Press Releases

Today, 20 environmental and community organizations delivered a letter to Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam urging him to veto legislation approved by the state House that will significantly weaken protections relating to coal mining in Tennessee.

“Governor Rauner should be demanding worker protections and making sure coal ash clean up isn’t left to taxpayers, rather than helping push backdoor bailouts for these corporations, like the proposed changes to Illinois’ air pollution rules and obstructing stronger coal ash protections. Out of state energy corporations who have no long term commitment to Illinois communities are no longer a good bet for our local economies and it’s time to stop picking up the tab for Rauner’s friends in big coal. Lets invest in Illinois communities, not Texan corporations. Illinois needs sustainable jobs for working families and bold economic development powered by 100% clean energy.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, CNN reports that a memo released by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility shows that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, embattled among numerous scandals over unethical behavior and questions about corruption, has stripped regional experts of their authority to properly enforce the Clean Water Act in an unprecedented move that will threaten drinking water all over the country.

FirstEnergy Solutions (FES) -- together with its subsidiaries FirstEnergy Generation and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company -- announced its bankruptcy last night after years of short-sighted business decisions and executive mismanagement that resisted investing in clean, renewable energy, and its workers. The company now has a serious obligation to protect its workers and their benefits from the bankruptcy process, as well as meet its environmental responsibilities -- particularly if its coal and nuclear power plants are retired or sold.

The Sierra Club sent a letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry today urging him to reject FirstEnergy Solutions’ request for him to illegally use emergency powers to force electricity customers to bail out uneconomic coal and nuclear plants in the PJM electricity market.

FirstEnergy Solutions (FES), a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corporation, formally requested that Energy Secretary Rick Perry use an extraordinary emergency order (Section 202c of the Federal Power Act) to force electricity customers to prop up all coal and nuclear plants in the PJM electricity market, something senior staff at DOE have unequivocally said they will not do. PJM, which stretches from the East Coast to the Midwest, has record surplus electric generating capacity and has expressed no immediate reliability concerns.

Concord, NH -Massachusetts electric companies formally ended contract negotiations with Eversource’s Northern Pass transmission project for Canadian hydro today. The New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee had already unanimously rejected the project with an oral decision earlier in the month, and is expected to issue a written order confirming that action this week.

A second owner of the Colstrip coal plant will pay off their outstanding debt by 2027, paving the way for an earlier closure of the largest single source of climate pollution in the American West.

Charleston, WEST VIRGINIA -Lack of federal funding has terminated a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine study on the health effects of mountaintop coal removal in Central Appalachia. Trump has been slowly and quietly dismantling the study since last fall, when the Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) halted the work due to an agency wide review of grants and agreements over $100,000.

As Duke Energy continues its push to raise customers’ bills to pay for its coal ash cleanup and to pad its bottom line, Sierra Club has launched a two-week digital ad buy in Raleigh and Charlotte to shine a light on the utility’s greed.