Author: Steve Horn

At a June 19 speaking event at London’s Chatham House, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen claimed the Russian government is covertly working to discredit hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the west from afar. “I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations,

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

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,

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

Heather Zichal, former Obama White House Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, may soon walk out of the government-industry revolving door to become a member of the board of directors for fracked gas exports giant Cheniere, who nominated her to serve on the board.  The announcement, made through

While the debate over the TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has raged on for over half a decade, pipeline giant Enbridge has quietly cloned its own Keystone XL in the U.S and Canada.  It comes in the form of the combination of Enbridge’s Alberta Clipper (Line 67), Flanagan South and Seaway Twin pipelines. The pipeline system does what Keystone XL and the

DeSmogBlog has obtained emails via North Dakota’s Open Records Statute revealing facts that could be interpreted as indicating that North Dakota Treasurer Kelly Schmidt broke State Investment Board ethics laws. The potential legal breach occurred during a late-April fracking field trip made to the state by former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus. In a radio interview

Dave Cooper, Command Master Chief SEAL (Retired) for the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), has authored a threat assessment concluding TransCanada‘s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is potentially at-risk of a terrorism attack.  In the report, Cooper concluded operational security vulnerabilities for the pipeline have been overlooked by the U.S.

On Friday May 30, just a few days before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced details of its carbon rule proposal, the Obama Administration awarded offshore oil leases to ExxonMobil in an area of the Gulf of Mexico potentially containing over 172 million barrels of oil. The U.S. Department of Interior‘s (DOI) Bureau of

North Dakota Treasurer Kelly Schmidt has responded to DeSmogBlog’s investigation of the Bakken Shale basin fracking field trip her office facilitated for former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus, who now works at the Manhattan-based private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR).  Schmidt expanded on the initial comments she provided to DeSmogBlog in

For those familiar with U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) work, objectivity and commitment to fact based on statistics come to mind. Yet as Mark Twain once put it, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” That’s where John Krohn comes into play. A former spokesman for the

DeSmogBlog has obtained hundreds of documents portraying the blurred lines between North Dakota’s government, the oil and gas industry and the private equity world. They also offer one of the first looks inside the professional life of former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus after he resigned from the agency in

An Executive* of a major shale gas development company has conceded what scientists have been saying for years: global shale gas development has the potential to wreak serious climate change havoc. Best known for his company’s hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) activity, Southwestern Energy Executive Vice President* Mark Boling admitted his industry has a methane problem

TransCanada admitted for the first time that tar sands oil is now flowing through Keystone XL‘s southern leg, now rebranded the Gulf Coast Pipeline Project. The company confirmed the pipeline activity in its 2014 quarter one earnings call. Asked by Argus Media reporter Iris Kuo how much of the current 530,000 barrels per

Right before the champagne bottles began popping for activists engaged in a grassroots struggle to halt the construction of Williams Companies‘ prospective Bluegrass Pipeline project — which the company suspended indefinitely in an April 28 press release — Williams had already begun raining on the parade. The pipeline industry giant took out the trash on

Platts has confirmed CSX Corporation’s “bomb train” that exploded in Lynchburg, Virginia was carrying sweet crude obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale basin. CSX CEO Michael Ward has also confirmed this to Bloomberg. “Trade sources said the train was carrying Bakken crude from North Dakota and was headed to Plains All American’s terminal

A freight train owned by CSX Corporation has erupted in downtown Lynchburg, Virginia, which sent “flames stories high” into the air, creating a large black cloud. ABC‘s WSET has reported four of its cars were “labeled crude oil” and one witness interviewed on WSET who is an employee at Lynchburg’s Market at

TransCanada has taken a page out of former U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s playbook and deployed a public relations “charm offensive” in Texas, home of the southern leg of its Keystone XL tar sands pipeline now known as the Gulf Coast Pipeline Project. In the 1930s and 1940s, Roosevelt utilized a

On March 29, 2013, ExxonMobil‘s Pegasus tar sands pipeline ruptured in Mayflower, Arkansas, sending hundreds of thousands of gallons of diluted bitumen (“dilbit”) pouring down the town’s streets. Now, just over a year after the massive spill, devastation has come to Mayflower and neighboring towns again, this time in the form

During his two-day visit this week to Kiev, Ukraine, Vice President Joe Biden unfurled President Barack Obama’s “U.S. Crisis Support Package for Ukraine.” A key part of the package involves promoting the deployment of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in Ukraine. Dean Neu, professor of accounting at York University in Toronto, describes this phenomenon in his book,