"Two weeks after the bankruptcy of a solar company that got $527 million in government loans, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday to explore what went wrong."
"In a high-stakes battle that pits gold and copper against fish, members of Congress are scrapping over a plan to build one of the world's largest open pit mines in southwest Alaska."
"A divided Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday allowed the Obama administration to continue plans to close the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada."
"SAN JOSE, Calif. — Federal agents searched Solyndra Inc.'s Fremont, Calif., headquarters Thursday, just days after the high-profile solar manufacturer filed for bankruptcy protection and a week before its top executives are expected to testify before Congress.
Solyndra, which manufactured tubular-shaped solar panels for commercial rooftops, stunned the clean-tech community when it abruptly announced last week that fierce competition from China had forced it to suspend operations and immediately lay off 1,100 employees.
"The little-known federal agency charged with monitoring the system and enforcing safety measures — the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration — is chronically short of inspectors and lacks the resources needed to hire more, leaving too much of the regulatory control in the hands of pipeline operators themselves, according to federal reports, an examination of agency data and interviews with safety experts."
"President Obama gave Congress a jobs package that was boiled down to practical provisions -- and clean energy didn't make the cut. ...
He didn't mention the word "energy" once. The bipartisan topic of energy efficiency was also absent in the speech."
Evan Lehmann and Saqib Rahim report for ClimateWire September 9, 2011.
SEE ALSO:
Hundreds of anti-fracking protestors rallied outside a Marcellus Shale industry conference in Philadelphia. Aubrey McClendon, the chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Co., called people concerned about the safety of their families' drinking water "extremists," even as an industry-friendly report noted that fracking could be costly to communities.
"So far 2011 has been a good year f0or wind energy projects. Installations in the first six months of 2011 were almost double what they were in the comparable period in 2010 in terms of total megawatts (2,151 versus 1,250), according to the American Wind Energy Association. But a bipartisan coalition of 24 state governors, fretting that the industry could lose momentum, has already begun lobbying the Obama administration to improve business conditions for wind energy developers."
"BP Plc is looking to ramp up activity in the Gulf of Mexico in the coming months and is applying for new well permits there this quarter, an executive said on Tuesday, as the firm looks to move on from a huge oil spill last year."
A group of nine Nobel Prize winners called on President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.
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