October is Energy Action Month — a national effort to focus on the critical link between American energy and prosperity, highlight the tremendous potential of clean energy technologies to create new American jobs and industries, and underscore the importance of investing in American innovation to lead the 21st (more…)

Yesterday, President Obama announced that our Departments will jointly invest $510 million over the next three years to develop the domestic capacity for advanced biofuels.  The funds will be leveraged with at least a one-to-one private industry match to construct or retrofit advanced biofuel plants to (more…)

Germany has been a leading light in sustainability for many years.

More recently, the country once again showed its leadership in the sector by ditching nuclear power and veering towards alternative energy, unmistakably and inexorably. (more…)

Germany responded swiftly to the Japanese nuclear crisis by announcing a decision to phase out its older nuclear stations. Japan followed a few weeks later saying that it intends to focus on renewable energy (although it won’t do away with nuclear power altogether). And now Switzerland is looking to (more…)

As the second largest producer of hydropower in the United States, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation has a key role to play in President Obama’s blueprint for a secure energy future. Reclamation’s staff of engineers, biologists, hydrologists and other professionals are working tirelessly to conserve water and improve energy efficiencies at our projects (more…)

This afternoon the President wrote a letter to leaders of both parties in Congress on the subject of tax breaks for oil companies.  The President's letter comes a day after Speaker of the House John Boehner said that eliminating those tax breaks is "certainly something we should be looking at," adding that, "We're in a time when the federal government's (more…)

The United States is poised to bet its energy future on natural gas as a clean, plentiful fuel that can supplant coal and oil. But new research by the Environmental Protection Agency—and a growing understanding of the pollution associated with the full “life cycle” of gas production—is casting doubt on the (more…)

Most environmental business blogs seem to have glossed right over coverage of Greenpeace’s rather untraditional message to President Obama on Mount Rushmore two weeks ago, though a quarter-page photo in the front section of the New York Times certainly did not. Citing discontent with Obama’s acquiescence to compromises on environmental policy, a group of eleven activists draped a massive banner next to Abraham Lincoln’s face bearing the message “America honors leaders, not politicians: Stop Global Warming.” The action came as the President met with world leaders to discuss climate change at the G8 summit, and brings to light divides among the environmental community that are becoming even more apparent thanks to the debate over the Waxman-Markey bill.

(more…)