National Media Stories
Latest News
Updated every weekday as availableChesapeake Bay, Ala. coast among environmental group’s most endangered places in the Southeast
Washington Post, January 26, 2012
"Pollution, coal mining and natural gas exploration have put the Chesapeake Bay, North Carolina’s Piedmont and the mountains of Tennessee and Virginia on an environmental group’s list of most endangered places in the Southeast. The Southern Environmental Law Center released its fourth annual “Top 10 Endangered Places” on Thursday. "
The Charlottesville area made the most endangered list because of the proposed Western Bypass.
DOE tries a ’fundamentally different’ approach to modernize the nation’s power grid
E&E Publishing, January 18, 2012
"The Energy Department is preparing to change how it assesses congestion on the high-voltage power line network as it seeks to revitalize the stalled transmission policy process created in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, DOE senior adviser Lauren Azar says."
PEC is pleased that the Department of Energy is not limiting its choices to high voltage transmission solutions. We have long advocated for equal treatment for demand response, energy efficiency and clean distributed generation. PEC will be following the 2012 Congestion Study closely.
MarketWatch, January 12, 2012
"America is thinking too small when it comes to energy efficiency, while also making the mistake of "crowding out" economically beneficial investments in energy efficiency by focusing on riskier and more expensive bids to develop new energy sources, according to a major new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). "
O’Malley wind farms face more challenges as Maryland legislature returns
Washington Post, January 8, 2012
"The day Maryland lawmakers left Annapolis nine months ago, Gov. Martin O’Malley chided them, saying the legislature had “choked” on his signature environmental initiative: a measure to subsidize development of a multibillion-dollar offshore wind farm."
Weekly News
Updated every week as availableHow the Tea Party Is Upending Urban Planning
The Atlantic Cities, December 14, 2012
"...Across the country, Tea Party activists have been storming planning meetings of all kinds, opposing various plans by local and regional government having anything to do with density, smart growth, sustainability or urbanism."
Greens find some localities lag in Bay cleanup plans
Baltimore Sun, February 9, 2012
"A coalition of environmental groups has handed out mixed grades for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup plans every county in Maryland prepared late last year. The plans, submitted to the state Department of the Environment, are part of a detailed statewide bay restoration plan the state was required to give the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month. "
MarketWatch, January 12, 2012
"America is thinking too small when it comes to energy efficiency, while also making the mistake of "crowding out" economically beneficial investments in energy efficiency by focusing on riskier and more expensive bids to develop new energy sources, according to a major new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). "
DOE tries a ’fundamentally different’ approach to modernize the nation’s power grid
E&E Publishing, January 18, 2012
"The Energy Department is preparing to change how it assesses congestion on the high-voltage power line network as it seeks to revitalize the stalled transmission policy process created in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, DOE senior adviser Lauren Azar says."
PEC is pleased that the Department of Energy is not limiting its choices to high voltage transmission solutions. We have long advocated for equal treatment for demand response, energy efficiency and clean distributed generation. PEC will be following the 2012 Congestion Study closely.
O’Malley wind farms face more challenges as Maryland legislature returns
Washington Post, January 8, 2012
"The day Maryland lawmakers left Annapolis nine months ago, Gov. Martin O’Malley chided them, saying the legislature had “choked” on his signature environmental initiative: a measure to subsidize development of a multibillion-dollar offshore wind farm."
Disposal Halted at Well After New Quake in Ohio
New York Times, January 12, 2012
"An official in Ohio said on Sunday that the underground disposal of wastewater from natural-gas drilling operations would remain halted in the Youngstown area until scientists could analyze data from the most recent of a string of earthquakes there... The latest quake, the 11th since mid-March, occurred Saturday afternoon and with a magnitude of 4.0 was the strongest yet. Like the others, it was centered near a well that has been used for the disposal of millions of gallons of brine and other waste liquids produced at natural-gas wells, mostly in Pennsylvania. "
EPA finalizes tough new rules on emissions by power plants
Washington Post, December 16, 2011
"The Obama administration finished crafting tough new rules Friday curbing mercury and other poisons emitted by coal-fired utilities, according to several people briefed on the decision, culminating more than two decades of work to clean up the nation’s dirtiest power plants."
Can We Feed the World & Sustain the Planet?
Scientific American, October 18, 2011
"The world must solve three food problems simultaneously: end hunger, double food production by 2050, and do both while drastically reducing agriculture’s damage to the environment. Five solutions, pursued together, can achieve these goals: stop agriculture from consuming more tropical land, boost the productivity of farms that have the lowest yields, raise the efficiency of water and fertilizer use worldwide, reduce per capita meat consumption and reduce waste in food production and distribution."
The Death of the Fringe Suburb
New York Times, November 25, 2011
"DRIVE through any number of outer-ring suburbs in America, and you’ll see boarded-up and vacant strip malls, surrounded by vast seas of empty parking spaces. These forlorn monuments to the real estate crash are not going to come back to life, even when the economy recovers. And that’s because the demand for the housing that once supported commercial activity in many exurbs isn’t coming back, either. "
States face bleak economic forecast, report says
Washington Post, November 29, 2011
"States are caught in a fiscal vise as weak economic growth, dwindling federal help and increasing appeals from hard-pressed local governments squeeze their budgets. Things have improved since the worst of the recession, but states still face a dire fiscal situation, according to a report to be released Tuesday by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO). "
