"Numerous rulings by a former Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) favored energy companies his lobbyist wife worked for at the time, a DeSmog investigation can reveal."

"Four protesters opposed to federal oil lease sales were arrested Tuesday at the suburban New Orleans building where the leasing agency has offices, an attorney said."

"Federal regulators believe “there is a significant possibility” that recent earthquakes in North Texas are linked to oil and gas activity, even if state regulators won’t say so."

"With little more than a promise, the Texas Railroad Commission is trusting a struggling coal industry to pay for the cost of cleaning up old mines."

"The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court struck down a controversial 'pipeline tax' that would have allowed electric utilities in the state to raise rates to pay for natural gas pipeline projects."

"This year, carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas associated with the energy sector will exceed those from coal for the first time since 1972, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration."

"Dozens of law professors banded together this week to assail a federal court's recent decision striking down the Obama administration's hydraulic fracturing rule."

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not properly analyzed the environmental effects of its ethanol mandate, a watchdog report found Thursday.

The 2005 law creating the renewable fuel standard requires the EPA to write reports on the environmental impacts of the requirement to blend ethanol and other biofuels with gasoline, and to determine whether measures are needed to blunt the effects.

But the EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found the agency’s compliance with those provisions lacking."