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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Conservationists: Clean Power Plan Will Help Protect PA Natural Resources

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Tuesday, August 4, 2015   

PITTSBURGH – A plan for reducing carbon pollution in the U.S. has been finalized by the Obama administration. The EPA's Clean Power Plan, released Monday, sets a 32 percent goal for cutting emissions from power plants by 2030.

Ed Perry, Pennsylvania coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation's Climate Change Campaign, calls the plan a "flexible, science-based" rule. He says he's confident it will create "real progress" in protecting natural resources.

"Climate scientists say we need to reduce carbon pollution by 80 percent by the year 2050," he says. "So this is a big step in that direction."

Pennsylvania is the fourth-largest coal producer in the country, and according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, receives 36 percent of its electricity from coal. Monday's rollout of the Clean Energy Plan was met with a backlash of legal opposition, with utilities and political leaders in some states saying tougher rules will be an economic hardship.

Perry points to the wooly adelgid as a prime example of how a changing climate is harming some species. As winters have warmed, Perry says the insect has moved north, decimating hemlock trees in Pennsylvania.

"If we don't take action to reduce carbon pollution, we are going to see our state fish, the brook trout, the state bird, the rough grouse, and our state tree, the hemlock, gone from Pennsylvania by the year 2100," he says.

A coalition of environmental, clean energy, public health, labor and faith groups predicts the Clean Power Plan will provide up to $45 billion in climate and health-related benefits.

Jeaneen Zappa, executive director of Pittsburgh-based Conservation Consultants, one of the coalition organizations, says a new focus on cleaner power and energy efficiency will also lower electric bills.

"Energy efficiency is the simplest, and cheapest, first step to better financial health and grid health, and to reduce carbon footprint," she says.

Last year, renewable energy accounted for just four percent of Pennsylvania's net electricity generation.


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