USuncutMN says: Tax the corporations! Tax the rich! Stop the cuts, fight for social justice for all. Standing in solidarity with http://www.usuncut.org/ and other Uncutters worldwide. FIGHT for a Foreclosure Moratorium! Foreclosure = homelessness. Resist the American Legislative Exchange Council, Grover Norquist and Citizen's United. #Austerity for the wheeler dealers, NOT the people.
USuncutMN supports #occupyWallStreet, #occupyDC, the XL Pipeline resistance Yes, We, the People, are going to put democracy in all its forms up front and center. Open mic, diversity, nonviolent tactics .. Social media, economic democracy, repeal Citizen's United, single-payer healthcare, State Bank, Operation Feed the Homeless, anti-racism, homophobia, sexISM, war budgetting, lack of transparency, et al. Once we identify who we are and what we've lost, We can move forward.
The deficit reduction supercommittee has a
November 23 deadline to finish its work. One of the first places
lawmakers should look for cuts is the dirty energy sector.
From 2008 through
2010, Big Energy industries were among the top recipients of government
handouts, second only to the financial industry.
Big Oil alone racks up $4 billion a year, while
the corporations that make up the Big Oil industry post obscene profits
quarter after quarter. In the first quarter of 2011, the world’s six
largest oil companies reported combined profits of $38.1 billion - up 42
percent from the same period in 2010.
Eliminating these subsidies would shave $122
billion off our deficit over the next 10 years – and would improve the
environment and public health.
It’s a no-brainer. The vast majority of
Americans of every party want these subsidies to end. Yet Congress is
loath to push dirty energy away from the government trough.
Big Energy influence over our democracy
certainly has played a role in previous attempts to eliminate these
subsidies. This time, the 12 members that have the authority to make the
cuts have received at least $4.2 million in campaign contributions from
dirty energy interests.
Beyond helping reduce our deficit, eliminating dirt energy subsidies is crucial to shifting us toward a clean energy future.
If we continue to prop up this old dirty energy
economy, we can’t invest in something better. To learn how shifting
government spending toward investments in clean, green
solutions—renewable energy, safer chemicals and materials, zero waste
and more—can deliver jobs AND a healthier environment, watch The Story of Broke,
by Public Citizen board member, Annie Leonard. After you watch the
short program, don’t forget to sign the petition to the supercommittee.
Thank you for all you do,
Allison Fisher
Outreach Director
Public Citizen's Climate and Energy Program
U.S. to Delay Decision on Pipeline Until After Election
Joshua Roberts/Reuters
Protesters rallied against the Keystone XL oil
pipeline, which would run from Canada through the Plains to the Gulf
Coast, at the White House on Sunday.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is preparing to delay a decision on the contested Keystone XL
pipeline while it studies an alternate route, effectively pushing any
action past the 2012 election, officials and lobbyists who have been
briefed on the matter said on Thursday. An announcement is expected as
early as Thursday afternoon.
The proposed project by a Canadian pipeline company had put President Obama
in a political vise, squeezed between demands for secure energy sources
and the jobs the project will bring, and the loud opposition of
environmental advocates who have threatened to withhold electoral
support next year if he approves it.
The $7 billion pipeline, which would run from Alberta to the Gulf Coast,
has generated intense opposition from environmentalists and public
officials in Nebraska, who claim that it threatens sensitive lands and
underground water supplies along its 1,700-mile route. Critics also say
that the heavy oil extracted from sand formations in Canada will add to climate change and extend American dependence on fossil fuels.
The administration in recent days has been exploring ways to put off the
decision until after the 2012 election, fearing further alienation of
environmental and health advocates who consider the pipeline decision a
test of the Obama administration’s commitment to clean energy and air
quality. Environmental groups have expressed sharp disappointment with a
number of recent administration environmental decisions, including the
rejection of a tougher new smog standard proposed by the Environmental
Protection Agency and a five-year offshore drilling plan that opens new areas in the Arctic and Gulf of Mexico.
The administration is expected to announce that it will order a study of
an alternate route for the pipeline that avoids Nebraska’s Sand Hills
region and the Ogallala aquifer. That study could take as long as 18
months, putting an ultimate decision on the project well past next
November.
Larry Schweiger, president the National Wildlife Federation, one of many
environmental groups opposed to the pipeline project, said Thursday
that White House officials had indicated to his organization that a
decision to change the plans for the pipeline was imminent.
“The way I understand it, the process will be altered and altered to
make sure all of our concerns are considered,” he said.
A spokesman for the environmental group added that the White House had
indicated that considering a new route for the pipeline would
essentially delay the project by 12 to 18 months.
The State Department’s inspector general announced earlier this week
that he was looking into charges of conflict of interest and improper
political influence in the preparation of the project’s environmental
impact statement. Last week, the State Department’s spokeswoman said
that a target date of Dec. 31 for determining whether the pipeline was
in the national interest could slip.
Mr. Obama, in an interview with KETV in Omaha last week, said that he,
not the State Department, would make the final decision based on “what’s
best for the American people.”
He cited protection of the Nebraska aquifer and the health of the American people as considerations in his decision.
Yet he also said that he would weigh domestic energy needs as a factor.
He has been under considerable pressure from the oil and gas industry
and their allies in Congress to increase domestic oil production and
approve the pipeline to bring oil from a friendly neighbor.
“We need to encourage domestic natural gas and oil production,” Mr.
Obama said in the television interview. “We need to make sure that we
have energy security and aren’t just relying on Middle East sources. But
there’s a way of doing that and still making sure that the health and
safety of the American people and folks in Nebraska are protected, and
that’s how I’ll be measuring these recommendations when they come to
me.”
Opponents of the project have organized two large protests outside the
White House, including one on Sunday in which several thousand
protesters encircled the mansion demanding that the president kill the
pipeline. Earlier this year more than 1,000 protesters were arrested in
large demonstrations across from the White House.
John foresaw
what's happening today way back in 1992. The only way to
control the political power of the baby boomers was to keep them in
poverty. Recorded two weeks after Clinton's first presidential victory.
Also covered - The Jonestown massacre was mass murder perpetrated by
the government? the shadow government? to undermine the growth of
political power blocs that they could not control (recall what happened
recently to ACORN). An important lecture for anyone who is studying
John's work or who is concerned about the very alarming situation we're
in today.
The Keystone XL pipeline, recently approved by the US State Department and awaiting President Obama’s declaration that it is in the “national interest,” will carry oil that is too dirty for the US government to buy — under legislation signed by George W. Bush!
In 2007, President Bush signed into law Section 526 of the Energy Independence and National Security Act of 2007. It prohibits the US government, which is the largest single fuel purchaser in the U.S., from using taxpayer dollars to purchase fuels that have a higher carbon footprint than conventional oil.
This little-known law is significant because Congress crafted it, in part, with the explicit intent to block the US from buying Canadian tar sands oil — considered the dirtiest oil on the planet. With President Obama currently debating whether to authorize the construction of the Keystone Pipeline — which will funnel tar sands oil from Alberta into the the US — and more than 1000 activists arrested in front of the White House last month in protest the pipeline, the issue has moved to the front and center of the climate debate in recent weeks.
According to Congressman Henry Waxman, Chair of the House Energy Committee, the US purchase of tar sands oil would clearly violate Section 526. As he wrote in a letter to the Senate Commerce Committee in 2008, the law “applies to fuels derived from unconventional petroleum sources such as tar sands which produce significantly higher greenhouse gas emissions then are produced by comparable fuel from conventional sources.”
Meanwhile the Canadian government has been working behind the scenes to strike Section 526 from the books to clear the way for tar sands extraction. Using Freedom of Information requests, the Pembina Institute and Climate Action Network Canadian, uncovered a 2008strategy memo by Canadian Embassy official Hélène Viau, which urged US oil lobbyists to send letters to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Department of State to show “concerns with regard to section 526 and argue that oil sands products should not be targeted by this provision,” and to develop “a comprehensive oil sands advocacy strategy to focus on outreach to allies, influencers, legislators, etc.”
And Big Oil lobby have taken Viau’s suggestions to heart. Matt Fox, senior vice-president of oil sands for ConocoPhillips warned US legislators that Section 526 “could bring [tar sands] development to a screeching halt. You’d have to think twice about oil sands development if your intention was to deliver oil to the lower '48.”
If President Obama elects to unilaterally disregard Section 526, the planet may be doomed. According to Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and one of the leaders of the Keystone pipeline protests, the burning the recoverable oil in the Alberta tar sands by itself would raise the carbon in the atmosphere by 200 parts per million (ppm). It wasn’t hard to figure out that this would increase the 390 ppm carbon in the atmosphere today by more than half. Indeed, it would increase the gap between the current level and the safe level of 350 ppm five-fold.
The leading NASA climate change specialist James Hansen summed up what’s at stake saying: “If the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over” for a viable planet.
While protecting the climate will ultimately require legislation and treaties, in the meantime it is essential to prevent the use of “extreme energy” fuels like the Alberta tar sands oil that will rapidly make climate change far worse.
Congress and President Bush showed wisdom in saying that the US should not and would not buy such oil. President Obama would be wise to find the Keystone XL pipeline — whose only purpose is to bring the world’s dirtiest oil to the US — is not in our national interest.
U.S. oil speculative data released by Senator, sparking ireU
reuters
On Friday August 19, 2011, 12:02 pm EDT
By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Oil trading data that exposed the extensive positions speculators held in the run-up to record high prices in 2008 were intentionally leaked by a U.S. senator, sparking broader concern about industry confidentiality as Congress moves on Wall Street reform.
Senator Bernie Sanders, a staunch critic of oil speculators, leaked the information to a major newspaper in a move that has unsettled both regulators and Wall Street alike.
In a June 16 e-mail reviewed by Reuters, a senior policy adviser to Sanders discusses how his office received private data with the names and positions of traders and forwarded it exclusively to a Wall Street Journal reporter.
The e-mail, which also attaches two files with the data, was sent to Public Citizen's Tyson Slocum asking him to review it and speak with the newspaper about his observations.
In a statement from Sanders provided to Reuters, Sanders said he felt the data needed to be publicly aired.
"The CFTC has kept this information hidden from the American public for nearly three years," he said. "This is an outrage. The American people have a right to know exactly who caused gas prices to skyrocket in 2008 and who is causing them to spike today."
The leaked information has sparked concern at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is legally prohibited from releasing confidential information that identifies trader positions and identities.
The leak also raises broader questions as U.S. regulators gear up to collect massive new amounts of private data from market players on everything from swaps and hedge funds to blueprints for how large financial firms can be liquidated. The breach of data could make Wall Street less reluctant to hand over sensitive information if they fear it is not appropriately safeguarded.
"This type of incident will have a chilling effect on derivatives trading in the U.S. because market participants will be reluctant to take the risk that their positions will be exposed to the public-and their competitors," John Damgard, president of the Futures Industry Association, said in a statement sent to Reuters.
Republicans have already raised concerns in recent hearings about the Treasury's new Office of Financial Research created by Dodd-Frank, and whether its collection of data from hedge funds and banks may constitute a regulatory overreach.
Although the CFTC is barred from releasing confidential data, the law does require the CFTC to hand over such information if a Congressional committee acting within its proper authority requests it. Once it is in the hands of Congress, there is nothing to prevent lawmakers from releasing it publicly.
The leaked data contains long and short positions held by oil traders in 2008, the same year that oil prices spiked to $147 a barrel. Critics at the time accused oil speculators of driving up prices, leading lawmakers to later insert a provision into the Dodd-Frank Wall Street overhaul law compelling the CFTC to place stricter limits on how many commodity contracts any one trader can control.
Among the kinds of traders accused of excessive speculation included passive long investors such as pension funds, which often seek exposure to commodities markets indirectly by going through an intermediary swap dealer such as such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
The data that was leaked to the Wall Street Journal was compiled by the CFTC in 2008 during a "special call" in which the agency sought crude oil position data from swap dealers so they could piece together market activity occurring both on and off the exchange, people familiar with the matter said.
The CFTC first became aware of the breach of the data after a staffer from Sanders' office sent the agency an e-mail with the information and asked the CFTC's chief economist to discuss it more.
The agency began exploring internally whether or not any staffers were responsible for the leak, and concluded that no CFTC employees were involved, according to people familiar with the matter.
It is unclear exactly how Sanders acquired the private information, and a spokesman declined to say.
But people familiar with the matter say the data later obtained by Sanders was first formally requested by the U.S. House Energy Committee. From there it somehow migrated over to the U.S. Senate.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Russell Blinch and Alden Bentley)
Wow. This is amazing, and although the article doesn't confirm it, the data must reflect market manipulation or Bernie wouldn't have leaked it:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Oil trading data that exposed the extensive positions speculators held in the run-up to record high prices in 2008 were intentionally leaked by a U.S. senator, sparking broader concern about industry confidentiality as Congress moves on Wall Street reform.
Senator Bernie Sanders, a staunch critic of oil speculators, leaked the information to a major newspaper in a move that has unsettled both regulators and Wall Street alike.
In a June 16 e-mail reviewed by Reuters, a senior policy adviser to Sanders discusses how his office received private data with the names and positions of traders and forwarded it exclusively to a Wall Street Journal reporter.
The e-mail, which also attaches two files with the data, was sent to Public Citizen's Tyson Slocum asking him to review it and speak with the newspaper about his observations.
In a statement from Sanders provided to Reuters, Sanders said he felt the data needed to be publicly aired.
"The CFTC has kept this information hidden from the American public for nearly three years," he said. "This is an outrage. The American people have a right to know exactly who caused gas prices to skyrocket in 2008 and who is causing them to spike today."
The leaked information has sparked concern at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is legally prohibited from releasing confidential information that identifies trader positions and identities.
The leak also raises broader questions as U.S. regulators gear up to collect massive new amounts of private data from market players on everything from swaps and hedge funds to blueprints for how large financial firms can be liquidated. The breach of data could make Wall Street less reluctant to hand over sensitive information if they fear it is not appropriately safeguarded.
"This type of incident will have a chilling effect on derivatives trading in the U.S. because market participants will be reluctant to take the risk that their positions will be exposed to the public-and their competitors," John Damgard, president of the Futures Industry Association, said in a statement sent to Reuters.
Or to the Justice Department. But I wouldn't worry about that, Mr. Damgard. All you have to fear is the cold, hard light of day.
Many many good comments, so stick with this and check them out on the link. FRACKING causes radiation release, too, folks - on top of methane gas problems. See my other blog, www.lowlevelradiation.blogspot.com about it. - Virginia
Lee-Anne Goodman
Washington— The Canadian Press
Published
Last updated
With the U.S. State Department expected to release within days its final environmental analysis of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline, environmentalists are cranking up their protest efforts by employing some Hollywood star power.
Mark Ruffalo, the Oscar-nominated actor, is the latest Hollywood figure to get involved in organized opposition to Alberta's oil sands, asking people to participate in a series of sit-ins outside the White House that begin on Saturday and continue to Sept. 3.
Organizers say some 1,500 people have signed up to participate in the protests.
Mr. Ruffalo won't be at the White House on Saturday, but “is likely to join some time in the following two weeks,” a spokesman for Tar Sands Action, the environmental group behind the protests, said Friday.
In a YouTube clip posted earlier this week, Mr. Ruffalo calls on Americans to “put your principles into action.”
“Up north where the tarsands are located, native people's homelands have already been wrecked,” says Mr. Ruffalo, who has also opposed “fracking,” a controversial process for extracting natural gas, in upper New York state, where he has a home.
Bill McKibben, a journalist and environmentalist who writes about climate change issues, is among those who will court arrest on Saturday. He described the next two weeks as “the biggest organized civil disobedience protests of the climate change movement.”
“We've got people coming to get arrested from all 50 states,” Mr. McKibben said in an interview Friday.
That includes Margot Kidder, the Canadian-born actress who's now an American citizen living in Montana. Ms. Kidder will travel to D.C. with three other Montana women, all of whom describe themselves as concerned grandmothers, early next week.
In a recent interview, Ms. Kidder didn't have much good to say about the environmental record of her native land, alleging there are few regulatory standards in Canada.
“One of the real horrific results of letting this happen is that we're going to quadruple and quadruple again the output of the tarsands in Alberta because there is basically no governmental control, environmentally, in Canada over the oil and gas industry, far less than there is here,” Kidder said in an interview this week with the Livingston Weekly, an alternative Montana newspaper.
“The tar sands is the biggest carbon emitter on the planet ... it's using up something like 20 per cent of Canada's allowed emissions alone.”
Mr. Ruffalo and Ms. Kidder aren't the first to lend their celebrity to the movement. Danny Glover will also participate in the protests, while “Avatar” director James Cameron even visited Alberta last year to tour oilsands facilities and nearby communities.
The goal of the sit-ins is to convince the Obama administration to snuff out TransCanada Corp.’s $7-billion proposal to build a pipeline that would carry millions of barrels of oilsands crude weekly through the American heartland and to a Gulf Coast refinery in Texas.
The U.S. State Department is tasked with making a decision on the pipeline because it crosses an international border. After it produces its assessment, President Barack Obama will have 90 days to determine whether approving the pipeline is in the U.S. national interest.
“Here is a decision that gives Obama complete independence from Congress — he can do this all on his own, he can stop the pipeline without any congressional interference,” Mr. McKibben said. “So hopes are high among his base of supporters.”
But with a presidential election just 15 months away, politics is entering the equation like never before. Mr. Obama's liberal base is opposed to the pipeline, whereas his most bitter foes in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives — the people he'll be campaigning against — are passionate supporters of the project.
Late last month, the House passed a bill that demanded the Mr. Obama administration make a decision on the pipeline by Nov. 1. The State Department has said it will rule on the pipeline by the end of the year.
There have already been some ominous signs for TransCanada.
Delays in the approval process resulted when the Environmental Protection Agency successfully urged the State Department to conduct the environmental assessment. State's decision to hold hearings in a half-dozen states in the path of the proposed pipeline also made its proponents nervous.
Canadian embassy officials have been devoting long hours to lobbying efforts. One lobbyist says cooler heads are prevailing for the moment, but that full-fledged panic will set in among pipeline proponents if there are any further delays in the process.
The oil sands lobbyists have adopted a relatively new tactic — they're suggesting the pipeline will create thousands of jobs as the Obama administration struggles to bring down the country's stubborn nine per cent unemployment rate. TransCanada has pegged the figure at 20,000 jobs.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the largest and most influential unions in the U.S., backs the project, saying it will create 1,500 jobs for its members. But on Friday two other major unions - the Transport Workers Union and the Amalgamated Transit Union - said they're opposed because of environmental concerns.
Environmentalists scoff at TransCanada's job creation number, saying it's now vastly higher than it was in the company's original permit application. But at least one observer thinks it's a message that can't help but resonate with the Obama administration as it faces intense criticism that it isn't doing enough to create jobs.
“The damage in terms of job losses, increasing gas prices — all of it's bad, and it's going to be very tough for the president to rule against the pipeline,” Chris Sands, a Canada-U.S. relations expert at the Hudson Institute in Washington, said Friday.
Sands said he suspects the Obama administration, cunningly, has deliberately done the environmental movement a favour by delaying the approval process.
“It's hard to raise money in this economy, and Keystone XL has given environmentalists a cause. They're raising money, and the delays have given them time to raise even more money. And if they can't raise money, they can't give money to the president's re-election campaign.”
Mr. McKibben wouldn't speculate about whether the environmental movement would punish Mr. Obama if he gives the pipeline the green light by refusing to support his re-election campaign.
“I'd flip that around: If he stops the pipeline, there will be a jolt of electricity that's sent through his base. And people will say: ‘Oh yeah, now I remember why I voted for this guy.“’
CITIZENS GATHER IN MONTANA TO PROTEST TAR SANDS OIL AND SHIPPING OF EQUIPMENT TO CANADIAN REFINERIES, ANONYMOUS JOINS IN!
To all free-thinking citizens of the world:
Anonymous' Operation Green Rights calls your attention to an urgent situation in North America perpetuated by the boundless greed of the usual suspects: Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., Imperial Oil, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and many others.
This week, activists are gathering along U.S. Highway 12 in Montana to protest the transforming a serene wilderness into an industrial shipping route, bringing "megaloads" of refinery equipment to the Alberta Tar Sands in Canada (see Tar Sands FAQ Sheet below).
Anonymous now joins the struggle against "Big Oil" in the heartland of the US. We stand in solidarity with any citizen willing to protest corporate abuse. Anonymous will not stand by idly and let these environmental atrocities continue. This is not the clean energy of the future that we are being promised.
We will, over the course of the next few days, use the powers we posses to spread news about this scenario and the corporations involved. We are actively seeking leaks to expose the corruption that we all KNOW is beneath this.
Anonymous' Operation Green Rights will support the activists on July 13-14 when they initiate civil disobedience and direct action to confront this dire issue. We urge you to get involved. Montana and Idaho citizens, we ask you to join local protests and attend the Highway 12 rally if you are close enough! If you're not, join us in the IRC listed below for the fun!
The continued development of the tar sands is a major step backward in the effort to curb global warming. Anonymous will not suffer this without a fight, and Operation Green Rights will always support the rights of the people to live in an unpolluted world, and aim to help safeguard it for the future.
We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.
