West Virginia Gov. Tomblin's "administration weakened an executive order on the regulation of Marcellus Shale gas drilling just hours before the order was signed and publicly announced, according to records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. ... The governor's office has refused to make public its correspondence with industry lobbyists who were helping craft state drilling policies."
"As the capital's debt-limit drama enters its final act today, the last two solutions standing -- one Democratic, one GOP -- would slash long-term energy and environmental spending to a degree comparable with the fiscally austere deal struck to avert a springtime federal shutdown."
Claiming costs to oil and gas industry would outweigh health benefits to Americans, the oil industry is going behind closed doors at the White House to convince President Obama to overrule his EPA's effort to tighten smog controls.
"Royal Dutch Shell, the biggest oil company in Europe, said on Thursday that its profit almost doubled in the second quarter on higher oil prices and as new oil and gas projects came on stream."
"With hundreds of fires scorching northern Ontario, and Alberta and Northwest Territories battling bigger blazes than usual, this is potentially shaping up as one of the nation’s most destructive wildfire years."
"Rising sea waters may threaten U.S. coastal cities later this century, while the Midwest and East Coast are at high risk for intense storms, and the West could see compromised water supplies."
"Rich countries grabbing farmland in Africa to feed their growing populations can leave rural populations there without land or jobs and make the continent's hunger problem more severe, an environmental think tank said on Tuesday."
"A federal appeals court ruling that would require Clean Water Act permitting for stormwater runoff on logging roads has sparked a political backlash, leading to congressional action and possible Supreme Court intervention."
"The federal government and the West Virginia Coal Association want a judge to dismiss a lawsuit aimed at protecting Logan County’s Blair Mountain from surface mining and returning it to the National Register of Historic Places."
"Teams tallying damage from an Exxon Mobil Corp. oil spill into the Yellowstone River have found contamination on roughly 60 percent of shoreline areas inspected downstream from the pipeline break, state and federal environmental regulators said Tuesday."
