For most of the past year, environmentalists have had the same lament. Politicians are hyper-focused on health care to the point that any progress on climate-change legislation has been slowed to a halt.

I have been one to agree. Sure, the House passed a cap-and-trade bill last year and there were some rumblings in the Senate of a bipartisan deal at the time of Copenhagen, but the buzz quickly faded. On the heels of a watered-down deal from Copenhagen, the climate change effort was all but flat-lined as scientific research was attacked as false.

But with spring comes new hope and it has arrived again with climate change legislation. As health care nears toward an endgame, President Obama added some life into the climate change effort by inviting 14 senators to the White House for a meeting on a  possible bipartisan deal. This runs contrary to the approach in health-care, when the president let Congress take the reins for awhile before he eventually stepped in to try to control the debate.

The bipartisan effort also came with Obama putting forth Republican ideas such as nuclear power and off-shore drilling (which aren’t great for the environment). It seems likely that those ideas will be included in the bill. It took far longer in the health-care debate for the president to give in on some GOP demands.

Other ideas that were bandied about include capping emissions and auctioning off “emission” credits, of which the proceeds may be returned to taxpayers. It will not be easy and any regulations might not go into effect for 5 years (which could be too late for the environment). Also, senators with states that rely on coal or oil will try to obstruct this bill, but there is talk and hopefully there will be movement.

The UK Met Office says the case for climate change is stronger now than it was 3 years ago (BBC).  Meanwhile, the scientist at the center of Climategate faced questioning in Britain last week (BBC), and this L.A. Times article argues that the media has played a role in driving climate change skepticism.  The New York Times says climate scientists are defending their work.

Congress continues to be wary of EPA regulation of greenhouse gases (Washington Post), while two Texas-based refineries are helping bankroll an effort to suspend a California emissions law (L.A. Times).

Four Democratic senators argue that too much wind project stimulus money is going overseas (Washington Post).  Under the sea, methane release is increasing (NY Times).

Climate change has become intermingled with evolution in some state education policy debates (NY Times).

Economic recovery and environmental issues clash in Thailand (BBC).

The L.A. Unified School District strives to be the greenest in the country (LA Times).

Venture capitalists are investing in green projects (Boston Globe).

Rhode Island looks at revamping the Coastal Resources Management Council (Providence Journal).

Studies are showing that range anxiety for electric cars may not be as big a problem as feared (MSNBC).

Reusable “carebags” are a great alternative to disposable produce or bulk food bags.

Regulation is a 4-letter word in many circles, and a number of people are calling for the EPA in particular to keep its nose out of the regulation business.  Only problem with that is the EPA is already significantly hamstrung, at least with regulating waterways.  This New York Times article from Monday explains that possibly 45 percent of major polluters are out of the EPA’s reach, and possibly 117 million Americans get drinking water from vulnerable waterways.

The uncertainty is because of how courts have construed the Clean Water Act, which gives the EPA authority over “navigable waterways.”  Alas, navigable is very much subject to interpretation, and to date that interpretation has been pretty narrow.  In some instances, tributaries and the like may be exluded even if they feed into a major waterway.

And the other key point in the article is that companies and others are deciding it makes more sense for them to just pollute.  And they fight hard for that right.  Regulation may be a dirty word, but take it away and you just might get a dirtier world.

If you read this space regularly, you know the case for wind power: Companies are for it and the technology is already at a point where turbines just need to be installed for us to harvest energy from them. But a pair of Wall Street Journal articles that popped up this week make the case that the industry might have more troubles than just finding places to erect the turbines.

The first talks about the noise these turbines produce:

Complaints about sleep disruption—as well as the deleterious health effects caused by the pulsing, low-frequency noise emitted by the giant turbines—are a central element of an emerging citizen backlash against the booming global wind industry.

The article goes on to describe how groups of people are being kept up by the turbine noise and there are already lawsuits filed in a bevy of states against wind-energy companies. These turbines are being built in rural areas, but it makes you wonder if they might be better off being erected in uber-urban areas. While this seems like a crazy idea, if there is a constant noise, it would likely just blend in to the rest of the constant noises in the city. For example the pin dropped in a rural area is more likely to be heard from someone 100 yards away than the pin dropped in an urban area will be heard from someone 10 yards away. I’m unsure if the power generated would constitute as much as it currently does, but if you’ve ever visited Chicago or Boston you know there is a generous amount of wind there.

The second article details the war wind energy is having with natural gas companies in Texas - once seemingly friendly companies, they’re now fighting for a share of the energy company.

The Texas wind figure is expected to double by 2013 as more transmission lines are built. In the past three years, wind has come to provide 6% of the Lone Star State’s power, up from 2%. Gas’s share has dropped to 42% from 46%.

This is hardly surprising, but it means the time of treating wind energy like the crazy uncle nobody pays attention to is over. And perhaps that’s a good thing. Renewable energy is no longer a niche product - we’ll be better off because of it.

Al Gore’s been a punching bag for climate change skeptics, but he hits back in this New York Times op-ed.  The Times also has this Thomas Friedman column about Lindsey Graham’s efforts on the climate bill, the latest version of which may see the elimination of cap-and-trade (Washington Post).  Meanwhile, the EPA plans to move forward with regulating emissions (Washington Post), while smog testing in California is rife with fraud (LA Times).

A new independent board will review the work of the UN climate panel (NY Times).

A new report says that whaling releases large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere (BBC).  The BBC also has this story about a large iceberg that broke off from Antarctica and may threaten marine life, and this one about a patch of plastic debris in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Vancouver Olympics have been green (LA Times), but as they come to a close, environmentalists are raising the alarm about Russia’s preparation for 2014 (MSNBC).

Wal-Mart wants its suppliers to cut their emissions (MSNBC).  Meanwhile, Massachusetts thinks Wal-Mart and Lowe’s should be incorporating more energy-savings features into new stores planned in Salem (Boston Globe).

Utah doesn’t want the federal government designating any more land as a national monument (MSNBC).

Green ways of keeping your home cool involve insulating, reflecting and shading.

President Obama has recently touted nuclear power as a way boosting our energy supply and reducing dependence on foreign sources.  So it will be interesting to see what effect, if any, there is from the Vermont’s Senate’s vote to close the Vermont Yankee plant.  Vermont Yankee’s been plagued recently by tritium leaks, the collapse of a cooling tower, and misleading testimony by the plant’s owner.  And unless the House votes to keep it open and the Senate reverses itself, the plant will have to close by 2012.

What’s also interesting is the article mentions how the Nuclear Regulatory Council has favored extending the plant’s license for another 20 years, highlighting federal-state disagreement on energy issues, disagreements which go beyond nuclear power.  It’s happening now in West Virginia with mountaintop mining, and in other places with coal and petroleum interests.  And as I mentioned in the links recently, Virgina has sued to keep the EPA from regulating emissions limits.  Other states may follow.  Add in a burgeoning anti-federal government movement, and it’s clear that developing a coherent national energy policy is extremely challenging.

Standing up to the feds is sure to score points at the state level.  But emissions regulation and renewable energy just might be stood up too.

Following a “60 Minutes” piece last week, promoters of new technology called the Bloom Box, will unveil their latest technology today. It’s basically a box that can be placed in your front yard to power your house. Sounds great and revolutionary, but will it help the environment?

A San Francisco Chronicle blog looks at that question with skepticism:

It’s not the Holy Grail of clean energy: It eliminates combustion, which is great, but it will only be as clean as the fuel it runs on. And if use becomes as widespread as its inventors hope, the boom in deforestation to produce biofuels for the boxes could be catastrophic. And, if the boxes don’t last for a long time, they will wind up as that much more toxic material into landfills.

Right now these boxes are huge (they power 100 houses) and expensive (they cost $700,000) but they eventually will cost $3,000 and just power your house. It’s a leap forward in technology that has been tinkered with for at least a century. And it’s the start of something that could eventually be developed into eco-friendly electricity.

It comes on the heels of last week’s proposed step ahead in nuclear waste recycling, which also came from the private sector. This means that despite the world’s governments dropping the ball in last year’s Copenhagen conference - and despite climate change naysayers pointing to weather to prove they’re correct - we still have smart, motivated people actively working to help stop climate change and solve the energy problem.

The EPA announced a $475 million plan to clean up the Great Lakes (LA Times).  Also in the Times, this article says saving the Amazon rain forest may be a cost-effecitve way of reducing emissions.

This BBC blog posting looks at the resignation of the UN’s top climate official (also see this MSNBC article and this New York Times article).  This Washington Post article says the Copenhagen agreement is already at risk of collapsing.

Last Monday, this Washington Post article said action on climate change has been hindered by UN scientists’ missteps.  This L.A. Times article says clean energy investments are being hindered by political uncertainty.

Military bases have become more proactive in protecting endangered species (NY Times).

A new study says, because of warming, hurricanes are expected to be fewer but stronger in the coming years (MSNBC).

Virginia has challenged the EPA’s finding about the dangers of greenhouse emissions (Washington Post).

The feds are looking to streamline offshore wind power development in the Northeast (Providence Journal).  Meanwhile, Wyoming continues to debate taxing wind energy (NY Times).

And finally, U2’s The Edge has run into some controversy over a proposed house on the California coast (NY Times).