Greenwire

The Midwest's second major cellulosic ethanol plant opened today in a small town in southwest Kansas.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday said New England companies should make less money on power line projects and scheduled a hearing to review complaints that rates are also too high in the Midwest.

A new study released yesterday found tornadoes in the United States are more frequently coming in clusters.

The committee organized to determine whether humans have spurred a new epoch in geologic time appeared to support the concept of the Anthropocene Epoch at their first meeting yesterday in Germany, according to one committee member involved.

Citizens Opposing Pollution, an Illinois nonprofit group, this week petitioned an Illinois federal court to order the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining to take over the state's coal mine regulatory program.

The owner of an offshore production platform in the Gulf of Mexico has agreed to pay $1 million and overhaul the facility's wastewater discharge system to settle charges that it illegally dumped oil and chemical dispersants into the Gulf for years.

The Obama administration urged the Supreme Court yesterday to not accept a request from more than 20 states and industry groups to review U.S. EPA's landmark air standards for power plants' emissions of mercury and other hazardous pollutants.

Kenyan officials have requested that Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, issue an alert for a Kenyan businessman who is allegedly involved in illegal wildlife trafficking.

Montana has decided not to send 145 disease-free bison from Yellowstone National Park to zoos and other states, according to a government plan released yesterday.

When the "Cowboy Express" rolled into town yesterday, Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze spoke with protest leader Grant Gerber and extended him an invitation to meet over coffee during his time in the nation's capital, according to an agency statement.

The presence of a fan on stage at the Florida gubernatorial debate Wednesday has launched a bevy of discussions about the event, blocking out policy messages in one of the highest-profile and most bitter races in the country.

Outside groups are spending more on politics than ever before, but the funds have not been spread evenly across top Senate and House races this cycle, with some candidates benefiting much more than others.

A new super PAC formed by the Koch brothers lists some top oil executives among its financial backers.

The Congressional Research Service this week cautioned against estimating the cost of a new ozone standard before U.S. EPA actually proposes one.

story-slug>CLIMATE

Republican congressional leaders are once again objecting to the Obama administration's handling of greater sage grouse conservation, accusing the Interior Department in a letter of not playing straight with the science and asserting that adding protection measures to land management documents across the West won't help the bird but will "devastate state and local economies."

Soybean farmers who have used seeds treated with neonicotinoid pesticides on 74 million acres have seen "little or no benefit" from that treatment, U.S. EPA scientists said in a review released yesterday.

The Bureau of Land Management dismissed the merits of seasonal drilling in an Alaska reserve long before it performed a formal environmental review of the proposal, according to an internal memo that conservationists say taints the integrity of the agency's upcoming decision on the major oil project.

WHITESBURG, Ky. -- The coal industry downturn is a central talking point in many contested political races in Central Appalachia. President Obama's mining and climate change policies have given Republicans ammunition and angered many Appalachian Democrats who fear their party might forever lose its base here. "I feel like the national party has run off and left me. And that's being honest," Lester County Judge Executive Jim Ward (D) said. "I just feel like they have forgotten the grass-roots Democrats that put them where they are."

How politically vulnerable is U.S. EPA's rule for existing power plants heading into the midterm elections? During today's OnPoint, David Cash, commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, discusses pressure on the agency to change the rule and its targets before it becomes final. He also makes the case for an emissions trading bank that could facilitate state compliance with the rule.

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