The latest updates on energy and environment news, analysis and opinion covering energy policy and its impact on resources and climate.
By Nicolas Loris
Federal management has proved neither nimble nor responsive to dynamic energy markets. States, on the other hand, have had remarkable success -- both economically and environmentally -- overseeing natural resource development. Published June 18, 2018
It has driven a wedge between America and its allies, given Russia a chance to put a stranglehold on European energy markets and may even threaten U.S. national security, some observers suggest, by potentially doubling as a spy device.
Germany will likely miss its goal of cutting emissions by 40 percent by 2020, the country's environment minister said Monday, an embarrassing admission for a government that wants to lead the charge on limiting climate change.
The long knives (and brass knuckles) are clearly out for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. We wrote weeks ago about the organized Left's attacks on President Trump's most effective and influential cabinet secretary. His efforts in rolling back job-killing regulations have been a prime force in driving the Trump economy and the media and Democrats can't stand it.
A strong earthquake knocked over walls and set off scattered fires around metropolitan Osaka in western Japan on Monday, killing at least three people and injuring more than 210.
All of a sudden everyone on the left wants "free markets in energy policy." As someone who's advocated for that for, oh, about three decades (let's start by shutting down the Energy Department), this riff should be music to my ears. But is laissez faire energy policy really what liberals are seeking?
Even after winter storms left East Coast harbors thick with ice, some of the country's top chefs and trendy restaurants were offering sushi-grade tuna supposedly pulled in fresh off the coast of New York.
Last week's column about California's new water rationing apparently upset some of the Golden State's swamp. This columnist pointed out that a new law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown set new "standards" of water usage. Here's what their water-rationing bill (now law) says, in language everyone can understand.
Warning: Many of the everyday products that keep our homes and workplaces clean and healthy are being threatened by the U.S. Senate.
Two of the world's biggest polluters are China and Russia. You would think that U.S. environmental groups would be major critics of these countries; yet, the reality is some take money from entities controlled by these governments and disseminate their propaganda.
He may never get credit from environmentalists, but President Trump is building a unique conservation legacy by focusing on the restoration and rehabilitation of America's majestic yet long-neglected national parks.
Hundred and perhaps thousands of Calvert, Charles and Prince George's County citizens in Maryland have been battling Dominion Power and state regulators to stop Dominion from building what's called a "compressor station" on the Charles County/Prince George's County line.
With hurricane season now officially underway, many worry that Puerto Rico, still reeling from two massive storms last fall, is ill-prepared for the coming months.
Frightened people living near the Volcano of Fire fled with their children and few possessions when fresh flows of super-heated debris were announced, taking no chances after authorities gave them little time to evacuate before a deadly eruption over the weekend.
"Please sir, I want some more," is no longer a sentiment just for Oliver Twist in the orphanage. A new law in California limits how much water can be used by each household. Now their showers, how many flushes, and how often they can do their laundry will be under the watchful eye of the state government.
Climate activists say the D.C. Council not only should tax carbon pollution but do so at a higher rate than lawmakers are considering.
This spit of land in the Gulf of Mexico doesn't have mansions or any other outward trappings of wealth; indeed, it doesn't even boast much land anymore. But that makes it a remarkably pricey piece of real estate.
Only in Washington do we call expanding a program "reform" and more special-interest handouts "fixes." That's precisely what's happening with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) — an outdated ethanol mandate that drives up gasoline prices and puts refiners out of business.
After weeks of mounting opposition from the provincial government of British Columbia and environmental activists, the Canadian government announced it will purchase Kinder Morgan's embattled Trans Mountain pipeline, taking on its multi-billion dollar expansion project.
The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog says the agency could resume work in North Korea "within weeks" to verify any possible agreement between Washington and Pyongyang.
A fiery volcanic eruption in south-central Guatemala sent lava flowing into rural communities, killing at least 25 as rescuers struggled to reach people where homes and roads were charred and blanketed with ash.
The U.S. military is forging ahead with comprehensive, detailed plans to deal with climate change under the radar of political debate in the Trump administration
A deal struck at the U.S.-North Korea summit at Singapore this month would be the first step on a long road to ending the North's nuclear threat, according to analysts, who say it would take up to a decade to fully dismantle Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday that he has launched his own effort to reduce greenhouse gases, but added that he hopes President Trump decides to take action on the issue as well.
Gov. Ricardo Rossello said Friday that despite months of hard work, Puerto Rico is still not fully prepared for the upcoming hurricane season.
Why would we want to remain in a club that's organized to pressure and browbeat us into acting against our best interests and better judgment? Suppose also that someone signed us up without our consent. Why would we reward such trickery and endure years of nagging, scolding and bad advice?
Once a pristine Thai paradise, the secluded bay made famous by the Leonardo DiCaprio movie "The Beach" has been exhausted by mass tourism. Now it's getting a break.
Weather observing 160 miles above the Arctic Circle leaves a lasting impression. In the beginning of my atmospheric science career, I observed weather for a season at an isolated military outpost on Alaska's west coast. Although snow fell on July 5, the temperature in the summer of 1977 later reached 70 degrees Fahrenheit on two days. More typically, the Arctic air was quite cool and the sky cloudy. Rain and mist were frequent.
Earlier this month, when President Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, analysts warned that Iran's crude oil production and exports could decline, forcing crude oil prices up. Call it "turm-oil" in the energy markets.
Searchers scouring a riverbed near a Maryland town ravaged by destructive flash flooding have found the body of a missing man last seen being carried away by raging waters racing down a historic main street.
Alberto is a still-menacing depression after its Memorial Day landfall on the Gulf Coast, scattering heavy rains around the South and raising risks of flash floods.
Weeks of rain prior to a short, concentrated burst of showers over Ellicott City, Maryland, primed historic Main Street for a devastating flash flood that occurred over Memorial Day weekend -- wiping out parts of the area for the second time in two years in a "once-every-1,000-year flood" and leaving one person still reported missing.
Subtropical Storm Alberto gained the early jump on the 2018 hurricane season as it headed toward anticipated landfall sometime Monday on the northern Gulf Coast, where white sandy beaches emptied of their usual Memorial Day crowds.
Roaring flash floods struck a Maryland city Sunday that had been wracked by similar devastation two years ago, its main street turned into a raging river that reached the first floor of some buildings and swept away parked cars, authorities and witnesses say.
Cyclone Mekunu will be "extremely severe" when it crashes into the Arabian Peninsula this weekend after earlier thrashing the Yemeni island of Socotra, meteorologists warned Friday. At least 17 people were missing from Socotra, with a Yemeni official saying they were likely dead.
Production wells at a geothermal plant under threat by lava flowing from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano have been plugged to prevent toxic gases from seeping out.
You might have missed it amid the never-ending drama in Washington, D.C., but a war over energy production and rates rages in America's heartland.
Do Van Hung, a 58-year-old, third-generation Haiphong fisherman, plies his colorful new 60-foot wooden trawler through a sea that no longer seems boundless.
The eruption of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii sparked new safety warnings about toxic gas on the Big Island's southern coastline after lava began flowing into the ocean and setting off a chemical reaction.
It's not hard to imagine the role that energy plays in our daily lives — in fact it becomes immediately apparent when we experience even a brief power outage in our home or workplace. Quite simply, it stops us in our tracks.
The two mountain bikers did what they were supposed to do when they noticed a mountain lion tailing them on a trail east of Seattle.
Phelim McAleer, the Irish documentary filmmaker who challenged Al Gore's "Truth" on climate change, has embarked on a theatrical work that has all the trappings of grand drama.
It's rare for the list of everyday annoyances to get shorter, not longer. But shrink the list did when the high price of oil crashed a decade or so ago, leaving Americans with a happy jingle in their pockets. Now several factors are converging to drive up the price of oil again, and motorists are feeling familiar pain in the wallet. Dread may return with every fill-up. The difference this time, though, is that the United States has new oil reserves in the Earth's fractures beneath North Dakota, and now maybe Saudi Arabia wants to be a pal.
A quarter of Americans spend almost an entire 24 hours without going outside and downplay the negative health effects of only breathing indoor air, according to a new survey claiming a new "indoor generation."
Bismarck is reported to have said, "there is a providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that despite the recent U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, Moscow remains ready to enforce the agreement.
North Korea said Saturday that it will dismantle its nuclear test site on May 23-25, in a dramatic event that would set up leader Kim Jong-un's summit with President Donald Trump next month.
Hawaii tourism officials are hoping Kilauea's eruption won't deter travelers from visiting the state's largest island, even as geologists warn the volcano could soon shoot large boulders out of its summit.
President Trump said Friday he still has confidence in embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, telling reporters he's standing by the agency chief despite a rash of negative headlines and internal investigations.
A Hawaii volcano that sputtered lava for a week, forced around 2,000 residents to evacuate, destroyed some two dozen homes and threatened a geothermal plant now threatens to blow its top in the coming days or weeks.
Flush with their success prying billions of dollars out of BP in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Louisiana trial lawyers have their scopes trained on new prey: the oil and gas industry as a whole. In the process, the state's famous fishing grounds are turning increasingly off-limits.
The House on Thursday approved an election-year bill to revive the mothballed nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain despite opposition from home-state lawmakers.
The Washington Post has told columnist Hugh Hewitt not to write about Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt after it was revealed that Hewitt helped arrange a meeting with the EPA chief and lawyers interested in cleaning pollution in California.
Police went door-to-door in Hawaii to roust residents near two new volcanic vents emitting dangerous gases in areas where lava has poured into streets and backyards for the past week.
Iran said Tuesday that it was prepared to quickly restart uranium enrichment -- the process needed to make nuclear bombs -- if President Trump's withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal leads to a total collapse of the Obama-era accord.
A study by Cornell and the University of Michigan researchers found that those "highly concerned" about climate change were less likely to engage in recycling and other eco-friendly behaviors than global-warming skeptics.
Gross scientific ineptitude, enhanced by dogmatic refusal to admit error, caused the 1986 explosion of a showcase Soviet nuclear power plant that put much of northern Europe -- and millions of persons -- at risk.
There are no immediate reports of major damage after a large earthquake struck Hawaii's Big Island Friday near a volcanic eruption that has forced residents to evacuate from their homes.
Nearly 1,500 people fled from their mountain-side homes after Hawaii's Kilauea volcano sent molten lava chewing through forests and bubbling up on paved streets in an eruption that one resident described as "a curtain of fire."
Volkswagen AG's former CEO Martin Winterkorn was charged in a federal court with conspiracy and wire fraud charges related to the automaker's plan to cheat U.S. diesel emissions testing, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.
A powerful dust storm and rain swept parts of north and western India overnight, causing house collapses, toppling trees and leaving at least 91 people dead and more than 160 injured, officials said Thursday.
Whether you consider yourself pro-regulation, anti-regulation or something in between, chances are you're in favor of clear, open rules. Whatever the policy a particular government agency is following, it should be transparent to all, right?
This week, the Trump administration is hosting "Energy Week" to discuss with state, tribal, business and labor leaders how we can pave the path forward toward U.S. energy dominance.
Predicting tomorrow's weather is often a crapshoot. Predicting the weather on a day a century from now is obviously throwing money away. Shoveling cash into schemes for regulating climate patterns generations far in the future is an investment in a fool's gold mine. President Trump vows that Americans won't be fooled again.
The Keystone pipeline is inching slowly forward. After more than a decade of back-and-forth bickering between Republicans and Democrats, between business interests and radical environmentalists, the State Department of the Trump administration has finally given its permission, as required by law, to let the oil flow. TransCanada, the company that is building Keystone, praises the new president for clearing the stones, stumps and twigs remaining in the way.
President Trump's boisterous press conferences sometimes cast a shadow over one of his most important achievements so far: his executive order suspending runaway Environmental Protection Agency rules that all but bankrupted the American coal industry. Three of America's largest coal companies declared Chapter 11 in recent years largely as a result of rules like the Clean Power Plant Act, a gift of Barack Obama.
If you think President Obama's unilateral exercise of executive powers granting near-blanket amnesty to illegal immigrants was an abuse of power, get a load of what this administration is doing over at the Environmental Protection Agency.
China Energy, the world's leading power company, announced Thursday it plans to spend more than $83 billion on shale gas and chemical projects in West Virginia, a deal that represents a massive foreign investment in American energy.
The Trump administration is putting more than 76 million acres of federal water up for lease in the largest offshore drilling initiative in American history.
Scott Pruitt announced Monday that the Trump administration would roll back Obama era regulation on coal-fired power plants.
Gentlemen, start your thermostats. Ladies, too. The Obama war on coal, which cost Hillary Clinton the vote in once-reliably Democratic West Virginia, is over. Maybe the war on nuclear energy, too. Americans might soon heat their homes without choosing between the warmth and food and medicine.
Besides achieving the fastest average rowing pace in the Arctic Ocean, the Polar Row crew was the largest to row across the Arctic and the first to row from south to north across it. They also reached the northernmost latitude by a rowboat in a proper ocean crossing and broke the world record speed for rowing across the whole Arctic Ocean.
The White House's plan to revive a nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain has pushed President Trump into an all-out war with Las Vegas, as powerful casino owners and city economic leaders vow to fight the administration tooth and nail over the proposal.
Quick: what was the number one source of electricity production in the U.S. during the first half of 2017? If you answered renewable energy, you are wrong by a mile. If you answered natural gas, you were wrong by a tiny amount.
Microsoft President Brad Smith announced recently a broad, sustained, cooperative initiative among private industry and federal, state and local governments to extend broadband access ultimately to all Americans, focused in particular on rural America, where broadband has been most lagging. He discussed the issue at a Media Institute luncheon in Washington, D.C., on July 11.
The Trump administration formally acted Wednesday to repeal the 2015 Waters of the U.S. rule, dealing another blow to the Obama-era environmental regulatory regime.
In a major defeat for the ethanol industry, senators of both parties joined forces late last week to sink a controversial bill that would've allowed gasoline with 15 percent ethanol to be sold year-round.
A federal appeals court ruling has cleared the path for Maryland to move ahead with a light rail project.
Saying that the government had become far too slow in facilitating oil and gas development on federal lands, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday signed an order directing his department to hold more lease sales and speed up permitting for energy exploration.
President Trump on Thursday said he's approved a new petroleum pipeline to Mexico as part of a broader plan to export American energy around the world.
President Trump on Wednesday promised to usher in a "golden age of American energy dominance," pledging that his administration will lift regulatory restrictions that hamper coal mining and oil drilling.
A frustrated former President Obama chided President Trump Thursday for canceling U.S. involvement in the Paris climate agreement, and insisted the rest of the world is still headed toward lower greenhouse gas emissions even without American leadership.
