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Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in West Virginia vs. EPA, ruling that the Clean Air Act did not specifically authorize the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Now, any greenhouse gas regulations would need specific authorization from Congress. At issue was the Clean Power Plan (CPP), an EPA regulation promulgated by the Obama administration which mandated that existing coal and natural gas power plants reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. There were many problems with this regulation, some of them were legal, and some of them were practical. Legally Speaking.. The...

In the search for clean electricity, power companies in Finland are going green by way of brown, and have set their sights on a previously untapped energy source: animal dung. During this month's FEI World Cup showjumping qualifier at Helsinki International Horse Show, 100 tonnes of manure was loaded up and wheelbarrowed into two large containers before being carted away for incineration at the Järvenpää power plant. The 150 megawatts of energy generated is enough to power the whole four-day show, with some left over to heat homes in the Finnish capital, according to energy company Fortum which launched its...

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told coal miners in Kentucky on Monday that he will move to repeal a rule limiting greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, assuring them, “The war against coal is over.” Speaking at an event in Hazard, Ky., with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Pruitt said his agency will publish the new proposed rule Tuesday. “Tomorrow, in Washington, D.C., I’ll be a signing a proposed rule to withdraw the so-called Clean Power Plan of the past administration, and thus begin the effort to withdraw that rule,” Pruitt said.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to soon formally repeal the Clean Power Plan (CPP) in what would be one of the biggest blows yet to former President Barack Obama’s legacy on climate change. A draft proposal of the EPA’s conclusions, leaked to news outlets over the past 24 hours, argues that the plan — which would limit carbon emissions from power plants and, in the process, drastically reduce the amount of coal-generated electricity in the U.S. — goes beyond the bounds of federal law and unnecessarily hikes energy prices for consumers. ~snip~ “The EPA is proposing to repeal the...

Judicial Watch Sues VA Again for Docs About Misuse of a Veterans’ Facility Judicial Watch Sues for Info on Obama’s War on Coal EPA Breaks Law on Taxpayer-Funded Propaganda? Judicial Watch to Trump Administration: End Congress’s Obamacare Exemption! Judicial Watch Sues VA Again for Docs About Misuse of a Veterans’ Facility As you may know, Judicial Watch has taken the lead in trying to highlight the government’s misconduct and misuse of a 388-acre parcel of land in Los Angeles, originally intended to serve the needs of veterans. In fact, we just filed a second Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)...

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument next Tuesday, September 27 on the Environmental Protection Agency’s so-called Clean Power Plan. The centerpiece of resident Obama’s climate policy agenda, the Plan establishes first-ever carbon dioxide (CO2) emission standards for “existing” (already built) coal and natural gas power plants. The Plan will increase consumer energy prices and impede job and GDP growth yet have no discernible effect on global temperatures or sea levels. However, that’s not why the Court should strike it down. The Court should overturn the Plan because it is an unlawful power grab. The Plan will...

Building that bridge or expanding that highway just became more difficult under a rigorous standard issued Tuesday by the Obama administration that will make it easier to block a wide range of projects in the name of climate change. The final guidance broadens the National Environmental Policy Act by requiring agencies to quantify the impact of activities that require federal permits not just on the environment but also on “projected direct and indirect GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions.” ... Republicans blasted the guidance as the latest in a flurry of resident Obama’s end-of-term executive actions, led by the Clean Power Plan,...

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh recently joined 16 other state Attorneys General to launch, in their own words, “an unprecedented, multi-state effort to investigate and prosecute the ‘high-funded and morally vacant forces’ that have stymied attempts to combat global warming—starting with holding ExxonMobil and other industry giants accountable for fraud and suppression of key climate science.” In explaining his support of “AGs United for Clean Power,” Frosh said: “There is no doubt that climate change is an existential threat to our society and to our entire planet….I am deeply troubled that oil companies have contributed to the problem by intentionally...

Environment: President Obama's "Clean Power Plan" is on pause, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling in March after more than two dozen states filed suit to stop it. A new report shows why the plan should be scrapped entirely, and the EPA sued for fraud.

Montana and five other states say resident Barack Obama overstepped his power by rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline, whose developers are now suing four presidential cabinet members. The states along the pipeline’s route filed a friend-of-the-court brief this week arguing that Congress, not the executive, has the right to regulate interstate and international commerce. The pipeline, which would have crossed the Canadian border, was being developed by TransCanada, which is now suing the government. Because of the resident’s representations to the rest of the world that America would lead in reducing its carbon footprint, that that was the sole reason...

President Obama openly declared war on coal in his last State of the Union address. And it’s going to be a very, very expensive war. “Now we’ve got to accelerate the transition away from old, dirtier energy sources,” Obama said. “Rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future - especially in communities that rely on fossil fuels. We do them no favor when we don’t show them where the trends are going. That’s why I’m going to push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources, so that they better reflect the costs they...

The North Fork Valley is now down to one operating coal mine after Friday’s announcement that the Bowie No. 2 Mine near Paonia is being idled. Kentucky-based Bowie Resource Partners said in a news release that the action is occurring “as a result of continued market deterioration.” “The mine will remain idle while the market for Bowie No. 2 coal is evaluated,” the company said. The mine employs 108 full-time employees and one contractor. Bowie said it expects that 68 positions will be eliminated ... Just a few years ago, Bowie No. 2 employed more than 300 miners ... Another...

The legal barrage to halt the Environmental Protection Agency’s radical Clean Power Plan has begun. A broad coalition of U.S. industry and business, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and an armada of other business and industry organizations, has asked the D.C. District of the federal Court of Appeals to prevent any further action on the Plan until the court can decide its overall legal status. The coalition filed a motion at their first opportunity on Friday to stay EPA’s long-awaited final rule governing the plan, immediately after the agency published the rule in the...

City-parish president candidates Joel Robideaux and Dee Stanley navigated questions on coal-generated power, the disruption an elevated interstate might cause in Lafayette and whether the city has too many traffic signals — all posed at a Thursday evening forum sponsored by the local chapter of the Sierra Club. In a campaign season where the candidates have often found themselves repeatedly addressing the same issues in the string of debates and forums leading up to the Oct. 24 election, Stanley and Robideaux covered some new ground at the environmental group’s forum at the Lafayette Public Library downtown. Robideaux, a longtime state...

Robert Henneke dishes on the EPA’s so-called “Clean Power Plan,” and the new WOTUS rules. Henneke leads the Center for the American Future (CAF) at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The CAF litigates to advance Tenth Amendment principles, fighting federal overreach and abuse in the subject matter areas of environmental, private property, and business autonomy rights.

The Climate Change Business Journal has calculated that global warming is now a $1.5 trillion a year industry. The Business Journal’s report is not available for free online, but its findings are reviewed by the Insurance Journal. They are eye-opening, to say the least: The $1.5 trillion global “climate change industry” grew at between 17 and 24 percent annually from 2005-2008, slowing to between 4 and 6 percent following the recession with the exception of 2011’s inexplicable 15 percent growth, according to Climate Change Business Journal. The San Diego, Calif.-based publication includes within that industry nine segments and 38 sub-segments....

Gov. John Hickenlooper has pledged that Colorado will comply with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, but this effort to cut so-called “CO2 pollution” could come at a dear price to the state’s coal industry. ... Colorado is among the top states in coal production and consumption. In the year 2013, 64 percent of energy produced in Colorado came from coal, 20 percent from natural gas, and around 15 percent from various renewables including hydroelectric, biomass, solar and wind. The history of Colorado’s coal mining industry stretches over the past two centuries. Not to mention, coal jobs have a multiplier effect...

With the Obama administration only two months away from releasing its “Clean Power Plan,” much debate has focused on the supposed benefits of cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions over the next 15 years. Lost amid the rhetoric is the economic hardship it will impose on working families — especially the 2.2 million blacks and Hispanics living in Pennsylvania. That's the finding from a new study commissioned by the National Black Chamber of Commerce. This regulation will leave minority communities with disproportionately fewer jobs, lower incomes and higher poverty than whites. Thus, while the administration calls its regulation a “justice issue”...

‘Flexibility” is the advertised hallmark of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan, which by 2030 would reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants by 30% from 2005 levels. The central feature of the plan is a forced shift away from inexpensive coal-fired power. Not to worry, says EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy: “With EPA’s flexible proposal, states choose the ways we cut carbon pollution, so we can still have affordable, reliable power to grow our economy.” Under the plan, the EPA will set a carbon-dioxide-emissions target for every state, and give each state roughly a year to develop and...

In June, as you may recall, the EPA announced their new “Clean Power Plan” which was, for all intents and purposes, another shot across the bow in the war on coal. In their mission statement, while paying lip service to the fact that the needs and resources of each of the states are different, they also cite “the important role of states as full partners with the federal government in cutting pollution.” This is matched with the built in assumption of the need to “address the risks of climate change.” (Apparently nobody bothered to ask the states exactly how...