Really, who would have imagined the Obama administration would have used the presidential communications privilege to hide the identity of the people Obama’s team is meeting behind close doors to shape the country’s energy policy? I am baffled, I must admit. Call me naive, but I do recall then candidate Obama openly and vehemently criticizing the Bush administration for keeping everyone in the dark and pushing his agenda without any dialogue and promising an unprecedented level of openness.
I can’t help but feeling awkward that such strategy is used to hide whom the energy team is meeting and at which frequency these meetings are taking place.
The release of 42 mountain top removal permits and the administration’s plans to continue mountaintop coal mining (even though it gives the EPA greater oversight), along with the recent decision by the supreme court to allow dumping debris in lakes send a chilling signal to environmentalists and the communities affected by these destructive practices.
“The real questions for the administration are these: will they stop the destruction caused by mountaintop removal or not? Will they follow the Bush administration’s policies of allowing enormous piles of waste to be dumped into streams, forever burying them, or not?” Joan Mulhern, Senior Legislative Counsel at Earthjustice, said in a release.
With a near 100% score amongst environmental and social activists during the last election, I believe we deserve the right to know.

Jeffrey Hollender has made the decision to step aside as CEO of Seventh Generation, a company he grew to become one of the most iconic sustainable brands. He should be saluted not just for building a company of which social and environmental values have inspired many entrepreneurs but also for realizing what many entrepreneurs have failed to realize in time when the conjuncture of rapid growth and market switch call for a new set of skills. The newly appointed CEO, Chuck Maniscalco – a former Pepsico executive, will have the challenging task of growing the company from $150 million in annual sales to $1 billion in a market that should grow 873% over the next 5 years. But don’t think for a second Jeffrey Hollender will stop being the inspiration behind Seventh Generation conquest of the home natural products … he is still the Chief Inspired Protagonist after all. Continue Reading »