"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."
"Range Fuels Inc., a cellulosic ethanol company backed by as much as $156 million in U.S. loans and grants from President George W. Bush's administration, is being forced by the government to liquidate its only factory after failing to produce the fuel."
"Stephen Harper heads to the White House on Wednesday to unveil a long-awaited border security agreement with U.S. President Barack Obama, but the visit comes at a particularly tense moment in Canada-U.S. relations as TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline saga rages on."
Many landowners who sign leases with oil and gas companies as the "fracking" boom rolls through Texas, Colorado, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia think the lease terms pay them well and protect them from damage. Investigative reporters from the New York Times got the leases and read the fine print. They concluded that many of the leases victimize landowners.
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