"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday officially overturned a 16-year-old Texas air permitting program it says violates the Clean Air Act, leaving some of the country's largest refineries in a state of limbo."
"The Interior Department has fined BP America $5.2 million for filing false reports related to gas production on Indian tribal lands in southwest Colorado."
"Congress on Wednesday took major steps to rein in Big Oil's offshore drilling practices, as one Senate panel voted to lift all caps on liability in oil spills and another moved to deny offshore leases to companies with poor track records."
News media and activists for weeks have reported how federal and local officials have barred them from reporting the Gulf oil spill story from public beaches -- even though they have a legal right to be there. Now Mother Jones' Mac McClelland quotes the Terrebonn Parish Sheriff's office saying some 40 of the deputies enforcing BP'S illegal ban are being paid to work in uniform for BP during their off-duty hours.
Louisian Gov. Bobby Jindal has vetoed Republican-sponsored state legislation that would have made public all records from his office related to the BP Gulf oil spill.
Mother Jones' Mac McClelland reports that some of those guys wearing uniforms and harassing journalists are actually off-duty local law enforcement officers being paid for their time by BP.
SEJ's comments included suggesting the NRC lose the "minders" that babysit agency people while they talk to reporters and asking that the NRC press operation do its job of keeping reporters and the public apprised of real news.
A big fraction of the leaks and spills involved not merely oil, but produced water containing hydraulic fracturing fluid. You'll find lots of useful data on the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission website.
Investigative Reporters and Editors brings news of a special Gulf Oil Spill Report put out by the Federal Procurement Data System which lists all federal contracts that the General Services Administration (GSA) knows about.
Every spill report coming in to the NRC goes into a database which is, for the most part, publicly accessible. You can query the database online, or download it for use in your own computer-assisted reporting project.
Advertisement 
