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U.S. Senator, State of Wyoming
Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Congress needs to help make American energy as clean as we can, as fast as we can, without raising costs on consumers. That’s why I, along with a bipartisan group of Senators, introduced the Utilizing Significant Emissions with Innovative Technologies Act, or simply, the USE IT Act. We held a Senate hearing on this bill several weeks ago. The USE IT Act would encourage the commercial use of man-made carbon dioxide emissions and support the use of carbon capture technology, including direct air capture. The legislation also expedites permitting for carbon dioxide pipelines in order to move the carbon dioxide… [more]
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California is the second state after Hawaii to establish a 100% carbon-free energy goal for its electric grid. In late August, the state legislature passed Senate Bill 100 (SB 100) which created a 100% clean electricity standard by 2045 and also altered California’s current renewable portfolio standard (RPS). Previously, California’s RPS mandated 50% of the state’s retail electricity sales come from renewable sources by 2030, but following passage of SB 100, that figure is now modified to 60%. To achieve the 2045 goal, however, SB 100 takes a broader approach by explicitly instructing California’s energy agencies to “plan for 100%… [more]
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Editor
Bloomberg's First Word Energy
Coal can’t get much love. Cheap natural gas and a bevy of EPA regulations are conspiring to force old coal plants to close and pushing U.S. production down to less than one billion short tons, near a two-decade low. While low-cost production in Wyoming and Illinois has been able to hold steady, the legacy mines of Appalachia face devastating losses in production and jobs. Meanwhile, projects that were supposed to demonstrate a future for coal in a carbon-constrained world are struggling or dead. The Obama administration pulled the plug on the FutureGen clean coal project this month. Another similar project… [more]
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released draft rules on September 20th, to limit carbon emissions from new coal power plants. The proposed rules are part of President Obama’s broader Climate Action Plan aimed at combating climate change and improving public health, according to the EPA. Under the rules, new coal-fired power plants would be limited to 1,100 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour, or could opt to meet stricter average emissions limits that grant additional operational flexibility. The rules also would require new plants to implement partial carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. Critics of the proposed rules argue that… [more]
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