Close Calls as Congress Defeats Rollbacks to EPA Boiler Rule and Speed-up of Keystone XL Pipeline

Get ready, because a hostile hive of lobbyists echoing industry cries that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is no more than big government, job-killing, mean, green machine may have just been shaken up again. On Thurs., March 8, Congress narrowly defeated an amendment to a transportation funding bill authored by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) that…

Read More

Efficiency a Win-Win for the Mountains and the Economy

It can seem like a very long way from the ridges, hollows, and creeks of our part of Appalachians to the austere headquarters of the State Corporation Commission ( or SCC) in Richmond. The SCC regulates electric utilities in Virginia, however, and as removed as its financial number-crunching can seem from the bucolic Appalachians, the…

Read More

U.S. Renewable Energy Production Surpasses Nuclear in 2011

For the first time since the late 90s, energy produced by renewable sources (biomass, hydroelectric, wind, geothermal and solar) has surpassed the amount of energy produced by nuclear plants in the U.S., according to the most recent Monthly Energy Review from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Link to the report. The report shows that…

Read More

What’s Clean Air Worth to You?

Why is the EPA Advancing the Mercuryand Air Toxics Standard (MATS)? How much will the EPA’s MATS be worth to your state? CLICK HERE to find out. What happens when 40 year old coal-fired electric power plants don’t have modern pollution control systems to remove mercury and other air toxics from their smoke stack emissions?…

Read More

Bad Coal Boyfriend Doesn’t Want Change His Dirty Ways!

Our letter about the EPA’s new Mercury and Air Toxics Rule was published in the Charlotte Observer last week. In response to “EPA limits toxic plant emissions” (Dec. 22): Thanks to EPA, it just got easier to dump that ‘bad boyfriend’ coal The coal industry reminds me of a controlling, abusive boyfriend when it complains…

Read More

Tell Congress We Can’t Afford The Status Quo on Coal Ash!

This Friday, the House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 2273, the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act, a bill that puts the profits of coal ash polluters above public health. H.R. 2273 subverts public support of the EPA’s proposed federal coal ash rules by leaving coal ash pollution in the hands of states with…

Read More

Dirty Politics: The Biggest Threat to America’s Waterways

It Took a Movement to Create the Clean Water Act- We Need Another to Save It Update: The House passed the polluter-friendly TRAIN Act, H.R. 2041 by a vote of 249 to 169. At this moment, the U.S. House is debating HR 2041, the TRAIN Act. The Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the…

Read More