This week was a game changer in Washington, DC. The EPA released a ground-breaking rule to regulate carbon from all new coal fired power plants. Once approved, this new EPA rule will essentially eliminate the ability to build any new coal plants in the United States… Let that sink in… This rule means the end of new coal plants in the United States. Not too shabby.

It’s been a tough couple of weeks with the Administration. Between the announcement expediting the southern leg of Keystone XL (bad), calling for an end to oil subsidies and forcing a vote in the Senate (good), calls for increasing domestic drilling (bad) and this rule to regulate carbon from any new coal fired power plant (good), I sometimes can’t tell if we’re moving full steam ahead to the clean energy future or slipping right back to the dirty energy of the past. But amidst all that confusion, we can be clear about this rule — it is perhaps the strongest statement yet from the Administration that they still intend to find a way to regulate carbon emissions at the federal level.