Longwall Mining Stories in this series Undermined By Kristen Lombardi January 12, 2009 The big seep By Kristen Lombardi January 12, 2009 New scrutiny of ‘longwall’ mining finds damage in Pennsylvania streams By Kristen Lombardi June 21, 2013 Longwall coal mine companies push to “downgrade” stream pollution controls By Kristen Lombardi January 29, 2009 First […]
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Posted inEnvironment
Global warming: Heated denials
A gallery of skeptics By Lisa Chiu August 1, 2008 Stand-up comedian Tim Slagle was on a roll. In a lunchtime routine tailored to 400 conference attendees, Slagle was killing ‘em with jokes about, well, global warming. “Everything that [environmentalists] say is going to happen is bad. Couldn’t global warming be a good thing?” he […]
Posted inEnvironment
Appealing to a higher authority
After scores of private meetings with Big Oil giants such as ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is aggressively undermining the authority of state and local governments to reject dozens of proposed liquefied natural gas facilities all across the country. The energy companies’ influence with FERC and its chairman, Pat Wood III, is […]
Posted inEnergy, Environment, Politics of Oil
Gimme shelter (from taxes)
Big oil protects its interests By Aron Pilhofer July 15, 2004 Koch’s low profile belies political power By Kevin Bogardus July 15, 2004 U.S. oil and gas companies have at least 882 subsidiaries located in oil-free tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and even the tiny European principality of Liechtenstein, a Center for […]
Posted inEnergy, Environment, Politics of Oil
A pipeline of influence
Koch’s low profile belies political power By Kevin Bogardus July 15, 2004 Big oil spends $400,000 on government junkets By Daniel Lathrop July 15, 2004 The National Petroleum Council, a little-known federally chartered but privately funded advisory committee, has been an underground pipeline of political influence for the oil and gas industry in Washington for […]
Posted inEnvironment, Natural Resources, The Water Barons
The big pong down under
Cholera and the age of the water barons By Bill Marsden February 3, 2003 Promoting privatization By The Int’l Consortium of Investigative Journalists February 3, 2003 ADELAIDE, Australia — Fifteen months after Adelaide signed a contract turning over its waterworks to a private consortium controlled by Thames Water and Vivendi, the city was engulfed in […]
Posted inEnvironment, Natural Resources, The Water Barons
Low rates, needed repairs lure ‘big water’ to Uncle Sam’s plumbing
A tale of two cities By María Teresa Ronderos February 11, 2003 Indianapolis opts to control its water By The Int’l Consortium of Investigative Journalists February 12, 2003 It was as if someone tugged at a thread that long weekend in November, split the nation’s seam and exposed a nasty wound in its guts. It […]
Posted inEnvironment, Natural Resources, The Water Barons
Water system troubles a troubled city
Indianapolis opts to control its water By The Int’l Consortium of Investigative Journalists February 12, 2003 CAMDEN, N.J. — Camden is the poorest city in the state of New Jersey, and one of the five poorest in the nation. It sits on the banks of the Delaware River, a mere shadow in the glittering Philadelphia […]
Posted inEnvironment, Natural Resources, The Water Barons
Metered to death
Cholera and the age of the water barons By Bill Marsden February 3, 2003 Promoting privatization By The Int’l Consortium of Investigative Journalists February 3, 2003 The ‘aguas’ tango By Daniel Santoro February 6, 2003 JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Every morning, as the sun rises over the Indian Ocean and paints the sky a brilliant […]
Posted inEnvironment
Bush administration kills safety regulation opposed by donors
WASHINGTON, April 11, 2002 — The Bush administration quietly shelved a proposal to tighten regulations on a group of hazardous chemicals despite evidence linking dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries to accidents involving those chemicals, an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity has found. At issue in the shelved proposal is a particular […]
Posted inEnvironment
Bush’s choice of EPA advisers signals tilt toward industry
February 12, 2001 — The composition of the team that advised George W. Bush on the Environmental Protection Agency during his transition to the presidency signals a new era of a weakening federal role and a bias toward free-market solutions in complying with environmental regulations, say veteran EPA observers. Just over half of the team […]
Posted inEnvironment
Commentary: Lawsuit against Clean Air Act by members of Congress
WASHINGTON, September 5, 2000 — For nearly a quarter-century, almost since the very day of his swearing in as a U.S. senator, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch and others have waged war on the federal Clean Air Act, using virtually any and every weapon at hand. But when Hatch, former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray […]
Posted inElections
FBI tracked alleged Russian mob ties of Giuliani campaign supporter
WASHINGTON — A prominent commodities trader who acknowledges a business history with a reputed Soviet Bloc crime figure and a notorious arms dealer has been one of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s top campaign supporters. Commodities trader Semyon (Sam) Kislin and his family also lavished thousands of dollars in contributions to Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, to […]
Posted inState Integrity 2012, State Integrity Investigation, State Politics
Rhode Island gets C grade in 2012 State Integrity Investigation
Find your state’s grade What grade did my state get? Find it in the drop-down menu below. Select a state:AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming When he visited Rhode Island more than a century ago, the muckraker Lincoln Steffens was appalled. “The political condition of Rhode Island is notorious, acknowledged […]
Posted inState Integrity 2012, State Integrity Investigation, State Politics
Nebraska gets B- grade in 2012 State Integrity Investigation
Find your state’s grade What grade did my state get? Find it in the drop-down menu below. Select a state:AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming Lots of people in Nebraska began asking questions when a Canadian company, TransCanada, announced plans to build a 1,700-mile pipeline to connect oil fields in […]
Posted inState Integrity 2012, State Integrity Investigation, State Politics
Idaho gets D- grade in 2012 State Integrity Investigation
Find your state’s grade What grade did my state get? Find it in the drop-down menu below. Select a state:AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming There’s no deep history of corruption here, no dingy statehouse corridors or smoke-filled hearing rooms. Idaho’s early government was progressive, and its reputation has remained […]
Posted inState Integrity 2012, State Integrity Investigation, State Politics
Nevada gets D- grade in 2012 State Integrity Investigation
Find your state’s grade What grade did my state get? Find it in the drop-down menu below. Select a state:AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming Die-hard Nevadans tout the state’s so-called “citizen legislature” as a virtue. But the State Integrity Investigation suggests that transparency is compromised by lawmakers who meet […]
Posted inState Integrity 2012, State Integrity Investigation, State Politics
Pennsylvania gets C- grade in 2012 State Integrity Investigation
Find your state’s grade What grade did my state get? Find it in the drop-down menu below. Select a state:AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming Until six years ago, state government in Pennsylvania languished in its lack of any measure of transparency. Legislative leaders in the General Assembly had no […]
Posted inAccountability
Venezuela emerges as new source of ‘conflict’ minerals
Key findings: A black market for coltan — a strategically important mineral used in an array of electronic devices — has emerged in the Amazon jungles that cover the border area between Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil. In Venezuela and most of Colombia coltan mining is illegal, yet small-scale miners and buyers are plentiful. Venezuelan coltan […]
Posted inAccountability, Global Muckraking
After the quake, praise becomes resentment in Haiti
Infographic: A look at post-quake Haiti Click to see how Haiti has fared, in numbers. A tent city under transition: New temporary wooden shelters going up to replace tents at L’Annexe de la Mairie camp in March 2011. The camp is run by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Rudema Dianis […]
Posted inAccountability
FACT CHECK: Mangled facts in Manchester
FactCheck.org’s guide to the New Hampshire debates By FactCheck.Org January 6, 2012 FACT CHECK: New Hampshire debates, take 2 By FactCheck.Org January 8, 2012 Truth took a punch or two at the first of two GOP debates before New Hampshire’s critical presidential primary. Romney, talking about taxes, said federal, state and local government consume 37 […]
Posted inAccountability
FACT CHECK: GOP candidates throw out false facts on Iran
Iran is very much in the news, with President Obama signing legislation that imposes new sanctions against Iran, which has warned it may retaliate by closing a key oil route. But there was more heat than light on the critical issue of Iran from two GOP presidential candidates this weekend: On CNN’s “State of the […]
Posted inAccountability
U.S. deportees to Haiti, jailed without cause, face severe health risks
Port-Au-Prince, Haiti — The United States has deported more than 250 Haitians since January knowing that one in two will be jailed without charges in facilities so filthy they pose life-threatening health risks. An investigation by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting found that the Obama administration has not followed its own policy of seeking […]
Posted inAccountability
China-based corporate web behind troubled Africa resource deals
About this story: Students with the Stabile Center for Investigative Reporting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism researched this report beginning the fall of 2010. Most of the research was done from New York. Two students reported from Guinea in the spring of 2011; one student did research in Singapore and Hong Kong in […]
Posted inAccountability
FACT CHECK: Fanciful ‘facts’ at Fox News debate
FACT CHECK: An antidote for Bachmann’s anecdote By FactCheck.Org September 15, 2011 FACT CHECK: Bachmann, Perry butt heads on STD vaccine By FactCheck.Org September 14, 2011 FACT CHECK: Spinning job growth By FactCheck.Org September 8, 2011 Nine Republican presidential candidates debated for two hours in Orlando, Fla., and they served up more exaggerations and falsehoods […]
Posted inAccountability
Corruption, the war on terror hindering food aid to southern Somalia
A doctor examines a malnourished child from southern Somalia at a refugee camp in Mogadishu, Somalia. The United Nations says famine will probably spread to all of southern Somalia within a month and force tens of thousands more people to flee into the capital of Mogadishu. Farah Abdi Warsameh/Associated Press As the famine in southern […]
Posted inWorkers’ Rights
Use of toxic acid puts millions at risk
How we did this story A worst-case scenario for each refinery is filed by its owner with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Specifically, companies include what’s known as an “Offsite Consequences Analysis,” part of a larger plan that details how they manage myriad risks involved in manufacturing usable fuel from crude oil. The EPA keeps […]
