Barack Obama
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Obama will open large sections of Southeast and Alaskan coasts to offshore drilling
Updated President Obama will open large swaths of the Atlantic, Gulf, and Alaskan coasts to offshore oil and natural gas drilling in a stunning concession to fossil-fuel companies, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and others are reporting. On Wednesday morning Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced an end to […]
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Permission to take a worry break, enjoy the health-care victory
Without getting all pundit-y, can I suggest that it wouldn’t hurt progressives to celebrate more? Others have done a better job than I can explaining what a big deal health-care reform is. I’ll just add: if you need a break from fretting about climate change, or ocean acidification, or agribusiness and school lunches, or the […]
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Don’t buy Obama’s greenwashing of nuclear power
On Feb. 16, while President Obama was in Maryland announcing an $8.3 billion taxpayer-backed loan guarantee for Southern Company to build two new nuclear reactors in Georgia, inspectors at the Vermont Yankee reactor were finding dangerously high levels of tritium, a radioactive cancer-causing chemical, in the groundwater near the plant. The next week, the Vermont […]
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Obama’s cholesterol beef isn’t with the burgers, but the buns
(Photo by Vanessa Pike-Russell, Creative Commons)It must have surprised many that a president as young and vigorous as Barack Obama could be experiencing rising cholesterol, as reported last week. But even more surprising is the misinformation being doled out by the people around him about the likely causes. “Too many burgers,” came the ready explanation. […]
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Jeff Biggers talks about his new book on coal
Jeff Biggers talked about his new book Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland on GRITtv with Laura Flanders last Friday. Check out the interview: Biggers was also on Democracy Now! to talk about the myth the of clean coal technologies that President Obama continues to promote.
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Collateral Damage of Clean Coal
No American leader has done more to advance a clean energy future than President Obama. Nor has any American president done more to invoke a mandate for stricter workplace safety and environmental regulations. And yet, ever since President Obama first visited my native southern Illinois coalfields in 1997 on a golf outing with a fellow […]
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10 races to watch in 2010
California House race, 19th Congressional District Richard Pombo is back! He antagonized environmentalists as chair of the House Resources Committee (he even removed the word “Natural” from the committee’s name) until 2006, when he got beat by a renewable-energy booster. For his comeback attempt, he’s carpetbagging from the 11th Congressional District, site of his […]
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Palin bashes ‘cap and tax’ and commends Obama on nuclear
Sarah Palin’s much-anticipated speech Saturday night at the first National Tea Party Convention in Nashville included a one-minute-and-20-second disquisition on energy policy. She hit on her familiar talking points — drill here, drill now, “cap-and-tax” sucks. But she also commended Obama for highlighting nuclear power during his State of the Union address, a brief departure […]
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A Critical Moment for Energy Leadership
One of the most powerful moments during last week’s State of the Union came when President Obama warned that while Washington stalls, other nations are moving quickly to dominate the global clean-energy industry. “China is not waiting to revamp its economy,” Obama declared. “These nations aren’t playing for second place… They’re making serious investments in […]
