Several news stories in recent weeks have focused attention on energy production, air pollution and government regulations.

An Associated Press article this week told the story of the coal-fired power plant in Homer City, Pa., 60 miles downwind of Butler in Indiana County, and its turnaround from being ranked as the dirtiest power plant in the United States to a model for achieving environmental improvements with technology.

For decades, many coal-fired power plants exploited a loophole in the Clean Air Act that allowed them to delay installation of technologies that would reduce harmful emissions from their smokestacks. When confronted with regulatory or legal pressure, plant operators usually said the required air-pollution reductions would be too costly, would increase electricity rates and cost jobs.

Those dire warnings sound like the time, decades ago, when Detroit automakers testified before Congress saying that federal regulations requiring seat belts and, years later, airbags would be too costly, would make cars much more expensive and would hurt sales. Those warnings did not materialize.

Something similar appears to have happened in Homer City. Three years ago, the plant operators sued the federal government over air pollution rules, saying compliance would cause “immediate and devastating consequences.”

After delaying compliance for a few years with its court action, the plant, owned by GE Energy Financial Services, is now poised to comply with the new regulations. And GE, the primary owner of the plant since 2001, says the changes can be made without increasing electricity rates or costing jobs.

In 2013, Homer City’s 40-year-old plant, which has operated without modern “scrubbers” to clean emissions, put more sulfur dioxide pollution into the air than the combined output of all of New York state’s power plants.

Many coal-fueled power plant operators have charged that the Obama administration has launched a “war on coal” with imposition of tougher air-pollution standards. But the bigger threat to coal as a fuel for generating electricity is the abundant, inexpensive and clean-burning natural gas being produced with horizontal drilling and fracking in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

It might not be possible for all older coal-fired power plants to make the sort of turnaround predicted at Homer City once the scrubbers are installed, but the Homer City story makes industry threats of economic disaster linked to federal pollution standards harder to take seriously.

A few weeks before the Homer City story made headlines, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal Environmental Protection Agency has jurisdiction over states whose powerplants pollute the air of other states.

The so-called Good Neighbor provision in the Clean Air Act was fought by several Midwest states where most of the oldest and most-polluting power plants operate. But the concept makes sense, because we all live downwind of somebody.

An example of the problem: It’s been estimated that 93 percent of the air pollution in Connecticut comes from out of state, from power plants in upwind states.

How can Connecticut be expected to improve its air quality when most of the pollution is carried by the wind from other states’ power plants?

The court’s ruling will mean that about 1,000 older coal-fired power plants, mostly in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic regions, will have to use scrubbers or other pollution-control technologies.

The 6-2 ruling by the court found Chief Justice John Roberts, considered a solid conservative, siding with the majority and agreeing that downwind states have the right to expect upwind states to make changes to reduce pollution.

Technology, cleaner fuels and federal regulations can all play a role in cleaning up the environment. Opponents should remember that we all live downwind from somebody — and we all breathe the same air.