Environmental Politics

"The 'American' in American Petroleum Institute, the country's largest oil lobby group, is a misnomer. As I reported for The Nation in August, the group has changed over the years, and is now led by men like Tofiq Al-Gabsani, a Saudi Arabian national who heads a Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) subsidiary, the state-run oil company that also helps finance the American Petroleum Institute. Al-Gabsani is also a registered foreign agent for the Saudi government."

"The U.S. government's proposal to use the canal to deliver water to Mexico doesn't sit well with farmers and officials in the Imperial Valley."

"A bipartisan group of legislators said Wednesday that the failure to expand a critical subsidy for renewable energy could cost Americans tens of thousands of manufacturing and construction jobs."

"Susan Rice, the candidate believed to be favored by President Obama to become the next Secretary of State, holds significant investments in more than a dozen Canadian oil companies and banks that would stand to benefit from expansion of the North American tar sands industry and construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline. If confirmed by the Senate, one of Rice's first duties likely would be consideration, and potentially approval, of the controversial mega-project."

"Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), a skeptic of man-made global warming, is set to take over the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology in the 113th Congress."

"President Obama has signed into law a bill that requires U.S. airlines be excluded from European carbon emissions fees."

"Top International Energy Agency (IEA) officials offered a bleak assessment Tuesday of the prospects for global progress on preventing big temperature increases."

"Japanese voters look likely to hand victory to a party that favors nuclear power in the first election since the March 2011 Fukushima radiation disaster -- a result a baffled Greenpeace activist likens to one of the 'wonders of the world.'"

"Republicans stopped Sen. Jon Tester's (D-Mont.) Sportsmen's Act dead in its tracks Monday evening."