Energy & Environment
The latest updates on energy and environment news, analysis and opinion covering energy policy and its impact on resources and climate.
President Biden met with offshore wind industry executives Thursday after snubbing oil executives summoned to Washington to come up with “concrete solutions” to combat skyrocketing gas prices.
Shares
By Ebrahim Noroozi - Associated Press
An aftershock shook a hard-hit area of eastern Afghanistan on Friday, two days after a quake rattled the region, razing hundreds of mud-brick homes and killing 1,150 people, according to state media.
Shares
By Ebrahim Noroozi - Associated Press
By Krishan Francis - Associated Press
By Fazel Rahman Faizi - Associated Press
President Biden is telling whoppers faster than inflation is rising. Whether he’s talking about the state of the economy or his exploits in college, the purported “facts” presented by the president don’t hold up to the most basic check.
Shares
The White House said Wednesday that U.S. oil companies are shirking their “patriotic duty” to refine more gasoline to bring down record-high prices amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Shares
President Biden reignited his attacks on energy companies Wednesday by demanding they boost refined oil output, but industry leaders said his bombastic rhetoric only exacerbates America’s refining capacity woes that have inflated gasoline prices.
Shares
Record-high gasoline prices, coupled with rapidly rising costs for food and other goods, have begun to cripple individuals and families at the lower end of the income scale, sending them in droves to food banks and other charities.
Shares
President Biden sent letters to oil companies Wednesday telling them to produce more gas to ease widespread pain at the pump, which he also blamed on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Shares
The group leading the resistance to the lithium Nevada mine proposal is openly, defiantly outside the American mainstream — against capitalism, against industrialization and electrification, and “proudly Luddite in character.”
Shares
President Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia as part of a Middle East trip in mid-July, the White House said Tuesday after days of speculation about whether the U.S. leader would head to the kingdom after a stop in Israel.
Shares
By Amy Bethy Hanson - Associated Press
A torrent of rain combined with a rapidly melting snowpack caused a deluge of flooding that forced the evacuation of some parts of Yellowstone National Park, cutting off electricity and forcing park officials to close all entrances indefinitely, just as the summer tourist season was ramping up.
Shares
A northern Nevada mine that is the largest-known source of lithium in the United States for electric car batteries is facing resistance from a radical environmental group and some of its Native American supporters.
Shares
The national average retail price for a gallon of gasoline reached $5 for the first time on Saturday according to AAA figures. Drivers in some parts of the country are paying far more, however, with the average price in California clocking in at $6.43 per gallon.
Shares
President Biden’s use of the Defense Production Act to promote the renewable energy industry, increase vaccine production and resolve a national baby-formula shortage has angered critics who say he’s overstepped his authority and is increasingly relying on a power that should be reserved for emergencies.
Shares
Elaine Chao, who served as transportation secretary under former President Donald Trump, is encouraging young conservatives to play an influential role in bringing climate policies to the forefront of Republican politics.
Shares
Republican lawmakers grilled Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Tuesday over high inflation and soaring gas prices, saying the Biden administration’s big spending and clean energy agenda has left Americans worse off.
Shares
President Biden will invoke the Defense Production Act to spur domestic production of clean energy technology and order a two-year tariff exemption on solar panels imported from Southeast Asian countries in a bid to tackle rising energy prices.
Shares
The national average price for a gallon of gas is projected by Sunday to top $4.80 or twice as much as the day President Biden took office.
Shares
Attempts by Republicans on Capitol Hill to prevent millions of federal workers from using their retirement savings — and subsequent taxpayer-dollar matches — to invest in funds that make decisions based on environmental, social or governance criteria were unsuccessful.
Shares
OPEC+ has agreed to increase its oil output by roughly 50%, a significant uptick that comes in the face of intense pressure from the U.S. and others to ramp up output amid Russia’s war against Ukraine that has exacerbated global energy prices.
Shares
New internal GOP polling shows the rising costs of everyday goods and gasoline are the top concerns of voters in several key swing districts Democrats will likely need to defend if they hope to maintain control of the House.
Shares
By Justin Spike - Associated Press
Hungary’s divisive leader has once again got his own way with the European Union — this time in tough negotiations on Russian oil at a summit in Brussels.
Shares
By Lorne Cook and Samuel Petrequin - Associated Press
In the most significant effort yet to punish Russia for its war in Ukraine, the European Union agreed to ban the overwhelming majority of Russian oil imports after tense negotiations that exposed the cracks in the bloc’s united.
Shares
A split has emerged among Democrats over an investigation by the Biden administration into whether China is subverting U.S. tariffs on solar panels that opponents say are crippling the clean energy industry.
Shares
Millions more Americans are traveling for Memorial Day this year despite record-high gas prices, signaling a summer vacation spike that will test the economy’s pandemic recovery amid rising inflation.
Shares
Democrats are facing a paradox on prices at the pump heading into an election where pocketbook issues are top of mind for Americans facing 40-year high inflation.
Shares
Hope is quickly deteriorating among senators involved in monthslong bipartisan discussions led by Sen. Joe Manchin III that a package on energy and climate policies will ever be achieved.
Shares
President Biden said record-high gas prices are part of an “incredible transition” that will make America and the world better off.
Shares
Rising fuel prices motivated California gun owners to give 134 firearms to the Sacramento Police Department in exchange for $50 gas cards, the department reported Sunday.
Shares
The Biden administration is making $500 million available to school districts to transition the nation’s gas-guzzling diesel school bus fleets to zero-emission electric busses.
Shares
Extreme heat and drought could tax the power grid and lead to blackouts this summer, federal officials are warning.
Shares
The Interior Department said Thursday that it will propose an offshore drilling program too late to replace the previous version before it expires, frustrating energy advocates who accused the administration of dragging its feet on domestic fossil fuel production.
Shares
House Democrats narrowly approved a bill Thursday that would require a federal investigation into accusations that the oil industry is bilking drivers, marking the first piece of legislation that Democrats on Capitol Hill have approved, in an effort to address sky-high prices at the pump.
Shares
For more than a week, the national average for gasoline has reached a record price each day with Wednesday clocking in at $4.57 per gallon.
Shares
By Lorne Cook - Associated Press
The European Union’s efforts to impose a new round of sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine appeared to be bogged down on Monday, as a small group of countries opposed a ban on imports of Russian oil.
Shares
High prices at the pump and rewards for energy-company shareholders after record losses during the pandemic will persist for the foreseeable future, Vicki Hollub, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, said Friday during a web conference with Federal Reserve officials.
Shares
By Susan Montoya Bryan - Associated Press
The largest wildfire in the U.S. was spreading toward mountain resort towns in northern New Mexico, prompting officials to issue another set of warnings for more people to evacuate.
Shares
President Biden’s blame-Putin strategy on inflation is deeply flawed, experts say, because casting blame does not relieve Mr. Biden and congressional Democrats of the responsibility to fix the problem.
Shares
Department of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo pushed back Wednesday against bipartisan criticism that the agency has cast a shadow over the solar industry.
Shares
The solar industry has sounded the alarm that a Commerce Department investigation into whether China is skirting U.S. tariffs on components used to produce solar panels by funneling the parts through other countries could seriously jeopardize clean energy projects across the nation.
Shares
Drivers are paying an all-time high for gasoline, with prices setting a record Tuesday despite White House efforts to bring down energy costs heading into the midterm elections.
Shares
New York City officials say a lithium-ion battery charging in a bike shop caused a major fire Monday in Queens, making it the latest blaze sparked by batteries for e-bikes and scooters.
Shares
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday the launch of a new Justice Department office to advance President Biden’s environmental justice agenda.
Shares
Associated Press
OPEC and allied oil-producing countries decided Thursday to stick to a modest increase in production, even as Europe’s proposed phaseout of Russian oil threatens to yank millions of barrels off a global market already thirsty for crude.
Shares
By Lorne Cook and Samuel Petrequin - Associated Press
The European Union’s top official on Wednesday called on the 27-nation bloc to ban oil imports from Russia and target the country’s biggest bank and major broadcasters in a sixth package of sanctions against Moscow for its war in Ukraine.
Shares
Associated Press
A body inside a barrel was found over the weekend on the newly exposed bottom of Nevada’s Lake Mead as drought depletes one of the largest U.S. reservoirs — and officials predicted the discovery could be just the first of more grim finds.
Shares
Germany has made significant headway already in cutting its dependence on Russian fossil fuels since the start of the Ukrainian invasion in February, officials said Sunday.
Shares
Democrats on Capitol Hill are increasingly anxious about how to show voters they are taking aggressive action to deflate swelled gasoline prices, even if that means voting on legislation that would likely not bear results.
Shares
The Environmental Protection Agency has issued an emergency waiver to allow higher-ethanol gasoline blends to be sold in the summer, in the Biden administration’s latest bid to lower gas prices.
Shares
Top Democrats on Capitol Hill on Thursday said they are putting the final touches on legislation that would require the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Big Oil is ripping off Americans at the pump.
Shares
President Biden reasserted himself Friday as a global leader on climate change, delivering a speech in Seattle commemorating Earth Day and rebutting left-wing activists who say he’s ceded ground in the climate change fight.
Shares
It took all of 30 seconds for Ohio state regulators to deliver another nail in the coffin of a $92 million wind farm proposal that had been years in the making.
Shares
Environmental advocates never expected to find themselves in this position. They’re still fighting for the same policies they were on President Biden’s first day in office and seeing him roll back the meager wins they thought they scored. Many now question Mr. Biden’s commitment to climate change.
Shares
By Matthew Daly and Jose Boak - Associated Press
President Biden is taking steps to restore national forests that have been devastated by wildfires, drought and blight, using an Earth Day visit to Seattle to sign an executive order protecting some of the nation’s largest and oldest trees.
Shares
Environmental advocacy groups believe they have discovered a missing piece of the puzzle to passing climate-friendly policies: challenging state political maps.
Shares