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Six Democratic Senators joined together on Wednesday to announce a comprehensive energy bill that would tax windfall profits and “force” investment in renewable energy.
Among other things, the Consumer-First Energy Act of 2008 would roll back tax breaks for oil companies and invest the money in renewable energy development and energy efficiency technology. It also would create a windfall profit tax on oil companies failing to invest in increased capacity and renewable energy resources.
According to one of the bill’s co-sponsors, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-VT):
“The bottom line is that at a time when this country faces a major crisis in terms of the price of oil, when many working families in our state and all over this country are hurting, I think we have brought forth a comprehensive piece of legislation, which begins to attack that problem with the result of lowering the price of oil.”
Agency permanently extends comment period for alt. energy leases
In the fall of 2001, Jim Gordon of Energy Management Inc. (EMI) announced his intentions to build a 420 megawatt wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts - the nation’s first. Now, the long permitting process that was made even longer by powerful opposition groups, is nearing resolution…finally.
More than 40,000 individuals and organizations have submitted comments on an environmental review of the wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound, according to an article in the Cape Cod Times.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Rodney Cluck, Cape Wind project manager for the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the lead federal agency to review Cape Wind Associates’ plan to build 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, off the coast of Massachusetts. Originally, the comments were set to be released last Friday, but officials at the Minerals Management Service postponed the release to give agency staffers more time to organize the overwhelming public response to the proposed wind farm.
As a result of the scoping process’ popularity, the MMS announced that they would be preemptively extending the comment period for all of the remaining “Alternative Energy Leases” from 30 to 60 days.
I usually don’t watch the Sunday morning talk shows like Meet the Press or This Week. I’m not sure why. I think this is because I have a deeply ingrained aversion to them dating back to my childhood. You see, we really only had a handful of channels in those pre-cable days, and on Sunday mornings, before the cartoons really got going, three of those channels were running these incredibly boring talk shows - when they should have been running, at least from my point of view, cartoons. It was completely beyond me why they were running these shows at all, and not just doubling up on Superfriends or Scooby Doo! It seems I knew, even at that young age, that there were some things are just better off left till Monday.
What I’m getting at, is that I did not see Hillary Clinton on This Week with George Stephanopolous, on Sunday morning. But since we have a 24-hour media matrix covering every breath and every word in this presidential campaign, I was told all about it by all of my regular news outlets as soon as I got up. I was most struck by Senator Clinton’s reply to Stephanopolous’ question about the pushback her proposed summertime gas-tax holiday has received.
A recent report by NPR news tells of a teacher at Lewis County High School in Weston, West Virginia who is determined to teach Environmental Science and keep politics out of her classroom at the same time. Tiffany Litton holds an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science. She decided to forgo pursuing a career in law to become a high school teacher. Why? Her goal is simple. She wants her students to be better stewards of the environment and felt she could have a bigger impact as a teacher than a lawyer. “My science class is not the place to promote any agenda, its the place to promote facts…” states Miss Litton to NPR news when being interviewed for this story. She has won the trust of her students by respecting their views and not preaching to them. Encouraging even those students who hold a different view than her own, she has been known to award A’s to those who can bring a well researched counter argument to the table.
The students are listening and learning. One father (who happens to be a coal mining equipment distributor) candidly remarked that he does not want his daughter influenced and becoming one of those “tree huggers”. His daughter, a student of Miss Litton’s, respectfully comments that in her opinion her father’s generation does not understand the damage that has been done to the environment.
It points up the urgency of Congressman Ron Paul’s latest legislation to decriminalize medical marijuana.
The latest case in point comes from Seattle, where a man was denied a liver transplant, after a University of Washington Medical Center committee denied him a place on the liver transplant list.
His crime? Using medical marijuana, even though it is authorized under Washington state law.
The victim, 56 year old Timothy Garon was authorized by his doctor […]
The average Chicagoan spends an hour and a half commuting to and from work each day. With the second largest public transportation system in the country, one million people ride city buses each day. Mayor Daley considered both facts when he devised a plan aimed at easing congestion, commuting times, and air pollution in the central business district. A $153 million federal grant can help make this plan a reality.
Priority Given to Buses Over Cars
The first part of the plan entails creating a 100 mile bus corridor with dedicated bus lanes during peak hours. Kiosks selling bus tickets allow passengers to quickly board buses and many routes will run express, resulting in fewer stops. Traffic lights will be programmed to turn green for buses, helping to keep them in motion. Hybrid buses will be used, reducing pollution in these heavily populated areas.
In a recent post, my colleague Jennifer Lance asked whether Hillary Clinton can take on big oil. Among other things, Jennifer concluded that despite the good intentions of Senator Clinton,”A gas tax holiday will not solve the problem of peak oil.” And that is exactly the same message the Obama campaign wants to deliver in an ad now running in North Carolina ahead of next Tuesday’s primary.
The commercial denounces the proposed gas-tax cut, a proposal which Senators Clinton […]
After hearing President Bush blame Congress for our country’s high gas, food, and energy prices yesterday, I still wasn’t convinced that drilling in ANWR would solve all of our problems (note: sarcasm).
It turns out that voters, at least according to a poll of 1,200 Americans conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates Inc., feel the same way.
Not only did fifty-seven percent of voters rate energy issues as “very serious” concern, but they also thought investment in renewable energy was the best solution:
Word has it that the farm bill congressional conferees hammered out at the end of last week would most likely be vetoed by President Bush. The ink has not dried on the agreement, and that is why Congress had to pass an extension of the existing farm bill last week. The extension gives lawmakers until May 2, when they must either pass another stopgap measure or resort to the permanent 1949 agriculture law, if a new bill is not completed.
According to Ryan Grimm at Politico.com, when asked what the President would do if the current iteration of the farm bill made its way to the President’s desk White House spokesman Scott Stanzel replied, “as it stands now, it is not something the president would support.” Stanzel wrote in an email:
“The proposal before Congress would dramatically increase spending, in part by masking additional spending in budgetary gimmicks and accounting tricks.”
Farm bills pass - that’s what they do
Despite the threat, there may be enough Congressional support to override the veto. According to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN), “If the White House is stupid enough to veto this, they’re going to get overridden.”
This morning on NPR, President Bush tried to blame congress for the nation’s high gas, food, and electricity prices. Apparently, Congress has been thwarting the President’s attempts to fix the economy:
“I’ve repeatedly submitted proposals to help address these problems,” the president said. “Yet time after time, Congress chose to block them.”
By Jennifer Lance •
April 29, 2008
Did you know that Earth Day is also Lenin’s birthday? According to some sources, the choice of April 22 in 1970 as the first Earth Day was intentional as it was also the 100th birthday celebration of Lenin. According to Leftbooks.com, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported:
When Earth Day started in 1970, one of Georgia’s leading politicians tried to warn President Nixon, state governors and other national leaders that it was a
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