Energy & Fuel

"Four states are suing over the Trump administration’s decision to restart the sale of coal leases on federal lands."

"The director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency on Monday blasted the pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners for a “pattern” of 18 spills of drilling materials and said that the size of the biggest spill could reach 5 million gallons, more than double original estimates."

"Republicans from energy-producing states are under pressure as the Senate weighs whether to overturn an Obama-era regulation to restrict harmful methane emissions escaping from oil and gas wells on public land."

"Native American leaders and climate activists protested at several Chase branches in Seattle on Monday, forcing them to close temporarily as demonstrators demanded the bank not lend to projects like the Keystone XL oil pipeline."

"President Trump last night announced his intent to nominate a top adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a Pennsylvania regulator to be members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission."

"Oil prices collapsed on Thursday to their lowest since late November as investor worries about the world's stubbornly persistent glut of crude erased most of the gains that followed last year's OPEC's output cut."

"One of the coal industry's biggest boosters has joined U.S. EPA. Christian Palich, who started this week as a deputy associate administrator in the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations, is the former president of the Ohio Coal Association."

"The wind power industry just chalked up its strongest first quarter in eight years. Tax credits play an important role." "Every two and a half hours, workers installed a new wind turbine in the United States during the first quarter of 2017, marking the strongest start for the wind industry in eight years, according to a new report by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) released on May 2."

"An abandoned pipeline that was cut off underground and left uncapped and connected to a natural gas well fueled an explosion that destroyed a Colorado home and killed two people last month, investigators said yesterday."

"The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has concluded that a 2015 explosion at a Torrance, California, refinery then owned by Exxon Mobil Corp could have been prevented, the agency concluded in a report issued on Wednesday."