EPA to consider regulating carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants

With a change of presidents, the Environmental Protection Agency is reconsidering whether to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. A Bush administration memorandum that said EPA would not impose such limits.

"The decision could mark the first step toward placing limits on greenhouse gases emitted by coal plants, an issue that has been hotly contested by the coal industry and environmentalists since April 2007, when the Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide should be considered a pollutant under the Clean Air Act," report Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post.

Federal regulation of carbon dioxide is strongly opposed by the coal industry, which says the decision should be made by Congress, not EPA, and that technology for reducing emissions is expensive and untested. Environmental groups argue that the construction on any new coal-fired power plant ensures that carbon dioxide will be pumped into the atmosphere for the lifetime of those facilities, estimated at 30 to 40 years. That would make combating global warming increasingly difficult, they argue. (Read more)