"An obstacle to greening L.A.'s energy portfolio is the Department of Water & Power's contract with a Utah plant, which requires the city to buy coal power until 2027. The gritty fuel is now stoking controversy over energy policy, environmental damage and how much consumers should pay to kick the habit."

"Ivanpah Valley, Calif. -- Construction cranes rise like storks 40 stories above the Mojave Desert. In their midst, the 'power tower' emerges, wrapped in scaffolding and looking like a multistage rocket."

"The U.S. government will require natural gas drillers to disclose which chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing on public lands, according to draft rules crafted by the Interior Department."

"You wouldn't know it from the Republicans, but these are boom times for American energy. And you wouldn't know it from President Barack Obama, but he has very little to do with that."

"Federal authorities are planning to scale back a Bush-era push to open 2 million acres of public lands in the Rocky Mountain region for commercial oil-shale development — with support from Colorado agricultural, municipal and recreation industry leaders."

"TIME has learned that between 2007 and 2010 the Sierra Club accepted over $25 million in donations from the gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy—one of the biggest gas drilling companies in the U.S. and a firm heavily involved in fracking—to help fund the Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.

"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."