In recent weeks, Rep. Fred Upton, the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has been working with energy industry lobbyists and the former oil and gas industry employees on his staff to undermine or overturn safeguards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency against air pollution.
Unfortunately, his actions could dramatically impact many of his constituents, particularly children, elderly and others suffering from asthma and other respiratory illnesses.
Rep Upton's district includes Kalamazoo County, which received a failing grade from the American Lung Association (ALA) for high ozone days. Those high ozone days hurt everyone in the county, of course, but those most vulnerable are young children and the elderly. In fact, according to the ALA, there are more than 18,000 people in Kalamazoo with adult asthma.
President Obama said it best during his State of Union address earlier this week: "I will not hesitate to create or enforce commonsense safeguards to protect the American people. That's what we've done in this country for more than a century. It's why our food is safe to eat, our water is safe to drink, and our air is safe to breathe. It's why we have speed limits and child labor laws."
Without government protections, we'll have higher rates of lung cancer, emphysema and other illnesses. Our air will be dirtier, toxic sludge will again invade our waterways and many poorer communities will be left even more powerless to stand up against nearby industrial polluters.
Instead of caving into the Tea Party and its industrial backers, Rep. Upton would better serve his constituents by modeling his actions after places like Pittsburgh, PA, which recently banned a controversial natural gas drilling technique over concerns about public health.
Darlene Harris, President of the city council, said that her colleagues rejected industry arguments that jobs would be lost if drilling was not allowed to proceed.
"There's going to be a lot of jobs for funeral homes and hospitals," she told CBS News. "That's where the jobs are."
Rep. Upton needs to decide if he's willing to disregard such concerns about public health. Are you, Rep. Upton?
Congress is heading back home for the August recess this week. Apparently our Senators need to rest after they failed to take up both a clean energy and climate bill and an oil spill bill.
Legislative inaction must be more tiring than I realized.
Still, I don't view this month as a cooling off period. If anything, it's time to turn up the heat.
Over the next few weeks, Senators will be holding "town hall meetings" in their states. Last year, these meetings came to define the health care debate. This year, they could help us reshape America's energy policy.
If you are like me and you are still stunned that the Senate refused to pass a bill that would have created nearly 2 million new American jobs, put our nation at the forefront of the clean energy market and helped end our addiction to oil, then go to a town hall meeting and tell your lawmakers what you think.
Tell them that it is in America's best interest to embrace clean energy now.
And while you are at it, please tell them to block attempts by some Senators to weaken the Clean Air Act-the 40-year-old law that has saved hundreds of thousands of lives-in an effort to further delay reductions in global warming pollution.
Some naysayers claim that voting on visionary legislation is a risky proposition when we are this close to an election. They are wrong, and history proves it.
As I wrote in a recent blog post, 13 of the most powerful environmental laws were passed during the fall of an election year or in the lame duck sessions following elections.
We can pass comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation this fall, but only if we demand it of our lawmakers.
Use this August to make your voices heard. You can find your Senators' schedules by checking their Senate websites, as well as their candidate websites - Republican or Democratic.
The political process has failed. Cap and trade legislation is dead in this Congress.
Kerry and Reid said as much last week. They said they don't have the votes in the Senate, so instead of introducing the legislation before the August recess, Reid will introduce a very minor energy bill instead, and that's it. Technically, the comprehensive legislation could still be offered in September, but the vote becomes more difficult, and less likely, as the election approaches. If they thought they had the votes, they would introduce it now. They don't have the votes, they don't expect to get them, and barring a miracle, after this November there will be no chance to get them. The legislative effort is dead. Our political system has failed to respond to the greatest challenge of our time.
The political process has failed. Cap and trade legislation is dead in this Congress.
Kerry and Reid said as much this week. They said they don't have the votes in the Senate, so instead of introducing the legislation before the August recess, Reid will introduce a very minor energy bill instead, and that's it. Technically, the comprehensive legislation could still be offered in September, but the vote becomes more difficult, and less likely, as the election approaches. If they thought they had the votes, they would introduce it now. They don't have the votes, they don't expect to get them, and barring a miracle, after this November there will be no chance to get them. The legislative effort is dead. Our political system has failed to respond to the greatest challenge of our time.
Carl Safina gives this moving recap of the Gulf oil spill catastrophe, and ends with some outstanding commentary linking the oil spill to the financial crisis, the deregulation fad, and observing the parallel between today's "we can't afford to get off oil" entrenched interests and those that said it would be too expensive to stop using another past immoral energy source; slavery.
Yesterday, the NRDC Action Fund launched a campaign featuring a powerful new ad by renowned environmental activist and celebrated actor, Edward James Olmos. In the video, which you can view here, Olmos explains what makes people - himself included - "locos" when it comes to U.S. energy and environmental policy. Now, as the Senate moves towards a possible debate on energy and climate legislation, we need to let everyone hear Olmos' message.
Hi, I'm Edward James Olmos. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I guess that's what makes Americans "locos." We keep yelling "drill baby drill" and expecting things to turn out ok. But the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is nothing new. The oil industry has been poisoning our oceans and wilderness for decades. It's time to regain our sanity. America doesn't want more oil disasters. We need safe, clean and renewable energy now. Think about it.
Sadly, Olmos' definition of "insanity" is exactly what we've been doing for decades in this country -- maintaining policies that keep us "addicted" to fossil fuels instead of moving towards a clean, prosperous, and sustainable economy.
As we all know, dirty, outdated energy sources have caused serious harm to our economy, to our national security, and of course - as the horrible Gulf oil disaster illustrates - to our environment. In 2008 alone, the U.S. spent nearly $400 billion, about half the entire U.S. trade deficit, importing foreign oil. Even worse, much of that $400 billion went to countries (and non-state actors) that don't have our best interests at heart.
As if all that's not bad enough, our addiction to oil and other fossil fuels also has resulted in tremendous environmental devastation, ranging from melting polar ice caps to record heat waves to oil-covered pelicans and dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico.
As Edward James Olmos says, it's enough to drive us all "locos."
Fortunately, there's a better way.
If you believe, as we passionately do, that it's time to kick our addiction to the dirty fuels of the past, then please help us get that message out there. Help us air Edward James Olmos' ad on TV in states with U.S. Senators who we believe can be persuaded to vote for comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation. If we can convince our politicians to do their jobs and to pass comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation this year, we will be on a path to a brighter, healthier future.
It's been a while since we had to have a real heart-to-heart, the Obama Administration and I, and last time it was because Rahm Emanuel had been a bit snippy toward those of us who are carrying the water for this Administration.
We need to have another one of those conversations today; this time the circumstances are a lot more positive-in fact, if the Administration follows my suggestions here, we have a real chance to put the Democrats on the road to victory, not just this November, but also in 2012.
What I'm proposing will create hundreds of thousands, if not millions of jobs, and it will stimulate millions more as we create a national source of discount electrical power that can be used by business and consumers alike.
Here's the best part: it's no "pie in the sky" promotion I'm offering here; we've already done the same thing before, it's been working out well for almost three quarters of a century...and even better than all that...my idea first pays for itself, and then...it actually makes the Federal Government a profit, forever after.
At present, oil saturates the Gulf Stream. An official six-month cessation of permits for new drilling did not actually affect the industry or government decisions. Despite Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead. To explain such an authorization and waiver, the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Services Division which regulates drilling, pointed to public statements by Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar. He did not intend to forbid all first cuts in the Earth's crust. Absolutely not. The Federal Government approved wells off the coast of Louisiana in June. Regardless of the day, or realities that are anathema to our citizenry, little has truly changed. Today, just as in yesteryear, we, the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect Union, polishpolicies to appear as though our civilization would wish to protect and defend all beings, equally.
President Obama's speech on the BP disaster starts tonight at 8pm eastern, 5pm Pacific. It is expected to be 18 minutes in length. Shortly afterward, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs will answer questions about the disaster.
If, like me, you do not have access to television (in the middle of a move), but you do have access to the Internet (couldn't go without it), here is a livestream. The stream will feature both Obama's speech and the Gibb's follow-up:
David Dayen offers up a pretty detailed preview of what to expect. I will post the text of the speech in the extended entry, once the embargo is released shortly after 8pm.
This is an open thread. Make a comment on the speech!
Update: The complete text of the speech can be found in the extended entry.
Even though it is only June, we are rapidly approaching the end of the 2010 legislative session. Congress is scheduled to go on recess during the month of August, and the midterm election season will be in full swing by the time they return in September. As such, don't expect anything significant to pass after the end of July, leaving only 6-7 weeks for all remaining major legislation.
Current major fights include the struggle over a "second stimulus" in two major emergency spending bills (see Open Left coverage our, stimulus tag), the ongoing Wall Street reform conference committee (see Open Left coverage see our Wall Street reform and financial reform tags), the Elena Kagan nomination hearings (scheduled to begin June 28th), and the fight in the Senate over Don't Ask, Don't Tell (see our Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal tag).
Other than all that, energy will be the final major legislative item that Democrats will address while they still have large majorities in both branches of Congress. And, when I write "energy," and I don't mean "energy and climate"--I just mean "energy." Dave Roberts sketches out the state of play:
Last week I wrote about the top five things to watch as d-day for legislation approaches. Now three of them have happened. The Murkowski resolution was voted down, but by a small enough margin that it didn't determine things one way or the other. Reid met with the Senate committee chairs, but there were intractable disagreements and no decisions were made. Lugar introduced his bill, and Lindsey Graham jumped behind it, giving the "energy-only" forces a big push. Obama's still making the right noises about "comprehensive" legislation, but behind the scenes he and Rahm are putting together a back-up energy-only package. And public anger over the spill doesn't seem to be directing itself toward climate pollution.
Long story short, things are looking extremely grim for a cap on carbon.
Josh Nelson echoes Roberts, flagging a notable quote from the man Democrats put in charge of negotiating a climate / energy bill, Joe Lieberman (yes, that's right, Lieberman):
"I don't think the Senate has an appetite for another such epic, polarized legislative war this session," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), who met with Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) on Wednesday to strategize on how to enlist support for a compromise climate bill they are writing.
Even six months ago, that didn't sound like someone who is going to make a bold play for a climate bill on top of an energy bill.
Also of note, while Organizing for America has put out a call to action on the energy / climate bill in advance of President Obama's prime time address on the BP oil spill tomorrow, the call to action doesn't specify putting a price on carbon.
Unfortunately, as per usual in the Senate, the weaker bills seem to have more currency right now. Still, it is a fight worth engaging, both because there are good ideas out there that deserve a chance, and because this will be the last big fight in a while with such large Democratic majorities.
That any ban on offshore drilling would be lifted last week, as the BP disaster only got worse, is difficult to fathom. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the Obama administration did, which today has resulted in the approval of a new offshore oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. Seriously:
Federal regulators have approved the first new Gulf of Mexico oil well since President Barack Obama lifted a brief ban on drilling in shallow water.(...)
Obama has extended a moratorium on wells in deep water like the BP one that blew out in April and is gushing millions of gallons of oil. But the president quietly lifted a brief ban last week on drilling in shallow water.
Ironically, this new oil well was approved not only as the BP disaster continues to unfold, but as President Obama is set to deliver a big speech today at Carnegie Mellon University on the state of the economy. The speech will also focus on the need to invest in renewable energy and the passage of energy / climate change legislation. For example, here is an excerpt:
The catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf right now may prove to be a result of human error - or corporations taking dangerous short-cuts that compromised safety. But we have to acknowledge that there are inherent risks to drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth - risks that are bound to increase the harder oil extraction becomes. Just like we have to acknowledge that an America run solely on fossil fuels should not be the vision we have for our children and grandchildren.(...)
The time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a clean energy future. That means continuing our unprecedented effort to make everything from our homes and businesses to our cars and trucks more energy efficient. It means tapping into our natural gas reserves, and moving ahead with our plan to expand our nation's fleet of nuclear power plants. And it means rolling back billions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development.
Great. However, while talk of renewables is nice, the actual action coming from the Obama administration on energy today involves approving a new offsore oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. It would be an understatement to say that is a case of the Obama administration sending mixed signals on the BP disaster and on renewable energy.
As the BP spill disaster continues to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, support for offshore drilling continues to drop. While polling immediately after the spill still showed majority support for increased offshore drilling, that support was not solid and has not found its floor:
CBS News Poll. May 20-24, 2010. N=1,054 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.
"Would you favor allowing increased drilling for oil and natural gas off the U.S. coast, or do you think the costs and risks are too great?"
Date
Favor
Risks too great
Unsure
May 24, 2010
45
46
9
May 09, 2010
46
41
13
Aug 18, 2008
62
28
10
This is the first poll in the archives of polling report to show plurality opposition to increased offshore drilling. While other polling still sows majority support for increased offshore drilling, there are two factors to keep in mind:
Support continues to drop as the spill unfolds. Polling from both CBS and Fox (you can see both in the polling report archives here) shows support for offshore drilling lower now than it was at the start of May.
Much of the continued support for increased offshore drilling is soft. A CNN poll conducted from May 21-May 23 shows a majority in favor of increased drilling, 57%--41%. However, strong support barely edged out strong opposition, 27%-25%. Almost the entire advantage for increased drilling came from "mild" supporters, who outnumbered mild opponents 30%-16%. Those mild supporters are movable, and the likely source of the continued drop in overall support for increased drilling. As the size of the disaster continues to reveal itself, they will likely continue to fall off the rolls of supporters.
In short, while this CBS poll is the first to show a plurality opposed to drilling, it will likely not be the last poll to show public opinion closely divided on this matter. The days of pro-drilling forces holding the edge in public opinion are drawing to a close.
In related news, President Obama will hold a press conference today, with opening remarks on the oil spill. Also, the Senate is fighting to remove the liability cap on oil companies responsible for spills. Kate Sheppard and Greg Sargent have a good rundown of the legislation and process involved in that fight.
Oil has hit shore in Louisiana, and despite BP's best efforts to keep the media away, reporters can now touch the greasy stuff with their hands and feet. The onrush of oil into the Gulf has continued for over a month now, and while BP is still trying to staunch both the spill and media spin, the company is losing control over the information that's reaching the public.
The Environmental Protection Agency demanded this week that the company use a less toxic dispersant to clean up the spill, and independent scientists are releasing estimates of the spills volume that dwarf BP's numbers in terms of magnitude.
Right now, a catastrophe of this scope seems like an unprecedented, one-off event. But across the energy industry, at other drilling sites, in other industries, companies are taking risks and courting environmental disasters on the same scale.
"Bayou Polluter"
BP, which was operating the rig before the spill, has other sins on its head. In Louisiana, "fishermen say BP spills oil every year and they point out marshes still dead from dispersants that were sprayed there," marine biologist Riki Ott writes for Yes! Magazine.
The latest disaster could cause more exponentially more damage, but it is far from unique. On Democracy Now!, former EPA investigator Scott West, describes a case in which one of the company's Alaska pipelines burst, spilling oil out onto the frozen tundra. BP had ignored workers' concerns about the integrity of the pipeline, West says, and during warmer months, the resulting spill could have reached the Bering Sea and created a much bigger mess.
"Now we're seeing the same sort of thing in the Gulf, in this catastrophe," West said. "And information is coming to light that corners were cut and that employees' concerns were being ignored. It's the exact same pattern that we saw with BP in Alaska."
Beyond BP
But a new report, which combs over the oil industry as a whole, shows that "BP can't be singled out," writes Public News Service. The report "found that operating errors and incidents around the globe are more common than the public likely realizes because most events don't make the news."
As countries like the United States become more desperate for fuel, accidents like the spill in the Gulf Coast become more likely. Extracting oil from tar sands, hydrofracking, deep-sea oil drilling: these are tricky techniques for extracting fossil fuel that are becoming popular only because the world's store of easily accessible energy is almost gone. In The Nation, Michael Klare writes about the new quest for "extreme energy options" and the contingent risks.
"By their very nature, such efforts involve an ever increasing risk of human and environmental catastrophe-something that has been far too little acknowledged," Klare writes. "As energy companies encounter fresh and unexpected hazards, their existing technologies...often prove incapable of responding adequately to the new challenges. And when disasters occur, as is increasingly likely, the resulting environmental damage is sure to prove exponentially more devastating than anything experienced in the industrial annals of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."
Tar sands a slow-motion spill
It's not just BP that's playing fast and loose with its environmental impact. Extracting fuel from tar sands, a source for oil that's gaining in popularity as an alternative to off-shore drilling, takes a dramatic toll on the environment.
Inter Press Service writes that, according to a new report, "Oil sands development is "kind of like the gulf spill but playing out in slow motion."
The extraction process demands lakes of water, which, once contaminated, are held in pools. "Those toxic ponds pose a hazard to migrating birds, risk contaminating nearby soil and water resources, present health problems to downstream communities and, the report notes, pose the risk of "a catastrophic breach,"" IPS explains.
A director at the National Resource Defense Council described tar sand extraction as "a slow-motion oil spill every day, writes The Texas Observer's Forrest Whittaker. The United States is poised to consume even more oil from this source, too, he reports:
"In the works is a 2,000-mile underground pipeline from Alberta to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur, including BP's Texas City facility. The high-pressure pipeline, proposed by TransCanada, would be capable of carrying 900,000 barrels per day, enough to more than double consumption of tar-sands oil in the U.S."
Government intervention
As Whittaker reports, the Obama administration has been supportive of these sorts of efforts, and this week questions about the government's leniency towards BP and the energy industry started bubbling up. In this climate, the government should be stepping in to defend the safety of the country's people and its environment; instead, even the Obama administration is giving the energy industry a long leash to pursue its projects. On Democracy Now!, Scott West, the EPA investigator, described the pattern he saw during his investigation:
"What the government has done over the past several years is taught BP that it can do whatever it wants and will not be held accountable. So, decisions have been made, very poor decisions have been made, to increase profits and put workers at risk and been allowed and endorsed by the federal government."
The current oversight has not much improved. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and his colleagues are pushing for a $10 billion cap on liability for oil companies, for instance, but the administration has argued for a lower limit, the Washington Independent reports.
"In the Exxon Valdez spill, people counted on the oil company to respond to and clean up the mess, and we counted on Congress and the legal system to hold the oil industry accountable for damages to the environment and local communities and economies. In hindsight, these turned out to be bad ideas," she writes. "Exxon dodged penalties through long court battles, systematically underestimating the scope of the spill, and leveraging the costs of clean-up to avoid fines and penalties."
BP doesn't need to escape accountability in the same way, though; Ott has suggestions for actions that anyone can take to ensure the company pays the price for the damage it has caused.
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An industry like mining knows that it's going to get regulated. Politically impossible not to (even in West Virginia!).
So it needs an MO: embrace the regulators warmly in a bear hug that ensures they can't do a hand's turn against it.
That way, regulation is actually a plus for the industry: voters think the situation is under control, pols don't come under pressure to act - and, when a bad story breaks (as with Upper Big Branch accident), there is a weakened investigatory organization in place to which pols will gladly hand over responsibility.
Massey Energy, the company that operates Upper Big Branch, was able to keep the Mine Safety and Health Administration at bay by regularly appealing safety violations.
Since 2005, Massey has gone to the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission 89 times to dispute safety violations that federal inspectors found at Upper Big Branch, according to an official at the commission.
The litigation stalled many of the findings of safety violations and prevented the Mine Safety and Health Commission from finding a "pattern of violation" that would have enabled them to exercise more oversight.
The WH has is at least been on the case, with funding in place to increase the number of administrative judges from 10 to 14 and in the 2011 WH budget for another four.
However,
The backlog of cases has soared from 2,100 in 2006 to 16,600 today, delaying the implementation of penalties for any safety violations mining companies choose to dispute.
So Massey clearly hasn't been the only one!
Why the spurt since 2006? Perhaps it was just a preemptive strike, to show that they could turn the spigot on enough to stymie any administrative action.
I'm not clear whether amendments to the regulatory regime could deal with the problem - though I doubt whether the current law takes it to the wire, constitutionally speaking.
But there's clearly no chance of meaningful amendments any decade soon.
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