January 23, 2015

Inside the ECMC-Corinthian Deal: Will Students Be Protected?

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The U.S. Department of Education’s ill-advised effort to broker the sale of 56 campuses of the discredited Corinthian for-profit college chain to ECMC, a student debt collection operation, has hit some snags. The transfer of campuses to ECMC has been delayed nearly a month, to February 2, in part because various state regulators need to give approval, and
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January 21, 2015

Refinery Lobbyist Invokes WW2-Era Quote, Calls Businesses That Donate to Environmentalists ‘Appeasers’

Charles Drevna, the top lobbyist for the refinery industry in America, likened fossil fuel companies that work with and fund environmental groups to “appeasers.” Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, Drevna said “an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping he’ll eat him last, and that’s what’s happening,” referencing a donation from gas company to the Sierra
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January 20, 2015

NPR Reporter on Featuring Climate Change Denier Front Groups: ‘Journalists Just Love a Fight’

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Merchants of Doubt, a new film by Robert Kenner, explores the history of paid “third party” front groups, designed to appear as legitimate scientific or academic organizations, that act to mislead the public on policy issues on behalf of their corporate benefactors. The film goes through the history of groups that were paid to raise
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January 20, 2015

ConocoPhillips CEO Stalks Capitol Hill as Lawmakers Consider Keystone XL

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Ryan Lance, the chief executive office of ConocoPhillips, was walking the hall of Congress as lawmakers debated the Keystone XL, a key priority for the company, which owns a significant stake in Canadian tar sands. TransCanada has disclosed that ConocoPhillips is slated to ship tar sands oil using the Keystone XL pipeline. “Ryan’s as comfortable on
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January 16, 2015

Americans for Prosperity Announces Legislative Agenda, Mirrors Koch Industries’ Corporate Wishlist

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Americans for Prosperity, the grassroots organizing group founded by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, spent $125 million in the midterm elections last year. Now, they’re calling in their chips. At the National Press Club yesterday, AFP president Tim Phillips and several officers with the group laid out their agenda. The group is calling for legalizing crude oil exports, a
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January 14, 2015

For-Profit College Investor Now Owns Controlling Share of Leading Education Trade Publication

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Quad Partners, a New York private equity firm that is invested heavily in the for-profit college industry, and whose founder has aggressively opposed regulation of that troubled industry, has acquired a controlling stake in the respected trade publication Inside Higher Ed (IHE), which often reports on for-profit colleges and the policy disputes surrounding them. There has been no public announcement,
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