"Environmental groups on Tuesday challenged the first attempted auction of offshore petroleum leases in the western Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, filing a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Washington."
"YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Until this year, this Rust Belt city and surrounding Mahoning County had been about as dead, seismically, as a place can be, without even a hint of an earthquake since Scots-Irish settlers arrived in the 18th century."
"Despite lower demand, more than $448 billion has been paid so far for fuel — $100 billion more than in 2010. Consistently high oil prices are blamed."
"If you want something from Congress, there are probably only about four shopping days left until Christmas, because most members of the House and Senate seem likely to go home on Friday. One big item on the green list is an extension of the production tax credit for wind energy, and the industry’s trade association, the American Wind Energy Association, released a dire study on Monday about what will happen without it."
"House and Senate leaders on Thursday reached agreement on tougher safety rules for the nation’s vast network of pipelines in the wake of a spate of incidents including a deadly pipeline explosion in San Bruno, Calif., last year that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes."
"CHEYENNE - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday for the first time that fracking - a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells - may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution."
The EPA says the proposed rule would prevent about 17,000 premature deaths each year and hundreds of thousands of illnesses, and avoid substantial environmental damage. The agency estimates that for every $1 spent preventing the targeted pollution there would be health benefits ranging from $5 to $13, and additional environmental benefits.
"Big Oil is redrawing the energy map. For decades, its main stomping grounds were in the developing world—exotic locales like the Persian Gulf and the desert sands of North Africa, the Niger Delta and the Caspian Sea. But in recent years, that geographical focus has undergone a radical change. Western energy giants are increasingly hunting for supplies in rich, developed countries—a shift that could have profound implications for the industry, global politics and consumers."
"An unusual confluence of environmental, political and economic events are colliding to take down the coal-fired power plant, shifting American power generation from the country’s historically dominant fuel source."
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