Greenwire

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse will chair the Senate Environment and Public Works subpanel on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety while Sen. Tom Carper will take charge of the transportation subcommittee in a series of moves announced this morning.

The Energy Department fiscal 2015 budget slated to be unveiled next week will be in line with the "very strong commitment" to energy programs shown in the recent omnibus spending bill, even under the tightening spending caps, the head of DOE said today.

President Obama this afternoon will outline his vision for a four-year surface transportation plan that includes funding for highways, rail and transit projects and will launch a new competition for federal transportation infrastructure grants.

U.S. EPA yesterday sent the White House a final rule that seeks to stem fraud in the credit marketplace used by refiners to comply with the federal biofuel mandate.

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) today vowed to "use whatever tools I have" to spotlight the human health impact of oil sands crude development, a potentially significant shift among foes of Keystone XL.

Environmentalists and conservatives rushed today to weigh in on the Obama administration's estimate for the social cost of carbon before the public comment period ends tonight.

U.S. EPA's bid to curb sulfur in gasoline has already seen one delay after another -- from a yearlong stall in 2011 to a lag linked to the large volume of public comments on the proposal that pushed the proposal past its December 2013 release target.

CHICAGO -- Tim Bishop, a member of his law firm's "green committee," has worked for the American Civil Liberties Union and clerked for two judges considered heroes of the environmental movement, and has been described by a former top U.S. EPA official as "quite liberal" early in his career. It's not what you'd expect of a lawyer considered a top gun for industry in environmental cases before the Supreme Court.

This week, the Supreme Court declined to review the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's approval of a cost allocation system for new transmission lines for renewable sources in the Midwest. How will this move by the court influence the debate over cost allocation in Midwestern states? During today's OnPoint, Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, discusses challenges to modernizing the nation's transmission system and talks about Midwestern states' varied approaches to addressing distributed generation and net metering.

A Republican state senator has backed off a controversial proposal that would have curtailed local sand mine regulations in Wisconsin.

Arizona lawmakers are pushing legislation to weaken gray wolf protections as federal authorities prepare to bolster the state's endangered wolf population.

A bill revamping Oregon's renewable energy mandates -- and protecting them from a potentially devastating ballot measure -- passed unanimously through the state Senate's Business and Transportation Committee on Tuesday despite criticism from independent utilities and other opponents.

Hundreds of regular grocery store foods contain a potentially hazardous chemical also used in plastics products like yoga mats, according to a report released today by a health research group.

Honda Motor Co. is ending production of its Insight, the first hybrid vehicle released in the United States, this month as demand has dropped and sales continue to lag.

The rush for graphite is on in North America as demand from the burgeoning green technology industry and a drop in Chinese exports is opening up what could amount to a multibillion-dollar industry.

Commissioners for the Port of Oakland, Calif., are scheduled to vote today on an export proposal for million of tons of coal.

The Department of Energy said yesterday that 13 workers at a nuclear storage facility in New Mexico have tested positive for radiation exposure, even as authorities said it was safe for the plant to resume operating.