At some point in 1987, Thurmon Parton's royalty checks for the three oil wells he inherited from his mother suddenly dropped from $3,000 a month to a little over $1,000. He and his sister, Arnita Gonzalez, members of the Caddo tribe, lived near Gracemont, Oklahoma, a town of a few hundred people on a small grid on the prairie.
Those modest royalties were the only source of income each of them had.
. . . What happened to Mr. Parton, Ms. Gonzales and Ms. Limpy had nothing to do with the wells or how they were producing. Their oil was being stolen. And all of the evidence pointed to the same culprit: Koch Oil, a division of Koch Industries.
The President is proving once again that he is much better than his predecessor George Bush as a President - When it comes to getting to more oil in pristine environments and silencing critics and whistleblowers.
It was seen as one of the most distressing effects of climate change ever recorded: polar bears dying of exhaustion after being stranded between melting patches of Arctic sea ice.
But now the government scientist who first warned of the threat to polar bears in a warming Arctic has been suspended and his work put under official investigation for possible scientific misconduct.
Charles Monnett, a wildlife biologist, oversaw much of the scientific work for the government agency that has been examining drilling in the Arctic. He managed about $50m (£30.5m) in research projects.
Some question why Monnett, employed by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, has been suspended at this moment. The Obama administration has been accused of hounding the scientist so it can open up the fragile region to drilling by Shell and other big oil companies.
When a system is constrained to bad choices, there is a tendency to bounce from solution to solution, as the drawbacks of each crappy choice become public and the cry goes out for a change. This is where we find ourselves in regards to electric power generation in the United States.
Coal is very, very dirty in terms of carbon, in terms of disposal of ash (fun fact, coal ash is mildly radioactive due to the fact that there is some Carbon-14 in almost all coal) in terms of lives and health lost in acquiring it. Though there is a huge amount of it and it is relatively cheap (as long as you don't worry about miners lives).
Oil has all the same problems but it is more expensive and we have nowhere near enough of it to make it cheap in any way, shape or form.
Nuclear has been being pushed (side note: as a technophile I love nuclear power, but really something this dangerous should not be as widely used as it is in a country that allows big industry to lobby away safety regulations), but for obvious reasons that is going to have a lot of resistance in the future.
I am one of those people who will actually watch those boring, boring, hearings on C-SPAN that most of us flip right on past while watching TV, and this past week I've been watching one of the longer events the channel broadcasts...but it's been far from boring.
The Coast Guard and what used to be the MMS were in Houston looking into what caused the Gulf oil spill and they're taking testimony from representatives of the involved parties...and let me tell you, this is more than just an accident inquiry-it's also a warm-up for the lawsuits that are surely going to follow.
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.
I was at the 1Sky.org protest today in Denver. About 140 people showed up at Rocky Mountain Lake Park that had numerous speakers before the holding of hands to demonstrate that we will not let deep water oil drilling continue and to have a coherent national renewable energy policy that will replace the extractive energy based economy that we now have.
At a press conference today in front of the Platte river, joined by a number of environmental leaders, Andrew Romanoff made the following remarks.
The blowout on Deepwater Horizon caused the worst environmental disaster in American history. But the hole in the well isn't the only one Washington needs to plug.
A series of legal and regulatory loopholes has effectively allowed the oil and gas industry to police itself. Many of these loopholes remain wide open:
* The Minerals Management Service granted BP a "categorical exclusion" under the National Environmental Policy Act, exempting the project from an environmental review.
* A "Halliburton Exemption" from the Safe Drinking Water Act has enabled drillers to engage in hydraulic fracturing without identifying the chemicals they use or the damage they cause.
* An exemption from the Clean Air Act has allowed 450 wells in Garfield County, Colorado to release 30 tons of carcinogenic benzene - 20 times more than a non-exempt industrial plant in Denver.
Brighton, Colorado (FNS)-Attorneys from the Republican Study Group (RSG) descended upon the 17th Judicial District courtroom of Judge John T Bryan today to present an amicus brief and associated oral arguments in order to prevent a settlement in a lawsuit related to an automobile accident in this Colorado city.
The intervening attorneys claim the settlement reached between the two parties to the accident is a "shakedown" because the plaintiff had not yet exhausted all possible legal remedies when the agreement was finalized, and because the agreement was executed in the presence of the plaintiff's brother, a well-known local attorney.
They hope Judge Bryan will decline to approve the settlement in today's hearing, and that he will order the parties to move forward to trial.
"What we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on preexisting laws but on decisions by one man, a car czar", said Crush Mimbaugh, attorney for the RSG, "and we are here today to protect all Americans from this legally sanctioned rape of an innocent driver."
Honestly, I am absolutely sick of commercial air travel these days. Just dealing with security is bad enough, but then there's the airlines, and...hey, all you really need to know here is that there has to be a pretty good reason for me to fly cross-country.
Well, I had one Saturday night, which is how I came to be in the Colonnade Room of the Fairmount Hotel, Washington DC with about 250 of my closest friends, in a classic shawl-collar tuxedo, attending one of the most exclusive "passing of the torch" ceremonies in recent Washington memory.
And when it was all over, Douglas Feith was a happy man.
"Too often these days we're waking up to newspaper headlines that prove what all of us already know: the old ways just aren't working.
In the past few weeks we've seen profound examples of this, with lax regulations and long-standing corporate loopholes leading to catastrophic financial and environmental disasters.
This is completely unacceptable. I know we can do better."
Yesterday Senator Bernie Sanders offered an amendment to close one of those 'long standing corporate loopholes' - Huge Tax Credits to Big Oil companies.
But Senator Bennet, the same one sending out fundraiser appeals on closing corporate loopholes, decided to vote with the Republicans to keep that loophole open.
Andrew Romanoff talks about the ongoing crisis in the Gulf, as well as yesterday's failed amendment to close tax loopholes which continue to be exploited by Big Oil, at Huffington Post.
One of the worst disasters in American history has left our nation heartbroken and angry. In the U.S. Senate, however, it's business as usual.
It's been nearly two months since an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon sent millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. And its been almost a year since the House of Representatives passed a bill to move the United States in a different direction: to reduce our reliance on fossil fuel and accelerate our transition to renewable energy.
In the meantime, the Senate has done ... nothing of the kind. Legislation that would curb greenhouse gas emissions has languished for months. The upper chamber seems determined to earn its reputation as the place where good ideas go to die.
The Senate did find time yesterday to preserve a set of tax breaks for the oil and gas industry. Special loopholes enable companies like ExxonMobil to avoid paying income taxes altogether. Last year, in fact, when ExxonMobil recorded the highest profits of any corporation in history, the company actually received a tax refund.
I just wanted to take a minute to say hello and to see how things have been for you lately, and to maybe bring you up to date on a bit of news from here.
Well, right off the bat, we hear you have a new Conservative Prime Minister and that his Party and Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems are in partnership, which I'm sure will be interesting; you probably heard that us Colonials are again having Tea Parties, which has also been very interesting.
I have a Godson who's getting married this September, so we're all talking about that, and I hear Graham Norton was even better than last year at hosting Eurovision, despite the fact that it's...frankly, it's Eurovision.
Oh, yeah...we also had a bit of an oil spill recently that you may have heard about-and hoo, boy; you should see how the Company that spilled the oil has been acting.
There is one disturbing diary up now about Saudi Arabia and here is one more.
It turns out that Saudi Arabia has convinced Qatar and Kuwait to join together to block a U.N. Climate Change study, in an apparent effort to protect their Oil Based Economy.
While there has been an orchestrated effort by Fossil Fuel lobbyists to weaken international Climate Change legislation, this is the first time a state Government has openly blocked reforms.
The immediate losers are the people who are members of A.O.S.I.S. - the Alliance of Small Island States - and what they have to lose by this action.
crossposted at Huffington Post, Square State, and PRAER.org
Andrew Romanoff, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Colorado made the following remarks at an event this morning at GeoSynFuels, a Golden, CO based bio-fuels company.
Half a century ago, the technological success of a foreign government shocked Americans into action. Today, the technological failure of a foreign corporation can produce the same effect.
In 1957, the Soviet Union sent a satellite into orbit around the Earth. In 2010, British Petroleum sent an oil slick through the waters of the Gulf.
This spill should be our Sputnik. We need what Congressman Jay Inslee and others have called a new Apollo program for energy independence. As Tom Friedman has written, this is our generation's "moon shot."
We're now into day way too many of the BP oil spill, and the President has just yesterday been down on the Louisiana coast-again.
There have been suggestions that the Administration should take action to essentially push BP out of the way and take over the work itself, particularly as it relates to the cleanup.
It may have even occurred to you that an official declaration of some sort might be needed, in order to bring the full power of the Feds into play.
That's some good thinking, but before we go jumping right into declaring things we better understand the law, because if we don't, we could actually make things worse.
Plume found miles from prime ocean fishing off the coast of Florida.
Oil is a poison.
Oil reaches loop current in the Gulf of Mexico.
How much oil is gushing? 5,000 bbl per day sez BP/Government. But wait BP sez the siphon is working to the tune of 5,000 bbl per day, but the live video feed shows the reality. Oops for the sea creatures.
BP has used 700,000 gallons of oil dispersant. It has bought 33 percent of world stock of oil dispersant.
Making the oil disperse from visible globules to microscopic level only increases the toxicity for sea life. For BP it is "out of sight = out of mind".
Bacteria does eat the oil but in doing so depletes the ocean of oxygen that effectively creates "dead zones" by having such low levels of O2 content that higher marine animals cannot survive.
How many gushers are there in the Deepwater Horizon area?
Matt Simmons,energy adviser to President George W. Bush, is an adviser to the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, and is a member of the National Petroleum Council and the Council on Foreign Relations, thinks that the real gusher(s) is NOT being televised.
