So here's the little that we know about a pipeline break that occurred more than half a year ago and that British Columbia's Oil and Gas Commission (OGC) feels for whatever reasons the public is best kept in the dark about.

The incident occurred on August 19 of last year when a 35-year-old pipeline broke and spilled its poisonous contents onto a nearby property.

In three separate interviews with three different people who have knowledge of the incident and who spoke on an "information only" basis, it was confirmed that whatever was in the liquids that burst from the broken pipeline that day killed at least one cow and sickened other cattle.

With the spotlight on the federal government's aggressive push to export tar sands bitumen via the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, and from there by tanker on to China, the B.C. government reclaimed some attention on the energy file when it released its Natural Gas Strategy last week. With lots of glossy pages, but little detailed content, it is reflective of Premier Clark's signature style. The short of it is that shale gas from B.C.'s Northeast is to be pipelined to Kitimat and loaded onto tankers in liquid form (LNG) to be exported to China.

Our climate justice framework for B.C. is to eliminate fossil fuels by 2040. In the household sector, this poses a significant challenge, not so much in terms of technology and knowledge, but because natural gas is much cheaper than electricity per unit of energy. Even though B.C. has among the lowest prices in North America, and for relatively clean electricity at that, pricing undermines incentives to shift away from fossil fuels.

In Washington, the environment is under attack. The cost-cutting deal that the House passed yesterday stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of $1.6 billion, which made up 16% of the agency's budget. Funds for clean energy were cut. Republicans put in a provision that would keep the Department of the Interior from putting aside public lands for conservation and one that killed the nascent climate centre at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This week, the House voted to shut down the carbon regulation program at the Environmental Protection Agency, but the Senate rejected four different measures that would have stopped or delayed EPA action. The EPA, as mandated by the Supreme Court, has been moving forward with regulations that would require carbon polluters to apply for EPA permits and to use the best available method to start limiting carbon emissions.

President Obama made an energy speech this week that had little new to offer, while on Capitol Hill, Republicans were pushing to relieve the government of its last options to limit carbon emissions. In the House, Republicans have passed a bill that would keep the EPA from regulating carbon, and in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid repeatedly pushed back a vote on the same issue.