We've been seeing some great coverage of the EPA's plan to cut mercury from cement kilns. Lots of bloggers have taken notice. Here are a few posts about our mercury campaign from around the blogosphere:

Treehugger wrote:

I doubt if any other nation regulates mercury emissions from cement kilns the way USA is about to. USEPA's just-announced progress on this front took a decade of work, several lawsuits by activists, a new EPA Administrator willing to obey the law, and a new Congress that doesn't (yet) bow to lobbyists and interfere with EPA. With all that build-up, the new, final USEPA cement kiln mercury control regulation is indeed a "sea change."

The New York Times Green Inc. Blog said:

James Pew, a lawyer with Earthjustice, an environmental law firm that had sued the E.P.A. on behalf of the Sierra Club after the agency missed a 1997 deadline to issue new emissions rules for the cement industry, said, "It's a very toothy law that will force all cement plants to meet the highest standards of pollution control."

Now that Big Coal has stumbled in New Mexico, the industry is targeting Kansas in hopes of re-igniting the expansion of coal-fired power in America.

Although their chances are slim, they are counting on a shift in state leadership to help them out. Yesterday, Kathleen Sebelius—who has four times vetoed power plant expansion legislation—relinquished her role as governor to become President Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services. Her successor is the lieutenant governor, and born-again Republican, Mark Parkinson.

(Update: check out the excellent editorial in the Durango Herald)

A significant number of Navajos were thrilled this week at the EPA’s decision to take back the permit it issued last year—under the Bush administration--for the massive coal-fired Desert Rock power plant.

The EPA said sufficient analysis had not been done to ensure protection of health and the environment.

Proposed to be built on Navajo nation lands in New Mexico, the plant would impose a massive industrial complex on the landscape, douse the region with air pollutants, and strain critical water resources.

Nation leaders have endorsed the plant for the jobs it would bring, but a dissident group of Navajo citizens, including the group DineCare, represented by Earthjustice, see things differently:

John Kerry and Barbara Boxer are two of the greenest members of the Senate. Jim Inhofe is the Senate's chief global warming denier. But last week—on Earth Day, no less—they came together to introduce a bill requiring the EPA to look at ways to control a dangerous pollutant that kills millions worldwide and accelerates global warming, particularly in the Arctic.

No, not carbon dioxide, which remains the main driver of worldwide climate change, but black carbon, airborne microscopic particles of soot. In the United States and Europe, black carbon comes from diesel engines and industrial smokestacks. In the developing world, the main source is primitive cooking and heating fires.

Imagine being born today in the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, half way between Hawaii and New Zealand.

You join a community of 12,000 people with a unique culture, language and traditions for sustainable fishing and farming developed over thousands of years. Your country consists of nine small islands covering just 26 square kilometers and averaging only three meters above sea level. Because soils are poor and there is no surface fresh water, your family depends on rain and a thin layer of ground water to grow taro, coconut, bananas and breadfruit.

By the time you are ready to have children of your own, climate change may have made life in your island home nearly impossible.

Rocket fuel in powdered infant formula? Sounds like a parent's nightmare, but it's true.

In a study published last month, the Center for Disease Control reported finding perchlorate contamination in all 15 of the formulas it studied. The military's fuel of choice for rockets and other explosive ordnance since the 1940s, perchlorate is a thyroid toxin that causes neurological defects in fetuses and infants.

CDC did not disclose the brands it tested, but the two with the highest perchlorate concentrations represented 87 percent of the US infant formula market. So if you're a powdered formula consumer, odds are you've bought the most seriously contaminated stuff.

The first Earth Day, 39 years ago today, was a godsend for a country mired in war and riven by racial, political and cultural issues. Arriving suddenly—as a gift whose time had come—it offered folks something to unite around: the idea of an entire planet, our home, in peril.

It was a time when industrial pollutants made rivers burn and were killing the Great Lakes; smog and soot choked our cities; DDT—thanks to Rachel Carson—had become the national poster child for the abundant horrors of unregulated pesticide usage; old growth forests were devoured unchecked.

Images of environmental catastrophes—such as sea birds tarred by the 1969 Santa Barbara channel oil well blowout—helped drive home the point, and 20 million people rose as one on April 22, 1970 to seek change.

One of the many dirty little secrets about oil shale is that it will take huge amounts of energy to turn rock into a product we can put in our cars and trucks.  That's because the currently proposed technology for producing oil shale involves using what amounts to glorified curling irons underground, heating them up to hundreds of degrees and melting the "kerogen" into something that can be sucked out of the ground and could be refined into a useable product.

To heat all those curling irons could require 10 or more new coal-fired power plants, making oil shale one of the dirtiest source of energy per unit in terms of greenhouse gases.  This production process would also be incredibly thirsty - producing one barrel of fuel from shale may require 3 or more barrels of water.

One of President Obama's first acts was to call for a revolution in energy efficiency. Simply by making our appliances and electronics use less energy, Americans can save money, create jobs and fight global warming. Efficiency is the fastest, cleanest and cheapest energy source.

It's not just about changing light bulbs. It's about setting benchmarks to make all the products we use more efficient. Adopting strong national energy efficiency standards could save consumers $16 billion a year in utility bills by 2030.

Talk about a great Earth Day present! Florida Power and Light and Kitson & Partners made a stunning announcement April 9, saying they plan to build the nation's first solar-powered city—a cluster of homes, offices and factories less than 20 miles from Fort Myers on Florida's Gulf Coast.

What a turnaround. Just two years ago, we were fighting FPL's proposal to build America's largest coal-fired power plant in Glades County, near the Everglades. We celebrated when the Florida Public Service Commission rejected FPL's plan, citing concern about global warming pollutants for the first time.

Now it looks like Florida could become the "Sunshine State" for real.