Uncategorized

The military base loophole?

Via the Oil Drum, I see that President Bush is "encouraging new oil refineries be built at closed military bases."

Speaking to small business leaders on Wednesday, Bush will call on federal agencies to encourage construction of new oil refineries at the sites of former military bases closed in recent years.

The agencies would work with states, local communities and potential investors to encourage the use of the sites, the administration officials said.

The lack of adequate refining capacity is frequently cited by experts as one reason why gasoline prices have surged dramatically in recent years. No new refineries have been built in recent years even though the demand for gasoline has risen.

Hmmm.

UPDATE: The Pentagon press release is out now, which indicates that this wasn't just some off-the-cuff remark.

Bring back freon?

Smokey Joe might try.

Blocking Johnson’s confirmation is, indeed, just politics.

I agree with pretty much everything in this National Review Online column (words I never thought I'd say) by Jonathan Adler. Democratic efforts to grandstand around Johnson's confirmation are, in fact, "nothing personal ... just politics."

Thing is, as I alluded to here, politics is not "just" anything. Particularly in our media-saturated environment, politics -- symbolism, optics, strategy, maneuvering-- is vital. What we need is for concerns about good ecological stewardship to gain political weight and cachet. Weakening environmental protections needs to have a political cost, if nothing else in public shaming. This is what helps us win significant individual battles.

The stalling of Johnson's confirmation is not significant on the substance, but it is an effective political gesture. Adler says Democrats are trying to "capitalize on the Bush administration's poor reputation on environmental policy," but I'd submit that such attempts wouldn't be very successful if that reputation were not, in fact, accurate. While the CHEERS study might not be that big a deal, it is true that the Bush EPA is terrible on pesticides. While Carper's legislation might not warrant a full study of its own, it is true that the studies the EPA has conducted on behalf of Bush's air regulations are heavily biased in favor of industry.

By stalling Johnson's (inevitable) confirmation, Democrats are drawing attention to legitimate areas of concern on the Bush EPA's record, and they're doing it in a flashy, high-profile way. They are trying to seize control of the news cycle, to cut through the clutter. Good for them.

Author of Rolling Stone piece gets all bloggy.

Speaking of great stuff on blogs:

Yesterday in Daily Grist, we pointed to a story in Rolling Stone about Bush's effort (hidden in his massive budget bill) to create a "Sunset Commission" that would have the power to eliminate government programs and whole agencies (say, the EPA) that were deemed "non-productive" (by the standards of the industry lobbyists that would populate the commission). It's a pretty brazen effort to accomplish by fiat what the right can't accomplish through public persuasion and legislation.

Anyway, the story was summarized, along with some supplemental material from OMBWatch and elsewhere, in a diary at DailyKos, which was followed -- as usual on DKos -- by a lively discussion. The author of the piece, Osha Gray Davidson, responded to lots of those comments on a blog called Booman Tribune, which in turn was reprinted and further discussed in another DKos diary.

So, if you found the story interesting, read all that stuff for some great follow-up. Vive les blogs!

An extraordinary diary on DailyKos about the coal industry.

Thanks to this comment from Chris (proprietor of the excellent OrganicMatter blog), I came across this diary over at DailyKos, which is one of the best I've ever read.

It's about coal, and it's written by a guy who grew up around coal mining and has been involved in the industry his whole life (and still is). Quit reading this and go read it instead.

USDA recommends mercury as part of a healthy diet.

Seems there's a bit of a snafu in that fancy new food pyramid the USDA recently unveiled.

[Swordfish and king mackerel] are among [the fish] most contaminated with mercury, a pollutant released from coal-fired power plants -- which the Bush administration has failed to crack down on. According to E.P.A. research, some 600,000 U.S. newborns, each year, are at risk for learning disorders and behavioral problems because of their exposure to the neurotoxin in the womb.

The USDA's new Web site ignores all these mercury warnings, recommending the very fish most likely to contain high levels of mercury. "Not only does the new food pyramid shirk away from telling the public which unhealthy foods to avoid," said David Wallinga, director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Food and Health Program in Minneapolis, "it actually tells people to eat fish that other federal agencies warn are too contaminated with mercury to eat."

Oops!

Invisible satire

Judging from the letters we got about it, nobody -- and I mean nobody -- got this joke.

So, if your satire is so subtle that nobody gets it, does that make it really, really good, or really, really bad? I suspect the latter ...

President cozies up to Saudi dictator, begging for lower oil prices.

Our overreliance on oil makes us do things that are economically stifling, ecologically destructive, and geopolitically self-defeating.

And then sometimes it just makes us look pathetic.

I refer, of course, to Bush's man date with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, during which he begged the repressive dictator to lower oil prices, something the repressive dictator couldn't do even if he wanted, which he doesn't particularly. All this took place, of course, on the holy ground of Bush's increasingly brush-free ranch in Crawford, where Bush and his repressive dictator buddy strolled, hand in hand, appearing for all the world like star-crossed lovers.

Matt Welch is grossed out, and so is Justin Logan, and so am I.

Via Matt Yglesias, who adds this:

[The price of oil] may go up or down a bit thanks to this or that gambit (Bush's Saudi ploy, the Democrats' hackneyed Strategic Petroleum Reserve proposal) but fundamentally it's something we need to start dealing with, rather than whining about. If cars were more fuel efficient, then high oil prices wouldn't be so bad, and over time prices might start to fall. If we stopped relying on oil for electricity generation, that, too, would improve the situation.

You could say that.

What’s the Time? It’s Time to Get Iliamna

Proposed Alaskan mine may threaten salmon wonderland Near the shores of vast Lake Iliamna in southern Alaska, locals are worried that a huge proposed open-pit mine at the region’s headwaters could imperil legendary salmon runs. The story is familiar enough: an economically depressed, mineral-rich area gets courted by slick mining-company officials promising jobs and little-to-no […]

Iceland of Make-Believe

Fascinating facts about a country you could win a trip to You know, ever since we got into the business of shilling Iceland in order to promote our sweepstakes, we’ve learned an awful lot of fascinating stuff. And now we’ve moved past shilling — we just want to share! Guess how many people in Iceland […]