Environmental Politics

Glitter Gets Environmental Protesters Charged With Bioterrorism Hoax

"It's not uncommon for environmental protesters to face arrest, but here's an apparent first: On Friday, Oklahoma City police charged a pair of environmental activists with staging a 'terrorism hoax' after they unfurled a pair of banners covered in glitter -- a substance local cops considered evidence of a faux biochemical assault."

Source: Mother Jones, 12/23/2013

"Big Food Companies Want To Call GMO Foods 'Natural'"

"Is genetically engineered food natural? The Grocery Manufacturers Association, a trade group representing some of the world’s biggest food and food-related companies, including ConAgra Foods, Bayer CropScience, and the Coca-Cola Company, thinks so. And it’s pressing the Food and Drug Administration to see things its way."

Source: Grist, 12/23/2013

5 Years After Disaster in Tennessee, Still No Coal Ash Safeguards

"This coming Sunday, Dec. 22, marks five years since the Kingston Coal Plant's ash dam in Tennessee ruptured, sending more than a billion gallons of toxic sludge into homes, onto farmland, and into the Emory and Clinch Rivers in Roane County - one of the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history. Five years later, we're still waiting - and pushing - for the Environmental Protection Agency to put in place long-overdue protections to prevent more coal ash disasters."

Source: Sierra/Huffington, 12/20/2013

Database: Fracking Yields Gushers of Cash to Congress Power Brokers

A study issued by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) using campaign contribution data found the fracking industry gave increasingly more in districts hosting fracking than in nonfracking districts between 2004 and 2012.

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White House Secrecy Helps Politics Subvert Environmental Health at OMB

It's true. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) helps well-heeled industry lobbyists thwart rules to protect public safety and health. Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin proves it with documents and insider interviews showing how election politics trumped open government, regulatory law, and public health in the run-up to the 2012 election.

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Spying on Environmental Journos No Longer Just Paranoid Fantasy

Industry groups and government agencies are outsourcing the job of spying confidentially on environmental journalists to firms that hire former NSA, CIA, and FBI investigators. You are not supposed to know this. For example, Wikileaks recently released documentation on for-hire intelligence agency Stratfor's spying on award-winning ProPublica reporter Abrahm Lustgarten.

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"One Million Protest Stripping Wolves of Endangered Listing"

"WASHINGTON, DC -- The public comment period closed today on a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove federal protections for all gray wolves across the country. Close to one million Americans stated their opposition to the plan – the largest number of comments ever submitted on a federal decision involving endangered species."

Source: ENS, 12/18/2013

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