The Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee unanimously reported out legislation designed to help alleviate a potential gasoline shortage in Western PA.

The House Finance Committee this week reported out a bill that would lower the debt ceiling of the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project (RACP), which provides state matching funds for economic development and infrastructure projects. Sponsored by House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (Allegheny), House Bill 2175 reduces the state’s borrowing power for capital projects by roughly $3 billion.

The Senate Committee on Agriculture held its first Farm Bill hearing of 2012, which focused on the benefits of energy programs in rural America, as well as strategies to addressing economic development programs for the next Farm Bill.

Testifying before the House Appropriations Committee, the state Public Utility Commission, noted the changes it will be experiencing due to the new Marcellus Shale law.

The state legislature’s “Budget season” officially starts with the Governor’s budget address on February 7. The state still faces difficult financial times, with no easy answers in sight.

President Obama called for clean energy tax credits and a clean energy standard in his annual State of the Union address on January 24. Saying, “I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy,” the president framed the issue in terms of international competition, pledging not to “cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here.” He also announced two initiatives to advance the deployment of clean energy technologies.

The USDA is accepting applications for its Rural Energy for America Program. The program is designed to help agricultural producers and rural small businesses reduce energy consumption and costs. While it is not specifically designed to benefit biorefining operations, biodiesel plants and other biorefinery operations that fit the definition of a rural small business under […]

The U.S. biodiesel industry reached a key milestone by producing more than 1 billion gallons of fuel in 2011, according to year-end numbers released by the EPA on Friday.

House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) has circulated a co-sponsorship memo outlining his plans to introduce legislation to “completely reform” the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project (RACP) grant program.

Last week the US District Court for the District of Columbia vacated and remanded EPA’s indefinite stay of its controversial boiler and incinerator air rules, after finding the agency failed to adequately justify the delay. The ruling is seen as a victory for activists, despite the fact that EPA is slated to amend the rules in April, well before they take effect as early as 2014.