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Biofuels Industry Generous To Gingrich After Decades-Long Relationship

GOP Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has been a supporter of subsidies for corn-based ethanol for years. That has boosted his income as a lobbyist and bolstered his support in corn-growing Iowa, one of the earliest tests in the race. But it may also disprove his claims that he is not a lobbyist, and hurt him politically in other states as many GOP candidates have disavowed ethanol subsidies.

Source: E&E Daily, 12/01/2011

EPA Releases 100s of Chemical Health Studies Claimed As Trade Secrets

The studies are submitted by companies who use the chemicals in commerce, under the Toxic Substances Control Act. EPA's online searchable database can help you find information about such health studies, which were previously withheld because of industry trade-secret claims.

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Industry Lobby Opposes Disclosure of Fragrance Ingredients

If you are worried that ingredients in cleaning products may aggravate your allergies, mess up your sex hormones, or cause cancer, you may not find out what they are. The International Fragrance Association North America and the American Cleaning Institute are opposing a bill introduced in the House that would require cleaning products to carry ingredients lists on the package label.

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Calif. Law Keeps Public from Knowing About Dangerous Pipelines

The San Francisco Chronicle revealed almost all records of the state's Public Utilities Commission, which regulates pipelines, are secret — and the PUC typically asks permission from the utility companies before releasing any information. In most other states, such information is freely available to the public.

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Toolbox: New CPR Database Helps You Track Secret Industry-OMB Meetings

Although details of what is said between lobbyists and the White House officials who rewrite agency rules remain largely secret, the Center for Progressive Reform's searchable database allows you to track whether OMB is meeting its deadlines, whether a meeting is linked to an OIRA regulatory review, and whether OIRA changed the rule.

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"Behind Closed Doors" Reports on Secret Regulatory Process

The Center for Progressive Reform looked at public records on 1,080 meetings held between October 2001 and June 2011 between the White House Office of Management and Budget and lobbyists from various interest groups. Results show the Obama administration is as bad as the Bush administration when it comes to secret meetings with industry to weaken environmental health and safety regulations.

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"Nuclear Power Goes Rogue"

"As the full cost of the Fukushima nuclear accident continues to climb—Japanese officials now peg it at $64 billion or more—nuclear power’s future is literally headed south. Developed countries are slowing or shuttering their nuclear-power programs, while states to their south, in the world’s hotspots (think the Middle East and Far East), are pushing to build reactors of their own."

Source: Newsweek, 11/30/2011

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