Greenwire

North Carolina and attorneys for an animal rights group are facing off over an Appalachian town's right to use a live opossum in an annual New Year's Eve spectacle.

An internal report surfaced this week indicating that animal care at the Smithsonian National Zoo is "severely lacking."

The Forest Service today released final environmental reviews and a proposed record of decision to permit a large copper mine in Arizona that would likely affect animal habitats and environmental quality.

LAS VEGAS -- Interior Secretary Sally Jewell got a surprise visit from the nation's 26th president yesterday at the Western Governors' Association winter meeting on the Las Vegas strip.

LAS VEGAS -- Interior Secretary Sally Jewell yesterday told Western governors that her new habitat mitigation strategy would lead to faster and more predictable permitting on federal lands.

LAS VEGAS -- Federal and state agencies have made strides protecting the greater sage grouse, but significant work remains before the Fish and Wildlife Service decides whether to protect the iconic bird, Interior Department officials said here yesterday.

A recent tax reform proposal "will take cash away" from oil and natural gas companies, dampening investment from an industry that has benefited the economy in recent years, more than a dozen industry trade associations told Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) today.

Ethanol trade group Growth Energy this week hired two new members to its communications team.

President Obama today named Katie Beirne Fallon his next legislative affairs director, a move that puts the longtime aide to Senate Democratic No. 3 leader Charles Schumer of New York in charge of managing relationships with fractious Capitol Hill.

The Export-Import Bank of the United States is excluding mines from its new policy to significantly limit assistance for coal projects around the world.

Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have found an issue they can agree on: Taxpayers are paying too much for portraits of government officials.

Entergy Corp. today scrapped its plan to sell 15,700 miles of high-voltage lines to ITC Holdings Corp., which would have created one of the country's largest transmission companies, after hitting a regulatory impasse in Mississippi.

Eighty-four days after U.S. EPA unveiled its proposal to curb new power plant carbon dioxide emissions, the rule still hasn't appeared in the Federal Register.

U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has named Joel Beauvais as her policy chief, a high-profile position that will help steer the agency's role in President Obama's Climate Action Plan.

EMMETSBURG, Iowa -- With a population of 3,900, this town in northwestern Iowa is ground zero for the nascent cellulosic biofuels industry as Poet-DSM Advanced Biofuels puts the finishing touches on a commercial-scale plant here that the company hopes can turn abundant residue from cornfields into liquid gold. Industry boosters believe cellulosic biofuels will boom, creating jobs, helping reverse the flight of youth that has hollowed out rural towns in the American heartland, and ratcheting down emissions of heat-trapping gases linked to production of corn ethanol.

How are independent oil and gas companies shifting their business strategies amid rapidly developing energy markets? During today's OnPoint, Chris Faulkner, founder, president and CEO of Breitling Oil and Gas, gives his impressions of the U.S. Energy Information Administration's "Annual Energy Outlook" for 2014 and talks about some of the key challenges facing oil and gas development in the United States. Faulkner also gives his perspective on local-level fracking bans and discusses challenges to moving oil and gas in the United States.

Singapore has become a green building leader in Asia, in part as a result of generous incentive schemes and a green building rating system.

Japan is launching a new search for domestic sites to store its radioactive nuclear waste, after regional governments refused to provide long-term storage facilities.