Tag Archives: texas

The Texas Tribune: Texas’ Sale of 100 Longhorns Stirs Debate on Breed’s Future

by Myrna Posted on May 4, 2013

State Representative Charles Anderson has filed a bill to bar Texas Parks and Wildlife from further reducing the Big Bend herd. See the original article here: The Texas Tribune: Texas’ Sale of 100 Longhorns Stirs Debate on Breed’s Future ; ;Related ArticlesGreentech: Squeezing More From EthanolCalifornia Wildfire Drives Thousands From HomesBusiness Briefing | Company News: A Second Nuclear Plant in Turkey Is Approved ;

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The Texas Tribune: Texas’ Sale of 100 Longhorns Stirs Debate on Breed’s Future

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EPA bashes State Department’s ‘insufficient’ Keystone report

by Adan Baird Posted on April 23, 2013

EPA bashes State Department’s ‘insufficient’ Keystone report

By Lisa Hymas

Fibonacci Blue

The EPA kind of said this, but with a lot more words.

The EPA has a special Earth Day message for the State Department: You still haven’t done your homework on the Keystone XL pipeline‘s potential environmental effects.

That’s the gist of the EPA’s official comments [PDF] on the State Department’s draft environmental impact statement for the proposed pipeline, submitted on the final day of the comment period. (Procrastination: It’s not just for college students.) State’s report found that Keystone would not have significant environmental impacts, but EPA says the report included “insufficient information” to reach a conclusion on the impacts.

From The Hill:

EPA said [the State Department] failed to fully consider alternative routes for the Canada-to-Texas pipeline. …

Further, EPA urged the State Department to revisit its suggestion that Keystone would not expedite production of Canada’s carbon-intensive oil sands or significantly ramp up greenhouse gas emissions — two major assertions made by the pipeline’s critics.

It said the State Department used an outdated “energy-economic modeling effort” in its analysis that concluded oil sands would find its way to market without Keystone — likely through rail transport.

A Reuters investigation last week raised a lot of questions about whether rail is a viable alternative to pipeline transport for Alberta’s tar-sands oil.

Nebraska Watchdog has more on EPA’s analysis:

The EPA also said it has learned from the 2010 Enbridge oil spill in Michigan that tar sands spills may require different responses and can have different impacts than conventional oil spills. The agency said those differences should be more fully addressed in the State Department’s final report, noting that the Enbridge spill involved a 30-inch-wide pipeline, and Keystone XL proposes a 36-inch diameter pipe. In Michigan, the oil sands crude sank to the bottom of the Kalamazoo River and mixed with the sediment and organic matter, making it difficult to recover.

After nearly three years of cleanup, the EPA recently decided the bottom sediments will need to be dredged to protect the environment and public, largely because the oil “will not appreciably biodegrade.” The EPA recommended the final report more clearly acknowledge that in the event of a spill in water, large portions of dilbit will sink and that “submerged oil significantly changes spill response and impacts.”

The InsideClimate news site won a Pulitzer Prize last week for its reporting on the devastating effects of the 2010 Enbridge spill in Michigan.

Environmental groups and Keystone opponents are feeling vindicated by the EPA’s analysis.

Now that the comment period on the draft environmental study is over, the State Department will review the million-plus comments received and publish a final study. Then, perhaps in September, State will announce whether it thinks Keystone is in the “national interest.” And then, someday, President Obama will make the final call on whether or not to approve the pipeline.

Meanwhile, activists are gearing up to fight the pipeline through civil disobedience. The Rainforest Action Network, the company CREDO Mobile, and other groups plan to enlist tens of thousands of Americans to join in demonstrations. If that sounds like your kind of thing, sign the “Keystone XL Pledge of Resistance” and get hooked up with other activists ready to be arrested for the cause.

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EPA bashes State Department’s ‘insufficient’ Keystone report

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Fracking for uranium, first accidentally, and now on purpose

by 2KeaheySchoeffler461 Posted on April 15, 2013

Fracking for uranium, first accidentally, and now on purpose

By John Upton

Shutterstock

What has 92 protons, deforms growing children, sickens adults, and is being squeezed out of its underground lair by frackers operating in Pennsylvania?

U[hh], uranium!

The toxic and radioactive heavy metal is naturally trapped in the Marcellus shale, the fossil-fuel-laden rock formation popular with frackers that stretches from upstate New York through Pennsylvania to West Virginia and Ohio. We know the uranium is in there, and we know fracking sets it free, because scientists have been saying as much for years.

Pennsylvania is finally launching a systematic study to measure uranium contamination caused by fracking. From Shale Reporter:

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection this month will begin testing for radioactivity in waste products from natural gas well drilling.

In addition to analyzing wastewater from hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, the study also will analyze radioactivity in drill cuttings, drilling mud, drilling equipment, treatment solids and sediments at well pads, wastewater treatment and disposal facilities and landfill leachate, among others.

The study also will test radiation levels for the equipment involved in the transportation, storage and disposal of drilling wastes.

The U.S. Geological Survey found in 2011 that fracking wastewater wells in the northeastern U.S. were contaminated with uranium at levels 300 times greater than the national limit for nuclear plant discharges. Yet Pennsylvania has insisted that there is no problem. The state was reluctant even to test for uranium in fracking wastewater. Now the state has agreed to study the issue, but officials insist that the studies will not reveal anything of any concern to anybody. From a press release from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection:

Based on current data, regulations and industry practices, there is no indication that the public or workers in the oil and gas industry face health risks from exposure to radiation from [fracking waste and equipment].

Meanwhile, the realization that fracking dislodges uranium particles has lit up nuclear-powered lightbulbs over the metaphorical heads of some energy executives. From a February report in Forbes:

[Uranium Energy Corp. CEO Amir] Adnani insists that he can close [America’s] yellowcake gap through a technology that is similar to the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that has created the South Texas energy boom. Fracking for uranium isn’t vastly different from fracking for natural gas. UEC bores under ranchland into layers of highly porous rock that not only contain uranium ore but also hold precious groundwater. Then it injects oxygenated water down into the sand to dissolve out the uranium. The resulting solution is slurped out with pumps, then processed and dried at the company’s Hobson plant.

Fracking for uranium. Energy companies are already doing it accidentally as they frack for natural gas, so what could possibly go wrong once it’s done deliberately ?

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Fracking for uranium, first accidentally, and now on purpose

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Biblical flood means climate change isn’t caused by humans, says Texas Rep. Joe Barton

by Casey Wood Posted on April 11, 2013

Biblical flood means climate change isn’t caused by humans, says Texas Rep. Joe Barton

By John Upton

Shutterstock

The Great Flood happened, therefore climate science is a fraud.

Most people realize that the seas are rising, hurricanes are becoming more ferocious, and oceans are turning to acid because we keep digging up fossil fuels, burning them, and poisoning the atmosphere.

But Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) is not most people. He’s a die-hard climate denier, and a particularly clueless one at that.

During a hearing yesterday on a GOP bill that would fast-track the Keystone XL pipeline without the blessing of President Barack Obama, Barton muttered some batshit crazy stuff.

From BuzzFeed:

“I would point out that people like me who support hydrocarbon development don’t deny that climate is changing,” he added. “I think you can have an honest difference of opinion of what’s causing that change without automatically being either all in that’s all because of mankind or it’s all just natural. I think there’s a divergence of evidence.”

Barton then cited the biblical Great Flood as an example of climate change not caused by man.

“I would point out that if you’re a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”

Is this batshit crazier than when he apologized to BP for the way the company was treated after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? You decide.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Biblical flood means climate change isn’t caused by humans, says Texas Rep. Joe Barton

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Keystone XL protestor cleverly disrupts Valero golf tournament, explains how he did it

by Shelby Morris Posted on April 11, 2013

Keystone XL protestor cleverly disrupts Valero golf tournament, explains how he did it

By John Upton

Jeez, it seems a wealthy white dude can’t even flick mindlessly between Fox News and golf broadcasts these days without being rudely interrupted by a message about the evils of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Last week at the Texas Open, a professional golf tournament sponsored by oil giant Valero, one of the signs being held by volunteer Doug Fahlbusch was changed at the 18th hole from stating players’ names and scores to reveal this message: “TAR SANDS SPILL. ANSWER MANCHESTER.”

Tar Sands Blockade

Some of the tar-sands oil that would be piped to the Gulf Coast by Keystone XL would be processed by Valero in Houston’s East End, which includes the neighborhood of Manchester, where pollution from industrial operations has long sickened residents.

As you can imagine, Fahlbusch’s statement caused quite the kerfuffle among hoity-toity golf officials and he was carried away by security and arrested by police. Watch the video below and you’ll see one security guard is particularly anxious to wrestle the dastardly sign from the protestor’s hand, even as he is being carried away, perhaps worried that the offensive message might hurt the innocent eyes of any women or children. Which is not bloody likely, given that most golf fans are wealthy middle-aged white men.

A Platts energy blogger was stunned by the organization required to pull off such a stunt. Stunned! From his post:

Think about how this must have occurred. This individual, Douglas Fahlbusch, had to answer the call for volunteers to serve the tournament. These sorts of positions are generally filled by people who like to be out on the course, surrounded by some of the world’s best players. …

Presumably, Fahlbusch needed to pass some sort of background check, though it couldn’t have been too rigorous if the organizers missed the fact that he appears to be a dedicated anti-oil green.

Right, because background checks should reveal those who are “dedicated anti-oil green” activists? Perhaps they should also reveal whether somebody is a communist?

Anyway, no need for speculation, because we asked Fahlbusch for his account of the stunt. Here’s what he told us in an email, which goes to show how easy it can be to make your voice heard on this issue in a novel way, with just a little planning and persistence:

I got the “job” as standard bearer by signing up as a volunteer for the Valero open. It’s interesting, I actually had to pay $50.00 to get the volunteer opportunity. There are hundreds of volunteers and the few that I spoke with were doing it to get a “free” round of golf at the TPC San Antonio golf course. As a volunteer we also got fed each day, got a uniform, and entrance to a volunteer party Saturday night with free drinks and all! Once you sign up and pay to be a volunteer, you can pick which part of the Open to volunteer with. These jobs range from course security, VIP assistant, course marshall, crowd control, etc. I have never been a standard bearer or played golf in my life. I simply saw this event as an opportunity to put a kink in the Valero pr system and get some attention out there about the fence line community of Manchester in Houston, Texas. The Valero Texas Open has this image as a big charity event, raising $10 million or so for San Antonio charities.

I got the idea for the prank after spending some time researching the event and volunteer positions available. As the standard bearer you walk behind the golfers holding a sign that has the golfer names and scores. After I saw an image of a standard bearer, I had the light bulb moment. To prepare for the protest, I walked the golf course for 3 days as a standard bearer, something like 5 miles of walking per day. The first day, I spent some time just looking at the course for places to make a splash. I also made notes of security, and measured the sign so that I could make my own signage for the big day. It became very obvious that the 18th hole was the one, with the most spectators and media on the spot. Once I figured that out, I then spent the next two volunteer days looking for where I could make the sign switch. I guess I did ok as a standard bearer and got a couple of autographed golf balls from the Pro’s that I walked with. After volunteering all day, I went back home and made the signs that I would use for the prank. I ended up making the signs break down into 2 pieces so that I could hide them inside of my shirt. I had the signs taped together, and used an ACE bandage to wrap them to my torso to stay hidden until deployment. I made the sign switch in a bathroom on the walk between the 17th and 18th holes. I went into the bathroom, unwrapped the signs I made and slid them underneath the Valero open signs. I then made the walk with the golfers from the tee to the green on the 18th, hoping that no one would notice the second set of signs under the normal ones. As we approached the green, I altered my path towards the center of the green, pulled off the normal signs to reveal the protest signage, removed my shirt to reveal a Tar Sands Blockade t- shirt and began the protest! The protest did not last long in the end, but I do think I got the attention of the PGA and Valero.

The reason for protesting Valero is based upon their investment in the refining of Tar Sands from Canada. I have been with the Tar Sands Blockade for the last 6 months protesting the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas and Oklahoma. I am very passionate about the issue of climate change and see the extraction of tar sands as the final straw for our planet. I plan on continuing with Tar Sands Blockade as long as possible and hope to join the fight against the northern segment of the pipeline once it is approved by Obama.

And as for the aftermath?

I was arrested. I was charged in the end with Criminal Trespass, a class B misdemeanor. Bail was set at $800.00, which was kindly paid by friends of mine. I spent around 10 hours in the Bexar county jail in San Antonio. The charge I received actually changed 3 times while I was being held in custody. Initially I was charged with disturbing the peace, but while sitting in the back of a police car at the golf course the charges were changed to resisting arrest. This was after a long huddle between a few officers that I could observe through the window of the squad car. I finally received the trespass charge after the magistrate judge looked at my case and evidence against me. The judge gave out the charges and bail, then roughly 4 hours later I was free.

Here’s that video:

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Keystone XL protestor cleverly disrupts Valero golf tournament, explains how he did it

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Texas Woos "Persecuted" Gun Companies

by BayalaHillesland628 Posted on April 8, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Ted Nugent and US Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) Office of Rep. Stockman

Various parts of America have at different times served as refuges for the persecuted. The North was a popular destination for freed and escaped slaves. San Francisco attracted gays. The Emerald Triangle and Appalachia became havens for pot growers and bootleggers.

Now Texas wants in on the action.

On Friday, US Rep. Steve Stockman, a Republican from Friendswood, sent the following message to “all persecuted gun owners and unwanted manufacturers”:

Come to Texas!!! The state which believes the whole Bill of Rights should be followed, not just the “politically correct” parts. Your rights will not be infringed upon here, unlike many current local regimes SIC.


10 Crazy Gun Laws Introduced Since Newtown


More Than Half of Mass Shooters Used Assault Weapons and High-Capacity Magazines


The Showdown Over Gun Laws From Coast to Coast


Newtown “Changed America,” But Will Congress Change Gun Laws?


Under Obama, Feds Holster Gun Cases


A Guide to Mass Shootings in America


10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down


Want to Buy a Gun Without a Background Check? Armslist Can Help

See our full special report on gun laws and the rise of mass shootings in America.

Texans who may want abortions or same-sex marriages will doubtless celebrate their state’s newfound support for “the whole Bill of Rights.” But will gun companies relocate because of it? Their executives want us to think so. After Colorado signed a gun-control package last month, two makers of firearms accessories said they’d leave. The weapons makers Beretta, Colt, Mossberg, and Stag Arms have threatened to yank factories from Connecticut and Maryland if those states make good on new gun restrictions.

Of course, any Texan who actually knows guns will tell you that the complainers are all hat and no cattle. State laws requiring background checks or banning certain types of weapons won’t crimp manufacturers, who sell their guns nationwide and globally. Just take the example of Beretta and Mossberg: These companies are headquartered, respectively, in Italy and Turkey, where highly restrictive firearms laws haven’t slowed down some $150 million in yearly exports of rifles, pistols, and shotguns to the United States.

Stockman’s open letter is really more about shooting off his mouth than defending the rights of shooters. It’s about burnishing his reputation as “the new Michele Bachmann,” a comparison that, in all fairness, is kind of like calling Madonna the new Lady Gaga.

During a scandalous and painfully brief congressional stint in the mid 1990s, Stockman earned infamy for defending the militia movement in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing and suggesting that Bill Clinton raided Waco’s Branch Davidian compound in order to build support for gun control. Now back in Congress after wandering the political desert for 15 years, Stockman, a bespectacled born-again Christian, has threatened to launch impeachment proceedings against President Obama if he enacts gun-control measures. In February, Stockman brought has-been rocker/offhand racist/wannabe presidential assassin Ted Nugent to the state of the union address. (We caught Nugent’s performance—or was it performance art—in San Francisco not too long ago.)

None of which is to say that Stockman won’t succeed in getting some gun nuts to move across the Red River. Heck, he might even make the rest of us safer.

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Texas Woos "Persecuted" Gun Companies

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All those fracking jobs come with an increased risk of lung cancer

by siteforme Posted on April 2, 2013

All those fracking jobs come with an increased risk of lung cancer

By Susie Cagle

chriswaits

While all the damage hydraulic fracturing could do to the Earth is pretty well-covered, we mostly overlook the risks it poses to fracking workers. Each well requires thousands of tons of fracking sand full of fine silica, which can penetrate lungs and lead to incurable silicosis and even lung cancer.

To find out how much those frackers were at risk, Eric Esswein, a workplace safety and exposure expert with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), strapped on a face mask and dug in. NPR reports:

He and his colleagues visited 11 fracking sites in five states: Arkansas, Colorado, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Texas. At every site, the researchers found high levels of silica in the air. It turned out that 79 percent of the collected samples exceeded the recommended exposure limit set by Esswein’s agency.

There were some controls in place, says Esswein, who notes that “at every site that we went to, workers wore respirators.”

But about one-third of the air samples they collected had such high levels of silica, the type of respirators typically worn wouldn’t offer enough protection. …

Workplace inspectors with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration wouldn’t have been aware of this potential risk for fracking workers before this recent study because, unless they receive a complaint or there’s an accident, they generally don’t see the process of hydraulic fracturing. That part of setting up a well happens quickly — and once a well is up and running, contractors move on to the next one.

Government officials and the fracking industry say they’re now working together to reduce workers’ exposures. They started with quick fixes, like putting up warning signs and simply closing hatches on sand-moving machines.

Not only did most of the airborne silica samples exceed NIOSH’s recommended levels, but almost half exceeded the maximum levels set by OSHA, and a third exceeded NIOSH’s recommended level by a factor of 10 or more. Gee, thanks Mister Fracking Industry! All this cancer will go great with my firewater!

Workplace safety experts say the Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules for silica should allow about half of what they do now, but OSHA’s updated regulations have been stuck in review for more than two years.

The New York Times took OSHA to task in a scathing longread about the watchdog agency’s failures when it comes to long-term health threats: “Partly out of pragmatism, the agency created by President Richard M. Nixon to give greater attention to health issues has largely done the opposite. OSHA devotes most of its budget and attention to responding to here-and-now dangers rather than preventing the silent, slow killers that, in the end, take far more lives.”

Just another dirty cost of all that “clean” natural gas.

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Colorado lawmakers want to jack up ridiculously low oil-spill fines

by NielPostma231 Posted on March 28, 2013

Colorado lawmakers want to jack up ridiculously low oil-spill fines

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Some Colorado lawmakers say $1,000 a day in fines is not enough for an oil spill.

We told you last week about the underground leak of a mysterious “natural-gas liquid” near a gas-processing plant along a creek in western Colorado. The spill was discovered on March 8, and has been spilling ever since, but plant owner Williams Corp. still doesn’t know for sure where it’s coming from.

Meanwhile, some Colorado lawmakers are expressing dismay that state fines for such spills have been capped at $10,000 for the past half century unless the spills are deemed to have “significant adverse impact” on public health or the environment.

From the Denver iJournal:

A Lafayette lawmaker says Colorado’s system of levying fines against oil and gas companies for environmental disasters like the spill this month near Parachute Creek is totally out of whack with other states and needs to be brought “into this century.”

Sponsored in the state House by Rep. Mike Foote, D-Lafayette, and in the Senate by Sen. Matt Jones, D-Louisville, House Bill 1267 [PDF] would increase the maximum daily fine for violators of Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) regulations to $15,000 and repeal the cap on maximum total fines.

Current law dating to the 1950s sets the daily fine limit at $1,000 and caps maximum fines at $10,000, which Foote argues doesn’t adequately punish polluters and lags far behind other major oil and gas producing states. His bill passed out of the House Transportation & Energy Committee on an 8-5 party-line vote last week and was sent to the Finance Committee.

“In the Texas legislature there’s a proposal to increase [fines] to $200,000 per violation, per day, with no cap,” Foote told the committee last week, “and apparently there’s a trade association that’s in favor of that bill.”

That’s all good and well, but if energy companies can’t find the money for proper maintenance, where would the poor sods find the money to pay oil-spill fines?

Oh, right. Tremendous profits.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Colorado lawmakers want to jack up ridiculously low oil-spill fines

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Flies that eat organic live longer, make more fly babies

by Sylvesterax6 Posted on March 28, 2013

Flies that eat organic live longer, make more fly babies

By Susie Cagle

Scientists may be split on whether organic foods are better for human health. But a new study published in PLOS ONE presents evidence that organic foods help you live longer and make more babies — if you’re a fruit fly.

T. ChapmanMaybe organic food just puts flies in the mood?

Researchers at Southern Methodist University fed fruit flies extracts of organic or conventional versions of bananas, potatoes, raisins, or soybeans from a Whole Foods in Texas. (Unlike those organic-loving rats, the flies didn’t get to choose their foods.)

“Flies were then subjected to a variety of tests designed to assess overall fly health.” The results? “Flies raised on diets made from organically grown produce had greater fertility and longevity,” according to the study.

Maybe this explains why buzzing fruit flies plague your indoor compost bin (or, for that matter, the Whole Foods sample trays)? Best break out the organic apple cider vinegar!

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Flies that eat organic live longer, make more fly babies

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Too big to prosecute: How Monsanto slipped the DOJ’s grasp

by olikellopas Posted on March 16, 2013

Too big to prosecute: How Monsanto slipped the DOJ’s grasp

By Susie Cagle

Hey so remember a few months ago when we told you about how the Department of Justice quietly slipped its Monsanto investigation into the shredder? The global GMO giant  was “pleased,” activists were pissed, and we were left wondering how that whole thing even happened.

Today, Lina Khan at Salon breaks down the what-the-fuck of it all. The investigation was first fertilized at the state level in 2007, when officials in Iowa, Texas, and other states began looking into Monsanto’s restrictive, anti-competitive contract agreements with seed companies and farmers. Monsanto’s trademarked genes are in more than 90 percent of American soy and 80 percent of corn.

Monsanto started in chemicals, only moving into genetically modified seed traits in the 1980s, and then buying up seed companies of its own in the ’90s. “Over the next decade Monsanto spent more than $12 billion to buy at least 30 such businesses,” Khan writes.

Alarmed by the fact that they were losing access to many key seed gene pools and seed breeders, biotech competitors – including DuPont, Dow and Syngenta – scrambled to keep up, grabbing suites of seed companies to secure their own arsenals.

Once mimicked by its rivals, Monsanto’s strategy redrew the industry. Competition and variety have dwindled as a result. Since the mid-1990s, the number of independent seed companies has shrunk from some 300 firms to fewer than 100. Many businesses not bought out directly were pushed out by bankruptcy.

The antitrust lawsuit against Monsanto proved difficult for the DOJ for a number of reasons, not least of which was Monsanto’s Hulk-like influence over Washington politics: The company spent nearly $6 million on lobbying last year.

When contacted, a spokeswoman for the DOJ acknowledged only that the antitrust division had shut its investigation into “possible anticompetitive activity” in the seed industry, due to “marketplace developments that occurred during the pendency of the investigation.” The spokeswoman would not detail these developments. “We believe it would not be appropriate to comment further,” she said. The state attorneys general who initiated the probe five years ago also closed their inquiry and have chosen not to comment. …

Those close to the investigation also note that it became easier for officials to justify inaction because Monsanto cleaned up its act as soon as authorities came knocking. Seed companies say Monsanto began loosening its licensing agreements in 2008, less than a year after the state attorneys general opened their inquiry. Months after the Justice Department followed suit in 2009, Monsanto announced it would allow farmers to continue using its leading soybeans, Roundup Ready 1, even after its patent expired in 2014. This gesture — at least in theory — opens the market to generic competition. …

[University of Wisconsin Law School professor Peter] Carstensen, a former DOJ attorney, believes antitrust officials may have been reluctant to wage a close fight given Monsanto’s political connections. “There was a good case to be made, but at the end of the day nobody was prepared to bite the bullet and move forward,” he said. …

“It’s a great frustration,” Carstensen says. “If the Obama administration really cared about technological innovation, they would have come in and tried to free technology from being captured by a single company.” Instead, he says, they have “protected Monsanto’s interest.”

But Monsanto learned its lesson, right, and cleaned up its act? Monsanto’s not Hulking out anymore, it’s just a calm big-agriculture Bruce Banner now, right? Yeah, not so much. The company’s lobbyists are now pushing the “Monsanto Protection Act” into a Senate spending bill. “Even if a court orders Monsanto to stop planting seeds until an environmental review is carried out, this bill overrules that,” reports SustainableBusiness.com. Gee, thanks for setting some precedent, DOJ!

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Too big to prosecute: How Monsanto slipped the DOJ’s grasp

Posted in alo, ALPHA, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Too big to prosecute: How Monsanto slipped the DOJ’s grasp