Author: Brad Johnson

Whoever is running the disaster response is going to have limited success and what appear to be very visible failures (see Will eco-disasters destroy Obama’s legacy? and 20-year veteran of the Coast Guard: “With a spill of this magnitude and complexity, there is no such thing as an effective response.”)

The St. Petersburg Times argues, “Federal takeover of spill work isn’t the answer.”  But CAP’s Tom Kenworthy and Brad Johnson make a compelling case below that it is.  What do you think?

There are obvious limits to how much control the federal government can exert over the frantic and so far hapless effort to stem the catastrophic oil eruption that threatens the entire Gulf of Mexico with ecological devastation. As Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen said Monday, the government does not have the equipment or technical expertise to simply shove aside BP and its industry partners a month after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of Louisiana. “To push BP out of the way, it would raise the question, to replace them with what?” Allen said.

The Obama administration’s embattled and frustrated Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who on Sunday had threatened to do the pushing, recognized the sobering reality 24 hours later. “This administration has done everything we can possibly do to make sure that we push BP to stop the spill and to contain the impact,” Salazar said. “We have also been very clear that there are areas where BP and the private sector are the ones who must continue to lead the efforts with government oversight, such as the deployment of private sector technology 5,000 feet below the ocean’s surface to kill the well.”

But if government has little choice but to keep the perpetrator on the job at the immediate crime scene, it does have a choice when it comes to operations beyond the urgent task of quelling the erupting well. BP will necessarily remain in charge of plugging the hole; but the federal and state governments in the gulf must take greater charge of containing the onshore ecological impacts.

This requires a greater mobilization than exists today, and Washington needs to send the message that it is in full command of the disaster response with the following actions:

• One highly visible leader at the White House should lead the command and coordination at the cabinet level between the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy, the EPA, the Department of Justice, the White House Office of Energy and Climate Policy, the White House Office of Science and Technology, and the Department of Defense. Two excellent choices for this role would be Vice President Joe Biden or energy advisor Carol Browner. This leader should also work directly with the affected states’ governors.
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency should be in charge of onshore coastal recovery and disaster response, assisted by the Army Corps of Engineers. The National Guard should be fully deployed under the control of each state’s governor, with Army units if necessary. The EPA, NOAA, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should exercise relevant oversight. And any environmental and disaster response contractors working for BP should instead work directly for the federal government.
• The federal government should clearly be in charge of surface-water recovery and maritime disaster response. The Vessels of Opportunity and other maritime contractors now working for BP should be under contract with the federal government, including research vessels. The Coast Guard with the EPA, NOAA, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service oversight should manage dispersant use for cleanup.
• The Environmental Protection Agency should immediately bar BP from new federal contracts—including drilling in federally controlled oil fields—because of its repeated environmental crimes.
• The State Department should continue to reach out to other nations that have experience with disastrous oil spills to see if assistance and ideas are available. This should be a government-to-government effort, not one undertaken by private companies.
• Claims for damages and lost revenues should be put under the authority of the U.S. Coast Guard National Pollution Funds Center. The scope of this disaster far exceeds the NPFC’s traditional resources, and other federal, state, and local claims processing resources must therefore be brought to bear, particularly from the Coast Guard’s sister agency FEMA.
• The EPA, the Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service, and other law enforcement branches of the federal, state, and local government should exercise subpoena authority to seize or monitor relevant communications and data collection, and assets if necessary.
• The EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should begin a health-monitoring program for the most at risk populations so there is a baseline from which to measure health complications from the spill and cleanup.
• Federal agencies, not BP, should handle spill response hotlines for volunteers, technology ideas, affected wildlife, and others. Full call records need to be logged with incident reports and technology ideas presented publicly on dynamic websites.

BP is required as the responsible party for this apocalyptic disaster to provide full and instant funding for the response by the federal, state, and local governments and their contractors. BP personnel and equipment being used for disaster response in the Gulf should be put under governmental control during the crisis.

BP’s funding should come in the form of an escrow account that draws on BP’s $100 billion in capital reserves, without limit. The federal government should require BP to use its first quarter 2010 profits—$5 billion—to establish the escrow account. Congress needs to pass the Big Oil Liability Bailout Prevention Act, S. 3305, to lift the liability limit to $10 billion.

The Center for American Progress also supports a full moratorium on new leases or new drilling for all companies until the commission issues its report and recommendations….

Congress and the administration must meanwhile take further steps to end our dependence on big oil. The administration should beef up federal research and development efforts into how to prevent oil spills and better contain them if they occur. The federal government should establish additional protection for continental shelf areas beyond just the three miles states can control. Congress should cut tax loopholes and other handouts to big oil companies, which would save $45 billion over 10 years—money that can be spent on investing in a clean energy economy instead. And clean energy legislation that caps the oil and coal pollution that is heating the atmosphere and acidifying the oceans is long overdue.

This is a repost by Tom Kenworthy, Senior Fellow, and Brad Johnson, a Researcher and Blogger at the Center for American Progress.

For more information, see:

• Making Money on the Oil Spill: Will BP Take Responsibility, or Squeeze this Disaster for Profits?
• Learning from Tragedy: BP Disaster Investigation Must Be Free, Clear, and Complete
• The Oil Disaster Is a Health Disaster, Too: How to Protect Public Health in the Aftermath of Major Disasters
• The High Costs of Offshore Drilling: Deepwater Horizon Underscores Need to Find Sustainable Energy Solutions
• Oil Spills by the Numbers: The Devastating Consequences of Exxon Valdez and BP Gulf

On Monday, May 17, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews erupted in anger at the oil disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. Matthews expressed his rage at the profits BP continues to reap as it fails to fix the growing environmental apocalypse.  Brad Johnson has the story and the video:

Matthews criticized the behavior of the Obama administration. Matthews wondered why President Obama doesn’t “nationalize that industry and get the job done” and noted that in the “brutal society” of China, “they execute people for this”:

It is maddening that our government is — everybody says, “Capitalism is great. Unbridled free enterprise is great.” Look at it!

The moral hazard created by privatized profit and socialized risk has allowed bankers to cripple our economy and energy companies to destroy our planet. Matthews concluded by calling out the “millions of people in the American right” who deny the threats of climate change and other environmental catastrophes from our dependence on fossil fuels:

Rush Limbaugh fired back, saying Matthews is “basically asking for a dictator” with his “delusional, deranged” commentary. Matthews has repeated his criticism of BP and the administration, telling Jay Leno on May 21 that President Obama is acting like “a Vatican observer here.” On May 19, Matthews asked for “Harry Truman to come back and do the job” — making reference to Truman’s seizure of the steel industry in 1952.

Transcript:

I have a hunch that the reason they don’t want to fix this mess down there is because they would admit who did it if they fix it. Nobody is down — if this was a nuclear bomb ready to go off, we would be down there. I am so angry — I don’t even want to talk about it. I get so mad at this oil company. Why aren’t they fixing it, first of all? …

You know, I have a suspicion — I will go back to it again — I don’t think they’re doing their best. I don‘t think there’s — the government is doing its best. Why doesn’t the president go in there and nationalize that industry and get the job done for the people? There’s a national interest in this, not just a BP interest. We’re letting BP fix a national problem.…

In China, it’s a more brutal society, a more brutal society, Kate, but they execute people for this. Major industrial leaders that commit crimes like this. Failure like this.

This is a serious, serious problem. It is not over. It continues to destroy a part of our planet, basically. Part of our habitat, our American habitat. And everybody just sits and watches television every night and says, “Oh, well, that‘s interesting.” And these guys are still drawing their paychecks, still making their profits. The oil industry has been ballooning in profits this year, and nobody is doing anything about it, except — what are we, the Vatican observers now? We just watch? It is maddening that our government is — everybody says, “Capitalism is great. Unbridled free enterprise is great.” Look at it! …

Millions of people in the American right who sit around and say there’s no such thing as mankind destroying his environment through climate change or whatever, there’s an example of what we’re doing right now. We can destroy our habitat on this planet, and it’s the only one we got.

This is a Wonk Room repost by Brad Johnson.

On May 6 I wrote, “the dispersant-laced oil spill may soon be entrained in the Loop Current, which is part of the Gulf Stream, sweeping it toward the Florida Keys, home to America’s biggest coral reef” (see “Out of Sight: BP’s dispersants are toxic — but not as toxic as dispersed oil“).

Now that worst-case scenario has played out.  And as meteorologist Jeff Masters explains:

The latest surface current forecasts from NOAA’s HYCOM model show that oil could continue pouring into the Loop Current for most of the rest of the week. It is highly uncertain how diluted the oil might get on its voyage to northwestern Cuba and the Florida Keys this week, but the possibility for a major ecological disaster in the fragile Keys ecosystem cannot be ruled out.

For my earlier post, I spoke to toxicologist Carys Mitchelmore, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, an expert on the impact of dispersants and dispersed oil on marine life.

She is particularly concerned about corals because they are “under siege from multiple sources, including human sewage, metal pollution, and of course they are dealing with issues from global climate change including warming and ocean acidification.”  See for instance, “Nature Geoscience study: Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred.”

“We could be getting to the point that puts coral over the edge,” in terms of its long-term survival, she warned.

Brad Johnson has more:

Jeff Hoffmeyer, a marine scientist with the University of Southern Mississippi Center for Fisheries Research and Development, told the Wonk Room two weeks ago of the frightening consequences of the slick getting caught in the Loop Current:

“If it gets entrained into the Loop [Current], it’s up into the Atlantic. And who knows where it’s going to go from there. As it moves around Florida, the next or another critical area would be the Florida Keys and the coral reefs we have down there. I don’t even want to think about that area being covered in oil. Once it works its way up the East Coast and potentially crossing the Atlantic, it could be far-reaching.”

Over 625,000 gallons of toxic dispersants have been sprayed on the oil slick, including 45,000 gallons of dispersants injected directly at the wellhead — creating an invisible toxic cloud of unknown size a mile below the sea surface.

Update: Tar balls have washed up on Key West beaches. If they are from the leading edge of the oil gusher, that would mean that some oil already has been entrained in the Loop Current for several days.

I don’t think it’s a big coincidence that we’re seeing all of these fossil fuel accidents after 8 years of lax oversight by Bush-Cheney (see The deadly toll of the ’safe’ and ‘clean’ coal and oil industries).  The fox was guarding the henhouse.  And in this case, the henhouse itself was not actually run by the hens.

An investment group with ties to labor pension funds called for the resignation of Massey Energy directors who are “ultimately responsible for Massey’s alarming safety compliance record.”  Brad Johnson has the story in this Wonk Room repost.

The Change to Win Investment Group “presented today an in-depth analysis to shareholders of Massey Energy Company, making the case to vote against the three directors up for election at the mining company’s May 18 annual meeting, the first meeting of shareholders since the tragic April 5 explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, in which 29 miners lost their lives.” In a letter to investors, CtW called for the removal of directors responsible for the “preventable mine explosion” that “killed 29 miners and destroyed $1.1 billion in shareholder value“:

We urge you to vote “Withhold” on directors Richard M. Gabrys, Dan R. Moore and Baxter F. Phillips, Jr. at the Massey Energy Company annual meeting on May 18. As members of the Safety, Environmental and Public Policy Committee (SEPPC), these directors are ultimately responsible for serious and systematic non-compliance with mine safety laws over an extended period, a risk oversight failure that likely led to the catastrophic and preventable mine explosion on April 5 that killed 29 miners and destroyed $1.1 billion in shareholder value.

The investment group “believes Massey Chair and CEO Donald Blankenship’s ‘production first’ emphasis fostered a management culture that tolerated unacceptable safety and compliance failures.” By supporting Blankenship’s drive for profits over rules, the members of the Safety, Environmental and Public Policy Committee hold ultimate responsibility for the deaths of Massey’s miners.

Don Blankenship’s ‘Safety’ Overseers:

Richard Gabrys
On Massey’s board since 2007, Gabrys is “the retired vice chairman of Deloitte.” He also serves on the board of the Michigan-based companies La-Z-Boy Inc., coal-dependent utility CMS Energy, and engineering firm TriMas Corporation. Gabrys has given $6000 to Republicans, including $1000 to George W. Bush, and $500 to Rep. John Dingell (D-MI).

Dan R. Moore
On Massey’s board since 2002, Moore is “the Chairman of Moore Group, Inc., which owns multiple automobile dealerships in West Virginia and Kentucky.” He previously ran West Virginia’s Matewan Bank. Moore also serves on the board of the West Virginia University Foundation, the Branch Bank and Trust Company, and the West Virginia Housing Fund. Moore has contributed $8100 to Republicans since 2000.

Baxter F. Phillips
Massey’s president since 2008 and a top executive since 2000, Phillips joined Massey in 1981. Phillips has contributed $8900 to Republicans and $5950 to the Massey PAC.

On April 19, Massey director Lady Barbara Thomas Judge resigned amid shareholder unrest.

“During times like these, a change in senior management is not appropriate or in the best interest of our members and shareholders,” said Admiral Bobby R. Inman, Massey Energy’s lead independent director on April 22. “Therefore, we want to emphasize that Don Blankenship has the full support and confidence of the Massey Energy Board of Directors.”

As the Senate dithers on clean energy reform, every branch of the government — Congress, the Obama administration, and the courts — is investigating the oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana that has killed 11 workers and left three in critical condition.  Brad Johnson has the story in this Wonk Room repost.

The obliterated hulk of the Deepwater Horizon rig has sunk to the ocean floor, the shattered drilling apparatus now leaking thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf. Attempts to shut down the leaks by underwater robot have failed, so authorities are considering building an underwater dome and setting the growing oil slick ablaze before it reaches shore. The rig is owned and operated by BP America and Transocean Limited.

Administration officials Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced the “the next steps for the investigation that is underway into the causes of the April 20 explosion that left 11 workers missing, three critically injured, and an ongoing oil spill that the responsible party and federal agencies are working to contain and clean up.” There is a joint investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard (under Napolitano) and the Minerals and Mining Service (under Salazar) into the explosion’s death and destruction.

In the House of Representatives, energy committee chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) and oversight subcommittee chair Bart Stupak (D-MI) launched an investigation into “the adequacy of the companies’ risk management and emergency response plans for accidental oil and gas releases at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and other offshore deep water or ultra-deep water drilling facilities.” In letters to BP America CEO Lamar McKay and Transocean CEO Steven Newman, the lawmakers cite the “apparent lack
of an adequate plan to contain the spreading environmental damage” and request documents by May 14.

In the Senate, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) have called for a joint hearing by the Senate commerce and energy committees to oversee the efforts by the federal agencies involved (NOAA, MMS, and the Coast Guard).

A lawsuit has been filed in the federal courts by the wife of one of the victims, charging Transocean, BP America, and Halliburton with negligence. Halliburton “was engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap,” which may have failed and caused the explosion.

In 2005, an explosion at BP’s Texas City Refinery killed 15 workers. In response to safety violations at that facility, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration levied a record fine of $87 million against BP, which BP promptly challenged in court. Since 2006, there have been 509 fires resulting in at least two fatalities and 12 injuries on rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

A new macroeconomic analysis of green economic policies finds that cutting global warming pollution will make the economy grow faster.  Brad Johnson has the story in this Wonk Room repost.

The Center for Climate Strategies (CCS), building upon analysis they did of state-level climate plans for the National Governors Association, analyzed the economic and environmental impact of legislation in line with the planned Kerry-Graham-Lieberman framework. As long as state-level policies are boosted, CCS found that previous economic analyses by federal agencies and industry groups are wrong. This CCS analysis finds that instead of slowing the economy, household wealth and jobs will grow faster in a green economy. Carbon limits and efficiency-focused policies would have a net positive employment impact of 2.8 million jobs and expand the economy by $154.7 billion by 2020, while US emissions are cut to 27 percent below 1990 levels — if strong standards are set:

The modeled job creation is consistent with the findings of Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, which used an input-output model to find that a green economy would create 1.7 million new jobs. The center looked at three different policy scenarios, using the industry-standard REMI Policy Insight PI+ macroeconomic model:

– Strong local, state and federal implementation of green economic policies like green building codes and smart growth
– These strong policies combined with a federal cap-and-trade system and coupled fuel fee to guarantee emissions reductions of 27 percent below 1990 levels by 2010

– Scaled-back implementation of the policies and cap-and-trade system in line with President Obama’s goal of six percent below 1990 levels, similar to the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill soon to be considered

The cap-and-trade system modeled uses full auction of permits and 75 percent of proceeds going directly back to consumers and 25 percent going to technology investments. No proceeds are dedicated to deficit reduction, as none is needed — a faster-growing economy will increase other tax receipts.

In every single scenario, policies that cut waste and save money by eliminating market failures predominate, making the U.S. economy a more efficient free market and accelerating job growth and household wealth. The report finds that stronger environmental targets and standards deliver greater economic benefits — even if the tremendous benefits of reducing pollution have for health and environmental costs are ignored.

The 23 recommended climate strategies range the gamut from agriculture, energy supply, electricity use, to transportation. These strategies — most of which save money — combined can achieve major carbon pollution reductions:

This is what true all-of-the-above energy policy looks like. The suite of recommended policies coming from the consultants to the Center for Climate Strategies report — the stakeholders in local and state governments, businesses, and energy users — must be taken as a top priority, even if they don’t have an army of lobbyists to promote this green economic agenda. The current level of ambition in Washington is not only insufficient to mitigate the damages of global warming, it is leaving hundreds of thousands of jobs on the table.

The oil rig that exploded off the Louisiana coast on Wednesday is a tragic reminder of why the movement that mobilized forty years ago for Earth Day is still so necessary, notes Brad Johnson in this WR repost.

It has now sunk below the waves in a fiery grave, potentially spilling thousands of gallons of oil underwater. Hope for the eleven men left missing in the explosion has dropped sharply. Grist’s Jonathan Hiskes notes that this comes within weeks of:

– The awful coal-mine explosion that killed 29 men under the criminal safety record of Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship.

– The crash of a coal freighter into the fragile Great Barrier Reef as it tried to take a shortcut from Australian mines to Chinese furnaces.

– The Tesoro oil refinery explosion that killed five workers in Washington state.

– The spillage of 18,000 gallons of crude oil from a Chevron into a canal in the Delta National Wildlife Refuge, also in Louisiana.

The cold reality is that fossil fuel production, just like its combustion, is neither clean nor safe, despite the endless propaganda from the mouthpieces of Big Oil and King Coal:

Heritage Foundation: Since gas prices have fallen from record levels in the summer, drilling has taken a backseat to concerns over the economy. Allowing and expanding safe domestic energy production will not only help in keeping prices low but it will also help stimulate the economy.

Consumer Energy Alliance: The federal government must recognize the tremendous economic opportunity that safe and responsible offshore energy exploration presents to the citizens of coastal Atlantic states and the nation at large.

Heritage Foundation: Thanks to technological advances, offshore energy production has become very safe, as is witnessed by the excellent record of recent years.

Dow Energy: Congress should not re-impose the moratoria on offshore drilling, but create a statutory construct under which drilling can go forward in a safe and effective manner.

Energy Tomorrow: The oil and natural gas industry has a proven track record of safe oil and natural gas development and the majority of the American people recognize this by supporting greater development for the benefit of their communities, their states and their nation.

Institute for Energy Research: Offshore energy exploration and production in the United States is safe and environmentally sound. Over the past 50 years, the U.S. oil and gas industry has developed innovative, 21st century technologies and exploration techniques that are efficient, pose little threat to the environment, and ensure worker safety.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA): I am committed to continue working with Secretary Salazar as well as our state and federal partners to ensure the safe and responsible production of American made energy and the creation of much needed jobs in the Commonwealth.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK): Offshore drilling is environmentally safe. Major spills from platforms are nearly non-existent.

These lies cost lives.

Senators Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham are working with the White House, environmentalists, and industry to craft comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation, which they plan to unveil on Monday. But Senators Lugar (R-IN) and Voinovich (R-OH), both of whom have admitted the threat of global warming, announced yesterday “a narrower competing bill” that resembles the weak legislation passed out of the Senate energy committee last year.  Brad Johnson has the story in this Wonk Room repost:

George V. Voinovich of Ohio and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana are developing an energy-only bill that would mandate new renewable and nuclear power production without imposing cuts on carbon emissions.

This approach, which has also been floated by energy committee members Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), and Sen. Lisa Murkowksi (R-AK), has been described by Graham as “half-assed.” Voinovich believes that subsidy-based legislation that fails to reduce global warming pollution is more “doable” than comprehensive reform that pays its own way by putting a price on carbon pollution:

I’d like to get something done. But I’m not sure it would meet the standards of the environmental groups or what Sen. Kerry would like to get done. I’d like to do the doable — move it down the field while I can.

More problematically, Voinovich also announced today that climate legislation “must include a comprehensive preemption provision that goes well beyond language included in previous climate bills” to get his support, a poison-pill stance that would derail the progress made by states across the nation to build a green economy.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) have been jockeying for attention with a bill that addresses the other half of energy reform, a climate-only package with weak targets known as the CLEAR Act.

These senators are participating in a complex dance — if President Obama and the public throw their weight behind real action, then these senators can take credit when elements of their bills appear in the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman legislation. However, if momentum stalls under the weight of polluter lobbying and Beltway indifference to the climate crisis, they can instead say they offered a “pragmatic” alternative.

Unfortunately, such political insurance only covers elected politicians, not people living in the real world.

Last week, Rush Limbaugh responded to the West Virginia mining disaster by attacking “the left.” Limbaugh was especially incensed that “propagandists” linked the disaster to “tea parties, global warming, and capitalism.”

Limbaugh rallied to the defense of killer coal baron Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy, who promotes his radical philosophy of coal profits above all else on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  In this Wonk Room’s repost, Brad Johnson has the story and the audio clips:

At Crooks and Liars, they’re the ones that are putting out the notion that this guy Blankenship — by the way he’s committed another crime, too — he’s on the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce. Yeah, that’s reported as though that’s a strike against him. Oh, yeah, he’s one of those guys, Chamber of Commerce guys. That means he’s for big profit at the expense of the working man.

Listen here:

Blankenship has, in fact, repeatedly admitted that he is “for big profit at the expense of the working man.” In 1984, he described how he works to “sell coal cheaper to drive union coal out of business.” He continued that “unions, communities, people, everybody’s going to have to learn” that capitalism is “survival of the most productive.” In 2005, he told his workers to “ignore” requests by safety inspectors “to do anything other than run coal” because “the coal pays the bills.”

Limbaugh also questioned why people are blaming Republicans who “fought new regulations” instead of the “Obama regime”:

Now, what the hell here? We’re going to blame Republicans for this? It was Bush’s fault at the Sago mine. Now we’re gonna blame this guy for contributing to Republicans because I guess Republicans fought new regulations? And now the Obama regime is angry? Has the Obama regime not been in office for over a year, have they not had their own labor board people in there? I’ll tell you, I don’t have a word to describe my disgust for these people. Every damn thing that happens gets politicized. I tell you what, folks, they are purposely dividing this country to create the chaos and the unrest that exists.

Listen here:

The Obama administration has, in fact, significantly stepped up enforcement of mine safety, even though Obama’s labor board nominees were filibustered by Republicans, and only recess appointed on April 1, 2010. Joe Main, Obama’s pick to run the Mine Health and Safety Administration, was confirmed by the Senate after a three-and-a-half month delay. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis’s nomination was blocked by Republicans for over a month. Coal mining companies have been appealing twice as many of the citations — especially the major ones. Under current law, unsafe mines can’t be shut down while the violations are being appealed.

(HT Dave Wiegel)

Shareholders are calling on Massey Energy to seek the immediate resignation of chairman and CEO Don Blankenship in the aftermath of the West Virginia disaster that killed 29 miners, the worst in forty years. Brad Johnson has the story in this repost.

The Change to Win Investment Group — a union pension fund group with over $200 billion in assets — believes the Upper Big Branch mine explosion is the “tragic consequence of the board’s failure to challenge Chairman and CEO Blankenship’s confrontational approach to regulatory compliance.” New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, who controls about $14.1 million of Massey stock as the trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, blasted Massey’s “callous disregard for the safety of its employees” as a “failure both of risk management and effective board oversight”:

Massey’s cavalier attitude toward risk and callous disregard for the safety of its employees has exacted a horrible cost on dozens of hard-working miners and their loved ones. This tragedy was a failure both of risk management and effective board oversight. Blankenship must step down and make room for more responsible leadership at Massey.

Early this morning, the last of the 29 bodies of the miners killed were recovered from the mine. Yesterday, Standard & Poors upgraded Massey to a “buy,” saying the tragedy’s “financial effect” was “immaterial.”

Related Posts:

• Deadly Record: Massey’s Montcoal mine cited for 3,000 violations, over $2.2 million in fines
• FLASHBACK: Don Blankenship warned West Virginia that he believes in “survival of the fittest”
• Don Blankenship’s record of profits over safety: “Coal pays the bills”
• Don Blankenship called safety regulators “as silly as global warming”

The death toll from Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine explosion last week has reached a total of 29 miners, the worst coal disaster in 40 years.  The reckless CEO behind the disaster — Don Blankenship — cares more about his anti-science crusade than he does about the safety of its employees, as Brad Johnson explains in this repost.

The death toll from Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine explosion last week has reached a total of 29 miners, the worst coal disaster in 40 years. When the disaster occurred, Massey was contesting millions of dollars in major safety violations levied against the mine. At his Labor Day anti-union rally last year, Massey CEO Don Blankenship attacked the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), claiming it “seeks power over coal miners.” He mocked both “Washington politicians” and local elected officials who attempt to ensure miner safety, calling their efforts “as silly as global warming”:

We also endure a Mine Safety and Health Administration that seeks power over coal miners versus improving their safety and their health. As someone who has overseen the mining of more coal than anyone else in the history of central Appalachia, I know that the safety and health of coal miners is my most important job. I don’t need Washington politicians to tell me that, and neither do you. But I also know — I also know Washington and state politicians have no idea how to improve miner safety. The very idea that they care more about coal miner safety than we do is as silly as global warming.

Don Blankenship — who uses his position on the boards of the National Mining Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to promote his conspiracy theories about global warming — said he spent one million dollars to put together the “Friends of America” right-wing rally and rock concert in Holden, WV on September 7, 2009, which starred Ted Nugent, Hank Williams, Jr., and Fox News host Sean Hannity. In 2009, Blankenship also complained that “politicians get emotional” about disasters and establish “nonsensical” safety rules.

Related Posts:

• Deadly Record: Massey’s Montcoal mine cited for 3,000 violations, over $2.2 million in fines
• FLASHBACK: Don Blankenship warned West Virginia that he believes in “survival of the fittest”
• Don Blankenship’s record of profits over safety: “Coal pays the bills”

Coal baron Don Blankenship is complaining about the “indignity” of the press for investigating his role as the CEO of Massey Energy, whose Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, WV, is the site of the deadliest mining disaster since 1984, with at least 25 miners killed. Blankenship has a long record of putting coal profits over safety. At the time of the accident, Massey was contesting dozens of major safety violations at the Montcoal mine, even as Blankenship increased production.

Blankenship has a dark, soulless, and destructive social-Darwinist view of the United States, as Brad Johnson explains in this repost.

Blankenship — whose $23.7 million annual compensation includes the use of the company jet and helicopter and a mansion with several servants — has made no effort to hide his “radical” philosophy of unfettered capitalism. He explained this philosophy most clearly in a 1986 documentary by Anne Lewis on his role crushing the union miners at Massey’s Blackberry Creek mine, saying that “everybody’s going to have to learn to accept” that the United States is ruled by the law of “survival of the fittest”:

What you have to accept in a capitalist society, generally, is that I always make the comparison it’s like a jungle, where a jungle is survival of the fittest. Unions, communities, people, everybody’s going to have to learn to accept that in the United States you have a capitalist society. And that capitalism from a business viewpoint is survival of the most productive. And you may have a year, two years, five year periods where lesser productive companies or people have benefit. But in the long term, it’s going to be the most productive people who benefit.

Blankenship’s social-Darwinist view of the United States is dark, soulless, and destructive. Unlike the mythical uber-capitalists of Ayn Rand novels, Blankenship has no interest in free-market competition within the bounds of the law. Instead, he subverts the political system, busts unions, illegally destroys Appalachia’s unique ecosystem, flouts labor laws, ignores safety rules, and intimidates employees to serve his black obsession with running coal.

Blankenship has successfully delivered his twisted vision of society to West Virginia — flattened mountains, toxic waters, crushing poverty, political corruption, broken communities, and the needless, preventable deaths of the state’s hard-working miners.

A strong cap on carbon would significantly cut the flow of petrodollars to Iran’s hostile regime, a ThinkProgress analysis shows.

The economic and political strength of Iran’s dictatorship is a threat to the national security of the United States and the world, and its nuclear ambitions threaten to destabilize the Middle East. Yesterday, diplomats from “six world powers have met for the first time to discuss imposing new sanctions on Iran for its failure to suspend work on its controversial nuclear program,” but negotiators have not yet figured how to achieve President Barack Obama’s goal of being “consistent and steady in applying international pressure.”

Iran, “which holds the world’s second-biggest oil and gas reserves and supplies about 4.5 percent of the world’s oil production,” uses its oil power “as a strategic asset.” One mechanism to control the flow of petrodollars to Iran — whose oil production is worth $120 billion a year at current prices — is for the United States to control its appetite for oil. ThinkProgress has found that a carbon cap that reduces global warming pollution by 80 percent by 2050 would mean Iran would lose approximately $1.8 trillion worth of oil revenues over the next forty years — over $100 million a day [as the figure shows].

The United States is by far the world’s biggest consumer of oil, accounting for 25 percent of world production. Our demand is more than the four next biggest consumers — China, Japan, India, and Russia — combined, despite having only 11% of their population. Unilateral action by the United States to reduce oil consumption has a profound effect on the world market, and is the first step towards global climate policy that builds a zero-carbon economy.

If the world moves away from oil dependence, Iran’s regime will no longer be able to rely on petrodollars to stay afloat. Other unfriendly regimes propped up by carbon-fuel money, such as Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, will also feel the pinch, improving our national security and making it less likely our armed services will fight battles amid the oil fields. For that to happen, the United States must pass comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation as fast as possible, the stronger the better.

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• Vote Vets tough new ad: Everytime oil goes up $1, Iran gets another $1.5 billion to use against us.
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Massey Energy is actively contesting millions of dollars of fines for safety violations at its West Virginia coal mine where disaster struck this week.  Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has the story:

Twenty-five miners were killed and another four are missing after a explosion took place at 3 pm Monday at Massey subsidiary Performance Coal Co.’s Upper Big Branch Mine-South between the towns of Montcoal and Naoma. It is “the most people killed in a U.S. mine since 1984, when 27 died in a fire at Emery Mining Corp.’s mine in Orangeville, Utah.” This deadly mine has been cited for over 3,000 violations by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), 638 since 2009:

Since 1995, Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine has been cited for 3,007 safety violations. Massey is contesting 353 violations, and 127 are delinquent. [MSHA]

Massey is contesting over a third (34.7%) of the 516 safety citations the Upper Big Branch-South Mine received in 2009, its greatest count in the last 15 years. [MSHA]

In March 2010, 53 new safety citations were issued for Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine, including violations of its mine ventilation plan. [MSHA]

Massey is now contesting $1,128,833 in fines for safety violations at the deadly Upper Big Branch-South Mine, with a further $246,320 in delinquent fines:

Over $2.2 million in fines have been assessed against Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine since 1995, with $791,327 paid. Massey is contesting $1,128,833 in fines. Massey’s delinquent fines total $246,320. [MSHA]

Massey is contesting $251,613 in fines for citations for Upper Big Branch-South Mine’s ventilation plan. [MSHA]

Before yesterday’s tragic explosion, there have been three fatalities at Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine in the last twelve years — one each in 1998, 2001, and 2003. Massey’s corrupt CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce board member Don Blankenship, has previously told employees that it was more important to “run coal” than follow safety regulations.

In 2002, President George W. Bush “named former Massey Energy official Stanley Suboleski to the MSHA review commission that decides all legal matters under the Federal Mine Act,” and cut 170 positions from MSHA. Bush’s MSHA chief, Dick Stickler, was a former manager of Beth Energy mines, which “incurred injury rates double the national average.” On October 21, 2009, the Senate confirmed President Barack Obama’s choice to replace Stickler, Joe Main, a “career union official and mine safety expert.” Massey’s Suboleski is still an active review commissioner.

Virginia’s extremist attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli (R-VA), is threatening the recovery of the American auto industry with new climate denial lawsuits.  Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has the story.

To the applause of automakers, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation finalized landmark new fuel economy standards last week, completing President Obama’s campaign promise. Cuccinelli has already filed a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger the public, claiming that hacked “Climategate” emails prove a conspiracy by scientists involved with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to replace real science with “political science.” In response to the new fuel economy standards — the first rules to take into account greenhouse pollution — Cuccinelli is filing yet another lawsuit, according to spokesman Brian Gottstein:

In that motion, the attorney general’s office asked the EPA to reopen its proceedings in light of the recent evidence that the reports the EPA was relying on for its decision contained erroneous and/or unverifiable global temperature and other data. We will file a notice of appeal with respect to today’s ruling.

Cuccinelli’s suit against the science of global warming is baseless, as numerous Virginia climatologists have told the Wonk Room. Furthermore, the auto industry stands fully behind this new program,” as Dave McCurdy, President and CEO of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers has written.

Killing the endangerment finding — as numerous state legislatures, attorneys general, and lawmakers in Congress are trying to do — would destroy the stakeholders’ fuel economy agreement. The United Auto Workers describe that “California and other states have agreed to forgo state-level regulation of tailpipe emissions and abide by the new national standard that will be created by these NHTSA and EPA rules.” If the denier Dirty Air Act efforts go through, UAW explains the “critically important progress” will be “overturned”:

However, the critically important progress that was achieved with this historic agreement will be undermined if EPA’s endangerment finding is overturned. Without this finding, EPA will not be able to proceed with its current rulemaking on light duty vehicles. If the joint rulemaking process collapses, NHTSA has indicated that it will not be able to meet the statutory timetable for implementing any fuel economy increases for the 2012 model year. And in the absence of the EPA standard, California and other states would certainly move forward with their standards, thereby subjecting auto manufacturers to all of the burdens that the one national standard was designed to avoid.

The fears of UAW that multi-state standards would be catastrophic are a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even though the American auto industry can certainly handle multi-state standards, a return to the Bush era of recrimination and lawsuit instead of a focus on competitiveness and innovation would be crippling. Cuccinelli is not only wasting taxpayer money trying to overturn EPA’s scientific finding, he’s trying to dismantle the historic agreement that all stakeholders agree will create American jobs and increase national competitiveness.

Related Post:

• Refuting state AG’s anti-science petition, Virginia climate scientists see “great risk” from greenhouse gases

Seven miners were killed and another 19 are missing “after an explosion rocked a Massey Energy underground coal mine” in southern West Virginia this afternoon.  Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has the story in this repost.

The explosion took place at 3 pm at Massey subsidiary Performance Coal Co.’s Upper Big Branch Mine-South between the towns of Montcoal and Naoma. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow dedicated the beginning of her program to covering the disaster, interviewing veteran Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward, Jr., and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) by telephone. Listen to Ward reporting on the tragic details slowly emerging from the mine:

This Massey disaster is on the scale of the 2006 Sago Mine disaster which killed 13 people, the worst coal mine disaster in the United States since the Farmington Mine disaster of 1968, which killed 78 miners. “It’s very emotional, very powerful, very awful, and finally very Appalachian,” Sen. Rockefeller told Maddow. He concluded:

Of all the glory of West Virginia characteristics of fighting and climbing hills all the time, this is the tragic part.

Watch the interview:

This tragedy is the latest deadly disaster to involve coal baron Don Blankenship’s Massey Energy. In 2006, two miners died in a fire at Aracoma Mine after Blankenship personally waived company policy and told mine managers to ignore rules and “run coal.” “In the past year, federal inspectors have cited Massey and fined the company more than $382,000 for repeated serious safety violations involving its ventilation plan and equipment at the mine run by subsidiary Performance Coal Co.,” the Associated Press reported. “The violations also cover failing to follow the ventilation plan, allowing combustible coal dust to pile up, and having improper firefighting equipment.”

After Greenpeace detailed the efforts of the Koch Industries’ billionaire brothers to pollute energy policy and deny the threat of global warming, Koch Industries communications director Melissa Cohlmia attempted to greenwash their record:

Both a free society and the scientific method require an open and honest airing of all sides, not demonizing and silencing those with whom you disagree. We’ve strived to encourage an intellectually honest debate on the scientific basis for claims of harm from greenhouse gases.

Americans for Prosperity — founded, funded, and overseen by David Koch — claims to be trying to build that “free society” by “educating citizens about economic policy and mobilizing those citizens as advocates in the public policy process.” So far, they’re not doing a very good job of engaging in an “intellectually honest debate” without “demonizing and silencing those with whom you disagree”:

‘Hitler Youth.’ At an Americans for Prosperity event in December 2009, guest speaker Christopher Monckton called youth climate activists “Hitler Youth.” He told a Jewish youth climate activist whose grandparents escaped the Nazis that he was “Hitler Youth,” and that “you people don’t care” that “millions are dying in third world countries.” Americans for Prosperity again featured Christopher Monckton at a regional summit in March 2010. [The Times, 12/11/09]

[JR:  See Lord Monckton meltdown: “I’m not going to shake the hands of Hitler youth” and TVMOB hate speech shocker: Lord Monckton repeats and expands on his charge that those who embrace climate science are “Hitler youth” and fascists.]

‘Radical Global Warming Agenda.’ “President Obama is at again,” the Americans for Prosperity Regulation Reality Tour warns, with a “radical global warming agenda” by “unelected bureaucrats regulating our life,” “ignoring the entire democratic process all together.” Supposed threats of “EPA’s power grab” include “Grass Mileage Standards,” “Government Control of your Thermostat,” “Churches would need EPA Permits,” and The tour features “EPA Carbon Cops” who want to punish you if you “opened your refrigerator” or “drove a car.” [RegulationReality.com]

‘Al Gore’s Global Warming Alarmism.’ The Americans for Prosperity Hot Air Tour told people to “rally against Al Gore’s global warming alarmism” and “propaganda advanced by global warming alarmists,” claiming “global warming alarmism” means “fewer jobs,” “less freedom,” and a “government that controls your home thermostat remotely.” The Hot Air Tour flew a balloon over Al Gore’s “energy-guzzling mansion” in Tennessee with the message “Global Warming Alarmism.” [HotAirTour.org]

‘We Might As Well Forget Freedom.’ The Americans for Prosperity Hot Air Tour says that “far left environmentalists” are “radicals” with a “radical Global Warming ideology that claims people are the problem” who “want GOVERNMENT to force us to drive less and live in smaller homes while killing jobs that help grow our economy” and “want GOVERNMENT dictating our lives.” [HotAirTour.org]

Cohlmia told the Wonk Room that “AFP is an independent organization and Koch companies do not in any way direct their activities.” This is a remarkable claim, as Koch Industries executive vice presidents and directors Charles Koch and Richard Fink are also directors of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.

This was a Wonk Room repost.

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In a must-read report, Greenpeace details how Koch Industries has “become a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition,” spending over $48.5 million since 1997 to fund the anti-science disinformation machine.  Brad Johnson has the story.

Climate Progress and the Wonk Room have long detailed the role of the billionaire brothers of Koch Industries, Charles and David Koch, in destroying American prosperity. Their pollution-based fortunes have fueled a network of right-wing ideologues, from McCain mouthpiece Nancy Pfotenhauer to loony conspiracy theorist Christopher Monckton. In public, the Kochs like to burnish their reputations by buying museum and opera halls.

In private, however, they’ve outspent Exxon Mobil to fund organizations of the climate denial machine, as Greenpeace details in a new report:

Although Koch intentionally stays out of the public eye, it is now playing a quiet but dominant role in a high-profile national policy debate on global warming. Koch Industries has become a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition. This private, out-of-sight corporation is now a partner to Exxon Mobil, the American Petroleum Institute and other donors that support organizations and front-groups opposing progressive clean energy and climate policy. In fact, Koch has out-spent Exxon Mobil in funding these groups in recent years. From 2005 to 2008, Exxon Mobil spent $8.9 million while the Koch Industries-controlled foundations contributed $24.9 million in funding to organizations of the climate denial machine.

This report, “Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine” documents roughly 40 climate denial and opposition organizations receiving Koch foundation grants in recent years, including:

– More than $5 million to Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFP) for its nationwide “Hot Air Tour” and “Regulation Reality Tour” campaigns to spread misinformation about climate science and oppose clean energy and climate legislation.

– More than $1 million to the Heritage Foundation, a mainstay of misinformation on climate and environmental policy issues.

– Over $1 million to the Cato Institute, which disputes the scientific evidence behind global warming, questions the rationale for taking climate action, and has been heavily involved in spinning the recent ClimateGate smear campaign.

– $800,000 to the Manhattan Institute, which has hosted Bjorn Lomborg twice in the last two years. Lomborg is a prominent media spokesperson who challenges and attacks policy measures to address climate change.

– $365,000 to Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE) which advocates against taking action on climate change because warming is “inevitable” and expensive to address.

– $360,000 to Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRIPP) which supported and funded “An Inconvenient Truth…or Convenient Fiction,” a film attacking the science of global warming and intended as a rebuttal to former Vice-President Al Gore’s documentary. PRIPP also threatened to sue the US Government for listing the polar bear as an endangered species.

– $325,000 to the Tax Foundation, which issued a misleading study on the costs of proposed climate legislation.

The blockbuster report covers the role of Koch’s dirty network in promoting the ClimateGate smear campaign, pushing junk science about polar bears, fueling supposedly independent Spanish and Danish studies that attacked green jobs, and selling a pack of lies about the costs of climate legislation.

That was a Wonk Room repost. A response by Koch Industries Communications Director Melissa Cohlmia is here. Climate Science Watch has two good posts on the subject:

• Koch Industries multibillionaire Koch brothers bankroll attacks on climate change science and policy…. Koch Industries is the second largest private company in the U.S., with estimated 2008 revenues of $100 billion. Started as a petroleum business by their father Fred Koch, who was also a founder of the right-wing extremist John Birch Society, Koch Industries has become a diversified enterprise that funds large-scale lobbying and a range of libertarian policy and activist groups that play a significant role in the global warming denial machine.
• Americans for Prosperity: Distorting climate change science and economics in well-funded campaign

Stay tuned to CP for more reporting on the Koch brothers and how they have begun corrupting our scientific institutions.

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• Front group for polluting billionaires wastes $140K on world’s dumbest global warming denier ads

Fourteen men representing the Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth (AEEG) are meeting with Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Kerry (D-MA), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to negotiate the terms of comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation.  Brad Johnson has the background of this remarkably non-diverse group.

Per Matt Yglesias’s note that the “male-dominated nature of Wall Street is a source of dysfunction,” meet the AEEG:


Left to right, top to bottom: David N. Parker, Ed Hamberger Jr., Evan R. Gaddis, Rich Nolan, Jay Timmons, Marv Fertel, Erik Heilman, John S. Shaw, R. Bruce Josten, Thomas R. Kuhn, Mark Maslyn, Jack Gerard, James C. May, Dave McCurdy.
These

The AEEG is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce-managed working group of the trade associations representing America’s carbon-pollution industries, founded in 2001. Five of these AEEG representatives sit on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Association Committee of 100, helping shape the organization’s policy.

Five of the groups are suing to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific finding that greenhouse gases are harmful pollutants — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Portland Cement Association, and the American Farm Bureau Federation. The American Petroleum Institute ran an astroturf campaign against the House climate legislation last year, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called for a “Scopes monkey trial” on the science of climate change.

The least conservative of the industry lobbyists are Dave McCurdy of the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers, a former New Democrat congressman from Oklahoma (and Wonk Room guest blogger), and former general Evan Gaddis of the National Electric Manufacturers Association. Seven of the lobbyists were George W. Bush contributors, and two others — Erik Heilman and Rich Nolan — were Republican staffers. The overall political contributions of these fourteen men is whoppingly Republican, either as a direct contribution or funneled through conservative industry political action committees. They’ve donated $326,497 to Republican candidates compared to $100,346 to Democrats, more than a three-to-one ratio:

The Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth representatives meeting with Sen. Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman:

This is a Wonkroom repost.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed its first Clean Water Act veto ever for a previously permitted mountaintop removal project, “the largest mountaintop-removal permit in West Virginia history.”  Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has the story in this repost.

The veto would reverse a permit granted in 2007 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to Arch Coal to dig a 2,278-acre coal stripmine and fill six valleys and 43,000 linear feet of streams with the toxic debris. Based on the “unequivocal” evidence that the damage from mountaintop mining is irreversible, the EPA is finally enforcing the Clean Water Act to protect West Virginia’s residents:

Coal, and coal mining, is part of our nation’s energy future, and for that reason EPA has made repeated efforts to foster dialogue and find a responsible path forward. But we must prevent the significant and irreversible damage that comes from mining pollution — and the damage from this project would be irreversible. This recommendation is consistent with our broader Clean Water Act efforts in Central Appalachia. EPA has a duty under the law to protect water quality and safeguard the people who rely on these waters for drinking, fishing and swimming.

The EPA began the process to halt this permit more than a year ago. Although this veto will be finalized after a sixty-day comment period, many other projects continue. Coalfield residents are putting their lives on the line to stop mountaintop removal projects in Appalachia, which Barack Obama called an “environmental disaster.”

Related Post:

• Science bombshell explodes myth of clean coal: Mountaintop “mining permits are being issued despite the preponderance of scientific evidence that impacts are pervasive and irreversible and that mitigation cannot compensate for losses.”