WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate may vote on bills this month to promote clean energy and small nuclear reactors, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Tuesday.

Congress and the White House are under pressure to fight soaring fuel costs, which are cutting into consumer spending and threatening an economic recovery.

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama has
a suite of regulatory options for trying to reduce gasoline
costs this summer, a time when American angst over $4-plus pump
prices is likely to hit fever pitch.

Releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is
probably the easiest to do, but Obama said the stockpile should
be used for supply disruptions and not to set prices.

WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) – U.S. highway travel driven
rose 0.9 percent in February from a year earlier, indicating
that Americans drivers did not to curb their travel habits
despite rising pump prices.

Data released by the U.S. Transportation Department on
Wednesday showed that U.S. vehicle miles rose for the 12th
month in a row, even though gasoline prices jumped 28 cents a
gallon during February and 57 cents from a year earlier and
severe winter storms kept drivers off the roads in some
states.

WASHINGTON, April 18 (Reuters) – The U.S. government will
issue new natural gas pipeline safety rules this summer in
hopes of reducing fatal accidents, which have more than doubled
since 2008, a regulator said on Monday.

The death toll from pipeline safety accidents rose from 9
in 2008 to 13 in 2009 and reached 22 last year, said
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Case-by-case regulation of offshore oil drilling is better than the one-size-fits-all approach favored by the United States, energy officials at an international oil spill conference said on Thursday.

Countries such as Britain and Norway have adopted regulatory regimes that ask companies to outline their plans to deal with the unique risks associated with each well they drill. Those governments then approve and enforce such plans.

WASHINGTON, April 14 (Reuters) – A top U.S. official said
on Thursday they were concerned about Cuba opening its offshore
waters to oil drilling, while Mexico, which has a boundary
dispute with the island nation, said the three countries should
try to work out differences.

“For us it is an issue of concern,” said U.S. Interior
Secretary Ken Salazar about drilling in Cuban waters.
“Obviously, because it’s located 60 miles off the coast of
Florida … it’s an issue that we’re monitoring carefully.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday pushed a trio of bills through a congressional committee that would boost U.S. offshore oil drilling and ease some regulations on oil companies.

Republicans said the bills would reverse the Obama administration energy policy of the last two years that they claimed has reduced domestic oil production and made the United States more reliant on foreign suppliers and vulnerable to oil price spikes.

WASHINGTON, April 12 (Reuters) – High petroleum prices will
cut into global oil demand but not until next year, the U.S.
government’s energy forecasting agency said on Tuesday.

Demand over the next two years will still be strong enough
to result in “an expected drawdown of global petroleum stocks
and a call for increasing production from OPEC member
countries,” the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in
its monthly forecast.

WASHINGTON, April 12 (Reuters) – High petroleum prices will
cut into global oil demand but not until next year, the U.S.
government’s energy forecasting agency said on Tuesday.

Demand over the next two years will still be strong enough
to result in “an expected drawdown of global petroleum stocks
and a call for increasing production from OPEC member
countries,” the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in
its monthly forecast.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Southern Co passed the environmental review for the two nuclear reactors it wants to build at its Vogtle nuclear station in Georgia. the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Friday, suggesting Japan’s crisis is not slowing the U.S. nuclear industry.

The NRC must still vote on issuing the license.

The agency’s final environmental impact statement on Southern’s reactors comes as some lawmakers call for a delay in approving new U.S. nuclear power plants in response to the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power station.