Energy, Mining & Utilities

Two and a half years ago, Public Interest Watch, a self-described watchdog of nonprofit groups, wrote to the Internal Revenue Service urging the agency to audit Greenpeace and accusing the environmental group of money laundering and other crimes. What is clear is where PIW has gotten a lot of its funding: Exxon Mobil Corp., the giant oil company that has long been a target of Greenpeace protests. Read More

In the past decade, according to a private water suppliers trade group, private companies have managed to extend water service to just 10 million people, less than 1 percent of those who need it. Some 1.1 billion people still lack access to clean water, the United Nations says. Read More

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Jakarta follows the Bush Administration's controversial decision to reestablish full relations with the Indonesian Military (TNI). That move opens the door to renewed U.S. assistance, but pumping aid to an unreformed Indonesian military would serve only to encourage further rights abuses and undermine civilian governance. Read More

A burst pipeline in Alaska's North Slope has caused the Arctic region's worst oil spill, spreading more than 250,000 gallons of crude oil over an area used by caribou herds and prompting environmentalists again to question the Bush administration's drive for more oil exploration there. Read More

The oil executives were sworn in. This formality created the very kind of picture - six of the most powerful American executives lined up with their right hands up in the air - that they had sought to avoid. Otherwise, much of the theatrics were the same, and so were the arguments from the oil executives. Read More

Now, with Exxon reaping even more -- $36 billion last year, a world record for a single company -- and another spill anniversary looming without a payment, the 32,000 fishermen, food processors and Alaska natives who remain plaintiffs in the case are seething. Read More

A defense lawyer in the trial of former Enron CEOs Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling spent Thursday morning trying to undermine the testimony of the government's star witness and questioning the authenticity of a "smoking gun" document. Read More

Andrew Fastow considered himself "a hero for Enron'' for hiding losses and bolstering earnings for the company through partnership deals he created. Read More

The mining industry has a worldwide image problem. In developing and developed countries alike, the public tends to regard mines as dirty, dangerous and disruptive - and those who stand to profit from them as greedy despoilers. Read More

A pipeline crossing the Peruvian Amazon has spilled natural gas liquids four times since it opened 15 months ago because it was shoddily built by unqualified welders using corroded pipes left from other jobs, according to a new technical report by the nonprofit environmental consultancy E-Tech International based in San Diego. Read More