"Over the last few years a series of incidents have brought pipeline safety to national – and presidential – attention. As Obama begins his second term he will likely make a key decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed pipeline extension to transport crude from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico."
"Georgia tops all other states for the amount of power it generates from coal-burning units that are “ripe for retirement” because they aren’t cost-effective, according to a Union of Concerned Scientists report."
"LAKE WYLIE, N.C. -- For more than a year, one Charlotte environmental group has warned of what could happen if coal ash ponds leak into local lakes. Now, they say, it’s happening."
"Research to be released Thursday shows that West Coast refineries continued to produce gasoline even though Americans were told they were temporarily shut down, leading to price spikes in May and October, McClatchy Newspapers reports."
"WASHINGTON -- Terrorists could black out large segments of the United States for weeks or months by attacking the power grid and damaging hard-to-replace components that are crucial to making it work, the National Academy of Sciences said in a report released Wednesday."
Here are more Congressional Research Service reports relevant to the environment/energy beat, published by the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.
"Climate change is suddenly a hot topic again. The issue is resurfacing in talks about a once radical idea: a possible carbon tax."
"Warning that tens of thousands of jobs are at stake, governors in wind energy states Tuesday called on Congress to renew an expiring tax break."
"The Keystone XL pipeline was a lightning rod in President Obama's reelection campaign. So now that the campaign is over, what will be the fate of the transnational oil pipeline that became a political symbol, thrusting Obama into the heart of an uncomfortable fight over jobs versus the environment? "
"Salty bromide concentrations in the Monongahela River, which had risen in 2009 and 2010 due, at least in part, to discharges of Marcellus Shale gas drilling wastewater by sewage treatment plants, returned to normal levels in 2011 and this year, according to a Carnegie Mellon University river monitoring study."
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