Some Important Stories

ACLU sues FBI with FOIA lawsuit for documents about PATRIOT Act section 215 use

Memorandum and Order (ACLU version is here)

ACLU Case Website on 215 FOIA is here



New White House proposal for Paris Climate Change talks a good start but need to go much further
Accuracy.org

the science is clear that this target is woefully inadequate to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the worst impacts in our communities. To do our fair share, the U.S. should cut carbon pollution by twice as much, and put a number on the table for 2020 when the climate agreement kicks in.

Oil Train Safety Report

It is now being reported that a Department of Transportation report from last July predicted that 10 trains carrying fuel would derail each year over the next 20 years.

The federal government predicts that trains hauling crude oil or ethanol will derail an average of 10 times a year over the next two decades, causing more than $4 billion in damage and possibly killing hundreds of people if an accident happens in a densely populated part of the U.S.

The projection comes from a previously unreported analysis by the Department of Transportation that reviewed the risks of moving vast quantities of both fuels across the nation and through major cities. The study completed last July took on new relevance this week after a train loaded with crude derailed in West Virginia, sparked a spectacular fire and forced the evacuation of hundreds of families.

continued

A spokesman for the Association of American Railroads said the group was aware of the Department of Transportation analysis but had no comment on its derailment projections.

"Our focus is to continue looking at ways to enhance the safe movement of rail transportation," AAR spokesman Ed Greenberg said.

continued

Most of the proposed rules that regulators are expected to release this spring are designed to prevent a spill, rupture or other failure during a derailment. But they will not affect the likelihood of a crash, said Allan Zarembski, who leads the railroad engineering and safety program at the University of Delaware.

Derailments can happen in many ways. A rail can break underneath a train. An axle can fail. A vehicle can block a crossing. Having a better tank car will not change that, but it should reduce the odds of a tank car leaking or rupturing, he said.

This focus on safety is good for the short term, but the wrong solution for the future.  We must start to seriously end our dependence on oil, not only because of our disastrous wars in the Middle East, but because of the immediate danger that oil spills, whether shipped by train or ship or truck or pipeline cause in damage to people, property and the environment in the short term, polluting ground water used in farming and lakes and rivers that are water sources for communities, but long term global warming.

The news is troubling for 2 reasons. First is the immediate dangers these trains cause when they derail, explode and leak oil.  The second troubling thought is that we would still be relying on oil 20 years from now.  Remember that we need to get carbon emissions under control by 2030 to prevent the worst of global warming.

Global warming is not a problem for the future.  It is happening right now.  On Friday I heard about a town in Alaska that will disappear in 10 years underwater.

In 2008, the Inupiat village of Kivalina, Alaska sued 24 fossil fuel companies for the destruction of its homeland, a seven-mile barrier island on Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. The cause of the destruction, the village contended, was climate change. Without thick winter sea ice to buffer Kivalina from storms, surges have ripped through the island’s seawalls and taken out as much as 70 feet of coastline at a time. The village lost its federal court case in 2013, and this week announced it would not re-file in state court. Meanwhile, scientists estimate the island will be underwater by 2025.

Republican Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan asked Ashton Carter at his confirmation hearing about national security and oil, and I wrote about how our national security is actually being threatened now by global warming and increased oil exploration.

Last week there were 2 oil train derailments in 2 days, and the same day I found a report from the AP about how the oil boom in North Dakota is "transforming lives." Notice the child with the cough--see health issues of oil drilling

Increasingly, landowners and residents of oil and gas field communities are reporting health impacts that they believe are linked to environmental toxics associated with the oil and gas development activities in their area. These reports include incidents of: asthma, respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, autoimmune diseases, liver failure, cancer and other ailments such as headaches, nausea, and sleeplessness.

The Center for Biological Diversity also released a report showing the safety risks posed by increased use of trains to carry fuel and the lagging safety standards

• An estimated 25 million Americans live within the one-mile evacuation zone recommended by the U.S. Department of Transportation;

• Oil trains routinely pass within a quarter-mile of 3,600 miles of streams and more than 73,000 square miles of lakes, wetlands and reservoirs, including the Hudson, Mississippi and Columbia rivers, the Puget Sound, Lake Champlain and Lake Michigan

More Pentagon Hypocrisy on Climate Change

In my first post on the nomination of Ashton Carter I wrote about a back and forth between Senator Dan Sullivan on oil drilling and national security.

I forgot to add what Marcy Wheeler wrote about the hypocrisy regarding the Pentagon's Global Warming Road map report and the current bombing campaign against ISIS which is contributing to Global Warming.

Medea Benjamin of CodePink said on Democracy Now! in September that anti-war is also environmentally friendly

Now is the time to say, if you’re an environmentalist, you better understand that war is the greatest environmental disaster and the U.S. military is the greatest polluter on the planet. If you care about having money for youth groups or for infrastructure or for green energy, you better understand that sucking money into the military—we’re now paying $7.5 million for just the bombing in Iraq

And I just saw this in Rolling Stone

The Pentagon & Climate Change: How Deniers Put National Security at Risk 
The leaders of our armed forces know what's coming next – but deniers in Congress are ignoring the warnings

At NASA Wallops Flight Facility, NASA armored the shoreline with 3 million cubic yards of sand to protect its launchpads from sea surges. "Military readiness is already being impacted by sea-level rise," says Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, who mentions that with all the flooding, it's becoming difficult to sell a house in some parts of Norfolk. If the melting of Greenland and West Antarctica continues to accelerate at current rates, scientists say Norfolk could see more than seven feet of sea-level rise by 2100. In 25 years, operations at most of these bases are likely to be severely compromised. Within 50 years, most of them could be goners. If the region gets slammed by a big hurricane, the reckoning could come even sooner. "You could move some of the ships to other bases or build new, smaller bases in more protected places," says retired Navy Capt. Joe Bouchard, a former commander of Naval Station Norfolk. "But the costs would be enormous. We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars."

Rear Adm. Jonathan White, the Navy's chief oceanographer and head of its climate-change task force, is one of the most knowledgeable people in the military about what's actually happening on our rapidly heating planet. Whenever another officer or a congressperson corners White and presses him about why he spends so much time thinking about climate change, he doesn't even try to explain thermal expansion of the oceans or ice dynamics in the Arctic. "I just take them down to Norfolk," White says. "When you see what's going on down there, it gives you a sense of what climate change means to the Navy — and to America. And you can see why we're concerned."

The article goes on to explain how it's Congressional Republicans who are skeptical whenever global warming is brought up.

The real problem is that Democrats aren't doing enough to fight global warming either.

The Franken Amendment to Keystone XL Pipeline

I've been watching some of the debates around the Keystone XL pipeline and I wanted to say some things about the Franken Amendment, which requires that if built, steel for the pipeline be made in America, which sounds good for jobs, but with the environmental consequences is just making sure American companies profit from making more money on global warming.  But Republicans killed the amendment (I think) because of a caveat placed in the bill about cost

MinnPost

The American-made steel debate will be familiar to those who paid attention to Franken's re-election campaign last year. Franken has said he opposes bypassing the regulatory process for Keystone, but, either way, it should be constructed with American steel. During the campaign his Republican opponent, businessman Mike McFadden, said he didn't think that should be a precondition to constructing Keystone, a comment the DFL used against him throughout the campaign, especially on Minnesota's Iron Range.

Franken's amendment is short, requiring that: “to the maximum extent consistent with the obligations of the United States under international trade agreements, none of the iron, steel or manufactured goods used in construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and facilities approved by this act may be produced outside of the United States.” The big caveat: the amendment wouldn’t apply if using American-made products would increase the price of the project by more than 25 percent.

Here is the full text of the Franken Amendment

(Purpose: To requie the use of iron, steel, and manufactured goods 
 produced in the United States in the construction of the Keystone XL 
                        Pipeline and facilities)

       After section 2, insert the following:

     SEC. __. USE OF UNITED STATES IRON, STEEL, AND MANUFACTURED 
                   GOODS.

       (a) Limitation.--Subject to subsection (b), to the maximum 
     extent consistent with the obligations of the United States 
     under international trade agreements, none of the iron, 
     steel, or manufactured goods used in the construction of the 
     Keystone XL Pipeline and facilities approved by this Act may 
     be produced outside of the United States.
       (b) Nonapplication.--Subsection (a) shall not apply to the 
     extent that the President finds that--
       (1) iron, steel, and the applicable manufactured goods are 
     not produced in the United States in sufficient and 
     reasonably available quantities with a satisfactory quality; 
     or
       (2) inclusion of iron, steel, or any manufactured good 
     produced in the United States will increase the cost of the 
     iron, steel, or any manufactured good used in the Pipeline 
     and facilities by more than 25 percent.

The Hill

Senate Democrats are pressing amendments to legislation that would approve the Keystone XL pipeline, arguing their proposals would "actually make it an American jobs bill."

Because Keystone is a private company, CBO does not look at costs, writing in it's report 

Based on information from affected agencies, CBO estimates that enacting this legislation would have no significant effect on federal spending for regulatory activities related to the proposed pipeline. (Any such regulatory activities are subject to the availability of appropriated funds.) Enacting the legislation would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.

The Keystone XL Pipeline Approval Act contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would impose no costs on state, local, or tribal governments.

so I am having a hard time finding out how much 100% American steel and iron would cost, if it would actually increase the price of the project by more than 25%.

Senator Franken talked about his amendment on the Senate floor

Congress has had a long history of using ``Buy American'' provisions in order to maximize the economic benefits of infrastructure projects. ``Buy American'' provisions ensure that more goods and manufactured items used in infrastructure and other projects are produced here at home. In fact, as recently as 2013 Congress passed a provision in the WRDA Act--the Water Resources Development Act--to require the use of iron, steel, and other domestically produced goods in water infrastructure projects. That is important because it means that we keep jobs and profits here at home instead of sending them abroad.

Unfortunately, there is no such requirement when it comes to construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. In fact, according to TransCanada itself, half of the pipe for the U.S. portion of the pipeline would be sourced from foreign countries. And for the other half that would be put together here in the United States, much of the raw material, such as the steel that goes into the pipe, could be sourced from overseas. This is the problem our amendment addresses. Our amendment would require the use of domestic iron, steel, and other manufactured goods in the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, provided the material is readily available and affordable.

If adopted, the amendment would create jobs for iron ore miners, such as the ones across the Iron Range in my State of Minnesota. It would create more jobs for shippers who ship the ore across the Great Lakes or by rail or down the Mississippi River. It would create more jobs for our steelworkers who work in steel mills across this country.

At the same time, we specify in our amendment that these requirements would be implemented consistent with our trade agreements.

Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said we shouldn't put such restrictions on a private company. But we have to remember that this isn't your typical private company. The underlying bill to authorize the pipeline would throw out the established approval process for the construction of a cross-border pipeline by a foreign corporation. That means all of the important assessments regarding things such as safety and the environment that our Federal agencies might have made on this project are tossed by the wayside. So if Congress is going to intervene on behalf of this foreign company, then the least we can do is to make sure the company building the pipeline uses American-made iron and steel. This is a very pragmatic amendment . We all have different views on the approval process for this pipeline, and while I believe Congress should not circumvent the approval process we have in place, I think we can all agree that we want jobs here in America.

Alaska Senator Murkowski who supports Keystone, added that TransCanada already committed to using 75% American steel

This pipeline is a private project. This is not a federally funded infrastructure project. This would be the first time that Congress has directed or forced private parties to purchase domestic goods and materials.

We actually asked the Congressional Research Service to look into this to see if there was any other instance at the Federal level where private parties were told that they must purchase 100-percent domestic goods and materials, and so far the answer to that inquiry has been that they can find no instance of that.

I think we need to be careful about this as a precedent because if we are going to direct this particular project--the Keystone XL--to have this requirement on it, where do we go next? What will happen to the next project that we have? Will it be the next pipeline or the next renewable energy project? Where does this slippery slope go?

I think it is fair to note that TransCanada has made a commitment to have 75 percent of the pipes for this project come from North America, and fully half of that--more than 332,000 tons of steel will come from the State of Arkansas.

I am with the Senator from Minnesota. We want to make sure we get as many jobs as we absolutely can and make sure they are good-paying jobs--whether it is in steel making or widget making or welders. This is about jobs. This is what we want to do to encourage jobs. I think we need to be very cognizant of what this particular amendment would do. This amendment --for the first time ever--would direct a private entity to utilize all American-made products throughout the process of the construction. It is important to note that the American Iron and Steel Institute has been a strong supporter of the Keystone XL Pipeline. We have all received a letter--they called it a Steelgram--from the American Iron and Steel Institute. They let us know very clearly and in no uncertain terms that they support Keystone XL. They said it is essential that Congress act to ensure the approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline

Senator Durbin spoke about Republican hypocrisy concerning Keystone amendments (there are 247 by the way)

When the Democrats insisted that this pipeline's product--the oil that is refined and used for consumption--be sold in the United States, the Republicans voted no. The Republicans voted no. I have a lengthy memo on my desk of all of the Republican Senators who have come to the floor insisting that the Keystone Pipeline was going to create more gasoline, more diesel fuel, and help the American economy. Yet, when Senator Markey of Massachusetts offered an amendment to say keep the products coming from the Keystone Pipeline in the United States, the Republicans, to a person, voted no.

Then Senator Franken came forward and said, Well, let's agree that if this is about jobs in America that the Keystone Pipeline will use American steel. That seems reasonable to me, and I voted for it. The Republicans voted no. They defeated the notion that we would use American steel to build this pipeline.

This pipeline is Senate Bill 1 for the Senate Republicans. It is their highest priority. One would think that if it truly is a jobs bill, they would want American steel to be used to build the pipeline; let our steel mills build this pipeline in the future, create the jobs in America, and they voted no.

Yesterday I offered an amendment as well. We know at the end of this pipeline, if tar sands reach the United States through this means or otherwise, it is a pretty nasty process taking the tar and sand out of the oil, and what is left over is a nasty product known as petcoke.

Petcoke is now being stored in three-story-high piles in the city of Chicago. I have seen it. And the city is trying to get to the point where it is at least contained and covered. Yet, the company that owns it, which incidentally is a company owned by the Koch brothers--what an irony--this company has resisted the idea of covering these petcoke piles, so this nasty black substance blows through the community in southeast Chicago. The city of Chicago is in a battle.

I tried to put in an effort yesterday so that we would establish standards for transportation and storage of petcoke, and the Republicans insisted it was a benign substance, it isn't hazardous, not dangerous, don't worry about it. If some of the Senators who voted against my amendment , tomorrow, God forbid, face this issue in their community, I think they will have a little different view of petcoke and what it can do to people, the impact it has on respiratory disease and asthma.

Yesterday I didn't prevail. But I can tell my colleagues how over the years, as I fought the tobacco companies and they insisted there was nothing dangerous about tobacco, I heard those arguments from industry just as we are hearing the petcoke arguments from the petcoke industry. Ultimately, good sense prevailed, public health prevailed, and we moved toward regulation of tobacco products. We should do the same--basic regulation--to protect the public from any negative impact on their health relative to petcoke.

It's HOT! HOT! HOT! (but SHH! it's not Global Warming!!)

ABC World News on Wednesday June 18, 2014 reported on the "Heat Emergency" as well as severe storms and drought, but didn't mention Global Warming.

Video, Heat Wave Emergency

Video, Severe Weather

How many times will media show "people who work outside during heat waves" ??

UPS driver says "It's Hot, I'm keeping hydrated."

Construction crews say "It's hot, I'm keeping hydrated."

etc, etc,

Dear ABC News, maybe this from AP will help you!

FEDERAL REPORT: WARMING DISRUPTS AMERICANS' LIVES May 6, 2014

Global warming is rapidly turning America the beautiful into America the stormy, sneezy and dangerous, according to a new federal scientific report. And those shining seas? Rising and costly, the report says.

Climate change's assorted harms "are expected to become increasingly disruptive across the nation throughout this century and beyond," the National Climate Assessment concluded Tuesday. The report emphasizes that warming and all-too-wild weather are changing daily lives...

the normal response from the normal groups

Some fossil energy groups, conservative think tanks and Republican senators immediately assailed the report as "alarmist."

climate change is happening now

"Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present," the report says. "Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington state and maple syrup producers in Vermont are all observing climate-related changes that are outside of recent experience."

National Climate Assessment Home Page

Every region is affected by climate change

So yes, heat waves are increasing, and starting sooner, and storms are increasing in severity and frequency.  But this is not only just a weird story, nor just a weather story.  The story is global warming and the reports should reflect that.

Story on Iraq, then "pain at gas pump"
Video, ISIS approaching oil refinery
There was a report that ISIS was approaching an oil refinery--and yes while that may be a reason for some of the increase, you need to remind viewers, who are only scared by your story, that gas prices rise and fall all year, and typically rise and fall many times each year for various reasons, including market speculation and production increases or decreases.

Charts from Gas Buddy

Here is the 11 year Chart--before Obama, before Bush, before the war in Iraq or Recession

Here is the 2 year price chart as well, notice previous rises in prices in June 2012, February 2013 and February 2014