Environmental Politics

""The two key arguments that the oil and gas industry is using to fight federal regulation of the natural gas drilling process called hydraulic fracturing -- that the costs would cripple their business and that state regulations are already strong -- are challenged by the same data and reports the industry is using to bolster its position."

An environmental advocacy group has charged that EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, when she headed New Jersey's environmental agency, sought to block publication of a study on the health effects of toxic chemical PFOA on grounds that it had not been sufficiently peer-reviewed. She later relented.

President Obama's nominee for the top Justice Department environmental enforcement job, Ignacia Moreno, has come under fire from EPA staff attorneys for her previous work defending GE -- a major polluter prosecuted by EPA. Backers say Moreno was tough on polluters in a previous stint at Justice.

Legislators often contact South Carolina's Department of Health and Environmental Control seeking to expedite -- or influence -- environmental permits.

Terry Tamminen, former environmental advisor to California's Gov. Schwarzenegger, is a key player on global climate change now.

Voting with the GOP might seem like an easy political choice for Idaho Democrat Walt Minick. But could it be a problem when he needs clout to help the state?

Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson revived a Sunflower Electric coal-fired power plant when he replaced Katherine Sibelius. Now that deal may be unraveling.

"In the wake of last week's landmark passage of the House climate bill, conservatives have focused their fury on the handful of Republicans who voted in favor of the sweeping legislation."

White House climate czar Carol Browner's husband, former Rep. Thomas Downey, was a paid lobbyist for the group pushing for more oil drilling off Florida's coast.

"Environmental interests were trounced in the 2009 Supreme Court term that ends Monday."