Looking back at the environmental and energy news items that made headlines over the past year, some were downright mind-boggling. From emissions cheating to sweeping blackouts that affected millions of C&I customers, here are five industry lows of 2019 that aren’t likely to be forgotten any time soon. Chemical tank catches fire near Houston On March 17, a fire broke out at Intercontinental Terminals Company’s petrochemical storage site in Deer Park, Texas, The blackouts affected an enormous number of organizations. But the utility’s website with info about the outages kept crashing and customers struggled to get through to call centers. By one estimate, small C&I customers lost billions of dollars. PG&E CEO William Johnson said that fixing the system to avoid these shutoffs could take at least a decade.near Houston. It burned for days, and prompted multiple environmental lawsuits.
Eleven days after the disaster, the company’s CEO
Finally posted an apology online. ‘Dieselgate’ continues with new indictments Volkswagen admitted in 2015 to equipping about 11 million cars globally with software that allowed them to cheat on emissions testing. Although the company has paid out UAE Phone Number Data more than $30 billion in fines since the deception first came to light, “dieselgate” refuses to die. Over the summer German prosecutors filed charges against former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler and three others in connection to the scandal. This month the Canadian government brought charges against the company for knowingly violating federal emissions standards. US fuel efficiency standards divide automakers Major automakers lobbied the.
But Trump’s EPA proposed a freeze that actually clashed
Some automakers’ lower emissions plans — and California’s requirements. Everything came to a head this year. Ford, Volkswagen, BMW, and Honda agreed to voluntary California standards in July. The EPA and DOT struck back. Then, in late UAE Phone Number List October, GM, Toyota, Fiat Chrysler, and several smaller automakers sided with the Trump administration in a lawsuit over gas mileage. Walmart sues Tesla over solar panel installations Walmart filed a lawsuit against Tesla in August over breach of contract for rooftop solar installations at the retailer’s stores. The company’s filing in New York State Supreme Court detailed fires that broke out on several store rooftops leased to Tesla for solar arrays. In early November, Bloomberg reported that the two companies settled the lawsuit for undisclosed terms.
