File this under the “I’m Not Surprised” category. Drilling corporations have spent years and millions of dollars trying to prevent anyone from finding out what the constituents of the fluids they were pumping into the ground to force natural gas and oil up. Now, thanks to an investigation by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s year-long investigation, part of the answer has come to light.
I will borrow a phrase from all the anti-American voices who came out from the shadows during the Bush Regime: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear from us looking into your business.” Hiding behind claims of proprietary business information is just about as cowardly as these corporations can get.
The congressional investigation found that oil and gas service companies have injected over 32 million gallons of diesel fuel or hydraulic fracturing fluids containing diesel fuel in wells in 19 states between 2005 and 2009. In addition, the investigation finds that no oil and gas service companies have sought – and no state and federal regulators have issued – permits for diesel fuel use in hydraulic fracturing, which appears to be a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
We all know who was “running” the country during these years. And don’t think I’ll hold back any condemnation if I find out the Obama administration continued these disgusting practices. I’m not surprised that dirty energy corporations didn’t seek approval for their likely illegal actions – they think they’re above American law. I also won’t be surprised if they’re never held accountable either – they have worked hard to buy off our elected officials.
For those of you who advocate drilling over everything else, consider the following. Sharp is planning on increasing its market share of thin-film solar cells to 50% by 2012. That’s an industry America created not too long ago. The current U.S. market share? 10% and falling. Opening up lands to drilling won’t deliver a drop of oil or natural gas to market for 10 years. By that time, Japanese and German solar cell manufacturers will have a lock on the market. Republican energy policy has been short-sighted since Reagan. Our economy and national security have been paying the price for it ever since.
While Arctic sea ice melted to the 2nd lowest area on record this summer, it likely melted to the lowest volume on record. The ice that formed last winter was thin. The volume of ice now versus the same point two years ago has radically decreased.
California Edison will begin buying energy from a solar thermal plant being built by eSolar Inc., a renewable energy startup backed by Oak Investment Partners, Idealab, and Google’s for-profit philanthropic arm, Google.org. One of Google’s many goals is to get solar electricity rates to compete with rates for fossil fuels (which receive incredible corporate welfare, keeping their rates below actual market cost). The project could generate 105 megawatts in a few short years, with the option to expand to 245 megawatts. Note that those megawatts would be baseload, not variable. That’s the big advantage solar thermal enjoys over solar photovoltaic.
Matt Stoller did an analysis of League of Conseration Voters endorsement patterns of incumbent Democrats and Republicans. The result: it looks as though Democrats must reach a higher lifetime LCV score to receive an endorsement than Republicans. Does LCV include Republicans, even though their voting patterns aren’t as strong as Democrats, just to appear bipartisan? Is there a similar trend with other single-issue advocacy groups? CONservative groups aren’t shy about discriminating against Democrats. Think of the NRA. A Democrat would have to be very conservative before the NRA endorsed them in a race. Now think of NARAL. They continually endorse Republicans that are anti-choice. The progressive movement needs to do some serious self-examination moving forward. A progressive agenda cannot be fought for and enacted when advocacy groups get behind people who don’t believe in that agenda. LCV asks activists for money. Activists would do well to keep track of how LCV operates when deciding whether or not to donate. A table of Colorado officials can be found after the fold. The LCV Scorecard can be found here.
Sarah Palin is a super-socialist. She’s touring the country trying to scare voters into believing Barack Obama is a socialist because of his tax policy. What kind of tax policy does Sarah Palin believe in? A policy that dispenses tax money from oil and gas drilling to Alaskan citizens. Is that oil and gas exclusively sold to Americans? No, it’s sold overseas. The rest of America then pays more for oil and gas that we buy from overseas. So mainland U.S. consumers are paying more at the pump to give every Alaskan a $3,200 check every year. There’s no way I’m voting for this hypocrite.
I’m voting for Barack Obama in spite of Colin Powell. Powell continues to demonstrate he’s more interested in power than standing up for what he believes. If Obama was behind in the polls, I doubt very seriously Powell would have endorsed him. Powell wants Obama’s ear. I hope Obama doesn’t give it to him.
Proponents of “drill or bust” purposefully leave out an important part of reality. In ten years time, off-shore drilling, for instance, will produce ~200,000 barrels of oil per day. OPEC is holding an emergency meeting this Friday (three days from now) and they’re proposing to cut current production by 2,000,000 barrels per day. OPEC wants oil to cost $70-$90 per barrel, which this year meant $3.00-$4.50 gas in America. Any gain in supply from the U.S. will be met with cuts in supply from OPEC. There will be no cut in oil or gas prices if we drill more.
How the Banksters Made a Complete Killing Off the Bailout is a good article. Much was made in the corporate media about how strong the oversight over the Bailout was going to be. I didn’t trust that it would be there and the details in this article validate that view. The Democratic-led Congress is going to own the fallout from the financial crisis. I really hoped they would make a hard push for tough oversight. They still can…
I know this is going to come up again someday, so I’m going to get ahead of it. Sarah Palin has said in the past she was responsible for bringing a pipeline to Alaska that would deliver natural gas to the lower 48. The cowardly John McCain told his Faux Noise extremist buddy Sean Hannity the same thing. The problem? Both Sarah and John are lying. Again. No part of the pipeline has been built. Federal approval is still years away and, just like the rest of the pro-drilling idiot crowd, no natural gas will make its way to the lower 48 for at least 10 years. So here’s a major difference between Obama and McCain: in 10 years, Obama’s energy policies will put us well on the way toward making renewables our primary source of energy. McCain and Palin will still be waiting for oil to be drilled off-shore, for natural gas to be sent from Alaska and for oil to be drilled out of oil shale. Obama will have taken meaningful steps towards mitigating human forced climate change. McCain and Palin will still be burning every fossil fuel they can. Obama offers change, pure and simple.
More on the last point: whoever is elected in November has the opportunity to demonstrate the U.S.’s leadership on climate change to the world. They can go to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poland in December. They can commit to reducing GHG emissions. They can commit to providing assitance to developing countries. They can commit to a more prosperous 21st century.
I want to bring every reader’s attention to the comment by Marie, below. For now, I have approved it so that I can point out the lack of facts in any of the points and clips. I have also approved it to bring awareness of the larger message: when Republicans lose races across the country this year, they’re going to scream about Democrats stealing the election, with no factual basis. It is obvious that this frame is being established now by CONServative leaders and all their extremist followers are following the tune, as usual. Now, let’s get to some facts:
First, get the terminology correct. ACORN can’t commit voter fraud. Only voters can commit voter fraud. You would still be incorrect about their intent if you called it registration fraud, but at least then it would be a credible criticism.
Second, Obama did give ACORN $800K – in the primaries. He hasn’t given them anything since. It’s incredible to me that CONServatives have the worldview that working hard to register people is somehow a bad thing. Real people are being registered by ACORN and dozens of other entities. You know why? Democrats win when more people vote. Republicans win when people are not allowed to vote. That’s what this attack against ACORN is all about: preventing citizens from voting. That’s disgusting and immoral.
Third, do you really think ACORN has that much power? Seriously, CONServatives’ conspiracies would be laughable if they didn’t have so much control over the media. How could ACORN possibly force any bank to give sub-prime mortgages to unqualified borrowers? Banks were more than happy to do so – it kept their gambling habits stoked. You only undermine your own credibility when such silly things are spread.
Fourth, Obama worked for ACORN a long time ago. This is the same nonsense that McCain’s handlers want CONServatives to focus on: people that Obama had an association with that have nothing to do with his job today. Is your point that Obama forced ACORN to force banks to give people with bad credit mansions? Because that’s just ridiculous. If it’s something else, just come out and say it. And that’s what this boils down to: McCain and his CONservative supporters are all cowards. They don’t have what it takes to just come out and say what they think about Obama. They’re running around whispering rumors to each other and insinuating things about Obama. Who happens to be a freaking sitting U.S. Senator. If you really think he’s done all the bad things you’re insinuating, it should be easy to convince your DA or the DoJ that Obama should be jailed. Otherwise, you’re all just a small fringe group. Americans aren’t going to be scared by your b.s. this time around. They’re seeing through your little acts and realize their lives are better when they’re working for the future and not piddling themselves underneath their beds.
Some additional ACORN facts: they’re required by law to turn in every completed application, even if they know it to be problematic. ACORN flags incomplete or suspicious applications when they turn them in to county officials. Election officials often ignore those flags when they’re turned in, causing themselves headaches down the road. There has never been a single proven case of anyone, anywhere, casting an illegal vote as a result of a false registration. Not surprisingly, none of the corporate media reports relayed any of this information. Some investigation. Stop the fear-mongering. It’s pathetic.
The potential angles to this story stagger the mind. Corporate welfare recipients throwing away cash on lavish gifts to officials charged with overseeing said recipients? Check. Rigging contracts, further exposing the “free market” myth? Check. Continued corruption within Bush’s government? Check.
The investigations reveal a “culture of substance abuse [cocaine] and promiscuity” by a small group of individuals “wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards,” wrote Earl E. Devaney, the Interior Department’s inspector general, whose office spent more than two years and $5.3 million on the investigation.
Governor Ritter had the following to say about the scandal:
“The investigation also must closely examine how much this type of corruption has cost American – and Colorado – taxpayers. The oil-and-gas industry already benefits from taxpayer-funded subsidies, so the question is: how much has this scandal cost us in lost revenue?
“This is exactly why we need a federal government that partners with states like Colorado to craft a responsible energy policy for the future, not a federal government mired in corruption.”
The Governor brings up a darn good point. In an era when the fuel industry is raking in record profits every quarter and spending millions to convince Americans they need, nay, deserve even more, they’re trading rigged contracts for cocaine and sex. Those pooooor, misunderstood victims! Then, the larger-scale issue is brought to bear: Coloradans and Americans do deserve government that works for them. With George Bush and his cronies running everything into the ground, we’re not getting that government.
And we’re supposed to believe that these greasy corporations need access to more public lands? They’re not going to drill on them any time soon. Any resources they drill elsewhere are being sold to foreign countries, captitalizing on a strategy to keep prices (and thus profits) high. Besides the perfectly valid arguments against opening up more public land to private profit, this scandal demonstrates once again that fuel corporations are anything but responsible. Any request to hand over more public land for next to nothing should be loudly denied and then heartily laughed at.
Oh, the conservative talking heads have been quiet on this. Not that I’m surprised. They’re only interested when Democrats and sex are involved.
July’s Producer Price Index, a measure of inflation before it reaches consumers, jumped to the highest level since 1981. The index measured inflation at 9.8% in the last year. Oh, and overpaid economists forecasted it to rise at a much slower pace. They’re certainly earning their money, aren’t they? Meanwhile, the rest of us continue to get screwed while policy makers hold out on acting until the end of Bush’s term, waiting to blame the economic malaise on a Democratic President. I can imagine the amount of screaming we would all hear if double digit inflation came about under President Clinton.
Natural gas prices shot up 8.8%. Which pretty much refutes Republican plans to push down gas prices by opening up more drilling sites. After all, the Roan Plateau was opened to additional gas drills. If prices don’t start going down this month, we’ll know that opening up more drilling areas doesn’t reduce fuel prices, won’t we. If only Democrats in Congress weren’t so afraid of their shadows, the offshore drilling plan Republicans are whining about wouldn’t even be on the table.
***
Heh. Neoconservatives and their allies should be sweating this a little: was John McCain tortured or not? See, John has run many campaigns discussing the events that happened to him after he became a POW. According to definitions set forth by neoconservatives like Dick Cheney, John Yoo, David Addington, George Tenet and others, McCain gave his interrogators intelligence after humane techniques of information gathering were applied to him. No war crime was committed on McCain or the other POWs, according to Boy George’s “administration”. Isn’t that quite the pickle? By the way, McCain approved the use of the same techniques used on him on CIA terror suspects. Nice.
In an announcement that surprised absolutely no-one, energy corporations continues to set records for quarterly profits. The heavyweight, ExxonMobil, reported profits of $11.68 billion in three months. Demand starting falling earlier this year. It’s taken a while for oil and gas prices to follow, and they certainly haven’t fallen by similar percentages, but profits are still skyrocketing.
I wanted to spend some time discussing the language of the CNN-Money article. One sub-headline reads: “Pricey oil cuts both ways”. The richest among us continue to try to throw a pity party for themselves. The only thing that results from high oil prices that oil corporations have to buy is their profits are less than they otherwise would have been. The rest of us should be grateful that Exxon only made $11.68 billion. It could have made even more!
In an attempt to parry criticism levied at corporations like Exxon, more articles like this one are starting to include descriptions of “where the money is going”. The article touts the $7 billion Exxon spent on finding and producing more oil. Interestingly, production still fell 8% from year-ago levels. $7 billion just doesn’t get you what it used to, I guess. The real problem isn’t locating new oil – corporations know where plenty of it is. It’s the lack of refining capacity in the U.S. Remember, a new refinery hasn’t been built in 30 years.
The article mentions $10.1 billion went to shareholders in dividends and stock buybacks. It goes on to bring up all the taxes Exxon and others have to pay. Waaaaaah!
In terms of governmental policy, the corporate welfare Exxon and others are enjoying should be shut down. With demand continuing to increase and corporations working to keep supply down, their profits will continue to set records. Why should the American taxpayer give them more of their hard-earned money?
Another point on corporations locating new oil and wanting more off-shore areas to be opened for lease: when will the corporate media bring up the fact that the Gulf of Mexico was opened up for leasing two years ago? Oil and gas prices have shot up ever since. Where’s the oil? Where’s the relief at the pump? The answer is easy: corporations are sitting on those leases, which helped cause the increase in price and thus in their profit. Corporations have no real interest in increasing supply. They’re sitting on a resource that is dwindling and they know it. If Congress is stupid enough to open off-shore areas, prices will not go down. The facts in the past two years bears that out. It sounds really good right now while we’re all paying more than we ever have for gas. The best way to bring down prices in the environment set up by the big energy corporations and their lackeys in our government? Decrease demand.
After a short break, I’m catching up on some things. There have been quite a few energy-related news articles. I’ll discuss them below.
First, from Friday came news that both John McCain and Bob Schaffer have made up quite a bit of ground in polling done on their respective races in Colorado. Gas prices and potential solutions were cited as having influence in the movement. One factor ties the two together: Coloradans’ view that drilling in shale or off the US coasts will have an effect of gas prices. Not enough is being done, in my opinion, to challenge that false viewpoint. The Republican Machine (newspapers, radio and TV) continues to peddle opening up new lands for lease as a mechanism to reduce oil and gas prices.
What’s wrong with that? Oh, just the fact that Big Energy already owns 68 million acres of land which they could already be drilling. Except they’re not. And they’ve owned this land for years now. Had they drilled, more oil and natural gas would currently be available for market. Read closely: they didn’t drill. And they didn’t drill for a reason. See, by purposefully restricting resources from getting to the market at the same time that demand has kept growing, the value of the resources has grown exponentially in the past five to ten years. But the corporate media has absolutely no interest in ensuring citizens know the entire story. How many times have you seen/read/heard about the vast tracts of land energy corporations already own but won’t drill? The only locations I’ve encountered it are on progressive media.
So it doesn’t take much thought to realize that opening up more land wouldn’t do a thing to reduce gas prices. And let’s make sure we’re very clear on this: taxpayers own the land that the Big Energy corporations want. If we lease those lands and they go undeveloped, Americans are poorer for it.
To the point of the articles: if Colorado and other states vote for folks like Bob Schaffer and John McCain, energy prices will not go down. They’ve demonstrated how beholden they are to energy corporations their entire careers. They’re the cause of the gas prices we now pay because they pushed a pro-corporate energy policy. Why give them more time to prevent us from enacting real solutions like moving renewable energy technologies to market and reducing our dependence on foreign fuels?
A vote for McCain or Schaffer is a vote to keep gas prices high. It’s really that simple.
Imagine the chances: energy companies contaminated water in wells by Parachute, CO and made someone sick. At the same time, the companies are heavily lobbying the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to not adopt rules that would include environmental controls. Now, why would they fight against those kinds of rules, I wonder…
The EPA released a Global Warming and Health report. I’ll give you one guess who stymied its release. That’s correct: the Bush “administration”, which has worked hard to deny and delay such information from being relayed properly to Americans.
“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.
Xcel estimates that about 47,000 of its customers will have their power cut off due to missed payments. Let’s see, the price of energy hasn’t gone down in what, seven years. Our take home pay hasn’t gone up in the same time-frame. And Republicans think folks like this are just a bunch of whiners. Being unable to pay for your electricity is a result of immoral conservative economic policies. Which is why they’re losing elections these days.
Continued politics over the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission‘s proposed rule changes: foes are striking as extreme a position as possible so the new rules won’t go into effect. More than that, they’re working very hard to make sure the same kind of rules don’t get implemented elsewhere, which seems likely to happen. At some point, more citizens are going to stand up for their localities long-term health, including environmental concerns. If these rules pass now, they stand a good chance of spreading. Additional rules might even be in store in the future. The longer oil and gas interests delay, the longer they can operate under older, less restrictive rules.
****
Mark Udall maintains his moderate advantage over Bob Schaffer in another poll, this one from Quinnipiac University. Similar to the Rasmussen poll I discussed earlier this week, the Q-poll has Udall 48 – Schaffer 38, a 10-point spread. Oh, the independent numbers are mighty interesting: Udall 54 – Schaffer 27. Bob’s going to have to work much harder this year due to voters’ well documented shift from Republican to “Independent” and from “Independent” to Democrat.
****
Here’s Governor Ritter’s planned activity for Tuesday:
Gov. Ritter will take part in a dedication ceremony for a new solar array at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School in Carbondale. The 150-kilowatt system sits on a half-acre of ranchland owned by the high school and is the largest solar electric installation in Western Colorado. It will power the school’s science building, and excess energy will be fed onto the town of Carbondale’s power grid. The voter-approved project is a joint venture that also includes the Aspen Ski Co., Community Office for Resource Efficiency, Town of Carbondale and Xcel Energy.
I’ve read plenty of disparaging comments on newspaper blogs that are trying to push the meme that Gov. Ritter’s New Energy Economy isn’t actually doing anything. This is but one example that demonstrates those comments are based solely on ideology and not on fact.
****
The U.S. Drought Monitor has identified the panhandle of Oklahoma as being in “Exceptional Drought”, its most severe category. Neighboring areas in Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas and Texas are classified as “Extreme Drought”. Locals who were around for the Dust Bowl in the 1930s say its drier now than it was then. The record speaks for itself: with less than an inch and a half of rain so far this year, the area is drier than the Sahara Desert. Under a new climatic regime, severe droughts are just as likely as severe flooding. Will conditions convince Oklahomans to rid themselves of the virulently anti-science Sen. Tom Coburn when his term is up?
