National (U.S.)

"The little-known federal agency charged with monitoring the system and enforcing safety measures — the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration — is chronically short of inspectors and lacks the resources needed to hire more, leaving too much of the regulatory control in the hands of pipeline operators themselves, according to federal reports, an examination of agency data and interviews with safety experts."

"President Obama gave Congress a jobs package that was boiled down to practical provisions -- and clean energy didn't make the cut. ...

He didn't mention the word "energy" once. The bipartisan topic of energy efficiency was also absent in the speech."

Evan Lehmann and Saqib Rahim report for ClimateWire September 9, 2011.

SEE ALSO:

After the 9/11 attacks, government and industry warned that chemical plants were a prime terrorist target that could kill thousands of Americans. They moved quickly to make it harder for the public to know how large a threat the plants posed to nearby communities. But a decade later, the nation has yet to adopt a comprehensive anti-terrorism program for chemical plants.

"Environmental groups and their critics are trading blows over the findings of a recent Government Accountability Office report on environmental litigation costs. In the face of Republican claims that environmentalists game the legal system to win attorneys' fees, GAO experts examined lawsuits filed against U.S. EPA and found 'no discernible trend' over the last 16 years."

"A pipeline bill offered by House Republicans on Wednesday would block some safety reforms and ignores other recent safety recommendations made by accident investigators in response to a deadly natural gas explosion last year near San Francisco."

Hundreds of anti-fracking protestors rallied outside a Marcellus Shale industry conference in Philadelphia. Aubrey McClendon, the chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Co., called people concerned about the safety of their families' drinking water "extremists," even as an industry-friendly report noted that fracking could be costly to communities.

"Last month's record earthquake in the eastern United States may have shaken a Virginia nuclear plant twice as hard as it was designed to withstand, a spokesman for the U.S. nuclear safety regulator said on Thursday."

"Ten years after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, public health and safety watchdogs are increasingly concerned that the country's program for securing chemical facilities from terrorists and thefts contains significant loopholes and leaves millions of Americans at risk."

"SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. -- The San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California has shut down because of a massive power outage that's affecting millions in California, Arizona and Mexico."

"So far 2011 has been a good year f0or wind energy projects. Installations in the first six months of 2011 were almost double what they were in the comparable period in 2010 in terms of total megawatts (2,151 versus 1,250), according to the American Wind Energy Association. But a bipartisan coalition of 24 state governors, fretting that the industry could lose momentum, has already begun lobbying the Obama administration to improve business conditions for wind energy developers."