Paving the Legal Path for Carbon Sequestration from Coal

Of the many environmental and natural resource challenges that face President Obama, a large one has received scant attention from environmental scholars: coal.In the environmental community, coal-dirty, polluting coal-is more of an epithet than a resource.It has been the bane of environmentalists since the early days of the Clean Air Act, 1 and its reputation has only gotten worse with the recognition that carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), a major cause of climate change, is produced by coal at a higher ratio per energy output than other fossil fuels. 2 Many environmental organizations propose eliminating coal entirely from our energy mix. 3 However, coal represents forty-nine percent of the Unites States' existing electricgenerating capacity, and will likely remain an important source of