Gulf Watchers Friday: GOTV-All Politics is Local: Kamala Harris/CA-AG: BP Catastrophe AUV#416

by ArthurPoet

This is a Gulf Watchers GOTV SPECIAL MID-TERM ELECTION EDITION: Focusing on 2 CA Local Ticket Items:

1. Kamala Harris for CA-AG

2. NO on PROP 23

California sets the direction for our nation, and as such, this is probably one of the most critical battles for our environment today. Her opponent is backed by big oil. The latest poll shows Kamala slightly up, but she has been behind up until now. Please help if you can.

"All Politics is Local" ~ Former Speaker of the House ~ Tip O'Neil ~

You are in the current BP Catastrophe Morning Edition: AUV #416. ROV #415 is here.

Bookmark this link to find the latest Gulf Watchers diaries.

Please RECOMMEND THIS DIARY, the motherships have been discontinued.

The digest of diaries is here.

Please be kind to kossacks with bandwidth issues. Please do not post images or videos. Again, many thanks for this.

continued at Daily Kos....

Stupid Goes Viral: Toomey's Not A Witch, Either

by RLMiller

They roam the once-pristine shores of Chesapeake Bay, moaning for caaasshh.

Their stupid has gone viral.

And if they win, humanity loses.

I'm tracking Climate Zombies: every Republican candidate for House, Senate, and Governor who doubts, denies, or derides the science of climate change. Today, I visit Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, where I also stumble upon a ResistNet member running for Congress: Rick Hellberg in PA-02.

continued at Daily Kos....

Stupid Goes Viral: "the John Birch Society was extreme, too."

by RLMiller

They prowl the tea party rallies of America's heartland, moaning for caaasshh.

Their stupid has gone viral.

Their supporters: "Some people say I’m extreme, but they said the John Birch Society was extreme, too."

And if they win, humanity loses.

I'm tracking Climate Zombies: every Republican candidate for House, Senate, and Governor who doubts, denies, or derides the science of climate change. Today, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, and West Virginia, with a highlight from Indiana's Ninth District.

continued at Daily Kos....

League of Conservation Voters Dirty Dozen for 2010: Part 2--Four Filthy Senators

by Neon Vincent

Earlier this week, I profiled three candidates on the the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Dirty Dozen list who are running for the House of Representatives.  As I wrote then, "[t]hese candidates consistently vote (or promise to vote) against clean energy and natural resource conservation.

Join me over the fold for part 2, in which I profile the first four GOTeaP senate candidates on the LCV's list, along with action items for their Democratic opponents.

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PA-Sen: Toomey disputes and debates reality

by Laurence Lewis

Pennsylvania Republican Senate nominee Pat Toomey continues to prove his disconnect from reality. On climate change, he'd already joined the club of Republicans against science, and he's standing firm. Greg Sargent:

Here's the exchange, at around the 15 minute mark of the  interview on WTIF radio:

QUESTIONER: I have a question about global warming and what Toomey's position is on that and what he believes is going on there.

TOOMEY: My view is, I think the data is pretty clear. There has been an increase in the surface temperature of the planet over the course of the last 100 years or so. I think it's clear that that has happened. The extent to which that has been caused by human activity I think is not as clear. I think that is still very much disputed and has been debated. If we go down the road of legislation like this cap and trade bill...

Right, but who, exactly, is doing the disputing and the debating here?

Once again, a joint statement (pdf) by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Biological Sciences, American Meteorological Society, American Society of Agronomy, American Society of Plant Biologists, American Statistical Association, Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, Botanical Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, Ecological Society of America, Natural Science Collections Alliance, Organization of Biological Field Stations, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Society of Systematic Biologists, Soil Science Society of America, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research:

Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. Moreover, there is strong evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on society, including the global economy and on the environment.

The scientists don't dispute it or debate it. Toomey, like all of this year's GOP Senate nominees, is in a debate with reality. And it's only our collective future that's at stake.

continued at Daily Kos....

OR-Gov: Chris Dudley, climate change denier

by Joan McCarter

GOP candidate for governor Chris Dudley is looking vulnerable on an issue that helped take down GOP Sen. Gordon Smith back in 2008, the environment.

This week, Stimson Lumber, Dudley's largest campaign donor (to the tune of $235,000) was hit with nearly $15,000 in fines for "failing to comply with hazardous air pollution standards, failing to operate an air quality control scrubber properly and discharging wastewater into Scoggins Creek." Not a huge fine as far as environmental fines go (barely a drop in the bucket to what they've spent on Dudley), but nonetheless showing failure to comply with environmental standards. Given how deep in the pocket of industry--particularly timber--Dudley is, then the revelation that he's a climate change denier makes sense.

Toeing the party line, Dudley opposes the Western Climate Initiative global warming agreement as a “cap-tax-trade” system that would “do damage to the economy and job creation.” He even bashed a weatherization initiative as a boondoggle. “Climate change is probably caused by a variety of factors,” Dudley said in a September interview with the Oregonian, “but that debate is beside the point.” In a gubernatorial debate on September 30, Dudley finally admitted he doesn’t know if pollution is causing global warming:

My thought on global warming is this: that global warming exists, man contributes to it, how much, I don’t know. I don’t know how much is man made and how much is natural.

His friends at Stimson Lumber might like that answer, but most Oregon voters probably won't.

The more Oregon voters learn about Dudley, this story being no exception, the more they turn away. Even Rasmussen now has Kitzhaber leading, though still by just a hair, 48-46.

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OR-GOV: Dudley's plan to increase deforestation

by Laurence Lewis

The Oregon governor's race will be decided in the Portland metropolitan area. If John Kitzhaber receives anything close to the level of support Democrats usually enjoy from Oregon's largest population center, he will win easily. The problem, for now, is that former NBA backup center and "wealth manager" (whatever that means) Chris Dudley is polling better in the Portland area than do most Republicans.

Oregon's unemployment rate is higher than the national average. People are restless and looking for change, and Democrats have held the Oregon statehouse for a long time. And a lot of people don't seem to remember how much they enjoyed Kitzhaber's previous tenure as governor, when he was the most popular politician in the state, despite having to fight a hard right Republican legislature. They don't seem to remember the employment boom when he was governor. They don't seem to remember that even before he was governor, the emergency-room-doctor-turned-state-senator created the Oregon Health Plan, without which many Oregonians would not have been able to get insured.

If the Kitzhaber campaign is looking for a knockout blow in this deadlocked race, they need to find something that will appeal to people in Portland and its suburbs and exurbs, something that isn't abstract and wonky. When Dudley finally showed up to debate Kitzhaber last week, he proved once again that he has but the most superficial understanding of policy. Kitzhaber once again proved that he can discuss the most intricate details of policy. But political knockout blows don't usually come from detailed policy analysis. Kitzhaber needs something that touches people emotionally, viscerally. Something about which liberal Portlanders are passionate and even many moderate and conservative Portlanders care deeply. Something like the environment.

Many Portlanders love the outdoors. Many escape west to the coast, east to the Gorge or the Cascades, or south to the Willamette Valley whenever they can. And it is almost impossible to drive in any of those directions without encountering the visual blight of clear-cutting. Along backroads, it's even worse. Even from some of Oregon's most popular beaches, the view has been sullied by deforestation. There are even proposals to deforest right up to the edge of Oregon's only national park. Portlanders care a lot about deforestation.

Chris Dudley has no roots in Oregon, although he did apparently live in Portland for much of the time he listed his official residence as across the river in Washington, where he could avoid paying income taxes. It's no surprise that he has no passion for protecting Oregon. He recently received yet another $50,000 from just one lumber company, raising that single company's total contribution to his campaign to nearly a quarter million dollars. Dudley apparently cares more about managing the wealth of the timber industry than about protecting what's left of Oregon's forests:

Among many political activists, the environment remains a hot political issue. Dudley has successfully tapped the timber and agricultural industries for support as he sympathizes with their plight.

Paulette Pyle, a natural resource and pesticide lobbyist who works closely with Dudley's campaign, said that became clear the first time she met Dudley and asked him what he knew about the state's farms and forests.

"He said, 'What I do know is that they have been underutilized over the years and that I believe that is why Oregon has had economic difficulties,'" Pyle related.

To Dudley, "utilizing" forests apparently means cutting them down. As he told The Oregonian's Jeff Mapes:

Oregon’s six large state forests are an underutilized state asset that should be a greater source of jobs and revenue for the state.

According to the state Department of Forestry, improving the management of the 93,000 acre Eliot State Forest, alone, could create at least 150 new jobs and more revenue for the Common School Fund.

A total of 150 jobs for 93,000 acres? To Dudley, "improving the management" apparently means allowing timber firms to manage their wealth by destroying state-owned wilderness. Dudley blathers about the need for using sound science, but given that only some 3 percent of the Pacific Northwest's Old Growth forests remain, the science has been pretty clear for some time. And if Dudley really cares about school funding, perhaps he shouldn't be proposing to manage the wealth of wealthy people like himself by cutting their taxes.

If the Kitzhaber campaign wants a short, simple ad that will fire up the key constituency that will decide his race, here it is: aerial shots of clear cut devastation, with a voice-over soundtrack recounting Dudley's comments about deforestation. If people in and around Portland understood that Dudley thinks of forests as but an underutilized asset, it could effectively end the race.

continued at Daily Kos....

AZ-02 : "This is beyond a tragedy, this is treason"

by AZ Independent

What we've seen since the 1973 oil crisis has been disgusting. Only lip service has been paid to solving the threat to our security that dependence on foreign sources of energy has become. Republicans in Congress, like Joe "BP, I apologize" Barton, John "Drill baby, Drill!" McCain, and Trent Franks(R-AZ), have made our country more dependent on foreign sources of oil than ever before.

The infamous Phoenix brown cloud, c/o Trent Franks (Source)

MMM... chocolaty

The simple fact is, we can't drill our way out of this problem. We need leaders who will fight for the future- help to establish an economy where American companies and American-made products provide jobs for us.

continued at Daily Kos....

Some good news for a change: Pacific Salmon

by yuriwho

Perhaps it's just me, but I perceive a lot of negativity lately on this site. It's understandable given our situation. I wanted to highlight a new development that should make a lot of people smile.

Last year, near Christmas, a good friend of mine from BC arrived here in Ontario with one sockeye, telling me that this might be the end. Last years catch was abysmal and the fishery was crashing hard.

The Canadian government was concerned enough to establish a commission to investigate the fishing collapse. The Cohen commission began it's work August 18th.

continued at Daily Kos....

WI-Sen: Ron Johnson, Friend of Science

by Steve Singiser

If, while reading this snippet of an interview with Wisconsin GOP Senate frontrunner Ron Johnson, you feel the stupid starting to burn a bit, do not be alarmed.

It is probably just due to the sunspots:

A global warming skeptic, Johnson said extreme weather phenomena were better explained by sunspots than an overload of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as many scientists believe.

"I absolutely do not believe in the science of man-caused climate change," Johnson said. "It's not proven by any stretch of the imagination."

Johnson, in an interview last month, described believers in manmade causes of climate change as "crazy" and the theory as "lunacy."

"It's far more likely that it's just sunspot activity or just something in the geologic eons of time," he said.

Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere "gets sucked down by trees and helps the trees grow," said Johnson.

Average Earth temperatures were relatively warm during the Middle Ages, Johnson said, and "it's not like there were tons of cars on the road."

He said he disagreed with any government spending to try to address global warming. A strong economy is the best way to preserve a good environment, Johnson said.

Never mind for the moment (as Eric Kleefeld at TPMDC noted) that sunspot activity has actually declined as of late.

Never mind that a group of scientists from the University of Guelph in Canada have released a study saying that there has been decline in tree growth despite increased CO2 levels, due to "warming induced stress."

Never mind that we have at present the conundrum of ever-increasing CO2 concentrations (up 36 percent since pre-industrial times) and ever decreasing trees (the total acreage of tropical forests is about half of what it once was).

What really matters here is that this little bit of "scientific logic" from Johnson is far from unprecedented. Indeed, there has been quite a trend developing with this guy. As Think Progress noted, this is not the first little bit of scientific theory to drop from the lips of candidate Johnson:

Unfortunately, Johnson’s anti-science, anti-environment views aren’t limited to his bizarre theory about sunspots. Last June, he claimed that global warming saved Wisconsin from turning into a glacier, saying he was “glad there’s global warming ... We’d be standing on top of a 200-foot thick glacier.” He has also told the press he is open to oil drilling in Wisconsin’s Great Lakes.

Interestingly, in the same interview where Johnson was pooh-poohing global climate change, he did manage to walk back the "drilling in the Great Lakes" thing.

Not because of the potentially disastrous effects on the natural wonders that are the Great Lakes, however. Johnson explained that "the Great Lakes oil reserves are too small to be worth drilling."

So, no drilling in the Great Lakes. But not because Johnson is concerned about the consequences of such action. Nope. No drilling in the Great Lakes simply because, in true Republican fashion, Johnson is concerned that the oil companies wouldn't make enough money off of it.

continued at Daily Kos....

It'd Cost You 7 Cents A Gallon To Ban Offshore Drilling!

by slinkerwink

You ready to pay seven cents per gallon in 2011, and eleven cents per gallon in 2035? That's exactly what would happen if we ban offshore drilling. Here's more on this from RFF Fellow, Stephen P.A. Brown, at the Resources For Future:

"If such risks are not taken fully into account, offshore oil and natural gas production will be too great; oil and natural gas prices will be too low; and the consumption of oil and natural gas will be too high," Brown writes. "Are tighter controls or a permanent ban on deepwater drilling in the United States a reasonable response to such externalities – or an overreaction?"

Brown assesses the implications of a permanent tightening of U.S. government control on deepwater offshore drilling through three scenarios. The first case represents business as usual. The second imposes additional regulatory safeguards that would increase the cost of exploration, development, and production in U.S. deepwater and ultra-deepwater areas by a combined 20 percent. The third case examines the implications of a permanent U.S. ban on drilling in deepwater and ultra-deepwater areas.

continued at Daily Kos....

This Is Depressing

by slinkerwink

ThinkProgress reports that the wellhead is potentially in danger of tilting over, due to its weight, which has near-apocalyptic ramifications for the entire ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico [as if the oil spill itself already hasn't done enough damage]:

The Leaning Tower Of Oily Pisa

The broken wellhead gushing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is tilting over, potentially threatening further disaster. The Deepwater Horizon riser package that sits on the seabed a mile below the ocean surface weighs over 450 tons, including the 48-foot-tall failed blowout preventer. In a press teleconference Monday, National Incident Commander Thad Allen announced that the riser package is tilting "10 or 12 degrees off perpendicular," twice the 5.5 degree tilt of the Leaning Tower of Pisa:

The entire arrangement is kind of listed a little bit. I think it’s 10 or 12 degrees off perpendicular so it’s not quite straight up.

So what would happen if the broken wellhead were to completely fall over?

continued at Daily Kos....

BP Turns Away Expert Oil Spill Volunteers!

by slinkerwink

This is, once again, an addition to a long litany of the colossal fuck-ups that BP has done in managing their response to the oil spill. Apparently, they've not really been manning their volunteer centers, and have refused to take in volunteers with actual background experience in responding to oil spills. Here's more from Brad Johnson at Think Progress on this issue:

BP has rejected the help of thousands of volunteers, many with expert training and experience in handling offshore oil disasters and oil spill cleanup. Yesterday, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd interviewed Don Abrams of OilSpillVolunteers.com, who collected the names of nearly 8,000 volunteers in the first weeks after BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion, and tried repeatedly to contribute their expertise to mitigating this national disaster. Many of the volunteers Abrams had organized have certification in the federal government’s official Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Standard (HAZWOPER), and were ready and able to train others.

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A Great Diary You Guys Missed

by slinkerwink

It's this diary and it's about what the White House administration is planning to do to BP. The White House is correct in their approach to BP in this instance. Here's an excerpt below:

The White House announced earlier morning that President Obama will address the nation from the Oval Office on Tuesday night about Oilmageddon--and lay down the law to BP.  Apparently Obama wants BP to set aside significant funds to compensate victims of the spill.

   President Obama for the first time will address the nation about the ongoing oil  disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday night and outline his plans to legally force BP executives to create an escrow account reserving billions of dollars to compensate businesses and individuals if the company does not do so on its own, a senior administration official said on Sunday.

  "The president will use his legal authority to compel them," said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman.

continued at Daily Kos....

OSHA Says Workers Don't Need Protection In Gulf Spill

by slinkerwink

This is infuriating to read, given the news reports about workers feeling ill in the clean-up of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. There are more stories like these coming out about workers getting ill, and about BP not providing them protective wear and respirators. Apparently OSHA says that these workers don't need respirators in the clean-up of the oil spill: David Michaels, assistant secretary for the Department of Labor's OSHA, said in an interview Thursday that based on test results so far, cleanup workers are receiving "minimal" exposure to airborne toxins. OSHA will require that BP provide certain protective clothing, but not respirators. For more on this developing situation, please read what environmental advocates such as Albert Huang and others have to say about the need for workers to have protection from respiratory problems in dealing with potentially dangerous inhalants.

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Stupid Liberals Demand Criminal Not Clean Up Crime Scene!

by slinkerwink

Here's a story for you guys. One day, the police gets a tip that a crime has been committed, but that the criminal is still within vicinity. So, what does the police do? They go over to where the criminal resides, asks him to participate with the police, and to go back to the crime scene. All of this sounds normal at first, but then there's the twist to the story--the police puts the criminal in charge of the press operations, data-collection of evidence from the crime scene, and orders the criminal to clean up any sort of blood stains at the crime scene. Meanwhile, the press relies on the criminal for any sort of information about the crime scene, the criminal lies about the evidence, hires and abuses contractors, and refuses to abide by environmental laws. And the criminal ignores the order from the police to stop using a toxic solvent in cleaning up the crime scene. This is what our government is doing with BP. This is wrong, and liberals at the Center for American Progress have proposed a different path for our government to take with BP.

continued at Daily Kos....

UPDATED: New Offshore Drilling Project Approved!

by slinkerwink

Sierra Club has this press news release alert below about the new offshore drilling project just approved by MMS: Today, the [MMS] approved a new drilling permit for an offshore well in the Gulf of Mexico. Last week, the president extended his ban on deepwater drilling for an additional 6 months, but lifted the ban on shallow water drilling, allowing this project to move forward. In fact, shallow water drilling is just as risky as deep water drilling. In 1979, we saw a disaster very similar to the BP catastrophe from Ixtoc 1, a shallow well in the Gulf. They used all the same techniques to try to stop that gusher, and it took them nine months to finally do it. By that time, an estimated 138 million gallons had spilled. The President's new moratorium on offshore drilling is supposed to be for six months, requires a thirty-day safety review by Interior Secretary Salazar, and but it doesn't extend to offshore drilling in shallow water.

continued at Daily Kos....

UPDATE: Obama Sends Attorney General Holder To Gulf Coast

by slinkerwink

The attorney general of the Department of Justice, Eric Holder, is on his way to the Gulf Coast with two other attorneys, Assistant Attorney General for Environmental and Natural Resources Ignacia Moreno, and Assistant Attorney General For The Civil Division Tony West. The Justice Department announced on April 30 that a team of Justice Department lawyers had been sent to "monitor" the spill and make sure environmental laws were enforced. "The British Petroleum oil spill has already cost lives and created a major environmental incident," Holder said in a statement at the time. "The Justice Department stands ready to make available every resource at our disposal to vigorously enforce the laws that protect the people who work and reside near the Gulf, the wildlife, the environment and the American taxpayers." The question then becomes---will they look into the reports of BP refusing to give their workers protection, seeking to destroy evidence, and their lies about the respiratory illnesses by these workers? Hopefully so. Here's more on this story below:

continued at Daily Kos....

White House Increasingly Angry With BP Over Its Lies

by slinkerwink

Here's this interesting news story from Politico about the anger within the White House towards BP: The White House has become increasingly angry with BP, which initially assured administration officials the spill would be no greater than 1,000 barrels per day; estimates now range from 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day. And Obama’s team was incensed that the company kept them in the dark for a half-day last week after suspending their unsuccessful "Top Kill" efforts to plus the leak with mud and dross. I didn't know that the government was kept in the dark by BP for a half-day after the Top Kill effort initially was suspended. This is confusing though, because it's been said that there are federal scientists and officials right there in the control room. How can the White House be kept in the dark for a half-day? How is that possible?

continued at Daily Kos....

Initial Federal Oil Spill Estimate May Be Not Be True!

by slinkerwink

Two of the scientists on the National Flow Rate Technical Group are disagreeing with how the estimates were put out by the group. The current federal estimate is that the oil spill ranges from 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of oil per day. Here's the story on the disagreement with the oil spill estimate: The 12,000-to-19,000-barrel estimate was based on individual estimates from three different methods: one that used satellite images to study the amount of oil on the surface of the water, one that analyzed video of the underwater oil "plume," and one that analyzed the amount of oil collected by the Riser Insertion Tube Tool (RITT) that BP installed last week to capture some of the escaping oil. But it was impossible for members of the team that analyzed the oil plume video to estimate the upper boundary of the oil spilled, according to the Ira Leifer, a researcher at the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Steven Wereley, a researcher at Purdue University. That means that what we have is not a full actual range of the numbers of barrels spilled per day, and that this is a lowball estimate.

continued at Daily Kos....