Environmental Politics

"Top White House officials debated the political implications of President Barack Obama’s May 2010 visit to Solyndra, just before his trip to the California solar company, after hearing from one of Obama’s top 2008 fundraisers, according to internal email excerpts released Monday by House Democrats.

Steve Westly, a prominent California venture capitalist and a member of Obama’s 2008 national finance committee, raised warning flags to senior Obama advisers regarding the solar company’s finances.

"The effort to reduce the rising pollution levels in Silver Springs could become the model for improving the health of freshwater springs statewide. Recently, Marion County commissioners approved an agreement with state environmental regulators that permits the county to lead the process to determine the ceiling for contaminants at the fabled site."

"With the Obama administration about to decide whether to green-light a controversial pipeline to take crude oil from Canada’s oil sands to the United States Gulf Coast, e-mails released Monday paint a picture of a sometimes warm and collaborative relationship between lobbyists for the company building the billion-dollar pipeline and officials in the State Department, the agency that has final say over the pipeline."

The multi-billionaire Koch brothers have financed a big part of today's conservative surge in U.S. politics, and they have a penchant for secrecy. As a result the U.S. news media have reported their opposition to government regulation -- but not the fact that Koch companies have used bribes to win business in Africa, India, and the Middle East, and that they have "sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism."

"An ongoing federal investigation into last year's massive rig explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has found that a particularly lax U.S. regulatory regime was a significant factor in the events leading up to the disaster."

"Global warming-denying governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry can't escape a major reckoning at home."

"GLENDIVE, Mont. — The final days of rancorous public debate over a $7 billion oil pipeline that would snake from Canada through the midsection of the United States have taken on an unexpected urgency this week, as the economic and environmental stakes of the massive project snap into focus at a time of festering anxiety about the nation's future."

"The Environmental Protection Agency cut corners in its effort to regulate greenhouse gases but met rulemaking requirements, a federal watchdog found. The EPA, disagreeing strongly, countered the science - and the case for action - was unquestioned."

"They're arguing that a new study shows canned foods to be safe, even when lined with BPA. The problem? That's not what the study says."

Elizabeth Grossman reports for The Atlantic September 27, 2011.

SEE ALSO:

"BPA: What To Make of Pollutant-Laced Kids’ Foods" (Science News)


 

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor pressed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to send disaster aid funds to his own district even as he argued on the floor that all other parts of the US should not receive natural disaster aid from the general Treasury without offsets.