TEXAS ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

From Randy Lee Loftis:

A study released today by university scientists in Dallas and Austin bolsters suspicions that a saltwater disposal well associated with Barnett Shale natural gas operations was responsible for several small earthquakes in North Texas.

The largest of the quakes measured 3.3 on the Richter scale, and no major injuries or damage were reported.

Geologists from the University of Texas at Austin and Southern Methodist University found no evidence linking earthquakes recorded in 2008 and 2009 to the drilling of more than 13,000 gas production wells in North Texas.

They also found no connection between the quakes and hydrological fracturing, the injection of water underground to force out trapped gas.

They found that a different kind of well used to dispose of saltwater brought to the surface during gas operations might be to blame. They compared the timing, location and depth of earthquakes to the operation of a disposal well at the north end of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and discovered an apparent link.

Click here for the full story.

Guess what? The clean tech folks were outnumbered at one of the world's most important oil conferences.

Oil day of CERAWeek in Houston tends to provide oil executives a platform to argue that their product will remain indispensible for decades. This year, oil day on Tuesday also provided the Obama administration a platform to urge the energy industry to move away from oil.

The Houston Chronicle reports:

While most in the energy business agree the worst of the recession has passed, differing views emerged Tuesday at CERAWeek 2010 about where the industry should focus its efforts in the years ahead.

On one side was the oil and gas industry, which said fossil fuels will be the dominant energy source for decades and that improving technology and abundant natural gas supplies hold the potential to extend that life further.

Vastly outnumbered on the other was Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who said the U.S. must accelerate efforts to wean itself from oil in what will amount to a "new industrial revolution," or risk losing the clean technology race to other countries and doing further damage to the environment.

"Time is running out, and the train is leaving the station," Chu said in a speech at CERAWeek, a premier industry conference hosted by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

Some industry officials were heartened that the Obama administration's lead architect of U.S. energy policy acknowledged the role cleaner-burning natural gas can play in electricity generation and as a "transition to other fuels" in coming years.

But others said it's not enough.

"Gas is more than a bridge fuel," said James Mulva, CEO of Houston-based ConocoPhillips, noting huge gas discoveries in recent years in North America in shales and other unconventional rock formations he said could provide more than a century of supply. "It is part of the long-term energy solution."

Here's a way to squander any good environmental karma you might have accrued. Buy disposable bathroom handtowels from Dallas' own Kimberly-Clark.

From the Associated Press:

Kimberly-Clark Corp. wants to replace the traditional bathroom hand towel with something made of paper, a bid to take advantage of lingering swine flu fears.

The hand towels, expected on nationwide shelves within a month, come in boxes of three different shades of brushed metallics like blue and green that carry 60 sheets for a suggested retail price of $2.99. The sheets are a hybrid of the sturdiness of paper towels but with more softness similar to facial tissues. They have no perfumes or dyes.

It's one of a bevy new products from hand sanitizers to pre-moistened towelettes introduced since such items enjoyed solid sales in the early days of the swine flu pandemic.

You know, there are some people in this world who have rejected disposable handtowels even in public bathrooms.

My experience is limited, but I've seen a few examples: The Japanese sometimes carry their own large, cloth handkerchiefs to dry their hands in public bathrooms (which feels so much better than paper.)

And the Germans often use cloth towels in office bathrooms, particularly in small offices with only a few people.

Of course, the better hotels and social clubs around Dallas stock their bathrooms with cloth towels. And I was surprised to see both paper and cloth handtowels in the bathrooms at Rise, a souffle restaurant in Inwood Village.

Cabs fueled by compressed natural gas could skip the line at Love Field if all goes according to plan at Dallas City Hall tomorrow. The City Council is poised to pass an ordinance that would grant CNG taxis head-of-the-line privileges at the Dallas airport.

The council's briefing materials note that this is part of the region's efforts to reduce ozone and comply with federal air quality standards. The natural-gas-powered cabs spew significantly less carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides -- key components of our ozone haze.

The vote is expected Wednesday, and so far, little, if any, opposition has emerged on the council. When the DFW Airport board passed a similar measure, some drivers called the policy un-American and unfair. The Dallas City Council doesn't seem to share that view.

NRG Energy Inc. won up to $154 million in funding from the Department of Energy to install a system to capture carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power plant.

NRG plans to install the equipment at its WA Parish plant, near Houston, and to begin operating the unit in 2013. The DOE funding would pay for up to half of the installation.

The company plans to sell the carbon dioxide to oil companies to inject into aging oil fields to boost production.

The move fits with NRG's view that carbon dioxide emissions will eventually be regulated.

The carbon capture unit would take in flue gas from about 60 watts of power plant capacity, which is about one tenth of the amount that one of the Parish units spews. The unit would capture about 90 percent of the carbon dioxide from the gas it takes in.

NRG will use Flour Corp. technology for the project.

Jump for the full press release.

Oncor continued its efforts on Tuesday to convince North Texans that smart meters are working. The company gathered reporters and TV cameras at an Oak Cliff home where Oncor had reinstalled an old mechanical meter beside a new digital smart meter.

Both meters will record usage for the home, allowing Oncor to see whether the smart meter is working. Oncor will do about three dozen side-by-side tests around North and Central Texas.

Oncor wants consumers to have confidence that the meters are accurate. Company officials say electric bills rose during the past few months largely because of the cold weather.

"If there's an accuracy issue, we'll work with the [Public Utility] Commission and our vendor" to correct it, said Jim Greer, Oncor's senior vice president, asset management and engineering.

Lawmakers who voted for the new meters want consumers to have confidence that the meters are accurate. Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, has pressured Oncor to do something about concerns among his constituents that the meters cause utility bills to rise.

Some customers say a happy outcome will ease their concerns.

Homeowner Mark Crosslin said his electricity bill jumped about 9 percent after the meter went in three months ago. "I'm unhappy if it's an error. If it's correct, I'm happy to pay," he told the television cameras gathered in his backyard.

Others are protesting the meters before seeing the test results, which Oncor will begin reporting in about a week.

Three Oak Cliff residents held their own demonstration nearby at the intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Edgefield.

"I'm so mad, I see red," sang out Tricia Lambert, waving a red shop rag, telling a passing car: "We could have a fourth if you'd join us."

Across Colorado stood Ree Watner, her housemate and co-founder of Smart Utilities Reform Citizens, a budding group that's challenging the accuracy of Oncor's "smart meters."

"We're tired of being overcharged," she said, waving a red rag as well and telling traffic "We're protesting the high cost of utilities. Come join us."

(Roy Appleton contributed to this report.)

Former Sen. David Sibley, one of the founders of electricity deregulation in Texas, might run for his old seat, representing Waco.

Christie Hoppe writes on the Trailblazers blog:

Lobbyist David Sibley, the former state senator who Kip Averitt replaced, isn't exactly beating back speculation that he might be interested in the spot. Averitt said, as explained in an earlier post, that he will resign his seat because of health reasons. Sibley, a lawyer and an oral surgeon, is also a former mayor of Waco.

Here's Sibley's statement:

"Kip Averitt has been an outstanding State Senator and he remains a friend. I understand his health concerns and support him in making the changes he needs over the coming months and years."

"Many in the District have asked about my interest in the position and I am honored they would consider me. In my discussions with supporters and Republican county chairs I have heard a lot about the need for conservative, effective, common-sense government and look forward to continuing these conversations in the coming days."

I'd like to know what this might mean for the electricity industry, in particular, those companies operating coal-fired power plants. Averitt tended to oppose coal plants in Waco. What is Sibley's view?

From Bloomberg:

Exxon Mobil Corp., BP Plc and Total SA are investing in assets that previously weren't worth their time or money after oil-rich nations reduced access to reserves and exploration drilling faltered.

Efforts to find new sources of crude and natural gas are failing more often, with San Ramon, California-based Chevron Corp.'s exploration failure rate jumping to 35 percent last year from 10 percent in 2008. Countries such as Venezuela are making it more expensive for companies to develop their resources, if they're allowed in at all. And previously developed fields are drying up, reducing oil companies' future supplies, or reserves.

"Their No. 1 problem is reserves replacement," said Nansen Saleri, chief executive officer at Quantum Reservoir Impact in Houston and former reservoir-management chief at Saudi Arabia's state oil company. "That's the elephant in the room, so that's what they have to address."

To compensate, major producers are investing in projects they once eschewed, including geologically complex oil and gas fields, called "unconventional" by the industry to distinguish them from the easy-to-get oil and gas of earlier years.

Irving, Texas-based Exxon agreed to buy gas producer XTO Energy Inc. for $29 billion in December, 14 months after abandoning its own drilling program in Texas's Barnett Shale unconventional gas formation, where XTO gets more than 20 percent of its output. BP, Total and Statoil ASA bought into U.S. shale-gas joint ventures, and Marathon Oil Corp. and ConocoPhillips are investing in unconventional gas in Europe.

Read the full story here.

Deutsche Bank makes two particularly interesting points in a research note about Exxon Mobil: The company will probably make a big acquisition sometime in the next decade, and Big Oil is grappling with convincing kingdoms and socialist government to share their oil resources.

Deutsche argues that the best use of the cash Exxon has been bringing in during the boom is to buy a big company during the bust.

"Volumes have been broadly flat, and we continue to expect ExxonMobil to make a major acquisition within the next decade as a means to sustain itself. The obvious candidates has been Russia; it may now be through JV with Brazil. The country's massive presalt resource fits all the requirements of ExxonMobil: massive resrouce scale; massive project management challenges, massive capital requirements; long plateau production levels, adn actual ownership access to the resrouce for ExxonMobil. The final requirement now is the toughest to meet, as global oil (for now) is concentrated in the hands of kingdoms and socialist governments which will not likely share ownership."

Deutsche doesn't seem to count Exxon's acquisition of XTO Energy, which gives Exxon big access to natural gas plays. Deutsche analysts prefer oil, because the analysts expect oil prices to remain stronger than natural gas prices.

Oil remains the big prize. The note says:

"Of course volume growth in itself does not allay the greatest fear of the investor as regards all major oil deals, which is that as reserves globally concentrate into the hands of governments, so the marginal growth barrel for the privafte companies becomes lower return because of greater tehcnical and cost challenges, for example, low grade heavy oil or extreme deepwater."

Exxon will hold its annual analyst meeting on Thursday.

Click here to read the report.

From Eric Aasen:

Move over, you sexy, sleek, sophisticated Ferraris, Maseratis and Aston Martins: Make room for the Toyota Prius, the Chevrolet Volt and the Ford Fusion Hybrid.

These green cars were featured prominently at this year's Dallas Auto Show - and generated plenty of buzz among the crowds of car fans who flocked to the turntables and spotlights to get a closer look.

The event at the Dallas Convention Center featured about a dozen hybrids, a number that has grown in recent years, said Marianne Jones, the auto show's director of communications. The four-day show ended Sunday.

Cap and trade seemed like a sure thing just a year ago. A slew of big businesses supported it, and the House of Representatives had passed its bill, with many Texas Democrats voting for it.

Then the Senate got hold of it, which precipitated a series of legislative revolts and defections of businesses from groups that support the effort. To recap: there was a boycott of Senator Barbara Boxer's bill by Republican members of the Senate Environment Committee; an effort to revive bipartisan climate-change legislation by Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham; a push by Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in the Senate and Texas' Joe Barton (R-Arlington) in the House to overturn the EPA finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health; a legal challenge of that EPA finding by Texas Gov. Rick Perry and others; and, finally, a revolt against the nascent regulatory action by coal-state Democrats who don't trust the EPA. The Wall Street Journal has a good story today that discusses the last of those items.

Grist suggests that Big Oil is to blame for the Senate stasis. That would be a change from the dynamic in the House, where Rep. Gene Green of Houston lamented that refiners lacked influence.

So is cap-and-trade "dead," as Sen. Lindsey Graham told environmentalists according to the Washington Post? The bill that Graham, Kerry and Lieberman are building supposedly involves a sector-by-sector approach, instead of an economy-wide cap on emissions. The Greenwire story (the Graham link above) reports that the bill is likely to use a cap-and-trade system to control emissions from the utility and manufacturing sectors. In the meantime, the senators and their press aides are working to reframe the proposal as something more palatable than cap and trade, which Republicans have labeled "cap and tax" since it would undoubtedly increase electricity and fuel prices.

It is difficult to predict whether a climate-change bill will be approved this year (although it seems unlikely), but CQ (subscription required) reports today that the Democratic "revolt" is more a venting exercise during an election year. The Democratic legislation would delay EPA regulation for two years, but would not prohibit it. And the Senate would have to schedule floor time to debate it, which seems difficult given the legislative pile-up that involves health reform, jobs bills, etc. "It helps them in terms of meeting the needs of their constituents," Kerry told CQ. "And that's fine."

It appears that cap and trade will remain a Senate sideshow for the rest of this year. At some point, perhaps in the next couple weeks, Kerry et al. will unveil their bill, which will kick off a new flurry of lobbying by industry and enviro groups. It will likely be more modest than the House version. It will probably treat refiners better to secure the support of oil-patch Democrats like Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. It will probably make concessions for natural gas, which should win support from senators whose states have experienced the shale-gas boom. And Gov. Perry will still say it's bad for Texas.

The anti-smart meter folks are taking a new strategy. Some are refusing to allow Oncor to install new digital meters.

Oncor spokesman Chris Schein said meter installers encounter about a handful of people each day who refuse to allow the workers to switch the meters.

This morning, 20 people refused.

Schein said some had seen incorrect news reports that the Public Utility Commission instructed Oncor to halt installations. Not true. The PUC on Thursday agreed to hire an outside company to test the meters, but commissioners didn't stop installation.

Some people are complaining that the new meters can cause electricity bills to rise. A group of Oak Cliff dwellers started a group to oppose smart meters, called Smart UR Citizens. They have a blog and a petition.

Oncor spokesman Schein isn't sure what the company normally does when a customer refuses to allow Oncor onto the premises. Technically, the meter belongs to Oncor, even though it might be behind a gate on private property.

Readers, if you've had this experience, please tell us about it in your comments or email me: esouder@dallasnews.com.

Jump for the text of the Smart UR Citizens petition.

From Dave Michaels:

A group of Democratic senators may seek to halt stimulus funding for wind-energy projects over concerns that the program is subsidizing jobs overseas.

The dispute was prompted by a proposed wind farm in West Texas, whose investors planned to use Chinese-made turbines and seek a $450 million stimulus grant. The senators insist that stimulus funds shouldn't go to projects that get most of their materials from abroad and create "the bulk of their jobs" in other countries.

"I don't know anyone who thinks it's right that we use tax dollars to hire workers in other countries," said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. "The right thing is for the government to figure out how to do the program right in a way that works for American companies."

The project's developers say they're doing that. Austin-based Cielo Wind Power LP says more than 70 percent of the turbine parts are American-made, including its steel towers and blades.

The project prompted debate in two Senate committees on Thursday, where both Democratic and Republican senators questioned administration officials about whether the project should benefit from the stimulus. The U.S. Energy Department said any effort to suspend the wind stimulus program would cost U.S. jobs and set back efforts to expand clean-energy manufacturing in the country.

Click here for the full story.

Public Utility Commission agreed on Thursday to hire a company to independently test the accuracy of new smart meters, putting to rest concerns that the meters cause bills to jump.

The three commissioners agreed during an open meeting to engage a third party to test meters installed by Oncor and Centerpoint Energy. PUC staff will try to hire someone within the next two weeks for the tests.

The program would extensively test meters in the Bell County area, where the commission has received many complaints, and allow any customer to request testing of his new, high-tech meter. Commissioners instructed Oncor and Centerpoint to waive the normal $25 testing fee.

Eventually, the commission might hike electric delivery rates for all consumers to pay for the program.

"We will ride herd over this process because we want to be unbiased, third party, objective," PUC Chairman Barry Smitherman said.

The program is a reaction to concern among consumers and legislators that the new meters being installed across the state have caused electric bills to rise.

The New York Times reports on a cultural connection between a belief in evolution and doubt about global warming.

For example, the story says: "Last year, the Texas Board of Education adopted language requiring that teachers present all sides of the evidence on evolution and global warming."

The article points out an opposition trend, called the Creation Care movement. Creation Care adherants believe it is a Christian's duty to care for the earth and to help prevent global warming.

However, according to this article, the cultural connection is stronger between creationism and global warming doubt. The article goes on:

Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist who directs the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University and has spoken against efforts to water down the teaching of evolution to school boards in Texas and Ohio, described the move toward climate-change skepticism as a predictable offshoot of creationism.

"Wherever there is a battle over evolution now," he said, "there is a secondary battle to diminish other hot-button issues like Big Bang and, increasingly, climate change. It is all about casting doubt on the veracity of science -- to say it is just one view of the world, just another story, no better or more valid than fundamentalism."

Not all evangelical Christians reject the notion of climate change, of course. There is a budding green evangelical movement in the country driven partly by a belief that because God created the earth, humans are obligated to care for it.

Yet there is little doubt that the skepticism about global warming resonates more strongly among conservatives, and Christian conservatives in particular. A survey published in October by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that white evangelical Protestants were among those least likely to believe that there was "solid evidence" that the Earth was warming because of human activity.

Two newspaper giants, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, published pieces over the weekend about the TXU buyout. It's interesting reading, nice recaps of what's happened since the company became Energy Future Holdings three years ago.

The Wall Street Journal writes about the number of George W. Bush cronies the company hired to get the buyout deal past the Texas Legislature and regulators. It doesn't mention Ron Kirk, Barack Obama's U.S. trade rep, and the guy in charge of TXU's legislative lobbying effort.

The New York Times offers an in-depth description of the deal and how it might unravel. The key sentence: "The buyout was, in effect, a gargantuan bet that natural gas prices would keep climbing; instead, plunging prices coupled with a hobbled national economy have cut into the cash the company generates."

Folks, the deregulated market requires a certain amount of computer savvy and a whole lot of research to get through to maximize its benefit to Texans. You can read a bunch about the subject in a big piece that I helped Elizabeth Souder with last week.

I just switched my provider in hopes for savings. I've got a 2,200-square-foot house in Lake Highlands that gets very little sun exposure, and our highest bill for electricity was just under $200 with StarTex power. We're not a great example of how Deregulation can help because, frankly, we don't use enough energy in a year to get a huge price difference. We only use about 10,000 kilowatt hours a year.

But my 2-year deal with StarTex is up this month, and I went shopping. Click onward for what I decided to do.

Updated with dollar amount.

Since my last blog update 40 minutes ago, Oncor decided to add more funding to its solar incentive program this year.

The company had already gone through more than $5 million in incentive funding for the popular subsidy this year, and had closed the program. Now, as of Friday, the Oncor solar subsidy program is again open for business, with another $2.5 million oin funding.

"We are reallocating money so we can continue to operate through the end of the year," said spokeswoman Carol Peters.

Peters said the company had been considering expanding funding this year, as it made big incentive payouts during the past few weeks, but hadn't made a firm decision until now. She said Oncor will continue to monitor demand so see if the program needs more funding.

Looks like it's a go for Oncor's sister company, TXU Energy, to market its solar lease program. TXU is owned by Energy Future Holdings, which also owns 80 percent of Oncor.

Oncor's incentive program for solar panels has been hugely popular. So popular, in fact, that Oncor has already handed out all of the incentive money for this year.

It's February.

"It's like tickets to a rock concert," said Oncor spokesman Chris Schein, about the various incentive programs the company operates.

Spokeswoman Carol Peters said 72 projects have been installed so far this year using Oncor incentives. The company has handed out more than $5 million this year.

Since the program began in 2009, Oncor has paid subsidies for 15 commercial, 9 government or nonprofit, and 129 residential projects. Those projects amount to 1,577 kilowatts of capacity.

Peters said anyone who wants to participate in the program next year should sign up during the fourth quarter of 2010.

Peters said Oncor is considering adding more funding for 2010, but hasn't made a decision yet.

What does this mean for TXU Energy's new solar program, which will depend on those incentives? I'm waiting to hear from TXU.

The Texas Department of State Health Services collected blood and urine samples from residents in the Dish area to test whether natural gas activity is affecting their health.

DSHS spokeswoman Allison Lowery said the department collected the samples from 28 randomly-selected adults last month.

"We're going to be looking at those samples to try to determine if there are elevated levels of vocs -- volatile organic compounds -- and that would include benzene," she said.

Dish, which hosts natural gas compression stations and other natural gas production equipment, is the town that conducted its an air quality study last year. That study prompted the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to study air quality across the Barnett Shale natural gas field, finding elevated levels of benzene in some places.

Lowery said the mayor of Dish, Calvin Tillman, had asked the DSHS to conduct the health study.

The department sent the blood and urine samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for analysis. Results are due in the next week or so, she said. She said the department will notify the study participants of the results and issue a report to the community.

Here's an update on the discussion earlier this week about whether Oncor gave customers enough information about power outages during the snow storm.

Oncor spokesman Chris Schein says it occurs to him that customers don't realize just how dumb the electric grid is.

For example, Oncor might send a truck to fix a power line in a neighborhood, and most of the houses come back online. So the worker leaves for the next job, not realizing that a few houses are still out because of a second problem on the line. Until those customers call Oncor to say they still don't have power, Oncor doesn't know.

That's pretty dumb. And pretty frustrating for people sitting in the dark while the lights go on everywhere else in the neighborhood.

Advanced meters are supposed to address this issue because Oncor will be able to communicate with each meter and with technology along the lines. If there's a problem, Oncor will know which homes are affected, and have an idea of where the problem lies.

Because Oncor has begun to install smart meters, Schein said, techies were able to pull information from databases to help workers identify problem spots during the snow storm. Schein said this saved about 3,000 man hours.

However, Oncor doesn't yet have systems in place to automatically pull such information from the grid. Schein said those systems should be installed next year, making it even easier for Oncor to identify outages.

Meanwhile, the tree trimming problem persists. Schein said some people remain without power because they -- or their neighbors -- refuse to allow Oncor to trim fallen tree limbs from the lines.

Schein said one swell citizen parked his Hummer underneath his tree to prevent Oncor from removing a limb that had caused outages in the neighborhood. Here's the best part: The guy still had power at his own house. He just didn't care if the neighbors froze.

The Sierra Club plans to sue Energy Future Holdings and its power plant unit, Luminant, for air pollution violations at the Big Brown coal-fired power plant.

The environmental advocacy group said the plant, Luminant's oldest coal plant, contributes to ozone in North Texas. The club also accused the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality of looking the other way.

Luminant spokesman Allan Koenig said in a statement the company is in full compliance with all regulations.

"We are in full compliance with all regulatory requirements and remain proud of our environmental record. We believe this claim is legally flawed. The Sierra Club indicated that it looks forward to 'working cooperatively' with us, and we welcome that opportunity just as we have in the past," Koenig said in an email.

Jump for the full press release from the Sierra Club.

The House Energy and Commerce committee today requested information about hydraulic fracturing from eight oilfield services companies. The companies include Halliburton, BJ Services, Schlumberger, Frac Tech Services, Superior Well Services, Universal Well Services, Sanjel Corporation, and Calfrac Well Services.

The move is significant because one of the committee's senior Democrats, Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado, thinks the EPA should regulate the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, which is widely used to create gas wells in the Barnett Shale. Critics like DeGette think that fracking chemicals, including diesel-based fluids, could seep into underground water sources. Her main complaint has been the lack of federal regulation of the practice (it is left up to states to supervise the safety of oil and gas drilling.) In a hat tip to DeGette, the committee's top two Democrats, Chairman Henry Waxman and Rep. Ed Markey, write in a letter today that "there is virtually no federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing."

The committee has apparently been moved by the knowledge that some companies use diesel fuel as part of the cocktail they shoot underground. The big three oilfield services firms -- Halliburton, BJ Services and Schlumberger -- agreed in 2003 to stop using diesel fuel to fracture wells near underground drinking water sources. But the committee asserts that at least two of those three firms "continued to use diesel fuel in their fracturing fluids after signing the 2003 agreement with EPA." The committee's letter (pdf) says little is known about whether other companies, which have grabbed a larger share of the market in recent years, use diesel fuel in their fracturing mix.

Here is what the committee is seeking:

The Committee is requesting the most recent data on the types and quantities of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids with additional information on whether the companies injected these fluids in, near, or below an underground source of drinking water. The Committee also is requesting documents related to any allegations that the hydraulic fracturing caused harm to human health or the environment.

DeGette quickly responded that she welcomes the investigation. "I am particularly troubled by the revelation that companies have been using diesel fuel, apparently in violation of the Memorandum of Agreement with EPA. Natural gas is an important fuel for our energy future, but we must ensure that the way we retrieve natural gas does not endanger drinking water."

Markey, D-Mass., foreshadowed this move one month ago when his committee probed the subject with Fort Worth-based XTO Energy and Irving-based Exxon Mobil. Markey said there was no "conspiracy" to ban hydraulic fracturing, but that Democrats want to make sure it's done safely:

I just want to once again say there is no secret plot here to ban hydraulic fracturing given the fact that there have been 1 million wells I heard that have been drilled using that technique.

Two stories in print today offer hope to the nuclear power industry.

NRG Energy Inc. and CPS Energy said Wednesday they've resolved their differences over funding for two new nuclear power reactors at the South Texas Project. The resolution keeps the project in the running for the federal loan guarantees necessary to finance Texas' first new reactors in decades.

And, according to the Wall Street Journal, a new type of nuclear reactor--smaller than a rail car and one tenth the cost of a big plant--is emerging as a contender to reshape the nation's resurgent nuclear power industry.

Small reactors address some of the problems companies face as they consider building the usual, large reactors: Cost, finding enough cooling water, and the logistics and time it takes to build the massive equipment.

Shrinking reactors, however, doesn't address concerns among some environmentalists about nuclear waste storage and the risk of a terrorist attack on the reactor.

There's an old adage that says if the left and the right are mad at you, you must be doing something right. Maybe that applies to the situation President Barack Obama finds himself in concerning his energy policy.

Texans know that Gov. Rick Perry thinks Washington is using energy and climate-change policies to punish Texas and its dominant fossil-fuel industries. The governor, who is running for reelection on this theme, exploited this idea during his speech Wednesday announcing a lawsuit against the EPA over its greenhouse-gas endangerment finding.

Well, the Greens aren't happy with Obama, either. The New York Times today carries a story with the headline, "Environmentalists cooling on Obama." It cites a list of grievances including the president's support of loan guarantees for new nuclear plants and his embrace of "clean coal" technology.

One of the more interesting quotes comes from Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, who unloaded on clean coal after Obama mentioned it during his State of the Union speech:

"N.R.D.C. knows there is no such thing as 'clean coal,' " Ms. Beinecke wrote in a blog post after the State of the Union address. "Every single step in the coal power cycle is dirty, from the profoundly destructive mountaintop removal mining to the smokestack emissions, which are responsible for 24,000 deaths a year."