Environmental Politics

"The Navajo Nation's proposed coal plant always rested on shaky ground. Now, it may collapse entirely."

"Former House majority leader Tom DeLay  (R-Tex.) was both defiant and ebullient on Monday after hearing that the Justice Department had dropped its six-year investigation of his interactions with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a host of other political contributors for whom he allegedly did political favors."

"Tom Donohue scares millions of dollars out of corporations and Republicans. But is his U.S. Chamber of Commerce good for business?"

"The Interior Department has released the rest of a partially leaked document listing potential sites for new national monuments, but the move did nothing to quell Republican accusations that the Obama administration is plotting to lock up public lands."

"It has been the summer of polling discontent, or at least the dog days of disagreement on climate change."

EPA officials in New York had to postpone a planned hearing on the impact of the natural gas drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing. The reason: the large number of passionate people planning to attend or demonstrate.

"The opponents of Pebble, the giant copper and gold prospect in Southwest Alaska, have asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency to invoke its potent and rarely used power to block the potential mine. But U.S. Rep. Don Young late last month filed legislation seeking to strip the EPA of that authority."

The Minerals Management Service -- now reorganized into three separate agencies -- began in 1997 nearly giving away public resources to oil companies as favors in a party that lasted until the BP gulf oil spill.

A lot of politicians have bet their futures on what they think the voters want regarding climate change, energy policy, and oil spills. Or what the politicians can make the voters think they want. The election season now underway is already providing data about who was right. President Obama may have reversed initial criticism of his Gulf spill performance and is now campaigning against the GOP as a spill villain. Media portrayed Republicans who voted for the House climate bill in 2009 as vulnerable to conservative vengeance -- but this has not proven true in primaries. One pundit says the public's disapproval for Congress' failure to act on climate, energy, and spills may turn out to fall on both parties alike.

"Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, along with two of his former gubernatorial campaign managers, signed a $900,000 contract on July 30 to go to bat for the heavily polluting Marcellus Shale gas drilling industry. Ridge’s contract follows on the heels of an exodus from the Rendell administration to the cash-rich industry. Three top Rendell staff members have jumped ship to work in governmental relations jobs for the industry over the past year."