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Clean Start: June 10, 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?

Lester Brown discusses how the global pace of solar energy development is accelerating. [Grist]

Vice President Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats are demanding in deficit talks with Republicans that “when you’re talking about cutting important investments, you also have to get rid of subsidies for the oil-and-gas industry and cut corporate pork.” [E2]

“Environmental activists are suing the Obama administration over its approval of a Royal Dutch Shell plan to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico,” citing inadequate reforms following the BP oil disaster. [Reuters]

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Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) has hired a Bush-administration energy adviser, George “Dave” Banks, who isn’t a complete wingnut, environmental lobbyists say. [Greenwire]

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler vowed during a New York speech that his agency soon will act “to guard against the burdens of excessive speculation.” [McClatchy]

“Torrential rain in two drought-stricken central China provinces triggered landslides and brought down houses, killing at least 34 people and leaving 30 missing,” forcing the evacuations of more than 60,000 people. [Reuters]

“Snowpack declines in the Rocky Mountains over the last 30 years are more significant than during any other period in past centuries and foreshadow a strain on summer water supplies for more than 70 million people across the Western United States,” a U.S. government study said. [Reuters]