US EPA
http://epa.gov/carbonpollutionstandard/
[From an EPA Press Release] Following a 2007 Supreme Court ruling, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today proposed the first Clean Air Act standard for carbon pollution from new power plants…The rulemaking proposed today only concerns new generating units that will be built in the future, and does not apply to existing units already operating or units that will start construction over the next 12 months…
[From the Wall Street Journal, sub. req'd] …New power plants will be limited to emissions of 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour of electricity produced.
Most gas-fired power plants built since 2005 meet that standard, but coal plants can’t unless they are fitted with special equipment to capture the carbon emissions and store them underground…
Some power companies expect the cumulative impact of federal regulations to raise electricity rates for consumers in areas where coal is a big part of the generation mix, such as the Midwest. But the new rules by themselves shouldn’t have a huge impact on prices, because utilities had relatively few new coal-fired plants on the drawing board, and natural-gas prices are near 10-year lows…
