"Republicans are putting the Keystone XL pipeline at the top of the agenda as they seek to move a stack of legislation to President Obama’s desk in 2015."

"Some of the stories that gripped our attention in 2014 will probably be forgotten in a few years — if not a few weeks. But there's one story that President Obama argues we'll be living with for decades to come."

Clean drinking water is something most U.S. residents take for granted -- until something goes wrong. And when something does go wrong, as it did in Charleston, W.V., this year, there are political consequences.

"An effort to kill California's first-in-the-nation state ban on single-use plastic grocery bags advanced this week after bag makers spent several million dollars on a campaign to gather signatures for a proposed ballot initiative to overturn it."

"Texas is not Kentucky. Or West Virginia. That's clear to everyone."

"President says pipeline’s extension from Canada to Nebraska would do little to reduce American energy prices, and generate only a limited number of US jobs"

"A longtime energy aide to Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) who spearheaded the state's climate change initiatives will become the new director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency that oversees oil and gas and renewable energy development on roughly 1.7 billion acres of federal waters."

"The Department of the Interior came out late yesterday with the 3.0 version of its scientific integrity policy, along with a new handbook that describes how the policy will be implemented. The new materials are simplified, streamlined, and more clear, bringing the department once again to the front of the pack in the Obama administration’s quest to create strong scientific integrity standards within federal agencies and departments. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is expected to speak about the new policy in a keynote address today before the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco."

The claim that man-made climate change is a hoax won the "Lie of the Year" poll among readers of Politifact.

"Drive down gravel Road 22 in Nebraska's York County, past weathered farmhouses and corn cut to stubble in rich, black loam soil, and you'll find a small barn by the side of the road."