Striking the same theme, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill dubbed the Stop the War on Coal Act to roll back environmental laws that affect the fossil-fuel industry, although the Senate will almost certainly block it.

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On December 21, 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency carried out its obligation under the 1990 Clean Air Act and demanded that coal-fired power plants implement the available technologies to reduce their emissions by 90 percent.

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In January 1993, John Major's government enacted the British Coal and British Rail (Transfer Proposals) Act 1993.

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So it can act as a canary in the coal mine as it were.

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The New Source Review provision under the Clean Air Act, for example, is intended to prevent older coal-fired power plants from equipping their old units to produce more energy that release more pollutants.

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And 20 years ago, the utility industry, warnings of huge losses from the Clean Air Act, won concessions greatly reducing their obligations to install scrubbers on coal-fired power plants.

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The class act is Peabody Energy and it just broke into new high ground along with Arch and my favorite coal MLP, Natural Resource Partners.

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