Environmental Politics

"Don Blankenship, the outspoken and controversial CEO of Massey Energy, will retire effective Dec. 31, the company announced late Friday."

"The number of Americans who believe that global warming is a scientific fact has been dropping, and environmental groups and climate scientists who say the evidence for warming is clear are scratching their heads over this reversal and scrambling to find a new strategy."

Senate Republicans, led by James Inhofe (OK), are saying they will block any effort by the United States to honor the financial pledges, negotiated at last year's Copenhagen talks, to help developing countries reduce their greenhouse emissions and adapt to climate change.

The food-safety bill passed Tuesday by the Senate does not cover meat, poultry, or eggs and does not sort out overlapping federal agency jurisdictions.

"Despite promises of transparency, the US Environmental Protection Agency has refused to release a contractor study that apparently outlines less harmful alternatives to the Arch Coal's Spruce Mine mountaintop-removal project EPA is currently considering for a permit in West Virginia."

House Republicans will disband the special committee created by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to focus on climate change and energy independence.

"A coalition of 20 environmental groups took to the airwaves today in their escalating pushback against a $7 billion Canadian oil sands pipeline, launching a two-week ad campaign urging President Obama to 'prevent the next oil disaster' by rejecting a permit for the project."

"Subsidies and tariffs to promote domestic ethanol production are “fiscally irresponsible and environmentally unwise” and should be ended, a bipartisan group of United States senators declared in a letter to the chamber’s leaders on Tuesday."

"Republicans plotting their offensive against the Obama administration’s environmental policies are eyeing a powerful weapon that would force the Democratic-held Senate to schedule votes on nullifying controversial regulations."

"Contractors working for Dow Chemical and Sasol North America, a chemical manufacturer, hired private investigators to conduct a two-year corporate espionage campaign against the environmental group Greenpeace, according to a lawsuit filed on Monday in federal district court in Washington."