POLLUTERS

SEE EJ

SEE AIR POLLUTION ACTION

http://www.polluterwatch.com/polluters

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NO LNX

How Trump's DOJ is quietly protecting billionaires — and destroying poor neighborhoods

Sabrina Haake May 08, 2026

The barely- acknowledged silver lining in Trump’s war in Iran is that it has pushed 30% of the world’s economic power into a race toward renewable energy. Market volatility of fossil fuels, already complex, has become so intolerable due to the oil chokehold in the Strait of Hormuz that nearly 60 nations are mapping out their accelerated plan to abandon fossil fuels.

Legacy cities, built around heavily polluting industries from 1940-1970, inherited dystopian realities, including toxic brownfields, disappearing populations, poverty, declining birth rates, and diminished life expectancy from airborne particulates. Study after study has shown that people of color, many of whom live in legacy cities, face disproportionate health problems from pollution including benzenes, coal ash, airborne particulates, industrial waste, and lead. One study showed that a 10 mile difference in where someone lives can make a 33 year difference in life expectancy due largely to differences in air, soil, and water quality.

As we watch our coastlines sink while fires, droughts and floods increase in intensity, it is only a matter of time before courts begin to compensate victims of mass environmental injury. While legacy cities, comprised of poor and/or black majorities, would make ideal class-action plaintiffs, the best way to avoid a forced national restructuring of the energy map is for state lawmakers to relieve legacy cities from state-sanctioned monopolies that have harmed them for decades.

Republicans should not have a monopoly on energy

Enter the utility monopoly, comprised predominantly of white, mid-to-upper wealth, males. Thirty-four states have created regulated energy monopolies under which competition is eliminated in exchange for “heightened state control”; these controls are exercised to guarantee regulated utilities a certain rate of return on their capital investments, regardless of injuries and pollution caused along the way. The statutes guarantee that the more power plants utilities build, the more financial rewards for their investors, regardless of whether or not those projects injure public health. Even project overruns, where a projected $5 billion plant ends up costing $10 billion, results in greater profits to shareholders, while 100% of the overrun costs are paid for by the consumer.

There is no industry in the free market economy of United States — other than the energy industry — where a given, controlled, highly lucrative ROI is legally guaranteed.

Utility monopoly states have established public utility monopolies to control local electricity production and distribution. Through public utility commissions (PUCs), they govern and regulate monopolies conceived as vertically integrated businesses, meaning the monopoly provides service from front (generation) to end (the consumer meter.) The entrenched array of state-controlled monopolies throughout the U.S. resulted in increased reliance on coal and coke powered facilities that leach chemicals toxic to human life in predominantly black, brown, Asian, and poor communities.

Follow the Money

The Trump administration is fighting climate progress in unprecedented ways. This month, Trump’s Justice Department sued Minnesota to block a state-level lawsuit against oil companies, arguing that the well-pleaded lawsuit is an attempt to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This action follows a 2025 executive order directing the DOJ to protect energy production from state-level climate lawsuits, and complements Trump’s relentless efforts to increase reliance on fossil fuels to enrich and protect his deep-pocket fossil fuel donors.

While litigation winds through the federal courts, states could take matters into their own hands by transferring green energy generation to legacy cities and away from monopolistic utilities. The policy change would bring a profound economic shift by offering sustained economic opportunity to poor people, people of color, and others who live next to industry that ravages its host. This is an economic restitution approach based on evidence that black, brown, and poor citizens are disproportionately harmed by industrial pollution, toxic brownfields, and airborne particulates linked to living in legacy cities.

Redress is not suggested — nor recoverable — for decisions made in the 40s and 50s about where to site polluting industry. Demographics have shifted, and many entities have engaged in corporate shell games designed to insulate them from misdeeds of their corporate forbears.

But today there is no shortage of alternative energy firms with green energy expertise to share with municipalities in exchange for a share of the profits, if only they were not barred by artificial market constraints of Public Utility Commissions. It’s not hard to draft a 30-year lease where the energy developer provides expertise and equipment, and the city provides land, tax and permitting incentives. Over time, shared profits would gradually shift to the city while private investment is recovered.

Environmental justice would benefit the planet

Bringing energy autonomy to legacy cities would present a viable and sustainable economic justice model. Exempting legacy cities from PUCs, or state restraint, as compensation for decades of pollution and diminished life expectancy seems like a win-win, especially compared to the potential devastation of a well-funded class action.

A simple exemption for legacy cities would free 48 cities to set up green utilities through public-private ventures of their own choosing, and would soon provide cash-strapped cities more than enough money to enhance city services and possibly pay dividends to residents. Instead of drowning in debt, legacy cities could soon pave roads, buy municipal EV fleets for police and fire, and provide the kind of early education that gives urban youth a real chance at succeeding.

The war in Iran hits home how absurd it is to extract limited fossil fuels and export them around the globe when wind and solar power exists in everyone’s back yard. Black, brown, and poor communities disproportionately poisoned by fossil fuels own the wind and sun as much as anyone else, and should not have to sue the richest defendants in the world just to get their fair share. As long as we inhabit a spinning ball that circles the sun, we will have all the wind and solar energy we will ever need.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

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no lnx no grfx

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21112022/who-were-the-worst-climate-polluters-in-the-us-in-2021

U.S. greenhouse gas emissions climbed by 4.1 percent from major industrial sources in 2021, according to new data recently released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The increase is the largest year-on-year rise in emissions tallied across more than a decade of reporting and comes at a time when global climate pollution must quickly be curtailed to limit further warming.

The emissions, 2.7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, were self-reported to the agency by more than 8,100 of the nation’s largest climate polluters under the agency’s mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. The emissions represent about half of all U.S. climate pollution and the annual update provides the most comprehensive, site-by-site assessment of the nation’s largest polluters.

The increase in emissions came amid a rise in economic activity and industrial production following the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. While emissions from large polluters—generally defined as facilities that emit more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year—shot up in 2021, they were 5.25 percent lower than their pre-pandemic level in 2019.

Evan Gillespie, a partner with Industrious Labs, a recently formed environmental organization focused on decarbonizing heavy industry, said such swings in pollution have to cease in order to hit emission reduction targets under the Paris Climate agreement.

“We cannot have emissions linked to production,” Gillespie said.  “We have a lot of work to do over the next eight years to get industrial emissions on track.”

The Worst of the Worst

Andy Knott, director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign for the nation’s central region, said he is seeing a lot of progress in the shutdown of large coal-fired power plants from many, but not all, electric utilities.

“When I look at the largest carbon polluters, many of them, the utilities that own them, don’t have plans to retire them anytime at all,” Knott said. “We need to retire all coal by 2030 and all fossil fuels in the electric sector by 2035.”

Carbon dioxide is the primary driver of climate change and CO2 emissions from coal and natural gas fired power plants were the largest source of emissions. However, other pollutants including methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated greenhouse gases, such as hydrofluorocarbons used in refrigerators and air conditioners, were also significant sources of emissions. These “non-CO2” greenhouse gases are far more potent than carbon dioxide on a pound-for-pound basis and in many cases remain in the atmosphere for a relatively short time compared to CO2. Curbing their emissions is increasingly seen as a key to stopping near term warming.

The following is a listof the country’s top polluters for each of the leading greenhouse gases tracked by the EPA. Also included are some of the highest emitters for different sectors of the economy.

Carbon Dioxide: The James H. Miller Jr. power plant in Quinton, Alabama was the largest coal fired power plant in the U.S in terms of power generation in 2021 and was also the nation’s biggest emitter of CO2.The plant, owned by The Southern Company, emitted 20,834,019 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2021. Company executives announced plans last year to shut down nearly 80 percent of its coal power capacity by 2028 on the way to having net-zero emissions by 2050. The planned shutdowns do not include the James H. Miller plant.

Methane: The Bailey Mine, a coal mine owned by Consol Energy in southwestern Pennsylvaniais the largest single source of methane in the U.S. with 90,743 tons of methane emissions in 2021. The near-term climate impact of the emissions are equal to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 1.6 million automobiles, according to the EPA. Consol Energy does capture and destroy some additional methane emissions from the mine as part of a methane destruction pilot program.

Nitrous Oxide: Ascend Performance Materials’ nylon plant in Cantonment, Floridareleased 24,657 metric tons of nitrous oxide in 2021, four times more nitrous oxide than any other industrial facility in the country, though the figure is still pending final EPA verification. The plant makes adipic acid, a main ingredient in nylon 6,6, a strong, durable plastic used in everything from stockings to carpeting, seat belts and air bags, and also emits large amounts of nitrous oxide, an unwanted byproduct.

Nitrous oxide is 273 times worse for the climate than carbon dioxide on a pound for pound  basis. Assuming the currently reported emissions are correct, emissions from the facility in 2021 equaled the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 1.5 million automobiles, according to the EPA. Other adipic acid plants in the U.S and Europe installed abatement technology to destroy virtually all of their nitrous oxide emissions in the late 1990s.

Company officials told Inside Climate News in early 2020 that they would reduce nitrous oxide emissions from the production of adipic acid by 50 percent by mid-2020 and by more than 95 percent by February of 2022.  However, nitrous oxide emissions from adipic acid production at the plant climbed by 38 percent from 2019 to 2021 according to emissions data the company reported to EPA. Ascend Performance Materials’ spokeswoman, Alison Jahn, did not respond directly to questions about the increase but said that Ascend has set a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all of its facilities by 80 percent by 2030.

Hydrofluorocarbons: Hydrofluorocarbon-23 (HFC-23) is 14,600 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide on a pound for pound basis, making it one of the worst climate pollutants ever identified by the scientists with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2021, chemical manufacturer Chemours vented 180 metric tons of HFC-23, a synthetic gas and unwanted byproduct, from its Louisville, Kentucky plant. The emissions, which can be destroyed through incineration, are equal to the annual emissions of 566,000 automobiles. However, HFC-23 emissions from the Louisville plant could soon be a thing of the past.

In October, 2021, EPA required Chemours to use or destroy 99.9 percent of the HFC-23 it produces by this October. Chemours missed the deadline to complete the installation “due in part to supply chain issues” according to the EPA, which granted the company’s request for a 6-month extension. The company has installed and is now operating the pollution controls but is continuing to validate and optimize the system, Chemours spokeswoman Cassie Olszewski, said.

Sulfur Hexafluoride: Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is 25,200 times worse for the climate than carbon dioxide,making it the most potent greenhouse gas ever assessed by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Once released,  SF6 remains in the atmosphere, warming the planet, for 3,200 years. The synthetic gas is used in high-voltage circuit breakers to quickly interrupt electric current. In 2021, American Electric Power (AEP) released 18 tons of SF6 from electric utility substations across 10 states, emissions equal to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 99,000 automobiles.  While AEP had the highest total emissions, Duke Energy Carolinas had the highest SF6 leak rate—6 percent of all the SF6 it used in 2021—a rate more than twice that of AEP.

Eighty-eight U.S. utilities are part of a voluntary program that the EPA started in 1999 to help utilities slash their SF6 emissions. Duke Energy, the largest electric power corporation in the U.S. based on revenue, is not a part of the program.

“We are certainly working to learn more about the group [and] are reconsidering our involvement,” Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks said.

Methane from Gas Storage: The Petal Gas Storage Compressor Station vented 2,517 tons of methane from leaky compressors at an underground natural gas storage facility in Petal, Mississippi in 2021. Emissions from the facility declined by 49 percent from the prior year. However, Petal’s emissions remain nearly twice that of any other gas storage site in the country despite being a relatively small gas storage repository.

“We are continuing our methane emissions reduction efforts at Petal and across our system,” Jillian Kirkconnell, a spokeswoman for Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, said.

Boardwalk owns the Petal gas storage facility as well as the Gulf South Pipeline – Bistineau Station gas storage facility, the second-highest emitting gas storage facility in the country, which leaked 1,301 tons of methane in 2021.

Methane from Landfills: Sampson County Disposal, a privately owned landfill in Roseboro, North Carolina emitted an estimated 32,983 tons of methane, more than any other municipal or industrial landfill in 2021, according to company data reported to the EPA.  The near-term climate impact of the emissions are equal to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 575,000 automobiles according to the EPA.

Joy Grahek, executive vice president of strategic initiatives with GFL Environmental, the landfill’s owner, said the company has taken measures to reduce emissions and that the models used by the EPA to estimate emissions are incorrect.

“We have implemented a number of different operational and engineered strategies to minimize fugitive methane generation at the landfill, including the use of impermeable cover materials, an extensive gas collection system to capture landfill gas, and flaring of the captured gas,” Grahek said. “The models are widely recognized as containing significant uncertainty and using the EPA Reports as a basis for ranking the relative performance of landfills in controlling fugitive emissions is inaccurate.”

Emissions estimates for landfills vary widely depending on which method operators use to calculate their emissions and may underestimate actual emissions by as much as “a factor of two.”

The EPA recently proposed changes on how to better calculate methane emissions from landfills.

Phil McKenna

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aha sys fail insanity: no brainer to stop subsidizing ?!  banks kep loaning $ to frack tho NEVER MADE A PROFIT?! NOW GOV'T BAILOUT HAMM ETP KELCY; EXXON ABND CHEVRON LOOKING TO BANKRUPT SMALL INDEP [THAT DJT CLAIMS TO CARE ABOUT] BUY UP ASSETS CHEAP WHICH ARE FRYING THE PLANET; MEANWHILE COVIS DEMOS FAIL OF LIBTARD, WE HAVE WINDOW GND, WAY CHEAPER THEN CLEAN UP COVID MESS WHICH HIT US B/C WE TAKE OUT HABITAT AND EAT WILD ANIMALS

icn 420

super-Polluting Methane Emissions Twice Federal Estimates in Permian Basin, Study Finds

BY: PHIL MCKENNA

The methane is a byproduct of fracking for oil, often burned off at well heads or emitted into the atmosphere instead of being captured for use as fuel.

covid bail bill

cf antonia juhaz bakken bailout? oil -40$ bakken, 200b$ debt; in 2008 oil 150$, many poor cty could not afford, helped trigger Gt Recession?

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820

https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html

toxic 10 epa rollbacks ewg

From the beginning, the Trump administration has aggressively slashed environmental regulations. A New York Times analysis identified 100 environmental protections that have been reversed or are in the process of getting rolled back. The administration's record on chemical safety has been especially hazardous for the health of Americans, especially children.

One year into President Trump's term, EWG detailed how the Trump administration has stacked the Environmental Protection Agency with industry lawyers and lobbyists, undermined worker safety and cooked the books on chemical safety assessments. Midway through his second year, we reported how the EPA reversed a ban on a brain-damaging pesticide, delayed chemical bans and killed a rule to protect kids from toxic PCBs in schools. Last year, we reported that the EPA had rescinded safety rules at chemical plants, rubber-stamped untested new chemicals and silenced researchers.

As Trump's first term nears its end, things are even worse. Here are 10 more ways the Trump administration has continued to make life more toxic for Americans.

1. Failed to Aggressively Regulate Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’

The toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS contaminate more than 2,200 sites across the nation. Because they never break down in the environment, PFAS are often called "forever chemicals." They build up in our bodies and are linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental harms and reduced effectiveness of vaccines. Even though the EPA has known about the risks from PFAS chemicals since at least 1998, they remain virtually unregulated.

In February 2019, the EPA released a toothless PFAS "action plan" that lacked deadlines for action and failed to address the use of PFAS in everyday products, contamination from PFAS air emissions or disposal of PFAS waste, among other concerns. A year and a half later, key goals from the plan, including regulating PFAS under the Superfund law and setting drinking water standards, remain unfulfilled.

When Congress stepped in and sought to designate PFOA and PFOS – the two most notorious and well-studied PFAS – as "hazardous substances" and to set deadlines for agency action, Trump threatened a veto. Trump's EPA also weakened a rule designed to regulate PFAS in consumer products.

2. Allowed a Rocket Fuel Chemical to Stay in Drinking Water

Perchlorate is a component of rocket fuel that also frequently contaminates drinking water sources. Perchlorate can interfere with thyroid function, which can also harm childhood brain development.

Almost a decade ago, the EPA determined that these harms warranted regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The agency then dragged its feet for years. In 2016, the Natural Resources Defense Council sued to force the EPA to finally set a legal limit for perchlorate in drinking water. In a court-approved consent decree, the EPA agreed to propose a standard by October 2018 and finalize it by 2019. However, the EPA sought extensions and failed to meet these deadlines.

The EPA finally proposed a drinking water standard in June 2019 but also suggested that it might not regulate perchlorate after all. A year later,the EPA withdrew its decision to regulate perchlorate in drinking water.

3. Allowed Scores of New Chemicals, Including New Toxic PFAS, Onto the Market Without Adequate Oversight

In 2016, Congress substantially changed the way new chemicals are approved under the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA.

Under the old law, chemicals were frequently approved by default, often without any health and safety information. As a result, unsafe chemicals were allowed to be used for years or decades before the health and environmental hazards came to light. Inadequate oversight of new chemicals can also lead to regrettable substitution – when chemicals are finally found to be unsafe, they are often replaced by unstudied chemicals that may be just as or even more toxic.

The 2016 update was supposed to fix the new chemicals program by requiring the EPA to make an affirmative safety finding on new chemicals and restrict use if industry failed to provide sufficient safety data. Nonetheless, the Trump EPA has approved scores of new chemicals in a process that lacks transparency and contravenes the 2016 law.The EPA has also ignored known health concerns, limited its consideration of worker risks and denied requests for public files in the new chemicals program.

The EPA has also exploited loopholes in the new law to quickly approve new chemicals, including toxic PFAS. A recent investigation found that the EPA has been quietly approving new PFAS chemicals, through a provision known as the low volume exemption in the new chemicals program. As a result, the EPA is greenlighting new PFAS chemicals on an expedited basis, without public scrutiny. One PFAS, used in ski wax, was approved despite a finding that the chemical could "waterproof the lungs," resulting in severe health impacts.

Since the law was updated in 2016, the EPA has reviewed more than 3,000 new chemicals submissions. More than 1,000 of these chemicals have been approved through the low volume exemption, and since 2016, manufacturers have begun producing at least 900 new chemicals, many without adequate safety data. Environmental groups have sued the EPA over its failures to protect the public and the environment from risks from new chemicals.

4. Failed to Protect Workers From a Deadly Paint-Stripping Chemical

Methylene chloride is a highly toxic chemical used in paint strippers that is responsible for more than 60 deaths since 1980. In the final days of the Obama administration, the EPA proposed a ban on "methylene chloride for consumer and most types of commercial paint and coating removal."

After significant pressure from families who lost loved ones due to methylene chloride exposure, the Trump EPA eventually issued a final rule in 2019. However, the EPA narrowed the rule so that it would apply only to consumeruses of methylene chloride, not commercial uses. That means workers are not protected, even though a Center for Public Integrity investigation found that most deaths from methylene chloride take place at work.

A separate EPA evaluation of methylene chloride found that manufacturing, disposal and several other uses of methylene chloride pose no "unreasonable risk." Environmental groups have filed lawsuits challenging the rule and the recent evaluation.

5. Cooked the Books on the “Civil Action” Chemical

Trichloroethylene is a chemical solvent made infamous by the book and movie ." The EPA considers it to be a known carcinogen, and it is one of the primary contaminants that sickened scores of veterans who served at Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina.

As with methylene chloride, in the final days of the Obama administration, the EPA proposed banning three uses of TCE: spot cleaning, aerosol degreasing and vapor degreasing. In December 2017, the Trump EPA shelved these proposed bans, claiming that it would study those uses in a separate ongoing risk evaluation of TCE.

However, the EPA dramatically rewrote the accepted science on TCE in the draft risk evaluation released in February. As EWG warned in 2018, the solvents industry aggressively lobbied the EPA to ignore a key 2003 study finding that TCE causes heart deformities in developing fetuses. TCE's connection with fetal heart defects was an important basis for the Obama EPA's decision to ban three uses of TCE. An independent review of the EPA's science found that "prenatal exposure to TCE can cause human cardiac defects" and that the study "remains a valid choice" for assessing risk.

The lobbyists succeeded. The EPA's draft risk evaluation questioned the study's design and minimized its significance. An investigation by Reveal News compared the draft risk evaluation with a leaked earlier draft. It found that the earlier draft had relied extensively on the 2003 study and used it as a benchmark for the risk calculations. Reveal also reported that then-EPA chemicals safety chief Nancy Beck – "the scariest Trump appointee you've never heard of" – ordered that the risk evaluation be rewritten to downplay the risks of TCE. With the EPA giving significantly less weight to risks from fetal heart deformities, it's unlikely the agency will finalize the proposed bans.

6. Pressured EPA Scientists to Drop Evaluations of Toxic Chemicals – Including Formaldehyde

The Trump EPA is undermining the work of independent scientists within the Integrated Risk Information System program, known as IRIS. The program's work is supposed to be impartial and non-political. Its scientific assessments are intended to support the work of other EPA program offices and regional offices. IRIS is a frequent target of chemical industry attacks because its independent safety assessments often don't align with industry objectives.

In 2018, the Trump EPA tried to defund the IRIS program. EPA leadership also pressured IRIS to drop critical health assessments. In March 2019, a Government Accountability Office report disclosed that EPA leadership directed agency offices to limit the number of chemicals they wanted IRIS to review, and cut in half the number of IRIS's ongoing or upcoming assessments.

One of the halted assessments was IRIS's decades-long review of formaldehyde, a widely used chemical and known human carcinogen. This is surprising because former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt indicated to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in January 2018 that the report was complete and ready for release. However, answering questions for the record following a 2019 Senate hearing, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said formaldehyde was "not a top priority."

Instead of releasing the IRIS study on formaldehyde to the public, the EPA has instead decided that the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention – under the leadership of Nancy Beck – should conduct its own assessment of formaldehyde. As with TCE, this action will give the agency an opportunity to distort the science and minimize risks. Because these reviews take years, it will also significantly delay any EPA regulatory action on formaldehyde.

7. Rolled Back Clean Water Protections

Industrial chemical pollutants are often discharged into drinking water supplies. But the Trump administration has made it a priority to roll back theClean Water Rule, which more clearly defined which kinds of bodies of water are subject to the Clean Water Act. EWG's analysis found that the Clean Water Rule, if implemented as proposed by the Obama administration, would have protected drinking water sources for more than 117 million Americans.

The EPA's own science advisors have opposed the rollback of the Clean Water Rule, but the Trump administration repealed it in 2019, proposed its own rule in January and finalized it in April. The new rule covers far fewer bodies of water and would leave 234,000 miles of small streams unprotected. EWG estimates that at least 72 million Americans draw at least half their drinking water from small streams.

Because of the repeal, those bodies of water will no longer be subject to pollution limits. Protection for small and seasonal streams and wetlands is important because they often flow into larger bodies of water, including sources of drinking water. Polluted drinking water sources strain municipal water utilities tasked with filtering out contaminants regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and risk exposing the public to more contaminants that aren't regulated under the act.

8. Cooked the Books on Asbestos

Asbestos is a highly toxic, naturally occurring chemical linked to a particularly deadly form of cancer called mesothelioma.An estimated 40,000 Americans die every year from asbestos-related diseases. Although the toxicity of asbestos is well understood, the EPA has never actually banned most uses. The EPA attempted a ban in 1989, but most of the rule was overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991.

After Congress reformed TSCA in 2016, the EPA announced that asbestos would be one of the first 10 chemicals reviewed under the new law. Many hoped that this time, the EPA would finally ban asbestos.

Instead, when the EPA released its draft risk evaluation in May, it found that several uses of asbestos, including import of asbestos and asbestos-containing products and distribution of asbestos-containing products, did not pose an unreasonable risk. The EPA made its risk determinations by ignoring exposure from "legacy" uses of asbestos, such as old insulation and building tiles. Although in November the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the EPA to fix this error, it has yet to do so.

Instead of banning asbestos, in April 2019 the EPA published a rule requiring notice and approval before manufacturers could resume using it in some applications the agency considered abandoned. However, leaked documents show that more than a dozen EPA staffers urged an outright ban on asbestos instead.

9. Proposed a Loophole for Toxic Air Pollution

In July 2019, the Trump EPA proposed to reverse a longstanding policy requiring large power plants, refineries and other industrial polluters to always meet certain strict controls, even after reducing emissions. The new rule creates a loophole in the Clean Air Act regulations that would allow large industrial facilities to reclassify themselves, from "major sources" of air pollution to "area sources."

That change would allow them to opt out of strict pollution control standards, called "maximum achievable control technology," and substantially increase their emissions of dangerous air pollutants. EPA's own data shows that more than 3,900 large facilities that emit pollutants like mercury and :{benzene:(style="background-color:#ffcc66;"):}: could take advantage of this loophole. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates the loophole could increase toxic air emissions by as much as 480 percent, or almost 50 million pounds per year.

This rollback is especially alarming in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic. Studies have found that people who live in areas with high levels of air pollution are at greater risk for severe cases of COVID-19.

10. Continuing Its Quest to Censor Science

In 2018, the EPA proposed a disastrous rule significantly limiting the kinds of science the agency can rely on to justify environmental regulations. The rule would have prohibited the agency from using studies that don't make their underlying data publicly available or whose results can't be replicated. That change would prevent the EPA from including in its future risk assessments most human health studies, because personal medical data must remain confidential. The rule would undermine studies that are foundational to clean air regulations.

The proposal sparked enormous opposition from scientists, academics and environmental health advocates. More than 600,000 public comments were submitted to the agency, the vast majority in opposition. In September 2019, the EPA dropped the proposal from its regulatory agenda.

But the Trump EPA is at it again. In March, the agency issued a supplemental proposal that is actually worse than the original proposal. The 2018 proposal applied to all "dose response" studies, but the new proposal applies to all studies. The new proposal also applies retroactively, which means the EPA could use it to gut existing regulations.

As these actions – and dozens of others – show, the Trump EPA has aggressively worked to erode and eliminate vital environmental and public health protections. The public needs an EPA that will prioritize people and planet over polluters and profit.

:{https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27032020/coronavirus:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{-covid-:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{19-EPA-API-environmental-enforcement:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:

long

The Trump administration's unprecedented decision to suspend enforcement of U.S. environmental laws amid the COVID-19 crisis throws a lifeline to the oil industry as it copes with the greatest threat to its business in a generation.

The decision, announced late Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency, comes after a detailed call for help from the industry's largest trade group, the American Petroleum Institute, five days earlier.

The EPA went further than meeting the oil industry's request—announcing a blanket policy suspending enforcement and civil penalties for any regulated entity that can show COVID-19 was the cause of a failure to comply with the law. But it is clear that a primary beneficiary will be the oil industry, which sought suspension of its obligations under consent decrees over past air and water pollution violations at its refineries, deferral of requirements on handling of fracking wastewater and a pause in reporting its greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution.

On Friday afternoon, the EPA announced a separate action to relieve refineries of their legal obligation this year to produce "summer" blends of gasoline, designed to reduce smog-forming emissions....

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chem fingerprint acctable

technology exists to hold polluters accountable, but can it now be used to help monitor pollution and prevent toxic messes?

In the early 2000s, residents of a small, Rust Belt city called Tonawanda, New York, began noticing something strange: Over the years, it seemed, an increasing number of people were getting sick — primarily with cancer.

Tonawanda’s a highly industrial city with more than 50 polluting facilities situated within a three-mile radius. It was common for the air to feel dense and to smell like gasoline. Residents wondered what toxic chemicals might be in the air and if they were making them sick.

READ MORE

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U.S. Military Is World’s Biggest Polluter

By Whitney Webb

Last week, mainstream media outlets gave minimal attention to the news that the U.S. Naval station in Virginia Beach had spilled an estimated 94,000 gallons of jet fuel into a nearby waterway, less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean.

Keep reading...

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https://www.ecowatch.com/military-largest-polluter-2408760609.html

Whitney Webb

Last week, mainstream media outlets gave minimal attention to the news that the U.S. Naval station in Virginia Beach had spilled an estimated 94,000 gallons of jet fuel into a nearby waterway, less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean.

While the incident was by no means as catastrophic as some other pipeline spills, it underscores an important yet little-known fact—that the U.S. Department of Defense is both the nation's and the world's, largest polluter.

Producing more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined, the U.S. Department of Defense has left its toxic legacy throughout the world in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuel, pesticides, defoliants like Agent Orange and lead, among others.

In 2014, the former head of the Pentagon's environmental program told Newsweek that her office has to contend with 39,000 contaminated areas spread across 19 million acres just in the U.S. alone.

U.S. military bases, both domestic and foreign, consistently rank among some of the most polluted places in the world, as perchlorate and other components of jet and rocket fuel contaminate sources of drinking water, aquifers and soil.Hundreds of military bases can be found on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) list of Superfund sites, which qualify for clean-up grants from the government.

Almost 900 of the nearly 1,200 Superfund sites in the U.S. are abandoned military facilities or sites that otherwise support military needs, not counting the military bases themselves.

"Almost every military site in this country is seriously contaminated," John D. Dingell, a retired Michigan congressman and war veteran, told Newsweek in 2014. Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina is one such base. Lejeune's contamination became widespread and even deadly after its groundwater was polluted with a sizable amount of carcinogens from 1953 to 1987.

However, it was not until this February that the government allowed those exposed to chemicals at Lejeune to make official compensation claims. Numerous bases abroad have also contaminated local drinking water supplies, most famously the Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa.

[Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. tested 66 nuclear weapons near Bikini atoll. Populations living nearby in the Marshall Islands were exposed to measurable levels of radioactive fallout from these tests. National Cancer Institute map]

In addition, the U.S., which has conducted more nuclear weapons tests than all other nations combined, is also responsible for the massive amount of radiation that continues to contaminate many islands in the Pacific Ocean. The Marshall Islands, where the U.S. dropped more than sixty nuclear weapons between 1946 and 1958, are a particularly notable example. Inhabitants of the Marshall Islands and nearby Guam continue to experience :{an exceedingly high rate of:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{ cancer:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:.

The American Southwest was also the site of numerous nuclear weapons tests that contaminated large swaths of land.Navajo Indian reservations have been polluted by long-abandoned uranium mines where nuclear material was obtained by U.S. military contractors.

One of the most recent testaments to the U.S. military's horrendous environmental record is Iraq. U.S. military action there has resulted in the desertification of 90 percent of Iraqi territory, crippling the country's agricultural industry and forcing it to import more than 80 percent of its food. The U.S.' use of depleted uranium in Iraq during the Gulf War also caused a massive environmental burden for Iraqis. In addition, the U.S. military's policy of using open-air burn pits to dispose of waste from the 2003 invasion has caused a surge in cancer among U.S. servicemen and Iraqi civilians alike.

While the U.S. military's past environmental record suggests that its current policies are not sustainable, this has by no means dissuaded the U.S. military from openly planning future contamination of the environment through misguided waste disposal efforts. Last November, the U.S. Navy announced its plan to release 20,000 tons of environmental "stressors," including heavy metals and explosives, into the coastal waters of the U.S. Pacific Northwest over the course of this year.

The plan, laid out in the Navy's Northwest Training and Testing Environmental Impact Statement, fails to mention that these "stressors" are described by the EPA as known hazards, many of which are highly toxic at both acute and chronic levels.

The 20,000 tons of "stressors" mentioned in the Environmental Impact Statement do not account for the additional 4.7 to 14 tons of "metals with potential toxicity" that the Navy plans to release annually, from now on, into inland waters along the Puget Sound in Washington state.

In response to concerns about these plans, a Navy spokeswoman said that heavy metals and even depleted uranium are no more dangerous than any other metal, a statement that represents a clear rejection of scientific fact. It seems that the very U.S. military operations meant to "keep Americans safe" come at a higher cost than most people realize—a cost that will be felt for generations to come both within the U.S. and abroad.

Reposted with permission from our media associate MintPress News.

===

==

http://www.alternet.org/environment/here-are-worlds-top-10-dirtiest-companies

Ten corporations and state-owned entities are responsible for over 36 percent of global fossil fuels emissions since 1988, according to a new study published by the Carbon Disclosure Project.

Among the top ten polluters is British-Dutch owned-Shell, as well as the Exxon Mobil Corporation, whose former CEO, Rex Tillerson, currently serves as the U.S. Secretary of State. The governments of China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, India, and Mexico also own entities, which make the top ten list.

The study, which also shows that 100 companies are responsible for over 70 percent of global emissions, highlights the critical role of corporations and powerful state actors not only perpetuating environmental damage, but also in combatting climate change.

If fossil fuels continue to be extracted at the same rate over the next 20 years, the world could see a 4°C rise in global temperatures by the end of the century, leading to mass extinctions and widespread starvation.

Here are the top ten corporate and state-entity polluters:

1. China (Coal): 14.3 percent

China's state-led coal production has tripled to almost 4 billion tons since 2000, contributing to around half of all global emissions.

2. Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco): 4.5 percent

Saudi Arabia's state-owned Aramco has the world's largest crude oil reserves and the highest daily production output of any company in the world.

3. Gazprom OAO (Russian): 3.9 percent

Russian-owned Gazprom OAO has been the target of environmental protests for its Arctic drilling.

4. National Iranian Oil Co: 2.3 percent

Iran's state-owned natural gas company has had unilateral control over the country's oil reserves since 1948.

5. ExxonMobil Corp: 2.0 percent

ExxonMobil is the world's seventh largest corporation, an offspring of John D. Rockerfeller's Standard Oil Company. ExxonMobil has lobbied against climate change action in the U.S. Congress.

6. Coal India: 1.9 percent

State-owned Coal India is the largest producer of coal in the world.

7. Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex): 1.9 percent

In 2009, Mexican state-owned Pemex was Latin America's second largest corporation.

8. Russia (Coal): 1.9 percent

Russia saw a 70-percent increase in coal production since the late 1990s.

9. Royal Dutch Shell PLC (Shell): 1.7 percent

Shell is the seventh largest corporation in the world, and involved in every area of the coal and gas production chain. The British-Dutch owned company has been implicated major oil spills in Nigeria.

10. China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC): 1.6 percent

The state-owned oil and gas corporation is the largest integrated energy company in China.

In the foreword to the report, Pedro Faria, CDP's Technical Director, said the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement was "an unfortunate decision," and called on oil and gas firms to step up their commitment to the transition to a low-carbon economy and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

"Fossil fuel companies are also going to have to demonstrate leadership as part of this transition," he writes. "They owe it to the millions of clients they serve that are already feeling the effects of climate change, and to the many millions more that require energy for the comfort of their daily lives but are looking for alternatives to their products."

Click here for the full report.

Lauren Kaori Gurley is a freelance writer and master's candidate in Latin American studies and journalism at New York University

==

military 5/18

pfc?

https://www.propublica.org/nerds/data-get-an-inside-look-at-the-department-of-defense-struggle-to-fix-pollution

==

http://www.ecowatch.com/shell-dow-chemical-drinking-water-2355598384.html

Shell, Dow Hid Cancer-Causing Chemical in Pesticides, Contaminating Drinking Water for Millions

For decades, Shell and Dow hid a highly potent cancer-causing chemical in two widely used pesticides, contaminating drinking water for millions of people in California and beyond, according to lawsuits detailed in a new report from the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

The chemical 1,2,3-trichloropropane or TCP, was formerly an unwanted and ineffective byproduct in Dow's Telone and Shell's D-D pesticides. Internal documents uncovered in lawsuits filed by communities in California's San Joaquin Valley show that the companies saved millions of dollars a year by not properly disposing of TCP, a chemical a Dow scientist once called "garbage," as hazardous waste.

==

aha: linkage from sea level rise to chemical spill eg katrina

http://www.ecowatch.com/exxon-lawsuit-mystic-river-2024418598.html

ExxonMobil is facing a first-of-its-kind lawsuit for failing to account for the risks from climate change to its fuel storage terminal outside Boston. The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) claims that sea level rise and accompanying storm surges could damage the facility and lead to further pollution of the Mystic River.

....

==

==

9/16

 22 facilities are in the top 100 for both toxic-air and greenhouse-gas emissions reported by companies in 2014

Sources: 2014 emissions data from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; demographic data from U.S. Census Bureau. Companies listed are the full or majority owner, except in cases where a part owner is also the operator. Graphic by Chris Zubak-Skees. Data analysis by Jamie Smith Hopkins. Icons by Stephen Plaster and Steve Morris of the Noun Project.Methodology

===

==

http://www.ecowatch.com/whistleblower-lawsuit-chemical-companies-2005784783.html

...

BASF Corporation, Bayer Material Science LLC, Dow Chemical Company and Huntsman International LLC have been named in a False Claims Act (FCA) lawsuit:{ brought by New York law firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP on behalf of the U.S. government.

}:

EcoWatch learned that the recently unsealed whistleblower lawsuit was served on the chemical companies on Wednesday. The lawsuit was originally filed under seal in federal court in Northern California.

Kasowitz brought this action on behalf of itself and the federal government to recover more than $90 billion in damages and penalties under the FCA, which imposes penalties for concealing obligations to the government.

According to a copy of the lawsuit seen by EcoWatch, "Each of these companies is separately liable to the United States Government for billions of dollars in civil reporting penalties, which continue to accumulate by tens of thousands of dollars daily, and for billions of dollars in similarly increasing breach of contract damages." ...

==

==

Examining Duke Energy using Violation Tracker, the first online data set to track corporate misconduct across federal agencies, the public can see that between 2010 and 2015, Duke Energy and its subsidiaries were subject to 20 penalties totaling a whopping $112,150,534.

==

http://carbonmajors.org/download-the-study/

A few weeks ago the first ever human rights legal action seeking the accountability of the 50 big polluters was launched. Filed by Filipino typhoon survivors and several environmental organizations, it demands that the Philippines Human Rights Commission (CHR) investigate and acknowledge the complicity of 50 investor-owned fossil fuel companies in causing extreme weather events....

The top 50 investor-owned polluters under public scrutiny are taken from a list of 90 entitieswho, according to a report by Rick Heede, are responsible for 63 percent of the carbon dioxide and methane emitted between 1751 and 2010.

Coalitions of affected communities are developing jurisprudence that recognizes impacts of climate change as a breach of human rights. If successful, this recognition will lay the foundations for what is really required: attribution and action.

The petition was submitted on behalf of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement and other local NGOs, with the support of the International Trade Union Confederation, Amnesty International, NGO legal expertsand thousands of individuals. The broad coalition was put together because success in fighting climate change will only occur when organizations and individuals join hands across the globe to demand climate justice.

--

Rather than attribute emissions to nations, the study aggregates historical emissions according to carbon producing entities themselves. Heede concludes that nearly two-thirds of carbon dioxide emitted since the 1750s can be traced to the 90 largest fossil fuel and cement producers, most of which still operate. online

The research attributes 63 percent of the carbon dioxide and methane emitted between 1751 and 2010 to just 90 entities. Fifty are investor-owned companies such as Chevron, Peabody, Shell, and BHP Billiton. Thirty-one are state-owned companies such as Saudi Aramco and Statoil, and nine are government-run industries in countries such as China, Poland, and the former Soviet Union. The research also classified the 90 entities according to type of fossil fuel extracted and marketed.

There are 56 oil and natural gas companies, and 37 coal producers. In addition, the CO2 emissions from seven cement manufacturers are included.

Top 20 investor- and state-owned entities and attributed CO2 & CH4 emissions 2010

==

Table!7.!InvestorUowned!&!stateUowned coal!producers!and attributed!emissions

Data!set Coal!prod Emissions

!!!!!!!Entity anno million!tonnes!(Mt) MtCO2

((1.( British(Coal(Corp.,(UK 1947L1994 7,275 17,742

((2. Coal(India,(India 1973L2010 8,052 14,282

((3.( Peabody(Energy,(USA 1945L2010 5,341 11,461

((4. CONSOL(Energy,(USA 1864L2010 3,454 8,342

((5. Anglo(American,(UK 1909L2010 2,963 6,676

((6. RWE,(Germany 1965L2010 4,717 6,309

((7. Rio(Tinto,(Australia 1961L2010 2,697 5,495

((8. Arch(Coal,(USA 1973L2010 2,550 5,428

((9. BHPLBilliton,(Australia 1955L2010 2,345 5,355

10. Sasol,(South(Africa 1953L2010 1,329 3,241

11. Xstrata,(Switzerland 1998L2010 828 2,049

12. Massey(Energy,(USA 1981L2010 811 2,027

13. Alpha(Natural(Resources,(USA 1998L2010 879 1,981

14. Singareni(Collieries,(India 1947L2010 978 1,735

15. Occidental,(USA 1945L1992 688 1,725

16. Cyprus(Amax,(USA 1969L1998 1,084 1,611

17. Westmoreland(Coal,(USA 1854L2010 878 1,411

18. ExxonMobil,(USA 1970L2002 619 1,317

19. Chevron(Mining((&(Midway),(USA 1965L2010 504 1,229

20. Kiewit(Mining(Group,(USA 1944L2010 671 1,194

21. North(American(Coal,(USA 1950L2010 905 1,088

22. Ruhrkohle(AG,(Germany 1989L2003 631 1,049

23. Luminant,(USA 1977L2010 804 967

24. BP(Coal,(The(Netherlands 1960L1989 431 918

25. Murray(Coal,(USA 1988L2010 301 734

26. UK(Coal,(UK 1995L2010 300 732

27. Kerr(McGee((Anadarko),(USA 1979L1996 299 636

Sum(all(IOC(&(SOE(coal(producers 52,333 106,736

Vented(CO2 na

Flaring(CO2 na

Fugitive(methane((CO2e) 9,043

Total 115,779

==

2011

5 Most Toxic Energy Companies That Are Controlling Our Politics

By Tara Lohan [1] / AlterNet [2]

February 13, 2015

Editor's note: This article was first published in November 2011.

Four days after the April 5, 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, the 300 family members keeping vigil finally learned that the last of the missing miners had been found and there were no survivors among them. The explosion killed 29 men, and severely injured one. The mine was run by Performance Coal Company, a subsidiary of Massey Energy. Massey's Chairman Bobby R. Inman called it a "natural disaster [3]," but it was anything but natural.

Like the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf that would steal the nation's attention (and 11 lives) just two weeks later, Upper Big Branch was the inevitable outcome of regulators turning a blind eye to a greedy corporate culture that puts profit above human lives. But this is nothing new. Coal, oil and gas companies in the U.S. have been getting away with murder for years. Sometimes it is just less obvious -- the slow poisoning of our air, water and food; the deterioration of human health, the loss of homes and jobs, the obliteration of whole communities and ecosystems.

Even as the burning of fossil fuels pushes the planet toward the brink, these energy companies continue to rake in massive profits. They use this wealth to leverage elections, write legislation, scale back regulations and escape accountability. The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) has found that, "Individuals and political action committees affiliated with oil and gas companies have donated $238.7 million to candidates [4] and parties since the 1990 election cycle, 75 percent of which has gone to Republicans." Although Republicans have won big from the industry, CRP found that Obama received $884,000 [5] from the oil and gas industry during his 2008 campaign for the presidency.

In 2010 the oil and gas industry shelled out more than $145 million on lobbying [6] and the mining industry spent nearly $30 million.

Which energy companies are the worst offenders? We'll look at how much they spend on lobbying, how many lobbyists they hire, how many "revolving door" personnel pass between government and industry, how much they contribute to political campaigns (whether through individual donations, their political action committees, or "soft money" to support the party), and the effect of their greed on human lives and the environment.

While the list of energy companies that could be included is long, here are five whose egregious actions deserve national attention.

5. Massey Energy

As you'll read below, there are energy companies that are far bigger than Massey, that throw around hundreds of millions more in lobbying and have more political muscle. But Massey does have something that has earned it a spot on this list: a track record of environmental abuse and safety failures that rival the big players. And it is not afraid to jump into playing politics either, including buying off a judicial election to ensure a win in court.

At the time of the Upper Big Branch disaster in 2010, Massey was the fourth largest coal company in the country and the largest operating in Appalachia. While Upper Big Branch was the most deadly mining accident in the U.S. in the last 40 years, it was not the only time Massey's negligence has resulted in fatalities. Two miners were killed in a fire in the company's Aracoma Alma Mine in January 2006. It was later determined the men lost their lives because of Massey's "reckless disregard" for safety, according to a report. In fact, an investigation afterward by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) doled out more than 1,300 citations [7] for violating safety regulations.

Upper Big Branch and Aracoma were not isolated incidents for Massey; simply business as usual. A study done by American University found that between 2000 and 2010 Massey had the worst fatality record [7] of any U.S. coal company. During that decade 54 miners lost their lives, compared to just six miners who died between 2000 and 2009 at Peabody, the largest coal company in the country. Massey earned over 62,000 violations during that decade, 25,000 of which were deemed "significant and substantial." The company also raked in the most fines at nearly $50 million.

An investigation [7] ordered by then-governor Joe Manchin after the Upper Big Branch disaster found Massey's culture of profit over people was entirely to blame for the loss of 29 lives. Investigators found that Massey'smodus operandi was the "normalization of deviance." It was not one single thing that went wrong on April 5, 2010 resulting in fatalities of such a magnitude. A whole number of things had to fail -- and did fail on that day. Here is what the investigation found:

Such total and catastrophic systemic failures can only be explained in the context of a culture in which wrongdoing became acceptable, where deviation became the norm. ... The same culture allowed Massey Energy to use its resources to create a false public image to mislead the public, community leaders and investors -- the perception that the company exceeded industry safety standards. And it became acceptable to cast agencies designed to protect miners as enemies and to make life difficult for miners who tried to address safety. It is only in the context of a culture bent on production at the expense of safety that these obvious deviations from decades of known safety practices make sense.

Behind every money-hungry CEO and his corporate machine are public leaders willing to be bought and regulators willing to bend. As the Upper Big Branch investigators found [7]:

As the largest coal producer in the Appalachian region at the time of the disaster, Massey Energy used the leverage of the jobs it provided to attempt to control West Virginia's political system. Through that control, the company challenged federal and state oversight agencies, including MSHA, the Environmental Protection Agency and the West Virginia Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training. Many politicians were afraid to challenge Massey's supremacy because of the company's superb ongoing public relations campaign and because CEO Don Blankenship was willing to spend vast amounts of money to influence elections.

It's not just the people who work for Massey who've suffered their abuses; everyone and everything nearby has been threatened as well. In an interview for "Living on Earth" Michael Shnayerson, author of Coal River, explained [8], "Massey routinely racks up far, far more violations than any other coal companies in the region--and there are some large companies in the region, like Peabody or Consol. Massey just doesn't seem to care about the environment, frankly."

In 2008 Massey agreed to pay $20 million after years of Clean Water Act violations. Reporting for the Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, Ken Ward Jr. wrote [9] that the lawsuit, "alleged more than 60,000 days of violations over a six-year period, or about 10,000 days of violations per year." 

It was thought the record $20 million fine and the threat of more penalties would help Massey clean up its act, but just the opposite proved true -- Massey's pollution increased [9] after the settlement.

Massey has drawn the ire of many Appalachian residents for its practice of mountaintop removal mining which uses explosives to blow the tops of off mountains, dumping the waste into rivers and streambeds. The sludge waste from the practice is often stored in makeshift lakes that can leak, contaminating groundwater, or worse, rupture entirely. One such containment pond sits just above the Marsh Fork Elementary School in Sundial, West Virginia.

"If that lake happens to bust through its earthen barrier, it can just roll down a hillside and there's a distinct danger ... that the 240 children of the Marsh Fork Elementary School could be drowned," Shnayerson told "Living on Earth." In fact Massey had the exact same thing happen in Kentucky and the spill was roughly 30 times the magnitude of the Exxon Valdez spill, says Shnayerson.

So how does Massey do it? Unlike the big oil and gas companies, Massey has actually spend little on direct lobbying at the federal level, shelling out just $20,000 on lobbying in 2004 and little since then. Although, the company does have some overlap between government and industry. According to a 2010 report in the Washington Post [10], former Massey CEO Stanley C. Suboleski served on the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission during the George W. Bush administration only to return to Massey as a board member. In all, the Post found "nearly a dozen former MSHA district directors who recently took jobs as executives and consultants with Massey or Murray Energy" -- two companies with among the worst safety records in the industry.

An analysis done by the CRP [11] before the 2010 midterm elections found that Massey has also been shuttling money to federal politicians.

In all, people associated with Massey Energy, along with the company's political action committee, have together contributed more than $307,000 to federal political candidates since the 1990 election cycle, the Center finds. Of that money, 91 percent went to Republican candidates.

People and PACs associated with Massey Energy have collectively donated five-figure sums to three federal-level candidates since the 1990 election cycle: failed 2008 Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jim Gilmore of Virginia ($17,600), Senate Minority Leader and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell ($13,550) and failed 1998 Democratic U.S. House candidate James MacCallum of West Virginia ($13,500).

In 2010 Massey gave $112,700 to federal candidates -- all of which went to Republicans. In fact, beginning in 2000, CRP found [12] that donations to federal candidates from people or PACs affiliated with Massey have gone exclusively to Republicans.

According to Follow the Money [13], which tracks money in state politics, Massey Energy has given $344,200 in state elections from 2003 to 2010, and employees have added another $261,450 -- 99 percent of which has gone to Republicans, including climate denier Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli III.

And during the last decade CEO Don Blankenship himself has given $60,000 to Republicans [14] and GOP-related organizations at the federal level. But the CEO is most notorious for tipping a state judicial election [15]. After losing a $50 million lawsuit filed by Harman Mining which alleged that Massey forced the company out of business, Massey appealed. But not for four years. In the interim, Blankenship funneled $3 million to help elect Brent Benjamin to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Two years later Benjamin was the deciding vote on the appeals court that ruled in Massey's favor.

In December 2010, Blankenship grabbed his golden parachute and left Massey to a host of lawsuits, many relating to the 2010 disaster. About six months later, the company was acquired by Alpha Natural Resources for $7.1 billion. ANR has invested $174,449 so far in the 2012 election -- the second highest of any coal company in the country. Over 90 percent of its money has gone to Republicans. ANR spent $600,000 in lobbying during the 2010 election and it's shelled out nearly $400,000 so far this year.

Despite being housed under ANR, Massey is still kicking and it is unclear if the culture of greed will change. Considering its track record of environmental and human health abuses, critics are calling for the revocation of Massey's charter. How much, really, does a company have to do wrong in order for it to be shut down?

4. Koch Industries

By now you likely already know about how the billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have their fingers in just about everything, from funding union-busting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walke [16]r to trying to take down public education [17] to insider dealings with Iran [18]. The brothers run one of the largest privately held companies in the world, Koch Industries, and one of its key business targets is energy. The company's crude refineries can process up to 800,000 barrels of oil per day; its pipelines stretch 4,000 miles, carrying oil, natural gas and chemicals; and it's in the business of supplying and burning coal as well -- all under a variety of subsidiaries [19].

As a privately held company, there is much we don't know about the Kochs -- like exactly how much money their empire pulls in. Estimates are somewhere around $100 billion in annual revenue and Forbes estimates the brothers' worth at $43 billion. But what's crystal clear is that the more we know (and we're learning every day), the higher this company is going to move in our rankings.

Let's start with its environmental impact. Wonk Room estimates Koch Industries belches 300 million tons of CO2 pollution annually. "The immense profitability of their carbon holdings depends on their freedom to pollute without consequence -- a toxic freedom they have sold to the American public, and particularly the Tea Party faithful organized by the various Koch front groups, as inherent to the American dream," writes Brad Johnson[20] on ThinkProgress. "If their pollution was fairly priced in a free-market system such as the cap-and-trade markets the Koch successfully demonized in Washington (but failed in their attempt to do so in California), the Kochs would be facing costs of anywhere from $1 billion to $40 billion a year."

In order to keep the money machine oiled, the Kochs have worked to slander the EPA and weaken environmental protections, contort public opinion on the science behind global warming and roll back regulations. All of this has been done by lining the pockets of politicians and lobbyists. From 1989-2012 CRP found that more than $12 million of Koch money [21] went to federal candidates (90 percent to Republicans), making them the second highest in that category on our list.

Additionally, from 1998-2011 CRP reports that Koch Industries spend$59 million on lobbying [22] (fourth highest on our list) and just this year they have hired 26 lobbyists (also fourth highest on our list). In 2008 alone they spent $20 million on lobbying. According an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity [23], "Koch's lobbyists are known on Capitol Hill for maintaining a low profile. There are no former U.S. Senators or House committee chairmen on the payroll."

However, many of Koch's registered lobbyists on its payroll "are Washington insiders with previous experience as congressional staffers or federal agency employees." For instance, Greg Zerzan served as senior counsel for the House Financial Services Committee and later as deputy assistant secretary for financial institutions in the Department of Treasury during the Bush administration. In 2010 he became a lobbyist for Koch Industries after a stint at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

When it comes to political campaigns, CRP reports [24] that, "Koch is also one of the Republican Party's most reliable donors. In every election cycle since 2000, people and political action committees associated with the company have donated at least 83 percent of their cash to Republican candidates and committees." In 2010, the number was more than 92 percent for Republicans. In that election, Koch Industries gave more than $1.6 million to federal candidates or their PACs.

Their darling that year was Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, who sits on the Energy and Commerce committee, raking in $79,500. Pompeo's voting record on energy is in keeping with someone who's received large donations from the energy industry. This year, he voted in favor of barring the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases as well as for opening up the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling. And now he's grandstanding [25] against Solyndra. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, on the Banking and Appropriation committees received $41,050 and has also voted against enforcing limits on CO2 emission limits in 2009 and was in favor of authorizing construction of new oil refineries in 2005. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, got less money ($20,000) but put it to good use. Hatch has been vocal in his support of tax breaks [26] for oil companies. Likewise, he generally supports legislation that would benefit the oil and gas industries, for example voting in favor of drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (2011), opposing EPA regulations (2011), and supporting the elimination of the Kyoto Accords in 2000. In December 2006, the Campaign for America's Future rated Hatch's support for energy independence at a mere 17 percent.

The highest paid Democrat on the roster [27] was Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln with $17,500. Fellow Arkansas Representative Mike Ross, who sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee, got the second highest amount for a Democrat at $10,000. As you'll read later, Arkansas is key to the Kochs' dirty business.

The brothers haven't been sitting back in the 2012 election cycle, either. Already Koch money has tipped Mike Pompeo $27,500; Scott Brown, R-Mass., $10,000; and Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., $5,000, among others. Outlays to federal candidates for 2012 has already hit $433,750 and less than $17,000 of that has gone to Democrats. Senate Democrat Joe Manchin of coal-friendly West Virginia got $5,000.

And that's not all. A report [28] from the Center for American Progress Action Fund reveals more about the 2010 election:

The Kochs have contributed significantly to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In fact, they are the single-largest oil and gas donor to members of the committee, contributing $279,500 to 22 of the committee's 31 Republicans and $32,000 to five Democrats. Tim Phillips, the head of Americans for Prosperity, even co-authored an op-ed with chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), detailing how Congress could stop the EPA from ensuring a cleaner environment.

Upton, who received $10,000 that year, made Koch proud. The Los Angeles Times reported [29] in February 2011:

In recent months the congressman has made a point of publicly aligning himself with the Koch-backed advocacy group, calling for an end to the "EPA chokehold." Last week the chairman released a draft of a bill that would strip the EPA of its ability to curb carbon emissions. The legislation is in line with the Kochs' long-advocated stance that the federal government should have a minimal role in regulating business. The Kochs' oil refineries and chemical plants stand to pay millions to reduce air pollution under currently proposed EPA regulations.

The Kochs are also active at the state level fighting environmental initiatives. Their subsidiary Flint Hills Resources spent $1 million for Prop 23, a (failed) attempt to block a clean energy law in California. And they've donated to gubernatorial campaigns, including funding climate denier Rick Perry to the tune of $50,000.

While ExxonMobil has come under scrutiny for its work funding the anti-science climate denying movement, the Kochs have been just as diligent. A report [30] from Greenpeace revealed that from 1997 to 2008, the Kochs helped fuel bogus think tanks, organizations and "experts" with $48.5 million. "In 2009, they contributed over $6.4 million dollars to some 40 organizations that continue to deny the scientific consensus on global warming while attempting to slow or block policies to solve the climate crisis."

Here is what the report also found:

Of the eleven freshman senators who publicly question settled climate science, ten received funding from Koch Industries in 2010, and eight of them signed the Americans for Prosperity "No Climate Tax Pledge" to obstruct policy solutions to climate change. Of the 38 freshman Representatives who deny climate science, 22 received Koch PAC funding in 2010, and all 38 signed the AFP pledge.

So, what has the impact of this been on communities across the U.S.? Pretty horrific. Brave New Films recently released a new video [31] as part of its Koch Brothers Exposed project that puts a human face on the way the Kochs do business. At least 11 people from just 15 homes on Penn Road in Crossett, Arkansas have died from cancer, and others in the neighborhood are sick. The cause of their deaths and illnesses is believed to be a toxic open sewer filled with millions of gallons of wastewater that runs by their homes. The source of the wastewater is Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia Pacific. So far the EPA has done nothing to address the issue even though it is a violation of the Clean Water Act. Remember, those congress members from Arkansas the Kochs have been funneling money to?

The people of Crossett are among a long list of victims. Two 17-year-olds were killed in 1996 in Texas when a leaky pipeline caused their truck to explode as they were going to seek help. The company knew the pipeline was faulty, but didn't bother to fix it.

Koch Industries has long been known for causing environmental harm. In 2000, over 300 spills [32] they were responsible for in six states finally caught up with them, resulting in a $30 million penalty. But Koch Industries often manages to get away with paying chump change and getting a slap on the wrist. As Lee Fang reports [33]:

Koch funneled large amounts of donations into electing George Bush in 2000 (even sending Koch-linked lobbyists to help disrupt the Florida recount). At the time, Koch Industries faced a 97-count federal indictment charging it with concealing illegal releases of 91 metric tons of benzene, known to cause leukemia, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. When Bush took office, his Justice Department dropped 88 of the charges and settled the case for a small amount of money.

And in Minnesota, Bloomberg Markets Magazine reported [18], "The company used fire hydrants to pump more than a million gallons of wastewater contaminated with ammonia out of the ground. Koch also increased its dumping of wastewater on weekends when it didn't monitor discharges, circumventing the reporting requirement of its permit, the EPA said. Koch also admitted that it negligently released between 200,000 gallons and 600,000 gallons of aviation fuel into a nearby wetland."

The list goes on, but you get the idea. There is a blatant disregard for human life, the health of the environment, and the air and water we all need to survive. And Koch Industries is able to get away with it because of its Yes Men in Washington, who are greasing the wheels of their greedy machine.

3. BP

No list of the worst energy companies would be complete without British Petroleum. The company catapulted into the national headlines in 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and causing a months-long gusher that would dump 200 million gallons of crude. In 2011, a comprehensive report by the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement placed the blamed for the disaster clearly on the shoulders of BP, which managed the Macondo well. (Rig owner Transocean and contractor Halliburton received a small share of the blame.)

According to the AP [34]:

The report concluded that BP violated federal regulations, ignored crucial warnings, was inattentive to safety and made bad decisions during the cementing of the well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico...

In the report, the primary cause of the disaster was identified -- again -- as the failure of the cement seal in the well. While it was Halliburton's job to mix and test the cement, BP had the final word and made a series of decisions that saved money but increased risk and may have contributed to the cement's failure, the panel said.

The report said BP, and in some cases its contractors, violated seven federal regulations at the time of the disaster. ...

In the report's 57 findings, only one person -- BP engineer Mark Hafle -- is mentioned by name. It said Hafle failed to investigate or resolve anomalies detected during the cementing and did not run a test that evaluates the quality of the cement job. Hafle still works for BP.

Not only was BP largely responsible for the largest spill in U.S. history, but its actions afterward were terrible. In the weeks and months that followed, the company was accused of stonewalling journalists, covering up evidence, providing unsafe working conditions for cleanup crews, and remarkably -- in the case of the company's CEO Tony Hayward -- complaining [35] about being inconvenienced by the disaster.

They also tried to get rid of the oil by dumping millions of gallons of toxic dispersants into the water, further damaging the ecosystem and potentially the health of cleanup workers.

While oil-soaked gulf creatures -- from turtles to birds to dolphins -- made the news after the spill, the ecological impacts will take years and likely decades to fully understand. Scientific American reported [36] that, "Oil fouled 35 percent of the U.S. Gulf Coast's 2,625 kilometers of shoreline before the spill was done." Also affected were critical wetland habitat and fisheries crucial to the local economy.

The economic loss has been clocked at $40 billion [37] or more. As Brad Jacobson reported for AlterNet [38], large numbers of health problems such as respiratory, dermatologic, ocular and neurological issues were reported and are "consistent with exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds, chemicals in crude oil and dispersants."

To make matters worse, after the BP spill it was revealed [39] that drilling regulators were found to be accepting gifts from, partying with, taking drugs with, and even having sex with employees of the oil and gas companies they were suppose to be overseeing.

As is the case with Massey, the Gulf diaster was no isolated incidence. ABC reported last year that, "In two separate disasters prior to the Gulf oil rig explosion, 30 BP workers have been killed, and more than 200 seriously injured." BP is also responsible for the Prudhoe Bay Spill in 2006, which leaked 200,000 gallons of crude onto Alaska's North Slope. An ABC story revealed, "In the last five years, investigators found, BP has admitted to breaking U.S. environmental and safety laws and committing outright fraud. BP paid $373 million in fines to avoid prosecution."

It gets worse. According to ABC [40]:

BP's safety violations far outstrip its fellow oil companies. According to the Center for Public Integrity, in the last three years, BP refineries in Ohio and Texas have accounted for 97 percent of the "egregious, willful" violations handed out by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) ...

Shockingly, after the comprehensive government report was released this fall nabbing BP as the spill's culprit, the company's stock actually went up. Yes, up. And now BP has just been given the go-ahead from federal regulators to begin deepwater drilling again [41] in the Gulf -- this time 1,000 feet deeper.

How does BP manage to not just stay in business, but to thrive? It maintains its empire, consisting of refining 2.8 billion barrels of oil each day, as well as operating 16,000 gas stations across the U.S., and increasing its share of natural gas production, with help from friends in Congress. From 1989-2012 CRP reported that BP's contributions to federal candidates were over $6.3 million (70 percent going to Republicans), the fourth highest on our list. The company cranked up the lobbying efforts, too, spending $70 million on lobbying between 1998-2011, according to CRP, making it third highest on our list in that category. But BP stole the show with lobbyists hired. This year its total is 47, the highest of any company in the oil and gas sector. According to CRP, "Its lobbying focuses on tax incentives for oil and gas production, opposing mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions and following U.S. trade relations and policy in the Middle East."

As was revealed after the spill, BP has some serious revolving-door issues. As the AP noted [39] last year, former Minerals Management Service senior official Jim Grant left his government position as chief of staff for the Gulf of Mexico region to become regulatory and advocacy manager at BP, one of the companies his former agency regulated. Reportedly, Sylvia Baca also moved from management positions at BP to a position in the federal government -- not once, but twice (under Clinton and Obama). As Project on Government Oversight investigator Mandy Smithberger told the AP, the revolving door between the Minerals Management Service and energy companies is a chronic issue. "To say that MMS has had a revolving door problem doesn't even begin to describe how profoundly this agency has entangled itself with industry," she said. "The revolving door has spun so readily in this case that the lines between the regulators and the regulated are now virtually nonexistent."

Not surprisingly, its top dogs in Congress were from oil and gas states. In 2010 here were its favorites:

• Lisa Murkowski, I-Alaska, Senate; $10,400
• Jeffrey M Landry, R-Louisiana, House; $4,800
• John Culberson, R-Texas, House; $4,400
• Blanche Lincoln, D-Arkansas, Senate; $4,000

Murkowski, a ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, got Lincoln (also a darling of Koch) to jump ship from Democrats and side with Republicans in a effort to block the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, as Politico reported [42] in 2010. Murkowski is not known for being a friend of the environment. *Mother Jones* reported [43], "In Congress, Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski has emerged as the leading--and most canny--threat to the EPA." Although Murkowski admits that global warming is a real threat -- and is threatening her state, too -- she's done little to stop it. As Kate Sheppard wrote [44], "It's become increasingly difficult to distinguish her actions from those of her denialist colleagues."

2. Exxon Mobil

Oil giants Exxon and Mobil, which can trace their origins back to Rockefeller's Standard Oil, merged in 1999 and their partnership has made them one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world. Today Exxon Mobil produces 6 million barrels of oil a day, supplies 40,000 gas stations in 100 countries and is moving quickly into shale gas, as well.

All this means it has an awful lot of money to throw around (including paying CEO Rex Tillerson $21.5 million last year). According to CRP, from 1998 to 2012 the company dished out $12.3 million to federal candidates, the highest on our list, with 85 percent going to Republicans. Exxon Mobil wasn't shy about its lobbying efforts either, spending $174 million from 1998 to 2011 -- twice that of Chevron, the second highest on our list.

With 34 lobbyists hired in 2011, Exxon Mobil can do a lot to influence things in Washington. Exxon Mobil's VP of Government Relations since 2001, Theresa M. Fariello [45], is a former Occidental Petroleum lobbyist who served as deputy assistant secretary for international affairs in the Department of Energy between her two lobbying positions. And Philip Cooney joined Exxon as a lobbyist shortly after leaving his position as a chief of staff with the Council on Environmental Quality. Cooney has also worked as a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute.

In Congress, Exxon Mobil has a few favorites. It kicked off the 2012 election season by giving John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, the Big Oil workhouse, $17,000. Also a favorite of Chevron, Barrasso introduced legislation earlier this year to curb what he calls "job-crushing [46]" carbon regulations and he has also supported opening up Alaska's Coastal Plain and the Outer Continental Shelf to drilling [47]. This year Exxon Mobil has also given $10,000 to John Boehner, R-Ohio; John Cornyn, R-Texas; Doc Hastings, R-Washington; and Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.

In the 2010 election, Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, was Exxon Mobil's man. Blunt has earned a reputation for accepting money [48] from the oil industry -- a reputation that his opponents used against him during the 2010 campaign. Indeed, Blunt voted against enforcing CO2 limits [49] in 2009, against incentives for renewable energy in 2008 and again in 2010, and in favor of barring greenhouse gases from the Clean Air Act rules in 2009. In December 2006, the Campaign for America's Future rated Blunt's support for energy independence at 0 percent.

Exxon Mobil also plays at the state level. In order to protect its gas interests, the company bought XTO Energy in 2009 to get into the Marcellus Shale game [50], and added Philips Resources and TWP Inc recently. Not surprisingly, Exxon Mobil gave $10,000 [51] to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett in 2010. And in Colorado Exxon Mobil and Chevron teamed up to spend $1 million [52] to oppose a severance tax on natural gas.

Politicians and lobbyists aren't the only ones that Exxon Mobil has been giving money to. The company is notorious for trying to block action on an international climate treaty and fueling the anti-science rhetoric around climate change. For many years, Exxon Mobil was the largesse behind the deniers. All the big, right-wing think tanks that have been putting the hot air in the climate denial movement have gotten money from Exxon Mobil: $2 million went to the Competitive Enterprise Institute; $3 million to the American Enterprise Institute; $2.4 million to the Center for Strategic and International Studies; $1 million to the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy; $1 million to Atlas Economic Research Foundation; $1.2 million to Frontiers of Freedom; and $680,000 to the Heritage Foundation.

Exxon Mobil is also involved with American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), having given it more than $1.4 million. ALEC is quite dangerous, as Sourcewatch explains [53]:

Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve "model" bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board ... Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations--without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law.

ALEC is a darling of the oil and gas companies, with Chevron, BP, Koch and Exxon Mobil all taking part. Exxon Mobil's government affairs manager Randy Smith serves on ALEC's "private enterprise" board (and he also sits on Corbett's Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission).

Along with its efforts at climate denialism [54], which were totalled at $16 million in 2007, Exxon Mobil also has some ugly stains on its resume.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 dumped 11 million gallons of crude into Alaska's beautiful Prince William Sound. Environment News Service reports [55] that the disaster affected 10,000 square miles of coastline, as well as "fouling a national forest, two national parks, two national wildlife refuges, five state parks, four state critical habitat areas, one state game sanctuary, and many ancestral lands for Alaska natives."

But that's not all. Reuters reported [56] in 2009 that Exxon Mobil was found to have polluted New York City's groundwater with methyl tertiary butyl ether (MBTE), a gasoline additive: "The city contended Exxon knew that gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether would contaminate ground water if it leaked from the underground storage tanks at its retail stations." The tab for damages came to $105 million.

On the human rights front, ExxonMobil has faced long-standing claims [53] that it hired members of the Indonesian military to protect the company's facilities in the country. Indonesians accuse the company of murder, rape and destruction.

1. Chevron

The top spot on our list for the worst energy company this year goes to Chevron. The company has indeed moved quite a large amount of cash through Washington and its business practices have resulted in an incredible loss of life. Much of it just happened out of the country, so many in the U.S. may have missed Chevron's gross abuses.

In relation to other energy companies, Chevron is big -- it's the second largest U.S. oil company and the third largest U.S. corporation overall. Its mammoth size is the result of gobbling up a lot of other companies along the way. It started off as Pacific Coast Oil Company and then became Standard Oil and then Chevron when it swallowed up Gulf Oil in 1984. In 2001 Chevron merged with Texaco, and then in 2005 acquired Unocal.

Chevron continues to make a killing. Antonia Juhasz, writing in "The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report [57]," found that the company's 2010 profits of $19 billion were nearly double 2009 profits and its revenue shot up to $200 billion. As most Americans struggle through the economic downturn, Chevron's CEO John Watson took home a cool $16.3 million in 2010 -- even as Juhasz writes, "Chevron continued to shrink its number of employees and holdings."

The company has tried to change its oil and gas image with aggressive ad campaigns about its investments in renewable energy, but in truth, 95 percent of its revenue still comes from oil and gas. That might explain why, according to Tyson Slocum [57], Chevron doled out $500,000 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, "which is leading the fight to demonize pending EPA rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

Chevron's also trying to pad its profits by contributing largely to politicians. From 1989-2012 CRP reported that Chevron's contributions to federal candidates were over $11.9 billion -- the third highest on our list (although nearly tied for second with Koch), with 75 percent going to Republicans.

CRP has calculated that Chevron spent over $779,000 in 2010 (with only $152,480 going to Democrats). These were some of its top dogs:

• Carly Fiorina, R-Calif., Senate; $37,250
• Davide Vitter, R-Louisiana, Senate; $29,800
• Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Senate; $29,600
• Robert F. Bennett, R-Utah, Senate; $24,400
• Blanche Lincoln, D-Arkansas, Senate; $16,000
• William Flores, R-Texas, House; $14,400
• Lisa Murkowski. I-Alaska, Senate$13,900
• Kevin Brady, R-Texas, House; $9,000
• Dan Boren, D-Oklahoma, House; $8,000

So far in 2012 it spent over $167,000, with $23,500 going to Senator John A Barrasso, R-Wyoming, and $11,000 going to Rep. William Flores, R-Texas.

"Why does Chevron bother spending this kind of money on the political system?" asks Slocum [57]. "Because, dollar for dollar, nothing provides a better financial return than investing in politicians. With environmentalists pushing to hold oil companies accountable for their pollution, corporations like Chevron would be forced to spend millions of dollars to make their oil and natural gas drilling operations and oil refineries cleaner and safer. Sure, doing so would improve the standard of living for millions of Americans and help ensure we all have access to cleaner air and water--but Chevron's political activities clearly show the company's priority is profit--not saving the planet."

When it comes to lobbying, Chevron isn't holding back either. Since 1998, the company has spent $85 million on lobbyists, second highest on our list. Already this year it's spent nearly $5 million on hiring 39 lobbyists -- also the second highest number of lobbyist on our list. And revolving door issues [58] abound. Lisa Barry served as a staffer for former Republican House Member Silvio Conte, deputy assistant to the U.S. Trade Representative, and deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Commerce before becoming an executive at several major corporations and, most recently, vice president of governmental affairs at Chevron Corp.

Lobbying firm Ogilvy Government Relations, which lobbies on behalf of Chevron, employs several individuals who have ties to government. For instance, John J. O'Neill [59] worked for two years as tax and pension counsel for the Senate Finance Committee and did a brief stint in 2007 as policy director for former Republican Congressman Trent Lott. Prior to his time in the public sector, O'Neill worked for lobbying firm Davis & Harman. Current Ogilvy employee Drew Maloney [60] worked for lobbying firm Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh before becoming legislative director for Republican Congressmen Roger Wicker and Ed Bryant and an assistant to then House Majority Whip Tom DeLay.

So, with all these lobbyists, what are Chevron's big political priorities?

As expected it's pushing for more of the "drill, baby drill" we've seen over the years -- so anything having to do with opening up new oil leases and exploration, on- and off-shore, including in the Gulf and Alaska. Of course it'll be teaming up with the Chamber and the rest of Big Oil to prevent the EPA from doing its job, especially when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.

In case you thought Chevron was all oil -- it's definitely not. "Chevron has acquired nearly five million net acres of shale gas assets in the United States, Canada, Poland and Romania," according to George Kirkland, Chevron's vice chairman. The company has been making aggressive strides to leverage its power in the Marcellus region of the eastern U.S. where oil and gas companies are hoping to have a drilling field day.

At the beginning of 2011 Chevron picked up Atlas Energy for $4.3 billion, a company with major holdings in the Marcellus. Then in May it announced that it had picked up an additional 228,000 leasehold acres in the Marcellus from Chief Oil and Gas.

You better believe that Chevron will be doing all it can to make sure that any attempts to ban or even regulate fracking in the Marcellus are quashed.

In fact, Desmog Blog [61] fingered Chevron as one of several big oil companies fronting an astroturf group called Energy in Depth, which alleged to be a collection of "small, independent oil and natural gas producers" butBrendan DeMelle has found [61] exists courtesy of Big Oil. As DeMelle writes, "EID seems to attack everyone who attempts to investigate the significant problems posed by hydraulic fracturing and other natural gas industry practices that have been shown to threaten public health and water quality across America."

And even though Chevron hasn't spent as much money as Exxon Mobil (although it has come close), it sealed the top spot on this list because of its corporate irresponsibility, which seems strangely out of the Exxon playbook. 

Chevron's malfeasance is long, including a spill [62] off the coast of Brazil which dumped over 110,000 gallons of oil into the Atlantic. But Rainforest Action Network [63]has more about the company:

Around the world, over and over again, Chevron's outdated practices and policies have consistently violated human rights, damaged human health, and worsened global warming.

In Kazakhstan, Chevron has contaminated land and water resources and impaired the health of local residents. In Canada's Alberta region, Chevron is invested in tar sands -- one of the most environmentally damaging projects on the planet. In the Niger Delta, Chevron is complicit in human rights violations committed by security forces against local people. In the Philippines, regular oil leaks and spills have sickened Manila residents. Chevron's operations in Burma are providing a financial lifeline to the Burmese military regime -- known for its appalling human rights record. In Western Australia, Chevron's liquefied natural gas facility threatens the health of local communities and fragile humpback whale and turtle populations.

But Chevron's worst legacy may be in Ecuador, where Texaco (now part of Chevron) spent 30 years decimating the ecologically rich Amazon rainforest and the many indigenous communities there.

As one of the campaigns seeking justice for Ecuadoreans reports [64]:

Unlike the Exxon Valdez disaster that spilled over a billion gallons of crude during a one time cataclysmic event, Texaco's oil extraction system in Ecuador was designed, built, and operated on the cheap using substandard technology from the outset. This led to extreme, systematic pollution and exposure to toxins from multiple sources on a daily basis for almost three decades.

In a rainforest area roughly three times the size of Manhattan, Texaco carved out 350 oil wells, and upon leaving the country in 1992, left behind some 1,000 open toxic waste pits. Many of these pits leak into the water table or overflow in heavy rains, polluting rivers and streams that 30,000 people depend on for drinking, cooking, bathing and fishing. Texaco also dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic and highly saline "formation waters," a byproduct of the drilling process, into the rivers of the Oriente. At the height of Texaco's operations, the company was dumping an estimated 4 million gallons of formation waters per day, a practice outlawed in major US oil producing states like Louisiana, Texas, and California decades before the company began operations in Ecuador in 1967. By handling its toxic waste in Ecuador in ways that were illegal in its home country, Texaco saved an estimated $3 per barrel of oil produced.

Rainforest Action Network reports [65] that "1,400 Ecuadoreans have already died as a result of the contamination in the Amazon, and some 30,000 more are at risk."

In an historic trial [66] in 2011 ("the first time indigenous people have forced a multinational corporation to stand trial in their own country for violating their human rights"), the company was found liable for over $8 billion, but Chevron is still trying to escape payment [67].

Chevron's dirty business practices may not be washing up on our shores (yet), but they're still sickening.

Profit Before People (and Everything Else)

Chevron may have captured the title of worst energy company this year, but the competition was incredibly fierce. Massey looks bent on destroying Appalachia, Koch Industries is determined to try and rework our politics and our culture (while wrecking the environment, too), the Gulf is reeling from the catastrophic BP spill, and Exxon Mobil is still throwing its considerable weight around with all the wrong players.

But it's important to remember that these aren't just a few rogue corporations that have boarded a runaway greed train. The problems go much deep than that -- they are inherent in our economic and political systems.

Regulations have been made more lax instead of stricter, even when faced with the death and illness of workers, and the growing list of environmental catastrophes. Industry is allowed to pay candidates to do their bidding in Congress, often helping to craft pro-corporate legislation themselves. Politicians spend their time fundraising, and without campaign finance restrictions, often look to the biggest paycheck in order to stay in office. And all the while, these companies continue to make massive profits while being handsomely rewarded with subsidies that come from taxpayer pockets. Big Oil, for example is likely to get over $40 billion from taxpayers over the next decade. To make matters worse, we continue to tip these corporations day after day when we drive our cars, heat our homes and turn on the lights.

Until we unplug from a fossil fuel economy and from a political system in which corporations are given more rights than people (and nature is denied any), then the number one spot on this list may change from year to year -- but the real loser will be the planet and everything and everyone living on it.

Lauren Kelley contributed to the reporting of this story.

Tara Lohan [68] is a freelance writer and former senior editor at AlterNet. She is the editor of two books on the global water crisis, including Water Matters: Why We Need to Act Now to Save Our Most Critical Resource [69]. Follow her on Twitter @TaraLohan or visit her website [68], taralohan.com.

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[39] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/26/bp-revolving-door-interior_n_591040.html

[40] http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bps-dismal-safety-record/story?id=10763042

[41] http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/26/4008504/bp-gets-1st-deepwater-gulf-permit.html

[42] http:// http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31797.html

[43] http:// http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/01/new-storm-brewing-climate-front

[44] http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/lisa-murkowski-climate-change-double-agent

[45] http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=70971

[46] http://wyofile.com/2011/03/barrasso-epa/

[47] http://senate.ontheissues.org/Senate/John_Barrasso.htm#Energy_+_Oil

[48] http://www.bigoilblunt.com/

[49] http://(http://www.ontheissues.org/house/roy_blunt.htm#Energy_+_Oil

[50] http://www.postgazette.com/pg/11160/1152558-100.stm

[51] http://marcellusmoney.org/candidate/tom-corbett

[52] http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=oid%3A96376

[53] http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Exxon_Mobil

[54] http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/exxonmobil-report-smoke.html

[55] http:// http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2009/2009-03-24-01.asp

[56] http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/10/20/us-energy-exxonmobil-idUSTRE59I4UU20091020

[57] http://truecostofchevron.com/report.html

[58] http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=9057

[59] http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=73822

[60] http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=24689

[61] http://www.desmogblog.com/%E2%80%98energy-depth%E2%80%99-was-created-major-oil-and-gas-companies-according-industry-memo

[62] http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gMLVXmfed6Nn5pMBWdscaaLeO7zQ?docId=ec5704a97d704e5eb2cda3f51437ff7e

[63] http://changechevron.org/the-problem/

[64] http://chevrontoxico.com/about/rainforest-chernobyl/

[65] http://understory.ran.org/2011/02/14/chevron-is-guilty-ecuadoreans-prevail-in-historic-environmental-lawsuit/

[66] http:// http://chevrontoxico.com/about/historic-trial/

[67] http://understory.ran.org/2011/10/28/another-round-of-obscene-quarterly-profits-expose-chevron%E2%80%99s-moral-bankruptcy/

[68] http://www.taralohan.com/

[69] https://www.alternet.org/alternetbooks/21/Water+Matters+Why+We+Need+to+Act+Now+to+Save+Our+Most+Critical+Resource/

[70] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on 5 Most Toxic Energy Companies That Are Controlling Our Politics

[71] http://www.alternet.org/

[72] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

==

...An article published by Richard Heede in the journal Climatic Change tracks the biggest polluters of the industrial age. Heede’s research looked at CO2 and methane emissions from 1854 to 2010 and found the biggest polluters were 90 corporate and state-owned companies that produce fossil fuels and cement....

While delegates from all over the world are gathered now in Poland arguing over which countries are most responsible for climate impacts, Heede’s work takes a different approach — it’s not countries so much as companies we should be examining.

The scope of the work is massive. Of the 90 companies, 56 are oil and gas producers, 37 are coal companies, and seven are cement producers. While they are based in 43 countries, “these entities extract resources from every oil, natural gas, and coal province in the world, and process the fuels into marketable products that are sold to consumers in every nation on Earth,” Heede writes. So, in a way, we all have a hand in this, too.

By his calculations these 90 companies are responsible for 914 billion tons of greenhouse gas pollution, for a whopping total of 63 percent of C02 and methane (CH4) emissions since 1751. But it’s only recently that things have really started to heat up. “Of total industrial CO2 and CH4 emissions from 1751 to 2010, one-half has been emitted since 1984.” 

So, who are the worst offenders? Here’s the top 10 from his study:

Click to enlarge.

The information is important, not just from an historical perspective but to help us figure out what to do now that the graph of global emissions looks like a steep climb up a never-ending hill.

“Many of the same companies are also sitting on substantial reserves of fossil fuel which—if they are burned—puts the world at even greater risk of dangerous climate change,” writes Suzanne Goldenberg for the Guardian. “Climate change experts said the data set was the most ambitious effort so far to hold individual carbon producers, rather than governments, to account.”

So far little has been done to hold anyone accountable and the battle over how much wealthier nations with high rates of emissions should compensate poorer countries, which have been bearing the brunt of climate change impacts, is a source of great contention. It may also be a global impasse. This week numerous groups walked out of talks partly because of a lack of progress on the issue of accountability. The biggest speed bump continues to be the fossil fuel industry and its collusion with numerous governments.

Tara Lohan, a senior editor at AlterNet, has just launched the new project Hitting Home, chronicling extreme energy extraction. She is the editor of two books on the global water crisis, including most recently, Water Matters: Why We Need to Act Now to Save Our Most Critical Resource.

==

top 5:

Analyses of the findings confirm that the majority of those responsible are in the business of producing either oil, gas, or coal, with half of the emissions released in the past 25 years.

Climate change experts said the research was the most ambitious so far to hold individual carbon producers responsible, Grist reported. Former Vice President Al Gore welcomed the report and said it was a “crucial step forward."

So, who are the top 5 corporate offenders?

1.     ChevronTexaco

Unsurprisingly, Chervon Texaco is the top emitter of man-made carbon emissions among investor-owned companies. The multinational energy corporation is active in more than 180 countries and is one of the world’s largest corporations.

2.     ExxonMobil

Oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil comes in close second among investor-owned companies. In the past, ExxonMobil has been accused of downplaying the global warming threat as well as funding groups that refute climate change.

3. Saudi Aramaco

Third place goes to state-owned Saudi Aramco. Owned by Saudi Arabia, Saudi Aramco holds the world’s largest oil field and is estimated to be one of the world’s most valuable companies.

4.     BP

Oil tycoon company BP comes in fourth place. Ironically, the corporation was one of the first to come out and publicly support scientific consensus on climate change.

5.     Gazprom

Russia’s Gazprom, a state-owned company, rounds out the top five dirtiest polluters. The company is the one of the largest extractors of natural gas. It most recently was the target of an action by Greenpeace activists protesting Russia’s oil drilling in the Arctic.

==

Just 90 companies caused two-thirds of man-made global warming emissions

Chevron, Exxon and BP among companies most responsible for climate change since dawn of industrial age, figures show

...The companies' operations spanned the globe, with company headquarters in 43 different countries. "These entities extract resources from every oil, natural gas and coal province in the world, and process the fuels into marketable products that are sold to consumers on every nation on Earth," Heede writes in the paper.

The largest of the investor-owned companies were responsible for an outsized share of emissions. Nearly 30% of emissions were produced just by the top 20 companies, the research found.

By Heede's calculation, government-run oil and coal companies in the former Soviet Union produced more greenhouse gas emissions than any other entity – just under 8.9% of the total produced over time. China came a close second with its government-run entities accounting for 8.6% of total global emissions.

ChevronTexaco was the leading emitter among investor-owned companies, causing 3.5% of greenhouse gas emissions to date, with Exxon not far behind at 3.2%. In third place, BP caused 2.5% of global emissions to date.

The historic emissions record was constructed using public records and data from the US department of energy's Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Centre, and took account of emissions all along the supply chain.

The centre put global industrial emissions since 1751 at 1,450 gigatonnes. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/20/90-companies-man-made-global-warming-emissions-climate-change

The top 90 emitters include 50 investor-owned energy companies like BP, ExxonMobil and Shell, along with 31 state-owned companies and some nation-states themselves. 83 of the 90 are coal, oil and gas producers and the remaining seven are cement manufacturers.

The researchers argue that this group is responsible for the equivalent of 914 gigatons of carbon dioxide, explained the Guardian, which accounts for 63 percent of industrial carbon dioxide and methane emissions between 1751 and 2010. In fact, half of the greenhouse gas emissions analyzed in the the study were reportedly emitted in the past 25 years.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a report this week addressing toxic air pollution in the U.S. With the report, they created a "Toxic 20" list of states "where residents are at a higher risk of numerous health problems just by breathing," the NRDC explains.

According to a press release, the report "found that coal- and oil-fired power plants still contribute nearly half (44 percent) of all the toxic air pollution reported to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)."

NRDC's Pete Altman blogs, "Both senators from eight states of the 'Toxic 20' states -- Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia, Texas, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi -- supported a resolution by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., to repeal the health-protective mercury and air toxics standard."

AP Reports:

Maryland ranked 19th, an improvement from fifth place the year before. Delaware rose one spot from 21st the year before.

The new rankings are based on 2010 figures. The environmental group said pollution was down overall and that new standards imposed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency mean power plant pollution should continue to drop.

The NRDC said toxic emissions overall decreased 19 percent primarily due to installation of controls and increased use of natural gas.

John Walke, the NRDC's clean air director, said falling natural gas prices have been the "single most influential factor" in the decision to convert to natural gas or retire coal-burning units.

top 10 air polluters  http://www.peri.umass.edu/toxic100/

Bayer Group

ExxonMobil

Sunoco

E.I. du Pont de Nemours

ArcelorMittal

Steel Dynamics Inc.

Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM)

Ford Motor Co.

Eastman Kodak Co.

Koch Industries

Calif

Business group loses 'green' members in global-warming fight

BY ALI WINSTON, California Watch | Sunday, Jan 17 2010 03:00 AM

Last Updated Sunday, Jan 17 2010 03:00 AM

CALIFORNIA'S LARGEST GREENHOUSE GAS POLLUTERS

The 100 largest CO2-emitting facilities in California, according to self-reported data for 2007 from the California Air Resources Board.

1. Chevron -- Richmond
2. Shell Oil -- Martinez
3. BP West Coast -- Carson
4. Chevron -- El Segundo
5. Dynegy -- Moss Landing

6. Sycamore -- Bakersfield

7. ExxonMobil -- Torrance
8. Valero -- Benicia

9. Sunrise Power -- Bakersfield

10. Tesoro -- Martinez
11. SoCal Edison/Mountainview -- Rosemead
12. La Paloma -- McKittrick
13. Cemex Black Mountain -- Victorville
14. LA Dept. Water & Power Haynes -- LA
15. ConocoPhillips Wilmington -- LA
16. Pastoria Energy/Calpine -- Folsom
17. ConocoPhillips -- Rodeo
18. Delta Energy/Calpine -- Folsom
19. High Desert Power Project -- Victorville
20. Searles Valley Minerals -- Trona

21. Aera Energy/Belridge -- Bakersfield

22. Kern River Cogen -- Bakersfield

23. AES Alamitos -- Long Beach
24. SMUD Cosumnes -- Sacramento
25. SDG&E Palomar -- San Diego
26. Metcalf Energy -- San Jose
27. Elk Hills Power -- Tupman
28. Midway-Sunset Cogen -- Fellows
29. CalPortland -- Mojave
30. Mitsubishi Cement -- Lucerne
31. Tesoro -- Wilmington
32. LA Dept. Water & Power Valley -- LA
33. Ultramar/Valero, Wilmington
34. ACE Cogeneration -- Trona
35. ConocoPhillips Carson -- Carson
36. AES -- Huntington Beach

37. Plains Exploration & Production -- Bakersfield

38. LA Dept. Water & Power Scattergood -- LA
39. Burney Forest Products -- Burney
40. TXI Riverside Cement -- Oro Grande
41. National Cement -- Lebec
42. Lehigh SW Cement -- Cupertino
43. Turlock Irrigation/Walnut Energy -- Turlock
44. Air Products Hydrogen Plant -- Wilmington
45. Air Liquide Hydrogen Plant -- El Segundo
46. NRG Energy Encina -- Carlsbad
47. Dynegy South Bay -- Chula Vista

48. Occidental Elk Hills -- Bakersfield

49. Stockton CoGen -- Benicia
50. Air Products Hydrogen Plant -- Carson

51. Aera Energy MOCO D&E -- Bakersfield

52. RRI Energy Etiwanda -- Rancho Cucamonga

53. Big West of California -- Bakersfield

54. Lehigh SW Cement -- Tehachapi

55. Blythe Energy -- Blythe
56. Crocket Cogen -- Crockett
57. Cardinal Cogen -- Stanford
58. DTE Woodland Biomass Power -- Woodland
59. SMUD SPA -- Sacramento
60. CalPortland -- Colton
61. RRI Energy Ormond Beach -- Oxnard

62. Mt. Poso Cogen -- Bakersfield

63. Salinas River Cogen -- San Ardo

64. Mid-Set Cogen -- Bakersfield

65. Sargent Canyon Cogen -- San Ardo
66. Martinez Cogen -- Martinez
67. Lehigh SW Cement -- Redding
68. Coalinga Cogen -- Coalinga
69. PG&E Humboldt Bay -- Eureka

70. Berry Petroleum -- Bakersfield

71. RMC Cemex -- Davenport
72. Port of Stockton District Energy Facility -- Stockton
73. SMUD SCA -- Sacramento

74. Rio Bravo Jasmin -- Bakersfield

75. Rio Bravo Poso -- Bakersfield

76. Sierra Pacific Industries -- Quincy
77. RRI Energy Mandalay Inc. -- Oxnard
78. Mirant Potrero LLC -- San Francisco
79. U.S. Borax -- Boron
80. RRI Energy Coolwater -- Daggett
81. ExxonMobil SYU -- Santa Barbara
82. NRG Energy -- El Segundo
83. Procter & Gamble Paper Products -- Oxnard
84. Imperial Irrigation District -- El Centro
85. Berry Petroleum Co. Placerita -- Santa Clarita

86. Aera Energy LLC Lost Hills -- Bakersfield

87. BP West Coast Wilmington Calciner -- Wilmington
88. Aera Energy LLC Coalinga -- Coalinga
89. Air Products and Chemicals Inc. -- Martinez
90. Hanford L.P. GWF Cogeneration Plant -- Hanford
91. Calpine King City Cogen LLC -- King City
92. THUMS Long Beach Co. -- Long Beach
93. ConocoPhillips Santa Maria -- Arroyo Grande
94. Ontario Linerboard Mill -- Ontario

95. High Sierra Limited -- Bakersfield

96. CalEnergy Salton Sea 1-5 -- Calipatria
97. Modesto Irrigation District Woodland -- Modesto
98. AES Redondo Beach -- Redondo Beach
99. GWF Power Systems Nichols Road -- Bay Point
100. Geysers Power Company LLC Calpine -- Co

Links

• MAP: Kern County is home to many top greenhouse gas polluters

• Check out California Watch's other investigations