New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg doubled the number of residents living within the city's 100-year flood plain by 2050, suggesting his city is increasingly exposed to rising sea levels associated with climate change, reports The New York Times. 

The Coast Guard has completed cleanup operations in three states — Mississippi, Alabama and Florida — affected by BP's 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, The Associated Press reports.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled JPMorgan Chase will have to reimburse $52 million in profits for exploiting a flaw in California's electricity market, Reuters notes.

Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) said the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) review of the proposed Pebble Mine in his state is taking too long, reports Alaskan public radio station KTOO.

A group of United Airlines top frequent flyers — including billionaire investor and climate activist Tom Steyer — pushed the airline to stop preventing action on climate change, Reuters reports.

TUESDAY’S AGENDA: Film director James Cameron will advocate for ocean research during a Tuesday Senate hearing.

The legendary filmmaker has traveled to the deepest place on Earth in his Deepsea Challenger. He'll try to steer a Senate subpanel toward embracing more federal spending on studying ocean acidification and the Arctic region.

Expanding public-private partnerships for ocean science will be the subject of the 2:30 p.m. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard hearing.

The hearing comes after the Senate recently passed a Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) bill that authorized an endowment for studying the oceans, coasts and lakes. Among the issues covered would be acidification, sea-level rise and rising temperatures.

The House has yet to take up its version of the bill.

Read more...

A senior Energy Department (DOE) employee violated the agency’s nepotism rules by helping secure DOE internships for his three college-aged children, according to the department’s internal watchdog.

The official, who works in DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), was “actively involved” in getting internship posts for his children in fiscal 2012, DOE’s Office of Inspector General said in a report released Monday.

“Nepotism or even its appearance can have a decidedly negative impact on morale within an organization. As is readily apparent, providing inappropriate advantages for relatives of Federal employees damages the integrity of the competitive process and erodes public trust in the Federal hiring process,” the report said. Read more...

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is asking fuel producers to submit ideas for types of gasoline that do not contain lead for small private airplanes.

The gas currently used for airplanes that are powered by piston engines, which is known as AvGas, contains lead.

The FAA is looking for a proposal for a new source of fuel for the planes, which are typical one or two-seaters and are flown for private individual uses.

The agency's goal is to switch the noncommercial aviation industry completely to unleaded gas by 2018. 

The amount of technically recoverable United States oil-and-gas reserves is 35 percent greater than in 2011, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Monday.

The report credited the spike to new geologic and well-drilling results, as well as the adoption of hydraulic fracturing.

The U.S. clocked in at second behind Russia in global technically recoverable shale oil reserves, with 58 billion barrels. It registered fourth behind China, Argentina and Algeria, with 665 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas.

The developer for a proposed Alaska mine is meeting with lawmakers and White House officials this week to push for approval of the project.

The Pebble Mine, slated for a watershed for southwestern Alaska’s Bristol Bay, has been generating more Capitol Hill buzz in recent weeks. And Pebble Partnership CEO John Shively is looking to build on that as he heads to congressional and administration offices Tuesday through Friday.

“The decibel level is rising,” Peter Robertson, senior vice president for corporate affairs with the Pebble Partnership, told The Hill. “It’s gaining more attention all the time — and appropriately so because of the momentous decision EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] might make in a relatively short time frame.”

Global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions set an all-time high last year, putting countries off course for keeping temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius by 2020, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a report released Monday.

Maria van der Hoeven, the Paris-based organization’s executive director, said more must be done to address energy sector emissions, noting the industry accounts for two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“In short, we are drifting off-track, and global negotiations are not expected to yield agreement before 2015, and to be enforced after 2020,” she said.

Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions reached a record 31.6 gigatons in 2012, an increase of 1.4 percent. Current trends forecast a 5.3 degrees Celsius rise — well off the 2 degrees Celsius goal industrialized nations agreed to in 2009.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on Thursday will make his first congressional appearance since being sworn in as head of the Department of Energy (DOE).

The new energy chief will represent the Obama administration at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on the DOE’s proposed fiscal 2014 budget.

Moniz will be a familiar face to Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), the subpanel’s chairman, and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the full committee, as they all met last month to discuss a number of issues.

The shuttering of a California nuclear power plant underscored the industry's troubles, The Associated Press writes.

Chemicals firms are lobbying against tougher green building codes, Bloomberg reports.

Several states are weighing whether to impose a fee on hybrid vehicles to offset losses in gasoline tax collection, the AP notes.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the April blast at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, that killed 15 people has "spurred a debate about new regulations on the depots that store the common agricultural chemical."