In Blow to Oil Industry, New York's Top Court Upholds Local Fracking Bans
New York’s highest state court ruled today that local governments have the legal authority to use zoning to bar oil and gas drilling, fracking and other heavy industrial sites within their borders. In a 5-2 decision, affirming the rulings of three lower courts, the justices dismissed challenges to fracking bans created by two towns, Middlefield […]
Direct Action Protest Temporarily Shuts Down Utah Tar Sands Project
An environmental group called Women of Action Against Violent Extraction (WAAVE) shut down U.S. Oil Sands’ mining operation in Utah temporarily on June 16, citing tension around whether the project’s permits are legal. The women swarmed a bulldozer on the site and asked the operator to stop working. A two and a half minute YouTube video posted June […]
Exclusive: North Dakota Oil-By-Rail Routes Published for First Time
For the first time, DeSmogBlog has published dozens of documents obtained from the North Dakota government revealing routes and chemical composition data for oil-by-rail trains in the state carrying oil obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the Bakken Shale. The information was initially submitted to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) under the legal dictates […]
Revealed: Heather Zichal Met with Cheniere Executives as Obama Energy Aide Before Board Nomination
Heather Zichal, former deputy assistant for energy and climate change to President Barack Obama and nominee to sit on the board of directors of LNG export company Cheniere Energy Inc., held two meetings with Cheniere executives while working for the White House. White House meeting logs show Zichal attended the meetings with three executives from Cheniere, owner of the Sabine Pass […]
Obama Administration Secretly Weakening EPA Rules
One of highest hopes that environmentally-minded Americans had for President Obama when he first entered office was that he would finally put an end to the secrecy that marred the former Bush administration when it came to environmental policy. The image of then-Vice President Dick Cheney meeting in secret with dirty energy industry leaders was […]
National Gas Industry Hires Family Members of Leading Politicians
This is a guest post by Lee Fang. In May of last year, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, now considered the favorite to win West Virginia’s open Senate seat, stood on a small platform in Charleston, behind a row of tiny trophies in the shape of drilling rigs. She was there to congratulate the Energy Corporation of […]
The Millions Behind Bjorn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Center US Think Tank
In early 2012, it seemed like the future of Bjørn Lomborg’s influential think tank was in serious doubt. The Danish Government had changed its political stripes and the millions in public funds that had poured into his Copenhagen Consensus Center had come to an abrupt halt. Lomborg told The Ecologist magazine he was worried there would be […]
Second Earthquake in Under a Month Shuts Down Colorado Fracking Wastewater Injection Well
A second earthquake struck Greeley in northeastern Colorado on Monday, June 23 prompting the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to order a halt to the injection of contaminated drilling wastewater into a deep disposal well in the area. The ban on injecting wastewater will last for 20 days as officials explore a potential link between the […]
Recent Federal Court Decision Could Muddy Waters for Keystone XL South, Flanagan South
On June 6, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit handed down a ruling that will serve as important precedent for the ongoing federal legal battles over the Keystone XL and Flanagan South tar sands pipelines. In the Delaware Riverkeeper v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) case, judges ruled that a continuous pipeline […]
Have $10,000? Then You Can Join Heartland's Climate Denial Machine!
The Heartland Institute is once again pulling no punches in their quest to spread misinformation on climate science. In the run-up to the odd return of Heartland’s infamous Denial-a-Palooza conference series next month in Las Vegas, the right wing think tank has purchased a large ad section of the conservative newspaper The Washington Times, where they […]