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Policy
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Corn Ethanol: The Next New Coke?
How do you get Americans to pay for something they don’t really want in the first place? Most of the time – as in the case of New Coke, Harley Davidson Perfume, and the U.S. Football League – the answer is simple: you can’t. But where the Edsel failed, corn…
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New Rules for Gas: Good Policy, Delayed
Last week, EPA announced New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for the oil and natural gas industry. These new rules are an important and long-awaited step towards better control of the air pollution emitted by this rapidly expanding sector. Notably, the standards include the first federal air pollution regulations for hydraulically…
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Memo To EPA: Stay Strong On Oil and Gas Standards
Next week, EPA will issue final New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for conventional air emissions from the oil and natural gas industry. The standards must require the capture of hundreds of thousands of tons of smog-forming emissions emitted annually by this industry, along with millions of tons of methane. Methane…
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At Last: A First Step on GHGs
Last week, the Administration took a bold step forward to curb greenhouse gas emissions. In a long-anticipated action, EPA proposed new source performance standards (NSPS) for fossil-fueled power plants that would limit emissions from new plants to a rate of 1,000 lbs. of CO2 per megawatt-hour, averaged annually. This level…
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Public Transit Buses: Diesel or CNG?
Recently, Pittsburgh’s mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, announced that his city would buy four new garbage trucks fueled by compressed natural gas (CNG) rather than diesel because, among other reasons, it would improve local air quality. Like Pittsburgh, many municipalities are dealing with an aging fleet of vehicles and weighing the environmental…
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Many Climate Decisions Ahead for EPA
Whatever the symbolic importance of the Keystone XL decision, it is only one of several climate-related policy decisions facing the Administration this year – and arguably one of the less significant ones. The Environmental Impact Statement on the project produced by the U.S. Department of State estimates that stopping the…
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GHG Regs Must Be Top Priority
Setting greenhouse gas performance standards for new and existing coal-fired power plants has to be THE environmental, energy, and climate policy priority for 2012. Given the carbon footprint of this industry, building a new coal fired power plant without some level of carbon dioxide control is simply not justifiable technically,…
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Methane from Oil and Gas: Low-hanging Fruit that EPA Must Pick
November 30th was the last day for public comments on EPA’s proposal to significantly update air emissions limits for most of the oil and natural gas industry. The proposal makes much-needed revisions to existing requirements, which in some cases are over 25 years old, and in expanding the coverage of…
