The Center for Science in the Public Interest has posted on the Internet a database of over 1,100 professors and scientists who consult for or have other affiliations with chemical, gas, oil, food, drug, and other companies. The web site also provides partial information about nonprofit and professional organizations that receive industry funding. Both parts of the database will be regularly expanded in the future.

The well-documented database is designed for activists, journalists, policy makers, and others who are concerned about potential conflicts of interest. The database is part of CSPI’s Integrity in Science project, one purpose of which is to encourage greater public disclosure of corporate sponsorship of science.

For further information, or to contribute to the database, contact Ron Collins, ronc@cspinet.org, or 202-332-9110, ext. 322, or CSPI, Suite 300, 1875 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20009.

(From October 29 press release by the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network. Daphne Wysham, in Washington, DC: 202-234-9382, x208)

Vital Statistics from the SEEN global database

(current through Sept. 30, 2001)

• Fossil fuel financing, World Bank Group, since 1992: $20.8 billion
• Estimated lifetime carbon dioxide emissions from these projects: 40.6 billion tons
• Worldwide carbon dioxide emissions from consumption/flaring of fossil fuels, 1999: 22.3 billion tons
• Renewable energy/energy efficiency financing, World Bank Group, since 1992: $900 million
• Number of World Bank Group renewable energy/energy efficiency projects, since 1992: 30
• Number of World Bank Group fossil fuel projects, since 1992: 212

• Top three recipient countries of World Bank fossil fuel aid since 1992: India ($3.196 billion), China ($2.914 billion), Russia ($2.890 billion)
• Total megawatts, fossil fuel power plant generation capacity financed by World Bank since 1992: 39,423MW
• Total megawatts, existing solar power plant generation capacity worldwide, 2000: 300MW

"In an unprecedented decision," the US Fish & Wildlife Service has given the state of Kentucky authority to move a population of the ESA listed blackside dace so that a strip mine can destroy its stream habitat says the Louisville Courier-Journal 1/10. The small fish "could become the first creature protected by the ESA to be moved – lock, stock and barrel" before a mining operation is even begun. The agency claims a 1996 policy prohibits it from stopping the mine merely because it would "jeopardize the continued existence of an endangered or threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat" as long as "all other environmental laws are followed."

The United States may have produced more coal in 2001 than any other year in history, according to preliminary data from the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration.

The EIA data shows that US coal miners produced about 1.118 billion short tons of coal last year, nearly a million tons more than in 1998, the previous record year. With 367.7 million tons, Wyoming was the top coal producer, followed by West Virginia, with 161.1 million tons, and Kentucky, with 129.6 million tons.

Coal production is typically higher in years when the economy is thriving, according to Leslie Coleman of the National Mining Association. "Generally speaking, when the economy is good, we use more electricity and burn more coal," she said.

Last year, however, the economy was sluggish, yet the United States mined 45 million more tons of coal than in 2000, and 18 million more tons of coal than in 1999, years when the economy was generally thought to be booming. Coleman says other factors came into play to account for this apparent anomaly.

For instance, she said, some of the trend can be attributed to weather: 2001 was a fairly cold year compared to 1999 and 2000. And the price of natural gas was fairly high last year. While single-fuel natural gas power plants were stuck with paying the higher prices, some plants can burn either fuel, and those may have switched to coal when the price of natural gas started to rise.

Regardless of what the final number turns out to be, however, record or near-record-setting production is "a trend that would not please most of the environmental community," said Frank O'Donnell of the Clean Air Trust. Although new regulations -- such as rules limiting nitrogen oxides that will go into effect in 2004 -- will make coal-fired power plants somewhat cleaner, there is still no commercial process for reducing the emissions of carbon dioxide that are considered the primary cause of global warming.

"It's distressing that we're increasing our dependence on 19th century energy sources like coal, when we could be moving toward clean, modern sources like wind, solar and biomass," added Union of Concerned Scientists spokesman Paul Fain.

We thought with the ousting of the Underwood administration we got rid of Mike Castle, right? Guess again. Yet again, it’s our good buddy, Dubya, doing what he can to continue the wreckage of West Virginia’s mountains and streams for benefit of his greedy cronies. He’s made a job for old "friend", Mike. Mike’s now a top advisor to the EPA Region III Administrator.

And to think that West Virginia’s three electoral votes supposedly put Bush over the top in the 2000 election!

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, January 9, 2002 (ENS) - Oil company BP announced Monday that it is dropping plans to develop the controversial Liberty oil field in Alaska.

Conservation groups including Greenpeace have campaigned for years against BP’s proposal to develop the Liberty oil field in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea, 40 miles to the east of where the Norsthstar oil field was developed.

Like Northstar, Liberty would have involved an artificial drilling island located six miles off Alaska's north coast, with a undersea pipeline carrying oil ashore to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The oil would be shipped via pipeline to Valdez, Alaska, and then carried by oil tankers to the lower United States and Asia.

"BP’s action today confirms what the American public has been saying all along: We do not support drilling for oil. We need to focus new energy developments on renewables like solar and wind," said Melanie Duchin, a Greenpeace campaigner in Anchorage. "Plans by the Bush administration and some in Congress to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will meet a similar fate."

Since 1997, Greenpeace has been campaigning around the globe to halt Northstar and Liberty, because they are new, or frontier, oil developments in the Beaufort Sea. Greenpeace has opposed this new oil frontier development on the grounds that it will increase global warming and delay the transition to renewable forms of energy such as solar and wind.

Alaska Governor Tony Knowles said he was disappointed by BP’s decision to reduce its Alaska workforce and retreat from the development of frontier fields.

"While I concur with BP’s confidence in existing fields, I disagree with their approach on frontier development," Knowles said. "BP remains a significant holder of exploration leases and the state will work with the company to fulfill its commitments that these areas are aggressively explored."

Knowles pledged to maintain a "full court press on development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," which he has called vital to the state's economic future.