DENVER (AP) — Most methane sources contributing to a puzzling concentration of the greenhouse gas over the Southwestern United States appear to be natural gas production facilities, scientists said Monday. Researchers identified more than 250 sources of a methane hot spot over the Four Corners region of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. They include gas wells, storage tanks, pipelines ...

DENVER (AP) — Democratic Rep. Jared Polis has given $25,000 to a group pushing to allow local government more say over energy production. Polis gave the money to Yes for Local Control Over Oil and Gas, according to campaign finance disclosures posted Monday. The group supports a ballot measure to amend the state constitution to give local governments more control ...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — More than 1,000 Navajos who live without electricity in their homes soon could get power for the first time as the tribal utility buys a system of rural Utah substations and electrical lines under the terms of a decades-old deal with a power company. Across the 27,000 square-mile Navajo Nation, an estimated 15,000 people live ...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Gov. Matt Mead has signed an agreement calling for cooperation between a consortium of Japanese companies and Wyoming experts in researching clean-coal technology. Mead signed a memorandum of understanding Monday in Cheyenne with the president of the Japan Coal Energy Center. The center represents about 120 manufacturing and energy companies, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Facing an uphill court fight, the U.S. government announced Tuesday it was formally removing the lesser prairie chicken from a federal protection list under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the move follows recent court rulings in Texas that stripped the lesser prairie chicken of federal protection. However, federal officials say ...

BLANDING, Utah (AP) — Laminated sheets of papers held in place by rocks rest inside ancient cliff dwellings nestled underneath a spectacular red rock overhang in southeastern Utah. “Don’t erase the traces of America’s past,” the signs read. “Please do not enter interior rooms.” The weathered signs and a similar warning at the trailhead are the only protections in place ...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — State officials will lay out a plan later this year to scrutinize proposals for major water projects, including a controversial pipeline pulling water from Lake Powell, before dipping into millions lawmakers set aside for water this year, officials said Tuesday. Eric Millis, the director of Utah’s Division of Water Resources, told members of a state ...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A brewery and a goat farm are among the Wyoming recipients of grants to encourage renewable energy and energy efficiency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday. Ten businesses in Wyoming will share $356,000 in grants through the USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program. That’s out of more than $11 million in grants and $43 million ...

DENVER (AP) — The oil and gas industry may not be to blame if northeastern Colorado tap water is so full of methane it can be set on fire, researchers say. Fewer than 5 percent of the region’s water wells that were checked for methane pollution had been tainted by oil and gas leaks, according to a study released Monday ...

DENVER (AP) — The Latest on a Colorado school district seeking help after coal giant Peabody fails to pay taxes (all times local): 1:45 p.m. Colorado’s state board of education has emptied its emergency fund to help a 300-student district caught up in a giant coal company’s financial woes. The board voted 7-0 Thursday to put all its $1 million ...