Clean Air, Healthy Families News Releases

As we continue to set record-high temperatures nearly every day this week in Minnesota, a new Environment Minnesota report documents how global warming could lead to certain extreme weather events becoming even more common or more severe in the future. 

President Obama and the State Department today will reject an effort to force administration approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.

XCEL Energy’s Sherburne County power plant (Sherco) in Becker emits the most mercury pollution of any power plant in Minnesota and the 40th most in the country, according to brand new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data outlined in Environment Minnesota’s latest report, Minnesota’s Biggest Mercury Polluters. The report found that in total, power plants in Minnesota emitted 876 pounds of mercury pollution in 2010.  Environment Minnesota’s report comes as EPA is set to finalize a standard to limit mercury and other toxic air pollution from power plants this month.

Today, the Obama administration announced that it will not update critical air quality standards for ozone pollution—commonly known as smog.  This decision was made despite a unanimous recommendation by the independent board of air experts and scientists created under the Clean Air Act that the current standard be strengthened to protect public health.  Exposure to smog triggers asthma attacks, causes permanent lung damage and can even lead to premature death.  In fact, according the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 5,000 asthma-related deaths occur each year in the United States.  In Minnesota 182,485 and  60,700 children suffer from asthma, according to the American Lung Association.