A new report by the U.S. Interior Department's inspector general points to a "profound failure" of the technology that the Minerals Management Service uses to monitor the roughly $10 billion in oil and gas royalty payments from energy companies each year. But it's not just the technology. Higher-ups in the agency apparently decided that even after catching oil companies underpaying by over $1 million, it would impose too much of a "hardship" on the companies to require them to calculate the royalties owed, despite the fact that MMS' own computers weren't capable of making the necessary calculations. The report was …

As an undergrad at Brown University and a veteran organizer with the Sierra Student Coalition, Nathan Wyeth has his ear to the ground on campus sustainability issues. In this occasional column for Grist, Wyeth will report on what's afoot at the campus grassroots level and how he and his fellow students are making their voices heard. ----- A debate has been swirling on Gristmill for the past few weeks over the role of voluntary actions versus government policy in solving climate change specifically, and environmental problems generally. I'd like to stir this pot further and add another ingredient -- what …

Take that, housing market: Solar-powered homes in California are outshining the competition.

Many corporations are recognizing the impact of climate change on business as usual, and in response are disclosing and working to mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions, says a new report from the nonprofit Carbon Disclosure Project. The group's fifth annual survey of the world's 500 largest companies boasted a 75 percent response rate; of those, 80 percent of businesses found climate change to present a commercial risk, 82 percent recognized increased commercial opportunities, and 76 percent said they had implemented programs to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. While the responses aren't independently verified and should be taken with a grain of salt, the numbers …

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe. ----- We have just published the American paperback version of Capitalism As If the World Matters. The book is written by Jonathon Porritt, one of the foremost environmentalists of his generation and cofounder of my organization, Forum for the Future. The foreword is by Amory Lovins. As well as working with us, Jonathon is chair of the U.K. Government's Sustainable Development Commission. Previously, he was director of Friends of the Earth. In the book, he tackles the most …

Unrelenting in its quest for eco-domination, Wal-Mart has announced a plan to keep tabs on some suppliers' energy efficiency. Through a partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project, Wal-Mart will request emissions data from about 30 companies that collectively supply DVDs, toothpaste, soap, milk, beer, vacuum cleaners, and soft drinks. (Sure they're all commonly used, but -- random, anyone?) The project is very much a wee first step, as Wal-Mart has about 68,000 suppliers; the company has not yet determined whether it will use the information gleaned to actually demand that suppliers reduce emissions.

Joel Makower's got a good round-up of new green financial services -- mortgages, loans, etc. The holy grail of green financing tools, far as I know, is "Connie Mae," Al Gore's proposed carbon-neutral equivalent to Fannie Mae.

Lehman Brothers has just released a terrific report, "The Business of Climate Change II." The theme is, "Policy is accelerating, with major implications for companies and investors"; but the piece has a lot of breadth, with cogent comments on everything from the social/damage cost of carbon, to auctioning vs. grandfathering, to the Stern Report. Here are some extended excerpts: What are the chances for a global climate agreement? The probability of some sort of international greenhouse-gas-limiting agreement in the next three to five years involving the US, China, and perhaps India, which earlier this year we put at 50%, will …

Greenpeace has released the fifth version of its Guide to Greener Electronics, and lauds the tech industry for making "great improvements" since the first scorecard hit the scene in August 2006. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Dell took the top three spots this time around; Apple, the CEO of which was rankled by his company's dead-last ranking in April, is now solidly tied with Hewlett-Packard for second-to-last, ahead of Panasonic. The report, released yesterday, noted that HP is "in free fall" on the list; also yesterday, coincidentally, HP launched an effort to improve e-waste recycling in Africa. sources:

Candace Heckman, writing for the Seattle P-I Big Blog, put up a brief post about the protest yesterday by Duff Badgley and his rag-tag group against local biodiesel-refiner Imperium Renewables. Imperium is getting downright defensive: Imperium spokesman John Williams said this afternoon that the company is actively looking at "feedstocks" other than palm oil, and that for the next year-and-a-half, the City of Seattle would not be buying biodiesel made from palm. This blog post "makes it sound like at some point we might sell palm biodiesel to the city. We haven't, we don't and we won't." Get the violins …