On the gas: The most detailed data yet on emissions of heat-trapping gases show that U.S. power plants are responsible for the bulk of the pollution blamed for global warming. Power plants released 72% of the greenhouse gases reported to the Environmental Protection Agency for 2010, according to information released Wednesday that was the first catalog of global warming pollution by facility. The data include more than 6,700 of the largest industrial sources of greenhouse gases, or about 80% of total U.S. emissions. According to an Associated Press analysis of the data, 20 mostly coal-fired power plants in 15 states account for the top-releasing facilities. The top states in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and from refineries were Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, and Indiana. Read the full story here, and explore the EPA’s comprehensive database of facility emissions here.
Ring it up: Retail sales barely rose in December, but the gain was enough to lift sales to a record level for 2011. It marked the largest annual increase in more than a decade. Sales inched up 0.1% in December to a seasonally adjusted $400.6 billion, the Commerce Department reports today. It was the second straight month that sales have topped $400 billion; never before had monthly sales reached that level. The government also revised the November sales to show a stronger 0.4% gain—twice the original estimate. That pushed sales in November above $400 billion on a seasonally adjusted basis. For all of 2011, retail sales totaled a record $4.7 trillion, a gain of nearly 8% over 2010. It was the largest percentage increase since 1999. Read the full story by The Associated Press here.
Public profile: What’s good for Facebook and its employees could be very good for California’s treasury. Should the Palo Alto company go public this year, as many have speculated, the state stands to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in capital gains taxes from Facebook investors and employees profiting from stock sales. That could bring a much-needed windfall to a state government facing a $9.2 billion deficit. In calculating how much revenue the state can expect in the next year or so, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office this week released a report that considered historical income trends but also budgeted for a revenue bump on the assumption that Facebook and some other California companies will go public. An initial public offering from the Silicon Valley social networking giant is the most anticipated, with the LAO saying the company could issue $10 billion worth of stock. California taxes the capital gains from stock sales. The Associated Press has the full story here.
