"More than a dozen oil producers have joined to lobby the federal government to reverse the 40-year-old ban on U.S. crude exports, a move that supporters say would create jobs and keep the energy boom alive, a spokesman for one of the companies and a lobbyist for another one said on Friday."

"A national survey of gas prices reports that the average cost of U.S. regular grade gas dropped 18 cents per gallon in the last two weeks."

"Royal Dutch Shell Plc is asking the Obama administration for five more years to explore for oil off Alaska’s coast, saying set backs and legal delays may push the start of drilling past the 2017 expiration of some leases."

"The BP oil spill left an oily "bathub ring" on the sea floor that's about the size of Rhode Island, new research shows."

"The 2014 season for Lake Michigan's only coal-powered passenger and car ferry comes to a close Sunday, signaling the end of the controversial practice of dumping coal ash into the Great Lake. When the vessel resumes operations in 2015, it will no longer release the waste material into those waters."

"KIRKUK, Iraq — Roughly two dozen huge oil tankers are idly turning figure eights around the Mediterranean or on the high seas, loaded with oil pumped from wells in Iraqi Kurdistan but with nowhere to legally offload it."

"Local activists try to halt the shipment of explosive Bakken crude oil through their neighborhoods."

"The EPA touted decreased methane leaks during fracking, but environmentalists say the numbers are skewed."

"Massachusetts, California, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont are the most energy-efficient states in the U.S., according to an annual ranking released Wednesday by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, or ACEEE."

"Scott Kidwell, a top executive for Concho Resources Inc., came to Capitol Hill in July to urge senators to pass a bipartisan bill to expedite drilling permits on public lands."