Earth Day Greenwash: API Front Group Iowa Energy Forum Sponsors Pro-Keystone XL Event
The political carnival that is the prelude to the Iowa caucuses has started over a year and a half early. At the center of it this time around: a game…
Steve Horn
Keystone XL Review Extended, Delaying Final Decision Until After 2014 Elections
Reuters and Politico broke a major story today that TransCanada‘s northern leg of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will not be decided on until after the 2014 mid-term elections.…
"Russia with Love": Alaska Gas Scandal is Out-of-Country, Not Out-of-State
A legal controversy — critics would say scandal — has erupted in Alaska’s statehouse over the future of its natural gas bounty. It’s not so much an issue of the…
Interview: Big Men Director Rachel Boynton on Oil, Ghana and "Responsible Capitalism"
The subtitle of the newly released documentary film Big Men is “everyone wants to be big” and to say the film covers a “big” topic is to put it mildly.…
ANR Pipeline: Introducing TransCanada’s Keystone XL for Fracking
When most environmentalists and folks who follow pipeline markets think of TransCanada, they think of the proposed northern half of its Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Flying beneath the public…
"Our Energy Moment": The Blue Engine Behind Fracked Gas Exports PR Blitz
Behind nearly every major corporate policy push there’s an accompanying well-coordinated public relations and propaganda campaign. As it turns out, the oil and gas industry’s push to export liquefied natural…
BP Lake Michigan Oil Spill: Did Tar Sands Spill into the Great Lake?
Is it conventional crude or tar sands? That is the question. And it’s one with high stakes, to boot. The BP Whiting refinery in Indiana spilled between 470 and 1228…
BP Doubles Initial Size Estimate of Lake Michigan Oil Spill
Three days after spilling crude oil into Lake Michigan, BP has doubled its spill estimate to between 470 and 1228 gallons. The leak happened at its refinery in Whiting, Ind.…
Admiral Dennis Blair: "We Sent Troops to Middle East…Because of Oil-Based Importance of Region"
At the just-completed U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing titled, “The Geopolitical Potential of the U.S. Energy Boom,” Admiral Dennis Blair — former Director of National Intelligence, President and…
Follow the Money: Three Energy Export Congressional Hearings, No Climate Change Discussion
In light of ongoing geopolitical tensions in Russia, Ukraine and hotly contested Crimea, three (yes, three!) U.S. Congressional Committees held hearings this week on the U.S. using its newfangled oil…
Why ExxonMobil’s Partnerships With Russia’s Rosneft Challenge the Narrative of U.S. Exports As Energy Weapon
In a long-awaited moment in a hotly contested zone currently occupied by the Russian military, Ukraine’s citizens living in the peninsula of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to become part of Russia.…
General James Jones Didn’t Disclose Industry Ties Before Testimony at Keystone XL Hearing
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing today on the U.S. State Department’s national interest determination for the northern half of the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL tar…
Testimony Reveals Record 36% of North Dakota Fracked Gas Was Flared in December
The recent March 6 House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearing titled “Benefits of and Challenges to Energy Access in the 21st Century: Fuel Supply and Infrastructure”…
Pentagon Calls Climate Change Impacts "Threat Multipliers," Could Enable Terrorism
The U.S. Department of Defense released the 2014 version of its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) yesterday, declaring the threat of climate change impacts a very serious national security vulnerability that,…
ALEC’s Fracking Chemical Disclosure Bill Moving Through Florida Legislature
The American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) model bill for disclosure of chemicals injected into the ground during the controversial hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) process is back for a sequel in the…
Documents Reveal Calvert County Signed Non-Disclosure Agreement with Company Proposing Cove Point LNG Terminal
Co-authored by Steve Horn and Caroline Selle DeSmogBlog has obtained documents revealing that the government of Calvert County, MD, signed a non-disclosure agreement on August 21, 2012, with Dominion Resources…
Keystone XL’s Northern Leg: A Fracked Oil Pipeline Along with Tar Sands
On January 31, President Barack Obama’s U.S. State Department released its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the northern leg of TransCanada‘s proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The State…
Citing DeSmogBlog Series, "FrackNation" Screening Cancelled by MN Film Festival
“FrackNation,” the documentary film about hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) with close conservative movement ties, recently had its showing cancelled at Winona, Minnesota’s annual Frozen River Film Festival (FRFF). Citing DeSmogBlog‘s two-part…
State Dept’s Keystone XL Contractor, ERM Group, Also OK’d Controversial Pebble Mine in Alaska
A DeSmogBlog investigation has revealed Environmental Resources Management Inc. (ERM Group) — the contractor performing the U.S. State Department’s environmental review for the northern half of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar…
Revealed: Koch Brothers’ Georgia-Pacific Supplied Coal Chemical Contaminating West Virginia River
A few days after the Freedom Industries’ spill of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol into the Elk River near Charleston, West Virginia, little is known about how that chemical impacts drinking water. Leaving…