Greenwire

Coal company Alpha Natural Resources Inc.'s agreement this week with the Obama administration to pay $27.5 million in fines for thousands of Clean Water Act violations may only resolve a fraction of environmental cases against the company.

U.S. EPA has asked a federal appeals court to let it take another look at its controversial standards for mercury and air toxics from new power plants, an acknowledgment that the regulations may not hold up to judicial review.

As a young boy, Dan Ashe and his brothers would set out alone on Blackbeard Island National Wildlife Refuge off the coast of Georgia, traipsing past alligators, handling venomous water moccasins and looking for mischief. Ashe, 57, said he carries his passion for the outdoors into his job as director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, where he oversees 150 million acres of wildlife refuges and manages thousands of threatened and endangered species and birds.

How should public utilities commissions navigate the evolving grid and regulatory landscape as utilities transition to a next-generation business model? During today's OnPoint, David Cash, commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, discusses his state's aggressive clean energy agenda and the challenges associated with expanding renewables while maintaining affordable electricity costs for consumers. Cash, who will be leaving his post at the DPU to head up the Department of Environmental Protection at the end of the month, also talks about the opportunities posed by distributed generation.

Maryland state lawmakers today will introduce two bills that call for the labeling of genetically modified foods.

A bill that would eliminate a state electricity tax has divided the state government and its constituent municipalities for weeks, but a new amendment promises to reduce the financial impacts of the bill on local governments while bringing Arizona the manufacturing competitiveness Gov. Jan Brewer (R) has called for.

Four Alaska Senate Democrats are opposing the appointment of a California-based former oil executive to the state board that sets the value of petro-property, like crude oil pipelines, for tax purposes, arguing that the appointment would violate state law.

A proposed bill to regulate waste disposal from natural gas wells likely will have to wait until a special legislative session after lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement before a Saturday deadline.

A sprawling land-use bill that sparked waves of protest in Alaska last year has returned with several key amendments that have legislators hopeful for success this session, but some groups still aren't satisfied.

State officials have issued health warnings and ordered new testing after elevated lead levels were found in the soil of homes and a preschool near a Vernon, Calif., battery recycling plant.

The Department of Energy yesterday said workers are close to entering a New Mexico nuclear waste dump where trace amounts of radiation leaked last month.

Two contractors were burned yesterday when they were splashed with sulfuric acid at the same processing unit where two Tesoro employees were burned last month in Pacheco, Calif.

The fertilizer industry is stepping up its safety standards in response to the explosion last year at a West, Texas, storage plant that killed 15 people.

Hyundai Motor Co. will launch its first battery-powered electric vehicle in 2016, the automaker said.

Forest Service officials may be requiring law enforcement officers to issue at least 100 tickets per year, according to an internal memo that acknowledges that few officers currently reach that quota.

NOAA may have to launch one of its new satellites without a completely operational ground system, due to poor planning and oversight, according to a recent alert from the Commerce Department's inspector general.

A natural gas pipeline that exploded near Sissonville, W.Va., in late 2012 was corroded and had not been inspected since 1988, National Transportation Safety Board investigators wrote in their final report on the blast.

The developing world is experiencing a hydropower boom, as countries from Pakistan and Turkey to Brazil and Paraguay plan major dam construction projects that would tap rivers for clean electricity.

There's a culture shift slowly taking place in Japan's nuclear industry three years after a powerful earthquake and tsunami slammed the country's northeastern coast and triggered a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi complex.

Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell (R) acted legally in approving a state levee authority's decision to hire lawyers in a wetlands damages lawsuit against oil and gas companies, a judge ruled yesterday.

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