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... emerging EPA regulations on air quality and water for coal-fired power plants could result in over 50,000 MW of coal plant retirements and require an investment of up to $180 billion for remaining plants to comply with the likely mandates.
Both those numbers go up substantially -- retirements by 11-12 GW and needed investment by $30-50 billion -- if EPA requires cooling towers in addition to smokestack scrubbers. (This is consistent with the FBR Capital Markets report, which finds a total of up to 70,000 MW of coal on the line.)
By 2020, the authors say, coal plant closures will reduce coal demand by about 15 percent, increase natural gas demand by about 10 percent, and (assuming the coal is replaced by gas) reduce CO2 emissions by 150 million tons.

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Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions fell by nearly 8% last year, the first time a fall has been reported in 20 years.

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TVA may have weakened the Environmental Protection Agency's stance on regulating coal ash when it was allowed to comment before the public on the issue, a government watchdog group says.\n\nAn accidentally released internal federal document shows that the public power producer, still cleaning up from a massive coal ash spill in 2008, criticized EPA's original draft proposal, which said coal ash should be classified as a "special" waste, making it fall under hazardous waste rules.

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The new environmental sheriff is Al Armendariz, a 40-year-old chemical engineer from El Paso, and two weeks ago, he took the unprecedented step of barring Texas from issuing an operating permit to a refinery in Corpus Christi.

The state’s rules for granting permits have long violated the Clean Air Act, Mr. Armendariz said, and he made it clear that the agency would do the same thing in about 39 other cases, among them several major refineries, unless Texas changed its system.

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued new standards for sulfur dioxide (SO2) in a ruling that is likely to raise costs for some utility companies, according to an Associated Press report.
The new guidelines lower the level of SO2 exposure that the EPA considers safe for the first time since the agency began regulating the gas in 1971.

According to the EPA, exposure to SO2 can aggravate asthma and cause other respiratory difficulties. People with asthma, children, and the elderly are especially vulnerable to the effects of SO2. The EPA estimated the new rules will prevent 2,300 to 5,900 premature deaths and 54,000 asthma attacks a year. The estimated cost in 2020 to fully implement this standard is approximately $1.5 billion.

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The federal government took its first formal step to regulate global warming pollution on Thursday by issuing final rules for greenhouse gas emissions for automobiles and light trucks.

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In what really seems like stating the obvious, or at least stating what has been said many times before, the Environmental Protection Agency has found that water quality downstream from mountaintop coal mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky is highly toxic. The Charleston Gazette reports that EPA data from 14 of 17 sampled sites were up to 50 times more toxic that guidelines permit.

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Larry Gottesman, national FOIA officer for the Environmental Protection Agency, said emerging technologies present significant opportunities for agencies trying to eliminate FOIA pileups. EPA has reduced its pending requests by about 96 percent, in part by creating databases of popular information. The agency's online reading rooms reduce the need to file a request in the first place, according to Gottesman.

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Los Angeles is once again king of the hill when it comes to the number of energy-efficient buildings, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s second ranking of cities nationwide.

The scorecard calculates how many commercial structures in 2009 earned the agency’s Energy Star rating, which is given to buildings that perform in the top 25% of similar buildings nationwide. Eligibility extends to 13 types of structures such as schools, hospitals, office buildings, retail stores and supermarkets.

Los Angeles had 293 buildings with the label in 2009, covering 76 million square feet and saving an estimated $93.9 million in costs.

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the actions of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce today. The chamber, by far the largest lobbying force on Capitol Hill — having spent more than $65 million in 2009 — is actively campaigning against meaningful climate change legislation. It is also taking a lead role in challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) attempts to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. More fundamentally, it continues to cast doubt on climate change science and sow fears through exaggerated claims about the economic consequences of greenhouse gas regulation.

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The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Sunday a five-year, $2.2 billion initiative to start healing the Great Lakes. The effort has three main goals: improve the lakes’ wildlife habitat, improve water quality and fight the invasion of non-native species such as Asian carp, which threaten not only the lakes’ ecosystem but also their fishery industry.

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U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is expected to introduce an amendment that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) under the Clean Air Act, reports the Los Angeles Times.

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Alarmed by research linking chemicals used to make Scotchgard and Teflon to cancer, liver disease and other health problems, the federal government spent the last decade pressuring manufacturers to phase out the stain-resistant compounds.

But scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently discovered that a different industry — metal plating — is dumping high levels of the chemicals into sewers in Chicago and Cleveland, and likely is doing the same thing in scores of other cities.

The finding is worrisome because the chemicals, known as perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs, wash unfiltered through sewage treatment plants into lakes and streams. The chemicals don't break down in the environment, and traces are showing up in the blood of people and wildlife around the globe.

At one Chicago-area metal plating shop, which the EPA does not name, the agency found PFCs being flushed into the sewers at concentrations of 12,214 parts per trillion, far higher than the 2.5 parts per trillion found in water piped into the factory.

Levels were even higher at one of the Cleveland shops: more than 54,000 parts per trillion.

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Between April 1, 2008, and March 31, 2009, Massey violated its effluent limits at its various operations at least 971 times, and accrued 12,977 days of violation during that 12-month period. The U.S. government’s lawsuit against Massey, which resulted in the $20 million settlement, alleged more than 60,000 violations over a six-year period, or about 10,000 violations per year.

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"USA based Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay a US$468,600 civil penalty to settle self-disclosed violations of federal environmental regulations discovered at 655 facilities in 42 states."

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"With climate change legislation finally appearing to be making some headway in the U.S., and with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) having recently issued regulations mandating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting by high-emitting U.S. companies, a new report from Ethical Investment Research Services (EIRIS) entitled "2009 Climate Change Tracker: North America" arrives at an opportune moment. EIRIS is a global provider of research into corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance."

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IBM and the Irish EPA have put together a site to show the water quality of lakes and beaches in Ireland

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"Microsoft recently updated itscomputer purchasing standards to make sure that all the PCs we buy for our employees meet the latest energy efficiency standards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Microsoft now requires that all PCs purchased through our standard MS IT channels will meet EPA Energy Star 5.0 requirements."

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The Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday that it would require the nation’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases to start tracking their emission levels on Jan. 1 and report them to the government.

The E.P.A. said the reporting would cover roughly 85 percent of the greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States linked to global warming.

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Carbon dioxide will soon be declared a dangerous pollutant - a move that could help propel slow-moving climate-change legislation on Capitol Hill, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told reporters that a formal "endangerment finding," which would trigger federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, probably would "happen in the next months."

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