"OTTAWA -- Years of social disruptions by environmentalists and First Nations, lengthy court battles and a possible stand-off between Ottawa and British Columbia lie ahead after Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s approval of the fiercely contested Northern Gateway pipeline."

"NEW CASTLE, Colo. — Four in 10 new oil and gas wells near national forests and fragile watersheds or otherwise identified as higher pollution risks escape federal inspection, unchecked by an agency struggling to keep pace with America's drilling boom, according to an Associated Press review that shows wide state-by-state disparities in safety checks."

"Trains carrying a potentially more flammable crude oil have begun rolling with little notice through Sacramento and California in the last year, prompting concerns about safety and calls for more transparency, but state officials said Friday they have decided for now not to release information to the public on where those trains run or how many there are."

"'What gets everybody really suspicious is that you don't have access to watch it, which raises all kinds of issues about transparency.'"

"When the coal-fired power plant at the Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah started up, Franklin D. Roosevelt was running for his fourth term as president. The top music hits were sung by Bing Crosby, Jimmy Dorsey and Dinah Shore. D-Day was still a couple of months away."

"A Princeton University study has found that leaks from abandoned oil and gas wellbores pose not only a risk to groundwater, but represent a growing threat to the climate."

"It might be that the U.S. environmentalists’ long campaign against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is about to backfire. Canadian pipeline operators are poised to implement an all-Canadian Plan B network of pipelines in place of the ill-fated Keystone XL that was to run the length of the U.S. heartland to the Texas Gulf Coast."

"Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) on Friday signed into law a contentious bill the legislature passed last month rolling back state renewable energy standards."

"PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken down the patents posted at the California headquarters of his luxury electric car company. Instead the innovative CEO wants to allow other electric vehicle manufacturers to use his technology to advance sustainable mobility worldwide."