Congressional Democrats decided to stop being polite and start being real about the Keystone XL approval process. Twenty representatives had already petitioned Secretary of State Clinton to look into the issue, and now 14 members of Congress are calling for the State Department's inspector general to investigate. Given that at least some of the problem seems to come from inside the State Department, this is a little peculiar -- they're asking the IG to look into whether the relationship between State and TransCanada was too close for regulatory comfort. They're also requesting a re-review of the environmental analysis, which has been …

A group of senators asked the State Department inspector general to investigate improper influence on the Keystone XL decision. After Keystone XL protesters pushed Obama on the issue during a Colorado speech, the president said, "We're looking at it right now, all right? No decision has been made." Getting to Amsterdam-style bike nirvana requires more than just bike lanes. Laws, regulations, and enforcement all contribute. The Department of Interior is still investigating polar bear scientists and wants one to take a polygraph. We won't give the planet to the apes, but we're willing to hand over a few Indonesian islands.

Trick question: They basically all pay for themselves in the long run! But a new infographic from One Block Off the Grid helps you choose home energy improvement projects based on up-front cost and how long they'll take to start paying you back. The quickest payback is a smart thermostat, with a payback time of seven months -- but that one will only save you $3,600 over 20 years. By contrast, you could save $60,000 by switching to geothermal power, but it'll cost you $3,000 up front and take 10 years to pay off. 

The Occupy Design group on Flickr has a lot of arresting images, including this one about oil company profits and subsidies. If you're not angry already, clicking through this set will probably help with that -- and then you can print out one of these designs, paste it on a sign, and go get tear gassed.

Every year, the U.S. forgoes 8,500 megawatts of electricity because operating our hydro power facilities at full capacity would turn an unacceptable number of migratory fish into Li'l Lisa Slurry. (That's the equivalent of almost nine nuclear reactors' worth of lost baseload power.) So scientists and utilities are understandably pumped about the Alden Fish-Friendly Turbine, which has been in development since 1995, supported by grants from the Department of Energy. An initial trial of the turbine yielded a nearly 100 percent survival rate for “nearly 40,000 species of fish." (We were not aware there were that many species in North …

Climate Scientist Eric Steig's reaction to the announcement that former climate skeptic Richard Muller recently confirmed that the earth is in fact warming is perhaps best captured by this classic XKCD comic. As Steig put it at RealClimate: As far as the basic science goes, the results could not have been less surprising if the press release had said “Man Finds Sun Rises At Dawn.” He continues… Muller says that “the biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warming values published previously by other teams in the U.S. and the U.K..” We find this very …

Rick Perry's not even gonna pretend he's interested in alternative energy -- not even to wave his hands at ethanol for an ad that's running in Iowa. That's just not who he is, man! He's keeping it real. Ice cream. No, Perry's plan, as described by Perry, goes pretty much like this: Remove environmental regulations that would require him to not completely destroy everything. Rip up every possible part of American land and sea in order to claw out the last shreds of oil and gas. Mock the next Democratic president when he says the smoking wreckage wasn't his fault. …

Humanity spends a lot of time on the internet. Too much, probably. And every little Google search, Facebook message, and tweet uses some energy. All that Hulu uses a lot more. It's been clear that energy going to internet use is growing, but how does it compare to total energy use? If we really want to become sustainable, are we going to have to stop playing so much Words With Friends? Well, maybe. But at least now we know that the internet accounts for less than 2 percent of the world's total energy use. That's still a pretty big amount. …

This is the honest-to-god title of the video above as posted to Rep. Ed Markey's official YouTube account, and also the news release on his website: "Oct. 25, 2011: GOP Farm Dust Bill A Waste of Time Cooked Up in Fantasy-Land." Guys, he is awesome. Is it weird if he reminds me of Alan Alda? Mainly just the delivery. Rep. Markey is clearly bowled over by the absurdity of Republican attempts to counter imaginary "farm dust" regulations. But rather than go all spluttery, he goes all Snopes.com, pointing to the parable of the email tax to explain how ridiculously Congressional Republicans …

Do you wish you could bike more, but you can't bear the thought of going your whole commute without flashing high-end labels? Okay, probably not, but if you were we'd have a solution for you. Kate Spade, Missoni, and Ralph Lauren have all launched designer bikes this year. According to the rules of a New York Times trend piece, three is officially a trend, so we're calling it: Fashion label bikes are the new hot thing. The designers don't have anything to do with the structure of the bikes, of course -- those are manufactured by established bike fabricators. But …