Know a college student? As this holiday weekend rolls in and many of you might have college kids coming back to your home with huge bags full of dirty laundry, we’ve got something for you.

Know a college student with a dirty room? If you're nodding your head 'yes' right now, send them this link so they can be part of our quest to find the dirtiest room in the nation (or you – the friends or parents - can take a photo and enter them yourself!).

We're betting the dirtiest room we find, no matter how filthy, is still not as dirty as the coal that powers many of our nation's campuses.

The owner of the dirtiest room -- dorm, fraternity, or apartment -- will win a free, green cleaning service from the Sierra Club.

This is another step in our Too Dirty for College Campaign, which I've written about before. We've already had folks tell university presidents that it's time to move beyond coal and power our schools with 100 percent clean-energy solutions.

Now we're proving that no matter how dirty college gets, it's not as dirty as coal.

Your room (or your kid's or friend's room) might be completely filthy, but it's still not as bad as toxic pollution, mountaintop removal and global warming. Coal is dirty, dangerous and far too old to be fueling our nation's college campuses. It poisons people's water when we drag it out of our mountains, it fills our air with asthma and cancer-causing toxins, and then continues its dirty legacy when the waste is dumped in unlined ponds. We can do better and our schools must lead the way.

So show us that dirty room. To enter, go to this "2dirty4college" photo contest group, and join our online community. You can then upload your image by clicking "Add a photo" on the left-hand side of the page.

Again, the owner of the dirtiest room will win a free, green cleaning service from the Sierra Club. So, call that ex-boyfriend, pay a special visit to your friend's fraternity or call those gals living in the group house next door with the funky smell, and get them to enter today for the glory of being the dirtiest in country. (And a free clean up!)

Help us find the dirtiest room and show that while college can get pretty nasty, coal is still far, far worse.

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Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7

Pollution from coal is not only unhealthy for the environment -- it also hurts the human body and contributes to four of the five leading causes of death in the U.S.: heart disease, cancer, stroke and chronic respiratory disease.

So concludes a new assessment of coal's health effects from Physicians for Social Responsibility. Titled "Coal's Assault on Human Health," the report examines the cumulative harm that coal pollution inflicts on the respiratory, cardiovascular and nervous systems. It also considers coal's contribution to global warming and the health implications of that.

"Detrimental health effects are associated with every aspect of coal's life cycle, including mining, hauling, preparation at the power plant, combustion, and the disposal of post-combustion wastes," the introduction states.

The report examines that entire life cycle, from the high fatal injury rate and chronic health problems suffered by coal miners, to the dust and water pollution that mining inflicts on nearby communities, to how the health-damaging chemicals used in washing coal make their way into water supplies. It also accounts for the enormous amount of pollution emitted by the trucks and trains that haul coal, and the threat presented by the more than 500 coal ash dumps sites across the United States.

It finds that the burning phase of coal's life-cycle takes the greatest toll of all on human health:

Coal combustion releases a combination of toxic chemicals into the environment and contributes significantly to global warming. Coal combustion releases sulfur dioxide, particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxides, mercury, and dozens of other substances known to be hazardous to human health. Coal combustion contributes to smog through the release of oxides of nitrogen, which react with volatile organic compounds in the presence of sunlight to produce ground-level ozone, the primary ingredient in smog.

The report's findings have important implications for the public health future of the United States in general -- and the South in particular. According to the Sierra Club's database on proposed new coal plants, there are a total of 55 active coal plant projects underway in the U.S., and almost half of those -- 27 in all -- are slated for Southern states*:

* 2 in Arkansas (Hempstead and Plum Point II);
* 1 in Florida (Seminole);
* 2 in Georgia (Longleaf and Washington County Power Station);
* 8 in Kentucky (Black Stallion, Cash Creek, Coal Synthetics, Estill County Energy Partners, NewGas Energy Center, Smith, Spurlock, Trimble);
* 2 in Louisiana (Big Cajun I and Big Cajun II Unit 4);
* 1 in Mississippi (Mississippi Power Kemper IGCC);
* 1 in North Carolina (Cliffside);
* 7 in Texas (Coleto Creek, Diamond Alternative Energy, Las Brisas, Limestone III, Sandy Creek, Tenaska and White Stallion);
* 2 in Virginia (Dominion and Old Dominion Electric Cooperative); and
* 1 in West Virginia (TransGas Development's Coal-to-Liquid Plant).

These plants should not be built, according to PSR. In fact, the report's policy recommendations call for no new construction of coal-fired power plants so as to avoid increasing health-endangering emissions of carbon dioxide and toxic air pollutants.

The report also calls for cutting carbon dioxide emissions "as deeply and as swiftly as possible" through legislation establishing hard caps on global warming pollution and through the Clean Air Act. And it urges the U.S. to develop its capacity to generate electricity from clean, safe and renewable sources so existing coal-fired plants can be phased out without a net loss of jobs or compromising the nation's energy supply.

"These steps compromise a medically defensible energy policy: one that takes into account the public health impacts of coal while meeting our need for energy," PSR concludes.

* Facing South counts among the Southern states AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA and WV.

(This story originally appeared at Facing South.)

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This post was co-written by Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign.

We’re celebrating great news out of Minnesota and South Dakota this week:

After almost five years of planning and permitting efforts, the participating utilities in the proposed Big Stone II Project announced ... Monday that they will end their quest to build the project’s large coal-fired power plant and associated transmission facilities.

We echo our own Cesia Kearns, a Sierra Club staffer from Minnesota, in what the halting of Big Stone II means for the region.

The failure of this enormous proposed coal plant expansion unravels the myth that the Midwest is starving for more electricity, and that coal is the only way to adequately meet that perceived need. This victory demonstrates that even when we may lose the battles -- consistent pressure, engaged citizens, and strong partnerships can win the war. It's a strong example of how even though the regulators may be on the side of a developer, the public is not.

We salute our tough band of local residents in South Dakota and Minnesota (the plant was proposed for northeastern South Dakota, near the border with Minnesota), who spent the last five years fighting this dirty coal plant. The Sierra Club also partnered with grassroots, state, and regional organizations during this long and difficult campaign. They knew how bad the air pollution and global warming contributions this plant would spew forth would be, they wanted clean energy for their region, and even when the going got tough, they never gave up.

Stopping the Big Stone II project prevented about 4.7 million tons of CO2, or the equivalent of the pollution from roughly 670,000 cars (substantially more than all the cars in South Dakota) from entering the atmosphere every year.

The residents so entrenched in this fight against Big Stone II helped lead a long fight against the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission for its issuance of an air pollution permit for the plant and, equally important, an enforcement action targeting the existing coal-fired unit at the Big Stone facility for past violations of the Clean Air Act.   We also challenged the state of South Dakota's Clean Air Act plan for failure to comply with federal law.

Kearns added that one noteworthy example of the grassroots push for clean energy was the mention of Sierra Club's "footprint petition" in the administrative law judge's written recommendation to the Minn. Public Utilities Commission to deny the certificate of need for Big Stone II’s transmission lines.

“The footprint petition was a long swath of fabric with the signatures and outlines of the footprints of over 2,000 Minnesotans who wanted to see global warming solutions in Minnesota,” explained Kearns. “It was presented to the administrative law judge during a public hearing in Ortonville, Minn. -- the town closest to the location of the proposed plant.”

This plant’s demise is also a sign of impending climate legislation. Otter Tail Power had pulled out of this plant back in September, citing, among other reasons, “a high level of uncertainty associated with proposed federal climate legislation and existing federal environmental regulation.”

No other utilities stepped in to take over the Big Stone II expansion themselves -- because the companies all know that this legislation is coming.

Coal power is not the future of U.S. energy.The public is speaking up for more clean energy. And from coast to coast, that voice is getting louder every day.

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This week’s post was co-written by Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign

That’s the trailer for the powerful new documentary “Coal Country.” If you haven’t heard about this film yet, you need to take a look at the website and learn more about the devastating effects of mountaintop-removal coal mining.

Executive producer Mari-Lynn Evans and writer/producer/director Phylis Geller do an incredible job of portraying the controversy between the coal industry and local residents in many Appalachian towns.

We want to spread the word about “Coal Country” because people must know about this destructive practice and get involved to stop it: So we’re giving you the opportunity to see the film before the general public does.

The movie premieres on the Planet Green network on Nov. 14 at 8 p.m. EST, but you can receive a free 45-minute sneak preview DVD of the film by signing up to host a house party the week of Nov. 10-14 with the Sierra Club.

The reviews of this great film are already in -- on Tuesday night at Town Hall in New York City, legendary Appalachian musicians shared the stage with activists and celebrities for the New York premiere of this film. It was a tremendous hit with the 1,000+ people in attendance in New York, who were also treated to performances by musicians including Kathy Mattea and Jean Ritchie, artists who donated their time and talents to help advance the cause of ending mountaintop removal.

Geller and Evans bring us the unforgettable and spellbinding story of the troubled, divisive legacy of coal in Appalachia, and they connect the dots to the problems coal causes nationwide, including global warming. The film looks at the reality of mountaintop-removal coal mining, where companies blow off the tops of mountains to reach the coal beneath.

Some of the people you meet in the film are concerned about jobs and the economy, and they believe they're acting responsibly in bringing power to the nation's residents. The movie also features remarkable people whose families have lived in the region for generations, have loved and tended the land, and have mined the coal, and whose lives are now being torn apart, driven from their homes by pollution and blasting.

Sign up to be a host and you’ll also get the opportunity to receive a special message on the night of your house party from actress Ashley Judd, who has worked with the Sierra Club and other organizations to end mountaintop-removal coal mining.

We’ll send you the sneak preview DVD so you and your house party guests can witness the amazing stories of coalfield residents like Judy Bonds, whose life has been threatened numerous times due to her activism, and Chuck Nelson, who worked for decades as an underground miner before becoming a powerful voice for ending mountaintop removal. You and your guests can discuss the film, take action, and call in to hear a message from celebrity guests, Sierra Club leaders, and Appalachian community members featured in the film.

This film continues to become more important as we learn more about the realities of coal power. This week we saw the release of a National Research Council report on the external costs of energy -- focusing on “monetizing the damage of major air pollutants -- sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone, and particulate matter -- on human health, grain crops and timber yields, buildings, and recreation.” They tallied up damages of an estimated $120 billion in the U.S. in 2005, and the biggest contributor to that cost was coal, coming in with $62 billion of the tab. One wonders how much higher that number would be if it included the realities of mountaintop-removal coal mining.

More than 500 mountains have been leveled by this coal-mining practice, and more are under threat right now. Many of you reading this post are benefiting from the power generated by the coal mined using this practice -- but have no idea what's going on or the effect it is having on the Appalachian people, and in one of the world's most diverse ecosystems.

Won’t you take one evening to get together with friends and check out the sneak preview so that we can educate more people and finally put and end to the devastation of our mountain heritage?

P.S.: Remember our "Coal is Too Dirty for College" campaign? The second and third ads are out -- watch them here.

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This week has seen some very tense and passionate hearings on mountaintop removal coal mining permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Local residents who support clean energy say they have been verbally and physically threatened at the West Virginia and Kentucky hearings so far.

Here's a video of the Charleston, WV, hearings, where pro-coal people harassed clean energy activists by pinning them against the wall. The clean energy activists were then removed before the hearing by police for "security reasons."



This harassment was also reported in several news articles, including one from the Associated Press and another from the Lexington Herald-Leader.

And despite all that proof, the Army Corps is saying the hearings were "conducted in an orderly fashion." We can and will dispute that statement 100%.

Big Coal claims that ending mountaintop removal coal mining will cost jobs and hurt local economies. Yet this week Sierra Club and the Appalachian Center for the Economy & the Environment released a report from economists showing the opposite: The United States can have affordable electricity without mountaintop removal.

According to the report:
·    Ending mountaintop removal would have a negligible effect on electricity prices in the eastern United States, where mountaintop removal coal is currently burned.
·    We have an abundance of cost-effective alternatives to mountaintop removal coal.
·    Other types of mining in Appalachia employ more workers.
·    Mountaintop removal coal mining costs state budgets more than it generates.
·    Mountaintop removal destroys clean energy sources.

Despite being outnumbered at these events so far, our clean energy activists will continue attending the other hearings this week – there are three more on Thursday night, in Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Appalachia residents who support clean energy jobs should not be verbally or physically intimidated into staying away or being quiet. Their message is crucial. Clean energy will benefit Appalachia's economy. Mountaintop removal coal mining is destroying communities and offers fewer benefits than clean energy.

Help us get that message across by taking action today. Submit your own comments on the Army Corps’ review of all these mountaintop removal permits. Your voice is needed!

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University of Washington campus.Did you know that many of our country’s colleges and universities -- places that are supposed to be a source of higher-education and leadership -- get their electricity by burning coal? And sometimes those coal-fired power plants are even on the campuses?

I think many of us look back in disbelief at some of the things we did in college. We’re seeing that same sense of disbelief from current college students when they learn that their campuses are still powered by coal.

This ad launches a campaign that will use print and online advertising (two more video ads to come) to highlight that some things are just too dirty, even for college.

The ads play off stereotypically “dirty” college behavior, becoming progressively more “dirty” throughout the series. Though college life allows for leniency in the socially acceptable, coal still crosses the line.

The ad campaign targets schools in 11 states which currently rely on coal power.

If you attend one of these schools, you can sign a petition asking your university president to kick coal off your campus -- the list and the petition are on this website. 

The Campuses Beyond Coal Campaign is working nationwide to wean all campuses off coal-generated electricity and replace it with clean energy options. With organizers on the ground in several of the more than 60 campuses with on-site coal plants the campaign is working to help universities achieve the zero carbon emissions targets set forth in the Presidents' Climate Commitment.

We released a report last month to support the campaign: “Breaking Coal’s Grip on Our Future: Moving Campuses Beyond Coal.” It highlights many of the problems facing coal dependent schools and the solutions available.

We know students want a cleaner, healthier future, and so they're organizing on campuses coast-to-coast to make that vision a reality.

The ad campaign will run through the end of October, with the remaining two videos to be released in the next few weeks. It’s time to kick coal off campus!

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This post was co-written by Kathleen Ridihalgh, Senior Representative for the Sierra Club’s Northwest Region

The first three days of this week are seeing a slew of activities taking on coal. We have events in 25 states to counter the coal industry and cheer on clean energy investments. It’s all part of our National Day of Action, and there are events happening across the nation, including rallies, public hearings, coal deliveries to polluters, press conferences, brown bag lunches, coal tours, and town hall meetings. Our Campuses Beyond Coal campaign is holding photo petition events on a dozen campuses nationwide, calling on campus administrators to shut down old, dirty coal plants polluting those universities and the neighboring towns.

These events are all sending one message from coast to coast -- coal is dirty business, and we need clean energy. You should check the website to learn more about these creative events and see if there are any taking place near you.

As we watch activists in these states work together for clean energy, we want to highlight a few states taking steps in the right direction that we hope other states will emulate. The Governors of Washington (Chris Gregoire), Oregon (Ted Kulongoski) and Montana (Brian Schweitzer) have all committed their states to meeting climate goals and investing in a clean energy future.

Now these three governors can continue to lead the way and take another tangible action within the region that will make significant progress towards meeting those goals: Directing the Northwest Power and Planning Conservation Council’s (NWPCC -- the region's official power planning agency) latest power plan to phase out coal by 2020, assign a responsible cost to carbon pollution, and maintain high energy efficiency goals.

This may be the one action they can take that is solely under their power to deliver. And they can do it today. This would get the region on a path to reducing the emissions from our electricity by 77 percent and ensure a safer, cleaner, more reliable energy portfolio overall. NWPCC has even stated that "serious efforts to reduce or even stabilize CO2 production beyond 2005 will likely require replacing existing coal-fired power plants with low CO2-emitting resources."

Washington's Gregoire and Oregon's Kulongoski have made real progress and paved the way for meeting the climate challenge. The 6th Power Plan is an excellent opportunity for Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer to demonstrate a true commitment to meeting the scientific goals for climate change.

This step with the NWPCC would mesh well with the states’ actions thus far:

But this action with the NWPCC is something they can do in the Northwest to show the rest of the world that there is a better way. We urge the governors to stay true to their vision now with the NWPCC Power Plan -- they should improve the current plan by maintaining maximum energy efficiency goals, putting a price on carbon emissions, and stating, as a goal, the plan to move the region off coal power by 2020.

This would be the single most important step they can take to have any real chance of meeting their states goals and making real their personal commitment to this important issue.

If you’re in the Seattle area, you can help promote this idea of moving the region off coal at a rally on Wednesday night. Otherwise, be sure to find any National Day of Action events near you.

The NWPCC is also having hearings throughout the Northwest where you can make your voice heard for a Coal-Free Northwest:

Though it has spent millions on "clean" coal advertising, the truth is that the coal industry has for years actively fought against cleaning up the existing fleet of over 500 coal-fired power plants, some of them dating back to the Eisenhower Administration. The industry must stop trying to block common sense regulations and policies that will protect communities and the environment. Rather than seeing these efforts as a threat to jobs and the economy, such regulations are the path forward to protect people’s livelihoods. Strong regulations put us on a path to cleaner technology that boosts economic growth, creates jobs and protects the planet. 

We didn't use to have a choice about how to power America. Today we can do better.  It's time to clean up pollution from coal and build the clean energy economy.

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This post was co-written by Lyndsay Moseley, Washington Representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign.

For those who remember the tragic TVA coal ash spill of December 2008 and wonder if such a disaster could happen in your town, there have been lots of important recent developments. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has started inspecting hazardous coal ash impoundments around the U.S., rating them based on how likely are they to fail and cause massive disasters like the spill at TVA’s Kingston, TN, plant last December.

In keeping with President Obama’s goal of promoting transparency, EPA has also begun posting their findings online  – more than 43 inspections at 22 facilities have already been posted.  And how many of those 43 impoundments ranked “satisfactory”?  Just over half of them – the rest were rated “fair” or “poor”, which means they have some work to do. This is scary news, considering that these dams are holding back billions of gallons of toxic waste left over from burning coal to generate electricity.

As EPA continues to inspect more coal ash impoundments, we are anxiously awaiting EPA’s draft rules, which have been in the works for over a decade and – amazingly enough – would be the first federal regulations ever put in place to ensure utilities are disposing of this hazardous waste safely. We expect that EPA will not only address the safety of the dams, but also how to treat the highly toxic waste material that is held back behind the dams. Coal ash contains arsenic, selenium, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, boron, thallium, and aluminum – toxic heavy metals that have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and neurological disorders, and which clearly threaten nearby communities and ecosystems. 

There are some who would have EPA classify coal ash within the same category as household garbage. Call us crazy, but a substance that threatens to increase risks of cancer and other diseases doesn’t really sound like regular household trash.

And what’s more, when coal ash comes into contact with water, these hazardous materials leach out of the waste and contaminate groundwater and surface water. Coal ash is exactly as we described it, a hazardous material. And nearly a hundred million tons of toxic coal ash and related coal combustion wastes pile up in unlined ponds and pits across the United States every year – the second largest solid waste stream in the nation, after municipal garbage.

Of course, we are pleased to learn from recent news reports that EPA’s lawyers agree that coal ash must be regulated under the hazardous waste classification, because it’s the only classification that establishes one consistent federal standard, prevents states from adopting weaker standards, and allows EPA to inspect sites and enforce these safeguards.

In order to meet Administrator Lisa Jackson’s stated goal of proposing regulations for coal ash by the end of 2009, EPA Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery will likely send draft rules to the White House Office of Management and Budget in the next few weeks. OMB has up to 90 days to complete their review before the draft rule is published in the federal register and the public comment begins. 

We must remain vigilant, but we are pleased to see EPA finally taking the critical steps needed to protect communities and watersheds across the nation from the hazards posed by coal ash.  

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday that it plans to revise the existing standards for wastewater discharges from coal-fired power plants.

The news came one day after three environmental groups announced they intend to sue the agency for failing to properly regulate such discharges. Many of these releases come from coal ash ponds like the one that failed catastrophically last year at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston plant in eastern Tennessee, an incident that released more than a billion gallons of toxic sludge into a nearby community and river.

According to the EPA's announcement:

Air pollution controls installed to remove pollution from smokestacks have made great strides in cleaning the air people breathe, saving lives and reducing respiratory and other illnesses. However, some of the equipment used to clean air emissions does so by “scrubbing” the boiler exhaust with water, and when the water is not properly managed it sends the pollution to rivers and other waterbodies. Treatment technologies are available to remove these pollutants before they are discharged to waterways, but these systems have been installed at only a fraction of the power plants.

Earlier this year, EPA completed a study of power plant waste discharges, concluding that  current regulations -- which date back to 1982 -- are not adequate to the task of protecting the environment from contamination. Once the new rule is finalized, EPA and the states would incorporate the new standards into plants' wastewater discharge permits.

On Monday, Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club, and the Environmental Integrity Project announced that they intended to sue EPA over its failure to set limits on toxic discharges from coal plants, which annually release millions of pounds of dangerous pollutants including arsenic, lead and mercury. The groups noted that existing rules do not set any limits on discharges of these metals, which can contaminate local waterways and leach into drinking water supplies, already threatened nationwide by toxic dumping.

A study released last month by the U.S. Geological Survey found mercury contamination in every fish it tested from nearly 300 streams across the country, with levels in 27% of the fish high enough to exceed EPA safety limits. The contamination is due largely to pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Jennifer Peterson, an attorney with EIP, said her organization welcomed EPA's promised regulatory action. However, the groups still plan to go ahead with their lawsuit to ensure there's a firm date by which rules are in place.

"EPA's plan to finally limit toxic discharges from power plants is great news," Peterson said. "It is also good to hear EPA acknowledge that these toxic pollutants 'can contaminate drinking water sources, cause fish and other wildlife to die and create other detrimental environmental effects.' But these rules are nearly 30 years overdue, and we need a deadline for regulation. That is what our lawsuit is about."

Last month EPA revealed that there are almost twice as many coal ash ponds nationwide as was previously thought. Those ponds -- some of which would present a deadly hazard to nearby communities were they to fail -- are concentrated in Appalachia, the Southeast, Midwest and Intermountain West.

At the same time, some power companies are still withholding information about their coal ash dumps, claiming it's confidential business information. They include North Carolina-based Duke Energy and Progress Energy as well as the Southern Co.'s Alabama Power and Georgia Power.

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What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

This post co-written by Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign.

Very big news out of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this morning:  The agency has determined that all 79 mountaintop-removal mining permits submitted to it for review by the Army Corps of Engineers would violate the Clean Water Act. After eight long years of rubber-stamp permits being issued during the Bush administration, this is one of the most dramatic and encouraging actions yet by the Obama administration, and marks a welcome return of the rule of law to the coalfields of Appalachia.

Mountaintop removal -- a devastating form of coal mining that involves blowing up mountains and dumping the former mountaintops into neighboring valleys, burying streams -- is governed by a patchwork of laws and federal agencies. Permits to bury streams with mining waste are initially issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, but EPA has ultimate oversight and may veto Corps-issued permits if they fail to comply with the Clean Water Act. 

During the Bush administration, EPA never opposed or challenged a permit, despite the fact that they clearly violated laws on the books to protect clean water and public health. Apparently, those days are over. This dramatic announcement by EPA that every single one of the 79 pending permits violates the Clean Water Act is a condemnation of the quality of permits being churned out during the Bush administration and is a testament to the Obama administration’s sincere commitment to science, transparency, and enforcing environmental safeguards.

All of these permits had piled up behind a court decision that was issued in February, and so most of them were written during the Bush administration. For those eight years, permits were being issued that violated the Clean Water Act, but EPA was prevented from objecting to the permits. Clearly there is a new sheriff in town.

It is important to note that this is only the first step in this process. These mountains have not been saved. The Army Corps now has 60 days to revise the permits and address EPA’s concerns. In our view, a sound reading of the science would determine that these permits cannot be issued. Some of the problems that are pervasive in all of these permits -- heavy metal pollution downstream, the inability to restore healthy functioning streams to replace what has been lost -- are problems that we just cannot engineer our way out of once a stream has been buried under millions of tons of rubble.

And ultimately, the Obama administration needs to take the step of reversing Bush-era rule changes that remain in place. Until President Obama fixes both the fill rule, under the Clean Water Act, and the buffer zone rule, under the Surface Mining Act, Appalachia will continue to suffer destruction under Bush’s regulatory regime. You can encourage the Obama administration to take those actions here.

Today’s announcement is just the latest stark reminder of the fact that, for too long, the coal industry has benefited from loopholes that no other industry enjoys. They bury streams with mining waste in violation of the Clean Water Act. They still lack any federal regulations for mercury pollution, a potent neurotoxin. They are allowed to dispose of toxic waste from their power plants -- coal ash -- again, with no federal regulations. It is time to close these loopholes, protect public health, and return the rule of law not just to Appalachia, but to all of America.

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Only a week after the nation's third largest utility, Duke Energy, announced it was terminating its membership in the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), citing disagreement over clean energy legislation, another company has followed suit.

Alstom Power is joining Duke for similar reasons. From the NY Times/Greenwire article:

Check out what Duke Energy said last week:

Duke has also withdrawn its membership in the National Association of Manufacturers for similar reasons; the NAM is currently running a misleading ad campaign against clean energy legislation.

Duke Energy and Alstom Power washing their hands of the coal lobby comes as welcome news.  ACCCE is trying to preserve the status quo for dirty coal, and they will do whatever it takes to keep things that way.

ACCCE doesn’t want any climate legislation and has actively been fighting the legislation using any means necessary. ACCCE contracted with Bonner & Associates, the lobbying firm that forged letters against ACES and otherwise tried to subvert the democratic process. Then ACCCE hired “Astroturf” firm Lincoln Strategies.

The defections of Duke Energy and Alstom Power are a clear sign that this front group has gone too far--even for energy companies like Duke that are heavily invested in coal and have more coal plants under construction than any other utility. 

The big question now is why is General Electric staying in the coalition? Why is General Electric continuing to sully its name by associating with a coal front group that is under investigation by Congress for corrupting our democracy?  When will they realize that the coalition is trying to kill markets for clean energy, the very markets that GE allegedly cares about? 

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released information showing there are 584 coal ash dump sites across the country -- almost twice as many as previously identified. The facilities are located in 35 states and concentrated in Appalachia, the Southeast, Midwest and Intermountain West.

The release [PDF] came late last Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The information released reveals ownership, location, hazard potential, year commissioned, type and quantity of coal combustion waste disposed, dates of the last regulatory or company assessment and in some instances whether an unregulated discharge of ash has occurred.

However, some critical data is missing because companies are claiming it's confidential business information. Duke Energy, Progress Energy and the Southern Co.'s Alabama Power and Georgia Power are among the corporations withholding information on 74 coal ash dump sites, including some of the country's largest ash dumps.

"Some utilities -- notably Duke and Southern Companies -- are hiding the ball, withholding data on their ash ponds that their competitors have already provided to EPA," said Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, which submitted the FOIA request along with the environmental law firm Earthjustice and the Sierra Club. "Let's hope that EPA's enforcement program puts a stop to these bogus claims of 'confidentiality,' and compels the disclosure of data that companies are required to report."

States with coal ash sites included in the list are as follows: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Wyoming.

In March, the EPA sent letters [PDF] to hundreds of power generating facilities requesting information about coal ash surface impoundments. The agency was responding to the disaster that occurred last December at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee, where a dam failure released over 1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash sludge into a nearby community and river.

Coal ash sites contain harmful levels of arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxins, which can leach out and contaminate drinking water sources.

The EPA data shows that most of of the dump sites are over three decades old, raising questions about the structural integrity of the dams and the adequacy of the liners to prevent harmful chemicals from migrating into water sources. It also shows regulatory inspections of the dams by state and federal agencies are infrequent or nonexistent.
 
In addition, EPA's data reveal that many of the wet dumps are very large, with over 100 exceeding 50 acres and numerous sites covering several hundred acres. Furthermore the largest dumps tend to be the older sites with the least amount of protection.

In response to another information request by the same three environmental groups, EPA recently identified 49 "high hazard" coal ash dump sites, where a failure would be likely to cause loss of life. The Department of Homeland Security had initially determined that the sites presented such a threat to nearby communities that revealing their location would present a national security risk.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says her agency expects to release a proposed federal rule governing disposal and storage of coal ash by year's end. Regulation is currently left up to an uneven patchwork of state laws.

(A version of this story originally appeared at Facing South.)

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A massive new rail line planned to move millions of tons of low-grade coal from northeastern Wyoming to the Midwest has been stopped. For more than nine years Sierra Club and our allies have been battling plans by Dakota Minnesota & Eastern Railroad Corp. (DM&E) to build this new coal line, and late yesterday DM&E announced the project is “on hold.”
 
The $6 billion rail line would have carried 100 million tons of coal annually, enough to power about 50 coal plants.  If burned, the coal shipped by this rail line alone would have emitted approximately 200 million tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of adding about 40 million cars to our highways.  By stopping this coal line we are ever closer to averting runaway global warming and jump-starting a clean energy revolution.
 
Let’s put those numbers in perspective. Stopping this one rail line may be one of the biggest steps we have ever taken to slow global warming. For the U.S. to do its part to stop global warming, we have to reduce our carbon run-rate by upwards of 200 million tons each year.  This one victory has thus bought us a full year's worth of progress – not that we should stop here, of course.  
 
This decision is also further evidence that coal is on its way out. The risk of financing coal ventures, future carbon regulations, the Obama Administration closing the loopholes coal enjoys in mining, burning and ash disposal, and competition from affordable and reliable clean energy options clearly spells trouble for coal.

The Sierra Club beat back this project in 2002 when we and our allies persuaded the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that the Bush Administration had failed to consider the global warming impacts of this new train line. This decision stands as one of the first global warming cases in our nation.  After the Bush Administration agreed this project might have some impact on global warming, the legal challenges continued.

Throughout the years of legal wrangling we worked with a broad coalition of landowners and public health advocates -- including the Mayo Clinic in Rochester -- who did not want coal trains running through their back yards.  

Stopping this ill-conceived coal line continues a welcome and recent trend. In just the past few weeks we've seen decisions not only to abandon plans for new coal plants, but we've also seen existing coal plants being retired and replaced with cleaner alternatives.
 
Last week Ohio Edison Co. announced it would slash coal burning at its R.E. Burger coal plant in Shadyside, Ohio, and replace the coal with biomass due to a pollutant-lowering agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
 
This past Monday, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) entered the twentieth century when it announced that it will study whether it should close the John Sevier coal plant in Rogersville, Tenn., and six units of its Widows Creek Fossil Plant in Stevenson, Alabama.
 
Just one day later, Progress Energy made public plans to close three coal plants in North Carolina. The coal plants would be replaced with a clean-burning natural gas power plant.  Progress Energy cited "changing emission targets and the likelihood of legislation to reduce carbon emissions" as a reason for the switch.
 
This week we also celebrated the 101st proposed coal plant being defeated.  For more than a year we, along with our allies, have been battling Santee Cooper’s planned Pee Dee coal plant in South Carolina. Apparently someone at Santee Cooper finally updated the cost of coal and realized that global warming regulation was imminent.  
 
All that, and we can see why the Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced recently that coal use in the United States has plummeted in the past year. Whereas coal provided more than 55 percent of our electricity in May 1985, in May of this year it only provided 42.5 percent of U.S. electricity. It’s a welcome downward trend for coal, and we will be doing everything we can to replace the remaining dirty coal with clean energy even faster in the future.

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Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

Environmental education in Guinea Bissau

In the Sept/Oct issue of Sierra Club Magazine, Club Chairman Carl Pope details four "fallacies about solving global warming" that must be scrapped in order to achieve "the transformational global deal we need to save our planet" in Copenhagen. Put in positive terms, and looking only at the specifics, Pope outlines the following platform.

1. Pricing carbon to subsidize renewables and energy efficiency.
2. International tax & dividend system to transfer fossil fuel-based corporate and national wealth acquired by exploitation of the global (carbon sink) commons.
3. Scrapping Kyoto: Copenhagen should start with a clean slate, unburdened by past political compromise.
4. A stronger bright line standard than 350 ppm.

Whew! The nation's flagship environmental organization has put forward a sharp, short and functional solution around which US environmentalists and climate activists may rally and, perhaps, pull ourselves out of the dismal swamp of endless climate policy bickering and get on with the business of forcing the world to face climate cataclysm.

But Pope does not follow the logic of his own reasoning, writing that "with luck and political will, President Barack Obama could have a signed act in his pocket" in time for Copenhagen.

The disconnect here is staggering.

Putting ACES into law, in any form likely to reach President Obama's desk, would be the zenith of all four fallacies. ACES will codify a bright line that will destroy life as we know it, forestall any reasonable prospect for carbon tax, tax & dividend or any other alternative to the dysfunctional "cap & trade" shuck, and most glaring, tie the hands of the US and international community of nations to the bankrupt dead weight of Kyoto. The burden on US environmentalists who have striven mightily to fit climate reality into present political boundaries is immense. Pope's surreal argument indicates that the cost to straddle the widening chasm is now reason itself.

The 4 four platform outlined by Pope, however, is worthy of support.

It would have been better if the Sierra Club had specifically called for the cap on fossil fuel extractions that, in the end, will be the prime mechanism by which carbon emissions are rapidly phased out; the building block on which all pricing, taxes, incentives and end-of-the-pipe emissions regulations are dependent. When the world's nations do take responsible action, they will turn to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer as our only successful international precedent for prompt collective action to avert global catastrophe. Though Pope does not specify, I'd like to assume that the "tax & dividend" approach Sierra Club has in mind draws on the model proposed by Peter Barnes, which unlike all other schemes aimed at shoehorning climate solutions into the severe limits of cramped present day politics, is keyed to fossil fuel production rather than carbon emissions, thereby staking out a critical "up stream" beachhead.

I agree with Pope's view that the 350 ppm bright line to pull back from major climate tipping points and avoid the point of no return, as originally proposed by Jim Hansen, is not strong enough (it should be noted that Hansen specified 300-350 ppm). Bill McKibben's 350.org, which is leading the global drive to put 350 ppm on the table at Copenhagen, has adjusted its definition from atmospheric carbon concentration to carbon equivalent to reflect the important role of methane and other non-carbon greenhouse gases, yet the cascade of new evidence does argue for 300 ppm ce or, as David Spratt, author of Code Red bluntly puts it, a return to the pre-industrial level of 275 ppm. This is a crucial question, but given the present trajectory and the time frame for global political action, I am persuaded by McKibben's argument that, "any climate target lower than where we are right now—be it 350 CO2e, 350 CO2, or anything else—represents a transformative shift in how the world operates."

The great thing about Pope's 4 point agenda, like all other foundational tenants (think 10 Commandments or 12 Steps) is that it cuts through indecision, chatter and obfuscation, making heretofore uncomfortable and confusing questions easy to call. Following the logic of Pope's platform, we must:

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Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal

Toward a medically defensible energy policy

This blog post co-written by Bruce Nilles and Mary Anne Hitt, Director and Deputy Director of Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign.

We've just learned that the clock has started ticking on more than 80 new mountaintop removal coal mining permits in Appalachia. We are told that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may start approving these permits within the next month -- or even sooner. All this is according to a timeline set in an agreement between the EPA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of Interior.

According to that agreement, once the Army Corps has handed over all pertinent information about the permits, EPA will have 60 days to decide which permits concern the agency, and all the rest will be allowed to go forward. That 60-day countdown has now begun.

If you'll remember, early in the Obama Administration, EPA announced it would be reviewing all mountaintop removal mining permits before approving any -- a sign of what we thought was perhaps the beginning of the end for the destructive practice that levels mountain peaks, poisons drinking water and destroys communities.

But now, the floodgates could potentially be opened wide for extensive new mountaintop removal operations. The EPA will be making decisions on dozens of permits as soon as mid-September, and letting the permits go forward would set a very dangerous precedent.

If these new permits for mountaintop removal coal mining are approved, the Obama Administration will be lighting the fuse for a new round of blasting, flooding, and water contamination for the communities of Appalachia. Hundreds more permits currently hang in the balance, as does the fate of hundreds of miles of streams and more than 60,000 acres of diverse hardwood forests -- see a full list of pending permits here.

The Clean Water Act was intended to prevent the destruction that has gone on for far too long. By allowing these permits to go forward, President Obama is sending a signal that his commitment to science, the letter of the law, and balancing economic growth with good environmental stewardship does not apply to Appalachia.

Scientists have long pointed out that once these streams are buried and ecosystems destroyed, they will never fully recover. Entire communities have been permanently displaced by mines the size of Manhattan.

There is too much at stake in Appalachia to approve any more mountaintop removal coal mines. To date, mining companies have buried close to 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams beneath piles of toxic waste and debris.

Using waste material to fill waterways was prohibited by the Clean Water Act until 2002 when the Bush administration changed the rules. Using the so-called "Fill Rule," the Bush administration opened waters throughout Appalachia, and across the country, to serve as potential dumping grounds for heavy industry.

The problem is that EPA can approve these permits because they are still under rules lingering from the Bush Administration. The Obama Administration, however, can change these rules through the proper channels, stopping the destruction.

To truly end this most destructive form of mining, the Obama Administration must act decisively to change the rule that allows companies to dump waste into streams and valleys and call it "fill material."

The clock is ticking, but President Obama still has a chance to end mountaintop removal coal mining. You can help by contacting the White House today.

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The Obama administration will defend the Clinton roadless rule that has been ping-ponging in the courts for nearly a decade, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in Seattle on Friday. If courts can’t resolve the forest-protection conflict, the administration will create its own roadless rule, he said.

Vilsack laid out a broad vision for the U.S. Forest Service, outlining for the first time his plan for the agency that manages national forests from within the Department of Agriculture. He promised strong conservation measures and an emphasis on restoring damaged forests, especially those left “overstocked and susceptible to catastrophic fire and disease” by a legacy of fire suppression.

He also spoke to the economic potential of forests in emerging carbon and bioenergy markets and their value as a water source as climate change brings increasingly severe droughts. He hinted at the value of new water markets for private land owners.

“The Forest Service must play a significant role in the development of new markets and ensuring their integrity,” he said, speaking near the old-growth forest at Seattle’s Seward Park. “Carbon and bioenergy aren’t the only new opportunity for landowners. Markets for water can also provide landowners with incentives to restore watersheds and manage forests for clean and abundant water supplies.”

Vilsack made an appeal, in a very Obama sort of way, to environmental leaders, asking them for help in moving past the “history of distrust” between conservationists, the Forest Service, and loggers. In short, he asked them to lay off the lawsuits against government plans.

“Certainly appeals and litigation have served as a useful backstop” against poor forest plans in the past, he said. “But given the scale of restoration that must occur, and the time in which we have to do it, a shared vision built on collaboration will help us move on from the timber wars of the past. Litigation and conflict should become less prevalent, because they will be less necessary.”

Patti Goldman, vice president for litigation at Earthjustice, said she was glad to see a clear departure from Bush administration land management.

“They’re moving into the future,” she said. “That’s a wise move.”

To be sure, the speech was more broad principles than specific plans; Vilsack said those would come in a new forest plan, a regulatory rule that won’t have to pass through Congress.

He also said the Forest Service must address the 80 percent of American forests that lie outside of national forests, under the control of states, tribal groups, businesses, and private landowners. 

“The threats facing our forests don’t recognize property boundaries,” he said. “So, in developing a shared vision around forests, we must also be willing to look across property boundaries. In other words, we must operate at a landscape scale by taking an ‘all-lands approach.’”

Vilsack didn’t mention specific measures, but Charlie Raines of the Sierra Club’s Cascade Chapter said ramping up funding for the Forest Legacy program would be an effective way to let forest owners make money off their land without developing it.

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Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

This is the weekly post from Bruce Nilles, director of Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign.

Three years ago Dynegy launched plans to partner with LS Power and become the largest new developer of coal-fired power plants.  Yesterday Dynegy officially terminated those plans, including selling its shares in a coal-fired power plant currently under construction

Coal is again proving to be a bad investment.  Dynegy announced yesterday that the company is essentially going to lose $100 million as it sells its portion of the Texas Sandy Creek coal plant back to LS Power.  But they decided a $100 million loss was better than continuing to be involved in the expensive and risky project.

Dynegy is still trying to sell their stake in the Arkansas Plum Point coal plant, also under construction. There have been no takers so far, which most likely means more losses to come.

Dynegy and LS Power’s joint venture, launched in the fall of 2006, was supposed to build at least seven new coal plants.  But in February 2008, Sierra Club responded with what would become our most successful national grassroots and corporate accountability campaign to date. We focused on the six states where Dynegy proposed their coal plants—AR, IA, GA, MI, NV and TX. 

The campaign included a national letter-writing and email campaign to their CEO; and a website specifically targeting Dynegy. We coordinated our efforts with several partner organizations. In addition to thousands of letters, emails, and phone calls, we organized numerous local protests in the states, including a major rally with a broad coalition outside of Dynegy’s annual shareholder meeting in Houston. We also met with Dynegy’s CEO twice—once in their Washington, D.C. lawyers’ offices and once in Sierra Club’s Chicago office.

Although two of the plants had already started construction, Dynegy’s CEO soon admitted that new coal plants were uneconomic.  And in January 2009 Dynegy announced that they were pulling out of the joint venture, a move which was finally closed yesterday.  Dynegy is now out of building new coal plants, and LS Power can’t find anybody to purchase power from their last proposed coal plant in Georgia.  

We know that the once-unabashed coal booster Dynegy is now out of the dirty new coal business – and the financial struggles show how bad a choice coal is. Let’s hope companies still supporting coal see the light from this (We’re looking at you, Blackstone Group).

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This post is co-written by Mark Kresowik, Corporate Responsibility Representative for the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon professes profound concern for our future.  He has made numerous statements about how his company supports strong action on global warming. He waxes eloquent about how JP Morgan Chase is committed to investments in clean energy and he wants policy makers to provide leadership on curbing emissions of global warming.   

But Sierra Club’s diligent researchers have pulled back the curtain and uncovered that his rhetoric doesn’t match his company’s action.  JPMorgan Chase is pouring billions of dollars into dirty coal plant projects - projects that would dramatically increase global warming pollution and ensure runaway global warming.

At the same time, JPMorgan Chase is the big money financing the most egregious mining companies engaging in the most egregious mining practices. Specifically, JPMorgan Chase is financing Massey Energy and three of the four largest mountaintop removal coal mining companies in America.  Mountaintop removal coal mining involves blowing up the country’s oldest mountain range in Appalachia, leaving a desolate and polluted landscape.  More than 500 mountains have already been leveled and more than 2,000 miles of streams buried.

With such promises about global warming and being a good energy steward – why is JPMorgan Chase financing massive new dirty coal plants in Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina and South Dakota?

To help expose the disconnect between Jamie Dimon’s words and actions, we are launching a public education campaign to ask him to walk the talk.  We are delighted to be joined in this effort with our partners at Rainforest Action Network, the Waterkeeper Alliance, and the New York Public Interest Research Group. 

If you are outraged that one of America’s leading banks is betting on dirty coal, please take a minute to watch this short video our ever creative team put together.  It grabs clips of Mr. Dimon’s statements on clean energy and contrasts that with the dirty coal companies they are financing. 

Then please take a minute to click on this link and send an email to CEO Jamie Dimon urging him to kick the dirty coal habit. 

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Yesterday, on a beautiful summer day in Lansing, Michigan, more than 500 activists from all corners of the state lent their voices to a call for a massive investment in clean energy and moving the state beyond coal.

Clean Energy Now, a coalition made up of over 40 environmentalist groups including Sierra Club, organized this Rally for Clean Energy Jobs to support Michigan’s clean energy future – and as a grassroots response to the proposal of new coal plants in Michigan.

The rally speakers and activists in particular took aim at plans in Michigan to build at least six more massive coal plants.



These plants would eliminate any market for clean energy and derail Governor Jennifer Granholm's bold vision to put Michiganders to work producing a clean energy manufacturing boom, not only to meet the state's energy needs as the state retires its old fleet of coal plants, but also to export around the world to help other states and other countries do their part to cut pollution, including dangerous emissions of carbon dioxide.

At the rally, citizens spoke out for a clean energy economy in Michigan, which will create jobs and bring money into the state, rather than the construction of new coal plants, which will continue to weaken our economy.

Michigan residents want Gov. Granholm to get that message loud and clear: No more coal – We want clean energy!

We also had a lot of fun – as people listened to great musicians, browsed informational tables from various clean energy industries, used our communications tent to send in comments and letters to Governor Granholm, signed our clean energy petition, and even threw a few baseballs at a dunk tank where we had folks dressed up as various dirty energy villains.

But clearly the fight for clean energy won’t be over any time soon. For now, all eyes are on Michigan. Can it harness its legions of highly skilled workers and legendary manufacturing base into a clean energy power house, or will it go the route of 19th-century coal technology and export its dollars to line the coal barons' pockets in Appalachia?

Governor Granholm can help make this happen by choosing clean energy now instead of coal.

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What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Now that historic U.S. climate legislation – the American Clean Energy and Security Act – (ACES), has passed the House of Representatives and the Senate is debating its version of energy/climate legislation, let’s talk about what must be fixed before it gets to the President’s desk.

Big Coal has long sought and enjoyed loopholes for their dirty industry – anything to keep the money rolling in as they avoid cleaning up. And now, over objections of our clean energy champions, this bill gives them another massive loophole that the Senate must correct.

Although coal-fired power plants account for roughly a third of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions (making them our single largest source of global warming pollution), the legislation gives them a free pass to continue business as usual — without making any serious reductions in heat-trapping CO2 for at least fifteen years, and bringing us increasingly closer to a climate crisis.  

There is some modestly good news for new plants that don’t yet have their construction permit: no later than 2025, they will have to cut their carbon emissions in half.  But the bad news is that the bill exempts a slug of plants permitted but not yet built, plus the huge fleet of America’s oldest and dirtiest coal plants, from any requirement to clean up and cut their CO2 emissions.

This is a disaster in the making, because it threatens to block the way for the U.S. to transition rapidly to a clean energy economy. These old dirty coal plants need to clean up or be retired. But the way the bill works right now, instead of encouraging investment in new industries and new plants that are subject to stringent standards, it leaves the door open to expand the old plants with no added safeguards.

By “grandfathering” existing coal-fired capacity, which accounts for 44 percent of U.S. electricity generation, the bill repeats the mistakes of the 1977 Clean Air Act — mistakes that we have been paying for in the form deadly air pollution ever since. 

Three decades ago, Congress exempted older plants from soot and smog limits that applied to new units, on the assumption (and promise by the industry) that they would soon be retired. Instead, the industry took full advantage of this loophole to refurbish old plants and, in some cases, to expand their capacity and emit even more of the air pollution that causes tens of thousands of asthma attacks, hospitalizations, heart attacks, and premature deaths every year. We can’t repeat that mistake.

While ACES does make some good strides in reducing global warming pollution, Big Coal cannot be allowed to vent billions of tons of pollution without consequence.

To close this huge loophole and level the playing field between coal and clean energy, the Senate must insist that the oldest, dirtiest plants will retire by a certain date or meet the same pollution standards as new plants. And, until they retire or clean up, existing plants must be prohibited from expanding their capacity and increasing carbon pollution.  These measures would create an incentive for industry to use cleaner technologies instead of continuing to lean on the dirty dinosaurs that generate too much of our electricity today.  Finally, if Congress cannot muster the backbone to clean up the nation’s oldest and most dangerous coal plants, it ought to restore the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to do so.

The stakes could not be greater.  We cannot let Big Coal get away with another massive loophole to continue polluting at the same level as today for one or two more decades.  Congress must close the coal loophole and make the coal industry slash its pollution. Our future depends on it.

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What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?