Environmental Politics

News media and activists for weeks have reported how federal and local officials have barred them from reporting the Gulf oil spill story from public beaches -- even though they have a legal right to be there. Now Mother Jones' Mac McClelland quotes the Terrebonn Parish Sheriff's office saying some 40 of the deputies enforcing BP'S illegal ban are being paid to work in uniform for BP during their off-duty hours.

"As U.S. senators debate some of the most sweeping climate change laws in American history, a powerful lobbying effort led by Canadian officials and huge oil firms may be winning big concessions."

"When two Alaska state agencies received complaints in 2005 that a BP drilling contractor routinely cheated on tests of blowout preventers and that BP knew it, the agencies let the very companies accused of wrongdoing join the investigation."

A Seaside, Florida, restauranteur whose business and fishing have been harmed by the BP spill has organized a global protest against more offshoe drilling.

"A utility proposal to install smart meters throughout Maryland has been rejected by the state's Public Service Commission, jeopardizing if not ending what had been one of the Obama administration's leading investment commitments to smart grid technologies and consumer energy conservation."

A new report makes the myth-busting assertion that the coal industry costs the state of West Virginia more in expenses than it brings in economic benefits.

"California headed for a high-stakes battle over global warming Tuesday, as an oil industry-backed measure to suspend the state's aggressive climate-change law qualified for the November ballot." "The battle over the initiative, launched by Texas oil giants Valero and Tesoro, will pit that industry against environmentalists and the state's clean-tech businesses."

"The scandal-ridden federal Minerals Management Service is gone, at least in name."

Despite public statements of open media access to Gulf response operation by the Coast Guard and BP, local police are still prohibiting photography. They say BP directed them to do it.

"The Louisiana judge who struck down the Obama administration's six-month ban on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has reported extensive investments in the oil and gas industry, according to financial disclosure reports. He's also a new member of a secret national security court."