TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline permit hangs in the balance, up for a potential Senate vote this week, having already passed the House as part of the Transportation Bill last week. Other companies, meanwhile, are wasting no time pushing their own respective tar sands pipeline proposals while that drama unfolds. Last week, DeSmogBlog noted that for [...]

A Cross-Post from DeSmogBlog The controversy over TransCanada‘s Keystone XL pipeline has raged on for years now, with no end in sight. The Keystone XL pipeline would carry tar sands crude from the tar sands epicenter of the world in Alberta, Canada, take it down to Cushing, OK, and then eventually down to Port Arthur, TX, where it will [...]

The backlash to the war on women continues. This week, an Idaho bill that would have mandated ultrasounds for abortion seekers died in the legislature, a victory for women’s rights in one of the most conservative states in the nation. But the backlash is also getting an assist from a district court in Oklahoma: An [...]

That all-male hearing on birth control access over at the House Oversight Committee provoked Democratic women on the committee to walk out of the hearing room. And Nancy Pelosi responded to the hearing this way: “Five men are testifying on women’s health,” Pelosi said, adding, “Where are the women? Imagine having a panel on women’s [...]

Forty-nine states, every one but Oklahoma, as well as federal regulators will participate in a foreclosure fraud settlement that will release the five biggest banks (Wells Fargo, Citi, Ally/GMAC, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America) and their mortgage servicing units from liability for robo-signing and other forms of servicer abuse, in exchange for $25 billion [...]

Arizona’s anti-immigration law is getting most of the publicity this week, but yesterday they also passed a law to benefit the forced-birth lobby: On Saturday, “at the Center for Arizona Policy Family dinner before 1600 guests,” Brewer signed SB 1305, the first-in-the nation bill that would prohibit insurers in the state-run health care exchange “from [...]

Gov. Brad Henry of Oklahoma is a conservative Democrat, but he should be credited for standing up to the forced birth lobby: Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry vetoed two abortion bills Friday that he said are an unconstitutional attempt by the Legislature to insert government into the private lives and decisions of citizens. One measure would [...]