National (U.S.)

Few energy conferences can match the annual event, organized entirely by students, at MIT for sheer unbridled enthusiasm.

"The Obama administration is considering tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in response to rapidly rising gasoline prices brought on by turmoil in the Middle East, the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, said on Sunday."

"A NASA satellite designed to study aerosols' influence on climate and measure solar energy failed to reach orbit [Friday] morning. The crash marks the second time in two years that a NASA climate satellite has failed to launch."

"Proposed rules governing air pollution generated by the nation's power providers could cost the industry nearly $200 billion in upgrades and new, cleaner generation but provide four to eight times that amount in economic benefits, with Tennessee being one of the big winners, according to a recent study."

An author tells the story of the Hawks Nest, WV, hydroelectric tunnel, whose drilling Union Carbide began in 1927. It was run as a mining operation, but not regulated by any government agency. Of the 5,000 men who worked on the tunnel over 18 months, at least 764 men, mostly African-American migrant workers, died of the industrial disease silicosis, well known even then. Managers wore protective masks during inspection visits, but did not provide any to workers. The company hired doctors to tell the men it was their fault, and buried them in unmarked mass graves. West Virginia kept the story out of the state's history curriculum until last year.

"The plan to cut $60 billion from the federal budget targets environmental programs so widely it appears to be as much an ideological gambit as a budgetary one. 'The sheer scope of it is overwhelming,' a UCLA environmental law expert says."

Some House Democrats, citing a GAO report, say Republicans should start their efforts to reduce the deficit by collecting the money legally owed the Treasury by oil and gas companies who profit from taxpayer-owned resources they extract. For decades, oil companies have been underpaying.

"More than two decades after the Exxon Valdez supertanker struck a reef and unleashed the nation's biggest tanker spill, a lingering legal dispute about the disaster heads back to court on Friday."

"The Department of Energy said on Thursday it has offered a conditional $102 million loan guarantee to support a wind farm in Maine. The financial aid will support the Record Hill wind project, a 50.1 megawatt wind power plant and transmission line in Maine."

"Groups representing 40,000 researchers and clinicians are urging federal agencies responsible for the safety of chemicals to examine the subtle impact a chemical might have on the human body rather than simply ask whether it is toxic."