Environmental Politics

"PINEDALE, Wyo. — The anticline is a tableland of nearly 200,000 acres, the Tetons visible in the distance and, in June, still covered with snow. The plateau is filled with sagebrush that barely reaches the knee, short grass, dirt roads and the occasional oil drill. Beneath its rocky surface are 25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, one of the richest concentrations in the entire United States."

"The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee [Wednesday] confirmed Norman Bay to take the helm of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission after receiving assurances from the White House that he will remain a commissioner for at least nine months."

"SPOKANE, Wash. — Numerous speakers told a state Senate committee Tuesday that they oppose the rapid increase in railcars carrying crude oil from the Bakken fields of North Dakota and Montana through the state."

"Four Republican former administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency had a message for the Senate on Wednesday on climate change: It's real, it's bad and the United States should do something about it."

"Government officials involved in the multistate Chesapeake Bay cleanup pledged Monday to broaden and accelerate the long-running effort, including a vow to address the impacts of climate change on the ailing estuary."

"HOUSTON — Texas’ oil and gas regulatory agency has instituted a blanket policy barring staff members from doing media interviews, raising questions about transparency as the state grapples with the intricacies of one of the largest energy booms in decades."

"More than two-thirds of Americans support President Barack Obama’s new climate rule and more than half say the U.S. should address global warming even if it means higher electricity bills, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll."

"OTTAWA -- Years of social disruptions by environmentalists and First Nations, lengthy court battles and a possible stand-off between Ottawa and British Columbia lie ahead after Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s approval of the fiercely contested Northern Gateway pipeline."

"As a sociologist in the 1970s, Robert Bullard made a dismaying discovery: Houston landfills and incinerators were far more likely to be located in communities of color than in white neighborhoods, even though blacks made up just one-fourth of the city’s population. That realization launched a lifetime of environmental justice work, including leadership in convening the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit and framing the landmark 17 Principles of Environmental Justice in 1991, bringing environmental justice to the fore at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and catalyzing creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice."

"It might be that the U.S. environmentalists’ long campaign against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is about to backfire. Canadian pipeline operators are poised to implement an all-Canadian Plan B network of pipelines in place of the ill-fated Keystone XL that was to run the length of the U.S. heartland to the Texas Gulf Coast."