Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave — or perhaps a lavish, sealed-off compound — for the last few months, you’re likely fully aware that the GOP is in full-bore Tea Partying mode. Which means ultra-anti-regulatory sentiment and pro-corporate cheer-leading rule the day. Man, that was a lot of hyphens. Anyhow, Republicans have seized their moment in the sun to pursue a bill known as the 3-D Act (Domestic Jobs, Domestic Energy and Deficit Reduction). It’s essentially what the New York Times calls “the right’s environmental wish list” — a series of 12 initiatives that include gutting the Clean Air Act, opening up pristine lands for drilling, and trampling the Endangered Species Act.
Here’s the abridged “wish list” from the NY Times, and my response to each entry:
1. Put oil and natural gas leasing on the Outer Continental shelf on a fast track, holding lease sales every nine months and making them dependent on commercial expressions of interest (rather than, say, ecosystem requirements) to determine what parcels should be leased. Ensure that a year after the bill becomes law, there will be three lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and one off the coast of Virginia.
In other words, this would put oil interests first and make ecological considerations near-obsolete. It would also mean much more drilling in the Gulf and off the East Coast.
2. Open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to an “environmentally sound program for the exploration, development and production of the oil and gas resources …”
Republicans have been after this for years, but there’s a reason they haven’t gotten it: Cleaning up oil spills in the Arctic, as we saw with the Exxon Valdez, is excruciatingly difficult — and spills therefore do immense damage to the native habitats and local economies.
3. Expedite lease sales for companies seeking to extract oil and natural gas from complex geologic formations like oil shale and tar sands in the West.
The GOP wants to bring the devastatingly destructive tar sands operation like the one in Alberta, Canada, to the United States. Remember, that operation produces what is considered the “dirtiest fuel on earth”.
4. Set a nine-month deadline for the environmental review of any federal action like such leasing.
Read: less talk, more drilling.
5. Prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from classifying carbon dioxide or methane from agricultural activities … as a pollutant. No state … could get federal permission to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from passenger vehicles.
Whatever happened to the conservatives’ love for states’ rights? Why couldn’t a state decide to reign in carbon pollution if its voters approved such an effort? Seems pretty tyrannical — in reality, it’s just an effort to appeal to the auto industry and its lobby in DC.
6. Allow state governors to declare emergencies, which, once declared, require federal officials to ignore the provisions of the Endangered Species Act when dealing with the emergency.
Who needs endangered species anyways?
7. Allow mountaintop removal mining to proceed at Spruce Mine in Logan County, W. Va..
The EPA has gone some ways towards stalling these destructive projects, but the GOP wants to do its buddies in the coal industry a solid and let them get back to blowing up mountains for profit.
8. Reinstate the oil and gas leases in Utah that were purchased in the last years of George W. Bush’s administration.
Obama overturned these right when he got into office for a reason — they were rushed and unlawful.
9. In California’s dry central valley, ensure that no federal scientific report … requiring water for endangered fish be allowed to interfere with farmers’ rights to their historical maximum allocations.
Yes. Let’s agree to never let science inform our policy-making ever again.
10. Expedite approval of construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the United States.
Ah, the tar sands oil again! Let’s get that stuff flowing to the US asap, and encourage one of the most environmentally-damaging projects in history to keep at it.
11. Give Shell oil a long-delayed license to drill for oil in the Beaufort Sea above Alaska.
Why not? Everyone else will be doing it, so why can’t Shell?
12. Prohibit federal agencies from paying legal fees to environmental groups that prevailing lawsuits challenging the government’s environmental stewardship …
After they’ve opened up every square inch of the nation for drilling and let private interests have priority over any semblance of ecological preservation, they need to discourage pesky green groups from challenging the status quo in court.
In other words, it’s a corporate love-fest of a manifesto that renders any and all environmental protection secondary to industrial interests. That’s not even an exaggeration! That’s exactly what this bill does, in its own words, on just about every front imaginable. Thankfully, most of it won’t pass, as it doesn’t have the votes to make it through the Senate.
Nonetheless, merely observing the intentions of a GOP that long ago abandoned any conservationist impulses whatsoever is enough to make you shudder.
Can we please stop voting for these guys?
Can someone explain why we shouldn’t be treating them like we would anyone else who was actively trying to murder our grandchildren?
Oil companies are the single most profitable industries in the world. I think they’re set. Let’s get it together, Congress.
Such serious bullshit.
Tomorrow’s news:
House Committee holds hearing to discuss more ways to kill kittens.
(Source: socialuprooting)
When I first moved out here, in early summer 2008, I was paying over $5 a gallon.
I have a rather controversial idea about gas prices, America’s reliance on automobiles, and climate change: gas prices should be kept artificially high. Why? To encourage individuals to not drive as often. Of course the problem with this idea is that like most use taxes, it unfairly targets the poor. So what really needs to happen is a 2-pronged approach.
- Increase the reliability and usability of public transit nationwide
- Increase taxes on gasoline to EU levels
I was without a car for about 1 1/2 year while living in Los Angeles’ Koreatown neighborhood. Was it a pain in the ass? Sure, at times. But I will tell you it wasn’t as bad as people make it out to be. Of course I live in a central location with a high population density, so my area is very well-served by public transit. People who live in NYC and San Francisco know exactly what I’m talking about. In many neighborhoods of those cities, a car is not a necessity but rather a luxury.
I want all Americans to start thinking of cars as luxuries. The problem is “choice” and freedom. People associate owning a car with their right to choose what they own, but this is unsustainable. This is yet another area where America can learn much by looking abroad, at Europe and Asia.
I think this is a terrible idea because in many parts of America driving isn’t a luxury but a necessity so I see this as punishing people in certain areas. I’m currently living with my parents again in a suburban/more ruralish area where we have no public transportation available and no possible way to get one going. It takes 30 minutes to drive anywhere like the local supermarket and every house here has multiple acres. My town doesn’t even have its own police department, a court house, any of its own supermarkets, any restaurants besides one pizza place. We have a post office, a prison, a deli/gas station, a fire department, and that’s it. Where would we put a public transportation system? And what type would we even have? A rail way system would require tons of miles of tracks to connect long stretches of land between towns, houses, jobs, and stores with no money to do so. Also unlike a city many people in our area commute outside the immediate area to other towns, other counties, even to other neighboring states we live near like CT or PA. A public transportation system wouldn’t adequately address everyone’s needs. Obviously a public transportation system never addresses everyone’s needs completely but theres a lot of different needs that need to be recognized for the poor and middle class who live outside cities. We’re not all zipping around in our cars, burning up gas strictly for the fuck of it. And really, a needless tax while theres no alternative to oil dependence at the moment would really fuck us over.
I agree with you, which is why I said I have a bit of a quandary with it. But, there are ways to get around it. We can force automakers to make more fuel-efficient vehicles, more hybrids, more electric cars. We can tailor gas taxes on a county-by-county basis, based upon population density. We can make sure the increased tax revenues go directly to research into alternative energy and public transit.
President Obama announced the other day that he wants to invest more in alternative fuels, which is a good idea but I do have reservations. Even if every car out there was powered by biodiesel, the main problem (of carbon emissions) is ignored by this strategy. No we need to work on fuel cell and battery technology. Right now, there is a “gas-guzzler” tax on vehicles that get below a certain MPG. I believe that threshold should be raised, also.
We have a choice: cheap gas, or a future for our children.
When I first moved out here, in early summer 2008, I was paying over $5 a gallon.
I have a rather controversial idea about gas prices, America’s reliance on automobiles, and climate change: gas prices should be kept artificially high. Why? To encourage individuals to not drive as often. Of course the problem with this idea is that like most use taxes, it unfairly targets the poor. So what really needs to happen is a 2-pronged approach.
I was without a car for about 1 1/2 year while living in Los Angeles’ Koreatown neighborhood. Was it a pain in the ass? Sure, at times. But I will tell you it wasn’t as bad as people make it out to be. Of course I live in a central location with a high population density, so my area is very well-served by public transit. People who live in NYC and San Francisco know exactly what I’m talking about. In many neighborhoods of those cities, a car is not a necessity but rather a luxury.
I want all Americans to start thinking of cars as luxuries. The problem is “choice” and freedom. People associate owning a car with their right to choose what they own, but this is unsustainable. This is yet another area where America can learn much by looking abroad, at Europe and Asia.
Redondo Beach harbor swamped by mysterious fish horde
Those are DEAD FISH: Estimated in the millions, in fact. They’re floating near the surface in a harbor at Redondo Beach in Los Angeles. Authorities are investigating the cause, with one theory being a “red tide” that pushed the fish into the harbor, where the lack of oxygen caused this grisly display. Whatever the explanation, though, could this help but have a negative impact on the surrounding ecosystems? I mean, just look at all those fish, it’s absurd. source
I didn’t want to be the one to say this, but there are rather large oil refineries in that area. There’s a large one between Manhattan Beach & El Segundo (off Rosecrans), and then a huge one down in Torrance. I’m not saying they caused it, but they are very ugly and obviously harmful to the environment.
Chevron Petroleum Corporation is attempting to slither out of an $8 billion judgment rendered yesterday by a trial court in Ecuador for cancer deaths, illnesses and destruction caused by its Texaco unit.
Climate science came massively under attack in 2010. Leaked emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia were spun by the right wing media to claim that climate scientists had hidden and manipulated data. The affair was dubbed “Climategate”. Newspapers echoed right-wing politicians, claiming the emails questioned the whole theory of human caused global warming. Climategate and the cold winter gave an opportunity to both rehabilitate the idea that there is “scientific doubt” about human caused climate change and raise political doubt about the need for action to halt it. The emails were leaked weeks before the crucial UN climate change talks at Copenhagen. The speculation in the press about the veracity of climate scientists no doubt helped blunt the impact of the criminal failure of the world’s richest countries to reach any deal to tackle climate change at Copenhagen.
Meanwhile 2010 was the hottest year on record.1 Extreme weather events have affected millions of people. From the devastating heat in Russia, where a state of emergency was declared in 23 regions as temperatures reached close to 40 degrees and forest fires raged outside the cities, to the devastating floods in Pakistan. In the worst catastrophe of its kind, widespread flooding has left thousands dead and 20 million people homeless. The increase in such extreme weather events is a consequence of a warming planet, and as we have seen with Hurricane Katarina in 2005, it is the poorest people who suffer most.
Conservatives and their sheeple followers love a good false equivalency. Just because some scientists wanted to hide data or conflate numbers does not mean the entire scientific community is wrong about climate change. That’s like saying that just because Jerry Falwell was such a douchebag that all Christians are. One does not automatically equal the other. Idiots.
- 26 states had the toxic rocket fuel chemical in their tap water source
This is exactly why government regulation is a necessity. Free market wizardry or not, a company will wantonly dump toxic waste & destroy the environment if you let them, as long as it helps their bottom line. Fucking rocket fuel, seriously?
