The US Environmental Protection Agency has caved in to pressure from eight states and a coalition of environmental groups, and will tighten regulations of air pollution from cement plants, according to a story in today’s Albany Times-Union (which reports on the goings-on at several big cement plants in the vicinity of this writer’s home in New York’s Hudson Valley).

The EPA acknowledged that in drawing up new regulations for cement kilns, it didn’t adhere to Clean Air Act mandates that it require companies to use the "best technology available" to reduce pollution.