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A day after the second presidential debate, both components of the Republican ticket for the executive sat down with Fox News‘ Sean Hannity to discuss, among other things, energy policy. In the interview, John Mccain said Sarah Palin was “…probably one of the most foremost experts in this nation on energy issues.”

The Supreme Court today began hearing a case that questions who (or what creatures) get dibs on the ocean waters off the coast of California.

The case is this: Last March 2007 conservationists brought a lawsuit against the Navy over its use of MFA sonar in training missions off the coast of southern California. They said that the sonar is too loud and disruptive for the ocean environment, and in some cases causes mass strandings of the animals, which include blue whales, pygmy sperm whales and bottlenose dolphins.

Generally speaking, if we don’t know what the cause of a given problem is, but we know there is indeed a problem, how do we devise a strategy capable of adequately addressing it? Or, in the words of Gov. Palin, “…how are we going to get there to positively affect the impact” (whatever that means).

The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lied to Congress about his rejection of a request from California intended curb global warming emissions, according to United States Senator from California Barbara Boxer

The EPA has determined that the final standards (pdf) for the planned Yucca Mountain high-level waste disposal facility are “fully protective of human health” and the repository will not be allowed to open unless it meets these requirements.

Good news on the clean energy front - A new report from the U.S. EIA, says renewable energy accounted for more than 10 percent of the domestically-produced energy used in the United States in the first half of 2008.

According to the EPA, many lands tracked by the agency, such as large Superfund sites, and mining sites offer thousands of acres of land, and may be situated in areas where the presence of wind and solar structures are less likely to be met with aesthetic, and therefore political, opposition.

Al Gore launched a familiar-sounding polemic against carbon-based fuels with an intensified focus on the dishonest - and perhaps illegal - actions of the “carbon lobby.”

The California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously Thursday to oppose proposition 7, the Solar and Clean Energy Act of 2008, a ballot measure that would order California utilities to procure half of their power from renewable resources by 2025.

Following Sarah Palin’s key speech at the Republican Convention, BBC news asked readers around the world for there reactions. A straw poll of the many hundreds of responses seems to indicate that the majority of those outside of the US are unimpressed.

Throughout the 20th century, the interests of labor groups were firmly entrenched in the populist vision and the platform of the Democratic Party. But starting in the 1960s and 1970s, a chasm began to grow within the Democratic Party between the established interests of the labor movement and the emerging interests of the environmental movement.

Other than the coastal states of California, Oregon, and Washington, western states like Colorado, Arizona, Montana, used to be unfriendly ground for the Democrats. But times have changed, in gubernatorial and senatorial races across the West, and the panelists at Thursday morning’s ‘Convention Conversation’ at the DNC in Denver were evidence of that very phenomenon.

Geologists estimate that there are 800 billion barrels of oil locked away in the shale rocks of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. But there are some serious obstacles to unlocking that oil, not the least of which are the formidable political forces that oppose oil shale development.

Two weeks ago, the presumptive Democratic candidate for President of the United States, Barack Obama had the gall to suggest that proper tire inflation could actually reduce national gasoline consumption, thereby lowering our carbon emissions and reducing our demand for oil. Well, today several more groups were added to the growing list of organizations that stand behind Senator Obama’s claim that properly inflated tires can indeed reduce gasoline consumption.  And who else would introduce a new campaign called EcoDriving, but Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Can anyone tell me how the extraction of oil from solid rock could be defined as either energy efficient or renewable? I was struck by a story in this week’s Department of Energy office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s weekly electronic newsletter that touted the benefits of developing western oil shale and drilling in the arctic circle. I was most struck by how the piece was clearly driven by political motivations.

On Tuesday, four Democratic senators called for Stephen Johnson to resign as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to begin an investigation into whether he lied in testimony to a Senate committee.

For the fourth time this summer alone, Senate Republicans have blocked any formal consideration of extending renewable energy tax credits. The 51-43 vote on Wednesday to invoke cloture on S.3335 fell nine short of the 60 needed to begin floor debate.

“Even now, man may be unwittingly changing the world’s climate through the waste products of his civilization. Due to our release through factories and automobiles every year, of more than 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide… our atmosphere seems to be getting warmer.” - Dr. Frank C. Baxter (1958)

The American public is not buying the arguments of President Bush and the oil industry that new drilling will lower gas prices, a new poll finds. Additionally, a majority of Americans (63%) said that the President’s proposal to open up public lands to oil and gas drilling is “more likely to enrich oil companies than to lower gas prices for American consumers.”

“The price of oil dropped $10 a barrel,” said McCain, who argued that the psychology of lifting the ban has affected world markets.  But the White House didn’t go quite that far.

When asked about the McCain statement, presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said the recent drop in price could also be a product of diminished demand.

The lack of a domestic oil-shale industry makes it purely a speculative endeavor to project the development of the technology necessary to extract oil-shale, the future demand for oil-shale leases, and the costs of developing those resources.

A world record was broken on July 4th at the inaugural ROTHBURY music festival in Michigan. And no, the record had nothing to do with the world’s stinkiest hippie, or the world’s longest guitar solo.

At a Tuesday White House press conference that focused mostly on the current economic downturn, President Bush indicated that he has no intention of calling on Americans to conserve gasoline.

The President explained the justification for his position by saying, “It’s a little presumptuous on my part to dictate how consumers live their own lives.” But past examples show that President Bush has had no problem dictating how “consumers live their own lives,” at least when it syncs with his own political agenda.

On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency released a first draft of a rule that will govern the geologic sequestration of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from power plants. Geologic sequestration of global warming gases, also known as “carbon capture and sequestration” (CCS), is viewed by many as a critical component of a climate change policy portfolio.

A huge swath of Canada’s northern Boreal forest will be permanently protected from tree harvesting and mining as part of a plan to combat climate change, the Province of Ontario’s premier Dalton McGuinty announced Monday.

Amid criticisms that the requirements were too stringent and downright peculiar, officials are now calling the 12 stipulations laid out in a May Request for Proposal to caterers only “guidelines.”

In a largely symbolic move, President George W. Bush ordered to lift the Executive Order banning the drilling of offshore oil wells in the U.S.. However, the move will have no effect on the current regulations on offshore drilling because there are two prohibitions on offshore drilling, one imposed by Congress and another by executive order signed by Bush the elder in 1990.

World marketed energy consumption is projected to increase by 50 percent from 2005 to 2030, according to a new report from the United States Energy Information Agency.

One of the three wind energy developers receiving letters from the Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to heed the agency's request. Iberdrola Renewables has decided to hold off on moving forward with the Horse Creek project until the impacts of white nose syndrome on bat populations are better understood. But developers of the other two projects have yet to make similar moves.

Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems (VWS:DC) had a big week. First, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer announced that they would be building a tower manufacturing plant in Colorado.