Environmental Issues: Petroleum

Shell dropped its plans to drill offshore oil wells in the Alaskan Arctic in 2011 after its clean-air permits were revoked, forcing the company to delay its offshore drilling operation until at least 2012.

That oil spills are bad for the environment is a universal truth, but what makes them so bad? How do oil spills damage the environment, and how long do those damaging effects last?

Detailed information about international petroleum resources from the Energy Information Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Statistics, maps and graphics showing facts and figures about petroleum production and other energy issues for many different countries worldwide.

Detailed information about the production, use and costs of oil and other petroleum products.

Oil companies are getting billions of dollars in federal oil subsidies while posting record profits. Ending federal oil subsidies would free up billions for reinvestment in the environment and the economy. Is it time to end federal oil subsidies?

The U.S. Senate failed to pass a bill that would have ended billions of dollars in federal government subsidies and tax breaks for the five largest oil companies, even though a majority of Americans and senators supported the measure. Are oil subsidies and tax breaks really necessary?

Hundreds of environmental and climate activists, including NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen, have been arrested outside the White House for protesting the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would carry oil nearly 2,000 miles across the United States, from the tar sands fields of Alberta, Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

President Obama's move to open offshore drilling sites and take environmental shortcuts to expedite U.S. oil production won't lower gasoline prices or decrease American dependence on foreign oil.

President Barack Obama rejected TransCanada's application for a permit to build the $7 billion Keystone XL Pipeline from the tar sands oil fields of Canada to U.S. refineries along the Gulf of Mexico.