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Green Groups Had Cozy Ties With BP

Thanks to the oil spill, BP (BP) is No. 1 on most green groups’ bad guys list. Most have also tried to tie the oil giant to the right, using Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and his apology to BP last week as only the most obvious link. But that only tells part of the story. Critics may have called BP’s use of the slogan “Beyond Petroleum” corporate “greenwashing,” but for years BP walked the walk by supporting groups like the U.S. Climate Action Partnership and donating millions to environmental groups. And they never seemed to have a problem

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Whose Environment?

I was walking back to the office one day, not long after The Atlas Society moved to Washington, when a young woman accosted me on a street corner. “Got a minute for the environment?” she asked, thrusting a leaflet in my direction. Welcome to Washington, I thought. In New York, where I used to live, people passing bills on the street were usually selling one of two things: men’s suits or sex. But Washington is a political town. Here we sell causes. I didn’t stop. I didn’t have a minute for her, or for much of anything except getting back...

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White House in Disarray

A fudgelike goo coating Louisiana’s marshes. A thick oil slick stretching across the Gulf of Mexico. A plume of oil miles below the ocean surface. A tragic loss of life. Reverberating economic consequences. Throw in a poll that shows that 53 percent of Americans rate President Barack Obama “poor” or “very poor” in his handling of the Gulf oil spill, and it’s no wonder the President yesterday broke his 308-day self-imposed press conference moratorium in hopes of conveying some semblance of leadership amid an environmental, economic and human catastrophe that has spiraled out of his control.

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Political content in this weekend's new movies

Political content in this weekend’s new movies at the theater: A Nightmare On Elm Street//Furry Vengeance [leftist greenie alert]//Harry Brown [conservative Dirty Harry alert]//Please Give [leftist anti-consumerism alert]//The Human Centipede [icky horror movie alert] plus some old dvds: Face/Off//The Forgotten//Fast Times at Ridgemont High//Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her//Saved! [anti-Fundamentalist Christian alert]

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Environmental Radical Killed by Avalanche (Irony of Ironies)

Tyler James Johnson, a Caltech graduate student who fled the U.S. after authorities identified him as an alleged conspirator in a case involving arson attacks at several San Gabriel Valley car dealerships six years ago, has died. He was 30. According to an obituary posted on the website of the Michigan-based Staffan-Mitchell Funeral Home, Johnson was “killed from a fall due to an avalanche” on Dec. 26 during a solo expedition in the Corsican mountains of France. Johnson became a fugitive after being named as a co-conspirator in the August 2003 firebombing of eight sport-utility vehicles at a West Covina...

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Environmental group (The Center for Biological Diversity) sues California to halt logging

Will clear-cutting forests increase global warming? That's a contentious issue as California, which is seeking to slash its carbon footprint, wrestles over rules to manage the state's private forests. The Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson-based environmental group, this week filed lawsuits against the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in seven California counties to halt logging plans for 5,000 acres across the Sierra Nevada and Cascade regions. The group contends that the agency approved the projects without properly analyzing carbon emissions and climate consequences under the California Environmental Quality Act. "Clear-cutting is an abysmal practice that should have...

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CA: Meg Whitman's charitable foundation's biggest benefactor was environmental group (EDF)

Billionaire gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman gave away just $125,000 of her charitable foundation's $46 million in assets in its first year of operation — and tax records show the bulk of the money went to a surprising place. The Griffith R. Harsh IV and Margaret C. Whitman Charitable Foundation in 2007 contributed $100,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund, which is now at odds with Whitman over water policy. The foundation also invested $3 million in hedge funds based in the Cayman Islands — a Caribbean tax haven that's been the subject of political controversy. ... But it's the $100,000 to...

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Environmental concerns delay solar projects in California desert

Reporting from El Centro, Calif. - Across the desert flatlands of southeastern California, dozens of companies have flooded federal offices with applications to place solar mirrors on more than a million acres of public land. But just as some of those projects appear headed toward fruition, environmental hurdles threaten to jeopardize efforts to further tap the region's renewable energy potential. The development of solar-power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation's dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming. In addition, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has urged that...

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“Cap” Industrial Competitiveness and “Trade” Domestic Manufacturing Jobs Abroad

Now that the Senate has returned from its August recess, its members have many issues with which to contend. Although health care reform has received much of the attention in recent weeks, another bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) or more widely known as Waxman-Markey or “cap & trade,” is equally deserving of scrutiny. This is because most major economic impact studies demonstrate that the “cap & trade” scheme proposed in the Waxman-Markey bill will create massive consumer costs with undefined environmental benefits. In June, the Waxman-Markey bill narrowly passed the U.S. House 219-212...

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Defying Critics, Obama Names Another Czar After Resignation of Environmental Adviser[Steel Union]

Obama chose a Labor Day union picnic on Monday as the backdrop to announce his selection of Ron Bloom, a member of his auto industry task force, as senior counselor for manufacturing policy. Bloom planned to travel to Cincinnati with Obama for an afternoon announcement at the AFL-CIO event. "They have skirted around that process so there is no accountability for the czars," she said Monday. "Nobody has to go up and testify in front of Congress. They don't have to go through the process." Bloom has already sidestepped congressional approval. He was senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner...

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