Environmental Protection Agency

IBM Corp. Shares rose $1.35 to $116.49, even as the company was hit with a temporary ban on new federal contracts amid an inquiry into interactions between employees and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Your editorial on the Environmental Protection Agency's new fuel efficiency standards was right on point ("EPA gets it right," Aug. 29). It lets us know where a Romney administration's priorities really would be on fuel standards. Hopefully, anyone who hasn't made up their minds about who to vote for in November will now know how to cast their ballot. James Maddox Jr., Baltimore

Your editorial on the Environmental Protection Agency's new fuel efficiency standards was right on point ("EPA gets it right," Aug. 29). It lets us know where a Romney administration's priorities really would be on fuel standards. Hopefully, anyone who hasn't made up their minds about who to vote for in November will now know how to cast their ballot. James Maddox Jr., Baltimore

There is a rat fight going on between the Environmental Protection Agency and some pest control manufacturers that could affect Maryland backyards. At issue is whether residents will continue to be able to kill rats with certain potent poisons, which can now be purchased at hardware stores and are strong enough to dispatch the rodents after they make one visit to a poisoned meal. The EPA said this week it wanted to prohibit residential consumers from administering these poisons, making the stronger stuff available only to farmers and professional exterminators.

The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $50,000 to a St. Mary's County citizens' group so it can hire an outside expert to review the federal agency's plan to incinerate contaminated soil at a Superfund site in Hollywood.Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., said she requested the grant to ensure that citizens' be heard on the issue of the planned cleanup of the old Southern Maryland Wood Treatment plant.The EPA plans to burn 100,000 tons of soil contaminated with creosote, pentachlorophenol and small amounts of dioxin, all probable human carcinogens, at the site.

State agriculture officials moved in the right direction to protect unsuspecting eagles and other birds when it declared that the state will require farmers this spring to bury the pesticide Furadan underground with their plantings instead of spreading it on top of the soil.Still, environmental groups want bolder moves. Furadan was traced to bald eagle deaths in 1988 and the poisoning of other birds. The incidents, caused by the misuse of Furadan by farmers planting corn, have resulted in citations and penalties.

In an attempt to interest more black college students in environmental science careers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Morgan State University signed a pact yesterday to strengthen ties between them.Nine Morgan State University students are spending this summer at EPA research laboratories around the country, and the agreement will likely mean more such opportunities for students, said Eugene DeLoatch, dean of the School of Engineering at Morgan State.The pact also will mean that Environmental Protection Agency scientists will work with Morgan State students and professors on joint research projects, Dr. DeLoatch said.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration, sidestepping one of the most controversial issues remaining on its calendar, has decided that it will not act to weaken rules preventing development of the nation's wetlands, a senior White House official said yesterday.The decision, made shortly after the election, means that President Bush is handing over to the Clinton administration the question of whether to redefine a wetland in a way that would allow more of them to be filled in or otherwise developed.

Three state environmental companies got grants through the National Association of State Development Agencies to help them sell in Latin America and Asia.EA Global Inc., a subsidiary of Hunt Valley-based EA Engineering, received $20,000 to design, build and test a mobile wastewater treatment system. The system is intended to demonstrate EA's environmental engineering capabilities in central China.ThermoChem Inc., based in Columbia, received $10,000 to help it market its waste-treatment system to Brazil's pulp and paper industry.

The Environmental Protection Agency will break ground today on a $47 million laboratory and office building at Fort Meade.The 140,000-square-foot Environmental Services Center, near Mapes Road and Route 175, is scheduled to be completed by fall 1998. The agreement between Fort Meade and EPA will save the federal government money it otherwise would have needed to purchase or lease land.The center will bring together 160 scientists, engineers and support employees now working in leased space in Annapolis and at the Department of Agriculture in Beltsville.

In your January 14 editorial "Faulty stewardship," you took great aim at the agricultural community and the Farm Bureau for its recent lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency. We would like to set you straight on some facts so that your readers are completely educated about this recent action. This lawsuit is not seeking to delay clean-up of the Chesapeake Bay. Farmers are committed to doing their part to achieve the goal of clean water for the Chesapeake Bay. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service found that farmers were actively implementing erosion control practices on about 96 percent of the cropland acres in the watershed and found that sediment contributions to the region's rivers and streams are being reduced by 64 percent, nitrogen by 36 percent, and phosphorus by 43 percent.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed the nation's strictest-ever smog limits Thursday, a move that could put large parts of the country in violation of federal air-quality regulations. The EPA proposed allowing a ground-level ozone concentration of 60 to 70 parts per billion, down from the 75 parts per billion standard adopted under President George W. Bush in 2008. Obama administration officials and environmental groups say the new standards align with the levels scientists say are needed to safeguard against increased respiratory diseases, particularly in children, and that they could eventually save $100 billion in heath costs.

WASHINGTON - Faced with new evidence that utilities across the country are dumping toxic sludge into waterways, the Environmental Protection Agency is moving to impose new restrictions on the level of contaminants power plants can discharge. Plants in Florida, Pennsylvania and several other states have flushed wastewater with levels of selenium and other toxins that far exceed the EPA's freshwater and saltwater standards aimed at protecting aquatic life, according to data the agency has collected over the past few years.

Agency honors green workers The Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund today will host "One Year Green," a celebration of MAIF's environmental achievements. MAIF employees who have demonstrated a commitment to making eco-friendly solutions routine in their daily operations will be honored with a "Green Thumb" award, and MAIF's Earth Day pledge tree will be dedicated on the grounds of MAIF's headquarters in Annapolis. "MAIF is committed to working toward a more environmentally friendly business model," said M. Kent Krabbe, executive director for MAIF.

IBM Corp. Shares rose $1.35 to $116.49, even as the company was hit with a temporary ban on new federal contracts amid an inquiry into interactions between employees and the Environmental Protection Agency.

WASHINGTON -- When Gov. Martin O'Malley signed legislation last spring imposing tough new standards on automobile emissions, Maryland became the latest of a dozen states on the cutting edge of the fight against global warming. If enforced, state officials say, the controls eventually would reduce greenhouse gas production in Maryland by 7.8 million tons per year - the equivalent of shutting down a 1,200-megawatt coal-burning power plant. But the regulations, first approved by California and subsequently adopted by 11 other states, can't be enforced without a go-ahead from the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Seizing on the 23rd observance of Earth Day, federal, state and local officials have announced a series of steps aimed at cleaning up Baltimore, including a new study of the health and environmental risks faced by urban residents.But the announcement yesterday struck a sour note with some environmentalists, who accused officials of dodging their responsibilities to crack down on pollution.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it has chosen Baltimore and Washington, D.C., to launch a new program aimed at identifying and reducing the public health and environmental hazards to which city dwellers may be exposed.

The Environmental Protection Agency will break ground today on a $47 million laboratory and office building at Fort Meade.The 140,000-square-foot Environmental Services Center, near Mapes Road and Route 175, is scheduled to be completed by fall 1998. The agreement between Fort Meade and EPA will save the federal government money it otherwise would have needed to purchase or lease land.The center will bring together 160 scientists, engineers and support employees now working in leased space in Annapolis and at the Department of Agriculture in Beltsville.

In a rare move to phase out a widely used industrial compound, the Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday that it is asking all U.S. companies to virtually eliminate public exposure to a toxic chemical used to make Teflon and thousands of other products. Although the effort is voluntary, the federal government has rarely taken such a sweeping, accelerated action against an industrial compound. The eight companies that use perfluorooctanoic acid to make an array of nonstick and stain-resistant products are expected to comply, cutting releases from their plants and products by 95 percent over the next four years and completely by 2015.

EPA rules will not allow pesticide testing on children The Sun's article "Exceptions in new EPA rules would allow testing pesticides on children" (Sept. 14) seriously misleads the public regarding a complex issue that is important to anyone who cares about public health protection for all people of all ages. In fact, the proposed rules would ban the Environmental Protection Agency from conducting or supporting any intentional dosing study of pregnant women or children with pesticides or any other environmental substances.