E2-Wire

The report, commissioned by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, should provide some ammo for industry groups.

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She struck back at climate skeptics who claim that record snowstorms this winter have undercut evidence of global warming.

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank ends Sunday’s column on snowstorms and climate change with these observations about the PR battle over global warming:

For those concerned about warming, it's time for a shift in emphasis. Fortunately, one has already been provided to them by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has done more than any Democrat to keep climate legislation alive this year. His solution: skip the hurricanes and Himalayan glaciers and keep the argument on the hundreds of billions of dollars spent annually on foreign oil, some of that going to terrorists rather than to domestic job creation.

Al Gore, for one, seems to realize it's time for a new tactic. New TV ads released during last week's blizzards by Gore's climate advocacy group say nothing about climate science. They show workers asking their senators for more jobs from clean energy. Read more...

President Obama will next week announce a federal loan guarantee for utility giant Southern Company to build two new nuclear reactors.

Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who heads the Energy Department, is also a budding TV star.

Chu will take his energy efficiency message to ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” on Sunday.

From DoE this afternoon:

It's official: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said today that it plans to sue to block EPA's efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Steven J. Law, chief legal officer and general counsel of the Chamber, said in a statement that its court challenge will focus “specifically on the inadequacies of the process that EPA followed in triggering Clean Air Act regulation, and not on scientific issues related to climate change or endangerment.”

But the Chamber is also claiming that EPA failed to do a "careful analysis of all available date and options."

“Further details about our challenge will be forthcoming in the coming weeks when our statement of issues is filed,” Law said in a statement.

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Industry groups allege the Interior Department's two-year environvmental study timeline of oil-and-gas resources is too slow.

Alaska’s senators both criticized President Obama’s energy policy this week – one gently, the other, not so much.

Sen. Mark Begich (D), in a letter to Obama Tuesday, urged him to “reconsider” proposals in the fiscal year 2011 budget request that would repeal billions of dollars in tax incentives for oil producers. The oil industry is a major part of Alaska’s economy. 

“These important incentives have been part of our tax code for decades, and their repeal threatens American jobs and domestic energy production at a time when we need them both,” Begich writes.

That was the only criticism -- elsewhere the letter urges Obama to support provisions in Senate energy legislation aimed at spurring construction of a long-delayed pipeline to bring Alaskan natural gas to markets in the lower 48 states. It also praises Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for doing an “excellent job” managing Alaskan offshore areas.

The next round of Gulf of Mexico oil-and-gas leases the Interior Department auctions will require oil companies to develop quickly to take on the new tracts.

The upcoming March 17 lease sale encompasses areas spanning 37 million acres off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

For leases in water depths between 400 and 800 meters, Interior is scuttling the old eight-year lease terms in favor of five-year leases that can be extended if drilling has commenced.

The British university in the eye of the storm over climate change research on Thursday announced an “independent external reappraisal” of papers published by the school’s Climatic Research Unit.

“Published papers from CRU have gone through the rigorous and intensive peer review process which is the keystone for maintaining the integrity of scientific research,” said Professor Trevor Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Enterprise and Engagement at the University of East Anglia, in a statement. 

“That process and the findings of our researchers have been the subject of significant debate in recent months. Colleagues in CRU have strenuously defended their conduct and the published work and we believe it is in the interests of all concerned that there should be an additional assessment considering the science itself,” he said.