Environmental Politics

"Pacific Gas & Electric, the big California utility, has pulled out of the United States Chamber of Commerce over what its chairman, Peter Darbee, termed 'fundamental differences' over the climate change issue."

California taxpayers could be on the hook for millions of dollars in damages if the Schwarzenegger administration moves ahead with plans to close as many as 100 state parks, according to an internal memo drafted by the state parks department's attorneys.

"The Justice Department investigation centers on a 2006 decision to award oil shale leases in Colorado to a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary. Months later, the oil giant hired Norton as a legal counsel."

A bill to allow offshore oil leasing and a bill to ban BPA in baby bottles both died in the California legislature as it adjourned.

This week, California state parks officials are expected to release a list of up to 100 California parks that will be closed to save money, and the impacts will be felt far and wide.

NY state Senator Thomas Moran (R) played a critical role in passage of a $5-billion green jobs and energy bill for the state.

"Another member of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity is leaving the coal-and-utility trade group, citing concerns about whether the alliance wants to obstruct legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions."

"While [Van] Jones was criticized as a left-wing zealot, the Obama team's record so far on the environment has been far from radical."

"In a victory for Republicans and the Obama administration’s conservative critics, Van Jones resigned as the White House’s environmental jobs 'czar' on Saturday."

"Duke Energy’s departure from the star-crossed American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity seems to have less to do with the viability of clean coal than with the viability of the groups that promote it."