It's a dicey time for utility companies hoping to expand their generation capacities. Uncertainty over the possible extent of greenhouse gas regulations, a changing political climate and rising construction costs have made the future very murky.

So we're not really surprised to hear that several lending institutions have recently said that they will require utilities to begin factoring in climate change and associated regulations when applying for private funding. Those factors have led the Rural Utilities Service, a small agency under the USDA charged with providing cheap loans to rural utilities for plant construction, to put an indefinite moratorium on new loans, citing risk and uncertainty. Seven proposed power plants under consideration have been directly affected by the moratorium, and no new loans will be considered for at least two years.

It's impossible for an EnviroWonk to not regard this decision without a bit of elation. Nobody wants to see rural residents' power become inordinately expensive or unreliable as a result of this decision, we also can't help but see this as something of a first bellwether of change in American energy policy. Coal isn't on its way out for a good while now, but to see the first real indicators of climate change abatement and a changing attitude towards energy development is, well, encouraging.