I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
As the battle over U.S. Environmental Protection Agency power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions mounts, a new report shows that CO2 emissions grew in 2010, and that a Michigan coal plant is one of the nation’s biggest sources.
From the Environmental Integrity Project report:
Carbon dioxide emissions from power plants rose 5.56% in 2010 over the year before, the biggest annual increase since the Environmental Protection Agency began tracking emissions in 1995. Electricity generators released 2.423 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2010, compared to 2.295 billion tons in 2009, according to information available on EPA’s “Clean Air Markets” database. While the increase is worrisome, power plant emissions are still below the high water mark of 2.565 million tons set in 2007. Last year’s rise was driven in part by a 3.0% net increase in overall generation for the 12 months ending in November of 2010, due to the economic recovery and unusually warm weather in some parts of the country.
Average global temperatures last year reached the 2005 level, the warmest year on record. CO2 is the most prevalent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming; the combustion of fossil fuels for electricity generation in the U.S. accounts for more than one third of our nation’s total U.S. releases of CO2, and more than nearly 5% of CO2 emissions worldwide. Coal-fired boilers provided 45% of our electricity in 2010, but were responsible for 81% of total U.S. CO2 emissions from electricity generation last year.
According to the report, Michigan released 74,375,752 tons of CO2 last year — the 12th largest amount among states.
More than a quarter of Michigan’s total emissions came from DTE Energy’s coal plant in Monroe. The facility emitted 19,514,435 tons of CO2 and ranked as the sixth largest source of CO2 pollution in the county.
Last summer EPA filed suit against DTE for violating the federal Clean Air Act by failing to install pollution reduction technology at its Monroe plant.
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