Energy/Environment

The Obama administration and Congress are weighing the safety of technological advances that seem ripped from science fiction.

Congressional Republicans charge the Environmental Protection Agency gives preference to environmental groups on information requests.

A federal judge in Arizona declined to reconsider an earlier ruling affirming the Interior Department’s authority to block new hard-rock mining on public lands.

U.S. District Judge David Campbell shut down a request for a rehearing by mining industry groups on Thursday. They’re protesting whether the federal government can unilaterally withdraw public lands from mining claims, according to The Associated Press.

At issue is an action by former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in which the ex-Interior chief banned mining on more than 1 million acres of uranium-rich land near the Grand Canyon.

The Obama administration is proposing major new regulations for hydraulic fracturing, prompting criticism from both industry and environmental groups, The Hill’s E2 Wire reports.

Green groups are especially worried that the revised rules will not go far enough to protect the environment, according to U.S. News & World Report.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulators adopted new regulations to increase oversight of the shadowy derivatives market, but they also softened a key part of the plan under industry pressure, writes The New York Times.

The new regulations span some 2,000 pages of rules required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, RegWatch reports.

But what’s not covered by the CFTC regulations reflects a victory for Wall Street lobbyists, according to Gawker. 

The drilling method is enabling a U.S. oil and gas production boom but bringing fears of water and air pollution.

The nation's nuclear watchdog wants to issue new rules on transporting radioactive material to bring the United States in line with international standards.

The changes to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) rules would meet 2009 revisions to regulations from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global nuclear energy organization, as well as 2011 regulations from the Department of Transportation.

A Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing quickly turned into a referendum on energy development on Indian lands on Wednesday.

As Republicans on the panel pressed Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to encourage Indian tribes to develop more oil and natural gas resources, the department chief reiterated the administration's commitment to developing renewable energy alongside fossil fuels.

In her prepared testimony, Jewell said "the Department is committed to assisting tribes in expanding on Indian lands renewable, low cost, reliable and secure energy supplies as well as safe and responsible oil and gas development in accordance with tribal objectives."

On some Indian reservations, claimed Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), "oil and gas and coal reserves held in trust by the United States for the tribe, for its members, represent by far the number one best opportunity for prosperity for that tribe in that location."

The Obama administration wants to do more studies about the impact that genetically engineered crops have on the environment.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will prepare environmental impact statements to "better inform decision-making" about corn, soybean and cotton crops genetically engineered to resist two herbicide varieties.

The USDA's office of animal and plant inspections believes the regulation "may significantly affect the quality of the human environment," and is preparing the statements to determine whether the crops affect the natural world. It claimed on Friday that the statements will "further assist the Agency in evaluating any potential environmental impacts before we make a final determination regarding the products' regulatory status."

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At a House Natural Resources Committee hearing, Republicans warned of executive overreach; Democrats accused Interior of caving to industry pressure.

The oil and gas industry is accusing the Obama administration of side-stepping its procedural rules and rushing a regulation on auto emissions.

In the letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent on Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute (API) accused the watchdog of violating portions of the Clean Air Act that require new rules to be published in the Federal Register, the government's official ledger for regulations and notices, before accepting comments from the public and holding public hearings.