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"CHICAGO — The wind industry is predicting massive layoffs and stalled or abandoned projects after a deal to renew a tax credit for wind production failed Thursday in Washington."

"The U.S. and Mexico reached an agreement Monday to cooperate on oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico. Signed at a meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico, the agreement would set a process that U.S. companies and Mexico's state-owned Pemex could use to jointly develop waters that straddle the nations' maritime border. It also would provide for the U.S. and Mexican governments jointly to review applications and safety inspections in cases of drilling in the boundary-straddling waters, where oil spills could affect both nations."

"The House by a wide margin [Thursday] night passed a bill to vastly expand oil and gas development off the nation's coasts, in an Alaskan reserve and on experimental shale tracts in the Intermountain West."

The damage that the natural gas production method known as hydrofracturing ("fracking") can do to water wells and streams is hard to document because of a federal law prohibiting disclosure of chemicals drilling companies inject underground. There are almost no federal regulations protecting the public from fracking pollution. "Why? The answer is money. The oil and gas industry has reaped billions in profits from fracking. And since 1990, they've pumped $238.7 million into gubernatorial and Congressional election campaigns to persuade lawmakers that fracking is safe, which has effectively blocked federal regulation."