Legal & Regulatory

One oft-cited roadblock to widespread adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) is a lack of charging infrastructure, commonly referred to as electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE), or charging stations. While Tesla is well known for designing electric vehicles that can travel more than 250 miles on a single charge, most PEVs can only travel 60 […]

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires certain incidents to be recorded and reported, which generates a set of statistics that many companies use to gauge safety performance. However, other metrics may be better predictors. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires all employers with more than 10 employees, and whose establishments are not […]

More than six and a half years after the Department of Energy (DOE) submitted its license application seeking authorization to build a geologic repository, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff published the final two volumes of the safety evaluation report (SER) on the Yucca Mountain site. Released on Jan. 29, Volume 2 covers repository safety before […]

In a dramatic move that passed the state Legislature with little debate and almost no opposition, West Virginia lawmakers on Jan. 22 voted to repeal the state’s 2009 alternative energy standard, which requires utilities to get 25% of their power from alternative sources by 2025. The repeal bill passed the state Senate unanimously and the […]

Answering questions in a video produced by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), new chairman Stephen G. Burns says safety and security are the top priorities for the agency, but that being agile and nimble when things change is also important. Burns said one of the biggest challenges confronting the agency is the level of resources […]

On Jan. 14, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) report for 2013 showing that electric utilities have cut toxic releases to the environment 49% since 2003. The drop was driven by a 73% decline in on-site toxic air releases as a result of a decrease in hazardous air pollutants (HAP) […]

The Obama administration announced on Jan. 14 that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will propose new regulations to cut emissions of methane from the oil and gas industry, as well as other measures, with a goal of reducing total U.S. methane emissions 40% to 45% by 2025. The proposed rule is expected this summer. Emissions […]

The nuclear renaissance has turned into a nuclear retirement party. As recently as 2012, the U.S. had 104 operating nuclear reactors. With the retirement of Entergy’s Vermont Yankee plant at the end of December, that number has now fallen under 100 for the first time since the 1970s.  Yet as rapid as that pullback has […]

With California already on track to meet its goal of getting 33% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, Gov. Jerry Brown announced on Jan. 5 that he would seek to raise the renewables portfolio standard (RPS) target to 50% by 2030. In his inaugural speech opening his fourth term (he previously served from […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said today that a delay in issuing final rules affecting carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants, which were due this week, will help the agency release a set of more coordinated rules covering new, existing, and modified plants. The carbon dioxide rule for new plants—issued under Section 111(b) […]