What was done to stop the Porter Ranch leak?

After 16 weeks, a California utility was finally able to temporarily stop the flow of a methane gas leak in Porter Ranch...
https://youtu.be/vegX7xQLsyU

Lead Levels in Water Misrepresented Across U.S.

Utilities Manipulate or Withhold Test Results to Ward Off Regulators...
Note: This article is almost 12 years old.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7094-2004Oct4.html

Lead: America's Real Criminal Element

High childhood exposure [to lead] damages a part of the brain linked to aggression control. The impact is greater among boys...
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health

Keystone XL May Be Dead, But Oil Companies Are Still Trying To Seize Americans’ Land For Pipelines

As it first announced in 2014, the company wants to build a pipeline that would transport oil from North Dakota’s oil-rich Bakken Formation, to a market hub located near Patoka, Illinois...
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/02/09/3747286/bakken-pipeline-eminent-domain/

Sen. Elizabeth Warren - Congress should oppose the TPP trade deal

Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke on the Senate floor on February 2, 2016 about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement.
https://youtu.be/AWXJJy_Tq-U

Jim Hightower: What Really Poisoned the Water in Flint, Michigan

Flint reveals that there is a much deeper contamination poisoning our country's political morals.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/jim-hightower-what-really-poisoned-water-flint-michigan

Environmental Injustice: What the Candidates Missed in Flint — and the Rest of the Country

The EPA has never once made a formal finding of a civil rights violation in its 23-year history...
http://www.alternet.org/environment/environmental-injustice-what-candidates-missed-flint-and-rest-country

Marco Rubio Is Ready And Willing To Let Florida Drown

Marco Rubio still doesn’t think that human activity is responsible for climate change, even as his home state of Florida braces for utter destruction as a result.

Rubio, who represents the climate change-imperiled state of Florida in the U.S. Senate, has taken a lot of heat for denying the role that humans are playing in climate change, but at the same time, he has received partial credit for acknowledging that the climate is changing. Rubio’s semantic trickery is not an admission that he believes in climate change. It is simply a tool that allows him to play both sides. He can construe his statement to “prove” that he accepts the reality of climate change, or he can downplay its meaning and say that he was referring to something as simple as weather patterns.

In either scenario, Rubio comes out the winner. His denial of the role of human beings will be forgotten quickly, and all that will remain on the record is his statement that the climate is always changing.
https://youtu.be/IFbnJJU7vFc

Does The EPA Bear Responsibility For Flint? | ThinkProgress

Now, many insist the the EPA should have gone public with what it knew...
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/01/26/3741139/epa-flint-water-crisis/

As Flint Residents Struggle With Contaminated Water, Congress Tries To Strip Waterway Protections

Flint does show, of course, that water is precious, and water supplies can be endangered and agencies have a lot of work to do...
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/01/21/3741610/clean-water-rule-veto-upheld/

Republican Governor Knowingly Poisoned City Of Flint Michigan

It isn’t often that a state of emergency is declared over a disaster that is 100% man-made and intentional, but that’s exactly what has happened in the city of Flint, Michigan. As residents in the city struggle to find drinkable water, the National Guard has been deployed to help distribute bottled water to residents.

The crisis actually began about 18 months ago when Republican governor Rick Snyder made the decision to balance the city’s budget at the expense of the health and safety of residents of Flint. The governor and his appointed “budget experts” decided to save the city some money by switching their water supply from the city of Detroit’s supply to the Flint River, and according to Occupy Democrats, this river was known to be both highly polluted and carried an unusually high salt content. The high salinity of this water caused the city’s pipes to begin eroding, which then leached lead into the city’s water...
https://youtu.be/rANFeSn2ZSo

Gas Company Understated Benzene Exposure From California Leak

The leak at Porter Ranch, which recently prompted California to declare a state of emergency, has been spewing enormous quantities of the greenhouse gas methane into the air for months. It's expected to take months more to fix. The disaster has been compared to the BP oil spill for its impact...
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/15/463178568/gas-company-understated-benzene-exposure-from-california-leak?sc=tw

What Did DuPont Know Before They Poisoned An Entire City?

Tim O'Brien, Levin Papantonio, joins Thom. According to recent scientific research - the chemical known as C-8 is now in the blood of 99.7 percent of Americans as well as in newborn human babies, breast milk, and umbilical cord blood. And that's really bad news - because C-8 has been connected with - among other things - rectal cancer - testicular cancer - swelling of the liver - and birth defects. So where did all this C-8 come from? Why is it so potent? And who is apparently responsible for poisoning the American people? ...
https://youtu.be/u3EcO0IGsco

Texas Needs EPA Help To Enforce Its Environmental Laws, Groups Say

Claiming Texas has made it unlawfully burdensome for people to challenge industry polluters, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Caddo Lake Institute formally asked the federal government to take over permitting responsibilities involving air emissions and water discharges in the state. The groups say that recent Texas laws make the state non-compliant with federal standards...
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/01/13/3739209/epa-called-to-act-in-texas/

"Gov. Snyder Should Be Arrested": Flint Residents Demand Justice over Water Poisoning

Protests are growing in Flint, Michigan, over the state’s cover-up of the ongoing water contamination crisis. Filmmaker Michael Moore is asking fans to sign a petition on his website calling for the immediate resignation of Governor Rick Snyder. In an open letter to the governor, he writes: "[Y]ou have effectively poisoned, not just some, but apparently ALL of the children in my hometown of Flint, Michigan. And for that, you have to go to jail." We speak to Nayyirah Shariff, coordinator with the Flint Democracy Defense League.
Interview:
https://youtu.be/_UlYD_umAIA

Poisoned Democracy: How an Unelected Official Contaminated Flint's Water to Save Money

In Flint, Michigan, where a growing number of residents are demanding the arrest of Governor Rick Snyder over the ongoing water contamination crisis. Snyder declared a state of emergency for Flint Wednesday, after learning federal prosecutors had opened an investigation into lead contamination in the drinking water. The poisoning began after an unelected emergency manager appointed by Governor Snyder switched the city’s water source to the long-polluted Flint River in a bid to save money. Lead can cause permanent health impacts including memory loss and developmental impairment. Researchers at Virginia Tech who have been testing Flint water say the city could have corrected the problem by better treating the water at a cost of as little as $100 a day. On Thursday, the mayor of Flint revealed it could now cost as much as $1.5 billion to fix the city’s water infrastructure. We speak to Curt Guyette, investigative reporter for the ACLU of Michigan, who has closely covered the story.
Interview:
https://youtu.be/Jh-f5MLWSlU

Amid State & Fed. Cover-Up, the Story of How Researchers & Residents Exposed Flint's Water Poisoning

For over a year, Flint residents have complained about the quality of the water, but their cries were ignored by state officials. In February, tests showed alarming levels of lead in the water, but officials told residents there was no threat. That same month, an EPA official named Miguel Del Toral wrote an email to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality warning about lead contamination. No action was taken. He wrote another email in April to the EPA. Then in July, Governor Snyder’s chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, wrote an email to health officials admitting that Flint residents are "basically getting blown off by us."
Interview:
https://youtu.be/S7PbonV1bIg

Paul Krugman: GOP So Far Down the 'Black Hole' That They Might Not Be Able to Stop Progress

Can we breathe a sigh of relief?
http://www.alternet.org/economy/paul-krugman-gop-spiraling-ever-deeper-black-hole-conspiracy-theory

Kochs Attempt To Infiltrate Progressive Organizations

The Koch Brothers have created a massive political infrastructure that rivals that of the Republican Party, and we’re only now beginning to see how extensive it really is. The latest piece of the puzzle shows that the Koch’s have created a network to spy on progressives.
https://youtu.be/Lz3-2IH2Fhw

Ted Cruz Scores Lower Than The Average Kindergartner In Climate Change Interview | Crooks and Liars

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz told NPR this week that there was no science that said the planet was getting warmer, even though the Associated Press recently determined that he knew less about science than the average kindergartner...
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/12/ted-cruz-illustrates-why-hes-dumber