Day: August 17, 2009

Bird lives worth more than military lives?

ExxonMobil pled guilty to killing about 85 protected waterfowl, hawks and owls in five states over the past five years. The birds died from exposure to  the company’s natural gas well reserve pits and waste water storage facilities.

Exxon has already spent $2.5 million safeguarding its facilities and is being fined an additional $600,000 — a total of $3.1 million for 85 bird deaths. That works out to about $36,470 per bird death.

Let’s put this in some perspective.

The “death gratuity,” as the U.S. military calls it, is only $12,420 for active duty personnel, jumping up to $100,000 for combat-related deaths.

Poultry give their lives to feed us for about $2 per pound — chickens and turkey existing at a level far below their “protected” bretheren.

There’s something very wrong about a society that values some dead birds on a par with dead soldiers — not to mention a Department of Justice that actually spends time and taxpayer money prosecuting the deaths of 85 birds.

Spector will vote to doom Pennsylvania

Sen. Arlen Spector (D-PA) said last week that he would vote for cloture on climate legislation, thereby allowing a bill to move to a simple majority vote for passage, according to Greenwire.

The odd thing, of course, is that there is no Senate bill yet.

If Spector’s cloture commitment represents his sentiments on the House-passed Waxman-Markey, woe is Pennsylvania.

The Heritage Foundation says that Pennsylavnia stands to lose an average of 46,762 jobs per year between 2012-2035 and Pennsylvania familes stand to lose and average of $4,888 per year during that period if the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill is enacted into law.

Vichy Oil

Greenpeace recently leaked a memo from the American Petroleum Institute discussing the trade group’s involvement with so-called “Energy Citizen” rallies against Waxman-Markey. Greenpeace likens these grassroots efforts to “astroturf.”

The problem with API — aside from failure to keep its communications confidential — is not that it is funding grassroots rallies against Waxman-Markey. We are for anybody that opposes the bill and would welcome their support with open arms.

The group’s real problem is that, while it opposes Waxman-Markey, it wants Waxman-Markey Lite.

According to this API memo issued in the wake if the Greenpeace kerfuffle, the oil industry association says,

API has a clear position on climate legislation: It opposes Waxman-Markey, and calls for the Senate to get it right. API is not opposed to fair and transparent climate legislation that limits greenhouse gas emissions but protects U.S. jobs and ensures that energy prices are not raised to the point where they threaten the economy.

How the oil industry thinks it can live with greenhouse gas regulation is beyond comprehension. Regardless of how lax they start, greenhouse gas limits will only get more expensive, stringent and draconian.

API’s effort to cut a deal with the carbon devil is reminiscent of France opting for Nazi occupation-lite through its Vichy government. The only sensible — and honorable — thing to do, however, is to fight evil all out.

API President Jack Gerard: The oil industry's Marshall Petain?
API President Jack Gerard: The oil industry's Marshall Petain?
Captain Renault looks at Vichy water in disgust in Casablanca
Captain Renault looks at Vichy water in disgust in Casablanca

Obama EPA makes first threat on CO2 limits

Carbon Control News reports that,

The Obama EPA is explicitly saying for the first time that a pending greenhouse gas (GHG) vehicle emissions rule, when finalized, will define carbon dioxide (CO2) and other GHGs as regulated under the Clean Air Act and will therefore trigger mandates for new power plants and other stationary sources to limit their GHGs.

The purpose of this threat, of course, is to scare industries and Congress into a cap-and-trade bill this fall.

Click here for the EPA document. The threat is made in footnote 18.

Green Hell: ‘Well-substantiated and amusingly argued,’ says National Review

I like where I live, but I didn’t quite realize that it was turning into a green hell. At least not until I read Steven Milloy’s new book, Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them.

Read the rest of Mark Hemingway’s review of Green Hell at NationalReviewOnline…