The nation's top environmental regulator delivered a blunt message this afternoon to students, professors and others at Duke University: Republicans are bad for the nation's health.

According to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, conservatives and Republicans in Washington are spreading disinformation in a bid to roll back this country's environmental protections and to hobble the agency.

The chief concern among conservatives is that EPA regulations stall economic growth and kill jobs. Jackson said the opposite is true: New regulations provide tens of thousands of jobs to electricians, engineers and steelworkers who retrofit old technology to comply with stricter standards.

The EPA position, she said, is non-partisan and rooted in science: The public health benefits of environmental regulation outweigh its cost. The EPA's critics are peddling the contrary: lies and propaganda, Jackson told about 550 in attendance at the Reynolds Theater in the Bryan University Center.

"Since the beginning of this year, Republican leadership in the House of Representatives has orchestrated 170 votes against environmental protection," Jackson said, according to her prepared testimony. "Less than three years after a coal ash spill that covered 300 acres of Tennessee country the House majority passed legislation preventing EPA from regulating coal ash. ... Less than two years after the Deepwater Horizon BP spill, the best idea industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute have for creating jobs is to de-regulate drilling."

The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will talk about Congress versus the environment Tuesday at Duke University in Durham.

Lisa Jackson is slated to speak about congressional challenges to the nation's environmental laws. Translation: She will talk about Republican efforts to scale back environmental regulations and to limit the agency's powers.

Conservatives have characterized the EPA and other regulatory agencies as job killers because the regulations they impose raise costs.

The event is free but advance tickets are required. (They're available at the Duke box office in the Bryan Center or at tickets.duke.edu.)

There will be a Q&A with the audience afterward. Advance questions can be submitted to jacksonqandq@nicholas.duke.edu.
 

Two North Carolina colleges are among 45 schools nationwide to receive $15,000 grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help design sustainable technologies.

Student teams from Appalachian State and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are recipients of the People, Prosperity and the Planet Phase I grants, which challenge students, working together on interdisciplinary teams, to design and build sustainable technologies that improve quality of life, promote economic development and protect the environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency in Research Triangle Park reassured employees today that it is not shutting down its giant data center here, as had been suggested in this blog and announced by the White House and Office of Management and Budget.

The White House said it's shutting down 800 duplicative data centers by 2015 in a bid to shave $3 billion from the federal budget. The announcement lauded government efforts to root out waste.

Several of the targeted centers were listed as being located at 109 Alexander Drive, the address for EPA's RTP complex. That listing triggered an employee panic at the RTP campus, which is the agency's biggest office outside its Washington headquarters.

The White House today said it would shut down 800 federal data centers by 2015, including one in Research Triangle Park next year.

The move is part of a White House campaign to cut government waste but shuttering what the President's staff has identified as "duplicative" data centers.

Data centers are used for storing and managing government data, including hardware and other equipment such as air conditioners and security devices.

The RTP data center is located at the Environmental Protection Agency complex. It was not immediately clear how many people work at the center.

North Carolina has some of the nation's most toxic air pollution, according a list of the top 20 states with air pollution issued by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

This state ranks 10th in the nation for power plant pollutants such as mercury, hydrochloric acid and other hazardous materials. The NRDC based its ranking on the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory from 2009.

The NRDC issued the data today as part of the environmental lobby's attempt to undercut conservative efforts in Washington to weaken EPA regulations. Conservatives have expressed concern that pollution restrictions impose financial burdens on businesses and are therefore harmful to the economy.

Federal grants will help clean up and redevelop 214 polluted sites such as abandoned gas stations and shuttered factories in 40 states, Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson said Monday.

Three tribal nations also will receive federal money under the EPA's "brownfield" program, which is designed to spur growth in cities where contaminated industrial and commercial sites have been a drag on the economy while contributing to joblessness and crime, agency officials said.

North Carolina ranks 8th in the nation for emissions of mercury, a neurotoxin that comes from coal-burning power plants and can cause birth defects.

The federal data was released today by Environment North Carolina, a Raleigh group that's highlighting mercury emissions figures as it pushes for strict controls of the pollutant.

Mercury is classified as a hazardous air pollutant but it is not regulated at the federal level. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to propose a standard in March. Environment North Carolina is pushing for a 90 percent reduction in nationwide mercury emissions.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for the elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency in an interview with The Associated Press, stating the EPA is rarely innovative and focused only on issuing regulations and litigation. Instead, he would like to replace the agency with a new organization that would work more closely with businesses and be more aggressive in using science and technology.  Read his interview here.

Chrysler and the Environmental Protection Agency are trying to adapt an engine technology invented by the EPA to improve gas mileage in minivans.