"ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Shell Oil Co. on Monday took a step closer to tapping vast petroleum reserves off Alaska's Arctic coasts when the federal Environmental Protection Agency approved an air quality permit for one of the company's drilling vessels."

"COLUMBIA, S.C. — Groundwater at a large landfill in lower Richland County, S.C., continues to show signs of harmful pollution, despite more than a decade of cleanup efforts."

"FORT McMURRAY, Alberta -- As U.S. companies look toward oil riches in northern Canada, they're encountering increasing competition - as well as some much-needed cash infusions - from the Far East. U.S. and Canadian companies have dominated Alberta's oil sands for decades. Now, though, Chinese firms are rushing to snap up Canadian oil sands resources and invest in ongoing projects - to the tune of $15 billion in the past 18 months in Alberta alone."

Despite confident assurances from leaders in the go-go shale gas industry that pollution problems don't exist, records from Pennsylvania's environmental agency show that faulty casings and cement do indeed cause pollution of drinking water.

"At the recent Shale Gas Insight conference in Philadelphia, the CEO of one of the largest Marcellus Shale drilling companies in Pennsylvania was unequivocal in his message that methane contamination of drinking water supplies from faulty gas wells is at an end.

"TIOGA - Brenda and Richard Jorgenson have a long list of reasons why they dislike and fear the reserve pit from an oil well buried on their land, located a half-mile from their house. They say it reeked of chemicals when it was being filled with diesel-saturated mud, rock cuttings and fluids left over from drilling last year."

In Whiting, Indiana, and across the Midwest, old refineries are being expanded to process the crude oil expected from Canada's tar sands. Citizens near BP's century-old refinery in Whiting are concerned that it will harm their health.

"The latest probe into last year's Gulf of Mexico blowout and oil spill -- a federal report that blames much of the disaster on poor management decisions by BP PLC -- has elicited strong but varied responses on Capitol Hill, but its chances of prompting immediate legislative action remain slim."