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Last year Mr Gore's venture capital firm loaned a small California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology. The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts. (snip) Mr Gore had said that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is. "Do you think there is something wrong...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. climate legislation would hike gasoline prices about 13 cents a gallon as oil companies push the price of carbon permits on to consumers, according to report by Point Carbon, an independent consulting company that tracks global carbon and energy markets. Point Carbon analyst Emilie Mazzacurati said oil companies would face substantial carbon permit costs under the legislation because they would get few of the permits the government would distribute to companies during the first years of a cap-and-trade program. But that should not hurt integrated oil companies very much, she said, because they could largely...

Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer tried to extend an olive branch to Republicans on climate change Monday evening, extending a deadline for them to offer amendments to her global warming legislation. But even as she made new advances, Boxer (D-Calif.) vowed to continue with her controversial mark-up, with or without GOP support. “Right now it is essential we keep the process moving forward and that’s what we’ll do,” said Boxer. The seven Republicans on the committee plan to boycott a Tuesday legislative hearing about the bill unless Boxer agrees to wait for additional economic analysis of the bill....

There's something the Democratic lawmakers who are pushing cap-and-trade legislation don't want the public to know. The controversial climate-change legislation winding its way through Congress will impose a massive new national gas tax on the American people. We discovered this by analyzing what the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill would do to gas prices and what Americans spend on gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. We found that cap-and-trade legislation will levy a $3.6 trillion gas-tax increase that will impact every American and important segments of our economy. Americans travel more than 200 million vehicle miles each month, and annually we spend nearly...