LA Weekly

Blog or not, I could not bear to watch. But Think Progress (ht: Gristmill) has done some thrilling fact-checking and contextualizing. Leave here. Go there.

UPDATE: More specifically, check out what ThinkProgress has dug up on Bush's biofuel rhetoric versus his actions, and his lies about supporting renewable energy.

And this is a clip to cheer the Bush-weary heart.

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There's buzz in the enviro-blog-o-sphere about tonight's State of the Union address, ranging from whether Bush will admit that human-spewed CO2 is changing the climate (unlikely -- but my blog-buddy Kit Stolz over at A Change in the Wind has taken a poll) to how alternative his energy ideas will be to whether he'll endorse the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel as a solution to the nuclear-power waste crisis. The Union of Concerned Scientists is especially in a lather about this one, and has sent out a press release advising listeners to look for embedded clues:

For instance, if Bush uses the term "renewable" nuclear energy or "recycling," he is likely referring to reprocessing spent fuel to extract the plutonium for eventual use as new reactor fuel. Phrases such as "new, safer technologies" and "solving the nuclear waste problem" also refer to reprocessing but are disingenuous; new reprocessing technologies would still make weapon-usable materials accessible to terrorists and nations, and would change the form and increase the volume of nuclear waste, thereby kicking the waste problem down the road.

It's the new SOTU drinking game challenge -- knock one back every time you think "Hey, what'd he mean by that?" As a general rule, I'm against reprocessing for the reasons John McPhee and UCS' Dave Lochbaum are: Proliferation and pollution. But I'm open to discussion on that one.

On another note, I did a segment of a Bay Area radio show this morning, Your Call Radio, with the always inspiring John Sellars of the Ruckus Society (I profiled him years ago, here) and Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. We talked about so-called "eco-terror" threat, the many indictments of the last month and the motiviations the FBI has to exaggerate the domestic "terror" threat coming from animal rights and fringe environmental groups. I was impressed with the high-minded tone of the discussion, the host and the callers. It was a good live media experience (and I've had some disasters). You can listen here.

And on that note: Read this post over at Gristmill about the recently indicted alleged ecoterrorists saboteurs and their "unremarkable lives." Evidently Chelsea Gerlach wrote in her yearbook that her generation was born to save the earth. Lock her up!

(Cartoon source: Funny Times)

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Bio-Beetle, previously exclusive to Maui, has just opened in Los Angeles. You can rent a BioBug as long as you fill it only with biodiesel and limit your driving to the Los Angeles area. My bug looks just like their mascot.

Joe Gershen of Green Depot and L.A. Biofuels delivered my first 55-gallon drum of biodiesel on Saturday. I drove to Joshua Tree and back on a little under a half tank. I'll post pictures of my home filling station soon.

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Get out and enjoy nature for a few days and look what happens: Everything changes, and you miss all the nature stories.

This was the biggest environmental story over the weekend until This Happened. I wasn't surprised to hear Bush, supposedly inspired by Thomas Friedman, promote alt-fuel made from corn. It takes a lot of oil to grow corn. But "waste materials?" Will he be talking about biodiesel made from rapeseed oil next?

(Friedman's "State of the Union" column is only available through Times Select, but if you write to me I'll send it to you. It's fair. I can send it to my friends. All readers of my blog are my friends.)

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This:

means you oughta consider going vegan.

(HT: A Change in the Wind.)

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Just as the news comes over the transom that Fox News paid $14,000 for its exclusive (whoo-hoo!) interview with Tom DeLay:

Paul Thacker of Environmental Science and Technology has a column up on The New Republic today holding FoxNews.com to account for the strange persistence of former tobacco shill turned ExxonMobil geisha Steven Milloy among its columnists. As Chris Mooney revealed in Mother Jones last year, professional climate-change debunker and Cato "scholar" Milloy:

runs two organizations that receive money from ExxonMobil. Between 2000 and 2003, the company gave $40,000 to the Advancement of Sound Science Center, which is registered to Milloy’s home address in Potomac, Maryland, according to IRS documents. ExxonMobil gave another $50,000 to the Free Enterprise Action Institute—also registered to Milloy’s residence.

Back then, "a Fox News spokesman stated that Milloy is 'affiliated with several not-for-profit groups that possibly may receive funding from Exxon, but he certainly does not receive funding directly from Exxon.'"

Interesting distinction, especially when those nonprofits are run out of his house.

Now comes Thacker, in both his TNR story and a blog entry at The Huffington Post, to show that Milloy's connection to big tobacco was more direct. "[A] January 2001 Philip Morris budget report lists Milloy as a consultant and shows that he was budgeted for $92,500 in fees and expenses in both 2000 and 2001," he writes. During that time, Milloy wrote copious text ridiculing studies proving the dangers of secondhand smoke.

It's reminiscent of other journalistic shills, such as Business Week Online's Michael Fumento ($60,000 for Monsanto to defend genetically engineered crops) and Chicago Tribune columnist Armstrong Williams (fired for taking $250,000 from the Bush admninistration to promote "No Child Left Behind"):

But whereas Scripps Howard fired Fumento and apologized to its readers, Fox News continues to look the other way as Milloy accepts corporate handouts. And it's not just the ExxonMobil money. Milloy has a long history of taking payment from industries that have a stake in the science stories he writes.

So what'll it be, Fox? Propaganda to flatter corporate America or fair and balanced journalism?

Wacky and predictable in that libertarian way (pro-DDT, anti-clean air), Milloy is fond of slamming Al Gore for his lucrative speaking engagements, somehow insinuating that the money blinds him to the reality that humans are not causing the climate to change (that's the new spin from the Reason-mag set -- you can't deny global warming, but you can still lift the blame off humans). But how does that compare with grinding your well-heeled boots into a position, against overwhelming scientific consensus, that serves the company that pays your mortgage?

Milloy never responds to requests for interviews. But it would sure be interesting to hear what logic he crafts to defend himself. I love it when nutty libertarians construct their proofs. It brings me right back to my high school debate team.

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EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley -- the same EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley who just a year ago took the EPA to task for calibrating mercury emissions standards to the Bush administration and industry's liking -- resigned today.

"As I conclude nearly 35 years of public service, I hope I have successfully demonstrated that career civil servants can provide you and future Presidents an excellent pool of candidates for Inspectors General positions due to our experience in government and the non-partisan nature of the positions. Unfortunately, I fear the pay inequities that were created with the implementation of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2004 will make it increasingly difficult to convince career employees to accept IG appointments in the future. I hope your Administration will work with Congress to address this issue and to encourage qualified career employees to serve as Inspectors General in the future."

The whole letter (as a downloadable PDF) is here

And a great profile by Dale Russakoff of the Washington Post is here:

"We are not just about following rules," said Tinsley, the EPA's inspector general since 1999. "We want to know if the rules make sense."

Tinsley recently has issued investigative reports concluding that a number of them do not. In late September, for example, she reported that a rule promulgated by the EPA "has seriously hampered" clean-air litigation against electric utilities by scaling back a requirement that polluters install emissions controls when adding to their facilities.

The same day, even as EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt was on the campaign trail for President Bush, touting the nation's air as "the cleanest most Americans have ever breathed," another IG report found that smog levels in major metropolitan areas had remained the same or gotten worse, making the air unhealthful

Tinsley is the second Inspector General to resign this week, after Department of Transportation IG Kenneth Mead on Monday.

UPDATE: If you want to understand the OIG/EPA conflict over mercury standards in more detail -- and the historical background of those standards -- check out Jeff Johnson's "Long Time Cutting" from Chemical and Engineering News.
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Note to Blaine Harden of the Washington Post, who says this in his article on the 11 indictments of so-called "eco-terrorists":

"The ELF has also claimed responsibility for arsons in housing developments and attacks on SUV sales lots."

You have no evidence that tThe ELF," such as it is, "claimed responsibility" for any of those deeds. People made some prank phone calls, maybe, and a college kid with Asperger's spray-painted "ELF" on some SUVs and lit a couple of them on fire. As his trial shows, William Cottrell never had anything to do with any environmentalist group, let alone a terrorist one. He said so, they said so.

Oh, for God's sake. What's become of the media in this country?

Eleven people have been indicted for $23 million in property damage and no deaths. This is the country's greatest domestic terrorist threat? Then, I'd say, we're in pretty good shape.

David Roberts at Gristmill says it best:

By no reasonable metric would eco-terrorism and animal-rights direct action combined be judged the premiere domestic threat of our times. The number of lives taken and property damaged by organized crime swamps anything done by the ELF, even if we accept every claim made on its behalf. Drugs, prostitution, smuggling, piracy -- all kill more and damage more property. Hell, white collar crime makes the $23-million-over-10-years attributed to "eco-terrorism" look like a laughable rounding error.

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. . . had the reactor head at Davis-Besse burst in a cloud of radioactive steam?

The U.S. Justice Department has ordered FirstEnergy, the owner of the Davis-Besse nuclear plant on Lake Erie in Ohio, to by $28 million in fines, restitution and community service projects for deliberately falsifying information to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about the plant's 2002 fuel leak. In 2001, acid was found to have eaten away at a steel cap on a reactor vessel; Toledo Blade reporter Tom Henry has described it as a "gaping cavity that almost burst open with radioactive steam, " and "the nuclear industry’s biggest safety lapse since the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 nuclear plant in eastern Pennsylvania in 1979," according to NRC officials.

According to today's AP story (Forbes has it laid out nicely here), "Company and Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigations concluded that the rust hole had been growing for at least four years and that Davis-Besse's managers had ignored the evidence because they were focused on profits rather than safety at the plant."

I'm not going to defend FirstEnergy, but as the Blade reports, at least one NRC official had a hold of this photo of the rusted reactor, (known as the "red photo") in May of 2000, and allowed the reactor to continue operating through 2002 (FirstEnergy "fought off" a shutdown in 2001, the Blade says). It seems to me Davis-Besse points to a larger systemic failure than just one company messing up.

Nor is it possible to pin the whole mess on Andrew Siemaszko, the engineer scapegoated for the nearly averted disaster. Siemaszko claims in a whistleblower complaint that he was fired in 2002 for insisting on expensive overhauls the company didn't want to pay for.

Somehow, $28 million doesn't seem like enough. Money doesn't seem like enough. You might even say that events like this one serve to turn the public off an energy source that could avert climate change, and therefore FirstEnergy, the NRC and whoever else snoozed on the job should be held responsible for the carbon in the atmosphere.

Okay, that's a stretch. But the point is: The U.S. is never going to adopt nuclear energy whole hog unless the root causes of these mishaps -- and Davis-Besse is only the biggest in recent years -- are acknowledged and addressed. Safety vs. profit is not a fair fight.

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ABC News reports that vultures in South Asia have been driven to "the brink of extinction" -- their numbers have plummeted by 97 percent -- because of an anti-inflammatory drug used widely in cows. The drug isn't toxic to mammals, but it's killing the birds in droves. And if you think vultures don't matter, think again:

Normally flocks of vultures — there are three main varieties in the region — then quickly devour the carcasses and reduce them to a tidy pile of bones. But today, with populations nearly extinct, the dead animals often rot. The deteriorating flesh attracts wild animals, such as feral dogs, cats and rats, which then flourish and pose a risk for attack on people.

The rotting carcasses also become breeding grounds for diseases such as anthrax.

"If a carcass is unconsumed for a day, anthrax within the animal has a chance to form spores, and these spores are incredibly resistant," said Rick Watson of the Peregrine Fund in Boise, Idaho. "That's how the disease spreads. So you set yourself up for increased incidence of disease — both animal and human."

The only solution may be a captive-breeding program. Sound familiar?

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I'm off-topic here -- this is not strictly an environmental issue, although in the great Venn diagram of art and science, there is some overlap -- but I never, ever thought this would happen. In fact, I stopped paying attention to the awful plight of Critical Art Ensemble artist and professor Steve Kurtz; I had such faith the federal government, the grand jury and all the powers that rule the world would deem the case against him so utterly ridiculous.

Guess I was wrong.

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From the American Society of Civil Engineers' report card, 2005:

"Aging wastewater management systems discharge billions of gallons of untreated sewage into U.S. surface waters each year. The EPA estimates that the nation must invest $390 billion over the next 20 years to replace existing systems and build new ones to meet increasing demands. Yet, in 2005, Congress cut funding for wastewater management for the first time in eight years. The Bush administration has proposed a further 33% reduction, to $730 million, for FY06."

Considering the 2 million gallons of toxic effluent went cascading into the South Bay backyards and beaches yesterday, that further reduction might not be such a good idea. ASCE estimates that California has nearly $15 billion in wastewater infrastructure repair needs languishing in budget shortfalls; San Diego has already suffered its share of sewage spills, most of them caused by aging pipes and pumps, as has Orange County; Los Angeles has had over 300 in the last few years caused by problems in the public sewer system.

In February 2004, the NRDC put out this report on the looming sewage scenario and the Bush administration's cuts; the report includes a segment dedicated to Los Angeles:

"By 2010, about 75 percent of the nearly 6,000-mile Los Angeles sewer system will be more than 50 years old. Ten years after that, about 93 percent of the system will be more than 50 years old, and 49 percent will be more than 70 years old."

It would seem that this week's spill is merely a small taste (ick!) of what's to come.

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This story from today's New York Times is about fuel and food competing over corn; it's mostly about ethanol, but biodiesel enthusiasts should read it, too.

Is the increasing demand for plant-based fuel threatening our food supply? Will the rush to grow crops for fuel usher in a new era of deforestation and destructive farming?

We need to answer these questions.

I don't think they're impossible, but they have to be addressed.

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Everyone knows this already, but the California Public Utilities Commission voted 3-1 yesterday to dedicate $3.2 billion to the now-proverbial Million Solar Roofs. Commissioner Geoffrey Brown dissented, saying "We have put our enthusiasm before our prudence."

Paul Rogers' story in the San Jose Mercury News addresses some nagging questions about the initiaive, such as consumer credits for green power and electrical-worker wage issues:

Democratic leaders in Sacramento said Thursday that they .. . intend to require that industrial, commercial and government solar jobs pay high ``prevailing wages'' -- generally comparable to union wages. That position doomed the solar effort last year because environmentalists and Schwarzenegger said it would raise costs too much.

But I continue to be nagged. More to come.

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As the proud owner of the 2002 Volkswagen New Beetle TDI, powered on biodiesel, I've been obsessing over biodiesel information, links, emissions data, Sierra Club opinions, slander, constructive criticism, and generally all things biodiesel. And I've found a new blog I love that seamlessly blends the sacred and the profane -- talk of exes and homebrew mishaps, nice scenes from rainy days and commiseration about funky work hours (like mine -- these days, 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. with a break for dinner, then midnight to three. Not healthy). I was looking for an excerpt but it's really not excerptable. You just have to look for yourself, here.

I know biodiesel isn't perfect. The nitrogen emissions of some blends can be high, contributing to the formation of ozone. It's possible that forests will be destroyed to grow crops if the fuel catches on (although that's pretty remote -- the market is now so small). We probably can't recycle enough waste oil to power the world. So why use it? For me, it was a matter of reducing greenhouse gases and no longer wanting to line the pockets of the oil conglomerates, which strike me as part of one of the more corrupt industries on earth.

But the best answer I got to the "why use it" question was from Joe Gershen of Green Depot: "We can't possibly displace all the gasoline in the world with biodiesel," he told me. "But we need to focus on a polyfuel future, and realize there is no magic bullet. What's going to completely replace petroleum? They're looking for one solution. And as long as we look for one solution it's too overwhelming. The only solution is multiple solutions."

I'll post pictures of my bug when my vanity license plates arrive.

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The four eligible voting members of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) are scheduled to decide January 12 whether to outfit a million California buildings with solar power with $3.2 billion in rebates and low-income ratepayer support. According to Environment California's math, the proposed California Solar Initiative -- a virtual carbon copy of the Million Solar Roofs bill that stalled out in the Assembly last year -- would add "the equivalent of six power plants" to California's energy portfolio, which may help the state wean itself off other states' coal.

If you recall, it was mostly a standoff with the IBEW over "who gets the jobs" (see Dean Kuipers' CityBeat interview with EC's Bernadette Del Chiaro here) that brought down the proposal in the Assembly. Intriguingly, EC's press release addresses that: "What's also exciting is that we've won the support of even more allies for this policy initiative, including the California Apollo Alliance made up of leading labor unions."

I want to know more. In the meantime, Environment California's take action form is here.

On a related note, the Solar Living Center in Hopland, where they teach ordinary slobs like me to install their own solar electricity, was utterly devastated by last week's floods, and is in desperate need of help to stay alive. They need volunteers to help cleanup tomorrow, and $150,000 to repair the water and fire damage. I've always meant to take one of their affordable and highly recommended classes, so I'm inclined to help them out. I hope others do, too.

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David Roberts at Gristmill has compiled more and excellent links about safety violations and information blackouts at the Sago mine, including some from ThinkProgress that unravel into some illuminating arguments between the right and the left. All I'll say is to make this a political issue is stupid; there's nothing Republican about the Bush administration's mismanagement of MSHA; it's just the same garden-variety incompetence this regime has shown from the start.

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David Sirota, former spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, saw up close how the Bush Administration began its drive to cut $15 million from already cash-starved mine safety programs; later, Bush filled MSHA, the arm of the Department of Labor that regulates mines and punishes violations, with cronies and industry-friendly hacks. Now, in the wake of yesterday's disaster at the Sago mine, Sirota, along with others who were once on the inside, is talking and blogging about it:

Bush knew full well that mine safety was suffering - and now we know he didn't do anything about it, to tragic consequences. They can put out GOP hacks and administration spokespeople to deny this reality - but the facts are there. Here's hoping Democrats are able to force an investigation, as requested by Reps. George Miller (CA) and Major Owens (NY) - it's high time the White House answer for its negligence.

Jordan Barab, who spent 16 years running AFSCME's health and safety program, is blogging, too: In a long, emotional post on Confined Space, a watchdog blog on workplace safety, he excoriates the administration for its war on working class miners:

[We] . . . need to remember that by passing the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Mine Safety and Health Act, this country made a solemn promise that everything possible would be done to ensure a safe workplace for American workers. These promises weren't made because a bunch of reasonable politicians thought it was a reasonable thing to do; they were a product of struggle and organizing. They were literally bathed in the blood of millions of American workers who were been maimed and killed building this country and putting food on the table for their families.

(Go read it; the guy's not only an inside expert but a compelling writer.)

Finally, Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! this morning featured Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, on the weird new practice of letting the mining company, ICG, handle all information requests during and in the wake of the disaster:

The only faces the public and the press are seeing here are company officials, and it's just shocking as to why that is, because the Labor Department, of which MSHA is a part, has at least two, and perhaps more, public affairs employees at the mine site with satellite phones and all sorts of ability to communicate. But they haven't had any briefings. They haven't answered any questions. I personally asked MSHA to obtain for my newspaper from its files on the mine permits, this operation, a copy of the underground map. And I was told by . . . of their P.R. people, “Well, you'll have to get that from the company.” I mean, it's just – it’s a shocking thing here.

Why is this happening? If you read or listen to the rest of the show -- with one more insider, mine safety expert turned whistleblower Jack Spadara -- you'll find some clues.

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It's predictable that the media will jump on today's tragic news from the Sago mine in West Virginia as the sign of some sort of trend, but in this case it may be true. In the summer of 2004, the Society of Environmental Journalists issued a "tip sheet" featuring Ellen Smith, publisher of Mine Safety and Health News, who wrote in a July 5, 2004 editorial that the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the division of the U.S. Department of Labor that monitors and regulates mine safety, had suddenly stopped releasing essential information, such as the biographies of new appointees to the agencies and inspector's reports from the field. "I keep asking myself, 'Is this America?" Smith wrote. "How can this administration adopt policies that go against democratic traditions? How can MSHA secretly adopt policies that go against 27 years of openness? And how can this administration openly violate a law whose intent and purpose is to make records available to the public?'"

A 26-year history of federal criminal proceedings against mining companies is available at The Memory Hole. Violations include accumulations of coal dust and inadequate ventilation, along with other problems that may or may not have contributed to the deaths of the 12 workers at Sago. The MSHA promises a complete investigation by an independent team, but you have to wonder how much of the truth will make it out.

Thanks to Paul Thacker of Environmental Science and Technology for the links.

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CBS News has video footage of the Sacramento River overtopping a levee near Collinsville in Northern California. Apparently another one has been submerged in the Delta, flooding Twitchell Island. There could be more of this to come this winter, as the accompanying story notes. The video makes it all less abstract.

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Miranda Spencer of Green Goddess Gazette alerted me to legislation pending in Pennsylvania that could make it a crime to do something as innocuous as handing out leaflets on company property -- provided those leaflets have something to do with animal rights or the environment. Pennsylvania House Bill 213 would add a broadly defined category called "ecoterrorism" to the list of specific crimes in the state, and increase penalties for crimes in that category accordingly. I can't figure out from reading it whether trespassing might be considered a felony if an environmnentalist is doing it. I also can't figure out why such a law is necessary. As the ACLU has pointed out, such a bill "violates the First Amendment because it authorizes greater penalties for defendants with certain disfavored political views." That pretty much gets to the heart of the whole campaign.

Also, as I recall from hearing attorney Thomas Linzey speak at Bioneers two years ago, environmental resistance is a pretty big bi-partisan issue in Pennsylvania, where 80 percent of the rural population is Republican, but had the temerity to stand up to agribusiness anyway. I can't sum up Linzey's speech, but it's great reading. It seems to me this bill and Linzey's movement could be connected. Miranda?

The Pennsylvania Senate met about the ecoterrorism legislation last spring, and the House amended it on November 15 to include agricultural crop destruction. It doesn't look like the Senate has acted on it yet.

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