Budget & Policy

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is seeing a lot of love for the Clean Power Plan this week. Three amici curiae briefs were filed Thursday in support of the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon emissions standard for existing coal-fired power plants, adding to four intervenors briefs filed Tuesday and the EPA’s own […]

The National Energy Technology Laboratory and U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy are requested information regarding new and innovative uses for carbon dioxide captured from fossil fuel power plants. DOE is considering increasing its support for CO2 use research and development, according to the March 29 request for information. The majority of research […]

U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday announced that their nations, the world’s top two carbon emitters, will sign the Paris climate change agreement on April 22, the day it opens for signature. Meeting in Washington ahead of the fourth Nuclear Security Summit, the two leaders issued a joint presidential statement […]

A preliminary agenda for the 15th Annual Carbon Capture, Utilization, & Storage (CCUS) Conference, featuring keynote presentations by Charles McConnell, former assistant energy secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy, and Julio Friedmann, former principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy, has been announced by Access Intelligence. The schedule also includes presentations […]

India’s efforts to reduce air pollution from coal-fired power plants may cost up to 2.5 trillion rupees ($37 billion), a price tag the New Delhi-based Association of Power Producers, a lobby group comprised of nonstate power generation companies, is unwilling to swallow, Bloomberg reported. “There are financing challenges, implementation challenges, administrative challenges and regulatory challenges,” […]

If the world is to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius no new unabated fossil energy infrastructure can be built after 2017, Oxford University researchers said in a new report. “Even under the very optimistic assumption that other sectors reduce emissions in line with a 2C target, no new emitting electricity infrastructure can […]

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity has taken to the Web to defend the use of coal for energy generation. “The administration has disparaged the industry and misrepresented the reality of the situation: Americans from all walks of life rely on this abundant, cost-saving resource.  Our new web page provides a handy resource for […]

British Columbia’s carbon tax should be increased by $10 (CAD) per metric ton per year, a group of more than 130 businesses wrote in a letter this week to B.C. Premier Christy Clark. “The province’s carbon tax has been widely praised as an effective climate policy because of its ability to reduce carbon pollution, increase […]

Nearly $1 trillion is being invested in building and planning coal-fired power plants that are not needed worldwide, according to a report published Wednesday by the Sierra Club. That encompasses 338 gigawatts of new coal capacity being built and 1,086 gigawatts in planning, “the equivalent of 1,500 coal plants,” the environmental organization said. “The world […]

Papua New Guinea on Tuesday became the first country to submit a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) plan to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to comply with the Paris climate change agreement. NDCs are public commitments laying out the actions each country will take under the Paris Agreement to keep global temperature rise […]

After five years of cooperation, the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center’s clean coal technology consortium has been fruitful: Researchers have produced joint articles and conference papers, and developed new or improved research procedures, patents, and market products. However, the consortium’s inner workings can be improved, according to a working paper released Monday by the World […]

While reducing carbon dioxide emissions is vitally important to decreasing the effects of climate change, countries should not discount the massive impact short-lived climate pollutants can have on the environment, Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, and Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, wrote in an […]

Backers of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan on Tuesday filed briefs with a federal appeals court reaffirming their arguments that the regulation, which requires states to develop action plans to meet federally set emissions reduction goals, is legal and well-crafted. The briefs, penned by a group of intervenors representing 17 states and a […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security, the managing contractor at the Y-12 and Pantex nuclear weapons plant, is scrambling to get its funding accounts back in order after a series of events created what has been described as an “imbalance.” Even though CNS is reportedly within its budget and meeting production goals for the National Nuclear Security Administration, […]

In the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress should support modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and reject funding for implementing treaties that provide no strategic benefit for the United States, the conservative Heritage Foundation said in a policy paper this week. “U.S. nuclear weapons and delivery systems are aging and in need of […]

The Colorado General Assembly’s Joint Budget Committee last week approved a $27 million budget bill cutting all funding the state’s Department of Public Health and Environment. Committee Republicans, angered by Gov. John Hickenlooper’s (D) decision to continue work to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power […]

Petitioners in a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s New Source Performance Standards for new-build coal-fired power plants will have until July 15 to submit briefs to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit under the court’s briefing schedule. The suit is led by North Dakota and challenges the merits of the rule, […]

Leaving the European Union would be ill-advised from an energy standpoint, U.K. Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Amber Rudd said last week. The U.K. will vote on June 23 whether to remain in the EU, a decision that could affect the nation’s energy prices and global standing, Rudd said in a speech. […]

The Environmental Protection Agency defended its authority to regulate carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants Monday in a briefing filed with a federal appeals court, calling for the rule to be upheld. The March 28 deadline falls into an expedited schedule set by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for […]

Interested parties in the Kemper County Energy Facility carbon capture and storage project will soon have an easier time accessing data on the project collected by independent monitors including AECOM and Power Engineers Burns and Roe. The Mississippi Public Service Commission announced Friday that it will begin posting online the monthly updates prepared by the […]

The U.S. Department of the Interior is taking the first steps in a review of the federal coal leasing program announced in January. A formal notice of intent published Friday in the Federal Register officially launched the department’s programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) with a schedule of public meetings. The meetings are planned to be […]

Baroness Helen Liddell has been named honorary president of the U.K.’s Carbon Capture & Storage Association, a position held by Lord Ronald Oxburgh for the last decade, the association announced last week. Liddell has previously held several positions in government including; economic secretary to the Treasury, minister of state for energy and competitiveness in Europe, […]

Todd Stern, U.S. special envoy for climate change, will leave his position with the State Department on April 1. “For seven years, Todd Stern has helped lead U.S. efforts to address one of the greatest challenges facing the world today, culminating in the historic global climate agreement reached at COP 21 in Paris last year. […]

The Energy Department’s top nuclear cleanup official will discuss the transition of DOE nuclear facilities from active missions to cleanup with the bipartisan House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus April 20, one of the caucus’ chairmen said in a press release. The event will be hosted by the East Tennessee Environmental Business Association (ETEBA), the Energy Facility […]

The Hanford Site’s Richland Operations Office estimates it needs a budget of $1.015 million in fiscal 2018 to meet Tri-Party Agreement and other regulatory requirements for the ongoing cleanup of the former plutonium production installation in Washington state. That would be an increase of more than $200 million above the Obama administration’s fiscal 2017 request, […]

Economists largely agree that a carbon tax is the most efficient way to reduce carbon emissions. The idea has gotten little traction in the U.S. at the national level, as is to be expected with Congress led by the tax-adverse GOP. However, there may be a way to craft such a tax to make it […]

The Rockefeller Family Fund, founded by descendants of one of the founding families of the oil industry, announced Wednesday that it will divest from fossil fuels. “While the global community works to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, it makes little sense—financially or ethically—to continue holding investments in these companies. There is no sane rationale […]

Letters are flying around Congress regarding the Green Climate Fund lately, and it’s clear there is no shortage of opinions about the international anti-climate change financing program. The latest correspondence to come to light comes from a bipartisan group of senators: Democrats Tom Udall (N.M.) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.), and Republicans Mark Kirk (Ill.) and […]

The first few months of 2016 are on track to continue the trend of ever-rising global temperatures, according to the Work Meteorological Organization. In observance of World Meteorological Day on Wednesday, the group releases the WMO Statement on the Status of the Climate in 2015, offering details of climate change-related land and sea surface temperatures, […]

It seems everybody has something to say about the Green Climate Fund lately. Congressional appropriators in recent days have gotten an earful about the international investment program to counter climate change, with letters coming from both sides of the aisle, both houses of Congress, and both sides of the issue. Last Friday, a group of […]