Latest Articles
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Coal company penalized for Clean Water Act violations
Massey Energy Co., the nation’s fourth-largest coal producer, has agreed to a $30 million settlement with the U.S. EPA over allegations of Clean Water Act violations. Massey was accused of polluting streams and waterways in West Virginia and Kentucky with the detritus of mountaintop-removal mining on at least 4,500 occasions between 2000 and 2006. The […]
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Hillary Clinton brings an environmental issue to the fore in Nevada
Hillary Clinton is taking pains to make sure all Nevadans know her views on — gasp! — an environmental issue: She would stop plans to store nuclear waste at the state’s Yucca Mountain repository. “This is not just, ‘We’re in Nevada, so we’ll talk about an issue Nevadans care about,'” Clinton assured voters. “This is […]
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Can the Kansas governor show toughness under assault from Big Coal?
A certain faction of young progressive bloggers is fond of the notion of Barack Obama picking Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his running mate. She is a successful, popular, progressive governor in a red state, and has shown a real talent for bringing people together to produce practical results. That would compliment Obama’s core message. […]
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Put a grid on it
Sweet. Xcel Energy is going to spend $100 million creating a grid city, which will serve as a test bed for smart grid techniques and technologies. It will likely be in Colorado, have a population of around 100,000, and be filled with dirty hippies. If that sounds like your town, maybe you should contact Xcel […]
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Is it important to push climate legislation through this year?
Now that Congress is back, there’s been a mini-flurry of stories about the prospects of climate legislation this year. See Politico here and here, a really superb analysis of Lieberman-Warner’s chances by Darren Samuelsohn (sub rqd), and another E&E story today on trade groups panicking. Politico‘s reporting is characteristically sloppy, but it does get at […]
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Former Hollywood madam to open wind-powered brothel
Heidi Fleiss. Ten things I didn’t know about former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss until I read this awesome Elle story: She’s a vegetarian. She calls herself a tree hugger. She owns 24 parrots. She runs a laundromat called Dirty Laundry in Pahrump, Nev. (Pahrump!) Her next business venture will be wind-powered. It will be a […]
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The widening war between activists and coal
According to AP, at least 48 coal plants are being contested in 29 states: From lawsuits and administrative appeals against the companies, to lobbying pressure on federal and state regulators, the coordinated offensive against coal is emerging as a pivotal front in the debate over global warming. Music to my ears. Naturally, the industry forecasts […]
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Monsanto’s latest court triumph cloaks massive market power
At first glance, it was an open-and-shut case. In 1998, Mississippi farmer Homan McFarling bought soybean seeds with genetic traits owned by Monsanto, then as now the world’s dominant provider of genetically modified seeds — and also the biggest herbicide maker. Like all farmers who buy GM seeds, McFarling signed a contract obliging him not […]
