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Natural Gas Seen Gaining With Obama’s Fracking-Friendly Nominees

Bloomberg: President Barack Obama says his picks to guide energy and environmental policy in his second term will lead the charge against global warming, a fight that may have one immediate beneficiary: natural gas. Obama picked Ernest Moniz, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist, for U.S. Energy secretary and Gina McCarthy, a longtime environmental regulator, to head the Environmental Protection Agency. “They’re going to be making sure that we’re investing in American energy, that we’re doing...

Fracking Methane Emissions to Get EPA Review After Watchdog Report

Bloomberg: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed to more closely study air emissions from hydraulic fracturing after the agency’s auditor concluded its current data is insufficient to make policy decisions. The EPA has already begun an inter-agency study of methane, air toxins and other pollutants released when oil and gas are tapped using the process, called fracking, Gina McCarthy, the head of the agency’s air office, said in a letter to the Inspector General’s office that was released yesterday....

Fracking Emissions Get Review After EPA Watchdog Report

Bloomberg: Federal environmental regulators said they will more closely study air emissions from hydraulic fracturing after the agency’s auditor concluded current information is insufficient to make policy decisions. The Environmental Protection Agency has already begun an inter-agency study of methane, air toxic and other pollutants released when oil and gas are tapped using the process, called fracking, Gina McCarthy, the head of the agency’s air office, said in a letter to the Inspector General’s office,...

Fracking seen by EPA as No. 2 emitter of greenhouse gases

Bloomberg: Natural gas and oil production is the second-biggest source of U.S. greenhouse gases, the government said, emboldening environmentalists who say tighter measures are needed to curb the emissions from hydraulic fracturing. In its second-annual accounting of emissions that cause global warming from stationary sources, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the first time included oil and natural- gas production. Emissions from drilling, including fracking, and leaks from transmission pipes...

Interior Chief Had ‘Common Ground’ With Oil Industry

Bloomberg: As oil spewed from the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar pledged to keep a “boot on the neck” of BP Plc (BP/) to get it to plug the leak and clean the mess. Then he halted new deepwater drilling. Environmental advocates cheered those actions. Over the next two years, Salazar took a more conciliatory approach with the energy industry, lifting the ban in the Gulf a few months later, agreeing to allow exploration in the Arctic and setting a plan for offshore production...

Climate panel says coast, midwest at risk of extreme weather

Bloomberg: Average U.S. temperatures may jump as much as 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2.2 Celsius) in the coming decades, and efforts to combat the effects are insufficient, a government advisory panel on climate change said. The 60-member panel approved and released a draft report today that says many coastal areas face “potentially irreversible impacts” as warmer temperatures lead to flooding, storm surges and water shortages. “The chances of record-breaking, high-temperature extremes will continue to increase...

EPA: Latest Wyoming Water Tests Still Link Pollutants to Fracking

Bloomberg: Tests of drinking water near a natural-gas drilling site in Wyoming back up findings that established the first link by the federal government between hydraulic fracturing and tainted water, the Environmental Protection Agency said. The EPA yesterday issued its follow-up analyses of two test wells it drilled in Pavillion and of five residents’ water wells, saying the pollutants it found were “consistent” with the results last year used to establish that connection to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking....

Record Heat Wave Pushes U.S. Belief in Climate Change to 70%

Bloomberg: A record heat wave, drought and catastrophic wildfires are accomplishing what climate scientists could not: convincing a wide swath of Americans that global temperatures are rising. In the four months since March there has been a jump in U.S. citizens’ belief that climate change is taking place, especially among independent voters and those in southern states such as Texas, which is now in its second year of record drought, according to nationwide polls by the University of Texas. In a poll...

New research rebuts fracking-global warming connection

Bloomberg: Replacing coal with natural gas cuts the creation of greenhouse gases that cause global warming, a Cornell University researcher has concluded, rebutting the findings of colleagues at the university in Ithaca, N.Y. Lawrence M. Cathles, a professor in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, released a paper that says even if high rates of natural gas are leaking out after hydraulic fracturing and during transport, gas will still provide a net benefit over time. "The only thing that really counts is...