The House Resources Committee is expected to vote this week to revive the White House energy bill calling for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Last week, the state of California filed suit against the Bush administration contesting federal plans to significantly expand logging throughout national forests in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Several states have joined California in lobbying Congress to let states make their own rules regulating which automobiles get access to high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes. If Congress agrees, the upshot would be that drivers of gas-electric hybrids could access HOV lanes with or without passengers from coast to coast.

Something strange is going on in the mind of Michael Crichton. His new bestseller <I>State of Fear</I>, a bewildering piece of work unlike any of his previous novels, makes the case that climate change is nothing to worry about. The villains of this story are not the mad scientists and reckless corporations that usually populate the Crichton universe (see <I>Jurassic Park</I>, <I>Timeline</I> and <I>Prey</I>). This time the bad guys are a bunch of scare-mongering environmentalists.

An international task force of business leaders, scientists and politicians has released a report predicting dire environmental consequences if the leading industrial nations of the world don’t work quickly to combat global warming.

In an effort to help commuters traveling short distances while reducing smog in urban areas, China is ushering in a new generation of plug-in electric vehicles powered by cutting edge batteries. Long ago abandoned by U.S. automakers due to short ranges and difficult cold starts, plug-in electric vehicles are all the rage in China today, especially for those formerly reliant on bicycles to get around or unable to afford gasoline for internal combustion cars.