Jeff Spross

BP announced today that Robert Dudley would take over as CEO effective Oct. 1. Meanwhile, the costs of the spill look to be at least $32 billion, it turns out the company has been dodgy and dishonest about the toxicity of the mud they’ll be pumping in to try to kill the well, and documents […]

Harold Meyerson on how SEIU and UNITE HERE came to terms: Labor’s longest-running and most contentious divorce dispute has finally been settled. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and UNITE HERE, the union of hotel and gaming workers, announced last night that they had reached an agreement on who will represent which workers and who […]

As cleanup of Louisiana’s marshland proceeds in the aftermath of the BP spill, scientists are expressing concern over what effect the oil could have on the ecosystem’s marsh grass. The grass sustains the marshland by holding sediment in place, and the marshes in turn provide a crucial habitat for many forms of Gulf wildlife, as […]

Even before the Senate’s climactic abandonment of cap-and-trade and renewable-energy goals late last week, the question of why the oil spill in the Gulf has not added more momentum to climate and energy legislation made the rounds. Bradford Plumer fretted over the question in June. In his Rolling Stone obituary for the climate bill, Tom […]

Courtney E. Martin says women, especially self-proclaimed feminists, must own the truth about their gender’s capacity for violence if they’re ever going to be effective in ending it: Just because the violence most often perpetrated by women doesn’t take such obvious forms (rockets exploding! oil gushing! guns popping!), it doesn’t mean we aren’t part of […]

The five TAP pieces that have made a stir around the Web this week. “Falling Out of Love With Obama“ “A Nation of Cowards“ “Ross Douthat’s Fear of Opining“ “A Piece of the Dream“ “Sherrod’s Honesty Is Sorely Lacking In Our National Conversation On Race“

Yesterday evening, climate and energy reform died in the Senate. All that remains is a skeletal package that responds to the BP oil spill and provides a few minor incentives for conservation, energy-efficiency retrofits, and the development of natural-gas trucks. Neither an economy-wide cap-and-trade system nor a utilities-only compromise will be part of the legislation […]

Cleanup of an oil spill in China’s port of Dalian has entered its seventh day, after a pipeline exploded on July 16, pouring an estimated 400,000 gallons into the Yellow Sea so far. A researcher from China’s Environmental Science Research Institute said the resulting ecological damage could last a decade, and this is with a […]

Rep. Jim McDermott, Democrat from Washington state, is not buying the GOP’s claim that they delayed and whittled down a six-month extension for unemployment benefits because of deficit concerns. “The Republican leadership in Congress has decided that the way to get the White House back is by denying unemployment benefits to people who have lost […]