In what could be a historic moment in the struggle against climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday confirmed what most people have long suspected but had never been declared as a matter of federal law: carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases constitute a danger to public health and welfare.

The US Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it is seeking public comment on whether to allow a higher level of ethanol to be blended into gasoline.

Growth Energy and more than 50 ethanol manufacturers petitioned the EPA last month to raise the maximum blend level for ethanol in gasoline from 10 percent to as much as 15 percent.

Russian companies, frustrated by slow legal reforms, have abandoned costly projects to produce bioethanol from grain and are instead trying to make the environmentally friendly fuel component from other sources.

US greenhouse gas emissions rose 1.4 percent in 2007, compared to the previous year, the US Environmental Protection Agency reported on Wednesday.

The report also indicates that US emissions of climate-warming gases such as carbon dioxide and methane rose 17.2 percent from 1990 to 2007.

It's corn planting time in the U.S. Plains, and that means Kansas corn farmer Merl "Buck" Rexford is worrying about the weather -- and hoping there is enough water.

Rexford plans to start seeding his 7,000 acres near Meade, Kansas, this week and he is relishing a recent heavy snow storm that dropped several inches of much-needed moisture.

Iran inaugurated its first nuclear fuel manufacturing plant on Thursday and said it had increased its capability to enrich uranium. The developments came a day after the United States said it would participate in talks with Iran and other nations over Tehran

The United States should provide Pakistan with coal-fired technology for electricity generation to cope with its ever-increasing demand for power, which is direly needed for sustainable economic and agriculture growth.

Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf on Tuesday said the government was committed to attract investors in power sector as electricity demand in the next five years will increase to around 36,000MW.

The Obama administration wants to reduce oil consumption, increase renewable energy supplies and cut carbon dioxide emissions in the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation.