The EPA rolled out a website (ghgdata.epa.gov) that lets anyone take a look at how much greenhouse gas pollution is being emitted from power plants and other large industries. (Try it here.) Viewers can click on a map and zoom in to see icons showing individual plants, with information about how much greenhouse gases each one puts out.

The website is designed to be easy to search and sort out. It also has links to Facebook and Twitter, so people can share the information they find. Companies have been required by law to report this information to the EPA for several years. The new tool just makes it easier for the public to get the information.

The site covers power plants, industries, landfills, and large government and commercial operations. The EPA says that adds up to about 80 percent of the nation's emissions.

The EPA chief of air issues, Gina McCarthy, said the EPA hasn't drawn up any proposal yet for standards for existing power plants, which produce most of the emissions. So far it only has a proposal for greenhouse gas standards at new plants, and it hasn't made it public yet because it's still under review at the White House.

NOAA today released its draft study of what offshore oil and gas activities in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas north of Alaska will mean for marine mammals. Find a link to the report and information about it, including how to comment on it, are here (along with some of the agency's whale and seal photos from the Arctic). NOAA says the study will contribute to the decision-making at the Department of Interior about issuing permits for seismic studies. 

Still no compromise on an extension of the Social Security payroll tax break as of late afternoon Friday.

The problem is a dispute over the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that would extend 1,700 miles western Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast. It would bring oil from oil sands in Canada to the U.S. President Barack Obama wants to delay a decision until 2013. Republicans want a ruling far more quickly,and want to include an expedited review in the payroll tax legislation.

Their position was firm Friday. "Frankly, I will not be able to support a package that doesn't include the pipeline," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

"I think this is something we could all be proud of here at the end of the year, demonstrating to the American people that we can work together, not only to help those who are struggling through a continuation of the payroll tax holiday and an unemployment benefits package, but also create jobs at the same time in the private sector without a penny of the federal government's money by moving this pipeline along."

Democrats were huddling on how to proceed; Republicans were meeting separately. Some sort of accord is still expected, perhaps as soon as Friday night.

House Republicans today put a policy measure in the spending bill that would ban the Department of Energy from enforcing efficiency standards for light bulbs.

Why? It's a topic that has come up year after year, apparently based on the mistaken idea that the standards ban the traditional light bulb. In fact, there's no ban, and improved incandescent bulbs are for sale everywhere, along with many other even more efficient types of bulbs.

Congress passed the lighting standards in 2007 and President George W. Bush signed them into law. The standards didn't say what kinds of bulbs had to be made and sold. The big lighting companies made more efficient incandescent bulbs with the same look and light as the old bulbs, but less heat. They also last longer and use less energy, saving money.

Republicans for Environmental Responsibility said in a statement today that Congress should get over what the group called its "light bulb obsession." "Blocking the standards would be a slap in the face to lighting manufacturers who in good faith invested millions to produce better lighting that helps Americans reduce their energy bills and keeps harmful pollutants out of the air."

The Navy today announced its making the biggest purchase of biofuels by the government to date. It’s for 450,000 gallons made from waste cooking oils from Dynamic Fuels in Louisiana and algae from Solazyme in California.

The total cost is $12 million, which works out to $26 a gallon.

The Navy plans to use it for surface ships and aircraft in a demonstration exercise next summer off Hawaii. “It’s half of what we were paying this time last year. It shows that as the market develops, you’re going to see see costs come down,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said on a conference call with reporters.

Mabus said the purchase is just a step but argued it’s an important one for reducing oil dependence and the budget shocks that come with buying oil from volatile places. He's been pushing for a few years for the military to create an early market for biofuels (previous story here).

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters that another thing to consider in the cost-benefit analysis is the potential market for the commercial aviation industry at about 13 billion gallons of fuel a year. Vilsack said there’s a big opportunity for jobs in the future if the U.S. could supply its own non-petroleum fuel for commercial aviation and the military.

The Department of Defense budget for what it calls “energy security initiatives” has gone up to $1.2 billion. Biofuels are one of its top three programs, along with developing more fuel-efficient vehicles and adding energy efficiency and renewable energy at military bases and forward operating bases.

The White House today announced a plan to spend $2 billion to upgrade federal buildings to save energy. It says long-term energy savings will pay for the upfront costs and that there will be no cost to taxpayers. Also today, 60 CEOs, mayors and university officials announced they'll spend an additional $2 billion in private investment for energy upgrades.

A release from the White House says these efficiency improvements will "create tens of thousands of jobs in the hard-hit construction sector." It comes on the day that the latest jobs report shows hiring picked up in November and the unemployment rate is now 8.6 percent.

“America has a choice to make today: Are we going to be importers or exporters of solar technologies?," Chu said (text of his remarks is here). "We can accept defeat and watch the solar jobs go to China, Germany and other countries, or we can get in the game and play to win, creating jobs in Colorado and across the country.”

It was the same message Chu tried to deliver in a hearing in Congress yesterday: The clean energy industry will grow by hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and the U.S. should move fast in a "fierce global race to capture this market." Republican congressional investigators, however, wanted to grill him about his role in one government renewable energy investment gone bad, the $535 million loan to the now-bankrupt solar company Solyndra.

The State Department's inspector general has agreed to investigate how the agency handled an environmental impact statement for the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada's oil sands to the Texas Gulf Coast.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, requested the investigation. Sanders announced the decision today.

TransCanada Corp., the company that wants to build the $7 billion pipeline, suggested several companies that could help write the environmental impact study. The State Department chose one of them. That consulting company, Entrix, has said that TransCanada is one of its clients.

The environmental review Entrix (now Cardno Entrix) produced found no significant environmental issues. Opponents say the nearly 1,700-mile pipeline would bring risks of spills to the American heartland and increase dependence on a form of oil with relatively high greenhouse gas emissions.

A group protesting a planned oil pipeline across the U.S. got the president's attention today, interupting a speech he was giving on making college more affordable. Obama acknowledged the protest and said their concerns would be addressed.

Obama was addressing the students at the University of Colorado when shouting was heard. The official White House transcript has Obama speaking and an unidentified "audience member" shouting "...Mother Earth -- backs of our children and our future.."

"All right, thank you, guys,"Obama said, acknowledging the dispruption. "We’re looking at it right now, all right? No decision has been made. And I know your deep concern about it. So we will address it."

The protestors held aloft a 5-ft banner reading: "Stop the Keystone Pipeline Project." They were asked to leave the event and did so without objection.

A dozen congressional Democrats today asked the State Department's Office of Inspector General to investigate what it says is "possible illegality and abuse of authority" by the agency in its review of the proposal.

The White House says today that the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness will meet in Oregon and Texas next week in two public sessions leading up to Preisdent Barack Obama's rollout of his new jobs agenda shortly after Labor Day.