ability," he said. The media had revealed that he never paid a fine of $18,000 in connection with a 2021 criminal case, "rat poison scandal." He was also sentenced to two years in prison, but never ended up spending any time behind bars. President Gitanas Nauseda said the coalition-building process is underway. "There is more than one candidate who could fully carry out the duties of prime minister," Nausėda said, adding that the next candidate will be fully investigated to avoid "another situation like this."
Novaya Gazeta Europe
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Novaya Gazeta Europe
Russian Justice Ministry adds Alexey Navalny's memoir to list of extremist materials — Novaya Gazeta Europe
Alexey Navalny's memoir Patriot is on display at a bookstore in New York, 22 October 2024. Photo: EPA/SARAH YENESEL The Russian Justice Ministry has added Alexey Navalny's internationally best-selling memoir Patriot to a list of 'extremist materials', effectively banning the book and removing it from all but a handful of libraries. The updated list now includes the Russian edition of the book, which was published posthumously by the Lithuanian publishing house One Book Publishing in 2024. According to the ministry, Patriot was recognised as an extremist text in June by a court in northwestern Russia's Leningrad region. However, no public statement on the book being banned in Russia had previously been issued. Ivan Zhdanov, the director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which Navalny founded, said that Navalny's book being added to the register of extremist materials was 'only to be expected of Putin' on Wednesday, adding that there was nevertheless still 'no criminal liability for reading the book' and saying he was 'sure that even more people will read it now'.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- Automotive
- The Guardian
Trump bids to scrap almost all pollution regulations – can anything stop this?
The Trump administration is attempting to unmake virtually all climate US regulations in one fell swoop. At an Indiana truck dealership on Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled a proposal to rescind the 16-year-old landmark legal finding which allows the agency to limit planet-heating pollution from cars and trucks, power plants and other industrial sources. 'The proposal would, if finalized, amount to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States,' said the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin. The agency's primary argument for reversing the so-called 'endangerment finding' claims the Clean Air Act gives the EPA the authority to regulate only emissions that locally threaten health. Officials also laid out an 'alternative' justification for the move, which experts say relies heavily on climate denialism. Once the proposal is published in the Federal Register, the EPA will open a public comment period. Once it finalizes the rule, it will face an array of legal challenges. But if the rollback prevails, it would leave the EPA without any authority to regulate greenhouse gas pollution amid ever-compounding evidence that a swift reduction in these emissions is needed to avert catastrophic global warming. 'The importance of the endangerment finding can't be overstated,' said the renowned climate scientist Michael Mann. 'It's been the primary tool that we have had to actually regulate carbon emissions and meet our obligations under various global agreements to address the climate crisis.' The endangerment finding, enshrined in 2009, found that greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health. It followed a 2007 supreme court ruling which found such gases were pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act. The finding has long been a target for elimination by climate deniers. Democratic administrations used it and 'twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year', according to Zeldin. The proposed undoing of the finding followed Trump's January executive order on 'Unleashing American Energy', which directed the agency to submit a report 'on the legality and continuing applicability' of the endangerment finding. It comes as part of Trump's 'drill, baby, drill' agenda, which aims to boost already booming fossil-fuel production. Along with the scrapping of the endangerment finding, the EPA said it will kill off regulations limiting pollution coming from cars and will stymie a rule that curbs the amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, spewing from oil and gas drilling operations. Officials have laid out an array of legal justifications for the rollback. The main one rests on the idea that the Clean Air Act provides authority to regulate 'air pollution that endangers public health or welfare through local or regional exposure' – but not emissions that warm the planet. Zealan Hoover, former senior adviser to the EPA administrator, said that argument does not pass muster. 'The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to regulate any air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,' he said. 'The Trump administration is staking out the extreme position that climate pollution does not harm the physical or financial health of Americans. That flies in the face of decades of scientific research and the firsthand experience of millions facing sea level rise, extreme heat, floods and fires.' The EPA is also using the so-called 'major questions doctrine' as an argument for the rollback, said Michael Gerrard, a professor of environmental and energy law at Columbia Law School and faculty chair of Columbia's Earth Institute. Embraced by conservative justices, it says congressional authorization is needed for action on issues of broad importance and societal impact. 'They're saying that, regardless of what the text of the Clean Air Act may say, the endangerment finding is so economically and politically significant that the EPA can't issue it without explicit congressional authorization,' said Gerrard. In a 150-page report also published on Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DoE) also laid out a separate argument for the move, which attempts to undercut the scientific consensus on the climate crisis. Experts say it relies on misleading scientific claims, such as the idea that carbon is beneficial for agriculture, which downplays research suggesting climate-driven extreme weather damages crop yields, and the debunked idea that extreme cold is more dangerous than extreme heat. Reached for comment, a Department of Energy spokesperson, Ben Dietderich, said: 'This report critically assesses many areas of ongoing scientific inquiry that are frequently assigned high levels of confidence – not by the scientists themselves but by the political bodies involved, such as the United Nations or previous presidential administrations.' The UN and the US have regularly convened top scientists to produce scientific climate reports, which warn that urgent action to curb emissions is needed. Last week, the secretary general of the UN, António Guterres, gave a speech in which he said the world is on the brink of a breakthrough in the climate fight and fossil fuels are running out of road. In its proposal, the EPA claimed eliminating US carbon pollution 'would not have a scientifically measurable impact' on the global climate, on public health. But by warming the planet and increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events like wildfires and floods, greenhouse gas emissions pose grave threats to society, said Mann. 'It isn't remotely credible to argue that carbon pollution isn't a major, if not the greatest, threat now to human health,' he said. With the proposed change, 'the EPA is telling us in no uncertain terms that US efforts to address climate change are over', said Abigail Dillen, president of the environmental legal non-profit Earthjustice. 'For the industries that contribute most to climate change, the message is: pollute more,' she said. 'For everyone feeling the pain of climate disasters, the message is: you're on your own.' Though the rollback aims to create a regulatory environment friendly to fossil fuels, it could, ironically, also threaten oil companies' attempts to fend off lawsuits aiming to hold them accountable for the climate crisis. To fight some challenges by cities and states, companies have argued that because the EPA regulates greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, those suits should be void. Throwing out EPA's ability to regulate those emissions could leave energy companies open to further challenges. 'I know that industry groups have been asking the Trump folks not to reverse the endangerment finding,' Jeff Holmstead, of the oil and gas law firm Bracewell, told E&E News in February. Zeldin's proposed rulemaking on the endangerment finding initiated a 45-day comment period, when the public will be able to weigh in on the proposed change. 'EPA will then have to respond to the comments, make any necessary changes, and issue the rule in final form,' said Gerrard, of Columbia. The final rule is expected to be met with an onslaught of lawsuits, which will go to the DC federal appeals court. The losers of those cases – either the government or the challengers – are expected to take them to the supreme court. Shaun Goho, legal director at the pollution-focused nonprofit Clean Air Task Force, said the proposal was 'unlawful'. 'Greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and the climate, and the Clean Air Act mandates that EPA regulates harmful air pollution,' he said. Some experts are confident the challenges will be successful. But Gerrard says he is not so sure. 'The US supreme court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has issued a series of decisions in the past three years cutting back on federal environmental regulations,' he said. 'So I'm concerned.' Asked about experts concerns about the health-harming impacts of greenhouse gases, the EPA said its proposal 'is primarily legal and procedural'. 'The endangerment finding is the legal prerequisite used by the Obama and Biden administrations to regulate emissions from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines,' a spokesperson said. 'Absent this finding, EPA would lack statutory authority under [the Clean Air Act] to prescribe standards for greenhouse gas emissions.' The spokesperson said 'many of the predictions made and assumptions used' for the endangerment finding 'did not materialize'. However, scientists have in recent decades produced many new findings showing greenhouse gases are dangerous.
New Statesman
4 hours ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
The special relationship that wasn't
Photo by Tolga Akmen/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images What a week for Britain's 'special relationship'. Keir Starmer headed to Scotland to sit in near silence at a press conference with President Trump, as the US leader attacked implicitly or overtly his policies on energy and tax as well as tearing apart his 'friend' the mayor of London. Starmer delayed his announcement on the recognition of a Palestinian state until his visit was over. Unlike Macron, Starmer's declaration came with conditions attached, partly in the hope of staying as close as possible to Trump. Even now No 10 hopes to be a 'bridgehead' between the US and the countries recognising a Palestinian state. Starmer's moves are made with the US in mind. Why do so many prime ministers set such store by the so-called 'special relationship' with the US? They seek out the presidential embrace, while aware of the darkness that swamped their predecessors who did the same. One of the great posthumous commentators on contemporary politics is the former foreign secretary, Robin Cook – a figure with whom I suspect Starmer would have had considerable affinity in his former role as a human rights lawyer. In Cook's diaries, published in his book, The Point of Departure, the then cabinet minister exposed brilliantly the shallow evasiveness of the 'bridgehead' role: 'Tony Blair's favourite image of Britain's relationship with the US is that we are its bridge to Europe…The concept of a bridge is perfectly tailored for New Labour as a bridge cannot make choices, but by definition is in the middle'. The observation is illuminating on many levels. In some respects, Starmer has been unfairly criticised for lacking the clear sense of purpose and direction possessed by Blair on all fronts. It was Cook's view, at least, that Blair also avoided hard choices until he had to make them. At which point he went for the least daunting option. When he was forced to choose between Europe and the US over Iraq, he sided with President George Bush, with the full support of the Tory leadership and Conservative newspapers – his comfort zone. When the war went horribly wrong a lot of the fickle admirers turned on him. The special relationship did not lead to a comfort zone for Blair. It never does for British prime ministers. When Clement Attlee won in 1945 the country was broke and urgently needed huge investment in public services, as it does now. Attlee found a way of raising the cash by negotiating a loan with the US, Britain's recent wartime ally. The terms Attlee secured were brutally punitive for the UK and hugely beneficial to the US. It is the reason why Britain's change making Labour government lasted nowhere near as long as the Conservative's equivalent elected in 1979 – the toll taken on the economy was great, as Attlee and his colleagues addressed the huge costs of repaying the loan. A deeply divided Labour Party was in opposition for 13 years after losing the 1951 election. A main source of the division was Attlee's final attempts to reassure the US on its ambitions for defence spending. Attlee greatly increased expenditure on arms. The party split over the introduction of prescription charges to pay for some of the spending. Fast forward to now: what services will be hit as the current government meets its plans to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, partly to please Trump? A few years after Attlee left No 10, Anthony Eden became the next prime minister to fall, partly over assumptions about the US. When Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser seized the Suez Canal, Eden's immediate instinct was to respond with force. He was a brief hero for the summer of 1956, as he outlined his plans for war. By the end of the summer President Dwight Eisenhower made it clear he would not back Eden. The British prime minister was taken aback but dared to hope for neutrality from his partner in Washington. Eisenhower was not neutral. He opposed the prime minister's military plan. The then chancellor, Harold Macmillan, also discovered that the US would hit the fragile British economy if Eden went ahead. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Without the US, he could not do so. He was gone by January of the following a year, a fall in some ways more dramatic than that of Liz Truss. Eden could not survive after his misplaced faith in the special relationship destroyed him. After this, British foreign policy became a little more realistic. Macmillan had seen first hand that the US could not be relied on. He sought and failed to join what was then the Common Market. In the 1960s, Harold Wilson also tried to sign up, again without success. But he demonstrated Britain could be independent of the US when he did not offer military support in Vietnam. President Lyndon B Johnson was furious, but Wilson held his ground. The current government's ministerial historian, Nick Thomas-Symonds, cites Wilson's decision as the bravest foreign policy move of any Labour prime minister. Wilson's successor, Edward Heath, was not remotely bothered by the special relationship, and instead negotiated Britain's membership of the Common Market. As with domestic policy, Margaret Thatcher changed all assumptions. Her friendship with President Ronald Reagan was part of her image as the Iron Lady, bestriding the world stage. In the 1980s Blair and Gordon Brown watched her on a TV screen in their cramped shared office as she was feted in Washington. In contrast their leader, Neil Kinnock, was treated dismissively when he made to the US. Blair concluded that a Labour leader could never win elections if at odds with a US president. The seeds of Iraq were sown in the 1980s. But there was a twist. When Thatcher turned to Reagan for support at the start of the Falklands War he hesitated. Even when the 'special relationship' was based on genuine rapport, Reagan did not deliver when Thatcher needed him. There are good reasons to want the special relationship to work. Intelligence sharing is of mutual interest. The US has agency and economic might as no other. When it is possible to work with presidents it is obviously best to do so. But why do so many prime ministers, with the exception of Macmillan, Wilson and Heath, become victims of their hunger to be at one with the US, whatever the circumstances and characters in the White House? Part of the answer lies in Britain's equivocal attitude to Europe. Another has to do with the sheer glamour as prime ministers head for the White House compared to, say, the hard grind of an EU summit. For Labour prime ministers being 'shoulder to shoulder' with a US president is a short term way of getting approval from right wing British newspapers. But they do not dare to see that the 'special relationship' traps them as they move knowingly towards their political incarceration. [See also: A Trump shaped elephant] Related
USA Today
6 hours ago
- Automotive
- USA Today
I'm glad Trump is gutting the EPA. My family's tire-burning business is on fire!
The glorious news that the Trump administration is basically disavowing the very idea of climate change (HOAX!) rattled all the eco-losers out there. Every morning I wake up, open the doors to my family tire-burning and tainted-meat-sales business and thank God for President Donald J. Trump. We have learned that the Environmental Protection Agency is going to do away with its woke and anti-tire-fire-business belief that greenhouse gas emissions are a danger to human health. According to USA TODAY – which I don't read – EPA head Lee Zeldin said getting rid of the 'endangerment finding' of 2009 will 'save Americans money and unravel two decades of regulation aimed at reducing carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases from cars, power plants, oil production and other sources.' It's about freakin' time. I've been in the outdoor tire-burning business for more than two decades, and I know firsthand my burn pit's emissions don't present any health risks. My remaining half-lung is healthier than ever (only weak soy boys need two lungs) thanks to the strength it built up through years of asthma. Trump knows EPA has no business protecting the environment And don't get me started on climate change. The higher the temperatures, the easier it is to stand next to a pile of burning radial tires for hours a day without noticing a temperature difference. Heck, we're even saving money on matches and kerosene because the summers are so hot the tires just spontaneously combust. Opinion: Trump's mental decline is on vivid display as he rages about Epstein, windmills The glorious news that the Trump administration is basically disavowing the very idea of climate change (HOAX!) rattled all the eco-losers out there, including Scott Saleska, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, who told The Associated Press: 'To repeal the endangerment finding now would be like a driver who is speeding towards a cliff taking his foot off the brake and instead pressing the accelerator.' Damn right, Prof. Scaredy Cat. Everyone knows you hit the accelerator when approaching a cliff. You don't want to hit the kick-ass canyon-jumping ramp going slow. That's a little thing called 'fun' – maybe look it up in one of those books you claim contain 'facts.' Deregulating food safety is a win for tainted-meat sellers and customers Anyway, thanks to President Trump, the tire-burning arm of my family's business is about to boom, just like our tainted-meat sales spiked earlier this year after MY president issued an executive order doing away with the Department of Agriculture's National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection and the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods. Previously: Musk, RFK Jr. drive off FDA inspectors, preserving my right to eat tainted meat | Opinion We here at the Huppke Flaming Tire and Cheap Meat Emporium say the more deregulation, the better – especially when it comes to food. Since that executive order, our unrefrigerated, fresh-from-Interstate-57, week-old cuts of venison and 'mystery protein' have been selling like unregulated lead-based hotcakes. Government can't stop me from selling tire fire-smoked jerky We used to have to hide the fact that we smoke our delicious precooked meats over the artisanal tire fires, but not anymore. And the money we're saving on fly control … it's a real boon to businesses like mine that believe meat in any condition is suitable for human consumption as long as you tell the customers to cook it a good long time so they don't get the trots. Opinion: Trump is unpopular, polls show, and he's building an America most Americans hate With the extra money we're making, we'll now be able to hire another tire fire tender, since the last one died of a rare combination of heat exhaustion and mystery-jerky poisoning. God bless you, President Trump! And thank you for not caring about the cancer cluster in the town downwind of our business. Only a lib would think there's some kind of connection! Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @ and on Facebook at You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
