Wildfire Survivors, Consumer Groups, Insurers, Public Entities Oppose Limits on Survivors’ Rights At Hearings In CA Capitol On CEA SB 254 Report

Oil Permits Surge In First Q 2026 With Majority For Dangerous Extraction Techniques; Watchdogs Warn New State Drilling Law Unfair

Watchdog Warns of Continued Gasoline Price Spikes Without Promised Energy Commission Rules

Energy

Energy and utility watchdog coverage — gas prices, oil-industry profits, utility rates, and clean-energy accountability.

Publishers Weekly Review of “The Progressive’s Guide Raising Hell”

November 18, 2010 · Mark Reback

Publishers Weekly Review: "The Progressive's Guide to Raising Hell: How to Win Grassroots Campaigns, Pass Ballot Box Laws, and Get the Change We Voted for" By Jamie Court, Chelsea Green, $14.95 trade paper (210p) ISBN 9781603582933

Lobbyists Pay To Educate New Legislators

November 16, 2010 · Mark Reback

SACRAMENTO, CA -- Former Assemblywoman Patty Berg knew exactly where to pass the hat to bankroll a training program for California's eight new female legislators in a state with a multibillion- dollar deficit: Capitol interest groups.

Spill Commission Defends Its Top Lawyer

November 16, 2010 · Mark Reback

The panel named by President Obama to investigate the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout on Tuesday rejected a call by a consumer activist group for the resignation of its chief counsel, Fred H. Bartlit Jr. The group, Consumer Watchdog, <a href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/science/oilletter111610.pdf">said that the panel should dismiss</a> Mr. Bartlit because his law firm, Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott, once represented Halliburton, one of the companies involved in drilling the BP well.

BP cost-cutting was a culture, not a set of rules

November 9, 2010 · Judy Dugan

How can Progressives win again? Look to California

November 4, 2010 · Jamie Court

Big corporate money couldn't buy democracy in California Tuesday. Progressives didn't win every top office and key ballot measures because voters are more progressive, but because of the power of populist tactics practiced here that should spread across America.

Did Halliburton push its ‘cost-cutting’ cement?

October 29, 2010 · Judy Dugan

<h3> <img alt="Did Halliburton Push Its ââ‚¬˜Cost-Cuttingââ‚¬â„¢ Cement?" class="post-thumbnail woo-image" height="214" src="http://www.oilwatchdog.org/wp-content/themes/freshnews/thumb.php?src=wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Halliburtonspill1-300x216.png&w=300&h=214&zc=1&q=90" width="300" /></h3> <div class="entry"> Halliburton is the sloppy contractor with no license, bad B.O. and helpers off the street who use gravel to stretch the cement and pour your driveway without the rebar. Except writ large. And deadly.

Feinberg to Chamber: “It won’t work”

October 28, 2010 · Carmen Balber

As <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-27/feinberg-defends-legal-system-rejecting-u-s-chamber-s-campaign.html">reported by Bloomberg</a>: <blockquote> Kenneth R. Feinberg, the attorney running BP Plc’s fund for victims of the Gulf oil spill, told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce not to use his efforts as an argument to revamp the U.S. legal system. </blockquote> Feinberg gave the keynote speech in the AIG-sponsored “Hall of Flags” yesterday at the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform.

Hey, Chevron. Clean up your own messes

October 28, 2010 · Judy Dugan

BP’s Long, Ugly History of Profit Over Safety

October 27, 2010 · Judy Dugan

(updated 10-27 with Frontline <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-spill/" mce_href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-spill/">video link</a>)

Filmmaker Joins Governor in Climate Fight

October 16, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

Academy Award-winning director James Cameron – whose movies have featured Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – on Friday pledged $1 million to oppose Proposition 23, a measure that would suspend the state's landmark climate change law. Cameron joins environmental groups, green tech advocates and financiers who already had lined up with Schwarzenegger in opposing the measure. The director's contribution signals the governor's growing role in protecting the greenhouse gas reduction law, a significant part of his policy legacy.

California pension funds should divest from price gouging oil firms behind Prop 23

October 15, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

Consumer Watchdog has called on California's two large public employee pension funds -- CalPERS and CalSTRS -- to sell off their holdings in Valero Energy and Tesoro, the big oil refiners behind Prop 23. The two companies have...

Oil Watchdog: New report documents problems at Big Oil U

October 14, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

Big Oil has flooded campuses with millions of dollars to pay for clean energy research at American universities, undermining tradition academic values and potentially furthering a narrow commercial research agenda, according to a <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/06/big_oil.html">report</a> released Thursday by the <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/">Center for American Progress.</a> Jennifer Washburn shows how <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/06/big_oil.html">Big Oil has underwritten research at top-tier universities</a> with few protections for scientific objectivity or scholarly independence.