A coalition of environmental groups and Alaska natives has filed a lawsuit challenging U.S. approval of Shell Oil’s plans to drill off the Alaska coast.

The lawsuit — led by Earthjustice, the Alaska Wilderness League, and the Natural Resource Defense Council — alleges that Shell’s plans to drill (more…)

U.S. government regulators have conditionally approved Shell Exploration’s plans to drill for oil in the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska. Drilling could begin as early as next July.

The decision is a setback for various environmental groups and indigenous people, who are concerned (more…)

Representative Henry Waxman (D-California) and his colleagues, got an earful of excuses and an eyeful of blank stares from the heads of Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, BP, and Shell Oil as the bosses appeared before the Congressional Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce.

Appearing later on CNN, Waxman reported that the executives “all said they thought they could handle a disaster (more…)

(Reuters) – The Obama administration plans to announce on Thursday a suspension of offshore oil drilling in the Arctic until 2011 as a result of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, an Alaska senator said.

Democratic Senator Mark Begich said he had been told by the Interior Department that the Obama administration will announce that consideration of any applications for exploratory drilling in the Arctic is suspended until 2011.

The suspension is part of measures President Barack Obama plans to order in response to the runaway oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. (more…)

In the last few weeks both Shell and BP have pulled out of developing off-shore wind developments in the UK due to better incentives and support from the US government in the form of tax breaks and incentives.

The same is true for Spain where in the last few years the country has been unprecedented growth in wind farms along the majority of the eastern part of the country. Then just as the country was seeing clean and green as a way forward – they remove the tax break for further development. Almost overnight the work stops, new planned sites are abandoned and people are laid off.

(more…)