Category Archives: Energy

Paying It Forward.

Posted on by

Renewing the Emergency Unemployment Compensation bill would add $25.2 billion to the current federal budget. Right wing politicians and media outlets tell us that we can’t afford such “giveaways” unless they are offset by other spending cuts. Oddly, they have no such requirements for subsidies to defense contractors, the oil industry, the financial industry, big Pharma, corporate agriculture and other large interests.

But for a program that will prevent 1.3 million people from falling into the abyss? Teapublicans believe that cost needs to be offset!

Certainly saving $25.2 billion sounds good. But, in government, saving money always comes at a cost. In this case, it’s not difficult to imagine the human cost of taking away the only source of income for 1.3 million people…people who have been unemployed for six months or longer. People who are discriminated against by employers who think there must be something wrong with someone who has been unemployed for so long.

And there are other costs.

As journalist Bill Moyers reports, “Harvard economist Lawrence Katz estimates that the expiration of benefits for the long-term unemployed is costing the economy $1 billion per week.” Others estimate the cost to our economy at $400 million a week. Whichever figure is correct, that means the cost of extended unemployment benefits is already offset by what the program contributes to the economy.

Economists confirm that money spent on such programs goes directly into the economy. After all, what else are the long-term unemployed going to do with the money? Save it? Obviously, they spend it. They use it to pay for food, gasoline, utilities and other necessities. It’s not enough to allow them to live comfortably. But it helps. And that money stimulates other portions of the economy. It contributes to sales taxes. It contributes to the profits of local businesses which, in turn, pay income taxes on the money. As a result, the money finds its way back into federal, state and local governments as revenues.

It’s a win-win. It’s taxpayers paying it forward to help their struggling neighbors. Anyone who would say otherwise is cruel and heartless.

Oh wait! I just described today’s GOP.

CBS’ “60 Minutes” Fails Again!

Posted on by

After its well-publicized failure to report the truth about the attack on our Benghazi consulate, one would expect that CBS, particularly its 60 Minutes crew, would be careful to assure accuracy in future reports.

Yet, this past Sunday, just 10 weeks after its Benghazi debacle, 60 Minutes failed again.

In attempting to uncover government waste on the part of the Obama administration’s clean energy loan program, Leslie Stahl displayed her apparent bias and ignorance of the subject. Under the label “clean tech,” she conflated high-tech companies with clean energy companies. (Not every clean energy alternative is high tech.) She also conflated the failure of venture capital-backed start-ups with the failure of companies receiving federally-backed loans. In doing so, she implied that a majority of loans to clean energy companies were lost. She also implied that clean energy is a fool’s errand.

Further, Stahl failed to provide real context for her story.

She failed to report that when a federally-backed company fails it doesn’t always default on the loans. That’s because the loans are often recovered through the sale of assests. She failed to report the failure rate of federally-backed loans which, according to congressional testimony by the former head of the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program, is less than 3 percent. She failed to report that the loans to Solyndra began during the Bush administration. She failed to report that even companies that fail often create products and technologies that eventually benefit us all. She failed to report that, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, 2013 was a huge success. She failed to mention that nine states now get 10 percent or more of their electricity from wind and solar; that wind is now the dominant energy source in Spain; that solar and wind compete head-to-head with coal in places like South Africa.

Stahl also failed to report that approximately three-quarters of all venture capital-backed businesses fail. That’s across all industries. Not just in the clean energy sector. She didn’t recognize the ecological consequences of making fuel from trees (one of the “clean tech” start-ups she covered in her story). She failed to report the ecological consequences of basing our future on oil, most especially tar sands oil. More important, she failed to report the staggering amount of money that the federal government gives to the carbon-based energy sector with no expectation of repayment (estimates range from $14 billion to $52 billion annually).

Stahl suggests that taxpayers should expect more from our government than failures such as Solyndra (which was a superior technology that failed primarily because of our long-standing trade policies with China).

I’d suggest that we should expect better…much better…from Leslie Stahl and 60 Minutes.

Good News/Bad News For 2014 And Beyond.

Posted on by

For the New Year, I thought it appropriate to list a few of the accomplishments from 2013. First the good news:

1 – Millions more Americans now have health insurance thanks to Obamacare. More than 2 million have signed up on the federal and state exchanges, tens of millions more will benefit from Medicaid expansion.

2 – US demand for electricity dropped in 2013. Some utilities reported a decrease in residential demand by as much as 9 percent and up to 5.9 percent overall. This is likely the result of conservation measures, such as CFL and LED light bulbs, new green construction techniques, and growth of solar and wind energy. Imagine what would happen if we ever took conservation and alternative energy seriously.

3 – The US continues to shift electricity production away from coal-burning power plants. Just this week, Arizona Public Service Co. closed three 1960s era coal-fired generators in the Four Corners region near Farmington, New Mexico. These old generators were among the nation’s dirtiest.

4 – According to the Census Bureau, the US population is growing at the slowest rate since the Great Depression – just 0.72 percent. Even if it’s the result of the Great Recession, it’s definitely good news. There will be fewer demands on our natural resources and our infrastructure. Of course, large corporations think this is terrible news since there will be more competition for customers and (gasp) workers.

Now the bad news:

According to a new study published in Nature: The International Journal of Science and reported by HuffPost, climate change could pose more significant problems than previously thought. Climate sensitivity models show that global temperatures could rise as much as 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100! The result of such an increase could be worse than the extreme storms and rising sea levels already predicted. It could be catastrophic.

Happy New Year, everyone! Be sure to stock up on sun block.

A Nation Of Crises.

Posted on by

Every day I receive dozens of emails and letters asking me to help save the oceans, save the environment, save children, save wildlife, save food stamps, increase the minimum wage, stop voter suppression, stop global warming, stop the pipeline, stop racism, stop the attacks on women’s rights, stop the attacks on education, stop the attacks on science, demand gun control, end hunger, end poverty, etc., etc., etc…

It’s all very depressing.

Of course, these are all very real and serious issues, and the organizations asking for help are well-run and well-intentioned. They deserve our support. But I finally realized that all of the issues are related. They are all the result of corporate greed and ideological candidates supported by billionaires and big business.

Our oceans are being destroyed by greedy oil companies and by large, commercial fishing operations. Our air and water are being polluted by corporations who would rather dump toxins into the environment than sacrifice a portion of their profits to clean up after themselves. Poverty and hunger are the result of corporations who are more intent on rewarding investors and executives with large bonuses than paying workers a livable wage. Global warming is the result of corporate-backed congressmen who prioritize subsidies for oil companies over subsidies for alternative energy sources.

Many chronic health issues and diseases are the result of corporate farming practices and food processing companies that intentionally poison our food in order to increase profits. The attacks on science, education and voter rights are designed and paid for by large corporations in order to maintain control of our government. The lack of funding for social safety nets such as food stamps, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are the result of corporate fraud and abuse, as well as tax loopholes that allow corporations and the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Almost every one of our problems is the result of large, multinational corporations and the billionaires who run them treating the Earth as a source of commercial resources and people as commodities.

Since I can’t afford to donate to every good cause, I’ve decided to donate to candidates who place people above corporations.

I will vote against candidates who support corporations that pay employees a minimum wage while paying CEOs millions; that damage our environment and our food supply. I will vote against those who accept large donations from such corporations regardless of which party they represent. I will not spend another dime to purchase products and services from corporations that harm our citizens, our nation and our environment.

If corporations only care about money, I will deny them the thing they want most. I hope you will consider doing the same.

Ronald Reagan: Solar Assassin.

Posted on by

When President Obama recently ordered the White House to be fitted with solar panels, he was following the precedent set by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. After the OPEC cartel’s decision to limit oil production in order to drive up oil prices, Carter had recommended a series of measures designed to conserve energy and limit US dependence on oil imports. An aggressive plan to develop solar energy was one of those measures. To promote his plans, Carter ordered the installation of solar panels on the White House.

But when Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in 1980, one of his first actions was to order the panels, which he called “a joke”, removed. He also set about reversing all of Carter’s other energy-saving measures.

As a result of Reagan’s short-sighted decisions, the development of solar energy in the US was set back decades. While European nations and China continued the development of solar and other alternative energies, the US redirected all of its subsidies and resources toward oil exploration and ensuring access to foreign oil.

One could argue that Reagan’s decision culminated in a series of oil wars intended to protect the supply of oil from the Middle East. The US fought Desert Storm in order to secure Kuwait’s oil wells and keep them out of Iraqi hands. Despite the Bush Administration’s statements to the contrary, oil was at the heart of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That fact was made clear when then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and his assistants stated that the invasion of Iraq would pay for itself (it didn’t) through profits from Iraqi oil reserves. And since American oil interests had long sought an oil pipeline across Afghanistan in order to deliver Balkan oil onto the world markets, oil was likely part of the equation that led to the invasion of Afghanistan.

Imagine what might have happened if the trillions of dollars used to pursue war had been invested in alternative energy that would free us from oil imports. Imagine where we might be had the Carter administration’s energy conservation initiatives been followed to their conclusion.

In all likelihood, we would not have sent our troops into endless wars. We would have greatly decreased our dependence on oil, especially oil imports from the Middle East. We would not have an enormous federal debt. And, perhaps most important, we would have contributed far less to carbon emissions which have led to climate change.

What Is Our Real Legacy For Future Generations?

Posted on by

Much has been written about the national debt that is being left to future generations; how that debt is the greatest threat to the future of our nation.

I beg to differ.

Not that the debt isn’t a serious issue, but our nation faces many more daunting problems. For example, our infrastructure is crumbling.  Roads and bridges are in disrepair. Our electric grid is woefully inefficient and unreliable – approximately half of all the electricity generated is lost in the grid. Our rail system is antiquated. Ports and canals need to be expanded and remodeled. And our computer systems are increasingly vulnerable to hackers.

In addition, the vast majority of the world’s scientists – real scientists – are sounding alarms about global climate change. Their computer models show that our dependence on burning fossil fuels will raise sea levels by as much as three feet by 2100, drowning some of the world’s largest cities, many of them in the US.

These scientists aren’t politically-motivated. They aren’t beholding to corporations. And they aren’t making unsubstantiated claims. They say that human-caused climate change is as proven as gravity.

Making the investments to address these issues now makes infinite sense. Not only are interest rates at all-time lows. Making changes would create an enormous number of high-paying jobs. And when more people make more money they purchase more and pay more taxes. All of which will help reduce the deficit and debt.

In fact, Nobel laureate economists tell us that such investments will do more to reduce our debt than austerity measures.

So what are we waiting for? Why do we listen to Wall Street-financed politicians instead of economists? Why do we listen to oil-soaked politicians instead of climate scientists? We have been shown a road map to the long-term health of the United States and the globe. These are not Democratic issues or Republican issues. They are human issues.

Isn’t it as important to leave future generations with a safe, efficient infrastructure as with a surplus? Isn’t it as important to bequeath them a sustainable planet as with a reduced debt?

The Dismal State Of Our Union.

Posted on by

Upon listening to the last day of Neal Conan’s Talk of the Nation on NPR, I was surprised by Ted Koppel’s response when asked about the future. Turns out, Koppel shares many of the same concerns as I do. For what it’s worth, here is a compilation of my own views of the current state of our union and its future.

Civil Rights – How depressing that people are still struggling for civil rights nearly 150 years after the end of slavery! The Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act was a huge setback, unleashing red states to suppress minority votes.

Abortion – Although abortion was made legal in 1973, women are still fighting to wrest control of their own bodies from the old men who control our political system. Amazingly, women are now forced to fight for access to contraception!

Environment – Most Americans say they’re concerned about our environment. They just don’t act like it. Most refuse to sacrifice anything on behalf of our planet’s future.

Hunger – In the richest nation on Earth, 50 million people are unsure of where they’ll get their next meal. That includes 17 million American children!

Energy – Nearly 40 years after President Carter had solar panels installed on the White House, we’re still addicted to fossil fuels. We spill more oil than most other countries use.

Healthcare  – The dirty secret is that we have no healthcare system. We spend more than twice as much as other advanced nations, yet achieve worse outcomes. And we spend more on pharmaceuticals than the rest of the world combined.

Wall Street – Greed has turned large banks into high stakes casinos. Their gambling habit not only cost individuals and pension plans trillions…many families lost their homes. Yet any attempt to regulate these banks has been undermined by millions in lobbying efforts.

Income Disparity – The US ranks among the world’s worst nations for income inequality. 400 Americans control more wealth than half of our population, and the gap is growing. Yet Republicans believe that 47 percent are sponging off the rest!

Jobs – Simply put, we don’t have enough of them. And far too few of them pay enough to support a family. Corporate leaders and politicians, on the other hand, each make enough to support dozens of families.

Privatization – We’ve privatized prisons, prison healthcare, schools, our military, even our intelligence efforts. Although all of these efforts have proven to cost more than publicly run institutions, Republicans are pushing for even more privatization.

Pensions – We lost tens of thousands of employee pensions over the past 40 years, replaced by IRAs and 401Ks which were originally intended to supplement defined benefit pension plans. The money once used for employee benefits now lines the pockets of CEOs, executives and investors.

Politics – Our politics have continued to move to the right, even though our population hasn’t. When Republicans are in control, they unabashedly cram through partisan legislation. When Democrats are in control, they tentatively nibble around the margins instead of doing what they were elected to do. Both parties rely on large corporations to finance their political campaigns.

Tea Party – This is a relatively small group that has had a large impact. Based on lies and meanness, it seems its goal is to take us back to the 16th Century.

Surveillance – Following 9/11, we traded privacy for increased security. The NSA tracks records of our phone calls, search engine terms and emails. Banks and credit card companies track our purchases. And surveillance cameras are everywhere.

Guns – While the NRA works to increase the availability of guns, even for criminals and the mentally ill, manufacturers make guns ever more lethal.

Education – Thanks to conservatives, public education is underfunded and teachers are woefully underpaid. Enough said.

Science – Many now claim that evolution is merely a theory. But so is gravity! Of course, these people also deny man’s affect on climate change. (See education.)

Religious Intolerance – Islam is not the only religion with extremists. The intolerance of all religions seems to be growing.

Anger and Pettiness – Within 20 years of the end of the Fairness Doctrine, 91 percent of talk radio was conservative…mean, angry, venomous Rush Limbaugh-style conservative… and it’s getting worse. (See Tea Party)

War – There’s no denying it. The US absolutely LOVES war. We glorify soldiers and their war machines with military-style ceremonies and flyovers at nearly every large event. And we spend hundreds of billions on “defense” to build bigger, badder war toys.

Iraq – Iraq cost us trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. The result of our sacrifices is that we have turned Iraq into a vassal state of radical Iran.

Afghanistan – Despite setting a deadline for withdrawal, there is no clear outcome for this war. We may leave the country no better off than it was when we arrived.

Syria – Yet another opportunity to dive into a war with no real reason or plan. But it is a war and some of our politicians don’t want to be left out.

War on Drugs – This “war” may have ruined more lives than the drugs themselves. It disproportionately affects minorities, filling our prisons to overflowing. Indeed, we have a larger prison population than any other nation.

Militarization of Police – As our soldiers return from war, they’re increasingly hired by police departments. As a result, police become ever more militarized…with assault weapons and assault vehicles…and further removed from ordinary citizens.

Journalism – In the 1980’s, TV networks began measuring the success of their news organizations by ratings which instantly sensationalized the news and created the “sound bite.”  Worse, most news groups have lost their independence as they were gobbled up by conglomerates.

With all this, it’s difficult to be optimistic about the future, but the pendulum may soon swing the other way. I hope so.

Rx For Economic Depression And World War.

Posted on by

Last week, the Romney-Ryan campaign released its plan for the transition of power from the Obama administration had they won the 2012 election as they expected. Titled the Romney Readiness Project 2012, the 138-page report reads more like a plan to destroy our nation than to lead it forward.

Among the recommendations were 20 percent across-the-board tax cuts for individuals and 10 percent cuts for corporations. The plan also recommended eliminating labor agreements in federal contracts, eliminating regulations on Big Coal and Big Oil, repealing “Obamacare” while quietly maintaining its cuts to Medicare, cutting Medicaid by offering block grants to states, and “voucherizing” Medicare.

As for foreign relations, the report recommended restoring military funding to pre-sequestration levels, confronting China’s trade policies and designating it as a currency manipulator, sustaining troop levels in Afghanistan beyond 2014, asserting US military might in Syria, and confronting Russia over human rights and its support of Syria and Iran.

In other words, Romney would have dramatically cut revenues while greatly increasing expenses (And you thought Teapublicans were concerned by deficits!).  At the same time, he would have tried to bully other nations, including some of our allies.

By re-electing President Obama, we very likely dodged a bullet…literally!

Big Oil And Its Worldwide Oiligarchy.

Posted on by

If oligarchy is a power structure in which all political power effectively rests with a few people, Oiligarchy is the perfect term to describe what has become the most powerful industry on Earth. Since World War II, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others have gained increasing control over the US government, along with our foreign policy and our military.

Oiligarchy operatives and lobbyists are a virtual Who’s Who of American politics, including Presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, as well as former Secretaries of State James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Condoleezza Rice, former Vice President Dick Cheney, Senator Bob Dole, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former CIA Director James Woolsey, and many, many, many others.

Their connections to the oily empire are deep. Richard “The Dick” Cheney was previously CEO of oil giant Halliburton. Condoleezza Rice served on the board of Chevron and even had an oil supertanker named in her honor. And before Dubya failed as president, he experienced multiple failures in the oil business.

At times, these people have sided with Big Oil at the expense of national security, the environment and human rights. Indeed, the oil companies’ greed, along with our thirst for cheap gasoline has resulted in wars, dictatorships, genocides, toppled governments and a growing worldwide hatred of the US.

Following the Cheney-inspired Project for a New American Century, Bush, Cheney and their minions helped Big Oil elbow its way into the Caucasus and Caspian Sea regions in order to steal oil from Russia and keep it from Iran. In the process, we took the side of Chechen rebels who were led by Muslim extremists in their fight for secession from Russia.

The war in Afghanistan was preceded by US demands for an oil pipeline across that country. The war in Iraq was a cynical and clumsy attempt to control Iraqi oil. Even our unyielding support for Israel seems driven less by a desire to protect Israel from its Arab neighbors than by Big Oil’s desire to have a powerful ally near Middle East oil fields. And in an especially cynical move, US-backed Big Oil and Russia are in a race to lay claim to Arctic drilling as the polar ice cap melts. (Ironically, oil-caused global warming is creating an opportunity to capture and burn even more oil!)

Not content with its lethal impact on international politics, Big Oil has set its sights on further destroying our environment in its quest for ever larger profits. The Oiligarchy is demanding that the Obama administration approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which is intended to carry oil from the newly-fracked oil fields in North Dakota and the tar sands of Alberta, Canada to refineries in Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast. The claim is that the pipeline will create “tens of thousands” of new jobs in the US, but a review by the Cornell University Global Labor Institute estimated that the pipeline would add only 506 to 1,387 new jobs.

In exchange for that meager number of jobs, Big Oil wants us to risk the inevitable spills of a substance the EPA says is virtually impossible to clean up. The US has already experienced at least two spills of the particularly dirty and gooey tar sands oil. In one of the spills, a pipeline belched 200,000 gallons of oil into a Michigan river. Nearly three years later, the oil has sunk to the bottom of the river and has not biodegraded. It likely never will.

Worse yet, the bituminous oil from tar sands is often referred to as “junk oil.” As a fuel source, it is terribly inefficient, creating an inordinate amount of pollution relative to the energy it provides. Once it flows (or more accurately, oozes) onto the market, it will dramatically increase greenhouse gases, leading environmental experts to state that it will be “game over” for our planet.

Big Oil doesn’t seem to care.

Spending billions in attempts to elect subservient politicians, to lobby Congress and to confuse voters, Big Oil owners like the Koch brothers deny the impact of fossil fuels on climate change. Ignoring the findings of almost every climate scientist in the world, they and their bought-and-paid-for politicians claim that climate change is “unsettled science,” a “sham,” the “greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.”

If they’re wrong (and it’s almost certain they are), they won’t pay the price. But our planet and most of its inhabitants will.

What The Frack?

Posted on by

If you’ve followed fracking in the US (the process of releasing gas and oil from rock formations hundreds of feet underground through hydraulic fracturing), you’ve heard about the many nightmares.

Some people have had their wells so polluted, the water can be set on fire.  Others talk of bullying tactics by the oil drilling companies who take over their land. Still others talk about the large tanks containing a secret witches brew of toxic chemicals placed on their land and the pools of highly polluted waste water.

It’s very different in the United Kingdom.

In listening to a discussion about fracking in England, I learned that the British government is handling the procedure far differently.  Unlike the US, England demands that the chemicals pumped into the ground to release the gas and oil be made public.  (In most cases, they use just one chemical.)  England also demands that the waste water be placed in double-walled tanks and treated before it can be released back into the environment.

Why the difference?

Apparently the oil and gas industry doesn’t own Parliament the way it owns Congress.