Green Groups See Need To Nudge Obama's 'Opening Bid' On Carbon Cuts
In large part, the wide-ranging reaction to President Barack Obama's signature effort to cut power plant carbon emissions could have been written months in advance. Key Republicans and many industrial groups decried it as a job-killing war on coal that would drive up power prices; environmentalists and many Democrats hailed it as a landmark measure making good on Obama's pledge to tackle climate change. Behind the bombast, however, more measured voices found a proposal that was not as severe as critics had feared nor as ambitious as proponents had hoped for. Basing the average 30 percent reduction on the year 2005 - near a high point for such emissions…
EPA Mull Methane Regs for Oil & Gas Sector
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday took a step toward a wider strategy to address climate change, releasing five technical papers that will help it decide whether or not to regulate methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. The "white papers" follow the White House's announcement in March of a plan to reduce methane emissions both domestically and internationally through incentive-based programs and the administration's existing authorities. The suggestion drew a rebuke at the time from the main oil and gas lobby group, the American Petroleum Institute, which said its members were already taking steps to cut emissions.