Environment

A Crude Attempt To Gain LNG Support

"Controversy over LNG [liquid natural gas] terminals is growing as demand soars," reports the Boston Globe. There are four proposals for new LNG terminals in Massachusetts -- and one has its own astroturf group. The Coalition for an LNG Solution, which describes itself as "a grass-roots neighborhood organization," supports new LNG terminals on Boston Harbor islands.

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Anxious Al Caruba

Alan Caruba
Alan Caruba, from the CDFE website

Alan Caruba is a public relations professional who is so anxious about issues like environmentalism, immigration and the United Nations that he runs the National Anxiety Center. Caruba, who states on his website that his clients include or have included "chemical and pharmaceutical companies, think tanks [and] trade associations," writes a weekly column, called "Warning Signs," which is run by conservative websites.

In last week's column, Caruba, an "adjunct fellow" at Ron Arnold's anti-environmentalist Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise (CDFE), expressed anxiety over our SourceWatch article on his friend Michael Fumento. The title of his column was "Smearing Conservative Writers."

Nuclear Company Underwrites Parliamentary Committee

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's bid to pave the way for an expansion of the nuclear power industry through the 2006 Energy Review and its consultation document, Our Energy Challenge, has been hit by controversy over undisclosed corporate lobbying.

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Environmental Defense or Nanotech Defense?

If you have concerns about the development of nanotechnology, you might want to keep an eye on the 'partnership' between the chemical industry giant DuPont and Environmental Defense (ED), the New York-based environmental group.

The project, according to a joint media release issued in October 2005 by ED's Fred Krupp and DuPont's Chad Halliday, is to "identify, manage and reduce potential health, safety and environmental risks of nano-scale materials across all lifecycle stages." Once developed, the framework will "then be pilot-tested on specific nano-scale materials or applications of commercial interest to DuPont."

To be fair, ED has flagged concerns about there being inadequate health and environmental assessments of nanotechnologies to date. However, ED hasn't mentioned publicly what they think about DuPont and other companies having products that are already on the market without such assessments.

GE Brings PR, Lobbying Costs To Light

From 1990 to 2005, General Electric spent more than $122 million on public relations, lobbying and legal efforts, "to fight demands that it clean up three contaminated polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) sites," reports O'Dwyer's.

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