"Oil, gas and mining industries are battling a late addition to the 2010 financial reform law that requires energy companies to disclose their payments to foreign governments."

Both President Obama and the GOP-controlled House are pushing infrastructure investment as a job-producing way of maintaining and upgrading U.S. roads, bridges, dams, waterways, airports, and quality of life. The big questions include how to do it -- a set of choices with huge environmental consequences.

The shine of a new iPad and Apple's record profits come at a steep cost: the health of the Chinese workers who make them possible.

"There's a solar trade war going on inside the U.S., sparked by an invasion of inexpensive imports from China. The U.S. solar industry is divided over these imports: Panel-makers say their business is suffering and want a tariff slapped on the imports. But other parts of the industry say these cheap panels are driving a solar boom in the U.S."

"President Barack Obama's jobs council called on Tuesday for a corporate tax overhaul, expanded domestic drilling and new regulatory reforms, a set of proposals unlikely to provide a quick fix for high unemployment or gain much traction in an election year."

"Insurance companies don’t care if you believe in climate change or not: Your premiums are going up anyhow."

"U.S. Enrichment Corp., which produces fuel for nuclear power plants, is having its own sort of meltdown. Disillusioned investors have wiped out 95 percent of the company’s market value since 2007. Standard & Poor’s has saddled it with a dismal CCC-plus credit rating.

"Ever since the collapse of the domestic steel industry, blue-collar workers living in the mountain towns near the border of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio have struggled to find jobs. But last June, Shell Oil Co. announced it would build a huge petrochemical refinery somewhere in that Appalachian region. The plant, known in the industry as a "cracker," could bring billions of investment dollars and thousands of jobs."

"BALTIMORE — As operators of coal-fired power plants around the country welcome a court-ordered delay on tighter pollution rules, the owner of a retrofitted plant here says that the rules cannot come too soon. The company, Constellation Energy, says it is an issue of fairness. A little more than two years ago, it completed an $885 million installation that has vastly reduced emissions from two giant coal-burning units at its Brandon Shores plant here, within view of the city’s downtown office towers."

"The 'miracle fibre' that helped drive Quebec's economy for more than a century now represents an industry near death, despite government efforts to keep it afloat."

"The standard 100-watt light bulb is going away, and its lower-wattage cousins are soon to follow."

"WASHINGTON — A federal tax credit for ethanol expired on Saturday, ending an era in which the federal government provided more than $20 billion in subsidies for use of the product."

"WASHINGTON -- Four domestic companies that make most of the steel towers for wind turbines in the United States filed a trade complaint against China and Vietnam on Thursday, seeking tariffs in the range of 60 percent. The action is a significant new skirmish in an emerging green energy trade war.

Despite Iran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, some global oil prices fell. It turns out Iran's influence on the international oil market may be weak, and its threats more an effort to head off international sanctions that will harm its own weakened petroleum economy. Shipping lanes are just one of many major strategic factors affecting the global oil market. Iran has, however, offered spurious ammunition to U.S. politicians crowing for US acts of war against it. Right now, the news media are taking Iran's threats more seriously than the oil market is.

"BP has taken the axe to its solar power business, saying it 'can't make any money' from selling panels at a time when it continues to spend $20bn annually on oil and gas developments."