Bush Administration Departing Proposal Slammed As “Fire Sale” For Oil And Gas Industry

If the Bush Administration has its way, iconic views across the country could be sullied by oil rigs and other machinery owned by oil and gas companies. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has announced a December 19th auction of more than 50,000 acres of oil and gas parcels alongside or within Arches National Park and two other redrock national parks in Utah – Dinosaur and Canyonlands – in what environmentalists are slamming as a “fire sale” for the industry.

One of the landmarks that could be affected is the Delicate Arch natural bridge in Utah, a scene so treasured it’s on Utah license plates. The top National Park Service official in Utah is justifiably angry about the announcement, given that his agency wasn’t even properly notified, calling the sale “shocking and disturbing”.

From The Huffington Post:

Officials of the BLM, which oversees millions of acres of public land in the West, say the sale is nothing unusual, and one is “puzzled” that the Park Service is upset.

“We find it shocking and disturbing,” said Cordell Roy, the chief Park Service administrator in Utah. “They added 51,000 acres of tracts near Arches, Dinosaur and Canyonlands without telling us about it. That’s 40 tracts within four miles of these parks.”

Top aides to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne stepped into the fray, ordering the sister agencies to make amends. His press secretary, Shane Wolfe, told The Associated Press that deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett “resolved the dispute within 24 hours” last week.

A compromise ordered by the Interior Department requires the BLM to “take quite seriously” the Park Service’s objections, said Wolfe.

However, the BLM didn’t promise to pull any parcels from the sale, and in an interview after the supposed truce, BLM state director Selma Sierra was defiant, saying she saw nothing wrong with drilling near national parks.

Selma Sierra went on to say that there are many parcels leased around parks, and this is nothing new. But Cordell Roy and conservationists have a bone to pick with that statement, saying the bureau has never before put so many drilling parcels directly on the fence lines of national parks. Franklin Seal, a spokesman for the environmental group Wildland CPR, says you can see drill pads on the hillside when standing at Delicate Arch.

It’s obvious enough what this is: Bush’s final gift to the oil and gas industry. They know they won’t be getting this kind of special treatment from Obama, so they’re asking for as many favors as they can get away with before Bush is gone for good. Environmental reform is coming, like it or not!

Link [The Huffington Post]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Department of Energy Stopping Important Global Warming Research Project

For over a decade, scientists have been working on a federally-funded research project called ‘Free Air CO2 Enrichment’ (FACE) to determine the effect of carbon dioxide on forests. Millions of dollars have already been spent pumping elevated levels of CO2 into experimental forests, and scientists say they’re on the cusp of receiving key results that may be crucial to our understanding of how global warming will affect the planet. But, the Department of Energy is ready to cut the trees down, saying they need the funding for other things.

From The Huffington Post:

That plan has upset some researchers who have spent years trying to understand how forests may help stave off global warming, and who want to keep the project going for at least a couple of more years.

“There has been an investment in these experiments and it’s a shame we are going to walk away from that investment,” said William Chameides, an atmospheric scientist at Duke University, where one of the experimental forests is located. “There is no question that ultimately we want to cut the trees down and analyze the soil. The question is whether now is the time to do it.”

Ronald Neilson, a U.S. Forest Service bio-climatologist in Corvallis, Ore., said the experiments should continue because they still have potential to answer key questions about how rainfall and fertility affect how much carbon a forest will store long-term _ essential to understanding how forests may soften the blow of climate change.

The Energy Department is insisting that cutting down the trees now and digging up the soil will allow the first real measurements of how much carbon various parts of the trees have been storing. They also say that ending the experiments will allow them to forward the funding to new research that will examine the effects of higher temperatures, changes in rainfall and variations in soil fertility.

Some of the scientists associated with the project say that if it’s stopped now, all of the time spent on this all-consuming project will be for nothing. Ram Oren, associate professor of ecology at Duke University and principle investigator of the experiments there, says “To stop an experiment that cost $55 million, $10 million before it reaches its real conclusion makes no sense to me.”

What’s the deal with the Bush Administration lately? It seems as if this is yet another part of their recent hackjob on the environment, destroying progress and ensuring that Obama’s task of cleaning up their mess is even more difficult.

Link [The Huffington Post]
Photo credit: Duke University

New Bush Rule Eases Pollution Restrictions on Factory Farms

With just months left in office, it seems that President Bush has a fire under his ass to destroy the environment in as many ways as possible before he vacates the White House. The Bush Administration is already rushing to ease endangered species laws so government-approved building projects can move forward; now, we’re hearing that they have made thousands of factory farms exempt from needing permits that limit water pollution. The EPA also decided not to improve controls for bacteria and other pathogens that pose risk to human health and wildlife.

From The Daily Green:

Confined Animal Feeding Lots or CAFOs, as factory farms operations are known, are huge polluters. They create large amounts of waste that doesn’t become fertilizer for farms but often runs off into waterways, contaminating drinking supplies and harming aquatic life. The release says that the EPA estimates that these facilities generate three times more waste than people do nationwide.

According to the NRDC, the new rule:

• Creates a loophole allowing facility operators to avoid permits by claiming they won’t have a discharge.
• Adopts a scheme that allows facilities to avoid certain environmental enforcement. For instance, if an operator certifies that the facility won’t have a discharge, environmental authorities will ignore enforcement action, even if the facility discharges to the nation’s waters.
• Rejects improvements in technology that would reduce harmful bacteria and other pathogens contained in animal waste, missing an opportunity to prevent water pollution and threats to public health.

Maybe this is just an extension of his gleeful “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter!” exclamation at the G8 summit – in other words, he’s a little kid willfully trashing the place in disobedience. Congratulations, Bush – you’ll go down in the history book for many things, not the least of which is being the WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER.

Link [The Daily Green]
Photo credit: StoptheMegaDairy.org

Bush Administration Rushing to Ease Endangered Species Laws

In the final months of Bush’s rule as President of the United States, his administration is feverishly working to push through government-approved building projects that can only be carried out if endangered species laws are eased.  In fact, Interior Department officials are so eager to loosen the laws that protect these animals, they’re poring over 200,000 public comments in just 32 hours.

From Yahoo News:

The Fish and Wildlife Service has called a team of 15 people to Washington this week to pore through letters and online comments about a proposal to exclude greenhouse gases and the advice of federal biologists from decisions about whether dams, power plants and other federal projects could harm species. That would be the biggest change in endangered species rules since 1986.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., whose own letter opposing the changes is among the thousands that will be processed, called the 32-hour deadline a “last-ditch attempt to undermine the long-standing integrity of the Endangered Species program.”

At that rate, according to a committee aide’s calculation, 6,250 comments would have to be reviewed every hour. That means that each member of the team would be reviewing at least seven comments each minute.

It usually takes months to review public comments on a proposed rule, and by law the government must respond before a rule becomes final.

It’s the Republicans taking the side of business over anything and everything else, as usual. Lobbyists are paying big money to push these projects though, and if the Bush administration does manage to make the regulation final before they leave office, it could take months or even years for the next president to undo. Obama has already said he would reverse the proposal, and McCain’s campaign has not commented.

Perhaps this is Bush’s way of saying, “Hey, look at me! I’m still a crappy President!” After all, we’ve practically forgotten that Bush is still in office in our excitement about seeing someone else taking his place. If you thought he was done screwing things up, think again.

Link [Yahoo News]

White House Buries Report on Possible Climate Change Death Toll

My, my. Will wonders never cease? The Bush administration has once again stepped in to keep important information out of public hands because of their own selfish needs. Information that could save thousands of lives and keep catastrophic damage from occurring to the planet. Is anyone surprised?

US government scientists wrote a report detailing the harmful impact that climate change could have upon the human population, which included a high death toll from heat waves, fires, disease and smog. The 149-page report was prepared as part of a response to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling under the Clean Air Act, which found that the EPA must regulate greenhouse gases unless there was not a scientific reason to do so. The Bush Administration stifled the report, and environmental activists believe it’s because they don’t want to regulate greenhouse gases.

From The Telegraph:

The report lays out for the first time the scientific case for the grave risks that global warming poses to people, and to the food, energy and water on which society depends.

“Risk (to human health, society and the environment) increases with increases in both the rate and magnitude of climate change,” scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency said. Global warming, they wrote, is “unequivocal,” and humans are to blame.

It suggests that extreme weather events and diseases carried by ticks and other organisms could kill more people as temperatures rise and allergies could worsen because climate change could produce more pollen. Smog, a leading cause of respiratory illness and lung disease, could become more severe in many parts of the country. At the same time, global warming could mean fewer illnesses and deaths due to cold.

The Bush Administration has worked to discourage a connection between public health and climate change, because it would compel them to regulate greenhouse gases. Lawmakers are persistently lobbied by corporations who fear that emissions regulations would hurt their business.

The bottom line is, we can’t trust the Bush camp to do anything right, so we’ve just got to wait for them to leave. Only 5 months left!

Link [The Telegraph]
Photo credit: Eric Gay

Fallujah Doctors Claim Increased Deformities in Babies After ‘Special Weaponry’ Used by US

Another shameful legacy the United States may be leaving behind in Iraq – deformed children. Doctors and residents in Fallujah are saying that babies born there are showing increasing rates of deformities after the US began using ‘special weaponry’ in the two massive bombing campaigns in the city during 2004.

Though they denied it at first, the Pentagon admitted in 2005 to using ‘white phosphorous’, a restricted incendiary weapon. Depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were also used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon has admitted to using 1,200 tons of it in Iraq thus far.

From AfterDowningStreet.org:

Many doctors believe DU to be the cause of a severe increase in the incidence of cancer in Iraq, as well as among U.S. veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War and through the current occupation.

“We saw all the colours of the rainbow coming out of the exploding American shells and missiles,” Ali Sarhan, a 50-year-old teacher who lived through the two U.S. sieges of 2004 told IPS. “I saw bodies that turned into bones and coal right after they were exposed to bombs that we learned later to be phosphorus.

“The most worrying is that many of our women have suffered loss of their babies, and some had babies born with deformations.”

“I had two children who had brain damage from birth,” 28-year-old Hayfa’ Shukur told IPS. “My husband has been detained by the Americans since November 2004 and so I had to take the children around by myself to hospitals and private clinics. They died. I spent all our savings and borrowed a considerable amount of money.”

Shukur said doctors told her that it was use of the restricted weapons that caused her children’s brain damage and subsequent deaths, “but none of them had the courage to give me a written report.”

Doctors and the Fallujah General Hospital administration will not go on record about the deformities, fearing reprisal, so no official data is available – we can only go on anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately, it may be many years before we find out the whole truth of how children in Iraq are being affected by this unnecessary war.

Shameful. We sent our troops to Iraq, to risk their own lives, for the wrong reasons – and as a result, who paid for it the most? Innocent citizens of Iraq. Families torn apart, lives destroyed – and for what?

Link [AfterDowningStreet.org]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

White House Hiding Truth of $2 Trillion Benefit to Global Warming Regulations

The Wonk Room has discovered the why the Bush administration has been suppressing an EPA report on climate change regulations since December. Apparently, the documents prepared by the EPA show that the U.S. economy would not be ‘crippled’ by caps on greenhouse gases, as Bush said, but would actually benefit to the tune of $2 trillion by 2030. Had the document been published rather than stifled by the White House, it could have become a “legal roadmap for regulation of greenhouse gas emissions across the U.S. economy.”

From The Wonk Room:

Even after major cuts from the December version, this document makes a mockery of President Bush’s claim in April that applying the Clean Air Act to global warming pollution “would have crippling effects on our entire economy.” In fact, after spending all of 2007 working with the Departments of Transportation and Energy to model the effects of motor vehicle greenhouse gas regulations, the EPA found the exact opposite:

Assuming gas prices in the range of $3.50 per gallon, “the net benefit to society could be in excess of $2 trillion” through 2040.

Now that the EPA’s findings have been revealed, many people are questioning whether Bush’s statements were made in good faith. Seriously? Do we really even have to ask? It should be obvious. In fact, why is this surprising to anyone at all? Nearly everything Bush and Co. have done in the last 8 years has harmed the country.

Link [The Wonk Room]
Photo credit: NationalNightmare.com

U.S. Stops Solar Energy Projects Over ‘Environment Fears’

It sounds like a joke: the U.S. has decided to put off large-scale solar projects on public land so they can first study the effects that the solar panels will have on the environment. No word yet on whether they’ll do the same for coal mining, power plants and other major sources of environmental damage and disruption.

From The Telegraph:

The move has angered some solar energy proponents who argue it could hold up the industry at a vital juncture, given the pressing need to secure alternative energy sources at a time of soaring oil prices.

“This technology has been around for nearly three decades. If there is an environmental concern, that can be addressed without putting a halt to this technology and helping to impact our greenhouse gas emissions and the environmental degradation from coal-fired and natural gas plants,” said Brad Collins, executive director of the American Solar Energy Society.

Amazing, truly amazing. Granted, it’s just PUBLIC land. There will still be plenty of room for the growth of solar technology elsewhere – but that doesn’t change how incredibly stupid this is. Be cautious and think about the environmental repercussions of everything we do, absolutely. But we already know that our current energy production methods are far more damaging, and that we need a better way ASAP. Being conscious of solar panels displacing wildlife is good, but in the meantime, our current energy methods are hurtling us toward destruction of the entire planet at light speed.

Link [The Telegraph]

Photo credit: Worst President Ever

White House Suppressed EPA Report on Car Emissions

At this point, I think the question is, can the Bush administration do anything right, or are they really all just a bunch of corrupt assholes? Last December, White House officials tried to stop the EPA from submitting a proposal that would limit greenhouse-gas emissions, supposedly because they ‘threatened public welfare’. Once they found out that the EPA had sent out the email only minutes before, they wanted the email ‘recalled’.

From The Washington Post:

The EPA official who forwarded the e-mail, Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett, refused, said the sources, who insisted on anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations.

The proposed rule was EPA’s response to an April 2007 Supreme Court ruling that the agency had violated the Clean Air Act by refusing to take up the issue of regulating automobile emissions that contribute to global warming.

Burnett, who resigned from the agency this month, sent the e-mail to the White House Office of Management and Budget at 2:17 p.m. Dec. 5 and received the call warning him to hold off at 2:25 p.m., the sources said. The EPA is expected to release a watered-down version of its original proposal within a week, highlighting the extent to which Bush administration officials continue to resist mandatory federal limits on emissions linked to global warming.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that White House officials never opened EPA’s e-mail. In March, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee disclosed documents showing that the White House had overruled EPA’s findings on the impact of vehicle emissions on climate change.

Burnett refused to comment on the White House calls but said in an interview, “In early December, I sent an e-mail with the formal finding that action must be taken to address the risk of climate change,” adding that he resigned his political appointment because the agency had been stymied in its efforts to respond to the Supreme Court. “The White House made it clear they did not want to address the ramifications of that finding and have decided to leave the challenge to the next administration. Some [at the White House] thought that EPA had mistakenly concluded that climate change endangers the public. It was no mistake.”

WTF – does the White House know how email works? They wanted it ‘recalled’? They never opened the email so the EPA rewrote it? Amazing. What a bunch of partisan rightwing hack pussies.

Apparently, the revised version that the EPA is preparing to put out no longer states that climate change is a direct threat to public welfare, is far shorter and no longer includes alternative approaches to regulate greenhouse emissions from vehicles and power plants. The White House stood on the EPA’s balls and the EPA gave in.

Is it 2009 yet?

Link [The Washington Post]

Photo credit: Flickr user KRSPO

$23 Billion ‘Lost, Stolen, Mismanaged’ in Iraq by Private Contractors

As if we didn’t already have enough evidence that these companies are run by crooks, a BBC investigation has revealed that $23 billion in taxpayer funds has been ‘lost, stolen, or not properly accounted for’ in Iraq. The BBC was investigating how much private contractors have profited from the war in Iraq when they discovered the missing money, and a US gag order straight from President Bush has prevented further discussion of the allegations.

From the BBC:

The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

While Presdient George W Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.

To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.

The president’s Democratic opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.

Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said: “The money that’s gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it’s egregious.

“It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history.”

Excellent work, Bush and Co. Using private contracts has, as you promised, been far more cost effective. The Free Market really came through on this one.

Link [BBC] via [truthdig]
Photo credit: Micah Ian Wright at the Propaganda Remix Project

The Dumbing Down of America Under Bush

America has become a nation of idiots.

I think the point where I really started to worry was when people began using the phrase ‘freedom fries’ as a substitute for ‘french fries’. It spread like syphilis at a Roman orgy after France refused to take part in the invasion of Iraq, when anti-France sentiment grew here in the U.S. and two Republican congressmen decided to officially change the name in the restaurants and snack bars run by the House of Representatives. ‘Dang it all, Jeb, if the Republican gov’ment says it, then we should too! Those fancy French people, they’s all disloyal and anti-American and stuff!’

As if that weren’t enough, frighteningly, we seem to be endlessly entertained by crotch gags, like the ‘Ow My Balls!’ segments on America’s Funniest Videos. Some of the most popular programs on television are those that depict people eating bull testicles, transforming themselves into scary plastic mannequins via dozens of plastic surgery procedures, intentionally trying to hurt themselves in the stupidest ways possible and competing for the dubious affections of a man wearing a giant clock around his neck.

Then there are the email forwards. Christ on a bicycle, people, would you please verify that the information you’re about to send is correct before forwarding it to 98 of your closest friends, relatives, business associates and random acquaintances? I don’t know how many times I’ve had to direct the sender of a ridiculous email to Snopes.com to get the real story. It seems that many people are content to simply believe whatever is convenient for them to believe. If they want to convince themselves that Barack Obama really did go to terrorist training school, refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and was sworn into office using the Koran rather than the Bible, they damn well will. [Read more]

The Republican War on Science

America is already known across the world for having an irrational disdain for science. Not to mention the fact that our country produces so few scientists of its own, we’ve depended on foreign-born scientists to help as along our treasured road of progress for decades. Isn’t it ironic that, despite all of the ‘progress must continue’, ‘don’t take away our technology’ anti-global warming talk, our leaders look down their noses at those who produce this technology?

The past seven and a half years under Bush have made the situation (as with many other situations – really, can we name one thing he actually improved?) much worse. The ‘war on terror’ has produced a convenient cover for the Bush administration to attack foreign-born scientists.

The Huffington Post quotes William A. Wulf, Ph.D., president of the National Academy of Engineering:

Between 1980 and 2000, the percentage of Ph.D. scientists and engineers employed in the United States who were born abroad has increased from 24% to 37%. The current percentage of Ph.D. physicists is about 45%; for engineers, the figure is over 50%. One fourth of the engineering faculty members at U.S. universities were born abroad. Between 1990 and 2004, over one third of Nobel Prizes in the United States were awarded to foreign-born scientists. One third of all U.S. Ph.D’s in science and engineering are now awarded to foreign born graduate students. We have been skimming the best and brightest minds from across the globe, and prospering because of it; we need these new Americans even more now as other countries become more technologically capable.

Dr. Moniem El-Ganayni is one of the scientists you’d think America would want to hold on to. The nuclear physicist has been an American citizen for 20 years and worked at the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory – that is, until his security clearance was revoked. The reason? He’s an Egyptian-born Muslim. Dr. El-Ganayni’s efforts to get his clearance back have been fruitless, and he thinks he’ll have to move back to Egypt with his American-born wife.

The decision to revoke Dr. El-Ganayni’s clearance without holding a hearing was made by acting Deputy Secretary of Energy Jeffrey F. Kupfer, a Bush administration insider …. [who] certified that the appeals process set forth in DOE regulations “cannot be made available … without damaging the interests of national security by revealing classified information. …

Furthermore, he stated, his decision is “conclusive,” meaning the matter is officially closed.

Dr. El-Ganayni is far from alone. According to the ACLU, an “untold number of Middle Eastern immigrants and Muslims across the country have been quietly ensnared by measures aimed at strengthening national security in a post-9/11 world.”

In post 9/11 America, the worlds ‘national security’ have been used to shut people up when they question the government’s actions. The Bush administration has enjoyed a free-for-all where silly things like proof, trials, fairness and justice are put aside in the name of ‘protecting our country from terrorists’. And, as we all know, as far as the Bush administration and Republican lawmakers are concerned, if your name sounds foreign, you’re suspicious.

Perhaps there’s a faith-based reason behind some of this – conservatives are certainly known for putting their religious beliefs where they don’t belong, like government policies. The faith vs. science battle that’s constantly being waged in America, from the courtroom to the classroom, from creationism to global warming denial, has made it clear how conservatives feel about science.

Regardless, the Republican war on science has only put America in a position where it’s constantly shooting itself in the foot. Bush has already lost our country vast amounts of credibility. With the lack of top shelf scientists and engineers to help keep us on top, the United States may very well continue on a dramatic slide downward on the world power scale. Obama, at this point, is truly our light at the end of the tunnel. Again, is it 2009 yet?

Link [The Huffington Post]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

White House Preventing EPA From Testing Toxicity of Chemicals

What do you know, the White House and the EPA are in our ‘Planet Killers’ news once again. Congressional investigators have found that the Bush administration is keeping the EPA from performing important tests on chemicals to determine health effects. What they’re doing, basically, is allowing nonscientists to have a big say in the process, and keeping it a secret from the public (or trying to).

From MSNBC.com:

The administration’s decision to give the Defense Department and other agencies an early role in the process adds to years of delay in acting on harmful chemicals and jeopardizes the program’s credibility, the Government Accountability Office concluded.

At issue is the EPA’s screening of chemicals used in everything from household products to rocket fuel to determine if they pose serious risk of cancer or other illnesses.

A new review process begun by the White House in 2004 is adding more speed bumps for EPA scientists, the GAO said in its report, which will be the subject of a Senate Environment Committee hearing Tuesday. A formal policy effectively doubling the number of steps was adopted two weeks ago.

While we’re stewing in a toxic mix of chemicals that could very well be altering our cells in a way that science has yet to identify and understand, the government is engaging in this chaotic game of ping pong where various agencies are throwing information back and forth at each other with no apparent rhyme or reason to the process. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised, since hardly anything the government does is actually efficient, but this is a matter of life and death – literally.

What it amounts to is the government protecting chemical companies. How many industries has the Bush administration whored itself out to? It’s astounding.

Link [MSNBC]

Photo credit: Flickr user Foxtongue