Clean Start: November 16, 2011

Welcome to Clean Start, ThinkProgress Green’s morning round-up of the latest in climate and clean energy. Here is what we’re reading. What are you?

$2.63 billion in federal disaster recovery funding has been included in the final version of a Fiscal Year 2012 appropriations bill, most of it going to highway and bridge repair. [Hinchey]

France will need plentiful rain this winter to revive groundwater levels hit by a spring drought and a dry start to the autumn, the French geological research office (BGRM) said. [Reuters]

Global-warming related flooding has put oil and other hazardous liquid pipelines at seven major river crossings and hundreds of smaller crossings in Montana and northern Wyoming at increased risk of failure. [Yahoo]

The European Union aims to transfer carbon permits from a 3.3 billion-euro ($4.5 billion) reserve to the European Investment Bank this month, enabling the lender to start selling them to help finance innovative energy projects. [Bloomberg]

Energy and financial companies caught up in a scheme involving fraudulent renewable fuel credits could now face civil fines from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. [Reuters]

BP can’t use Transocean’s insurance coverage to pay costs related to the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a judge in New Orleans ruled. [Bloomberg]

Delegates from nearly 200 countries meet in South Africa from November 28 for major climate talks with the most likely outcome modest steps toward a broader deal to cut greenhouse gas pollution to fight climate change. [Reuters]

Investment in renewable power generation may double to $395 billion a year by 2020, led by growth in offshore wind and solar energy projects, Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecast. [Bloomberg]

European politicians are expected to vote through a non-binding resolution on Wednesday that nudges higher the bloc’s ambitions to deepen its carbon reduction, ahead of climate change talks this month in Durban, a European Parliament source said. [Reuters]