The Senate this week considers legislation that would cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by about 70 percent by mid-century.
The bill would cap the amount of carbon dioxide that affected industries would be allowed to release. Allowances could be traded in an open market among companies that either need to buy them to meet [...]

The Federal Trade Commission plans to come up with rules by the end of the year to enforce a new law against price manipulation and deception in oil-trading markets.
The FTC announced that has taken the first step, seeking public comments, toward developing a regulation on oil industry price manipulation.
As part of a broad energy bill [...]

British Gas lowered its residential electricity and gas prices on Thursday in the latest salvo of a price war.
British Gas parent, utility Centrica, said the business was cutting electricity prices by 6 percent and gas prices by 3 percent. Coupled with cuts earlier this year this would reduce the average annual dual fuel bill by [...]

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, plans to promote a South America- wide network of natural gas pipelines to reduce costs in the region and increase energy exports.
Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras is studying a plan that would begin by extending pipelines in the southern half of the continent, Ildo Sauer, the company’s gas chief, [...]

Environmentalists had hoped that if a new coal-fired power plant like the one proposed near Waterloo had to be built in Iowa it would at least be required to get some of its energy from renewable sources.
But an Iowa House committee has scrapped the idea after concerns about the cost to the industry.
A measure killed [...]

TXU Corp., facing a string of global-warming bills, is ramping up efforts to lobby the new Congress over its controversial plans to build coal-fired power plants across Texas.
Dallas-based TXU has been betting that lawmakers wouldn’t enact environmental legislation penalizing the company for the 11 plants it wants to build. But Democratic leaders in Congress have [...]

Michigan corn growers are finding their fields turning to gold as prices rise rapidly because of the growth of ethanol production.
Many farmers complained when rain kept them out of the fields and delayed the harvest.
But the wait is paying off, as corn prices rose from $1.85 per bushel in August to $3.50 per bushel in [...]

Hours before adjourning for the year, the U.S. Congress on Saturday sent President George W. Bush legislation that would open 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and natural gas drilling and redistribute billions of dollars in royalties to four Gulf states.
The drilling measure was wrapped into a broad tax and trade [...]

Montana will receive $72 million in financing for 34 new wind power projects planned mostly by small cities and counties in northeastern and southeastern parts of the state, Sen. Max Baucus has announced.
“This is very good news,” the Montana Democrat said at a news conference in Billings.
Some of the recipients participated in the conference by [...]

Cleaner coal technology hit a speed bump Tuesday in South Dakota, as a major power supplier announced it did not receive a key federal tax credit.
Basin Electric Power Cooperative had proposed a plant near Huron or Mobridge to use integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC.
The technology converts coal to a gas before burning, which greatly [...]