Multi Medium

Tone-Deafness: We Haz It

The Obama administration continues to demonstrate their ultra-keen political instincts and compassion for the common man.  First up, Ken Salazar going to bat for the oil industry:

July’s decision halted development on billions of dollars in leases in the Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea. Beistline found that the federal government didn’t follow environmental law before selling drilling rights. Among other things, he found the government had failed to analyze the environmental impact of natural gas development, “despite industry interest and specific lease incentives for such development,” according to court records.

The Obama administration is among those seeking clarification from Beistline, a rare recent case of the administration siding with the oil industry. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asked the court to narrow the ruling so that another company, Statoil, which owns 16 Chukchi leases, could start seismic testing roughly 100 miles from the coast. Government attorneys told the judge that Statoil, a global oil company partly owned by the Norwegian government, would likely face “significant economic losses” if it couldn’t proceed with seismic surveying.

Statoil said Tuesday it might cancel the seismic tests it hoped to do in the Chukchi this summer because it remains unclear whether the company will be allowed to do the work.

Environmental groups said they were stunned by the administration move, which they said undercuts the administration’s recent decisions to put the brakes on Arctic exploration in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

And, they said, marine mammals such as whales and walruses can be harmed by the testing. The impact of such tests on marine life was one of the issues the court said the federal government failed to consider adequately before issuing the Arctic drilling leases.

Awesome.  So nice to see the Interior’s deep concern for protecting the environment from the offshore oil industry.

And then there’s the always-reliable, prosperity-is-just-around-the-corner Tim Geithner:

Until now, President Obama and his advisers have been adamant that Congress should extend the expiring 2001 and 2003 tax cuts only for individuals making less than $200,000 and married couples making less than $250,000, leaving tax rates on upper-income earners to increase as scheduled on Jan. 1, 2011.

But when asked repeatedly on ABC’s “Good Morning America” whether he would recommend that Obama veto an extension of the upper-income tax cuts, Geithner refused to commit.

(…)

“If you extend particularly these tax cuts that only go to 2 percent of the highest-earning Americans, then there’d be a much higher probability they’ll be extended indefinitely,” Geithner said. That would dramatically drive up the deficit and be “a deeply fiscally irresponsible act,” he added.

But asked again whether he would commit to a veto threat against any legislation extending all of the Bush-era tax cuts for now, Geithner responded “no.”

This sounds an awful lot like the healthcare reform fiasco, where Obama repeatedly claimed to support the public option, but refused to commit to vetoing any bill without it.  And after the way that turned out, it’s hard not to interpret a refusal to veto as a signal of tacit support.

Add comment August 4th, 2010 at 07:24am Posted by Eli

Won’t Someone Think Of The Oil Companies?

Shorter Jonah Goldberg: The offshore drilling ban is the real tragedy of the Gulf.

No, really.  Because he has cheerfully embraced Michael Grunwald’s happy propaganda story about how the oil is all dissolving and everything’s going to be fine and the environmental impact isn’t really a big deal at all (um, right).  He also appears to embrace Grunwald’s assumption that any dead animal carcasses that are not obviously covered with oil must therefore have died of natural causes.  Either that or he’s incredibly dishonest, but surely that can’t be true, right?

Some birds were oiled and died, always a sad sight. But according to Time magazine, the number of birds killed is — so far — less than 1 percent of the avian casualties of the Exxon Valdez. And to date, only three oiled mammal carcasses have been recovered. Three.

Wow, three sure is a small number, isn’t it?  Maybe there isn’t anything to worry about after all!

But if you look at the actual report (PDF) from the Deepwater Horizon Response site (which probably has best-case numbers, and of course doesn’t count dead animals that weren’t recovered), you see that while there were only three oiled mammal carcasses, there were 64 overall. Still not a huge number, but bigger than Jonah’s carefully-parsed figure by a factor of 21.  And mammals are the smallest of the categories encompassed by the report.  There are 504 dead sea turtles, and 3455 dead birds (but that’s nowhere near the number of birds killed by the Exxon Valdez spill, so that’s okay).  But no count of the number of dead fish, or shrimp, or oysters, much less damage to coral reefs and other deep-sea habitats, or even the number of Gulf residents and cleanup workers sickened by dispersants or oil fumes or tainted seafood.

But hey, we only found three dead mammals with oil on them, so that proves that this is just those crazy tree-hugging liberals getting hysterical again and trying to take away everyone’s jobs!  I’m surprised Jonah didn’t cite the lack of seal, otter and walrus casualties as proof that BP’s environmental response plan is working perfectly.

Add comment August 3rd, 2010 at 08:18pm Posted by Eli

Tony Hayward Blames Everyone Else

Tony Hayward attempts to spread blame across the drilling industry like his failed rig has spread oil across the Gulf of Mexico:

BP maintains that it alone does not deserve all the blame for the April 20 accident and its aftermath, and it intends to pursue legal action to have drilling partners share in the cost of containment and cleanup. Those partners include Transocean, which operated the rig; Cameron, which built the blowout preventer that failed to shut down the well; and Halliburton, which cemented the oil drill into place underwater.

“It is clear the accident was the result of multiple equipment errors and human error involving many companies,” Hayward said in the webcast.

(…)

Hayward also defended his record on safety. “Safety, people and performance have been my watchwords,” he said. “We’ve made significant progress.”

Wow.  Way to man up and accept responsibility, Tony.  Even if we grant the rather shaky premise that Transocean, Cameron and Halliburton did shoddy work, it was BP calling the shots, and BP that made all of the fatally bad safety-last decisions that led inevitably to disaster.

It was BP that chose a wellbore design without seals or a liner – and then chose to skip the acoustic test which would have detected any flaws in Halliburton’s cement job.  It was BP that falsely claimed that BOP failures were “inconceivable” and declined to install a backup unit.  It was BP that cut corners on testing the BOP and ignored the presence of rubber sealant in the drilling fluid.  And it was BP that ignored all the warning signs of dangerous pressure and replaced the drilling mud with seawater.

In short, even if there were quality issues with Transocean, Cameron and Halliburton, BP deliberately turned a blind eye to potential problems in order to get the Deepwater Horizon pumping as quickly as possible, and now eleven people are dead and the entire Gulf ecosystem may be dying.  Heckuva job, Tony.

(Cross-posted at the Seminal)

Add comment July 28th, 2010 at 07:28am Posted by Eli

Co-Wanker Of The Day (Part 2)

Joe Barton:

BP’s CEO, Tony (I want my life back!) Hayward is testifying today before a House Committee, and he just received a heartfelt apology from one of his most loyal subjects. Joe Barton (R. Texas) just apologized to BP.

The Republican Party’s quintessential oil Congressman, Barton told Hayward how shameful it was that the Obama Administration would “shake down” BP by demanding that it give up dividends to shareholders and instead set aside a small fraction of their net revenues to the greedy Gulf folks who’ve been only slightly inconvenienced by losing their jobs, their livelihoods, and their environment. Never mind that BP agreed to this on its own, because it knows or fears it’s legal liability may eventually become worse.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with these people???

For what it’s worth, even some of his fellow Republicans think that was beyond the pale (even if the GOP’s prevailing feeling is that we shouldn’t make BP pay too much), forcing Barton to issue a non-apology apology apology.  Or something.

Add comment June 18th, 2010 at 11:36am Posted by Eli

Republican Logic

Haley Barbour sums up the Republican position perfectly:

If BP is the responsible party under the law, they’re to pay for everything. I do worry that this idea of making them make a huge escrow fund is going to make it less likely that they’ll pay for everything. They need their capital to drill wells. They need their capital to produce income. … But this escrow bothers me that it’s going to make them less able to pay us what they owe us. And that concerns me. … [I]t bothers me to talk about causing an escrow to be made, which will — which makes it less likely that they’ll make the income that they need to pay us.

Obama needs to be tougher about holding BP accountable… without harming them in any way.

Add comment June 17th, 2010 at 11:17am Posted by Eli

Wanker Of The Day

Rand Paul, Concerned Environmentalist:

Q: What about mountaintop removal?

PAUL: I think whoever owns the property can do with the property as they wish, and if the coal company buys it from a private property owner and they want to do it, fine. The other thing I think is that I think coal gets a bad name, because I think a lot of the land apparently is quite desirable once it’s been flattened out. As I came over here from Harlan, you’ve got quite a few hills. I don’t think anybody’s going to be missing a hill or two here and there.

Sure, who needs stupid hills, right?  They’re always getting in the way of stuff and they’re hard to build on.

For an encore, maybe Paul can go down to the Gulf and tell them that he doesn’t think anybody’s going to be missing a few miles of shoreline here and there either.

Add comment June 14th, 2010 at 07:50am Posted by Eli

Wanker Of The Day

John Kerry, Environmental Champion:

File this one under not at all helpful:

Stopping offshore drilling is not a realistic option, the senator said.

“Now we are not going to stop drilling in the Gulf tomorrow, folks. Let’s be realistic. There are 48,000 wells out there. One of them went sour. About 30 percent of our transportation fuel comes from the Gulf. You think Americans are going to suddenly stop driving to work tomorrow? Do you think people are going to stop driving the trucks to deliver the goods to the department stores? Not going to happen,” said the Massachusetts Democrat.

This goes beyond the strictly political argument I’ve heard from staffers, which says that drilling is part of Senator Kerry’s energy legislation only because it may help pick up Republican support.  It remains to be seen whether that political calculation will pay dividends or end up costing the bill more support than it gains.

The bit about halting drilling ‘tomorrow’ is a straw-man designed to make opponents of offshore drilling seem extreme.  While some groups are calling for a pause on new permits, and others may be advocating taking steps to shut down currently operating offshore rigs, I haven’t seen anyone argue that we should stop drilling ‘tomorrow.’

Thanks, Big John.  Way to be a fierce advocate for the environment and brand the Democrats as the let’s-not-destroy-any-more-ecosystems party.

Add comment May 27th, 2010 at 06:25pm Posted by Eli

The Real Villains

It’s those damn scientists, of course:

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell: Some of the scientific estimates, Mr Dudley, have been vastly hugher. The Perdue scientist Steve Wereley said that as much as 100,000 barrels a day – 4.2 million gallons of oil every day were leaking. Could it be that bad?

BP’s Dudley: Andrea, it’s not anything like that, and I find those statements alarming. I think they’re alarming to the people on the Gulf Coast. I think it actually damages the Gulf Coast. There are people now saying, “I don’t want to near Florida, Alabama, Mississippi.” Those beaches are clean, the fishing is good. I think it’s actually hurting the local economy with that sort of alarmist statements. No. I think it’s highly unlikely oil will actually reach the beaches of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi.

It’s a well-known fact that the leading cause of fish kills is actually alarmist scientists.  Sea life is very sensitive to bad vibes, you see.

Add comment May 21st, 2010 at 11:35am Posted by Eli

Whose Side Are They On Again?

It sure does look like MMS sees their role as facilitator rather than regulator…

A proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean as early as this summer received initial permits from the Minerals Management Service office in Alaska at the same time federal auditors were questioning the office about its environmental review process.

The approvals also came after many of the agency’s most experienced scientists had left, frustrated that their concerns over environmental threats from drilling had been ignored.

Minerals Management has faced intense scrutiny in the weeks since the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. An article in The New York Times reported that it failed to get some environmental permits to approve drilling in the gulf and ignored objections from scientists to keep those projects on schedule.

Similar concerns are being raised about the agency’s handling of a plan by Shell Oil to begin exploratory drilling in the Arctic’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

The Shell plan has stirred controversy for many years among environmentalists and advocates of the endangered bowhead whale, which is legally hunted in the area for subsistence by Alaska Natives.

Opponents have argued that an oil spill would be virtually impossible to contain, given the region’s remoteness, its severe weather and ice and limited onshore support.

The investigation of the Minerals Management’s Alaska office by the Government Accountability Office, completed in March, examined the environmental review process for proposed offshore leasing in southwest Alaska, which has since been canceled.

But it also raised questions about future leasing plans in the Beaufort and Chukchi at the time the agency was deciding whether to allow Shell to go forward on leases it had purchased. The Shell project received critical initial permits from Minerals Management last fall, though it still needs several final approvals.

The G.A.O. found that the Alaska branch deliberately avoided establishing consistent guidelines for determining whether future leases would cause significant environmental impacts in the Arctic — a finding that could require further examination and delay or prevent drilling.

Umm, I also thought there was a moratorium on new offshore drilling?  Perhaps that word does not mean what I think it means…

Add comment May 21st, 2010 at 06:55am Posted by Eli

My Brilliant Genius Plan To Fix Everything

Convince Obama that Wellpoint, PhRMA, Goldman Sachs, the oil industry, Pete Peterson, Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson and Rahm Emanuel are all gay.

Because they could all use a little more “fierce advocacy.”

(Cross-posted at The Seminal)

Add comment May 19th, 2010 at 06:57am Posted by Eli

Insane Disturbing Stat Of The Day

In case you need more proof of just how completely unhinged and, well, kind of evil Republicans are…

We have some new national polling coming out tomorrow on offshore drilling. The most astounding number from the poll? 28% of Republicans said the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico made them more likely to support drilling off the coast to an equal 28% who said it made them less likely to be supportive. 44% said it made no difference to them and that’s understandable, but why would an oil spill make you more supportive of drilling?

The only two explanations I can think of are:

1) “Fuck you, liberals!  Anything that drives them this crazy must be a good thing.”

2) “Now that I’ve seen the offshore drilling worst-case scenario… it’s not so bad, really.  Losing an entire coastline every once in a while seems like an acceptable risk to me.”

(h/t Michael Whitney)

2 comments May 11th, 2010 at 11:26am Posted by Eli

No! Really?

What?  Outrage over the BP disaster won’t lead to meaningful reform?

No one could have anticipated…

Add comment May 10th, 2010 at 07:01am Posted by Eli

Who Needs April Fools?

…When Republicans and Blanche Lincoln (but I repeat myself) are taking credit for healthcare reform?

…When the teabagger holding the (misspelled) N-word sign complains that teabaggers are being unfairly accused of racism?

…When anti-government militia members ask the government to provide them with defense counsel?

…When drug companies are investigating the FDA?

…When Tim Geithner laments how “deeply unfair” it is that all of the bailout’s benefits have gone to Wall Street?

…When a Democratic president embraces “Drill, Baby, Drill”?

April First is just another day now.

Add comment April 1st, 2010 at 11:34am Posted by Eli

What I’ve Been Saying

Scarecrow has a great post about just how badly Obama and the Democrats have sold us out on healthcare, and how pathetic our supposed “reform” is when compared to the rest of the developed world, and Drew Westen decries Obama’s abject lack of leadership.  I think the root cause is the same: Our government has become so completely captive to corporate donors that it is literally almost impossible to pass any bill that might harm corporate interests in any way.

As I put it back in July:

As the increasingly discouraging healthcare “reform” process plays out, the endgame makes the most sense when you remember that the Prime Directive for Obama and most of Congress is this:

First, do no harm… to the insurance companies.

(…)

This is why single-payor is off the table (and how many of today’s public option advocates wouldn’t prefer single-payor if they thought it was attainable?) – it would kill the insurance industry outright (aside from the much smaller business of providing gap coverage), whereas a correctly managed (i.e., small or unsuccessful) public option would only wound them.

The fundamental problem is that the starting point has never been “How do we improve healthcare for our constituents?”, but rather, “How do we make sure this doesn’t hurt the insurance industry?”

And at FDL in August:

Need to slash greenhouse emissions to prevent the ice caps from melting?  You have to do it without hurting the energy companies.

Need to rescue the economy and reform the financial system?  You have to do it without hurting Wall Street.

Need to make healthcare affordable and available to everyone?  You have to do it without hurting the insurance companies.

Need to reform campaign finance?  You have to do it without diminishing the influence of the corporations or the advantages of incumbency.

It is virtually impossible to achieve meaningful reform within such nonsensical parameters.

I wish I could see a way out of this loop, but campaign finance (the primary source of the corruption) is inside it.

3 comments December 21st, 2009 at 01:03pm Posted by Eli

Ignoramus Of The Month

James Inhofe:

People complain that we are buying — importing from the Middle East — oil and gas. And then they find out that we have it all right here. We don’t have to do that. If their argument there is “Well, we don’t want to use oil and gas because we think it pollutes” — which it doesn’t — but if that’s their argument, then why are we willing to import it from Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East?

W.T.F.

Add comment July 28th, 2009 at 06:49am Posted by Eli

Unfortunate Word Choice Of The Day

From < responding to Gregg Easterbrook’s clean coal cheerleading:

Any United States energy policy for the next 50 to 100 years needs to include a strong dose of nuclear energy.

Um, I think that’s what we’re trying to avoid, actually…

Add comment July 6th, 2009 at 11:19am Posted by Eli

Obama Administration Continues The Real “Bush Doctrine”

No, not the Bush Doctrine about how invading countries for no good reason is Teh Awesome, I’m talking about the one that’s like the Peter Principle on steroids, where incompetence and criminality are rewarded with money and advancement instead of scorn, unemployment, or jail time.  Chris Bowers spells it out:

The past year has revealed a comprehensive philosophy of government championed by conservatives and moderates when they oppose major progressive economic reforms. I call it “crime and reward.” The philosophy is summed up as follows:

The flaw in progressive legislative proposals is that they don’t give enough money to the corporations that caused the problem(s) which overall legislative effort is supposedly trying to solve.

It applies in all major cases. Check it out:

1. The way to lower health care costs is to give companies that have increased health care costs even more money….

2. The way to fix climate change is to give the companies that are the main cause of climate change even more money….

3. The way to fix the financial crisis is to give the financial institutions that caused the financial crisis even more money….

On the three major areas of public policy that were addressed by the federal government over the last twelve months–health care, climate change, financial crisis–the “moderate” solution has consistently been to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the corporations that caused climate change, the financial crisis, and skyrocketing health care costs. It is a crime and reward ideology. When powerful private sector companies cause major national and global problems, the “moderate” solution is to give those who caused the problem hundreds of billions of dollars.

Crime and reward. Through a conservative-moderate alliance, it is the system of government under which we live, even in the era of the Democratic trifecta.

On the other hand, maybe it only looks like a “reward.”  Maybe it would be more accurate to say that this is just another demonstration of the criminals’ continuing ability to call the shots, just as they have for the previous eight years, and probably much longer.

Regardless of the cause, it’s a compelling illustration of just how broken and corrupt our political system has become when placing the public good over the corporate good becomes impossible, if not unthinkable.

Add comment July 2nd, 2009 at 06:56pm Posted by Eli

John Tierney, Unconcern Troll

Shorter John Tierney: We don’t have to worry about reducing carbon emissions, it’ll just magically take care of itself because we’ll all be rich!

…Or something.

Add comment April 21st, 2009 at 07:05am Posted by Eli

Could This Work?

I sure hope so, ‘cuz it sounds way cool.  Basically, it’s an electric car plan where you buy everything but the battery, and there’s an infrastructure with not just charging stations, but switching stations, where you can get  a low battery swapped out quickly and completely rather than waiting for it to charge up.

I’m rooting for ‘em, but I have no idea if it’s really feasible, especially on a national scale.  That’s a lot of charging and switching stations to build, and they don’t even have a car yet.

Add comment March 26th, 2009 at 06:50am Posted by Eli

Pokerface Fail

The greens aren’t exactly playing it cool about the stimulus…

The stimulus package about to be passed by Congress is one of the biggest spending bills in US history, and environmentalists are crowing that they got a decent share. Roughly $60 billion of the $789 billion package will be devoted to spending on clean energy, environmental projects, and scientific research. “Overall, this will be by far the biggest investment in new green technologies that we’ve ever seen from the federal government,” says Gene Karpinski, head of the League of Conservation Voters. “And that’s good for our economy and for our environment.”

Details of the conference package released on Thursday show that spending on green causes did not decrease significantly in the process of creating a compromise bill. “I thought we fared pretty well,” says Marchant Wentworth, a legislative representative for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Is it true that these are monster funding increases for everything green that we believe in? Yes it is.”

(…)

“This is unbelievable,” says Josh Dorner, a spokesman for Sierra Club. “This is an unprecedented investment in building a clean energy economy. The Clinton Global Initiative, about a year or so ago, their big challenge was to get spending on energy efficiency to reach $1.5 billion, total, in all of America. And this bill, just on federal buildings, has $4.5 billion. It’s just kind of sinking in that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and Congress and President Obama really stepped up to the plate.”

Is it wise to be that obviously happy?  Shouldn’t they at least act disappointed so they can push for more funding later?  Greenpeace demonstrates how it’s done:

“We’re not impressed overall,” says Kert Davies, the research director for Greenpeace. “It seems in the prioritization of things, environmental matters got the short end of the stick.”

But Davies acknowledges that the stimulus is a way to “start the green economy and create green jobs.” He also sees the comprehensive climate change bill that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, has promised to push through his committee by the end of May as another opportunity to get the country on the right track environmentally. “I don’t think it’s the last bite at the apple.”

That’s more like it.  Still, it’s hard to blame the greens for being a little giddy over a win, considering they basically just lived through eight years of continuous wedgies.

Add comment February 12th, 2009 at 07:23pm Posted by Eli

Clean Coal = More Coal

Apparently, making coal “clean” uses so much energy that you end up needing 25% more coal to compensate:

In fact, because carbon capture requires a roughly 25-percent increase in energy from the coal plant, about 25 percent more coal is needed, increasing mountaintop removal and increasing non-carbon air pollution from power plants, he said.

My question is, would that be considered a bug or a feature for the coal-producing states that the clean-coal gospel panders to?  I mean, not only does clean coal make coal magically okay, but it means coal consumers would have to buy 25% more of it.  It’s a win-win!

(Why yes, I am assuming that environmental impacts are not a consideration – why do you ask?)

(h/t kirk)

1 comment January 27th, 2009 at 10:27pm Posted by Eli

Sarah Palin’s Latest Qualification

Hey, did you hear the one about the rich elitist politician who installed a tanning bed in her official government residence?

“The governor did have a tanning bed put in the Governor’s Mansion,” Roger Wetherell, chief communications officer of Alaska’s Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, confirmed to this newspaper. “It was done shortly after she took office [in early 2007] and moved into the mansion.”

The home tanning bed in the Governor’s Mansion in Juneau adds a trivial fact among the many, big and small, coming to light about the right-wing’s latest celebrity, McCain’s gamble to try and wrestle the election away from Democrat Barack Obama, but one that – tug the thread – leads to other questions about elitism, ethics, public health and the insufferable phoniness that plagues politics and politicians.

The good news is: According to McCain campaign logic, this makes Sarah Palin the country’s foremost expert on solar power.

Add comment September 15th, 2008 at 11:28pm Posted by Eli

All You Need To Know About “Drill Here, Drill Now”

A picture is worth a thousand words:

Any questions?

1 comment September 13th, 2008 at 07:02pm Posted by Eli

Refine, Baby, Refine!

Well, I can’t say that this is much of a surprise:

A) high gas prices aren’t related to supply, and therefore drilling more won’t curb high gas prices and B) re-regulating Wall Street, cracking down on oil industry consolidation, and investigating energy company collusion is the best way to get at the problem. We know this not just because of whats happening now, but because of what has happened over the last decade.

Here is an excerpt of the energy chapter from my book, Hostile Takeover that spells it all out:

(…)

In October 2004, Consumers Union… found that in the first nine months of that year, oil companies’ profits increased by a whopping 35 percent. The watchdog group found that the price increases that created those profits came more from higher charges for refining the crude oil into gasoline, than from higher prices for the raw crude itself (i.e., supply). Why would those refining charges increase? Because federal regulators have allowed the oil industry to pursue their goal of deliberately reducing refining capacity to create artificial bottlenecks that drive up the overall price of gasoline. And it has been deliberate. “If the U.S. petroleum industry doesn’t reduce its refining capacity,” said a 1995 internal Chevron memo, “It will never see any substantial increase in refinery profits.”

(…)

This is the oil/gas version of the Enron speculators shutting down power plants in order to artificially jack up prices – and it is precisely what the “drill, baby, drill!” crowd doesn’t want to talk about, because that crowd is underwritten by the same oil industry and Wall Street speculators that are making a killing off the status quo.

Obviously, there is only one possible solution for out-of-control gas prices: We must give the oil companies tax breaks to build more refineries!

Horrible as it is, I can’t escape the sneaking suspicion that that’s exactly where we’re going to end up…

Add comment September 10th, 2008 at 07:15pm Posted by Eli

Call Their Bluff

Dean Baker has an excellent idea for putting the oil companies and drilling-everywhere-will-cut-gasoline-prices-in-half wankers on the spot:

Since the drilling advocates are telling us that increased drilling will bring down the price of gas, there is no reason not to take them at their word. Why not just give them the green light to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Florida Coast and other offshore protected areas, Mount Rushmore and anywhere else on the planet that they want.

However, open drilling season comes with a simple quid pro quo. The oil industry gets slapped with a windfall profits tax that takes away any revenue in excess of $3 a gallon. Since we know it takes time to search for oil and drill wells, we can even give the oil boys a six-month grace period before the windfall tax takes effect.

Based on what Senator McCain and the Republicans are telling us, this windfall profits tax shouldn’t be of any concern to the industry. After all, opening up these protected areas for drilling will lead to a huge gusher of new oil on the market. This increased supply should push the price of gas back below $2 a gallon. According to McCain and the Republicans, once we declare open season for drilling, $4-a-gallon gas will just be a bad memory of what happens when you let environmentalists run the country.

It would be interesting to see the response if Senator Obama or Democrats in Congress put forward this proposal. If McCain and the Republicans believe what they have been saying, then they should have no problem putting a windfall profits tax provision into their bill, since they know it will have no effect. On the other hand, if they believe what all the experts are saying – that additional drilling will have no noticeable impact on oil prices – then they will strongly oppose this bill, since it would be a huge tax on their friends in the oil industry.

In short, this compromise “drill anywhere” plan is a simple way to force Senator McCain and the Republicans to tell the country whether they really believe that drilling in protected areas will lower gas prices, or whether they are knowingly making false claims for political gain. The “drill anywhere” plan will make them tell the truth without waterboarding.

This is a lot like telling Bush, Cheney, and all the neocons that they can invade any country they want, any time they want, but since they would obviously never do so without it being both existentially important and eminently winnable, all of their combat-age children and/or grandchildren would be the first ones on the front lines, and they themselves would have to visit the invadee nation five years after the invasion… without military escort.

You know, I’m liking this as a general Democratic strategy: Whenever Republicans make extravagant and transparently false claims to justify their terrible ideas, offer them a “compromise” that includes a painful (and preferably ironic) penalty if said claims do not pan out.

Never happen, of course.  But fun to think about.

3 comments August 4th, 2008 at 08:17pm Posted by Eli

How Do You Define Obstructionism?

I’m wondering which definition will apply here.

Old Definition: Filibustering, vetoing, or otherwise blocking every piece of legislation your opposition introduces.

New Definition: Insisting on introducing legislation that you know your opposition will filibuster, veto, or otherwise block.

1 comment July 31st, 2008 at 10:37pm Posted by Eli

Wanker Of The Day

John McCain, with honorable mention for CBS:

Keith Olbermann led his broadcast tonight with Spencer Ackerman’s report on John McCain’s most recent gaffe: in an interview with Katie Couric, McCain claimed “the surge” was responsible for the “Anbar Awakening” — which actually began in September, 2006, months before the surge was even announced.

The strange thing, as Keith notes, is that CBS edited the gaffe out of its broadcast. Fortunately, they posted a transcript — and video — online.

Once again, John McCain reveals the depth of his foreign policy expertise, and the media demonstrates its clear liberal bias…

But wait, there’s more – John McCain also demonstrates the depth of his commitment to the environment:

And I’d like to mention offshore drilling if I could. My friends, we have to drill offshore. We have to do it! Oil executives say within a couple years we could be seeing results from it. So why not do it?

Well, if the oil executives are in favor, that pretty much settles it, right?  I mean, who could possibly be more trustworthy on the subject of offshore drilling?

Add comment July 23rd, 2008 at 07:32am Posted by Eli

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Tom Friedman is a fatuous twit who helped enable the invasion of Iraq, has been wrong more times that I can count, and is the master of godawful metaphors… but his take on the gasoline crisis is absolutely perfect:

When a person is addicted to crack cocaine, his problem is not that the price of crack is going up.

Yeah, I think that pretty much sums it up.

Add comment July 20th, 2008 at 02:50pm Posted by Eli

$4.11 Changed Everything!

Well, it looks like the Republican “Lease Drill Everywhere!” plan is gaining some traction:

Now, polling is beginning to show that a rising share of the public is ready to drill, drill, drill — threatening to destroy precious and unique wildlife areas like the Arctic refuge and create more oil spills along the Gulf coasts. Worse, drilling is a distraction from real changes like massive investments in wind and solar power.

In February, Pew asked the public in a poll whether they favor drilling in the Arctic refuge. At that time 42 percent favored and 50 percent opposed. Now, in July, 50 percent favor drilling and only 43 percent oppose. That’s a 12-point change since the February survey and a 28-point swing since a March 2002 Gallup poll (where 35 percent favored and 56 percent opposed).

The shift is something to be concerned about — progressives are losing ground with the public on drilling. These are alarming gains in sympathy for the plans of Big Oil.

This change isn’t because the idea has gotten better — Arctic drilling might cut gas prices by a mere 4 cents a decade from now. It is because of a sophisticated communications campaign by the oil companies and the Republican Party that is mostly met with silence by the other side — by our side.

I think it’s not just the communications campaign – it’s the fear and desperation of the American public as gas prices cross the $4 threshold and keep climbing with no relief in sight.

This reminds me of nothing so much as the way Republicans have exploited (and fomented) fear and hysteria about terrorism to sell a series of terrible policies (warrantless wiretapping, invasion of Iraq, torture, suspension of habeas corpus, etc.) on the grounds that they would keep us safe from the Scary Terrorists.  Of course, none of these policies did any such thing, and most of them made the underlying problem even worse.  But they sure did make Bush and his cronies a lot more powerful and a lot more rich.

And now, here we are again, with an American people up in arms about gas prices and begging for someone to do something, anything.  And that’s exactly what the Republicans are offering: Bold, decisive action.  So what if it won’t provide any actual relief – it’s better than no action at all, right?  And conservation and alternative energy strategies are sooo boring and lame.  Real red-blooded Americans drill and exploit and take, just like real red-blooded Americans kill and torture and spy and… detain indefinitely without recourse to legal counsel.

I expect the “Drill Everywhere” strategy will work out about as well as the Iraqupation – maybe even worse, since it’s our own country we’ll be destroying.

2 comments July 14th, 2008 at 08:08pm Posted by Eli

Mission Accomplished!

Well, at least the Iraqupation is working out great for somebody:

In a 1998 interview, Osama bin Laden — the terrorist organizer of 9/11 who still roams free — listed as one of his many grievances against the U.S. that Americans “have stolen $36 trillion from Muslims” by purchasing oil from Persian Gulf countries at low prices. The real price of a barrel of oil should be $144, bin Laden demanded.

Ten years ago today, the price of a barrel of oil was just $11. Heading into this holiday weekend, the price of a barrel of oil rested at $144 — a thirteen-fold increase.

One month after 9/11, the New York Times wrote of possible “nightmare” scenarios that would deliver bin Laden’s goal. Neela Banerjee warned that among the “misguided decisions” that would put oil supplies at risk would be “that the United States attacks Iraq.” The Times included this quote in its story:

“If bin Laden takes over and becomes king of Saudi Arabia, he’d turn off the tap,” said Roger Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum Finance Company, a consulting firm in Washington. “He said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel” — about six times what it sells for now.

If there were no George W. Bush, bin Laden would have to invent him.  And vice versa.

3 comments July 6th, 2008 at 12:28pm Posted by Eli