The Energy Department is getting some qualified support from its internal watchdog over its use of economic stimulus dollars to help the domestic electric car battery industry, just as President Barack Obama seeks to rebut Republican criticism of his green energy agenda.
While DOE's Inspector General found the department can make improvements in the $2 billion Advanced Batteries and Hybrid Components Program, it called for no overhaul of the program and could not substantiate an allegation of a potential conflict of interest.
Confronting withering criticism from Republicans, a top Energy Department official insists the agency's clean energy loan program has been an "enormous success" despite financial troubles at several of the companies it helped.
The joint hearing Thursday by two House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittees provided an election-year forum to debate the role of government in encouraging clean energy and the risks to taxpayers.
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy ranked the United States ninth in energy efficiency out of 12 major global economies, reporting that the U.S. has made "limited or little progress toward greater efficiency at the national level."
The Sierra Club is running new ads pressuring three House Republican freshmen to support extension of tax credits that help finance wind power projects, The Hill reports.
The wind power industry is bracing for layoffs and factory closings as the instrumental Protection Tax Credit faces expiration on Dec. 31, FuelFix reports.
SEATTLE (AP) — Scientists knew ocean-going fish would eventually return to the Elwha River on Washington state's Olympic Peninsula, once two massive concrete dams were torn down. They just didn't think it would happen so soon.
Biologists tracking fish in a tributary of the Elwha last month spotted wild steelhead that likely made it on their own past the site where the Elwha Dam stood for nearly a century — before it was dismantled in March as part of the nation's largest dam removal project.
Global clean energy investment increased by 24 percent to $56.9 billion in the second quarter of 2012, with Chinese investments on solar parks and wind farms rising 92 percent alone, Bloomberg reports.
Two solar manufacturers are requesting loans through the Energy Department's loan guarantee program, Bloomberg reports. The companies would be the first to access credit from the program since Solyndra's bankruptcy last September.
British Energy Secretary Ed Davey maintained firm support for clean energy subsidies, calling the arguments of his opponents "misleading and dangerous," Bloomberg reports.
Sanford C. Bernstein Research projected China's shift to sport utility vehicles will keep pushing up oil demand despite new efficiency measures, Bloomberg reports.
Harold Brooks, a researcher at the National Severe Storms Laboratory, said powerful tornadoes can't be blamed on climate change without more data, Bloomberg reports.
A poll from Yale and George Mason universities found a majority believe national leaders should put priority on combatting global warming and developing clean energy, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., apologized for referencing the Oklahoma tornadoes while criticizing Republicans on climate change during his weekly Senate speech, Fox News reports.
The American Petroleum Institute said the EPA ignored federal law by shortening the public comment period for its regulation to cut sulfur content in fuel, The Hill reports.
The European Union and the U.S. Trade Representative's office rejected reports that they were working jointly to settle a dispute with China over solar dumping practices, Reuters reports
Both the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Duke Energy said they are unsure how operators missed a crack at the Shearon Harris nuclear plant during testing, the Charlotte Business Journal reports.
