Brendan DeMelle

At an industry public relations conference last year, Michael Kehs of Chesapeake Energy described a Wall Street Journal op-ed to gathered oil and gas officials, saying it pointed out the industry's "credibility problem."

“And I’m sure some of it relates to defensiveness,” Kehs added. (

It's time for Friday funnies, and the top hit today is Ethical Oil: The Puppet Rap, which first popped up over at The Tyee.

It's a foul-mouthed, satirical music video remix of Kathryn Marshall's ridiculous PR gymnastics to avoid answering a basic question from...

Update (2/23/2012): A line-by-line evaluation of the Climate Strategy memo, which the Heartland Institute has repeatedly denounced as a "fake" shows no "obvious and gross misstatements of fact," as Heartland has alleged. On the contrary, the Climate Strategy document is corroborated by Heartland's own material and/or by...

As news outlets across America take a more rigorous look at shale gas and fracking issues, it’s encouraging to see how the media coverage is finally starting to cut through the oil industry’s misleading rhetoric to explore the realities of the myth of gas as a viable ‘bridge fuel.’

The...

In the wake of the Obama administration's year-long delay of the Keystone XL pipeline decision, Canadian officials today delayed their decision on yet another controversial tar sands pipeline. A decision on Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline was delayed today until late 2013, a year later than planned. The three-member panel...

The UK police force tasked with investigating the hacking of emails and documents from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (the debunked "Climategate") seems to have quietly de-prioritized its investigation earlier this year, according to documents released under the UK Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The...

The natural gas industry's favorite public relations ploy about the necessity of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the process through which "clean natural gas" is now procured, is that the patriotic gas industry is championing the shale gas boom for domestic consumption and for "national security purposes." We now...

The oil and gas industry has a long history of resisting public accountability and protective standards, and generally avoiding tough questions about its practices and attacking its critics. Just yesterday, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wrote a piece in the Huffington Post titled, "The Fracking Industry's War On The New York Times --...

Now that the web of Keystone XL tar sands industry lobbyists connected to Hillary Clinton has grown far beyond Paul Elliott, DeSmogBlog, Oil Change International, The Other 98% and Friends of the Earth have produced a new white board infographic to help everyone visualize this cast...

Hillary Clinton and the State Department have the final word on whether to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, unless President Obama intervenes. The influence of tar sands industry lobbyists connected to Hillary Clinton is finally getting some media attention, but there is still more to this story.

Clinton's...

With over 700 people arrested so far in the Keystone XL tar sands action taking place at the Obama White House, and widespread distrust and criticism of the State Department's final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), this is a critical moment in the fight against a disastrous...

The Checks and Balances Project has obtained a copy of the controversial Energy Information Administration report that was called “garbage” by EIA Acting Administrator Howard Gruenspecht.  The polluter-friendly report was just delivered yesterday afternoon to the GOP House requesters, Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)...

Willie Soon, the notorious climate denier who has made a career out of attacking the IPCC and climate scientists, has received over $1 million in funding from Big Oil and coal industry sponsors over the past decade, according to a new report from Greenpeace.

The Greenpeace report,

Friends of the Earth, Corporate Ethics International, and the Center for International Environmental Law just filed a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department and Hillary Clinton (Friends of the Earth v. State Department) over the agency's controversial handling of the Keystone XL pipeline proposal.

The suit follows an...

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced his appointments to a fracking safety panel late yesterday. While this panel might seem a step in the right direction to hold the gas industry accountable for fracking threats, it falls short of what is truly needed right now: a nationwide moratorium on...

The Hill reported this morning on a groundbreaking report from Cornell University researchers confirming that shale gas recovered through high volume hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” will produce even more greenhouse gases than the burning of coal in the next two decades -- a critical window in which society...

DeSmogBlog has uncovered an industry memo revealing that ‘Energy In Depth’ is hardly comprised of the mom-and-pop “small, independent oil and natural gas producers” it claims to represent.  In fact, the industry memo we found, entitled “Hydraulic Fracturing Under Attack,” shows that Energy In Depth “would...

While Rep. Gabrielle Giffords continues her amazing recovery in the wake of the tragic Tucson shootings, the coal industry and its captive members in Congress and the right wing media continue to talk about a "War on Coal."



The industry front group...

Lee Fang from ThinkProgress was able to interview David Koch briefly today during Koch's visit to Washington to congratulate his freshly-purchased Congress. Fang persistently sought Koch's opinion of the Tea Party, which his company Koch Industries helped to spawn through its Kochtopus...

Despite President Obama’s campaign pledges of government transparency and limiting the influence of K Street lobbyists on policymaking, coal industry lobbyists got their stockings stuffed with wishes this year in Washington.  Climate and energy legislation is dead, the Environmental Protection Agency is entering its 21st year of...