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Trump attacks Ford Motor for not backing fuel economy rollback

Trump attacks Ford Motor for not backing fuel econ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump stepped up a series of attacks on automakers on Wednesday for not backing his administration’s plan to roll back Obama-era fuel efficiency rules, singling out Ford Motor Co (F.N) in particular for backing a deal with California for stricter fuel economy standards. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters as he meets with Romania’s...
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Foreign investors selling their stakes in Canada’s oil industry

Foreign investors selling their stakes in Canada’s...

Capital keeps marching out of Canada’s oil industry, with Kinder Morgan Inc.’s sale of its remaining holdings in the country on Wednesday adding to more than $30 billion of foreign-company divestitures in the past three years. Pembina Pipeline Corp., based in Calgary, is snapping up Kinder’s Canadian assets and a cross-border pipeline in a $3.3 billion deal. For Houston-based Kinder, the deal completes an exit from a country...
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States move to pass laws that would criminalize pipeline protests

States move to pass laws that would criminalize pi...

As a growing number of states move to pass laws that would criminalize pipeline protests and hit demonstrators with years in prison, an audio recording obtained by The Intercept showed a representative of a powerful oil and gas lobbying group bragging about the industry’s success in crafting anti-protest legislation behind closed doors.                        ...
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Economic and environmental cost of Trump’s auto rollback could be staggering, new research shows

Economic and environmental cost of Trump’s auto ro...

The administration’s war with California could cost the U.S. economy $400 billion by mid-century Rolling back California’s robust vehicle emissions requirements will cost the U.S. economy $400 billion through 2050, an analysis from the environmental policy group Energy Innovation found. President Donald Trump’s efforts to undo Obama-era rules will also increase U.S. gasoline consumption by up to 7.6 billion barrels,...
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Energy Experts, Environmental Advocates Urge Pumping Brakes On Ethanol

Energy Experts, Environmental Advocates Urge Pumpi...

Nebraska ranks second in the nation for ethanol production. But Nebraskans disagree on whether ethanol is an environmentally-friendly option at the gas pump.   Andy Hinton points to his car at a gas station outside Omaha, showing the modifications he’s made to his Subaru. (Picture at bottom of page.) “The fuel injectors, it’s connected to this clip right here,” he says, pointing down at his car. “It...
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‘Coal is over’: the miners rooting for the Green New Deal

‘Coal is over’: the miners rooting for...

Appalachia’s main industry is dying and some workers are looking to a new economic promise after Trump’s proves empty. Set in a wooded valley between the Tug Fork river and the Mate creek, Matewan, West Virginia, was the site of the 1920 Matewan massacre, a shootout between pro-union coalminers and coal company agents that left 10 people dead and triggered one of the most brutal fights over the future of the coal industry in...
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Greenhouse Gases Reach Unprecedented Level

Greenhouse Gases Reach Unprecedented Level

A bleak new federal report found that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose to levels the world has not seen in at least 800,000 years, highlighting the irreversible and mounting deleterious effects of human activity on the planet, as ABC News reported. Global carbon dioxide concentrations reached a record of 407.4 parts per million during 2018, the study found. That is 2.4 ppm greater than 2017 and “the highest in the...
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The wheels come off shale oil

The wheels come off shale oil

  A flurry of coverage about the gloom and outright calamity in the shale oil business appeared last week. Low prices continue to dog the industry. But so does lack of investor interest in financing loss-making operations for yet another season. Plunging stock prices portend more bankruptcies if circumstances don’t change. I received considerable pushback last January when I asked whether U.S. shale oil had entered a...
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Utilities reaping financial benefits from coal plant closures and turn toward renewables

Utilities reaping financial benefits from coal pla...

Power generators across the U.S. are not only sticking to plans to retire coal-fired power plants despite the pro-coal Trump administration, they are touting the cost savings of doing so while pushing a further transition away from the fuel. Several utilities with the largest planned coal plant retirements confirmed they are not changing course after the administration finished the Affordable Clean Energy in mid-June,...
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Report: ‘No Evidence That Fracking Can Operate Without Threatening Public Health’

Report: ‘No Evidence That Fracking Can Operate Wit...

In 2010 when I first started writing about hydraulic fracturing — the process of blasting a cocktail of water and chemicals into shale to release trapped hydrocarbons — there were more questions than answers about environmental and public-health threats. That same year Josh Fox’s documentary Gasland, which featured tap water bursting into flames, grabbed the public’s attention. Suddenly the term fracking — little...
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$10 billion for climate resiliency included in new transport bill

$10 billion for climate resiliency included in new...

A massive new transportation bill with bipartisan backing contains major climate change components in a historic first that could have implications for decarbonizing national infrastructure. Dubbed “America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act,” the highway bill from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) approved Tuesday would put billions towards combatting greenhouse gas emissions and promoting resiliency....
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Nuclear power offers an abundant supply of low-carbon energy. But what to do with the deadly radioactive waste?

Nuclear power offers an abundant supply of low-car...

July 31, 2019 — There’s a small red hammer and sickle flag of the old Soviet Union on my dresser at home. I found it years ago on the floor of a primary school in Pripyat, the town built for workers at the doomed Chernobyl nuclear plant in what is now Ukraine. Perhaps it had been waved by a child at a state occasion, or had been left behind in the rush to evacuate Pripyat after the world’s worst nuclear disaster in April...
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Trump drilling leases could create more climate pollution than EU does in a year

Trump drilling leases could create more climate po...

US has offered close to 378m acres of public lands and waters for oil and gas leasing since Trump took office through April 2019 Donald Trump’s leases of public lands and waters for oil and gas drilling could lead to the production of more climate-warming pollution than the entire European Union contributes in a year, according to a new report. The Wilderness Society estimates heat-trapping emissions from extracting and...
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Natural gas leaks are a much bigger problem than we thought

Natural gas leaks are a much bigger problem than w...

Natural gas has been touted as a green energy source by some because, when burned for fuel, it emits less CO2 than coal. But before that happens, leaks from across the natural gas supply chain — from the drilling process to gas stoves — can unintentionally vent methane into the atmosphere. That’s especially bad news, since methane is roughly 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2. And, according to a new study in...
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BUT AT WHAT COST? -To many, the pipelines are a lifeline in impoverished Appalachia, bringing in jobs and money.

BUT AT WHAT COST? -To many, the pipelines are a li...

The first signs of change came to Belmont County several years ago, as natural gas extraction company trucks rumbled over the roads. Next came drilling rigs and pipelines for hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. To many, the pipelines are a lifeline in impoverished Appalachia, bringing in jobs and money. Despite the economic boom, environmentalists and some residents are questioning the health and safety of...
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