LA Weekly

"We figured it was almost like giving music to the Army, or Exxon."

--TransAm guitarist Philip Manley

"At least I can sleep without nightmares."

--LiLiPuT's Marlene Marder.

"It's just so evil."

--Thermals lead singer Hutch Harris.

What are these lesser-known but well-deserving independent musicians talking about? The reasons why they won't license their music for Hummer commercials. Even for $180,000.

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The Supreme Court today will hear arguments as to whether the most extreme property-rights absolutists can essentially nullify the Clean Water Act and be allowed to destroy wetlands in the name of commerce. The two separate cases involve Michigan developers John Rapanos and Keith Carabell: Rapanos was brought up on criminal charges when he illegally started filling in wetlands on his Michigan farm; Carabell wants to develop a parcel containing wetlands, and has been denied a permit by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Lawyers for both landowners argue that because the wetlands in question aren't connected to any "navigable" waterway, they aren't subject to the Clean Water Act.

But scientists and environmentalists argue that basic hydrology says that almost every wetland connects to another water source, sometimes a drinking water source, and every dry river runs wet underground on its way to some larger body of water.

The decision could have consequences locally in several battles over waterways and wetlands, including the upper reaches of the Santa Clara River. But what's most interesting to me is how different media outlets around the country are interpreting the story differently. To wit:

NPR's Morning Edition states plainly that:

The Supreme Court hears arguments on Tuesday in two cases that could dramatically limit the reach of the Clean Water Act.

But the Detroit News begins its story:

Two Michigan cases being heard before the U.S. Supreme Court today will test how far the federal government can extend its authority over privately owned land. The outcome should be of interest to anyone who buys a piece of property with the reasonable expectation that they might someday actually use that property.

And according to the Tucson Citizen:

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide today whether federal regulators overstepped their constitutional bounds by enforcing clean-water laws in areas where there's barely any water to protect.

On the other hand, says the St. Petersburg Times in Florida:

Two cases that could have major implications for Florida's vanishing wetlands will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court today.

Both out of Michigan, the cases focus on how much power regulators have to protect wetlands under the federal Clean Water Act.

The position of the two Michigan developers, says the Tucson paper, is "backed by a coalition of home builders, farmers and Western water providers, including the Central Arizona Project."

But in Florida, between 1999 and 2003, reports the St. Petersburg Times, "[the corps] approved more than 12,000 permits to wipe out wetlands and rejected only one."

Last year, after the St. Petersburg Times questioned Corps officials about their oversight of wetland construction, the Corps rejected six permits-the most in more than a decade.

A Times analysis of satellite imagery found that in the past 15 years Florida lost 84,000 acres of wetlands to development, even though federal policy says there should be no net loss of wetlands.

I could go back and forth like this all day. It's fascinating: One state's boon is another state's disaster, and it doesn't much matter whether that state is red or blue: If you've seen what happens when your swamps disappear, as they have in Florida, you know why it's important to protect them. In fact, a New York Times' editorial suggest that nothing less than our very civilization is at stake:

These cases are an important test of the legal philosophy of John Roberts Jr., the new chief justice, and Samuel Alito Jr., the new associate justice. If they take a hard-line states' rights stance, it will be a sign that they agree with ultraconservatives who want to restrict Congress's power to regulate critical national matters like environmental protection, public health and workplace safety.

Unlike our own Southern California Metropolitan Water District, which sides with the developers, I agree.

I was encouraged by yesterday's decision to allow the UDV to legally use ayahuasca in their religious ceremonies (I can personally attest that the "hallucinogenic tea," as it's described, has no future as a recreational drug). But I wonder: Does a reasonable drug policy ruling signal a libertarian court? Both developers in the Michigan cases are backed by wacko libertarian think tanks such as the Pacific Legal Foundation, which denies climate change and advocates for the return of DDT. If the court decides in their favor, is it the beginning of the end for the laws that protect clean air and water against rampant development?

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In the fury over the Cheney shooting and my own deadline scramble (my mercury story, "Things to do Before You Get Pregnant" is here), I missed the chance to blog Bettina Boxall's astute and thorough story about Tracy Republican Richard Pombo in Tuesday's L.A. Times. It's framed as an exploration of Pombo's ties to Abramoff, but it amounts to a measured expose of all the Congressman's lies: he's "exaggerated" the impact of endangered species protection on his own land (it was never declared "critical habitat" for the kit fox); he portrays himself as a rural rancher when in fact he wanted to sell off his own land to suburban sprawl; and the man is bought and paid for on nearly every issue he champions:

According to data compiled by the Campaign Finance Analysis Project, Pombo has, during his congressional career, collected more than $800,000 from agriculture, timber and fishing interests. The building industry has given him $205,000; oil and gas, $169,000; mining, $55,000; and casinos and gambling, $147,000.

Pombo watchers will want to cut this one out and carry it around in their pockets.

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Paul Thacker has alerted me to guest blogger Stephanie Mencimer's post on Kevin Drum's blog, about a mining company that's suing the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) for failing to sufficiently police its operations. Two years ago, three miners were killed and two more disabled in an explosion at a mine owned by CONSOL Energy. The mine workers' families sued CONSOL. Now CONSOL is suing MSHA, claiming that a lack of government oversight -- oversight mining lobbyist worked hard to eliminate -- created the conditions for the accident.

By this logic, Mencimer notes, we could all sue for all sorts of things:

"[Y]ou can imagine the creative possibilities for companies in the midst of expensive litigation: Merck sues FDA for letting it sell Vioxx! Ford sues the transportation department for not demanding roll-over tests for SUVs! DuPont sues EPA for failing to notice when it dumped toxic chemicals into people’s drinking water!"

And I could sue the California Highway Patrol for allowing me to get in an accident while I was driving drunk; or Building and Safety for allowing me to put up that ramshackle garage that collapsed on me in an earthquake; or even the Air Resources Board for not stopping me from driving a particulate-belching truck that gave me asthma.

Or if you ruin your life smoking crack, you could sue the Office of National Drug Control Policy for failing to keep drugs off the streets.

(Maybe I could sue Typepad for the errors I made trying to blog this. Shouldn't my typos be regulated?)

You get the idea.

But the real irony is that it's the energy companies themselves who hired lobbyists to encourage the Bush administration to slash MSHA's funding. Bush has cut 170 jobs at MSHA since taking office, and his 2006 budget proposes another $4.9 million in cuts. For years, the administration has stocked MSHA's leadership with former energy company executives who have blocked rules to improve mine safety. Maybe they should be suing themselves.

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The deal to mine gravel in Soledad Canyon was inked yesterday by the 9th Circuit, despite objections from the county, the city (Santa Clarita) and the state of California. Only the federal government liked the deal, and pushed it through. Tom Dresslar, speaking for State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, told the LA Daily News that:

"The Bush administration intervened in this action; it took the position the federal government's contract with Cemex trumped California laws to protect the environment," he said. "That's a dangerous precedent. We hope the Bush administration or the federal government refrains in the future from taking a position that California's environmental protection laws take a back seat to its contracts with private parties."

Cemex, Inc., a mining company out of Mexico, plans to mine in the upper reaches of the still-wild Santa Clara River, where the water runs year round and the unarmored stickleback fish enjoys its last refuge. The mining project explicity intends to pump significant ground and river water; it's likely the river will go dry.

An endangered species suit is pending.

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We don't know that Vice President Dick Cheney wasn't shooting at feckless little quail raised in a pen and fed by humans when he "peppered," or, rather "sprayed," his lawyer friend with pellets from his 28-gauge shotgun. But we do know that he's been on a canned hunt before: In December of 2003, he and his buddies went after 500 ring-necked pheasants released at a Pennsylvania Country Club for their shooting pleasure and downed 417 of them (what happened, I wonder, to the remaining 83? How do you get over a day like that?). Cheney's score that day: 70 birds, 0 lawyers.

So I offer up this video from the Humane Society of the United States so you can experience just how challenging and sportsmanlike the practice is.

And don't cry when you watch that big ram go down with six arrows and a gunshot wound, you sissies. Just pretend he's a Texas lawyer. Evidently their kind don't go down easily.

I'd go easier on the VP if he went easier on national parks, endangered species or even Patrick Leahy. But failing to see in him a minute's worth of interest in public service in the three decades he's been playing at it, I consider him fair game. For ridicule, I mean.

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“We go out when the dew is still on the grass, and then hunt until we shoot our limit. Then we pick a fine spot and have a wild game picnic lunch.”

-Tobin Armstrong, 2000

Tobin Armstrong is dead, but before that he was a ranching heir with international holdings who hosted many a White House gala on his 50,000-acre ranch. His grandaddy fought outlaws. His wife, Anne, best friend of Kay Bailey Hutchinson, was on the Haliburton board when it hired Cheney; his daughter, Katharine, who was out sitting in the SUV when the Vice President "peppered" his friend with shotgun pellets, once presided over Texas' commission on parks and wildlife -- appointed by then-Governor George W. Bush.

Tobin Armstrong, during the 2000 election campaign, claimed that Cheney was an excellent shot. "He doesn't claim the bird," he said. "He's not an 'I-got-him' type of fellow."

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Michael Hiltzik doesn't talk about the threat to the bighorn sheep and desert tortoise if Keith Blackpool and his company, Cadiz, Inc., gets its way with the Mojave's water. But he does make a pretty good case that some of California's Democrats are all caught up with the Santa Monica developer -- many have been on the company's payroll -- which has no experience in the sort of thing it's proposing in our sensitive desert. Details and the full column from the LA Times today on Hiltzik's Golden State Blog.

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The Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and the Environmental Quality Instiute at the University of North Carolina just released interim results of a landmark study of mercury in humans. For some reason, I expected those places near coal-fired power plants -- Nashville, Memphis, Pittsburgh, Chicago -- to have populations with high mercury levels. That was wrong. Crunching some numbers shows that mercury concentrations are highest in the bodies of residents in:

1. Honolulu
2. Tampa, FL
3. Norwalk-Stamford, CT
4. Naples, FL
5. Nassau-Suffolk, NY
6. Tallahassee, FL
7. Dutchess County, NY
8. LOS ANGELES-LONG BEACH, CA
9 San Diego, CA
10 West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, FL

That's right -- in the places where the well-heeled eat a lot of fish. It strikes me as most ironic that California, which has tried so hard over the years to keep coal-fired plants safely out of state (we outsource pollution, one environmentalist told me), could not keep the mercury out of its residents' bodies. Behind Hawaii, Alaska, New York, Connecticut, Oregon and Arkansas (Arkansas? Why Arkansas?) the state ranks 6th in a breakdown of residents' mercury levels by state.

More on this in the next few days.

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David Zahniser of Copley News Service has done some careful math to suggest that if L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gets his way, the new head of the Metropolitan Water District will resurrect a project by Santa Monica-based Cadiz, Inc. for a groundwater-depleting, infrastructure-intensive water storage facility in the sensitive Mojave Desert.

The MWD struck down the Cadiz deal in 2002 partially on the grounds that it would violate the Desert Protection Act. But Assemblyman Richard Katz, whom Villaraigosa favors for the top MWD slot, has been chatting up his students and others about the possible merits of the project. What's more, Cadiz has been suing for breach of contract, and the four board members, appointed by former Mayor James Hahn, who voted against settling have been replaced by Villaraigosa. And then:

Since 1999, Villaraigosa has received at least $61,450 in campaign contributions from Cadiz, its executives and its board of directors, according to Ethics Commission reports. Villaraigosa worked for Cadiz as a consultant in 2001 and 2002, and the company's president, Keith Brackpool, has been one of the mayor's close friends, a political fund-raiser who directed $25,000 toward Villaraigosa's inaugural ball, which raised money for after-school programs.

It's a not an airtight case -- Villaraigosa's office denies any plans to resuscitate the project -- but Zahniser raises some pretty good questions. There's no doubt among environmentalists that Cadiz would drive the already troubled bighorn sheep to the brink of extirpation from the desert, as the groundwater mining would deplete the seeps and springs upon which they depend. And then there's the threat the project poses to the desert tortoise, desert air quality and the pristine open space of the Mojave National Preserve. On top of that, at water costs nearly 50 percent higher than the going rate, it's probably a bad deal.

Then again, bringing up the Cadiz issue could be one way of blocking intense lobbying efforts by Villaraigosa and Katz himself. But this is something watch.

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“[S]oon we’ll be weaning ourselves off the oil teat, so all that chaos in the Middle East won’t be quite so scary, hmmm? Forgive us if we can’t keep a straight face while an alcoholic oil man scolds us for being 'addicted' to foreign crude. Tell us, Mister Future Man, when technology comes to our rescue and we’re all driving solar-powered Humvees through the cornfields that keep our electric toilet seats warm, will we have figured out what to do with the huge piles of nuclear waste we’ve got stored in unsecured locations around the country? No? Then maybe we could put off creating more atomic employment opportunities for Homer Simpson until we nip that little problem in the ass.”

Annotated Rant says Fuck the State of the Union

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I waited and waited for NPR's Martin Kaste, in his profile this morning of the anti-biofuels professor, Tad Patzek, to make some distinction between ethanol made from corn (evil) and biodiesel made from recycled vegetable oil (less evil). But he only got to celluostic ethanol (medium evil) before the program wrapped up.

Not surprising, maybe -- radio is tough that way. And Patzek is an odd fellow, one who says he's for cutting oil consumption, but oversees reservoir engineering and control studies at the UC Oil Consortium, which he established in 1994 to help the oil industry develop new ways of extracting oil and maximizing output. Membership in the consortium costs $60,000 per year per company, and members over the years have included Aera Energy, BP, CalResources, Chevron USA, Mobil USA, Statoil, Shell Development, Shell Western E&P and Unocal. (Current members are Chevron and Phillips.)

Patzek main job is to help oil companies figure out how to get the oil out of the rock.

And as we know, the oil giants had a record year. So much for Kaste's portrait of Patzek as a man having a "penchant for lost causes."

Patzek and Kaste only ridicule biodiesel -- they don't discuss recycled vegetable oil, or soybean oil, or a polyfuel transportation future that might include biodiesel along with other forms of energy. And they don't make much of a case against it, except to have a giggling woman talk about how driving a biodiesel car let's her be lazy and guilt-free. (I don't know any biodiesel driver locally who argues BioD is benign and utterly guilt free -- I certainly don't.)

They do, however, make a good case against corn-based ethanol, which Patzek says requires a 10th more energy, in the form of petroleum, nitrogen and other substances, than it produces. And even though the U.S. Department of Agriculture comes up with different math (it claims corn-based ethanol results in a 16 btu/gal energy gain), I'm still with Patzek on this one: Corn takes way too much space, water, petroleum and labor to be worth the pain of ethanol.

David Pimentel has been making this argument for years, with much more credibility, as a professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell (he calls corn-based ethanol "subsidized food-burning"). Unlike Patzek, however, Pimentel is careful to make the distinction between corn-based biofuels and fuel from other sources. Corn, after all, yields only about 20 gallons an acre. Rapeseed (canola) crops, on the other hand, yield over 120 gallons an acre, and are much less energy intensive to grow. And while we can't fuel the country on the detritus of fast food, recycled waste vegetable oil can certainly be part of the mix.

I wouldn't expect Patzek to talk about that. But I would expect journalists who quote him to put him context.

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No, only from a wack job named Steven Milloy.

Fortune magazine would like you think it's bigger than that, but the argument doesn't hold up past the nut graf. Immelt argues his plan to cut the company's carbon emissions is good business as well as good citizenship. Sounds good to me, good to most people, and plenty of other companies are following suit. Writes Business Week:

A surprising number of companies in old industries such as oil and materials as well as high tech are preparing for this profoundly altered world. They are moving swiftly to measure and slash their greenhouse gas emissions. And they are doing it despite the Bush Administration's opposition to mandatory curbs.

This change isn't being driven by any sudden boardroom conversion to environmentalism. It's all about hard-nosed business calculations. "If we stonewall this thing to five years out, all of a sudden the cost to us and ultimately to our consumers can be gigantic," warns [Cinergy CEO James] Rogers, who will manage 20 coal-fired power plants if Cinergy's pending merger with Duke Energy is completed next year.

Milloy, however, has set up a "Free Enterprise Action Fund" to counterbalance environmentalist pressure on companies. But hardly anybody's signed up for it -- the fund has only $5 million in investments, which Milloy could probably pay himself in the bucks he rakes in as a corporate shill playing journalist. I hope that's because even at Goldman Sachs and Microsoft, people know he's nuts.

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