"KIRKUK, Iraq — Roughly two dozen huge oil tankers are idly turning figure eights around the Mediterranean or on the high seas, loaded with oil pumped from wells in Iraqi Kurdistan but with nowhere to legally offload it."
"NPR has cut back on the number of staffers focused solely on the environment and climate change.
Earlier this year, the news outlet had three full-time reporters and one editor dedicated to covering the issue within NPR's science desk. One remains—and he is covering it only part-time. A few reporters on other desks occasionally cover the topic as well.
The move to shift reporters off the environment beat was driven by an interest to cover other fields more in depth, said Anne Gudenkauf, senior supervising editor of NPR's science desk."
"As she planned her run for the Florida House of Representatives this year, Kristin Jacobs told her team that she wanted her campaign to address the effects of climate change. Her advisers were initially skeptical, noting that voters typically said they cared about the environment, but considered the issue less urgent than the economy and health care."
"Scott Kidwell, a top executive for Concho Resources Inc., came to Capitol Hill in July to urge senators to pass a bipartisan bill to expedite drilling permits on public lands."
"The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is launching a $4.2 million campaign supporting Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina (D) just two weeks before Election Day."
It's true — some public information officers are really paranoid. High Country News reporter Tristan Baurick, trying to report on preservation of a historic chalet in Olympic National Park, found "a bizarre blockade on press freedom, the likes of which I’d never experienced outside a military base or murder scene."
Of the 457 investigations closed by the Interior Department's Inspector General's office last year, the office released public reports on only three. Not only were many of the reports withheld or redacted, but even the list of investigations was redacted before it was released.
"WASHINGTON — In Michigan, an ad attacking Terri Lynn Land, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate, opens with a shot of rising brown floodwaters as a woman says: 'We see it every day in Michigan. Climate change. So why is Terri Lynn Land ignoring the science?'"
"With fall elections just two weeks away, Republicans may be on the verge of wresting control of the Senate from Democrats who have blocked efforts to roll back environmental rules on carbon dioxide pollution from power plants, ozone and expanded Clean Water Act jurisdiction over U.S. waterways."
"One accomplishment Scott singled out: making it easier than ever to obtain a permit for filling in wetlands, pumping water out of the aquifer or pouring pollutants into the water and air."
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