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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: House Republicans' new agenda calls for rolling back pollution standards; The streak continues: May 2016 was the hottest May on record; Power plants no longer the nation's largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions; New report finds Obama's Clean Power Plan will save Americans $38 billion a year; PLUS: Turns out, Donald Trump was for climate action before he was against it... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Small-Town America Has a Serious Drinking-Water Problem; Millions of American Children Missing Early Lead Tests, Reuters Finds; DuPont May Dodge Toxic Lawsuits By Pulling a Disappearing Act; Lawsuit Accuses Range Resources And Lab Of Doctoring Water Test Results; Exxon Asks U.S. Court To Throw Out Subpoena In Climate Change Inquiry; Rules On GMO Crops In Hawaii Heads To US Appeals Court; Big Coal Funded This Prominent Climate Change Denier, Docs Reveal; Wall Street Journal Accepts Environmentalist Ad But Charges Extra... PLUS: France Ratifies Paris Climate Agreement... and much, MUCH more! ...

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• Congressional Republicans' 'new' agenda calls for rolling back environmental protections:
• Ryan plan would roll back rules on environment, banks, labor (McClatchy DC):
  
  The 57-page document to be released Tuesday compiles a detailed list of bills that GOP members have introduced to dismantle many of President Obama's signature reforms like the Clean Power Plan and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill. It also includes a proposal to repeal "all climate-change regulations under the Clean Air Act."
• Ryan unveils plan to roll back Obama-era regulations (AP):
  
  "The latest plank of House Republicans' Wrong Way agenda is nothing more than a wish list for polluters, unscrupulous financial advisers and Wall Street. It will do nothing to create jobs in our country," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "This special interest Republican agenda would poison the air we breathe and the water we drink, while rolling back critical protections for American consumers and taking the cops off the Wall Street beat."
• May 2016 was the hottest May ever recorded:
• May marks one more record hot month for the world (Guardian UK):
  
  May was the fifth record warm month this year, upping the odds that 2016 will be the hottest year on record
• May Marks One More Record Hot Month for the World (Climate Central)
• Earth's hot streak continues with warmest May since at least 1880 (Mashable)
• Power plants no longer the nation's largest contributor to global warming:
• Power plants are no longer America’s biggest climate problem. Transportation is. (Vox):
  
  Whenever you see exciting headlines about renewable energy growth or the plunge in US emissions, those articles are usually talking about electricity. But power plants are only one-third of America’s CO2 emissions. Transportation, another third (and now the biggest source), remains tougher to address. In fact, since 2013, transport emissions have been creeping upward again.
• Tesla Co-Founder’s Wrightspeed To Electrify Mack Trucks (Clean Technica)
• Obama's Clean Power Plan will save Americans $38 billion a year:
• Harvard Study Finds $38 Billion Economic Benefit From EPA's Carbon Rule (Climate Progress):
  
  ...and do so fairly quickly...Quantifying emission reductions in power plants is not unprecedented, but this is the first study of its kind to break down the costs and benefits by sub-region. "The nice thing about this study, and others like it, is that it's able to quantify air quality and health benefits that are immediate," said Buonocore. "So it's able to kind of put this information in terms of benefits that can be a lot more relevant to policy makers and other decision makers."
• An Analysis of Costs and Health Co-Benefits for a U.S. Power Plant Carbon Standard (PLOS One):
  
  "Health benefits would outweigh the estimated costs of the carbon standard in our study for 13 out of 14 power sector regions within five years of implementation, even though we only looked at a subset of the total benefits."
• Harvard study finds $38 billion of public health benefits from carbon reduction rule (AWEA Blog):
  
  But the benefits to public health are likely even greater than the study’s findings, because it didn’t take into account direct health benefits due to climate change mitigation, such as fewer heat-related illnesses, reduction in extreme weather, and avoided increases in vector-borne diseases.
• Donald Trump was for climate action before he was against it:
• Donald Trump once backed urgent climate action. Wait, what? (Grist):
  
  In an open letter to President Obama and the U.S. Congress, they declared: “If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.”

  One of the signatories of that letter: Donald Trump.

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

• Small-Town America Has a Serious Drinking-Water Problem (Mother Jones):
  
  In Sanders, Arizona, residents drank uranium-contaminated water for years.
• Wall Street Journal Accepts Environmentalist Ad But Charges Extra (Washington Post):
  
  The Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages may be the beating heart of climate-change skepticism, but the newspaper apparently was willing to entertain an alternative view — for a price.
• DuPont May Dodge Toxic Lawsuits By Pulling a Disappearing Act (The Intercept_:
  
  Over many decades, the DuPont company accumulated liability for numerous chemical waste disposal activities. Now a reorganization as the company merges with Dow “may be an attempt to extinguish DuPont’s liability”, plaintiff's lawyers fear.
• Lawsuit Accuses Range Resources And Lab Of Doctoring Water Test Results (NPR State Impact Pennsylvania):
  
  A water testing company that worked with Range Resources to evaluate whether or not residential water supplies were contaminated is defending itself against a lawsuit that claims the company allowed the gas driller to alter a print out of the test results, which Range then submitted to the Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP used the altered results, in part, to conclude that the Washington County residents’ drinking water was safe....
• Exxon Asks U.S. Court To Throw Out Subpoena In Climate Change Inquiry (Reuters):
  
  Exxon Mobil Corp asked a federal court on Wednesday to throw out a subpoena that would force the oil company to hand over decades of documents as part of a wide-ranging inquiry into whether it misled investors about climate change risks.
• Rules On GMO Crops In Hawaii Heads To US Appeals Court (AP):
  
  The fight over regulating genetically engineered crops in three Hawaii counties was back in a federal courtroom as some agricultural giants look to protect their farms from bans against modified food.
• Big Coal Funded This Prominent Climate Change Denier, Docs Reveal (Huffington Post):
  
  One of the world’s largest coal companies, Peabody Energy, paid a prominent scientist and dozens of others to promote climate change denial, new documents reveal.
• Millions of American Children Missing Early Lead Tests, Reuters Finds (Reuters):
  
  Many states and Medicaid rules require blood lead tests for young children, but millions are falling through this safety net, leaving them vulnerable to poisoning – and showing lead worries extend beyond Flint, Michigan/
• France Ratifies Paris Climate Agreement (Reuters):
  
  President Francois Hollande on Wednesday signed a bill formally ratifying the Paris climate agreement reached last December by nearly 200 countries to limit global warming.
• Big Bend Landowners Awarded Millions Over Pipeline; Fight Isn’t Over (Texas Observer):
  
  In a victory for Big Bend ranchers and conservationists, a Presidio county special commission has awarded six landowners about $2.8 million in compensation for the use of their property to construct the Trans-Pecos pipeline and the resulting loss in property value.
• Scientists Turn Carbon Dioxide Emissions to Stone (AP):
  
  For the first time, carbon dioxide emissions from an electric power plant have been captured, pumped underground and solidified - the first step toward safe carbon capture and storage, according to a paper published Thursday in the journal Science.
• Want to fight climate change? Here are the 7 critical life changes you should make (Grist) [emphasis added]:
  
  So, given the imperfections of this world, what is a lone wolf such as yourself to do? Here are some conclusions gleaned from this study: 1. Buy the most fuel-efficient car you can afford, then drive it as little as possible....

FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page

• NASA climate change video: This is the U.S. in 2100 (NASA).

                 

Article Categories: U.S. House, Environment, Republicans, Green News, EPA, Natural gas, Coal, Solar energy, Climate change, Paul Ryan, Election 2016, Transportation