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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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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.

National Leaders Tell Congress, 'Support the Clean Power Plan'

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Monday, September 14, 2015   

PITTSBURGH – Legislators returning to Washington were greeted by advocates asking them to support the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan.

While lawmakers were out of town, the EPA finalized rules calling for the power industry to reduce carbon pollution by almost a third from 2005 levels over the next 15 years.

Alison Steele, advocacy manager for Conservation Consultants Incorporated, says those visiting Congress from Pennsylvania had concerns, including issues involving business, the economy, clean air and water, wildlife and labor.

"Despite the diversity of our viewpoints, we all came together on the fact that the Clean Power Plan is something that our government needs to support and roll out as soon as possible," she points out.

Environmentalists maintain that achieving the EPA's pollution reduction goal would avoid 3,600 premature deaths, prevent 90,000 asthma attacks in children and reduce missed work and school days by 300,000.

Several state attorneys general say the EPA has overstepped its authority, but a federal court in Washington has rejected their legal challenge. Other opponents maintain that requiring states to sharply cut pollution from power plants will cost jobs.

But Steele says 4,200 businesses already are helping reduce carbon pollution in the Keystone state, and they employ some 57,000 workers.

"There's every indication that there's this already blossoming energy economy in Pennsylvania, and clean energy and energy efficiency will just continue to grow," she states.

The EPA says the solar industry alone has added jobs 10 times faster than the rest of the economy, and produces 20 times the energy it did just six years ago.






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