Legislators opposing new Environmental Protection Agency efforts to mitigate climate change have received large sums of cash from the coal industry, according to an analysis released Thursday by Maplight , an independent research group that tracks the influence of money in politics. Maplight’s analysis compared coal industry donations to two groups of senators: those who recently voted to block new EPA regulations designed to limit greenhouse gas and carbon emissions, and those who voted to leave the rules intact. The group of senators who opposed the EPA rules “received, on average, 17 times as much money ($75,802) from the coal mining industry compared to senators voting against them ($4,464)” over the six year period beginning in April 2009 and ending in March of this year, Maplight said in a statement. EPA rules mandate that states cut power-plant emissions by 32 percent , compared to 2005 levels, by the year […]