The Center for Public Integrity

Chemical and oil lobbies were behind an ad that dogged Obama's Midwestern bus tour, attacking anti-smog regulations proposed by the administration. Their trade groups are among the business organizations backing a front group calling itself the "Coalition for American Jobs," which sponsored the ad.

The TV spot accused the president of "talking jobs" on his Midwestern tour, while his administration is "putting 7 million American jobs at risk" by considering "unnecessary" tightening of anti-smog regulations. The job-loss claim turns out to be based on an industry-sponsored study that predicts astronomical compliance costs. That industry study has been called "unsound" and "fundamentally flawed" by a university-based economist.

The ad ran heavily in Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota, while Obama was making his way through those states. Viewers weren't told who was behind the "jobs" group or where the 7 million figure came from. The coalition's website makes it clear that it's a business group, saying: "We represent American businesses, industries and others concerned about the impact of potential EPA action on job creation." But it doesn't identify any of the members of the coalition, or give any information about the basis of the ad's claims, or even give a phone number or street address. It gives only an email address to contact for information. But when we sent a message to that address, it bounced back with a note saying that it "could not be delivered."

The blossoming biomass industry, championed by the Obama administration as an important “clean” energy alternative, actually adds to carbon pollution and should be stripped of its three-year free pass from greenhouse gas regulations, several environmental groups asserted in a lawsuit Monday. If the groups prevail, they would overturn a hotly contested industry victory.

The lawsuit, filed with the federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, targets an Environmental Protection Agency decision, announced earlier this year, that exempts large-scale biomass-burning facilities from carbon dioxide limits under the Clean Air Act for three years.

As iWatch News reported earlier this year, some biomass plants pollute the air – and that citizen protests across the country are challenging new plants rising and the EPA exemption. From Florida to Georgia to Massachusetts to Washington state, critics point to environmental harm from biomass plants. Earlier this year, for instance, regulators fined two San Joaquin Valley, California plants $835,000 for sweeping alleged violations of the federal Clean Air Act and local regulations.

Aided by hundreds of millions in stimulus dollars and support from Congress and the EPA, the electricity generating stations are spreading nationwide – burning trees, construction debris, poultry litter and agricultural mass as one piece of a larger push to develop sources of alternative energy. The industry counts some 100 plants in 20 states, with critics saying as many as 100 more are on the drawing board.

Serious contractor-related problems at facilities that handle nuclear material have been disclosed by two new audits.

The most serious issues were raised in a report by the Department of Energy’s inspector general on the decontamination and decommissioning of K-25, a massive World War II-era nuclear enrichment facility that is a part of the East Tennessee Technical Park (ETTP) in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The audit found the K-25 project is $257 million over its initial estimated cost of $460 million and could potentially run some eight years behind schedule at a total cost of up to $1.2 billion.

 “Problems with contract administration and project management likely impacted the Department's ability to effectively manage the many technical challenges it encountered during its attempts to complete the K-25 [project],” the report explained. “Because of these issues, the Department, in our opinion, was not in a position to fully grasp the ultimate cost and time required [to complete it].”

The sprawling ETTP has been shut down since 1987. It is full of contaminated buildings once used to provide America’s Cold War nuclear arsenal with uranium. The half-mile long, U-shaped K-25 building is the biggest of these at more than 2 million square feet. It was built in 1943 and provided some of the uranium-235 used in the “Little Boy” atom bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Dismantling K-25 has proven to be a much more difficult task for DOE and the contractor it first hired in 1997 to complete the project, the Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC.

With a handful of Democratic votes, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed a bill Wednesday that limits the EPA’s ability to regulate coal ash and says coal ash residue deserves little more scrutiny and regulation than municipal trash.

Instead of giving the Environmental Protection Agency the mandate to regulate coal ash, the bill puts the onus on states to set up a program to deal with the issue. EPA would provide oversight. The bill passed by a 35-12 vote, with six Democrats joining the GOP.

As iWatch News has reported, coal ash's metals have poisoned water supplies, damaged ecosystems and jeopardized the health of nearby residents. EPA has faced stiff resistance in trying to regulate the material as hazardous waste, led by coal-supported politicians such as one of the bill's biggest proponents, David McKinley, R-W.Va.

"I'm going to defend the coal industry all across America," McKinley said Wednesday. "We cannot afford any further attack in this war on coal."

The bill's most vocal detractor, Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said it was pushed too fast and without a proper hearing.

"There are differences between municipal solid waste and the kind of waste we're regulating," he said during the bill's markup. "We haven't really had the chance to engage fully on this legislation, with EPA. This is a major piece of legislation. I'm not sure it's going to be effective."

Waxman called for more time to improve the bill before it goes to the House floor for a vote.

In its newest spending proposal for the EPA, the House appropriations committee included a section that forbids the agency from using federal dollars to regulate coal ash. The move had environmental groups calling foul and saying Republicans were trying to hide pet legislation in a must-pass appropriations measure.