As the Supercommittee casts about for ways to reduce the federal deficit, the massive taxpayer subsidies for massively profitable oil and gas companies have been mentioned as a possible cut. The industry has mounted a big ad campaign and media blitz to deny that the subsidies are real.
"Dominion Virginia Power and federal nuclear regulatory staff members covered up knowledge of geologic faulting at the North Anna Power Station site in 1973, according to a U.S. Justice Department memo."
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"The White House Counsel's Office has formally rejected a congressional subpoena of documents relating to the $535 million loan guarantee that the administration shepherded for Solyndra, the now-defunct solar energy company.
In a letter to the chairs of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, Kathryn H. Ruemmler, counsel to the president, calls the request for documents made by House Republicans a 'vast fishing expedition' and a 'significant intrusion on Executive Branch interests.'"
"The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming."
"Over the protests of its Democratic minority, a House subcommittee voted on Thursday to authorize the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee to subpoena documents from the White House related to the solar manufacturer Solyndra."
"Earlier this year, top officials with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and the Department of Justice hauled a handful of senior State Department officials into a White House meeting. The gathering was the governmental equivalent of being called into the principal's office."
"A county Circuit judge in Virginia has sided with the University of Virginia's effort to restrict the release of personal emails from one of its former faculty members."
"Tokyo Electric Power Co. detected signs of nuclear fission at its crippled Fukushima atomic power plant, raising the risk of increased radiation emissions. No increase in radiation was found at the site and the situation is under control, officials said."
"Hollywood legend Robert Redford has starred in his second anti-Keystone video in less than two weeks. And this time he is advocating encircling (not occupying) the White House on November 6 to show President Barack Obama the 'people's' opposition to TransCanada's $7-billion pipeline.
"The Obama administration announced Monday that it has extended nearly 1,400 deep-water oil and gas drilling leases to make up for delays caused by last year's Gulf spill and a subsequent moratorium on some offshore exploration."
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