Environmental Law

In The News (October 24)

By Dennis Pfaff and Kevin Livingston, Editors

• In North Carolina, Duke Energy has halved a $100 million plan to place solar panels on hundreds of rooftops after consumer advocates for the state's utility regulators called the proposal too aggressive and expensive, reports the Charlotte Observer.
• Meanwhile, Montana's governor says that with alternative-energy projects on the horizon, the state's colleges need to provide specialized training, according to the Billings Gazette.
• A new nationwide poll, conducted on behalf of environmental groups, shows that Americans oppose mountaintop removal coal mining by a wide margin, the Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette reports.
• British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is offering to help in a campaign to fight the proposed closure of Scotland's only wind turbine factory, says this report from The Scotsman.
• European Union governments have given final approval to including aviation in the bloc's emissions trading scheme, according to a dispatch from Reuters.
• Fourteen of the nation’s largest institutional investors have called on federal securities regulators to require improved corporate climate risk disclosure and — for the first time —address a broader range of environmental, social and governance risks, according to a statement from the advocacy group Ceres.
• The reasons are complicated, but the ongoing credit crunch could prove to be a drag on the development of big new solar projects that need financing, despite the recent renewal of tax credits, as worked out by Fortune magazine's Green Wombat blog. 
• An environmental group is threatening to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for allegedly failing to update emission standards for hundreds of landfills nationwide, which the organization says are the nation’s second largest source of man made methane pollution, according to a press release from the Environmental Defense Fund, which also includes a link to the letter it sent.  
• Major new projects now underway may mean that deep geothermal systems could soon begin making a significant contribution to the world’s energy needs, according to this article in Yale Environment 360.

Full post as published by Climate Law Update on October 24, 2008 (boomark / email).