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Posts Tagged ‘bush administration’

Perry, Shaw Blow Smoke About Proposed Ozone Rule

Posted in Energy, Toxics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 7, 2010 |

In response to the EPA’s announcement today of a proposed rule for tougher ozone standards, Governor Perry and his appointee to the TCEQ, Bryan Shaw, have been blowing a lot of smoke and hot air about what the rule would mean for Texas.  Specifically, Perry and Shaw have stated incorrectly that the rule did not take cost-benefit analysis into account, and that it will do nothing more to protect human health.

Current standards for ozone are not protective of human health – in fact, the current rule ignored the recommendations of the EPA’s own scientists, and that is why Obama’s EPA has reconsidered it.  In their decision to propose the rule, EPA reviewed more than 1,700 scientific studies and public comments from the 2008 rulemaking process – studies and comments that were simply ignored by the Bush Administration.  The new rule will save lives, reduce cases of aggravated asthma, and avoid unnecessary hospital and emergency room visits.  All things considered, the proposal will yield health benefits between $13 Billion and $100 Billion, with an implemented cost of $19 – $90 Billion – information which can be clearly found in the EPA’s press announcement today.  It sounds like Governor Perry and Bryan Shaw were taking notes today from oil and gas profiteers scared they’ll have to pay for the devastation they’ve wreaked on Texas’ air rather than sound science and the facts.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, cleaner cars, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

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Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round-Up

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 18, 2009 |

round upIt’s Monday, and that means it is time for another edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance’s weekly round-up.

At Bluedaze, TXsharon asks: What are the chances that an industry in charge of conducting its own testing to determine waste disposal methods will find toxin levels too high if that means disposal of the waste will be more costly? Landfarms: Spreading Toxic Drilling Waste on Farmland. With VIDEO.

BossKitty at TruthHugger sees lessons never learned … it is NOT about religion, ya’ll! How does it fit that US Military crusader evangelists want to save these souls right before we blow them away. How can we justify putting Mulims on death row, by their own people, just because we convinced them to become APOSTATES?! General Order Number One, Forbid Proselytizing – Evangelists Cannot Protect Murtads – Wars fought using 12th century religious mentality means that civilization has made two steps backwards!

Mean Rachel is reminded on Mother’s Day of children, the lack thereof and why The Pill should be available over the counter.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants to know how can Rick Perry brag about how well Texas is doing when over 22% of our children face hunger every day?

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News showed a video from the Texas Freedom Network of our own Texas Department of Miseducation in action.

WhosPlayin covered the Denton County Democrats’ election of a new County Chair, after previous chairman Neil Durrance resigned to run for U.S. Congress in District 26 in 2010. (more…)

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Just Kidding: Mountain Top Removal Battle Continues

Posted in Coal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 27, 2009 |

The EPA in the last day or so has assumed the dreaded playground title of “taker backer”. Tuesday, Lisa Jackson announced that they would be putting a moratorium on all mountain top removal mining permits, which could delay 150-200 surface coal mines. Yay for the environment right? Well, not so fast. Later that day the announcement was made that they weren’t actually putting any type of hold on mining permits, and that they were simply reviewing two of them.

Check out the EPA’s official, and somewhat grumpy, statement:

The Environmental Protection Agency is not halting, holding or placing a moratorium on any of the mining permit applications. Plain and simple. EPA has issued comments on two pending permit applications to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expressing serious concerns about the need to reduce the potential harmful impacts on water quality. EPA will take a close look at other permits that have been held back because of the 4th Circuit litigation. We fully anticipate that the bulk of these pending permit applications will not raise environmental concerns. In cases where a permit does raise environmental concerns, we will work expeditiously with the Army Corps of Engineers to determine how these concerns can be addressed. EPA’s submission of comments to the Corps on draft permits is a well-established procedure under the Clean Water Act to assure that environmental considerations are addressed in the permitting process.

So put away the champagne; the fight’s not over yet. But we are moving forward in the battle. At least they are finally looking at these mining permits permits seriously, as opposed to the flat denial of potential harm we heard from the Bush administration. Additional good news is that last week, in conjunction with a week-long lobbying campaign against mountain top removal, Senators Lamar Alexander and Benjamin Cardin sponsored a ban on the dumping of mine waste into streams.

While it is a little upsetting to have fallen victim to the one of the most severe cases of environmental Taker Backering in history,  there is still hope for the future. We may not be getting the silver bullet we thought, but if the current EPA is even willing to address these types of problems, we’re still in a better place than we were a year ago.

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Van Jones Officially “Green Jobs” Special Advisor to Obama Administration

Posted in Consumers, Efficiency, Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 10, 2009 |

This just in from the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON – Author and activist Van Jones will be a special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation in the Obama administration.

Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a release Monday that Jones will start work next week to help direct the administration’s efforts to create jobs and help the environment. Sutley said Jones will work on “vulnerable communities.”

Jones founded Green for All, a national organization that promises environmentally friendly jobs to help lift people out of poverty. He wrote the New York Times best-seller “The Green Collar Economy.”

Anyone who heard Van Jones’ keynote address at our Texas Energy Future conference knows what fantastic news it is that this man now has the ear of the President and the White House Council on Environmental Quality.  At the conference Van Jones gave an amazing speech to a packed house on the potential of the new green economy.  For a taste of the kind of green jobs messaging the Obama Administration will hear from now on, check out this trailer — courtesy of Texas Impact.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvGRWZDShPc]

For the full speech, check out the streaming google video after the jump.  (more…)

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Drill no more, baby, drill no more

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 4, 2009 |

nopumpjacksThe promise by Obama to overturn Bush administration policies on energy is already being fulfilled.  Today the Obama administration said it will cancel oil drilling leases on more than 100,000 acres in Utah and return $6 million in bids including those of activist Tim DeChristopher, who added an interesting twist to the Bush administration’s rush to sell oil and gas leases during their last weeks in office.

In December DeChristopher bid on and won several of these leases in protest, even though he didn’t have the money to pay for them.   By early January he had raised $45,000 from supporters and promised if he didn’t have to use the money he would contact donors to determine what do do with the cash.

In the meantime, an alliance of conservation groups filed a lawsuit to try to stop the leasing, citing concerns it would pollute the air in the protected areas.  They were granted a temporary restraining order preventing the Bureau of Land Management from moving forward with the leases.

These delaying tactics have proved to be most effective in light of this announcement.

So thank you Tim DeChristopher, for your unorthadox approach to good stewardship of some of our nation’s most precious landscapes in Utah.  It took a lot of chutzpah to do what you did in the face of  an administration whose motto has long been (as Sarah Palin puts it) “DRILL-BABY-DRILL” regardless of the consequences to environmentally sensitive areas.

And thank you Robin Cooley, the Earthjustice attorney who represented the conservation groups, for convincing the court that the one and a half hours of use we would get from the oil produced on these lands should be weighed more carefully against the impacts on our national parks and protected areas.

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