Environmental Politics

"Former Vice President Al Gore is going where few environmentalists -- and fellow Democrats -- have gone before: criticizing President Barack Obama's record on global warming."

In the race for the GOP presidential nomination, even candidates who previously accepted climate science and backed cap-and-trade are backtracking and changing position as fast as they can.

"The American public is less likely to believe in global warming than it was just five years ago. Yet, paradoxically, scientists are more confident than ever that climate change is real and caused largely by human activities."

"The U.S. ethanol industry is growing up. Moves in Washington to start weaning producers off government support are not expected to stunt a sector that had often been perceived as too fragile to withstand the travails of market forces."

"When the energy industry publishes a coloring book, there is no crayon needed to see the shades of gray."

"Pipeline operators and their trade organizations shaped, managed and provided sizable funding for numerous safety studies conducted by the federal agency that regulates the industry, a Chronicle investigation shows."

"The Obama administration [Thursday] said a proposal from House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) to expedite oil and gas leasing and energy infrastructure permitting in an Alaska reserve could force federal regulators to flout environmental laws and includes a costly, redundant resource assessment."

"More than a dozen Virginia legislators are flying to France this month on all-expenses paid trips as part of an aggressive lobbying effort by a company pushing lawmakers to lift a ban on uranium mining in the state."

"[A House subcommittee] took a first step on Wednesday to fast-track a controversial Alberta tar sands pipeline, ordering Barack Obama to reach a decision on the project by 1 November."

EPA chief Lisa Jackson told the Senate Environment Committee Wednesday that American Electric Power's recent narrative about job loss resulting from EPA's mercury regulations was were "misleading at best and scare tactics at worst."