Lamborn oil shale bill seen by Boehner as possible transportation funding fix

Republican Doug Lamborn’s bill to speed up oil shale production in western Colorado has been packaged with House Speaker John Boehner’s American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act (HR 7) as a means of funding the nation’s crumbling transportation infrastructure. But critics point out commercial oil shale production is potentially decades away and may never come to fruition.

Top corporations spent millions on politics to save billions in taxes

Five top U.S. corporations racked up millions in profits last year and paid no federal taxes. They spent money instead on political campaigns and it was money well spent. Over the last decade, Bank of America, Boeing, Chevron, ExxonMobil and General Electric handed out $78.7 million to state political campaigns and $45.3 million to federal campaigns, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Institute for Money in State Politics. In return, the corporations in 2009 won $3.7 billion in tax breaks overall and paid $0 in federal taxes. They enjoyed a combined profit of $77.16 billion in 2010.

Debt-ceiling deal blasted as congressional ‘give away to corporate polluters’

The president of the Wilderness Society today skewered the current debt-ceiling compromise and budget-slashing deal worked out in Washington over the weekend, saying its reductions in spending on environmental and conservation policies “threaten to damage our water, our air and our lands beyond repair.”

Anti-green group with Colorado ties rushes to defend ExxonMobil in Montana oil spill

A moderate Montana Republican who says her bid for state lawmaker last year was torpedoed by the illegal campaign tactics of an anti-green, pro-drilling political group registered in Colorado has seen her ranch on the Yellowstone River near Laurel inundated with ExxonMobil oil.

Yellowstone River rancher: ‘We can’t use majority of our farm … it’s really bad’

Luckily, Alexis Bonogofsky has a day job with the National Wildlife Federation, because her goat ranch and farm on the banks of the Yellowstone River south of Billings, Mont., has been completely shut down by last week’s ExxonMobil pipeline break and oil spill.

Colorado sportsmen’s group worried about lasting impacts of Yellowstone River oil spill

Sportsmen’s groups as far away as Colorado are deeply concerned about the potential degradation of fish and wildlife habitat resulting from Friday’s ExxonMobil oil spill in the pristine Yellowstone River 20 miles upstream from Billings, Mont

Exxon oil spill in Montana’s Yellowstone River puts spotlight back on pipeline safety

ExxonMobil workers on Tuesday were scrambling to add staff and finds ways to work in swift-moving flood waters to soak up more than 40,000 gallons of oil the company spilled into Montana’s pristine Yellowstone River Friday night.

Study links soaring oil and gas profits to lobbying, political expenditures

The nonprofit Checks and Balances Project today released an analysis of the skyrocketing profits of the nation’s top five oil and gas companies in the wake of near-record gas prices and compared those profits to lobbying expenditures and political…

DeGette ‘fracking’ amendment doesn’t fly; ExxonMobil shareholders vote

Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette’s bid to get full public disclosure of the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing of natural gas wells was withdrawn as an amendment to a Safe Drinking Water Act bill Wednesday after debate by the…

Reports: ExxonMobil wary of FRAC Act, conflicted on climate change bill

ExxonMobil’s acquisition of natural gas giant XTO Energy – the hot topic in the gas-field communities of Colorado’s Western Slope this week – has implications far beyond an industry typically dominated by smaller, independent operators.

According to National Public…