LINDA J. BILMES – Humpty Dumpty famously cannot be “put back together” again. For those who care about the environment, every day since Donald Trump took office is a Humpty Dumpty day — with something being broken beyond repair.
Category: Big Picture
In an internal memo, the White House considered whether to simply ‘ignore’ federal climate research
CHRIS MOONEY and JULIET EILPERIN – White House officials last year weighed whether to simply “ignore” climate studies produced by government scientists or to instead develop “a coherent, fact-based message about climate science,” according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post. The document, drafted Sept. 18 by Michael Catanzaro, President Trump’s special assistant for domestic energy and environmental policy at the time, highlights the dilemma the administration has faced over climate change since Trump took office. Even as Trump’s deputies have worked methodically to uproot policies aimed at curbing the nation’s carbon output, the administration’s agencies continue to produce reports showing that climate change is happening, is human-driven and is a threat to the United States.
Putin Takes Ax to Military Spending
FRED WEIR – Amid the current worries in the West over Russia, the idea that Russia would be cutting its military spending seems counterintuitive to us. But that’s just what Vladimir Putin is doing with his new budget, in which plans for a major infrastructure boost are coming at the expense of some of the Kremlin’s more ambitious defense projects.
Courtroom Science Lab: Federal Judge Tutored in Climate Change
DAVID DEBOLT – Opponents in a lawsuit rarely find themselves in the same corner of a legal boxing match. In federal court here on March 21, though, the gloves stayed on: Leading climate change experts and oil industry representatives largely agreed our planet is warming, our seas rising.
Federal Judge’s Unprecedented Order on Climate Science ‘Could Open Floodgates’ for Big Oil Lawsuits
JESSICA CORBETT – With a decision that could have far-reaching implications, a federal judge in California has ordered the first ever U.S. court hearing on climate science for a “public nuisance” lawsuit, meaning that major oil and gas companies for the first time may have to go on the record regarding what they knew about the planetary impacts of their products—and when.
Four Senators Request Negotiations with Russia
WASHINGTON POST – Amid heightened tension with Russia, U.S. Senators Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) today urged Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to begin a new round of strategic talks with Russia without delay.
Meet the Well-Funded Players Working Hard to Thwart Oregon’s Climate Progress
ERIC DE PLACE and PAELINA DESTEPHANO -Oregon is on the cusp of a climate protection breakthrough in 2018. The state legislature is weighing the Clean Energy Jobs bill, a remarkable opportunity to join its West Coast neighbors in lowering carbon pollution while raising money to invest in clean energy and transportation. The money raised would also provide assistance for low-income state residents. (Sightline’s Kristin Eberhard wrote an excellent summary of the legislation.) Nevertheless, Oregon’s climate proposal has garnered backlash from a range of shadowy conservative groups determined to halt the bill’s progress. Many of these organizations are linked to anti-tax and anti-union politics, and many seem specifically designed to obscure their backers and operations from public view. It’s a rogues’ gallery of climate-protection opponents in Oregon, and Sightline takes a hard look at who’s who in this movement and casts some light into the shadows.
Inter-American Court of Human Rights Solidifies the Right to a Healthy Environment
CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW – On February 8th, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights released a precedent-setting opinion which recognizes the right to a healthy environment as fundamental to human existence and enumerates key duties of States in protecting that and other environment-related rights.
Plastics Found in Stomachs of Deepest Sea Creatures
MATTHEW TAYLOR – Animals from the deepest places on Earth have been found with plastic in their stomachs, confirming fears that manmade fibres have contaminated the most remote places on the planet.
Trump “Nuclear Posture” Approves New Warheads & Factories; Opens the Door to Testing
TRI-VALLEY CARES – On January 10th, the Huffington Post leaked a draft of the Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, a Pentagon document that dictates the overall strategy for United States nuclear forces. The leaked document, which is rumored to be the final draft, demonstrates an aggressive shift from the Obama posture review by mandating “more usable” low-yield nuclear weapons, doubling down on building new bomb plants, and lowering the threshold to resume nuclear weapons testing.
This is How An Arms Race Starts: Russian Senator Wants More Nuclear Weapons if US Violates START-3
INTERFAX – Russia will have justification for a symmetrical response if the US boosts its nuclear forces in violation of the START-3 treaty, the chairman of the Defence Committee of the Federation Council (parliament’s upper house), Viktor Bondarev, has said.
Poll: Public Overwhelmingly Opposed to Military Interventions
JAMES CARDEN – Last week, the Committee for a Responsible Foreign Policy—a bipartisan advocacy group calling for congressional oversight of America’s lengthy list of military interventions abroad—released the results of a survey that show broad public support for Congress to reclaim its constitutional prerogatives in the exercise of foreign policy (see Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution) and for fewer U.S. military interventions generally. Undertaken last November by J. Wallin Opinion Research, the new survey revealed “a national voter population that is largely skeptical of the practicality or benefits of military intervention overseas, including both the physical involvement of the U.S. military and also extending to military aid in the form of funds or equipment as well.
Portland Fossil Fuel Ordinance Ruled Constitutional
PRESS RELEASE – January 4, 2017 (Salem, OR)—Today, the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed, in large part, a Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) decision that invalidated Portland’s landmark Fossil Fuel Terminal Zoning Amendments, passed unanimously in December 2016. The Court ruled that Portland did not violate the Dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Court’s decision opens the door for local governments to continue to take meaningful action to combat climate change.
Big Banks and Major Investors are Distancing Themselves from Tar Sands Projects
DIANA BEST – More and more banks and major investors are distancing themselves from tar sands.
Rising Seas Release Radiation from Pacific Island Bomb Crater
MARK WILLACY – Rising seas caused by climate change are seeping inside a United States nuclear waste dump on a remote and low-lying Pacific atoll, flushing out radioactive substances left behind from some of the world’s largest atomic weapons tests.
Climate-Change Risks May Lower Municipal Credit Ratings
THE REAL DEAL (South Florida Real Estate News) – Credit rating agency Moody’s Investor Services Inc. warns that it may downgrade the ratings of U.S. states and cities that fail to prepare for the impact of climate change.
Trump’s Hatchet Man and the Plot to Loot America’s Wilderness
ADAM FEDERMAN – A little-known bureaucrat named James Cason is reshaping the Department of the Interior.
Congressional “Realists” Call for US to Curtail Its Use of the Military
FINLAY LEWIS – They could caucus in a phone booth. They are known as “realists,” and their default position on questions of foreign policy and national security is one of skepticism about the value of interventions abroad and of respect for privacy at home. In a debate largely being litigated within the ranks of the Republican Party on Capitol Hill, the realists don’t have a prayer of prevailing in an up-or-down vote against the neoconservative wing of the party, proponents of an interventionist ethos to embed American values in lands far removed from domestic shores and traditions.
Top Democrats Stage Anti-Trump Revolt at Bonn Climate Summit
DAVID SIDERS, EMILY HOLDEN AND SARA STEFANINI – A handful of Democratic governors and scores of other lawmakers and mayors are mounting an insurgency at the United Nations climate conference here, orchestrating a highly choreographed campaign to persuade world leaders that President Donald Trump doesn’t speak for the United States on climate change.
Future Still Bright for Electric Vehicles in Ore. Even If Tax Credit is Axed
ERIC TEGETHOFF – The auto industry and supporters of electric vehicles don’t want to see Congress put the brakes on an electric vehicle tax incentive, but the fuel’s future still is looking bright.
Tens of Thousands Rally in Tokyo Against Their Government’s Pro-Nuclear Amendment
JAPAN TIMES – Tens of thousands of people staged a rally in central Tokyo on Friday to protest Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to amend the Constitution.
Congressional Budget Office: US Nuclear Forces To Cost $1.2 Trillion over 30 Years
PRESS RELEASE from THE LOS ALAMOS STUDY GROUP – On Oct. 31, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its 73-page [analysis] of the future costs of maintaining and modernizing US nuclear weapons, entitled “Approaches for Managing the Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2017 to 2046.”[1][1] The total cost estimated by CBO was $1.242 trillion (T), of which $800 billion (B) is estimated as necessary to maintain and operate planned forces. The remainder ($400 B) is CBO’s estimate of the cost to modernize these forces. According to CBO, it will cost $4.6 million (M) per hour, 24/7, to keep US nuclear forces for the next 30 years.
General Motors Is Going All Electric
ALEX DAVIES – After more than a century peddling vehicles that pollute the atmosphere, General Motors is ending its relationship with gasoline and diesel. This morning, the American automotive giant announced that it is working toward an all-electric, zero-emissions future. That starts with two new, fully electric models next year—then at least 18 more by 2023.
Partial Victory for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe on DAPL
THE INDIGENOUS AMERICAN and PORTSIDE – The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe won a significant victory today in its fight to protect the Tribe’s drinking water and ancestral lands from the Dakota Access pipeline.
Impacts of Trump & Paxton’s Policies: “U.S. Might Not Have Enough Construction Workers to Rebuild”
PRESS RELEASE FROM AMERICA’S VOICE : TEXAS – As Hurricane Harvey’s destruction and devastation continues across Texas and Louisiana, key elected, community, and thought leaders are looking towards the next step: rebuilding. Daniel Gross of Slate reports that Trump’s harsh and un-American immigration policies may have an unintended consequence – hampering construction efforts in the aftermath of Harvey.
9 Amazing New Innovations That Are Creating More Fuel Efficiency
MARSHALL TULLEY – We’ve all heard that cars are getting more efficient. But how exactly is this happening? Here are 9 innovations driving the increased efficiency.
Stop Fetishizing These War Victims And The Piece Of Cloth They’re Draped In
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE – The practice of invoking fallen soldiers in order to win debates about toxic US policies is obscene, illogical, and pernicious, and it needs to stop.
Amid the Blaring Headlines, Routine Reports of Hate-Fueled Violence
JOE SEXTON – Documenting Hate’s catalogue of incidents captures the seeming ordinariness of many of them.
How Congress Is Cementing Trump’s Anti-Climate Orders into Law
MARIANNE LAVELLE – These efforts are mostly flying under the radar, but they could short-circuit lawsuits and make it harder to restore environmental protections.
‘Fossil Fuels are Dead,’ Says CSX Railroad Chief: No More New Trains for Coal, Ever
JOHN VOELCKER – The industrial revolution that began around 1750 was powered in large part by coal, and the carbon-rich fuel had 200 good years after that. By the middle of the last century, however, serious studies had begun of its deleterious effects on human health—and that was before the climate-change impact of human emissions of carbon dioxide became known. Transportation will slowly electrify over the coming decades, while coal’s share of electric power generation will wane worldwide.
The Ethics and Politics of Nuclear Waste are Being Tested in Southern California
JAMES HEDDLE – In the US, as more and more energy reactors are being shut down and are entering the decommissioning process, the overriding question is becoming unavoidable at reactor communities across the country: What do we do with all these decades of tons of accumulated radwaste now being stored on-site? Each canister contains a Chernobyl’s-worth of cesium; each cooling pool, hundreds more.
Ohio’s War On Wind Power Is Costing It Billions Of Dollars & Thousands Of Jobs
HARVEY WASSERMAN – In the corporate war against renewable energy, a single Ohio regulation stands out. It is a simple clause slipped into the state budget without open discussion, floor debate, or public hearings. The restriction is costing Ohio billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.
The U.S. State of War – July 2017
Businesses Urge Interior Dept. to Preserve Public Lands
ERIC TEGETHOFF – Public lands provide a major economic boost to local communities in Oregon. That’s the view of groups that support the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument being kept as it is, as the U.S. Interior Department reviews its status.
China Firmly Opposes U.S. Arms Sale to Taiwan
MU XUEQUAN – China firmly opposes the U.S. arms sale to Taiwan and urges the United States to immediately revoke its decision, the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy here said Friday, June 30
Pruitt Will Launch Program to ‘Critique’ Climate Science
EMILY HOLDEN – U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is leading a formal initiative to challenge mainstream climate science using a “back-and-forth critique” by government-recruited experts, according to a senior administration official. The program will use “red team, blue team” exercises to conduct an “at-length evaluation of U.S. climate science,” the official said, referring to a concept developed by the military to identify vulnerabilities in field operations.
Subcommittee Passes Bill to Make Yucca Mountain the U.S. Nuclear Repository
CRAIG FIEGENER and MARVIN CLEMONS – Despite Nevada protests against it, a measure to make Yucca Mountain the nation’s nuclear waste repository advanced in a congressional subcommittee Thursday morning.
Lockheed Martin-Funded Experts Agree: South Korea Needs More Lockheed Martin Missiles
ADAM JOHNSON – As tensions between the United States and North Korea continue to rise, one think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), has become a ubiquitous voice on the topic of missile defense, providing Official-Sounding Quotes to dozens of reporters in Western media outlets. All of these quotes speak to the urgent threat of North Korea and how important the United States’s deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system is to South Korea.
Tunnel Collapse at Hanford Nuclear Dump-Harbinger of the Collapse of the Entire Industry?
HARVEY WASSERMAN – The collapse of a tunnel at the massive nuclear waste dump at Hanford, Washington, 200 miles east of Seattle, has sent shock waves through a nuclear power industry already in the process of a global collapse.
Cherokee Nation Lawsuit Holds Drug Distributors Accountable for Opioid Diversion
KARLA JO HELMS – Prescription opioid overdose deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives have increased nearly four-fold since 1999. Novus Medical Detox Center believes a new Cherokee Nation lawsuit against opioid distributors may be the first of many.
Oil Price Collapse is ‘Permanent’; Analyst Says Fossil Fuel has had Its Day
JILLIAN AMBROSE – The latest collapse of the oil market is the harbinger of a global energy revolution which could spell the end-game for fossil fuels. These theories were laughable less than a decade ago when oil prices grazed highs of more than $140 a barrel. But the burn out of the oil industry is approaching quicker than was first thought, and the most senior leaders within the industry are beginning to take note.
Trump’s Climate Demands Roil U.S. Allies
ANDREW RESTUCCIA – President Donald Trump’s abrupt turnaround on U.S. climate policy is fueling tension with several of America’s closest allies, which are resisting the administration’s demands that they support a bigger role for nuclear power and fossil fuels in the world’s energy supply.
The Potential of an “Oregon Climate Test”
ERIC DE PLACE – After a string of successes defending the Northwest from ill-conceived dirty energy projects, the thin green line—the Northwest’s opposition movement to coal, oil, and gas exports—is starting to play offense. Local governments around the region are already updating land use laws to protect their communities from the depredations of fossil fuel infrastructure schemes.
The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump, a Political Hot Potato, is Back
TOM DICHRISTOPHER – The White House’s budget blueprint released Thursday seeks to revive spending for a hotly contested facility in Nevada that would store the nation’s nuclear waste.
U.S. Prepares for War in Korea
BRUCE GAGNON – South Korea and the US launched their annual Key Resolve military exercise Monday, which involves scenarios for the employment of US anti-missile assets and special warfare forces tasked with removing North Korea’s leadership in a contingency.
Arizona Leader Kills Protest Bill after Widespread Criticism
BOB CHRISTIE – The speaker of the Arizona House said Monday he won’t hear a bill that makes participating in or helping organize a protest that turns into a riot an offense that could lead to criminal racketeering charges, a move prompted by widespread criticism that the legislation sought to limit First Amendment rights.
NW Ratepayers Will Save Over $250 Million if Columbia Generating Station Nuclear Power Plant Replaced with Renewables
OREGON AND WASHINGTON PHYSICIANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY – Portland utility economist Robert McCullough’s study indicates savings to Northwest ratepayers of between $261.2 million and $530.7 million over ten years if the Columbia Generating Station nuclear plant is closed and replaced with clean renewable energy alternatives.
Dutch Bank Will Not Pursue Future Business With Energy Transfer Equity due to the Construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline
WAKINYAN WAANATAN (MATT REMLE – LAKOTA) – ABN AMRO Bank based in Amsterdam released a statement strongly condemning Energy Transfer Equity (ETE), the parent company to Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), over the Dakota Access pipeline. While the Dutch based bank is not involved in financing the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, and is not a direct lender to the project sponsors, it does have a finical relationship with ETE.
Cherokee Nation Wins Restraining Order to Prevent Radwaste Disposal Near Local Rivers
ANADISGOI, OFFICIAL CHREOKEE NATION NEWSROOM – The Cherokee Nation and state of Oklahoma jointly filed and were granted a restraining order today against Sequoyah Fuels Corporation near Gore to stop the company from disposing radioactive waste near the Arkansas and Illinois rivers. The request was granted by Sequoyah County District Judge Jeff Payton.
Gorbachev Urges Trump and Putin to Introduce UN Resolution Banning Nuclear War
DAVID CAPLAN – Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has issued a dire warning: “The world is preparing for war.” And with a phone call scheduled on Saturday between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Gorbachev is urging the leaders to put a halt to a such a deadly path by spearheading a United Nations resolution that essentially bans nuclear war.