THE 20 STATES WITH THE WORST TOXIC AIR POLLUTION FROM POWER PLANTS

The National Resources Defense Council's latest annual "Toxic Power" report contains good news for air quality, namely that toxic air pollution from power plants decreased roughly 19 percent from 2009 to 2010. The improvement came as many plants switched to burning natural gas instead of coal and as some plants installed new pollution controls looking to meet anticipated health protections set by the Environmental Protection Agency. "I was very pleased to see a drop of nearly 20 percent between 2009 and 2010, even before the EPA standards were fully finalized or the dramatic shifts had occurred in the gas market," says John Walke, the clean air director for NRDC. "We just lived through 2011 and I know that those trends only accelerated during that year. This is a good news story with isolated aberrations like Kentucky."

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