Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"America's oil, gas and coal industry has increased its lobbying budget by 50%, with key players spending $44.5 [million] in the first three months of this year in an intense effort to cut off support" for cap and trade legislation to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
As the Center for Media and Democracy reported previously, the Dewey Square Group lobbying firm is sending newspapers fake letters to the editor. The letters promote Medicare Advantage, a private health insurance plan, and are sent in the name of local seniors.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
The Canadian province of Alberta, which promotes the development of its tar sands oil, "has hired a team of consultants to improve [its] image in Washington ahead of climate-change talks." The lobbyists, who Alberta is paying $40,000 a month, include former Michigan governor James Blanchard and former U.S.
Submitted by Anne Landman on
The proposed legislation to have the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulate tobacco is "window-dressing masquerading as legislation," according to Alan Blum, M.D., director of the University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
The Halifax-Plympton Reporter received a letter to the editor urging "that people contact their congressman about the Medicare Advantage program," a "sort of privatized health plan paid for via the recipient's Medicare. Reportedly, there's some interest in doing away with the program." The actual, physical letter was in the name of a local resident, but it didn't mention any of the local Congressional delegation, which the newspaper's editor, Matthew Nadler, found strange.
Wisconsin law sets two conditions that must be met before new nuclear power plants can be built in the state. One is that there must be "a federally licensed facility" for high-level nuclear waste. In addition, the proposed nuclear plant "must be economically advantageous to ratepayers."
It's a law that the nuclear power industry doesn't like. Given the near-death of the planned waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, and the estimated $6 to $12 billion cost (pdf) of building one nuclear reactor -- not to mention the lack of interest from private investors and the tanking economy -- Wisconsin's law effectively bans new nuclear plants in the state, for the foreseeable future.
Earlier this year, the major U.S. industry group Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) registered four lobbyists in Wisconsin.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
In 2008 the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a coal industry lobby group, spent $9.9 million on federal lobbying as well as $38 million on advertising promoting "clean coal." The president of the coalition, Steven L.
Most western democracies guarantee their citizens a right to medical services through their own version of government managed single payer health care. But such a system has been attacked in the US as "socialized medicine" since before the 1950s especially by lobbyists for the insurance and drug industries who would see their profits decline. Although Barack Obama was elected on a health care reform platform, his version ignores single payer. Nor is single payer advocated by his allies in the well-funded coalition called Health Care for America Now, composed of MoveOn, USAction, ACORN, Americans United for Change, the unions SEIU and UFCW and other liberal heavy hitters. Journalist Russell Mokhiber, founder of the new group Single Payer Action, notes that no advocate of a single payer system was invited to the recent White House summit on health care reform. Only protests by Progressive Democrats of America and others won an invitation for Congressman John Conyers, sponsor of the United States National Health Care Act: H.R.676. Mokhiber quotes Dr. David Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program: “The President once acknowledged that single payer reform was the best option, but now he’s caving in to corporate health care interests and completely shutting out advocates of single payer reform," even though "the majority of Americans favor single payer, and it’s the most popular reform option among doctors and health economists."
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
After "President Barack Obama revealed a $634 billion plan for healthcare as part of his proposed budget," the healthcare industry and its PR firms sought to secure "a seat at the table." The head of Burson-Marsteller's U.S.
Submitted by Anne Landman on
The Southeast Asian Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) reports that the tobacco industry has been trying to block implementation of the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the international treaty designed to help curb
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