The gas-drilling boom that is sweeping Pennsylvania is demonstrating the power of money to overcome landowners' reluctance and influence legislators and regulators. This fall, a gusher of gas-industry political campaign donations is spewing.
"WASHINGTON — Nearly seven years after a government auditor charged that an oil company had cheated the government out of millions of dollars in royalties, a federal judge has ordered the company to pay nearly $23 million in penalties — including $5.7 million to the auditor who uncovered the problem."
"Citing a 'grave danger' to the nation's coal miners, the Obama administration said Tuesday that mine operators must take additional steps to control the buildup of highly explosive coal dust underground."
In a last-gasp effort to pass some energy legislation this year, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill requiring utilities to generate at least 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. But they do not yet have the votes, and the first chance for action would be in a lame-duck session. The House has already passed such a bill.
"The federal government should establish a trust fund to pay for coastal restoration projects in states along the northern Gulf Coast, to be initially financed by penalties paid for violating federal laws, including 80 percent of any fines levied as a result of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, concludes a report released Tuesday by America's Energy Coast and its parent America's Wetland Foundation."
"U.S. EPA is considering two former Halliburton Co. executives along with one of the most outspoken critics of hydraulic fracturing to provide independent expert advice on its study of the polarizing drilling practice."
"BP's renegade Macondo well, which spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in the world's largest accidental release of hydrocarbons, is finally dead.
"The top federal regulator of oil and gas pipelines is facing withering criticism for her ties to industry and her agency's floundering response to recent oil-pipeline spills in the Midwest and last week's deadly gas pipeline explosion in California."
"U.S. regulators are likely to approve a higher blend of ethanol in U.S. gasoline shortly, an ethanol producers group and the top U.S. agriculture official each said on Friday, and the new fuel mix could be selling at the pump by next spring."
"Few Americans say their religion influences their environmental views, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press."
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