Pollution

"Perry fast-tracked new plants and made Texas even more polluted than it already was."

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"In April 2006, a few days before Earth Day, Texas Gov. Rick Perry joined executives of TXU, the state's largest utility and biggest carbon dioxide emitter, in cheering plans to open a staggering 11 new coal-fired power plants throughout Texas. With rolling blackouts still fresh on many Texans' minds, Perry hailed TXU's rapid expansion as a path to energy security, not to mention a way to create jobs and potentially lower energy costs.

"San Francisco -- The shipping companies responsible for the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill, which polluted San Francisco Bay and killed thousands of birds and fish, have agreed to pay $44.4 million to restore habitat and reimburse the agencies that responded to the disaster, state and federal officials announced Monday."

"ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Shell Oil Co. on Monday took a step closer to tapping vast petroleum reserves off Alaska's Arctic coasts when the federal Environmental Protection Agency approved an air quality permit for one of the company's drilling vessels."

"COLUMBIA, S.C. — Groundwater at a large landfill in lower Richland County, S.C., continues to show signs of harmful pollution, despite more than a decade of cleanup efforts."

"FORT McMURRAY, Alberta -- As U.S. companies look toward oil riches in northern Canada, they're encountering increasing competition - as well as some much-needed cash infusions - from the Far East. U.S. and Canadian companies have dominated Alberta's oil sands for decades. Now, though, Chinese firms are rushing to snap up Canadian oil sands resources and invest in ongoing projects - to the tune of $15 billion in the past 18 months in Alberta alone."

Despite confident assurances from leaders in the go-go shale gas industry that pollution problems don't exist, records from Pennsylvania's environmental agency show that faulty casings and cement do indeed cause pollution of drinking water.

"At the recent Shale Gas Insight conference in Philadelphia, the CEO of one of the largest Marcellus Shale drilling companies in Pennsylvania was unequivocal in his message that methane contamination of drinking water supplies from faulty gas wells is at an end.