Martin Lakes, Texas coal-fired power plant

Oh, Texas. Why, oh why does Texas have to be the only state in the union refusing to comply with federal greenhouse gas regulations, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – following the law! – starts to regulate stationary sources of greenhouse gas pollution in January?

Given the fact that Texas is the nation’s largest emitter of greenhouse gas pollution from power plants, it’s really unfair to the rest of the country that the Lone Star remains so ... lone.

Last week, voters in California overwhelmingly rejected Proposition 23, a challenge to that state’s global warming law. And while California serves as the optimal role model for the rest of the country, Texas is the big-bad polluter vowing to undermine all federal regulations of clean air – while breaking the law to make its point. Texas has 21 operating coal plants and seven proposed coal plants (most in the nation), which will further threaten air quality for Texans. And it's a problem for residents in downwind and neighboring states.

Rod Bremby

A pollution issue that made a hero out of a Kansas governor and helped propel her into Obama's cabinet has made a martyr out of the public servant who actually took the courageous action at the heart of the controversy.

Today, three years after he drew a line at the state's border and refused to let a coal-fired power plant greatly expand its operations and the pollutants/greenhouse gases it would bring,Kansas Dept. of Health and Environment Sec. Rod Bremby was fired by the current governor.

For those of us who have closely followed the issue—often marveling at the courage Bremby displayed—his dismissal by Gov. Mark Parkinson is a political tragedy. Bremby deserves a medal, not a cashiering.

Here's why anyone who cares about our nation's clean energy future should care about Bremby and this issue.

Hungary's red sludge aftermath

As my colleague Raviya Ismail described yesterday, the flood of toxic red sludge in Hungary is ominously similar to the toxic coal ash flood two years ago that swept out of a ruptured reservoir into a Tennessee town. But, the comparisons don't stop there.

The size and toxicity of the red sludge are also being compared to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They are roughly the same volume and can be harmful in high concentrations. They both have had immediate lethal effects on human and animal species, and are expected to have long-lasting harm. Moreover, in both cases, the governments involved have downplayed their impacts.

Hungarian officials are declaring the red sludge menace to be under control and without the feared consequences, even though at least seven people have died and aquatic life in various rivers and creeks have been wiped out. Read the following three graphs from a news report today and ask yourself if they sound familiar:

Rev. Tim Phillips of Seattle's First Baptist Church speaks for a coal-free future in Washington.

Conservation, faith, and public-health organizations held rallies across the state of Washington today calling for the TransAlta coal plant near Centralia to clean up its act by 2015.

“This dirty, old coal plant has polluted the air of our cherished national parks and harmed our health for too long," said Janette Brimmer for Earthjustice. “On this Day of Action, let's redouble efforts to hold TransAlta accountable for its unsafe pollution affecting citizens and their children, and demand that it stop threatening our incredible natural resources.”

Learn more about Earthjustice work to clean up coal-fired power plants here.