Green Options

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered to release all documents pertaining to Administrator Stephen Johnson’s controversial blocking of California’s waiver to control greenhouse gasses in that state.

The announcement came in an email released by Public Employees forEnvironmental Responsibility (PEER), saying Johnson has bowed to a Congressional request for the information, following the controversy sparked by his controversial decision.

PEER’s Executive Director Jeff Ruch is quoted as saying: “What made Johnson’s decision so striking is that for months he said he was basing it on the scientific and legal merits and then did the precise opposite. One employee told me ‘I am ashamed to admit that I work at EPA’ and another asked ‘What am I supposed to tell my children when they ask me what I am doing to fight global warming?’”

Johnson has said he will not attend a field hearing of Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA), Senate Environment & Public Works Committee on January 10th in Los Angeles. His appearance before Congress, however, promises to be contentious at best.

Well, our president raised his magical pen and signed the long-awaited, eagerly anticipated energy bill. Some people will call a leap forward and others will maintain it’s but a step. Congress will say it’s the result of compromise. I call it a sell-out to oil and industry.

OK, so we get to raise the federal standard automakers must meet to 35 mpg for passenger cars, SUVs and small trucks by the year 2020. Today’s standard is 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.2 mpg for SUVs and light trucks.

The bill increases ethanol production from the current 6 billion to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022. Detractors constantly denounce the use of food grains to make vehicular fuels, citing poor countries that depend on our surpluses, not to mention the poor starving people in the U.S. And they cite rising costs to the consumer, rich and poor alike, because of so much corn being diverted to the ethanol plant.

Farmers who raise corn are happy, the price is up to around $4 a bushel - not bad for a product that brought $2 in 2002. Livestock growers, on the other hand, see their feed costs rise just as our grocery bill is rising. In one of his more lucid moments, the president is quoted as saying, “We understand the hog growers are getting nervous. The price of corn is up.”

Yes sir, nothing like having the Chief of State up to snuff on the price of hog feed.

OK, so I’m not being nice. Make no mistake, I respect the Office of the President of the United States; however, I have little or no respect for the man sitting in it. He’s sold us out environmentally, and forced us into an illegal war. What’s to like?

Now he praises the signing of an energy bill that wouldn’t have gotten this far unless he had gotten his way. Let’s look at that. He threatened a veto unless a $21 billion tax increase for industry and the oil companies was eliminated. Congress did what politicians do, compromise in order to get half a loaf. An almost ironic, or sad note, Congress delivered the legislation to the White House in a gas-hybrid sedan. Not even a blend of ethanol? Tacky.

I’ve witnessed this kind of thing from Congress for decades, so that’s why you hear my sarcasm and rage over the bastardization of a system that was designed “for the people”.

Renewable energy advocates are clearly disappointed with the recently passed version of the 2007 energy bill. Yes, there is an important increase in auto fuel efficiency, but considering that CAFE hasn’t been upped in nearly 30 years, I don’t think Congress should be patting themselves on the back too hard for that one. However, a little piece of renewable energy legislation may have sneaked into the farm bill without too many Republicans noticing, and it just might have a [...]