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Gulf of Mexico oil spill

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    Feed your ears with new Victual Reality podcast

    I now have a regular podcast about food politics called Victual Reality, part of the Edible Communities project Edible Radio. Look for me there every other Tuesday — and for other terrific podcasts. I’ll also be posting my ‘casts here on Grist.  In my latest one, which went live this morning, I talk to Richard […]

    Tom Philpott Food
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    From above and below, Gulf oil leak looks bad on video

    The Waterkeeper Alliance provides aerial footage of the Gulf oil leak, shot last week. And BP, after initially refusing, releases underwater footage of the leak. From above: From below: One more from last week: Writes Jed Lewison at DailyKos, “BP is trying to position itself as a responsible corporate citizen, but its [temporary] decision to […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Technology

  • Why I introduced the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act

    The tragic oil spill in the Gulf has led me to look at the Oil Pollution Act, which Congress passed in 1990 in the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill. It’s apparent that the liability limit set in that legislation, $75 million, is laughably small. With estimates that the oil spill off the Gulf Coast […]

    Rep. Rush Holt Politics

  • Oil Disaster Doesn't Mean We Should Switch to Other Dirty Fuels

    This post was co-written by Kate Colarulli of the Sierra Club Dirty Fuels Campaign. As we’ve watched the Gulf Coast clean up from the massive BP oil disaster, besides BP picking up its own PR mission to improve its image, we’ve also noticed another disturbing PR campaign: the coal industry and the tar sands industry […]

    Bruce Nilles Politics

  • Offshore Wind, Not Offshore Oil

    This piece was written by my colleague Janet Larsen at the Earth Policy Institute. The enormously devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is just one reminder that stretching out an addiction to a polluting and planet-warming fossil fuel poses risks to our health, our environment, and our economy. U.S. oil production peaked in […]

    Lester Brown Climate & Energy

  • Bingaman rebukes Lieberman’s oil disaster excuse that ‘accidents happen’

    Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. Last week, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) defended the inclusion of expanded offshore drilling in the climate bill he will unveil tomorrow, brushing off the deadly Gulf disaster by saying that “accidents happen:” There were good reasons for us to put in offshore drilling, and this terrible accident is very rare […]

    Brad Johnson Politics

  • Disaster contingency plans are ‘fantasy documents’ when it comes to big oil spills

    Lee Clarke.Am I the only one mystified — and, OK, horrified — by British Petroleum’s apparent failure to have a contingency plan in place for just the kind of worst-case scenario that happened in the Gulf on April 20? Thankfully not. “Fantasy documents” is how author and sociologist Lee Clarke describes most corporate contingency plans […]

    Mary Bruno Technology

  • A three-way blame game at oil-spill hearing

    Here’s your 30-second wrap of the first congressional hearing on the BP Gulf oil disaster: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hauled in executives from BP America, which leased the Deepwater Horizon rig; Transocean, which owned the rig; and America’s favorite, Halliburton, which laid cement for the rig. Executives from the three companies — […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Technology

  • Political fallout from the Gulf oil spill: Hill hearings, climate-bill questions, MMS reorg

    Now it’s really starting to get ugly.  Not in the Gulf of Mexico — that’s already borderline hideous — but in Washington.  The top execs of the three partners in the toppled, leaking oil rig — BP, Transocean, and Halliburton — made their first public appearances before Congress today, and while they haven’t reached screaming-cats-in-a-bag […]

    Randy Rieland Politics