Wonk Wire notes a big victory in Nebraska for opponents of the pipeline.

“More than two dozen of the nation’s biggest corporations, including the five major oil companies, are planning their future growth on the expectation that the government will force them to pay a price for carbon pollution as a way to control global warming,” the New York Times reports.

” The development is a striking departure from conservative orthodoxy and a reflection of growing divisions between the Republican Party and its business supporters.”

“Forget the high-stakes showdown over a spending bill to keep the federal government from shutting down,” USA Today
reports.

“When it comes to political dysfunction of this Congress,
Exhibit A is unfolding in the Senate over a modest, bipartisan
energy-efficiency bill. Sponsored by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) the
legislation has become entangled in a nasty debate over completely
unrelated issues — including ‘Obamacare’ and prostitution allegations.
The spat has even sparked an ethics complaint raising allegations of
bribery and intimidation.”

A new National Journal Poll finds that 67% of Americans support building the Keystone XL pipeline to carry Canadian oil to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast; that includes 56% of Democrats. Just 24% oppose the project.

Grist: “A study out Monday in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined attitudes about energy efficiency in liberals and conservatives, and found that promoting energy-efficient products and services on the basis of their environmental benefits actually turned conservatives off from picking them.”

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) claimed the University of Maine is trying to trick people into thinking that windmills are working, the Bangor Daily News reports.

Said LePage: “Guess what, if it’s not blowing wind outside and they have somebody visiting the campus, they have a little electric motor that turns the blades. I’m serious. They have an electric motor so they can show people that wind power works. Unbelievable. And that’s the government that you have here in the state of Maine,”

A university spokesman says that when there’s no wind the turbines don’t spin at all.

President Obama will nominate EPA air chief Gina McCarthy as the agency’s next administrator and MIT physicist Ernest Moniz to take over the Energy Department, Politico reports.

“The long-anticipated announcements will place McCarthy and Moniz in crucial roles in Obama’s agenda to tackle climate change while building an economy based on green energy, yet taking advantage of a boom in domestic production of oil and natural gas.”

Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is the leading candidate to replace Steven Chu as energy secretary in President Obama’s second term, Bloomberg reports.