© 2023
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations

Report Urges National Limits On Power Plant Emissions

On the eve of the United Nations Climate Summit next week in New York, a Massachusetts environmental group called for aggressive limits on power plant emissions.

A report issued Thursday claims coal and gas fueled power plants in the U.S. are the most significant sources of global warming pollution.  Massachusetts, in 2001, was the first state to set a policy limiting carbon pollution from power plants. Similar national limits are now being proposed by the EPA.  Ben Hellerstein of Environment Massachusetts said the country should follow Massachusetts’ lead when it comes to solar energy

"We've seen solar energy grow by more than 150 times in Massachusetts since 2008. We can continue on that path and get more and more of our energy from the sun."

The last coal-fired power plant in western Massachusetts, the Mount Tom Plant in Holyoke is scheduled to shut down Oct. 1st

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.