WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate resoundingly approved on Friday expanded sanctions on global trade with Iran’s energy and shipping sectors, its latest effort to ratchet up economic pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program.

The new package, which keeps in place exemptions for countries that have made significant cuts to their purchases of Iranian crude oil, would be the third round of sanctions in a year if passed into law.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials were surprised that BP Plc suggested an agreement would soon be ready to lift a suspension imposed this week on the company’s obtaining new federal contracts, a government source said on Thursday.

“It caught us off guard,” the source said. “It’s not the case that there is an administrative agreement that is ready to go out the door right now,” the source said, adding that any administrative agreement will only be part of a several-step process that could take months.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials were surprised that BP Plc suggested an agreement would soon be ready to lift a suspension imposed this week on the company’s obtaining new federal contracts, a government source said on Thursday.

“It caught us off guard,” the source said. “It’s not the case that there is an administrative agreement that is ready to go out the door right now,” the source said, adding that any administrative agreement will only be part of a several-step process that could take months.

WASHINGTON, Nov 29 (Reuters) – A group of Democratic
senators on Thursday will urge the Obama administration to
propose rules to cut smog-forming emissions from gasoline,
regulations opposed by many Republicans.

The lawmakers, led by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New
York, want the Environmental Protection Agency to propose rules
that would slash the sulfur content in gasoline this year and to
finalize them next year.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government banned BP Plc from new federal contracts on Wednesday over its “lack of business integrity” in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, a move that could imperil the British energy giant’s U.S. footing.

The suspension, announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, comes on the heels of BP’s November 15 agreement with the U.S. government to plead guilty to criminal misconduct in the Gulf of Mexico disaster, the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion in penalties, including a record $1.256 billion criminal fine.

WASHINGTON, Nov 28 (Reuters) – The U.S. government banned BP
Plc from new federal contracts on Wednesday over its
“lack of business integrity” in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
in 2010, a move that could imperil the British energy giant’s
U.S. footing.

The suspension, announced by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, comes on the heels of BP’s Nov. 15 agreement
with the U.S. government to plead guilty to criminal misconduct
in the Gulf of Mexico disaster, the worst offshore oil spill in
U.S. history. BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion in penalties,
including a record $1.256 billion criminal fine.

WASHINGTON, Nov 16 (Reuters) – The United States on Friday
upheld its program to turn a large share of the corn crop into
ethanol for motor fuel, saying it did not cause undue economic
harm despite steep competition for depleted U.S. grain supplies
after the worst drought in 50 years.

In August, as the drought seared the Midwest, the governors
of several livestock producing states including Georgia and New
Mexico asked the Environmental Protection Agency to suspend the
ethanol mandate. They said it pushed up prices for feed grain
and squeezed producers’ profits.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. droughts, floods and heat waves likely fueled by climate change in the last two years hit the people who can afford it the least – the poor and middle class, a report published on Friday said.

In affected areas of U.S. states hit by five or more extreme weather events in the last two years, the median annual household income was a bit over $48,000, or 7 percent below the national median, according to the report by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with close ties to the White House.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. droughts, floods and heat waves likely fueled by climate change in the last two years hit the people who can afford it the least – the poor and middle class, a report published on Friday said.

In affected areas of U.S. states hit by five or more extreme weather events in the last two years, the median annual household income was a bit over $48,000, or 7 percent below the national median, according to the report by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with close ties to the White House.

WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) – As President Barack Obama
faces a decision on whether to approve the Alberta-to-Texas
Keystone XL pipeline, a study said Canadian oil sands release
more planet-warming gases compared to other crudes than
originally thought.

Oil sands refined in the United States released 9 percent
more greenhouse gases last year than the average of other crudes
processed in the country, according to the study released
Wednesday by IHS CERA, an energy research group.