Coal News: Sierra Club Still Watching TXU, Ranks of Greenhouse-Gas Reduction Accord Grow, and Coal-Fired Power Plant Investments Protested

That's a mouthful.

The Lone Star Sierra Club is prodding Dallas utility TXU, now doing business as Luminant, to solidify its commitment to cancel applications to build eight new coal-fired power plants – made as part of its private-equity buyout deal earlier this year – by changing the permits’ dismissal status at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to dismissed “with prejudice” as opposed to “without prejudice,” as is stands now, which makes it easier to refile them, the Sierra Club says. TXU also recently applied to become part of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a group of corporations calling for mandatory greenhouse-gas regulations. If accepted, it would join fellow megautility NRG Energy Inc. NRG and TXU operate the two worst greenhouse-gas polluting power plants in the state, dually ranked numbers 45 and 50 globally for CO2 pollution.
In other climate change news, six Midwestern states and one Canadian providence just signed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord, a regional multisector cap-and-trade program. And finally, Rainforest Action Network reports thousands turned out in more than 50 cities nationwide last Friday to protest Citi and Bank of America’s investments in new coal-fired power plants and dirty coal extraction methods such as mountaintop-removal coal mining.