Emails obtained and released today by the Environmental Integrity Project show that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) worked behind closed doors with the state’s electric power trade association and utility companies to weaken standards for air pollution control permits. The emails and documents reveal that Association of Electric Companies of Texas (AECT) and utility employees held private meetings with
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There’s been recent media coverage of how two Washington DC lawyers named Brendan and Nessa Coppinger have sued and convinced a local judge to issue a temporary restraining order prohibiting their neighbor, Edwin Gray, from smoking in his Capitol Hill row house, which adjoins theirs. Gray has lived in his home for 51 years; the
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For Chevron, the second largest oil company in the country with $26.2 billion in annual profits, it helps to have friends in high places. With little fanfare, one of Chevron’s top lobbyists, Stephen Sayle, has become a senior staff member of the House Committee on Science, the standing congressional committee charged with “maintaining our scientific
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“The air is fresher outside of Washington,” said Zach Wamp, a Republican politician after he left his seat in Congress. Wamp told reporters that he would not pursue a career in lobbying. Instead, he founded a firm that he said would focus on “business development” in Chattanooga, Tennessee. But like many other former officials, leaving
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Officials tapped by the Obama administration to lead the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations have received multimillion dollar bonuses from CitiGroup and Bank of America, financial disclosures obtained by Republic Report show. Stefan Selig, a Bank of America investment banker nominated to become the Under Secretary for International Trade at the Department of Commerce, received more
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Yesterday at Sen. Tom Harkin’s press conference on the release of his new report on the predatory nature of the for-profit college industry, one of the most illuminating testimonies came not from the senator or his colleagues, but from a former active and knowing participant in the abusive system. Laura Brozek worked for ITT Technical
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(Cross-posted from The Nation) The Washington Free Beacon, a new website on the right, has a particular fascination with promoting weapon sales to Taiwan. In addition to daily hits on the Obama administration and Democrats, the Free Beacon has multiple posts calling for more F-16 fighter jet sales to the island nation, and has branded skeptics of militarization
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The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate front group responsible for pushing voter ID and Stand Your Ground laws in states across the country, is on the run. Nearly two dozen major corporations (including Johnson & Johnson, yesterday) have been persuaded to cut ties with ALEC. ALEC is fighting back — and the group
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