Energy

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

Oil Watchdog: Big Oil’s “jobs” echo chamber

September 16, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

It’s amazing how oil companies stay so completely on message. The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry mouthpiece, is pushing the same deceptive “jobs, jobs, jobs” message as the Texas oil companies backing Proposition 23 on the California ballot. Both are saying that any shift toward greener energy that costs the oil industry a dime will trash American jobs.

Oil Watchdog: Oil industry gusher: lobbying expenses

September 16, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

Did you ever find yourself a little overbooked, wondering how you can be at two or three places at once? Well, that’s never happened to the oil industry. In 2009, the oil and gas industry had 782 lobbyists working the halls of Congress and the Obama administration, according to a recent analysis by OpenSecrets.org. That means there were one and a half lobbyists for every single member of the House and Senate. Or, as Consumer Watchdog’s DC Director describes it, the oil guys are everywhere, always.

Mad as hell, but don’t want to join the Tea Party?

September 15, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

The Tea Party is on a roll with its upset Senate primary victory in Delaware. If the rest of us don't start raising hell, the Tea Party will have us living it.

Oil Watchdog: Natural gas — Not safe, and not all that green

September 15, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

The way natural gas promoters talk about their pet fuel, you’d think it was green as clover and safe as baby oil. After the deadly San Bruno, California, gas line explosion, however, hawkers like natural gas billionaire T. Boone Pickens have gone silent. No more calls to action and pleas to phone your member of Congress to demand bigger subsidies.

Oil Watchdog: Nigeria = Mexico?

September 8, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

Mexico’s huge national oil company, Pemex, has <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-pemex-20100906,0,4996948.story?page=1">shut down</a> a large chunk of its natural gas fields because of the apparent kidnapping of dozens of employees and contract workers by drug gangs that are also stealing and selling oil and gas. It’s a situation <a href="http://www.oilwatchdog.org/2008/12/chevron-slides-for-now/">increasingly similar</a> to oilfield battles in Nigeria, where a corrupt government essentially rents out its troops to oil companies.

Oil Watchdog: Oops, there’s oil on the water after all *(or not)

September 2, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

The new oil platform fire or explosion in the Gulf of Mexico looks minor in comparison to the BP spill, but there are sure some loud echoes in how it's being handled. When word first trickled out about Thusday's platform accident off the Louisiana coast, there were swift assurances from the owner that no oil had leaked, and since the platform pumped mostly natural gas, leaks couldn't be a problem anyway.

Consumer Watchdog Praises Attorneys General For Google Probe, Renews Call for Congressional Hearing on Wi-Spy Scandal

July 21, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

Santa Monica, CA -- Consumer Watchdog today praised a group of 37 state attorneys general for seeking to get to the bottom of the Google Wi-Spy scandal and reiterated its call for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold hearings on the issue.

Union Chief Makes Nurses a Political Force

July 11, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

SUNDAY PROFILE: Rose Ann DeMoro Harvey Rosenfield, founder of Consumer Watchdog in Santa Monica, warned that DeMoro "has no fear. She is a warrior. ... You combine those qualities - knowing how to fight, being unafraid and uncompromising - and you have a unique individual in American politics." Someone who learned that lesson, Rosenfield said, was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who became a target of nurses' protests in 2005 when he attempted to roll back nurse-patient ratios in the state.

Myriad of Challenges Lie Ahead For CFPB

July 2, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

Agency must provide outline of authority, merge lending laws Carmen Balber, Washington director of Consumer Watchdog, said the recent credit card law is an opportunity for the new bureau. "One of the big places the agency will start is... to make sure credit card companies are living up to the letter and intent of the law," she said. "I think that's the most obvious place to hit the ground running."

Wrapping up

July 1, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

As Angelides pounds the gavel and adjourns the hearing, there is one question that is yet to be resolved amongst the Commission: How much of the crisis can be attributed to overarching regulatory deficiencies and how much of it can be attributed...

The Curious Case of Karen Bass

July 1, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

How a dedicated community organizer becomes an insulated, perk-oriented politician More recently, Bass' staff made the news for taking from oil giant BP lots of free tickets to major sporting and other events in Sacramento. Though it was legal, it left an uneasy feeling that Bass had morphed into just another pol, and more quickly than most. "At the very least," says Doug Heller of Consumer Watchdog of her per diem take, "it's a major loss of perspective over what should have been a natural and obvious bright line for someone like Karen Bass. When you go to Sacramento and live in that insular world for five or six years, clear rules become fuzzy."

Liveblog: Did OTS fail?

July 1, 2010 · Consumer Watchdog

In Session 2 so far, a lot of the questioning has been directed at the structural deficiencies of regulatory agencies. One large revelation has been the way in which many financial firms are able to manipulate and de facto pick...