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On March 2, 2016, the Oregon Legislature passed the Clean Electricity and Coal Transition Plan (Senate Bill (SB) 1547, B-eng.). Should Democratic Governor Kate Brown sign the bill into law—and she has preliminarily indicated that she will—Oregon will become the first state to set a deadline for eliminating coal-fired electricity generation by its major utilities. […]
Scores of national and state-based environmental groups sent a letter to the leadership of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) expressing their opposition to a bill that would negate many aspects of EPA’s rule governing disposal of coal combustion residuals (CCRs) from electric utilities.
Following a magnitude 4.3 earthquake that struck Edmond, Oklahoma, on December 29, 2015, the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Division ordered oil and gas (O&G) operators within a 15-mile radius of the epicenter to restrict their underground water injection activities. Edmond is less than 15 miles from Oklahoma City, the state capital.
In a brief order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has allowed the EPA to continue implementing its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for fossil-fuel power plants while the Agency works on finalizing a proposed determination that consideration of cost does not alter EPA’s previous determination that it is appropriate to […]
The Department of Interior’s (DOI) most recent and perhaps most consequential responses to the catastrophic April 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico are proposed regulations for blowout preventer (BOP) systems and well control, which were published in the April 17, 2015, Federal Register.
Back in June 2013, President Obama announced his Climate Action Plan, a major component of which is to cut carbon pollution in the United States. The outline to accomplish this focuses on renewable energy, clean energy innovation, energy efficiency, and a cleaner transportation sector, but it also specifically addresses cutting carbon emissions from power plants, […]
EPA’s nonattainment designations of two counties—one in Montana and one in Michigan—under the Agency’s 2010 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for sulfur dioxide (SO2) were challenged in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in two separate petitions that the court consolidated. According to the court, the two claims had “virtually nothing […]
The U.S. House welcomed President Obama’s return from the Paris climate change conference by passing a joint resolution to block the EPA from implementing its Clean Power Plan (CPP) to regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants.
In an announcement that was welcomed by both the supporters and critics of ethanol as a renewable fuel, EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said it intends to “begin preliminary research on lifecycle impacts of the EPA’s renewable fuel standard (RFS).”
Although it might seem obvious what renewable energy is, there is some debate about how renewable energy is defined, which has a definite effect on policy and regulation. What seems clear from various readings is that renewable energy does not include resources from fossil fuels or waste products from fossil fuel sources. According to the […]