HELENA, Mont. – Montana's air and water quality would diminish if President Donald Trump's proposed 30 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget were approved, according to a new report from the Environmental Defense Fund.

The report says over the past five years, Montana has received more than $194 million in grants from the EPA to protect the state's environment.

Melissa Nootz, a field consultant with the group Moms Clean Air Force, says she used to live in a Montana Superfund site with pollution in need of long-term cleanup, and knows what industrial waste does to communities.

"I don't think we need to be weakening standards that will result in more pollution, because I know what that looks like and I've seen how difficult and complicated the process is to clean things up,” she states. “And I just think that's moving in the wrong direction. It's not the legacy that I want to leave behind."

There are 17 Superfund sites in Montana. Trump's budget proposes to zero out funding for a program to address leaking underground chemical storage tanks, one that reduces poisonous radon gas in homes and schools, and another to prevent polluted runoff from parking lots, roads and fertilizer use.

EPA chief Scott Pruitt argues that many environmental regulations are too onerous for the business community.

Bill Becker, an environmental consultant and former head of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, says any cuts to the EPA budget will reverse years of progress made in public health, quality of life and the tourism-based outdoor economy.

"It is an extraordinarily small price to pay to equip state and local officials with the necessary financial and regulatory tools to clean up the environment, when you fully understand the impacts that could occur if you don't provide these resources," he states.

Outdoor recreation in Montana generates $1.5 billion in wages and salaries and 64,000 jobs, according to the Outdoor Industry Association.

Congress is set to take up a series of 12 appropriations bills in the next few weeks.



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A new report shows Maine is exceeding the home-heating goals set forth in its ambitious four-year climate plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The state surpassed its goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps earlier this summer, and Gov. Janet Mills quickly set a new target of 275,000 by 2027.

Michael Stoddard, Efficiency Maine Trust executive director, said new refrigeration cycle technology is helping both the climate and consumers, who've struggled with volatile prices in home heating oil.

"The advent of highly effective at very cold temperatures and very cost-effective air-sourced heat pumps has been a huge breakthrough for us," Stoddard explained.

Close to 30% of Maine's greenhouse-gas emissions come from heating homes and businesses. The state has set a goal of going carbon neutral by 2045 and is aggressively promoting heat pumps to help reach that target.

The cold and rural state of Maine is the nation's most dependent on home heating oil, with nearly 60% of households reliant on the fuel for warmth, compared with just 4% nationally.

Stoddard said often, households will install a heat pump and continue to use heating oil as a backup source, but added a whole-home heat-pump system can save consumers roughly $1,000 a year.

"So, you can imagine what the impacts of that are, expanded across all the homes that we touch and that we will touch over the next decade," he said.

Stoddard noted many antiquated school buildings in rural Maine could also reap financial rewards by transitioning their heating systems, and said federal and state programs offering financial incentives, especially rebates, are helping drive consumer demand for more efficient heating technologies that also benefit the climate.


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NASA-funded research using satellites to study atmospheric nitrogen will examine how different farming approaches affect greenhouse gas emissions.

The $1.1 million grant will fund a team of scientists, including two at institutions in Maryland, who will use remote sensing satellites to look for accumulations of airborne ammonia and nitrogen in rural settings.

The researchers will then conduct soil sampling to determine which types of farming methods are better or worse for the climate.

Stephanie Yarwood, PhD - associate professor of environmental science and technology at the University of Maryland - is one of the principal investigators and said this research will help improve climate modeling.

"What we're really trying to do is make a connection between what a satellite can see, which is ammonia, and to make more of a link or less of a link depending on what we find, to nitrous oxide production," said Yarwood. "Because that's really what global models are trying to account for. They're trying to really understand, well how much greenhouse gas emission is there?"

She said as a greenhouse gas nitrous oxide is 300 times more powerful than CO2.

The grant runs for four years with research set to begin this winter.

While air quality measurements in cities are common, there is less data on rural areas. Yarwood said remote sensing satellite technology that can examine atmospheric chemistry at a continental scale is relatively new.

In studying soil contents, researchers hope to establish how microbial communities impact the release of nitrogen into the air and water.

Yarwood said the team will build mathematical models that can predict how nitrogen moves through the soil.

Researchers hope the work will offer hard data on the impact of various conservation practices and help policymakers and stakeholders decide how to spend both time and money.

"A lot of times, there's money invested, either from the government or from the producer," said Yarwood. "There's time in figuring new technologies out and applying those, there's some risk involved in that. I think we really need good data to be able to tell farmers, 'Yes, this is really something that's going to help', and we're going to see less nitrous oxide or not based on that."

The study includes a researcher from the University of California, Irvine - and one at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory in Beltsville.





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A handful of Iowa's biggest cities has been awarded $3 million to work on solutions to climate change at the local level.

The climate pollution reduction grants are part of a $5 billion program to assess climate change and come up with ways to address a steadily warming planet.

Pam Mackey-Taylor, director of the Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club, said when the state of Iowa declined to apply for the grants, it opened up the opportunities to individual communities. They will use the money to develop specific plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful air pollution at the local level.

"The cities of Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines decided to pursue the grants," Mackey-Taylor explained. "They are going to be doing planning for not only the cities but the counties they're in and some of the neighboring counties."

Cedar Rapids and Iowa City together were awarded $2 million, and Des Moines received $1 million. Mackey-Taylor pointed out the money will be used on things such as making buildings more energy efficient and environmentally friendly. Iowa was one of just four states not to pursue grant funding on a statewide basis. The others were Florida, South Dakota and Kentucky.

The Environmental Protection Agency will help train local and tribal leaders on how best to plan for and use the money. Mackey-Taylor noted while the smaller grants are critical to addressing the problems at the local level, Iowa may have missed an opportunity to work on bigger issues by passing on the larger grants.

"We still have some challenges," Mackey-Taylor observed. "Our agriculture sector in Iowa generates 29% of the greenhouse gases. Our residential, commercial and industrial generate 27% of the state's greenhouse gases and our electricity and power plants generate 19%."

Iowa has made strides in reducing emissions in the electricity sector. More than half of the state's power is now generated by wind.