Coal lobby resorted to deception, identity theft

At least six letters sent to Congressman Tom Perriello (D-7th Dist.) from Charlottesville-based minority groups opposing the American Clean Energy and Security Act were forged, the Charlottesville Daily Progress reported today. Congressman Perriello, a freshman Congressman from the Charlottesville area was considered a swing vote on the legislation.

First of all, was Congressman Perriello the only one to get these letters? I wonder…

Secondly, way to go Perriello for standing up to these lies and voting the right way on a important, if weak, clean energy bill.

The letters were sent by the Washington lobbying firm Bonner & Associates, which has lobbied on behalf of utility companies in the past. The firm did not register to lobby on behalf of any company or organization against the cap-and-trade bill.

Two of the letters purportedly came from the Albermarle-Charlottesville chapter of the NAACP and Creciendo Juntos of Charlottesville.

Read the letters:

NAACP
Creciendo Juntos

The American Clean Energy and Security Act, which narrowly passed the House of Representatives 219-212 in June, would put a cap on emissions of global warming pollution and invest money into the renewable energy and efficiency sectors.

According to the Center for American Progress, a $150 billion clean energy investment across the country would bring 45,000 jobs to Virginia and about $3.9 billion in investments, reducing unemployment by 1.1 percent.

How to Get a Strong Senate Climate Bill, Part 3: Get Local Leader "Sign-Ons"

In the first installment of this series, I talked about the big difference that collecting handwritten letters can make in pushing our Senators to fight for a strong Senate climate bill. Few things are likely to leave more of an impression on an elected official than receiving a ribbon-festooned stack of hundreds of letters from constituents, all urging their leadership on a particular aspect of a particular piece of legislation.

john-hancock

Well, few things perhaps besides a stack of hundreds of letters from local leaders. After all, the strategy of our campaign is to do everything we can to demonstrate that there is a broad and diverse community of support for bold climate action among the Senators’ constituents. To do that we can mobilize the grassroots to show numbers

What a Strong Bill Looks Like, Part 1: Consumer Protection

Solving global warming is not going to happen over night. The lawmakers dealing with climate legislation now are probably not going to be in office in 2050, when we need to have cut our global warming pollution 80%. So a key part of any climate bill is whether it’s built to last – through Congressional terms, Presidents, and generations.

We need public support for a carbon cap for at least the next 40 years as we work our way toward 80% cuts. The best way to do that is to make sure that the Senate climate bill is fair — it has to put people before polluters.

President Obama last February laid out a framework to fight global warming that was simple, fair, and built to last. All polluters would pay for greenhouse gas emissions, the President said. No exceptions. The money gathered from polluters would then be rebated to middle- and lower-income Americans while leaving $15 billion per year for investments in clean energy and green jobs.

This framework — where 100 percent of the carbon credits are auctioned and revenues used for direct consumer relief — protects consumers and ensures that polluters aren’t given a free ride.

Unfortunately, the House-passed clean energy bill was heavy on the corporate giveaways and light on the protections for energy consumers. The House version would give away 85 percent of the carbon credits for free to utilities, oil refiners and manufacturers. While consumers are offered no protection from price volatility or rate hikes in this version, industrial energy users secured protections to guarantee their bottom lines.

That’s why a coalition of heavy-hitting groups including AARP, Public Citizen, the Consumer Federation of America, and the National Consumer Law Center have teamed up with CCAN to call on the Senate to establish a stronger system of consumer protection. Continue reading

How to Get a Strong Senate Climate Bill, Part 2.5: Write (another) Letter to the Editor

Right now Senator Cardin is helping draft the Senate version of a clean energy bill!

The draft is expected to be released early September when the Senate returns from their August recess. This is OUR CHANCE as Marylanders to ensure that OUR VOICE and values are written into the bill.

Cardin will only fight for a strong bill in the Senate if he is hearing from the grassroots. Sen. Cardin has personally told us that he has recently heard more public feedback against clean energy policy than for it. We must be heard at this critical moment!

Here is just a small example of what we are up against. Check out this Letter to the Editor (LTE) in the Fredrick News Post:

“The world is laughing at us. Why would we ball-and-chain our economic future when it’s scraping bottom now? Oh! I almost forgot, global warming, with the emphasis on global.”

Letters like this are being printed across the state and its time for us to respond! Please, take a moment to respond and write your own letter. JOIN CCAN’s Truth Squad and get the latest updates.

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Last weeks truth squad was focused on the broad benefits of a clean energy economy so this week we will focus on consumers specifically. Here are some talking points:

Consumer Pocketbook Protection

1. Thank our Senator’s for their leadership: I am encouraged by Senator Cardin and Mikulski’s past leadership on clean energy issues and are urging them to champion a strong clean energy bill in the US Senate.

2. Make Polluters Pay: The best way to protect the American consumer from rising energy costs is to make the policy fair by making polluters – not taxpayers -pay for cleaning up pollution. Make sure the Senate bill requires polluters to pay for the right to pollute.

3. Auction the Permits: The EPA says that a bill that gives permits to polluters for free will be more expensive. Protect my pocketbook by auctioning permits to polluters.

4. Rebate the Revenues to the Public: To protect my pocketbook, Senator’s Cardin and Senator Mikulski should push to auction all the pollution permits and return revenues to the public through direct rebates.

Check out Anne’s CCAN blog post to learn more about on consumer protection.

Please, let me know when you submit a letter and again when you get it published: ethan[at]chesapeakeclimate.org

Join the Truth Squad today!

Also, for more info check out our 10 ways to make your Senator a Clean Energy Champ toolkit

Obama: "I love Rick Boucher"

Cross-Posted from: here

I happened to catch the opening part of President Barack Obama’s health care town hall meeting in Bristol, Virginia. At the beginning of these, local politicians are usually acknowledged by the President. So Obama thanks the Virginia Senators and the Governor, and then mentions that the Congressman of this area is Rick Boucher. Now, Obama could leave it at acknowledging Rick Boucher like the others, but instead he goes on an elaboration of energy, saying Boucher was an early supporter of his campaign, and has worked to ensure an energy policy where clean coal is part of Virginia’s energy future, which will create jobs. Because of this, Obama proclaims “I love Rick Boucher.”

Now, as whole I’m a supporter of Obama’s presidency. After 8 years of Bush I’m infinitely happier with Obama as president. I think Obama understands the critical issues around clean energy and climate change. Although he needs to show much stronger leadership and be more vocal with the media, I have considered the stimulus investment, stronger fuel economy standards, as well as his administration’s aggressive behind the scenes arm-twisting over the Waxman-Markey bill(which I support) to be pretty good. At the same time, I’ve criticized his administration over the EPA ruling on mountaintop removal, as well as his stance on clean coal, which is no secret at this point. The tar sands aren’t looking too good either.

But the notion that Obama can stand there and proclaim such outstanding support for a bought out Congressman is absolutely disgraceful and damaging. Not just because of Boucher’s efforts to drain what should be clean energy funding into longshot carbon capture and sequestration. That you would expect Obama to support. It’s the fact that Boucher was the leader on the Energy and Commerce Committee in weakening Waxman-Markey’s emissions targets and he pushed to weaken them any further. It’s that Boucher took a 25% renewable electricity standard and a 15% efficiency standard and turned them into 20% combined together. These were the two biggest weakening effects. Although permit allocations and EPA authority are not at the top of my complaint list, Boucher had a big hand in those tamperings as well. If you could pick one member of the House that’s done the most damage to our efforts to pass a strong climate bill, it’s Rick Boucher. That’s why back in May, I was present at a direct action protest in the halls of Congress, where some blocked Boucher’s office and were arrested. At that event, one of the organizers Mike Tidwell, the director of CCAN and a friend talked about how Obama had all these goals for a good climate bill, and that Boucher was ruining Obama’s plan. If this really was so, Obama would not have such kind words for Boucher.

These kinds of remarks along with the EPA’s inability to block mountaintop removal mining makes me quite perplexed when I hear activists say we should kill the current bill so EPA can work its magic. I seriously doubt EPA would do better even if it moved in a timely fashion and cleared all the legal hurdles.

So, some general points I’m making to take away…

– I wouldn’t bet the planet on the EPA, and I doubt China or India would either. Let’s do our best to get a bill passed and improved out of the Senate that we can take to Copenhagen.

– I don’t like Rick Boucher.

– President Obama is doing some good things and some bad things. However, if he doesn’t adopt a much stronger public stance to pass a Senate bill and get a treaty in Copenhagen, his Presidency will go down in history as a colossal failure despite some of the good things he does.

– You can’t take a stronger public approach if you’re holding hands adoringly with Rick Boucher.

Burned by the Press

Cross-posted from: here

I have a column out today criticizing the media’s coverage of global warming as being so poor that too many people don’t have accurate information, or any information at all about global warming or global warming legislation. Sources are below the column.

The media: Problems of the news re-cycle

MATT DERNOGA

On June 16 the White House released the “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States” report. It was written by 13 government science agencies, compiled largely during the George W. Bush administration, and completed under President Barack Obama. The report lays out the specific devastating regional impacts a warming climate would have on all regions of the country, along with the current effects of greenhouse gas emissions already in the atmosphere. Continue reading

We've got the POWER!

And the resources to repower Virginia without the construction of new coal plants or drilling off our coasts. Some might think this is crazy talk but the numbers are there to back me up. I attended a Senate briefing on offshore wind potential that blew me a way! (no pun intended… okay maybe a little pun intended)

offshore windIt is safe to say now that wind both on and offshore is a REAL solution to meet our energy demands. The tides, times and technologies are changing and it’s about time we start construction on Virginia’s first offshore wind turbine.

Here’s why:

1. We have relatively shallow water and few strong hurricanes, which make us a good candidate.
2. We have the highest wind potential in the South.
3. The wind industry CREATES jobs- construction, welding, maritime, ship design and architecture. (slide 8 )
4. Nearly 25% of the investment in wind projects engage the LOCAL community (this number has the potential to grow)
5. We have sites that don’t interfere with commerce or the Navy

wind speed offshore virginia
(Click on the image to view larger size)

Then we can get into the numbers a little bit and do a simple cost comparison between offshore oil drilling and offshore wind.
Offshore wind can create 330,000 MW vs Oil from the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) can create 18,000 MW (in 20 years).
Wind has 16 times the potential of offshore oil drilling! As if that’s not compelling enough, lets look at it through a lens of reducing oil imports. There is a growing trend that is pushing us towards electric vehicles (EV). One EV draws 400 W (.4kW) of electricity. Mid Atlantic cars draw 29,000 MW (EEEK!). Atlantic OCS oil could run 30% of Mid Atlantic cars for 20 years, while offshore wind would run 100% of those cars…. forever! This analysis comes from Willett Kempton’s presentation, which I’m having trouble finding online. he bottom line is there enough wind to matter and we’ve got it right here in Virginia!

It would appear Bob Dylan got it right. The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.

The flattening of Wise, Va.

wise_county_sealCoal is in the blood of the people of Wise County, Virginia. With a population of around 41,000, the coal industry has provided steady income for an otherwise remote part of Appalachia. Situated in the southwest corner of the Commonwealth, the county boasts several small, tight-knit communities, a functional public school system, two colleges, and a thriving sense of mountainous spirit that hallmarks Appalachian living.

It is not far fetched to argue that the socioeconomic landscape of Wise County would be drastically different without the coal industry’s presence there. The bituminous rock has served as the stovepipe economic model of Southwest Virginia, Kentucky, and West Virginia since the industrial revolution, and has brought intense development and employment to the region. Nowhere else on earth has coal played such a crucial role in the evolution of a region, and nowhere else do people’s very blood ooze the stuff. It is a cultural icon.

But coal is destroying Southwest Virginia, the Appalachian Mountains, and threatening the planet itself. At the epicenter of this environmental catastrophe lies Wise, a county that is crumbling under the heavy hand of King Coal. While Dominion works to construct a brand-new power plant in the region, fueled by dirty, antiquated coal, mining corporations have worked to systemically level the region through the practice of mountaintop removal mining.

The result is not a pretty one. Several mountains have already been leveled in Virginia, some of which are in Wise, while millions of tons of rock, dirt, and toxic material are shoved into neighboring valleys, preventing streams from flowing and contaminating valuable, fresh water. Sludge ponds, a result of the extremely water-intense washing process, contain billions of gallons of useless, dangerous slurry, filled with heavy metals such as nickel, cadmium, lead, and arsenic. The fragile walls that hold back these industrial cesspools are typically made of fill material, and are prone to failure (as they have several times in recent decades). Mountaintop removal represents a triple threat to Appalachia, as mountains are destroyed, streams are interred beneath tons of rock and filth, and toxic contamination threatens the health of every community in the region.
Wise County has become a battlefield for the fight against mountaintop removal, and even as federal regulators crack down on the practice, the coal industry continues to push for continued, and expanded MTR operations in Wise.

Ison Rock Ridge extends into the town of Appalachia and is dotted with several communities on either side of the elongated mountain. Most recently, big coal has tapped Ison Rock as the next notch on its long line of broken mountains that now significantly mar the landscape of Southwest Virginia. Nearby communities have been hesitant, at best, to embrace the new project, as the mountain looms over several towns and villages, and threatens to create a shower of rock and dust, a byproduct of the blasting process used to get at the coal, that is unwelcome by any standard. Already, large stones and increased logging activity have spurred a public outcry, so much that the developer has been forced to revise the permit several times and the coal-friendly government has worked to suppress any public concern over the project.

“This permit application is currently in its 9th revision- and this round the permit has changed dramatically. Federal and State law require that public comment be accepted for all permits, but the state agency in charge has denied our request to have a public hearing on this latest revision that creates an essentially new mine plan.”