In December, reporter Allison Sickle wrote an in-depth piece about the environmental impact of drilling in the Marcellus Shale. While there were many people who thought the piece was fair, a few organizations took issue with our characterization of the environmental challenges facing the Marcellus Shale region. Soon after posting, a flood of comments came in flaming the article for being “alarmist,”’ for not mentioning all enormous benefit gained by drilling, and calling out the author’s research and “so called experts.”

We were unsurprised by the comments, the internet being the ultimate bastion of anonymous invective, but the organization and speed of these attacks were alarming. After a dig through the site analytics, it wasn’t too hard to spot the forum that was probably responsible for the attacks on the story. It isn’t unusual for us to get calls from corporate hacks that take issue with our articles (Nestle), but this new brand of grassroots attack is a different animal.

The Obama administration’s plan to increase the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program to $54 billion may repower the nuclear power industry. Some Obama supporters say they are disappointed by his commitment to nuclear power. They say he has ignored a highly charged issue: the ultimate disposal of nuclear waste.

“During the campaign, President Obama said he was open to reactors but a lot of the problems had to be solved first, and those problems haven’t been solved yet,” said Friends of the Earth director of public advocacy, Nick Berning. “We’ve got waste piling up at reactors around the country, but there’s no where to put it.”

Roger Ailes put on quite the show the other day, but I would like to focus on some comments he made regarding national security. Proclaiming that safety and sovereignty should be the number one issue on the President’s plate, Ailes launched into his greatest hits. He bobbed and weaved with blatant fear mongering, got in some quick jabs with “fair and balanced,” then yelled most “trusted name in news” just for good measure. If you’ve ever wanted a clinic on how to intentionally spread misinformation by preying on the inability of journalists to keep you accurate, then you were in luck on Sunday. Here are a few reasons why Obama shouldn’t worry about Roger Ailes assessment of priorities.

It has been nearly a week since Scott Brown’s victory single-handedly started a 2012 style Dem-ageddon, and we are already seeing how it will affect the President’s ambitious agenda. While every talking head discusses the fate of healthcare reform, but it is the prospects for climate change legislation may be far more in peril.

The House has already passed its version of climate change legislation, but recent developments in the Senate have complicated the logistics of passing a similar version. Notably, provisions like cap and trade, already controversial in the chamber, might fall by the wayside. Here are a few reasons why:

Two months has passed since the Democratic Policy Committee hearing on Burn Pits in Iraq and Afghanistan where Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) gave a verbal lashing to KBR. Although KBR did not attend, a video of the hearing is online for all to see.

The good news: The burn pit at Joint Base Balad is closed! The bad news: There are dozens more. KBR operated approximately 100 burn pits across Iraq and about 30 in Afghanistan, according to lawyer Susan Burke. Burke represents Russell Keith, an army medic and one of the witnesses at the Senate hearing. He suffers severe health problems from inhaling the toxic burn pit smoke during his service in Iraq. Civil and class action lawsuits are pending before Judge Roger W. Titus in federal court in Maryland. Burke says that the cases will not go to trial for at least another two years.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing on the impact of an Exxon Mobil Corp.­­ – XTO Energy Inc. merger last week began as a love fest when Texas representatives gave a warm welcome to witnesses Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corp., and Bob Simpson, chairman of the board and founder of XTO Energy Inc. Some representatives – seeing potential jobs and income for their cash-strapped states – seemed willing, even anxious, to yield to industry’s pressure to refrain from supporting legislation that might cost the industry money when they extract natural gas from unconventional reserves, like the Marcellus Shale that runs from West Virginia to New York State.

The gas industry says it’s only “commercially viable” to extract natural gas from these unconventional reserves using a technique called hydraulic fracturing. During hydraulic fracturing, well operators inject a mixture of water and chemicals – about two to nine million gallons of water with chemicals making up about one to five percent of the total volume – into wells at extremely high pressure to crack and prop open the shale. Environmentalists are concerned this technique may contaminate soil, groundwater and surface water. Many New Yorkers fear drilling in the NYC watershed will contaminate their unfiltered water supply. More information about these concerns can be found in an investigation by DC Bureau last month.