The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new regulations Friday that aim to reduce water pollution near nuclear and fossil fuel-fired power plants.

The rules would require power plants to install pollution control technology and implement waste-treatment procedures in a phased approach between 2017 and 2022. The department said fewer than half of the 500 coal-fired power plants affected by the rules would incur costs.

“Reducing the pollution of our waters through effective but flexible controls such as we are proposing today is a win-win for our public health and our economic vitality. We look forward to hearing from all stakeholders on the best way forward,” EPA Acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe said in a Friday statement.

Natural gas produced in the northeast's booming Marcellus shale region leads to far fewer greenhouse gas emissions than coal, a competing source of electric power, according to a new study by Exxon Mobil’s research arm.

“We conclude that substantial [greenhouse gas] reductions and freshwater savings may result from the replacement of coal-fired power generation with gas-fired power generation,” states the study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

The findings will bolster natural gas advocates’ contention that increasing use of gas – which has been growing as a power source at coal’s expense – is an important way to curb U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Business groups challenging federal rules that force oil companies to reveal payments to foreign governments say new European Union plans to force similar disclosures do not bolster the legal case for the U.S. rules.

“The EU action is ... legally irrelevant,” states a letter to federal judges Thursday from the U.S Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute and other groups.

It’s the latest move in the legal battle over Securities and Exchange Commission rules that force SEC-listed petroleum and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments related to projects in their countries.

The new letter comes a week after Oxfam America, which is defending the SEC rules, made the case to federal judges that the EU plan undercuts the industry’s legal challenges to the SEC mandates.

The New York Times reports from a State Department hearing in Nebraska on the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.

Bloomberg explains why Chevron is “leading a lobbying and public relations campaign” against California’s low-carbon fuels mandate – a program the oil giant once supported.

PBS reports that World Bank President Jim Yong Kim is sounding the alarm on climate change.

“If we have any hope of keeping climate change below two degrees celsius, the peak year of carbon emission has to be 2016,” he said. “So the challenge is right in front of us.”

The Wall Street Journal looks deeply at the role of natural gas in driving down U.S. carbon emissions in recent years.

Forbes reports that stocks of several energy efficiency-related companies rose Thursday following introduction of a bipartisan conservation bill on Capitol Hill.

STATE OF PLAY:When a long-awaited revival of a bipartisan Senate energy-efficiency bill dropped Thursday, its sponsors and interest groups immediately got to work to ensure it wouldn’t fizzle out like last year.

The bill could be a litmus test for whether Congress can pass substantive energy legislation this session, as there’s been some recent bipartisan, bicameral goodwill on energy efficiency.

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) quickly chose staunch conservative Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) and ardent liberal Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) to shepherd the House version of their bill.

That iteration will be similar to the Senate legislation, which would establish voluntary efficiency standards for new building codes and require the federal government to undertake energy-saving practices. The bill has much more, which E2-Wire covered here.

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Animal rights groups are meeting with the White House to ensure that regulations protecting an endangered whale species do not expire in December.

The rule says that large boats traveling in specific areas along the Eastern Seaboard need to travel 10 knots — or 11.5 miles per hour — to avoid hitting the North Atlantic right whale, a relatively slow-moving animal that eats by filtering small organisms through its open mouth.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) warned the Obama administration Thursday that its proposal to steer federal oil-and-gas revenues into a green energy fund won’t fly unless it's paired with opening new areas to drilling.

President Obama is pushing Congress to create an “Energy Security Trust,” which would steer $2 billion in revenues from offshore development into technologies that wean cars and trucks off of oil.

Murkowski – the top Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee – said Thursday that White House resistance to opening currently off-limits areas will sink a plan that could otherwise gain political traction.

“If that is the approach the administration is going to take on this, it is not going to go anywhere,” she said at a hearing on the Energy Department’s proposed fiscal year 2014 budget.

Former Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairman Gregory Jaczko was appointed Thursday to a new panel charged with monitoring the agency that oversees the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) tapped Jaczko — a former aide for the Nevada Democrat — for the position with the Congressional Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise.

The panel was created by the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act. Its purpose is to make recommendations for improving operations at the Energy Department’s (DOE) nuclear weapons agency.

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) revived a scaled-back version of their energy-efficiency bill on Thursday.

The senators tamed their ambitions with an eye toward getting approval from more conservative lawmakers in both chambers who had objected to new spending authorizations in last year’s bill.

“This is about getting something done,” Portman said at a news conference.

The legislation already is scheduled for a Tuesday legislative hearing in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The committee cleared it in a bipartisan vote last session.