Facing growing opposition from members of Congress, the Obama administration says it will gradually phase in controls on heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other large sources of CO2.

Lisa Jackson, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (at left), said that beginning early next year the EPA will regulate CO2 emissions from roughly 400 large emitters of greenhouse gases, mainly coal-fired power plants.

Other major sources of CO2, such as refineries and large factories, will be subject to EPA regulation in late 2011, Jackson said in a letter to eight moderate Democratic senators concerned about the effects of the regulations on their states.

(more…)

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has announced it will mount a legal challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to limit greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Steven J. Law, the chamber’s chief legal counsel, said the business group would not question the science behind global warming but rather would challenge the process by which the EPA decided it had the right to control carbon dioxide emissions as a threat to human health.

The Obama administration has said it would prefer that Congress pass a law regulating carbon emissions, but with the passage of such a law looking increasingly unlikely, a battle is shaping up over the EPA’s possible efforts to control CO2 emissions.

(more…)

The US EPA continues its New Source Review initiative. The agency has announced that emissions from container glass and Portland cement plants will be reduced under the settlement of a New Source Review case. The settlement requires the affected facilities to install new pollution control equipment Selective Catalytic Reduction, and to continuously monitor their emissions.

The settlements cover 15 U.S. plants owned by Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc., the nation’s second largest container glass manufacturer, and all 13 U.S. plants owned by the Lafarge Company and two subsidiaries, the nation’s second largest manufacturer of Portland cement. These settlements are the first system-wide settlements for these sectors under the Clean Air Act and require pollution control upgrades, acceptance of enforceable emission limits and payment of civil penalties.

(more…)

Heading into the new year, we are left wondering what impact Copenhagen’s legacy (a nonbinding Accord) will have on the US Senate’s cap-and-trade bill.  With the House “ACES” bill passed, the attention is now squarely focused on the Senate as it reconvenes and takes another crack at legislation regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

Cap-and-trade legislation from Washington may include a federal renewable electricity standard (Washington’s version of a renewable portfolio standard).  How this standard would be integrated into existing state standards or vice versa will remain a hot topic throughout 2010.

(more…)

The US EPA is the source of most air quality impact assessment models used in the US for regulatory purposes, such as predicting the potential impacts from proposed stationary sources of air pollutants and mobile sources such as motor vehicles. Since motor vehicle emissions vary with regulatory changes in required emission level, it is important that impact modeling be performed with the most up-to-date models.

EPA recently announced  that an updated version of the Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES) model — MOVES2010 — is now available for use to estimate air pollution from cars, trucks, and other on-road mobile sources. The model can also calculate the emissions reduction benefits from a range of mobile source control strategies, such as inspection and maintenance programs and local fuel standards.

(more…)

The US EPA and Duke Energy have reached a settlement in another New Source Review enforcement action.

Duke Energy, one of the largest electric power companies in the nation, will spend approximately $85 million to significantly reduce harmful air pollution at an Indiana power plant and pay a $1.75 million civil penalty, under a settlement to resolve violations of federal clean air laws, the Justice Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today. The settlement also requires Duke to spend $6.25 million on environmental mitigation projects.

The agreement, filed in federal court in Indianapolis, resolves violations of the Clean Air Act’s new source review requirements found at the company’s Gallagher coal-fired power plant in New Albany, Ind., located directly across the Ohio River from Louisville, Ky. (more…)

The United States Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward in regulating greenhouse gas emission in the US from both mobile sources (principally autos and trucks) and stationary sources (industrial and power generation sources). The actions taken today support EPA in regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

[Yesterday], the US EPA Administrator signed two distinct findings regarding greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act:
(more…)

The US Environmental Protection Agency today announced the next steps in a coordinated strategy to reduce emissions from ocean-going vessels. EPA is proposing a rule under the Clean Air Act that sets engine and fuel standards for U.S. flagged ships that would harmonize with international standards and are expected to lead to significant air quality improvements throughout the country, especially near ports.

“These emissions are contributing to health, environmental and economic challenges for port communities and others that are miles inland. Building on our work to form an international agreement earlier this year, we’re taking the next steps to reduce significant amounts of harmful pollution from getting into the air we breathe,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. (more…)

There’s been a lot out there in the ether about how Waxman-Markey (and climate change legislation in general) has been a windfall for lobbyists, fighting both to keep the government’s hands off of utilities and others’ CO2 emissions on the status quo side and scrambling for the subsidies and other dollars on the green tech side.

The Washington Post (WaPo) opened just such a story this week with an anecdote about Rep Gene Green’s (D-TX) amendment changing the word “sources” to the words “emission points.” WaPo notes “that tiny bit of editing might one day give petroleum refiners valuable rights to emit carbon dioxide when it otherwise might not have been allowed. (more…)