State regulators said today that Progress Energy can build a natural gas-fired power plant as part of a plan that will allow Progress to shut down three older coal-burning power plants near Goldsboro.

The N.C. Utilities Commission approved the clean-burning gas plant in Wayne County under a state law enacted in July by the General Assembly and limited to this construction request by Raleigh-based Progress. The law required the commission to issue a ruling on the plant within 45 days, while the standard regulatory review would have taken at least six months for a power plant construction request.

The natural gas plant will have a capacity of 950 megawatts and is planned for operation in 2013. Progress will spend an estimated $900 million to build the plant, which still requires an air emissions permit from the N.C. Department of Environmental and Natural Resources.

Several major power companies have cancelled their membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the business group's position on global warming, but North Carolina's electric utilities are not planning to sever their relationship with the organization.
Raleigh-based Progress Energy and Charlotte-based Duke Energy say they have long, productive relationships with the national chamber.
In recent weeks, power companies that have quit the chamber include Excelon, one of the country's biggest electric utilities, as well as Pacific Gas & Electric in California. They quit over the chamber's resistance to climate change legislation that would impose additional costs on some businesses.

A global warming bill before Congress could be a breeding ground for speculators and con artists without strict government controls, Duke University environmental studies professor Tim Profeta is warning Congress this morning.
Profeta is testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry on the global warming legislation that will create a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases. Profeta is the founding director of Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and a former environmental counsel for Sen. Joseph Lieberman.
The cap-and-trade market will allow emitters of carbon dioxide to trade emissions allowances with other polluters. That way a company that exceeds its annual emissions limit will have to buy allowances from other companies. The market is designed to encourage businesses to
reduce emissions so they can sell allowances.

Bad weather forced the anti-tax group Americans for Prosperity to
postpone plans to sail a hot-air balloon reading "Global Warming
Alarmism: Lost Jobs, higher Taxes, Less Freedom" over John Edwards'
Orange County estate.

Dallas Woodhouse, N.C. director of the grassroots group, said the stunt
was o point out what he sees as Edwards' hypocrisy on the global
warming issue, calling for reduced energy consumption while living in a
28,000-square-foot house.

It's part of a nationwide "Hot Air Tour" sponsored by Americans for
Propserity that also has flown over Al Gore's large Tennessee home.

A spokeswoman for the Edwardses released a statement from the couple
calling the demonstration a "sad attempt to throw political mud" and
noting that the house does get some of its energy from solar panels.