Brian Nearing reports in Capitol Confidential, the Times-Union blog, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed Dec. 22 to speed up its study of whether the six-year Hudson River dredging project by General Electric was effective. Instead of starting the federal study in 2017, it will begin in 2016. GE still gets to disassemble a PCB-processing plant in Fort Edward that was used to remove the dangerous chemicals from the river. “We are encouraged and cautiously optimistic,” said Ned Sullivan, president of Scenic Hudson. Read the full story at Capitol Confidential.