2012 - Checks and Balances Project

ICYMI: Denver City Council supports BLM’s smart approach to protect water from oil shale speculation

2012-12-21

On Monday, the Denver City Council issued a proclamation supporting the “research first” approach to protect western water, taken by the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) in its recently issued Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). By taking this action, Denver joined the list of communities throughout Colorado’s Front Range and West Slope that have publicly… Read more »

2012-12-21

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announced that as oil and gas leasing on public lands increased in 2012, the number of protested leases declined. Unfortunately, that’s not the case in Colorado. It’s just the opposite under Colorado Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Director Helen Hankins. In her state, lease protests… Read more »

2012-12-18

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) describes itself as “a bipartisan organization that serves the legislators and staffs of the nation’s 50 states, its commonwealths and territories. NCSL provides research, technical assistance and opportunities for policymakers to exchange ideas on the most pressing state issues.” Affiliated with NCSL, is the NCSL Foundation which was… Read more »

2012-12-13

The Checks and Balances Project commissioned a poll that shows high levels of support for wind energy and ratepayer antipathy toward actions carried out by Commonwealth Edison’s parent company, Exelon, to end wind power investments. The majority of respondents opposed ending the tax credit that encourages the production of wind power (54%), and opposition to… Read more »

2012-12-12

Update: The report was covered in E&E News (subscription), Mother Jones, Think Progress and DeSmogBlog. Click-through for more on our groundbreaking research on fossil fuel-funded groups in the media. Fossil fuel-funded front groups, commonly referred to as “think tanks” or “institutes”, have been secretly influencing the media and the public on energy issues by moving… Read more »

Oil shale: Energy’s pink unicorn

2012-12-7

Grover Norquist, founder of the right wing, anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform, recently spoke out about the folly of spending tax dollars on pink unicorns, since they don’t exist. Following his logic, government shouldn’t create handouts for oil shale, since it doesn’t exist as an energy source. We want to see if Mr. Norquist… Read more »

2012-12-6

Note: This is a re-post from Latino Decisions By Gabriel Sanchez, Director of Research In the wake of the 2012 presidential election, the Latino vote in states like Colorado has been held up as a critical and influential factor. Latino voters turned out in record high numbers and their 75% vote for President Obama nationally… Read more »

2012-11-30

Hall charges forward with oil boondoggle bill just as Congress and the President work to hammer out agreement to avoid fiscal cliff Washington, D.C. – Today the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment pushed forward a new boondoggle bill for oil companies. H.R. 6603, sponsored by Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) would create $50 million… Read more »

Confessions of a Coal Lobbyist

2012-11-16

Yesterday, the Checks and Balances Project attended an event looking at the future of energy policy, now that the election is behind us. Energy and the Presidency: The Shift From Campaigning to Policymaking, sponsored by Politico, featured a number of fossil fuel industry pundits: Jack Gerard, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, Karen Harbert of… Read more »

2012-11-2

In the final days of this 2012 election campaign, the Romney campaign’s strategy to deny climate change and crack jokes about the President pledging to solve the issue may prove to be a poor decision. The mainstream media is connecting the dots that extreme weather is being fueled by climate change (including warmer oceans and… Read more »

Yearly Archives: 2012