Latest Articles
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Has coal’s strongest defender had a change of heart?
The elders of the U.S. Senate usually aren’t good people to look to for signs of hope and change. But Robert Byrd, the 92-year-old senator from West Virginia, is making some surprising statements lately. After a career as a loyal coal-industry defender, Byrd made headlines last year by calling on the industry to “embrace the […]
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Round One of the EPA Coal Ash Bowl Goes to Big Coal
Yesterday, the EPA issued their long-awaited proposal for new rules on how to regulate the disposal and storage of coal combustion waste (CCW), the byproduct of coal-fired power plants. Since December of 2008, when more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash spilled into the Emory River from a breached impoundment at the […]
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BP’s donations to Congress are more worrying than its donations to Obama
The Sunlight Foundation reports on the slick of BP money that’s already spread far and wide through the American political system. The oil and gas giant is a major campaign contributor, giving more than $6 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years. President Obama has received the most — $77,051 — which might […]
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Woman feels burned by McDonald’s
Would you like fries with that?Photo: lille abe via FlickrWe love our McDonald’s stories (as evidenced here, here, and, oh yeah, here), so it’s no wonder that this one jumped out at us: McDonald’s Happy Meal “came with cigarette.” According to the U.K. publication Metro, Nicky Holloway found an unused cigarette in the Happy Meal […]
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Does ‘sustainable transportation’ mean better cars or fewer cars?
Ohio State University’s excellent Moving Ahead 2010 conference wrapped up with an impromptu panel on the oil spill and oil addiction. (White House energy adviser Carol Browner was supposed to do the final keynote, but got pulled away. Apparently there’s something going on in Louisiana.) I’ll wrap up my coverage by making a point I […]
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Down the Colorado
As a native Coloradan, photographer Peter McBride always wondered how long it took irrigation water from his family’s cattle ranch to reach the Colorado River and ultimately the sea. That question sent McBride (with author Jonathon Waterman) on a two-year journey to follow the water. He photographed the Colorado, mostly from the air, in an […]
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Gulf Coast oil spill: Health questions
Cleanup crews are getting the highest exposures to both the oil spill itself and chemical dispersants.Photo: U.S. Coast Guard Cross-posted from NRDC’s Simple Steps blog. Dr. Gina Solomon provides answers to the health questions raised by the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig explosion and the efforts being made to contain it. How do you think […]
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Oil spill update: Interior Dept. negligence, Obama’s BP cash, & greenwashing
The time has come to start peeling the onion on the big, oily Gulf Coast mess. The Washington Post goes at one juicy layer with a story by Juliet Eilperin revealing that the Interior Department gave BP a pass on doing a detailed environmental impact analysis last year because a massive oil spill seemed unlikely. […]
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Under the wrong conditions, oil spills are forever
The massive clean-up efforts for the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Prince William Sound. (Photo courtesy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council) “A senior BP executive conceded Tuesday that the ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico could conceivably spill as much as 60,000 barrels a day of oil, more than 10 […]
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EPA proposes two options for coal ash oversight
EPA Administrator Lisa JacksonThe Environmental Protection Agency released not one, but two proposals yesterday for regulating the coal ash waste from power plants. The stricter rule of the two would empower the federal government to oversee coal ash like other hazardous waste; the less stringent rule would treat it like ordinary trash and leave oversight […]
