Category: Climate

EPA announces Monday a proposal seeking a 30% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, immunotherapy drug data show promise in treating cancer, work becoming more relaxing than home and preventing elderly falls. Photo: Getty WASHINGTON—The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday released a draft rule to regulate carbon emissions from hundreds of fossil-fired power plants across the U.S., the cornerstone of President Barack Obama ‘s climate-change agenda. The proposed rule mandates that power plants cut U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions 30% by 2030 from levels seen in 2005, an aggressive target that marks the first attempt at limiting such pollution. "That’s like canceling out annual carbon pollution from two thirds of all cars and trucks in America," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in speech at agency headquarters Monday announcing the rule. "And if you add up what we’ll avoid between now and 2030—it’s more than double the carbon pollution from every […]

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The Obama administration on Monday announced one of the strongest actions ever taken by the United States government to fight climate change, a proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulation to cut carbon pollution from the nation’s power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. The regulation takes aim at the largest source of carbon pollution in the United States, the nation’s more than 600 coal-fired power plants. If it withstands an expected onslaught of legal and legislative attacks, experts say that it could close hundreds of the plants and also lead, over the course of decades, to systemic changes in the American electricity industry, including transformations in how power is generated and used. Gina McCarthy, the E.P.A. administrator, unveiled the proposal in a speech Monday morning. “Today, climate change — fueled by carbon pollution — supercharges risks not just to our health, but to our communities, our […]

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The Obama administration’s proposal to cut carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants prompted an immediate backlash from Democrats in conservative-leaning states Monday, underscoring the extent to which the president’s energy policy will become a major front in the battle for control over Congress this fall. The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule, which is now subject to public comment and will be finalized a year from now, would cut carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal plants by up to 30 percent by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. It tackles the largest source of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions, the electricity sector, which is helping drive climate change. While environmentalists and liberal supporters of President Obama hailed the move as a long-overdue effort to tackle one of the biggest threats facing the planet, it added new complications for a party already facing a difficult midterm election landscape. Nineteen states get […]

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The Obama administration’s latest proposal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is largely aimed at the more than 600 US coal-fired power plants. But oil refiners should expect higher electricity costs the rule could bring, sources said Monday. The Environmental Protection Agency says the proposal, released Monday morning, would reduce emissions 30% from 2005 levels by 2030. Diana Cronan, a spokeswoman for the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, said the proposal is expected to have an indirect effect on refiners, since the new regulations on power plants could increase electricity prices. After crude oil, electricity is the second highest cost refiners face, she said. Article continues below… Oilgram News brings you fast-breaking global petroleum and gas news on and including: Industry players, upstream and downstream markets, refineries, midstream transportation and financial reports Supply and demand trends, government actions, exploration and technology Daily futures summary Weekly API statistics, and much more […]

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Colorado State University increased the number of storms it expects to develop during the Atlantic hurricane season to 10 from nine. The forecast calls for four of those to become hurricanes, one of them a major system, said Phil Klotzbach , lead author of the outlook. In April, his team predicted three hurricanes, with one growing into a major storm. “We raised the number slightly because El Nino isn’t coming on as strong as we thought,” Klotzbach said by telephone today. “We’re still pretty confident it will be a quiet season.” Atlantic hurricanes can disrupt U.S. and Mexican natural gas and oil production and affect refineries and agriculture. An estimated $10.6 trillion of insured coastal property in 18 states from Maine to Texas is vulnerable to storm strikes, according to the Insurance Information Institute in New York. The 30-year average is for the Atlantic to produce 12 storms during […]

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The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday will roll out a plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 30 percent by 2030, setting the first national limits on the chief gas linked to global warming. The rule, which is expected to be final next year, is a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s plans to reduce the pollution linked to global warming, a step that the administration hopes will get other countries to act when negotiations on a new international treaty resume next year. Despite concluding in 2009 that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare, a finding that triggered their regulation under the 1970 Clean Air Act, it has taken years for the administration to take on the nation’s fleet of power plants. In December 2010, the Obama administration announced a "modest pace" for setting greenhouse gas standards for power plants, setting a May […]

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EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy will announce the proposal on Monday. Getty Images WASHINGTON—The Environmental Protection Agency will propose mandating power plants cut U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions 30% by 2030 from levels of 25 years earlier, according to people briefed on the rule, an ambitious target that marks the first-ever attempt at limiting such pollution. The rule-making proposal, to be unveiled Monday, sets in motion the main piece of President Barack Obama ‘s climate-change agenda and is designed to give states and power companies flexibility in reaching the target. But it also will face political resistance and become fodder in midterm congressional races, particularly in energy-producing states, and is destined to trigger lawsuits from states and industry that oppose it. The rule would affect hundreds of fossil-fuel power plants—hitting the nation’s roughly 600 coal-fired plants the hardest. The carbon framework seeks to strike a balance between what environmentalists want—an ambitious overall […]

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At the end of his first year in office, President Obama flew to Copenhagen and made a big promise: that the United States would cut its greenhouse gas emissions substantially by 2020 — a bold and risky pledge that hinged on a balky Congress to make it possible. His efforts became bogged down within months, and Mr. Obama’s pledge to the rest of the world soon looked like a pipe dream. On Monday, Mr. Obama is planning to bypass Congress and take one of the biggest steps any American president has ever taken on climate change, proposing new rules to cut emissions at power plants. Yet, by itself, the president’s plan will barely nudge the global emissions that scientists say are threatening the welfare of future generations. “Is it enough to stop climate change? No,” said Ted Nordhaus, chairman of the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank in Oakland, […]

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