The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "fossil fuels" ...
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Buying the Election
“Never Mind the Super PACs: How Big Business Is Buying the Election” investigates previously unreported ways that businesses have taken advantage of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which overturned a century of campaign finance law and allowed corporations to spend directly on behalf of candidates. The piece debunks a common misperception that businesses have taken advantage of their new political spending powers primarily through so-called Super PACs. In fact, most Super PAC donations have come from extremely wealthy individuals, not corporations. The investigation shows how corporations have instead used a variety of 501(c) nonprofits, primarily 501(c)(6) “trade associations,” to direct substantial corporate money on federal elections. As one prominent advisor to GOP candidates as well as corporations points out, "many corporations will not risk running ads on their own," for fear of the reputational damage, but the trade groups make these ad buys nearly anonymous. In 2010, 501(c)(6) trade associations and 501(c)(4) issue-advocacy groups outspent Super PACs $141 million to $65 million. The investigation shows that the growth of trade association political spending has had a number of significant ramifications, such as increased leverage during beltway lobbying campaigns. Most troublingly, legal loopholes allow foreign interests to use trade associations to directly influence American elections. One of the most significant revelations in the piece was that the American Petroleum Institute, a trade association for the oil and gas industry, had funneled corporate cash to groups that had run hard-hitting campaign ads while being led in part by a lobbyist for the Saudi Arabian government, Tofiq Al-Gabsani. As an API board member, Al-Gabsani was part of the team that directed these efforts, which helped defeat candidates who supported legislation that would move American energy policy away from its focus on fossil fuels. Federal law prevents Al-Gabsani, as a foreign national, from leading a political action committee, or PAC. But nothing in the law stopped him from leading a trade group that made campaign expenditures just as a PAC would.
Tags: Elections; campaign finance; corporations; Super PACs
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The David Rose Oil and Gas Fraud Investigation
For years, David Rose ran a complex boiler room scam operation that collected millions of dollars from victim investors under the veneer of a fossil fuel extraction enterprise. No such drilling operations were underway, and the scam defrauded millions from victims only to fund Rose's personal ventures such as "Future Happiness, LLC," Rose's private collection of luxury vehicles. Perhaps the most shocking of all is the short 52 month sentence Rose will receive. WHAS-TV outlines the governments failure to adequately find and prosecute investor fraud schemes, especially while his sons appear to be reengaging parts of the business while sending their father $500,000 a year in "consulting fees." Official have yet to act on this news, but WHAS-TV hopes to educate future investors on criminal companies.
Tags: investors; fraud; David Rose; boiler room scam; scheme; oil; natural gas; drilling; investigation;
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"The Climate Change Lobby"
Multinational lobbyists, particularly business interests in fossil fuel energy production, have backlashed against government's expanded interest in deterring climate change. As decisive action on global warming increasingly takes center stage, the climate change lobby over the past six years has increased in numbers by 400 percent. "The Climate Change Lobby" explores how special interests have attempted to sway environmental policy in a time of important decisions on global environmental and economic sustainability.
Tags: lobby; climate; energy; global warming; lobbyists; fuels; Copenhagen; Obama; special interests; manufacturing;
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The New Supertanker Plague
Hundreds of oil-bearing ships have faced destruction in the form of "super rust," a virulent form of corrosion that is "the inevitable result when unforgiving chemistry meets the harsh economics and tangled industry politics of transporting fossil fuels." Wired Magazine examines the root causes of such "hyper-accelerated corrosion," and determines among other things that proper maintenance in re-coating the steel ships would effectively combat the problem. However, "first-class ship maintenance has become increasingly rare," as ships change hands frequently, and find themselves in the hands of owners who "tend to be less interested in maintaining their vessels than maximizing the return on their investments." The article details the scientific processes of corrosion, examines the recent history and challenges facing supertankers, and investigates where the industry -- and its aging ships -- might be headed.
Tags: oil; petroleum; supertankers; super tankers; tankers; ships; rust; corrosion; Erika; Castor; Valdez; shipping; transport
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Nuclear Power May Rise Again: Optimism permeates the once-moribund industry that generates electricity from reactors. As atomic power grows more efficient and fossil fuels more costly, there is even talk of building more plants.
According to the article, "Against all expectations, the power people said, the nuclear industry in the United States is in the midst of a renaissance. It has been rescued from the brink of extinction and made into a desirable business, so prosperous, in fact, that there has developed a vigorous market for used nuclear power plants. The price of these plants has increased a hundredfold in just three years."
Tags: Nuclear power; nuclear energy; power; power plants; money; industry
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Prodigal Sun
Solar energy was once a promising alternative to fossil fuel. Once the Regan Administration got into power this progress was erased. Solar power was predicted to meet 28 percent of the nation's power by 2000. This is the story of how it went backwards.
Tags: environment; solar power
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Power Struggle: California's Engineered Energy Crisis and the Potential of Public Power
Multinational Monitor investigates how huge oil and gas companies close to George W. Bush have profited from the energy crisis in California. "The blackouts ... have many causes. But neither a shortfall a supply nor a surge in demand for electricity is among them," the magazine points out. The story finds that California's consumers and taxpayers are victims of a massive, complex double-theft, first by the biggest electric power utilities, and second by some of the president's closest associates and contributors. Another finding is that the U.S. barons of fossil and nuclear fuel have used the crisis as " a pretext to declare an all-out assault on environmental protection."
Tags: American Public Power Project; environmental protection; oil; gas; president; utilities; deregulation; power plants; electric market; Public Media Center; Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights; California and U.S. Public Interest Research Groups; American Public Power Project; Concerned Stockholders of California; Dick Cheney; Federal Electrical Regulatory Commission; PG&E Corporation
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A Modest Proposal To Stop Global Warming
The Sierra Magazine looks at how "the world's nations squabble over a complex fix too timid to solve" the global warming problem, and concludes that heating the globe can be stopped "by calling an end to the Carbon Age." The story reports on the financial forecasts pertaining to global warming, and warns that "unchecked climate change could bankrupt the global economy by 2065." The author describes the steps that different countries have taken initiate a global energy transition, and to criticizes the unwillingness of the United States to "lead the world in addressing climate change." The reporter finds that "George w. Bush and Dick Cheney, oilmen both, are more inclined to protect the petroleum industry's short-term profitability than to promote its inevitable transformation."
Tags: climate; floods; droughts; storms; fossil fuels; energy; politics; the Kyoto protocol
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No title (id: 13134)
The Star-Telegram reports that after several years of relatively pollution-free summers, the 1 - million-plus residents of the four county Fort Worth-Dallas area breathed the decade's dirtiest air in 1995. At the same time, the Legislature in Austin moved to weaken a strict auto-emissions plan that it had approved in response to warnings from the Environmental Protection Agency. (Nov., 1995)
Tags: Baker Vaughn Roser Sanchez et. al The air we breathe Ozone Industry Fossil fuels EPA 47 pgs.