Energy/Environment

A group of Republican senators asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delay a decision on whether to list the lesser prairie-chicken as a threatened species.

In a letter to agency director Daniel Ashe, Sens. John Cornyn (Texas), Ted Cruz (Texas), James Inhofe (Okla.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), Pat Roberts (Kan.) and Jerry Moran (Kan.) requested that the decision on the lesser prairie-chicken be delayed for six months in order to allow states to prepare.

The House next week will consider two bills aimed expanding hydropower production in the United States.

Members will take up the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act, H.R. 267, which would ease federal regulations for the purpose of allowing more hydropower generation along rivers across the country.

Alaska Sens. Mark Begich (D) and Lisa Murkowski (R) introduced two bills Thursday to prevent the sale of genetically altered salmon.

“We cannot afford to experiment with the world’s largest wild salmon stocks without the certainty that these fake fish won’t pose a serious environmental risk, especially to wild salmon and their habitat,” Begich said Thursday. “I am introducing these bills to prevent against science experiments ending up on the plates of Alaska families.”

Issa's bill would rename 3.4 million square nautical miles of ocean as the Ronald Wilson Reagan Exclusive Economic Zone.

Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder why he is “targeting” oil and gas companies by prosecuting them for the unintentional death of birds.

The senators said on the Senate floor Wednesday that they sent Holder a letter asking him why he is prosecuting oil and gas companies for violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) by killing birds, yet he is not going after wind energy companies.

“This is not even handed enforcement of the law,” Vitter said. “What that is, is targeting one type of energy producer.”

Senate Republicans this week proposed a resolution that says a carbon tax would hurt lower-income Americans already struggling under the "stagnating economy" and should be opposed.

"[I]t is the sense of Congress that a carbon tax would be detrimental to American families and businesses, and is not in the interest of the United States," it reads.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on Thursday announced that it would give residents of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut more time to file for disaster assistance due to Hurricane Sandy.

People in New Jersey seeking compensation for damages originally had until Jan. 30 to file with FEMA. But the agency said it has extended that deadline until March 1.

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) said Wednesday that he “won’t miss” outgoing Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar.

“I wish Ken Salazar, a Senate classmate, all the best,” Vitter said in a statement Wednesday. “But I honestly won't miss him as Interior secretary.”

New York lawmakers asked the Obama administration to fund the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) and the State Energy Program (SEP), which help reduce energy bills.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Reps. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.), Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) said weatherizing can greatly improve the efficiency of buildings and homes and reduce energy costs in cold months.

"There's lots of spending in these bills that has nothing to do with the disaster," said Rep. Tom McClintock.