News bites: Energy sanctions bite Iran, funding woes hinder gas drilling research, and more

Bloomberg looks at the effects — financial and political — of sanctions against Iran.

“U.S.-led sanctions against Iran are costing OPEC’s third-largest producer $133 million a day in lost sales without raising global crude prices, handing President Barack Obama an election-year foreign-policy victory,” the news service reports.

The Wall Street Journal reports on revised estimates of the United States’ energy resources.

“U.S. energy officials estimate that oil and natural-gas reserves jumped in 2010 by the highest margin in at least three decades, lending weight to the idea that the U.S. can meet more of its own energy demand,” the Journal piece states.

The Sacramento Bee reports that a wide majority of Californians back that state’s greenhouse gas reduction law.

The Associated Press reports that a “lack of serious funding” is delaying efforts to resolve questions about the environmental and health effects of expanded natural-gas drilling.