News bites: Natural-gas industry steps up opposition to Oscar-nominated 'Gasland'

By Andrew Restuccia - 02/15/11 09:29 AM ET

The natural-gas industry is stepping up its opposition to the movie “Gasland,” which is nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary.

“Energy in Depth, a group representing oil and natural gas producers, has sent a letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences arguing that ‘Gasland’ should be ineligible for best documentary feature because it contains inaccuracies. While other industries have launched public relations campaigns to discredit documentaries — health insurers targeted Michael Moore’s ‘Sicko’ in 2007, for instance, and Dole challenged a 2009 documentary called ‘Bananas!’ — this is the first time an industry group has appealed directly to the academy,” says the Los Angeles Times.

Investors in BP say the company lied about its corporate safety culture.

“BP Plc investors accused the company of lying about its commitment to safety, inflating company shares for three years before the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon set off the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history,” Bloomberg reports.

A judge in Ecuador found Chevron was responsible for major environmental damage in the country.

“A judge in a small jungle town in Ecuador on Monday ordered Chevron to pay more than $9 billion in damages, finding the energy giant responsible for the oil pollution that has fouled a stretch of land along Ecuador's northern border,” The Washington Post reports.

And President Obama's budget could spark the latest fight over Yucca Mountain, a proposed nuclear waste repository site in Nevada that the administration has sought to shut down.

"On Monday, Valentine's Day 2011, President Barack Obama proposed what officials said could be the final zeroing-out of the long-controversial repository program," the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

"The plan must be cleared by Congress, where indications are there will be a fight. But the Obama administration budget released Monday suggests the government could be out of the Yucca Mountain business entirely by October."