The grave new threat facing communities

Coal mine in Appalachia, highlighting the importance of coal mine safety regulations.

The Trump-Vance administration has used the Defense Production Act to prop up fossil fuel industries, including issuing hundreds of millions of dollars in DPA grants to keep aging coal plants operating and fund new coal-fired power plants. 

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Groups threaten TVA with lawsuit over Clean Air Act violations at Cumberland plants

Under TVA's plan, smokestacks at the Cumberland Fossil Plant would continue to spew pollution into the air. Photo by Angie Mummaw

The Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of Appalachian Voices, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, has notified the Tennessee Valley Authority of the groups’ intent to sue the federal utility because the construction and operation of its newly built Cumberland Gas Plant alongside the nearby coal plant violates the federal Clean Air Act.

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Community and nonprofit groups appeal Chesterfield air permit 

Chesterfield residents hold signs in opposition to Dominion Energy's proposed gas plant

Today — on behalf of the Chesterfield County branch of the NAACP, CASA Inc., Appalachian Voices and Mothers Out Front — the Southern Environmental Law Center appealed the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s issuance of an air permit allowing Dominion Energy to build and operate a new methane gas plant in Chesterfield County.

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Our air and water are under attack

Juhi Modi, North Carolina field coordinator at Appalachian Voices, speaks at the SSEP air permit hearing press conference on Nov. 19. Photo by Jimmy Davidson/Appalachian Voices

Today, much of the country has clean air and access to clean water. But instead of strengthening these safeguards and improving public health, Congress and the Trump administration are attempting to gut our core environmental protections.

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