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amidst much drama

Holy drama, Batman!

So, as we mentioned in the Daily Grist, the House voted today on Rep. Barton's Gasoline for America's Security (GAS) Act (PDF) (gag on the Orwell, gag on it!). It's a big fat wet kiss to the energy industry, easing Clean Air Act provisions to streamline refinery development and codifying the President's ability to suspend clean-air standards in a state of emergency. It's a bunch of crap they couldn't get into this summer's already craptacular energy bill. To boot, yesterday the House Rules Committee blocked an attempt to include a provision raising CAFE standards.

Well, once again the Republican leadership held what is supposed to be a five-minute floor vote open for nearly 50 minutes, ruthlessly twisting arms and bribing recalcitrant members. Ultimately they jammed the thing through, on a 212-210 vote.

They buttonholed lawmakers for last-minute lobbying as Democrats complained loudly that the vote should be closed. Finally two GOP lawmakers switched from "no" to "yes," giving the bill's supporters the margin of victory.

"Is this the House of a Banana Republic?" Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., shouted at one point, expressing his frustration about the GOP holdup of the final tally.

As the vote came to an end opponents chanted in unison, "Shame! Shame! Shame!"

I'm beyond knowing whether they'll pay any political price for this kind of overt corporatism and disrespect for democratic process. But the country's appetite for House Republican corruption and insensitivity is rapidly declining.

I've been burned too many times thinking maybe we've reached the tipping point. But ... maybe we've reached the tipping point.

(GCC has more.)

(TAPPED has still more.)

(Wow! Watch this amazing video of the vote. Unbelievable.)

Arctic reality check

The Wilderness Society has been sending out some great email bulletins about the details of the proposed Arctic Refuge drilling legislation. Now they're all online in one place: check out the Arctic Reality Check.

Here are the four main points:

• Opens the entire 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain for oil development, and mandates a minimum of 200,000 acres for the first lease sale.
• Weakens and sidesteps important environmental protection laws and standards.
• Dresses up weak or meaningless "protections" to sound good.
• Limits oversight by the public, the judicial branch, and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

SUV nation

Looks like more old people are going to die:

Chrysler is doubling its SUV offerings over the next three years, including the radical Dodge Nitro model coming next year with flared fenders and fuel-friendly V-6. GM is counting on a new crop of full-bodied SUVs arriving next year to drive its comeback. And though the models are still big, GM designers burnished the edges to make them look smaller. By 2010, the number of SUVs on the market will increase 24 percent to 109 models, while just 44 different hybrids will be offered by then, according to auto researcher J.D. Power. Even Toyota, the hybrid leader, is building a $1 billion pickup-truck plant in Texas where analysts expect it to build a new -- and bigger -- version of its Sequoia SUV. Despite pain at the pump, 56 percent of Americans refuse to downsize and will stick with the wheels they've got, according to a new survey by consultant AutoPacific. "We haven't turned into wimps overnight," says AutoPacific's George Peterson. "People still like a tough-looking SUV."

...

"For hybrids to have a double-digit market share," says Power's Jeff Schuster, "we'd essentially have to run out of fossil fuel."

Sigh.

Really, they do

A sensationalist headline, perhaps, but it's apparently true: An article in the most recent British Medical Journal reports that SUVs pose a special risk to pedestrians, particularly over the age of 60.

A few relevant facts:

• Pedestrians over 60 are more than four times more likely to die if injured by a car than younger people.
• For any given collision speed, getting hit by an SUV or light truck is nearly twice as fatal (pdf link) as getting hit by a passenger car.
• Studies consistently show higher rates of severe injury or death when pedestrians are struck by SUVs.

Apparently, SUVs are so dangerous to pedestrians not because they're heavy, but because they're tall -- leading to more injuries of the head and abdomen, rather than the legs.

The report's authors recommend labelling SUVs with warning notices that they're hazardous to pedestrians. I doubt that that would do much good -- it seems to me that many people buy SUVs precisely because they're a menace to others on the road. (It feels safer that way, you know.) More effective -- though less politically viable, perhaps -- would be changes to liability laws, possibly coupled with up-front charges to SUV buyers, that make SUV owners and manufacturers pay for the safety risks they're imposing on everyone else.

(Hat tip to Eric Sorensen for the heads up.)

From Britney to BoKlok

The booby/baby dilemma Celebs. How they confound us. One minute you hear that Britney is willing to leave her breasts bare for … well, anything, but in this case a hurricane recovery fund. Next minute you hear that TomKat is contributing to overpopulation. Do we love and mock them? Hate and mock them? Vexing. Earth […]

Watts On, Watts Off

Japanese manufacturing leads the world in energy efficiency When oil supplies contract, oil-dependent economies suffer — and Japan prospers. Investors are bullish on Japan’s manufacturing sector, which has been investing in energy efficiency since the oil crisis of the early 1970s. Faced then with few domestic energy sources and near total dependence on foreign oil, […]

The Mold Song and Dance

EPA failing to inform or protect folks returning to post-Katrina mess The U.S. EPA has the authority to assess and manage environmental disasters, but activists and even some EPA staffers allege that so far agency testing of water, air, and soil in the Gulf Coast has been insufficient, and its health warnings too weak, to […]

A Refine and Pleasant Misery

House energy legislation would undermine parts of Clean Air Act You just can’t keep a bad bill down. Provisions cut from the energy bill that was passed this summer have lurched back to life; they now stumble forward under the banner of the Gasoline for America’s Security (GAS) Act, due for a House vote today. […]

Rock, Hudson

GE finally agrees to clean up PCBs in Hudson River Are we ecomagining things? General Electric Co. has finally agreed to dredge the PCBs it long ago dumped in the upper Hudson River of New York state, nearly 30 years after the contamination was discovered. With 43 miles of tainted river bottom to tend and […]

The Daily Show goes green

The Daily Show has instituted another regular feature called "The War on Terra," which as you might imagine is about environmental matters. You can see the first one -- about melting polar ice caps and dying Chinese tigers -- here.

I must say, I'm happy they're doing this, but the results are a little dispiriting. Even these guys, the funniest guys on the planet (except maybe the writers on Arrested Development) have trouble making green issues funny.

Why is that? Why is humor about the environment never, ever funny? And music about it never good? And art about it never interesting? It seems to repel everything except earnest sanctimony. Truly vexing.

Does anyone have any counter-examples to prove me wrong?