Environmental Politics

"Energy in Depth prepares 'cheat sheet' of pro-fracking talking points before release of Gus Van Sant drilling-rights drama."

"Over the weekend, various news outlets reported that President Obama is going to tap Sen. John Kerry to serve as the next Secretary of State. This is not much of a surprise, since the other reported leading candidate for the post, UN ambassador Susan Rice, withdrew herself from consideration last Thursday. For climate hawks, having Kerry at the helm at State would be very good news."

Congress and the White House seem to be doing an about-face after promising the American public aggressive action on food safety two years ago.

"A signature battle of the energy boom, a public fight over a waste-water deep disposal well, plays out amid scientific uncertainty over safety in a small town."

"As one of the Marx brothers famously said: who do you believe, me or your own eyes?  Climate sceptics, it turns out, are much more likely to believe direct evidence of a changing climate in the form of extreme weather events than they do scientists, when it comes to global warming."

"A WikiLeaks-style Web dump of drafts of the 2013 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provides fresh evidence that the organization’s policies and procedures are a terrible fit for an era in which transparency will increasingly be enforced on organizations working on consequential energy and environmental issues."

"Nuclear power giant Exelon is telling its employees to lobby Congress to end the production tax credit for wind power, which will expire at month’s end unless lawmakers vote to extend it."

"More than 100 physicians urged the Obama administration on Thursday not to approve the construction of liquefied natural gas export terminals until more is known about the health effects of hydraulic fracturing, the drilling process that has opened the way for a big increase in domestic gas production."

"SEATTLE -- More than 2,000 opponents and supporters of a plan to ship coal through a northwest Washington terminal turned out Thursday for a final public meeting on the controversial proposal."

"When a government deadline for new safety management programs at offshore drilling rigs and wells approached in November 2011, oil and gas industry leaders were bracing for tough scrutiny and plenty of penalties. But that scrutiny never materialized."