DeGette, Polis ‘fracking’-disclosure camp up against big-money opponents in Congress

Colorado Democratic U.S. Reps Diana DeGette and Jared Polis are leading supporters of a move to force natural-gas drilling companies to disclose the chemicals they use to blast gas out of the ground in an increasingly controversial process called “fracking.” The two lawmakers were joined Thursday by 46 members of Congress in sending a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asking him to back a proposal in which the Interior Department would require disclosure of all materials used in fracking operations conducted on public lands. The DeGette and Polis bloc faces strong opposition in Congress and, turns out, their main opponents are pulling down large donations from oil and gas companies.

EPA forced to subpoena Haliburton for fracking information

The Environmental Protection Agency reported Tuesday that eight out of nine companies engaged in the controversial and expanding natural gas industry practice of hydraulic fracturing agreed to submit information for a 2011 health study on the effects of what…

Campbell’s ‘top kill’ oil plug procedure looks like this

This is what it looks like right now 5,000 feet down as champion oil-leak-stopper Pat Campbell attempts to plug the Deepwater Horizon gusher that has been spewing into the Gulf of Mexico unimpeded for 37 days. For what it’s…

Pat Campbell will attempt to plug the Gulf oil gushers today

This guy, “fat boy” Pat Campbell, is probably going to save the Gulf of Mexico today from further catastrophe, after British Petroleum and the Obama Administration have floundered for 37 days, oil gushing throughout from below the exploded and torn…

EPA to study hydraulic fracturing, but calls for FRAC Act continue

Backers of the controversial FRAC (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals) Act, including co-sponsor Diana DeGette (D-Denver), were quick to caution Thursday that a proposed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study of hydraulic fracturing shouldn’t be seen as an…

Phone-tamperer O’Keefe’s bad week gets worse: Judge rules ACORN defunding unconstitutional

James O’Keefe has admitted spearheading a misguided “phone-tampering” operation at Sen. Mary Landieu’s office in New Orleans this week. “As an investigative journalist, my goal is to expose corruption and lack of concern for citizens by government and other…

Despite heat, pioneering Rio Blanco County stands by energy impact fees

Oil and gas companies fought the fees at every turn, in part leery of the precedent it might set not only for other gas-rich counties in Colorado, but also around the nation. The possibility of impact fees quickly became a campaign issue in neighboring Garfield County during the 2008 county commissioner election.

Haliburton, KBR shareholders sue firms as proxy for Bush-Cheney cronyism

Remember how MBA George W. Bush was going to be our CEO president? How he was going to run the country like he would run a business? Well, on that promise, at least, he delivered.

Americans frustrated by the lack of accountability of the Bush-Cheney administration may get some satisfaction from the knowledge that the Administration ran the main businesses it was tied to the same way it ran the country — and there is some rich accountability taking hold in that realm.