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William S. Becker: Children v. Dirty Business

by William S. Becker on April 11, 2012

Huffington Post…

On May 11, a group of children will face off against the Obama administration and the National Association of Manufacturers for the latest round of a David vs. Goliath battle in federal court. The kids filed a lawsuit last year against the administration, arguing that common law requires governments to protect critical natural resources on behalf of current and future generations. In this case, the kids argue, the government has an inherent duty to protect the atmosphere from greenhouse gas emissions, and all of us from the impacts of global climate change. In their lawsuit, a group called Our Children’s Trust filed against a who’s who of administration officials including EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Robert Wikins ruled that the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and several California businesses could intervene against the kids, based on the argument that limiting greenhouse gas emissions would lead to a “diminution or cessation of their businesses” — in other words, jeopardize their profit margins. Now, NAM and the administration have asked the judge to dismiss the case. That’s the motion to be considered in May. Blogger Ben Jervey has done a good job describing the lawsuit’s background , including who the kids are and why they’re doing this, so I won’t go into it here. But I am curious about an argument attributed to one of the attorneys for the businesses, that companies have a “legally protected cognizable interest to freely emit CO2.” Of course, what is legal is not necessarily moral, but morality is the province of the clergy, not the courts. More to the point, it would seem that the public — present and future — has a “cognizable interest” to live without the natural disasters, health hazards, humanitarian tragedies and threats of war that are the likely results of climate change and that already are in evidence today. Further, as unofficial co-plaintiffs in this case, we might all point out that while companies can resolve this problem by installing better emission controls, or using cleaner fuels, or changing the nature of their operations, the damages from greenhouse gas emissions are not so easily avoided. In fact, scientists tell us that some of the damages are irreversible. At the heart of this case, it seems to me, is not whether current law permits corporations to willfully alter the atmosphere with their wastes. If we depend solely on political bodies to protect the climate, for example, then we will politicize the atmosphere as well as polluting it. The health of oceans, forests, fresh water supplies and soils — and consequently human beings — all will be subject to the whims and prejudices of politicians. The real issue is whether the health of the natural systems and resources that all of us “own” is protected by a doctrine that transcends the interests of any one industry, the statutes of any one Congress, the actions of any administration, or the abdication of responsibility by any of them. As a 65-year-old, I must admit some embarrassment that our children now feel obligated to face off against the giants of industry and government and all their lawyers. These kids are stepping in where their elders in Washington and the international community have feared to tread. But it’s also heartening and none too soon. What could be established as a result of this lawsuit is that protecting a global life-support system from irreparable harm is a higher priority than corporate profits — profits derived in part from making the rest of us pay the god-awful price of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s our kids who will have to live with the court’s ultimate decision, but it’s in the interest of all of us for Judge Wilkins to allow the lawsuit to proceed.

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William S. Becker: Children v. Dirty Business

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Ian Yolles: Contributing to the Greater Good by Being Selfish

by Ian Yolles on April 10, 2012

Huffington Post…

“Doing well by doing good.” The phrase has been overused, but fortunately it is no longer a novel concept in business. Employees, shareholders, and customers are increasingly expecting companies to focus on their social and environmental performance hand-in-hand with their financial performance. In fact, recent studies by companies such as Edelman Financial Group and WPP indicate that when choosing between brands of equal quality and price, social purpose ranks as the number-one deciding factor for global consumers’ purchases, above design, innovation, and brand loyalty considerations, and 75 percent of U.S. consumers want to buy from green brands. Failure to listen, given the means in the digital age to stand in judgment of brands, will result in business being withdrawn. The reverse is also true. Consumers will reward brands for their behavior with passionate advocacy enabled by the same social media tools. At its core, the phrase “doing well by doing good” means that growth, revenue, and profit should be the byproduct of making a positive difference for multiple stakeholders, not the ultimate goal. This approach becomes more interesting when applied to the most microcosmic “business unit” possible: the individual consumer. If we could imbue this philosophy into our culture — at an individual level — collectively we would catalyze a broad positive impact previously thought unattainable. Businesses that embrace this philosophy focus on the connections between creating societal and economic value and are motivated by generating benefit for multiple and diverse stakeholders — for their employees, supply chain partners, customers, investors, and the health of their brand. Many individual consumers are similarly motivated. Our choices are heavily influenced by self-interest; we want to have enough resources to support ourselves and be able to provide for and protect our families, while at the same time wanting to leave a positive mark on our communities and even the world. The ROI of “doing good” for businesses is pretty easy to understand: improvements to the bottom line, increased customer satisfaction, and often a more visible, measurable environmental impact due to the larger scale. The return on making sustainable lifestyle changes at the individual level, however, isn’t always as clear or pronounced. Given the magnitude of our environmental issues, we cannot always “see” the impact of our behavior. To get a critical mass of consumers to change their behavior, you have to make the return relatable and valuable on a personal level. So which are the most effective motivators of behavior change? I believe there are three key pillars: Show me the money: If certain behavior changes can influence one’s personal financial position and that of one’s community, it forges a personal connection and increases the chance that the behavior is maintained over time. The consumer becomes invested, if you will. The opportunity to save or even make money taps into every person’s desire to better provide for themselves and their family. Get social: We now live in a world of hyper transparency and constant connectivity; people don’t hesitate to head online to seek out information around sustainability efforts, share their own thoughts, and promote the positive steps they are taking to live more sustainably. This public sharing contributes to our definition of our sense of self and provides social status and recognition, which adds an additional motivational factor. Incorporating elements of competition and personal reaffirmation into our efforts to inspire a mass shift towards more sustainable choices and behaviors is an effective way to use social currency as a catalyst for positive change. Make it measurable: The global environmental issues that confront us are so large, complex, and interconnected that they seem impersonal and impossible to do anything about at the individual level. By making the actions you are requesting people to take measurable and trackable, you can show individuals the tangible impact that their actions have in the context of the collective action of others. If you can show them how their actions are contributing positively to their own community as well as the natural environment, then you can catalyze social activism and commitment. If we’re going to navigate our way toward a sustainable future, we’re going to have to think and behave differently. It’s not about doing good for the sake of doing good. It’s really about self-interest. By engraining this into both business and consumer behavior, we can more effectively move society toward a sustainable future, and, in the process, help people understand the connection between the environment, economics, and the well-being of our communities.

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Ian Yolles: Contributing to the Greater Good by Being Selfish

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Andrew Winston: Corporate Sustainability Efforts — Feast or Famine?

March 26, 2012

Is corporate sustainability on the wane or growing more important to top executives? At the beginning of the year, two big-picture reports on the state of green business painted divergent pictures. In GreenBiz’s annual review of 20 indicators of “how business is doing” on green, we learn that 6 of those indicators are on a downward trend. But in the report ” Sustainability Nears a Tipping Point ,” MIT and BCG prove their point with a fast-rising graph of companies that recently put sustainability “on the management agenda.” While they seem at odds, both views are right — companies are no longer ignoring sustainability; most big companies now have someone focused on it, at least in part. That’s why execs can honestly tell MIT that it’s on their agenda. But with sustainability often siloed into just one person or department in each organization, it’s hardly a surprise that, at the same time, we’re seeing some loss of momentum. Sustainability has moved from being a hot, new management trend to being just one more thing for execs to keep an eye on: for many it’s become a check-box exercise. This structural gap reveals the fundamental misunderstanding about what sustainability really means for organizations. I’ve seen it time and again in the companies that I work with or study. For them, sustainability is a thing to tackle, a functional area; it’s a what , like marketing or product development. But sustainability needs to be viewed as much more of a how concept, like quality or innovation. It’s a way of operating that creates the most value when it’s embedded throughout the organization. Of course companies have distinct quality or R&D departments and professionals, but the most committed companies drive the thinking into every aspect of the business. This is the mindset that sustainability needs to engender throughout an organization. And as with quality, this isn’t just about ethical or aspirational hopes — acting with sustainable values, for example, as covered well by many, including Dov Seidman in his book How . No, I’m talking here about the more prosaic, everyday, tactical, blocking-and-tackling of business. Sustainability pressures force changes in how we build our supply chains, how we design and manufacture products, how we deliver services, how we create and execute our business models and strategies, how we develop financial metrics to measure success, how we attract and retain 21st-century, holistic thinkers, and on and on. So sustainability pressures, if acted on, drive us to create and build better products, design more efficient services, execute better, and hire the best. Those are goals that reach throughout the entire organizational structure, and they’re actually enabled by sustainable thinking. Given the scale of these goals — and the global challenges we all face — putting just one (or a few) people against the what of sustainability is a woefully inadequate response. Resource constraints and rising input prices; increasing demands from customers, employees, and consumers; the risks of severe business continuity disruptions from water, climate, or labor problems in the supply chain… the list of big pressures grows more complicated every day. And these issues require a full-court press from all aspects of operations. It’s become a mantra in the sustainability world that green needs to be a part of everyone’s job. Of course that’s true, since detecting risks and innovating around them will often fall to those closest to the ground (hint, that’s rarely the c-suite). But most companies are missing a big step. To conquer a how you need more than just a mantra. You need a significant investment of resources in time, top-leader focus, people, and money. You need people to ride herd and drive the agenda — to do the cross-cutting analyses such as lifecycle assessments, to track and get a handle on the many diverse and complex issues, to present a unified front to employees and external stakeholders, to question business models and find new, heretical ways to operate and serve customers… the list goes on. There’s no “ideal” structure for sustainability efforts, just as no two companies would tackle innovation the same way. Most large companies have now appointed a lead on sustainability, but have provided limited financial support and fewer human resources. There are exceptions: a few well-known sustainability leaders, such as Starbucks, Nike, and Coca-Cola employ central teams with specialists in areas like water, climate, and packaging, as well as reps spread out around the organization. One of my clients, Kimberly-Clark, a much quieter sustainability leader, has a centralized team of 5 to 10 sustainability-only managers (and that’s only part of the 50-plus central staff covering environmental, health &safety (EHS), OSHA, and, yes, quality). More importantly, Kimberly-Clark has another couple dozen professionals in dedicated sustainability roles (again, not EHS) embedded in business lines and geographic regions. But even the leaders with robust organizations are rarely putting much money specifically into sustainability-driven innovation or disruptive changes that might dramatically reduce the value chain footprint of the company’s products. Let’s be honest: It’s very hard to assess how much is “enough” when you’re investing in a strategic priority. But it helps if the organization first defines it as a strategic priority. And given the ever-rising costs of under -reacting to sustainability pressures (such as direct costs from rising input prices, or business discontinuity risks from extreme weather), it’s clear that companies should put a lot more people and money against an agenda as large, complicated, pressing — and let’s not forget profitable — as sustainability. Only with significant investment can we move down the path to sustainability integration and real, ongoing, full value creation. A robust network of sustainability professionals within a company — whether or not they sit in one “department” — may need to obsolete themselves over time. But until then, sustainability can’t drive anything — it will just remain a nice side show. (This post first appeared at Harvard Business Online .)

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Steve Westly: It’s Time to Reconsider Energy Subsidies

March 16, 2012

Our country is in the midst of a great debate on how to reduce our national debt. This is an important discussion for all of us to have. As part of this conversation, we should carefully examine the subsidies for different forms of energy production — fossil fuels and renewables. All of us understand that the subsidy game can be a slippery slope, and it is important to set clear standards for when subsidies make sense and when they do not. As a rule, there are three things we should consider before putting subsidies in place: 1) Does the subsidy provide some overarching policy or economic benefit for the country? 2) Is this a new industry that truly needs help reaching scale or is the industry mature enough that it can stand on its own without subsidies? 3) How long do the subsidies really need to be in place? A strong case can be made for more alternative energy. It improves the environment and reduces our dependence on foreign oil. Alternative energy also creates jobs. According to The New York Times , between 1998 and 2007, U.S. green jobs grew at a rate of 9.1 percent , nearly two and a half times faster than economy-wide job growth. 30 years ago, solar had a 10-15 year payback in ideal conditions. Simply put, this industry would not have survived without government support. Since then, the cost of solar has been driven down through technological advances, while the cost of fossil fuels has risen. Due to the increased adoption of solar technology, costs are decreasing predictably at a rate of 15% to 18% a year. This is great news for consumers in countries like the U.S., which has been referred to as the “Saudi Arabia of Sunshine.” Today we are close to the point where solar is cost competitive with carbon fuels. When we reach this point, we should phase out solar incentives. This latter point is key because taxpayers should not be subsidizing any industry for the long term. Eventually every industry has to stand on its own two feet. Unfortunately, once offered, a subsidy is very hard to remove. Elected officials and corporate interests have too great an incentive to keep subsidies in place and the traditional democratic problem of concentrated benefits and disbursed costs takes hold. Despite the fact that oil and coal companies are among the most lucrative in the world, they continue to receive huge subsidies — much greater than those provided to emerging green industries. The top five American oil companies are projected to have earned $125-$144 billion in profits in 2011 alone. Governments around the world provided $557 billion in subsidies for fossil fuels but only $57 billion for renewable energy in 2009. Energy subsidies in the U.S. ran 3-to-1 in favor of fossil fuels (not including ethanol subsidies) between 2002 and 2008. Fossil fuel subsidies are even more egregious when one considers the environmental and health effects of oil and coal. Incentivizing cleaner sources of energy through subsidies is one method of taking this damage into account without hurting consumers. We need to realign our elaborate system of subsidies to better reflect our national security, environmental, and economic policy. As we come face to face with our need to end our dependence on foreign oil and reduce air pollution, we need to be honest about which subsidies provide real value and how quickly they can be phased out. Even alternative energy subsidies should not be long term because they entrench incumbents and stifle creativity and innovation. Fortunately, President Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu are taking a balanced approach to subsidies. The proposed FY 2013 Department of Energy budget eliminates $4 billion in fossil fuel subsidies and cuts research funding for onshore wind technology because it is “an established technology.” To keep America strong we need to cut our debt and put our financial house in order. Before we consider raising taxes or cutting education, it is high time we take a long, hard look at ending subsidies that have outlived their usefulness.

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Michael T. Klare: A Tough-Oil World

March 13, 2012

Why Twenty-First Century Oil Will Break the Bank — and the Planet Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com Oil prices are now higher than they have ever been — except for a few frenzied moments before the global economic meltdown of 2008. Many immediate factors are contributing to this surge, including Iran’s threats to block oil shipping in the Persian Gulf, fears of a new Middle Eastern war, and turmoil in energy-rich Nigeria. Some of these pressures could ease in the months ahead, providing temporary relief at the gas pump.  But the principal cause of higher prices — a fundamental shift in the structure of the oil industry — cannot be reversed, and so oil prices are destined to remain high for a long time to come. In energy terms, we are now entering a world whose grim nature has yet to be fully grasped.  This pivotal shift has been brought about by the disappearance of relatively accessible and inexpensive petroleum — “easy oil,” in the parlance of industry analysts; in other words, the kind of oil that powered a staggering expansion of global wealth over the past 65 years and the creation of endless car-oriented suburban communities. This oil is now nearly gone. The world still harbors large reserves of petroleum, but these are of the hard-to-reach, hard-to-refine, “tough oil” variety. From now on, every barrel we consume will be more costly to extract, more costly to refine — and so more expensive at the gas pump. Those who claim that the world remains “awash” in oil are technically correct: the planet still harbors vast reserves of petroleum. But propagandists for the oil industry usually fail to emphasize that not all oil reservoirs are alike: some are located close to the surface or near to shore, and are contained in soft, porous rock; others are located deep underground, far offshore, or trapped in unyielding rock formations. The former sites are relatively easy to exploit and yield a liquid fuel that can readily be refined into usable liquids; the latter can only be exploited through costly, environmentally hazardous techniques, and often result in a product which must be heavily processed before refining can even begin. The simple truth of the matter is this: most of the world’s easy reserves have already been depleted — except for those in war-torn countries like Iraq.  Virtually all of the oil that’s left is contained in harder-to-reach, tougher reserves. These include deep-offshore oil, Arctic oil, and shale oil, along with Canadian “oil sands” — which are not composed of oil at all, but of mud, sand, and tar-like bitumen. So-called unconventional reserves of these types can be exploited, but often at a staggering price, not just in dollars but also in damage to the environment. In the oil business, this reality was first acknowledged by the chairman and CEO of Chevron, David O’Reilly, in a 2005 letter published in many American newspapers. “One thing is clear,” he wrote, “the era of easy oil is over.” Not only were many existing oil fields in decline, he noted, but “new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where resources are difficult to extract, physically, economically, and even politically.” Further evidence for this shift was provided by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in a 2010 review of world oil prospects. In preparation for its report, the agency examined historic yields at the world’s largest producing fields — the “easy oil” on which the world still relies for the overwhelming bulk of its energy. The results were astonishing: those fields were expected to lose three-quarters of their productive capacity over the next 25 years, eliminating 52 million barrels per day from the world’s oil supplies, or about 75 percent of current world crude oil output. The implications were staggering: either find new oil to replace those 52 million barrels or the Age of Petroleum will soon draw to a close and the world economy would collapse. Of course, as the IEA made clear back in 2010, there will be new oil, but only of the tough variety that will exact a price from us all — and from the planet, too.  To grasp the implications of our growing reliance on tough oil, it’s worth taking a whirlwind tour of some of the more hair-raising and easily damaged spots on Earth.  So fasten your seatbelts: first we’re heading out to sea — way, way out — to survey the “promising” new world of twenty-first-century oil. Deepwater Oil Oil companies have been drilling in offshore areas for some time, especially in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caspian Sea. Until recently, however, such endeavors invariably took place in relatively shallow waters — a few hundred feet, at most — allowing oil companies to use conventional drills mounted on extended piers. Deepwater drilling, in depths exceeding 1,000 feet, is an entirely different matter.  It requires specialized, sophisticated, and immensely costly drilling platforms that can run into the billions of dollars to produce. The Deepwater Horizon , destroyed in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 as a result of a catastrophic blowout, is typical enough of this phenomenon. The vessel was built in 2001 for some $500 million, and cost around $1 million per day to staff and maintain. Partly as a result of these high costs, BP was in a hurry to finish work on its ill-fated Macondo well and move the Deepwater Horizon to another drilling location. Such financial considerations, many analysts believe, explain the haste with which the vessel’s crew sealed the well — leading to a leakage of explosive gases into the wellbore and the resulting blast. BP will now have to pay somewhere in excess of $30 billion to satisfy all the claims for the damage done by its massive oil spill. Following the disaster, the Obama administration imposed a temporary ban on deep-offshore drilling.  Barely two years later, drilling in the Gulf’s deep waters is back to pre-disaster levels . President Obama has also signed an agreement with Mexico allowing drilling in the deepest part of the Gulf, along the U.S.-Mexican maritime boundary. Meanwhile, deepwater drilling is picking up speed elsewhere. Brazil , for example, is moving to exploit its “pre-salt” fields (so-called because they lie below a layer of shifting salt) in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean far off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. New offshore fields are similarly being developed in deep waters off Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. By 2020, says energy analyst John Westwood , such deepwater fields will supply 10 percent of the world’s oil, up from only 1 percent in 1995. But that added production will not come cheaply: most of these new fields will cost tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to develop, and will only prove profitable as long as oil continues to sell for $90 or more per barrel. Brazil’s offshore fields, considered by some experts the most promising new oil discovery of this century, will prove especially pricey, because they lie beneath one and a half miles of water and two and a half miles of sand, rock, and salt.  The world’s most advanced, costly drilling equipment — some of it still being developed — will be needed. Petrobras, the state-controlled energy firm, has already committed $53 billion to the project for 2011-2015, and most analysts believe that will be only a modest down payment on a staggering final price tag. Arctic Oil The Arctic is expected to provide a significant share of the world’s future oil supply. Until recently, production in the far north has been very limited. Other than in the Prudhoe Bay area of Alaska and a number of fields in Siberia, the major companies have largely shunned the region. But now, seeing few other options, they are preparing for major forays into a melting Arctic. From any perspective, the Arctic is the last place you want to go to drill for oil. Storms are frequent, and winter temperatures plunge far below freezing. Most ordinary equipment will not operate under these conditions. Specialized (and costly) replacements are necessary. Working crews cannot live in the region for long. Most basic supplies — food, fuel, construction materials — must be brought in from thousands of miles away at phenomenal cost. But the Arctic has its attractions: billions of barrels of untapped oil, to be exact. According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the area north of the Arctic Circle, with just 6 percent of the planet’s surface, contains an estimated 13 percent of its remaining oil (and an even larger share of its undeveloped natural gas) — numbers no other region can match. With few other places left to go, the major energy firms are now gearing up for an energy rush to exploit the Arctic’s riches. This summer, Royal Dutch Shell is expected to begin test drilling in portions of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas adjacent to northern Alaska. (The Obama administration must still award final operating permits for these activities, but approval is expected.) At the same time, Statoil and other firms are planning extended drilling in the Barents Sea, north of Norway. As with all such extreme energy scenarios, increased production in the Arctic will significantly boost oil company operating costs. Shell, for example, has already spent $4 billion alone on preparations for test drilling in offshore Alaska, without producing a single barrel of oil. Full-scale development in this ecologically fragile region, fiercely opposed by environmentalists and local Native peoples, will multiply this figure many times over. Tar Sands and Heavy Oil Another significant share of the world’s future petroleum supply is expected to come from Canadian tar sands (also called “oil sands”) and the extra-heavy oil of Venezuela. Neither of these is oil as normally understood.  Not being liquid in their natural state, they cannot be extracted by traditional drilling materials, but they do exist in great abundance.  According to the USGS, Canada’s tar sands contain the equivalent of 1.7 trillion barrels of conventional (liquid) oil, while Venezuela’s heavy oil deposits are said to harbor another trillion barrels of oil equivalent — although not all of this material is considered “recoverable” with existing technology. Those who claim that the Petroleum Age is far from over often point to these reserves as evidence that the world can still draw on immense supplies of untapped fossil fuels. And it is certainly conceivable that, with the application of advanced technologies and a total indifference to environmental consequences, these resources will indeed be harvested. But easy oil this is not. Until now, Canada’s tar sands have been obtained through a process akin to strip mining, utilizing monster shovels to pry a mixture of sand and bitumen out of the ground. But most of the near-surface bitumen in the tar-sands-rich province of Alberta has now been exhausted, which means all future extraction will require a far more complex and costly process.  Steam will have to be injected into deeper concentrations to melt the bitumen and allow its recovery by massive pumps. This requires a colossal investment of infrastructure and energy, as well as the construction of treatment facilities for all the resulting toxic wastes. According to the Canadian Energy Research Institute, the full development of Alberta’s oil sands would require a minimum investment of $218 billion over the next 25 years, not including the cost of building pipelines to the United States (such as the proposed Keystone XL ) for processing in U.S. refineries. The development of Venezuela’s heavy oil will require investment on a comparable scale. The Orinoco belt, an especially dense concentration of heavy oil adjoining the Orinoco River, is believed to contain recoverable reserves of 513 billion barrels of oil — perhaps the largest source of untapped petroleum on the planet. But converting this molasses-like form of bitumen into a useable liquid fuel far exceeds the technical capacity or financial resources of the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. Accordingly, it is now seeking foreign partners willing to invest the $10-$20 billion needed just to build the necessary facilities. The Hidden Costs Tough-oil reserves like these will provide most of the world’s new oil in the years ahead. One thing is clear: even if they can replace easy oil in our lives, the cost of everything oil-related — whether at the gas pump, in oil-based products, in fertilizers, in just about every nook and cranny of our lives — is going to rise.  Get used to it.  If things proceed as presently planned, we will be in hock to big oil for decades to come. And those are only the most obvious costs in a situation in which hidden costs abound, especially to the environment. As with the Deepwater Horizon disaster, oil extraction in deep-offshore areas and other extreme geographical locations will ensure ever greater environmental risks. After all, approximately five million gallons of oil were discharged into the Gulf of Mexico, thanks to BP’s negligence, causing extensive damage to marine animals and coastal habitats. Keep in mind that, as catastrophic as it was, it occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, where vast cleanup forces could be mobilized and the ecosystem’s natural recovery capacity was relatively robust. The Arctic and Greenland represent a different story altogether, given their distance from established recovery capabilities and the extreme vulnerability of their ecosystems. Efforts to restore such areas in the wake of massive oil spills would cost many times the $30-$40 billion BP is expected to pay for the Deepwater Horizon damage and be far less effective . In addition to all this, many of the most promising tough-oil fields lie in Russia, the Caspian Sea basin, and conflict-prone areas of Africa. To operate in these areas, oil companies will be faced not only with the predictably high costs of extraction, but also additional costs involving local systems of bribery and extortion, sabotage by guerrilla groups, and the consequences of civil conflict. And don’t forget the final cost: If all these barrels of oil and oil-like substances are truly produced from the least inviting of places on this planet, then for decades to come we will continue to massively burn fossil fuels, creating ever more greenhouse gases as if there were no tomorrow.  And here’s the sad truth: if we proceed down the tough-oil path instead of investing as massively in alternative energies, we may foreclose any hope of averting the most catastrophic consequences of a hotter and more turbulent planet . So yes, there is oil out there. But no, it won’t get cheaper, no matter how much there is. And yes, the oil companies can get it, but looked at realistically, who would want it? Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, a TomDispatch regular , and author of the just published The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources (Metropolitan Books).  To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Klare discusses his new book and what it means to rely on extreme energy, click  here , or download it to your iPod  here . Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on Facebook. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here .

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Are OJ Prices Really Spiking?

March 12, 2012

— Orange juice drinkers can relax. Fears of a spike in the price of the breakfast favorite appear overblown. Juice tainted with fungicide used in Brazil and other countries and cold weather in Florida raised the specter of an OJ shortage in the U.S. in January. Orange juice futures hit an all-time high. That could have translated into sharply higher prices on store shelves, leading more consumers to shop for alternative beverages. Just a few weeks later, those concerns have abated after the government said the juice is safe to drink and the weather has improved. There should be plenty of oranges, and juice, to go around. Here’s what consumers need to know: PRICE CHECK: The cost of your morning OJ was rising even before the tainted juice scare. Prices have risen in four out of the last five years, largely because of dwindling supplies of oranges and the rising cost of producing and processing the fruit and transporting products to stores. Shoppers paid an average of $2.76 for a 12-ounce can of frozen orange juice concentrate in December, compared with $2.53 in December 2007, Labor Department statistics show. The average retail price from October to Feb. 18 was 7.4 percent more than a comparable period a year earlier. Total orange juice sales dropped 10.4 percent in the same timeframe, according to data from The Nielsen Co. FEARS OF A SQUEEZE: In January, orange juice tainted with fungicide was discovered on store shelves. This raised fears of a ban on imports from Brazil and other countries, and a recall of products on store shelves. Also, a cold snap threatened the orange crop in Florida, which produces about 80 percent of the domestic orange juice supply. Futures prices soared to all-time high of $2.1995 per pound on Jan. 23. James Cordier, head portfolio manager at Optionsellers.com, says he thought at the time that retail prices would jump at least an additional 10 percent to 15 percent. The U.S. Agriculture Department said Friday that it expects Florida’s orange production to be about 5 percent more than it was than it was at the end of the previous growing season. The yield for Florida frozen concentrated orange juice is forecast to increase 3 percent. Florida’s citrus season runs from October through September. That report and the Food and Drug Administration’s recent decision not to recall juice products that contained low, but safe levels of the fungicide should allay concerns about a shortage of juice on store shelves. Futures prices have dropped accordingly. Orange juice for May delivery ended at $1.888 per pound on Friday. The price has fallen about 11 percent since Jan. 10, the day after the fungicide issue was made public. Spencer Patton, founder of the hedge fund Steel Vine Investments LLC, expects futures prices to continue to fall because of the higher crop production estimate. But that doesn’t mean consumers will see lower prices on store shelves anytime soon. He noted that futures prices are up about 9 percent for the year, and retailers aren’t as quick to pass along lower prices to consumers. TEA, WATER OR ENERGY? While orange juice has been on the decline, more people are drinking water – bottled, enhanced with flavors and vitamins or just from the tap. Tea and energy drinks are more popular, too. Bottled water consumption rose to 20.9 gallons per person per year in 2010 from 20.6 gallons in 2009, says John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest. Tea consumption increased to 7.5 gallons per person per year from 7.3 gallons and sports drink consumption increased to 4.3 gallons per person per year from 4 gallons in 2009.

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Miner Dies At West Virginia Coal Mine

March 12, 2012

NEW YORK, March 12 (Reuters) – A coal miner was fatally injured at an Alpha Natural Resources Inc mine in West Virginia over the weekend, the company said on Monday. It said the man was struck by material from the mine’s side wall during the evening shift on Saturday at the Kingston #2 mine in Fayette County, West Virginia. Alpha said operations at the mine have been idled while federal and state officials investigate. Last year, Alpha acquired Massey Energy, which had operated the Upper Big Branch mine in the state, at which 29 miners died in an explosion in 2010 — the worst U.S. mine disaster in four decades. Alpha stock slipped 17 cents or 1 percent to $16.26 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

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Exxon CEO Speaks Out Against Federal Regulations

March 9, 2012

* Complex regulation hinders energy development, economy * State, local regulation sufficient * Shell, Statoil CEOs more conciliatory about regulations By Kristen Hays HOUSTON, March 9 (Reuters) – State and local regulations in shale oil- and natural gas-rich plays across the United States provide sufficient oversight, compared to the “dysfunctional” federal layers that could hinder development as well as the economic recovery, Exxon Mobil Corp Chief Executive Rex Tillerson said on Friday. Tillerson, addressing an audience of energy executives at the annual CERAWeek conference in Houston, said layers, complex regulatory processes in oil and gas development “has become an obstacle to getting anything done.” “This type of dysfunctional regulation is holding back the American economic recovery, growth, and global competitiveness,” he said. Tillerson said state and local governments needed protections sufficiently to oversee oil and gas activity while collaborating with producers. “They provide us the road map with how to get something done,” Tillerson said. “Today the regulatory process is now so complicated and so involved with so many different agencies, it’s a road map of how to not get anything done.” White House spokesman Clark Stevens said in an email to Reuters that the Obama Administration is developing “sensible standards to protect air and water quality” with input from the industry and others to ensure continued production. CEOs of two other European major oil and gas producers appeared more conciliatory about regulations when they addressed executives at the conference earlier this week, but they didn’t overtly differentiate state and local regulations from federal oversight. Peter Voser, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell said the industry can handle environmental and operational challenges of tight and shale gas production, particularly when governed by “well-targeted and robustly enforced regulations.” And Helge Lund, CEO of Norway’s Statoil, said public trust and confidence in the industry’s ability to maintain safe operations is crucial. “There is a huge upside for working to ensure we have the right regulations, rather than being perceived as the industry that fights regulations,” Lund said. Tillerson cited as an “unfortunate decision” President Barack Obama’s rejection of a federal permit to allow TransCanada to build its proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas to transport Canadian oil to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries. Environmental groups and some states had opposed the pipeline on integrity concerns and whether it would increase U.S. dependence on emissions-heavy Canadian oil production. Tillerson called the rejection “a product of political calculations in Washington.” He also said the industry learns from mistakes, such as the 2010 blowout of a BP Plc deepwater well in the Gulf of Mexico that spewed more than 4 million barrels of crude into the basin. “It reminded all of us that the failure to manage risk effectively carries enormous consequences, in terms of loss of life, significant financial impact, and environmental harm,” Tillerson said.

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Scientists Warn EPA About Monsanto Corn

March 9, 2012

By Carey Gillam (Reuters) – A group of plant scientists is warning federal regulators that action is needed to mitigate a growing problem with biotech corn that is losing its resistance to plant-damaging pests. The stakes are high – corn production is critical for food, animal feed and ethanol production, and farmers have increasingly been relying on corn that has been genetically modified to be toxic to corn rootworm pests. “This is not something that is a surprise… but it is something that needs to be addressed,” said Joseph Spencer, a corn entomologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey, part of the University of Illinois. Spencer is one of 22 academic corn experts who sent a letter dated March 5 to the Environmental Protection Agency telling regulators they are worried about long-term corn production prospects because of the failure of the genetic modifications in corn aimed at protection from rootworm. Monsanto introduced its corn rootworm protected products, which contain a protein referred to as “Cry3Bb1,” in 2003 and they have proved popular with farmers in key growing areas around the country. Biotech corn sales are a key growth driver of sales at Monsanto. The corn rootworm product is supposed to reduce the need to put insecticides into the soil, essentially making the corn plants toxic to the worms that try to feed on their roots. But plant scientists have recently found evidence that the genetic modification is losing its effectiveness, making the plants vulnerable to rootworm damage and potentially significant production losses. The scientists said in their letter to EPA that the situation should be acted upon “carefully, but with a sense of some urgency.” As concerns have mounted over the last year that Monsanto’s rootworm-protected products were losing their effectiveness, Monsanto has said the problem is small and has said the products continue to provide corn farmers with “strong protection against this damaging pest.” Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, has recommended growers rotate the corn with its biotech soybeans, use another of its biotech corn products and use insecticides to try to address the problem. “Rootworm performance inquiries in 2011 were isolated to less than 0.2 percent of the acres planted with Monsanto rootworm-traited corn hybrids,” said Danielle Stuart, a Monsanto spokeswoman. “In all of these cases, Monsanto is working very closely with the farmer and has provided best management practices for the upcoming season on each of these fields. ” The problems with insect resistance have been reported in parts of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota. Continuing to plant a failing technology only increases the resistance development risk, the scientists said in their letter. Moreover, they say, the rootworm-protected BT corn is being planted in areas that have no need for it, often because there are few alternative seed options. Scarcity of non-BT corn seed is a concern, they said. Using insecticides along with the biotech corn as Monsanto has advised is not a good approach, according to the scientists, because it elevates production costs for farmers and masks the extent and severity of the building insect resistance. “Recommendations to apply insecticides to protect transgenic Bt corn rootworm corn strikes us as a clear admission that the Cry3Bb1 toxin is no longer providing control adequate to protect yield,” the scientists wrote. “When insecticides overlay transgenic technology, the economic and environmental advantages of rootworm-protected corn quickly disappear,” the scientists wrote. EPA Office of Pesticide Programs Director Steven Bradbury, who the letter was addressed to, could not be reached for comment. (Reporting By Carey Gillam;editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid)

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Officials Say Fracking ‘Almost Certainly’ Caused Earthquakes

March 9, 2012

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A dozen earthquakes in northeastern Ohio were almost certainly induced by injection of gas-drilling wastewater into the earth, Ohio oil and gas regulators said Friday as they announced a series of tough new regulations for drillers. Among the new regulations: Well operators must submit more comprehensive geological data when requesting a drill site, and the chemical makeup of all drilling wastewater must be tracked electronically. The state Department of Natural Resources announced the tough new brine injection regulations because of the report’s findings on the well in Youngstown, which it said were based on “a number of coincidental circumstances.” For one, investigators said, the well began operations just three months ahead of the first quake. They also noted that the seismic activity was clustered around the well bore, and reported that a fault has since been identified in the Precambrian basement rock where water was being injected. “Geologists believe it is very difficult for all conditions to be met to induce seismic events,” the report states. “In fact, all the evidence indicates that properly located … injection wells will not cause earthquakes.” Northeastern Ohio and large parts of adjacent states sit atop the Marcellus Shale geological formation, which contains vast reserves of natural gas that energy companies are rushing to drill using a process known as hydraulic fracturing. That process involves freeing the gas by injecting water into the earth, but that water needs to be disposed of when companies are done with it. Municipal water treatment plants aren’t designed to remove some of the contaminants found in the wastewater, including radioactive elements. A common practice is to re-inject it into the ground, a practice banned in some states. The improper placement of the Youngstown well stemmed in part from inadequate geological data being available to regulators, the report states. New rules would require a complete roll of geophysical logs to be submitted to the state. “These logs were not available to inform regulators of the possible issues in geologic formations prior to well operation,” the document says. Requiring well operators to submit more comprehensive geologic data is just one of the added regulations the department will either impose immediately or pursue through legislative or rule changes. Among other changes: _ Future injection into Precambrian rock will be banned, and existing wells penetrating the formation will be plugged. _ State-of-the-art pressure and volume monitoring will be required, including automatic shut-off systems. _ Electronic tracking systems will be required that identify the makeup of all drilling wastewater fluids entering the state. “Ohio has developed a new set of regulatory standards that positions the state as a national leader in safe and environmentally responsible brine disposal,” Natural Resources Director James Zehringer said in a prepared statement. “Ohioans demand smart environmental safeguards that protect our environment and promote public health. These new standards accomplish that goal,” he said. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave Ohio regulatory authority over its deep well injection program in 1983, deeming that its state regulations met or exceeded federal standards. The new regulations would be added to those existing rules.

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Government Officials Protest Plan To Reduce Coal-Fired Power Plants

March 9, 2012

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Top North Dakota officials renewed their protests against a plan to discourage Minnesota utilities from meeting new energy demands by using electric power generated by burning coal. North Dakota’s Industrial Commission on Thursday approved a letter to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, arguing utilities should not incur any extra cost for using coal-fired power. At present, the cost is $9 to $34 per ton of carbon dioxide that is given off when coal is burned to provide electricity. Gov. Jack Dalrymple is the North Dakota commission’s chairman. It oversees a state coal research fund, which is financed by a share of North Dakota’s tax on lignite mining. The commission’s other members are Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring. If Minnesota regulators make it more expensive for utilities to use coal power, it will throttle the prospects of western North Dakota’s lignite industry, Dalrymple said. Coal-fueled power plants in western North Dakota already provide a major share of Minnesota’s electric supply. “It has long-term implications about the growth of the industry from where it is today,” Dalrymple said Thursday. “We feel that the time has come to clear up this issue once and for all.” The charges were established as part of a 2007 Minnesota law that requires utilities in the state to produce one-quarter of their energy from renewable sources by 2024. The law ordered Minnesota regulators to assign environmental costs to coal use, and said utilities would have to include those costs in calculating whether coal was an appropriate choice for meeting future electricity growth demands. North Dakota officials have protested the law since the Minnesota Legislature approved it. Minnesota lawmakers approved major changes last year, but Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the revisions. Cris Kling, a spokeswoman for Fergus Falls, Minn.-based utility Otter Tail Power Co., said a residential electric customer using about 800 kilowatt-hours of power each month would see an increase in his or her monthly bill from $8 to $24 monthly if the extra costs were imposed on newly generated coal power.

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Kristin Wartman: Limbaugh: Liberals Want to Control Your Food!

March 8, 2012

Rush Limbaugh has done it again. He’s lashing out at yet another “overeducated and single” woman, but this time it’s Tracie McMillan, an author (he calls her an “authorette”) who recently published, The American Way of Eating . In her book, McMillan goes undercover for a year at Walmart, Applebee’s, and works in the fields harvesting garlic, grapes, and peaches to look at our food systems from the bottom up. She ends up advocating for a more equitable food system that allows everyone equal access to good, fresh, healthy food. Limbaugh read the review of her book in the New York Times on his show Tuesday and declared that he’s just discovered the liberal elites’ next target: food justice. Limbaugh said: Google ‘food justice.’ You think it’s a new term? Google it! You get 1,810,000 hits. This is happening right in front of us for years, this kind of thing. Food is the next front in the left-wing war on the private sector. ‘Food justice,’ mark my words, will soon be joining the term ‘social justice.’ It will be appearing in news stories. Limbaugh’s a little late to the game on this one, the term food justice is hardly news and he joins an already long line of conservatives who criticize any attempt to reign in Big Food. Most famously, there’s Sarah Palin, calling out “nanny state” as Michelle Obama attempts to bring healthier foods into our schools and greater attention to the health and nutrition of American children. Limbaugh’s latest rant against McMillan fits right in with the way many other conservatives are intent on defending the American right to eat corporate, processed, and unhealthy food. I wrote about this last year on Grist and called this line of reasoning the American Fast Food Syndrome: There’s some perverse logic at work here, and it strikes me as vaguely similar to ‘Stockholm syndrome’ — a paradoxical psychological phenomenon in which hostages express adulation and positive feelings towards their captors. While Americans are not experiencing a physical captivity, they are deeply mired in a psychological condition in which they’re captive to industrial food products and the corresponding ideologies that are ultimately harming them. Call it the American Fast Food Syndrome. I would argue that the advertising agencies that work hand-in-hand with the big players of industrial food should take much of the blame for this change. Within the span of three short generations, Americans have come to accept industrial food as their mainstay — not only have they accepted it, they defend it like they’d defend the American flag as a symbol of their patriotism and allegiance to the ‘real’ America. The amazing thing about what Limbaugh purports is that he’d have his listeners believe that liberals are trying to control our food systems — that liberals are trying to take away Americans’ freedom to eat what they want. He says: Everything about it is deceit. Everything about it is a trick designed to get you to give up your freedom because you get angry when you hear that Walmart’s screwing you or Applebee’s or the Big Oil companies or whoever. And who gets to ride in and save the day? Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, whoever, on a white horse. It’s not hard to see what Limbaugh stands to gain by defending these corporations, but what about the average American who has nothing to gain financially and a lot to lose in terms of health and real options when it comes to food choice? Maybe Limbaugh is so irritated by someone like McMillan because she’s an affront to the natural order of things. Rather than be married (he remarks on her being single several times) and at home dutifully preparing dinner, she’s out in the world reporting on the inequities in our food systems. The irony is that part of what McMillan shows in her book is that the nature of our food systems makes it increasingly difficult for anyone, man or woman, to prepare a healthy dinner at home. In fact, the food issue is so emotionally charged because many people still view household duties — like cooking — as the domain of women. And to someone like Limbaugh, “overeducated single women” have no place criticizing the food industry. I suppose they should be at home tearing open a microwaveable dinner that they bought at Walmart or picking up dinner for their families at the local Applebee’s? But who really controls our food? It’s certainly not the government as Limbaugh suggests is looming in our near future — and it’s definitely not the people. In 19th century America, 90 percent of the population was involved in food production — either by farming or growing their own foods in home gardens — now that number is near two percent. So who’s doing all that work now? Large scale industrial farmers and the corporations behind them. Isn’t this the real assault on our freedoms? Shouldn’t we want more diversity in our food supply rather than less? Freedom from the tyranny of the few is supposed to be the foundation of our democratic nation. As it stands now, just a handful of corporations control our food supply. Who is Limbaugh kidding? Why should we defend these corporations who do not have our best interests in mind? Limbaugh can continue to do so at his own peril but Americans need to wake up and see behind the real trickery at work — and it’s not coming from the liberal elite with some conspiracy in mind for Big Government to come in and socialize our food system. The real trickery and affront to our freedoms sits in the hands of the corporations that control our food supply and have duped people like Limbaugh into doing the dirty work of defending them.

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Senate Fails To Stall EPA Measure

March 8, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — An attempt to stall environmental curbs on toxic boiler emissions has failed in the Senate. The bipartisan measure failed 52-46 Thursday, falling short of the 60 votes needed to pass. It would have forced the Environmental Protection Agency to rewrite a rule requiring boiler operators to install modern emissions controls. Boilers are the second-largest source of toxic mercury emissions after coal-fired power plants. The vote showed the Democrat-controlled Senate’s resistance to limiting the EPA, even on a regulation that covers more than 200,000 large industrial boilers used in different industries. Seven Democrats and one independent sided with all but one Republican in favor of the stalling measure. The EPA had sought more time to draft the rule, to replace one thrown out in 2007, but the court denied its request.

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Rocky Kistner: Texans Fight to Protect Their Land From the Keystone XL Pipeline

March 8, 2012

Down in Texas there’s an old saying; “You can put your boots in the oven but it don’t make them biscuits.” That’s an expression Washington politicians and their Keystone XL tar sands pipeline allies should take to heart. Texas landowners say they are fed up with the exaggerated claims and false arguments that Big Oil boosters are making about pipeline plans to ship a river of toxic Canadian tar sands crude through America’s midsection to Gulf refineries. Instead, they say the $7 billion project will threaten the country’s largest drinking water aquifers and its most fertile farmlands, while producing oil products for export. Last week, Keystone pipeline builder TransCanada announced it would push ahead with plans to build the southern leg of its proposed 1,700-mile pipeline from Cushing, OK, to the Gulf, putting Texas landowners squarely in the bulls-eye of this massive tar sands battle. Many are vehemently opposed to a plan that will provide huge profits for a foreign corporation while forcing Americans to cede pipeline right-a-ways to their land –putting landowners at risk of accidents involving the nastiest oil on the planet. Watch this video of three Texas landowners’ fight against the Keystone XL pipeline:     As NRDC’s Susan Casey-Lefkowitz has blogged , TransCanada’s plan to split the giant pipeline project in two and start building the southern leg will put Texas landowners at greater risk, likely leading to even higher gas prices in the Midwest: Raw tar sands oil going from the Midwest to the Gulf for refining means serious pipeline safety issues for landowners and environmental justice impacts of tar sands refining. Concerns of Texas landowners over TransCanada’s high-handed attempts to take their land through eminent domain will all remain the same in the case of an Oklahoma to Texas tar sands pipeline. And the southern route pipeline will still provide the main service to oil companies that Keystone XL would provide: it will divert tar sands from the Midwest to the Gulf, raising American oil prices and likely also gasoline prices. An Oklahoma to Texas tar sands pipeline will mean more tar sands converted to diesel and available for export overseas. It will mean less tar sands remaining in the US, even while Americans bear the risks of the pipeline. But Texans are continuing to put up a fight. Last month, residents of the Lone Star state turned out in droves to support Paris, TX, farm-manager Julia Trigg Crawford’s eminent domain court fight to keep TransCanada’s pipeline off her property that is studded with Caddo Indian artifacts. Last week, a Texas appeals court reinstated a temporary restraining order that prohibits TransCanada from conducting pipeline construction activities on her farm.   Texas of course is not the only place where there is growing dissatisfaction on the part of local landowners and residents who say their land is being sacrificed for the profits of a private Canadian company and not the greater good of the country. Mike Hathorn, Wells, TX                            Photo: Rocky Kistner/NRDC Earlier this week, a group of protesters in South Dakota at the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s Pine Ridge Reservation formed a blockade to stop trucks they say were carrying heavy equipment destined for the massive Canadian tar sands mining operations in Alberta. A number of the protesters were arrested, including Lakota activist Debra White Plume, a leading native American opponent of the tar sands pipeline. Here’s how she was quoted in the Native Sun News: “Our Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council and the Oglala Sioux Tribe have both passed legislation against the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and have adopted the Mother Earth Accord which calls for a moratorium on the tar sands oil mine as destructive to water, Mother Earth, all animals and human beings.” Stated White Plume, “Whatever these vessels are, where ever they were going, they are too huge and too heavy, too hazardous, to be on our roads.” From the Dakotas to Texas, the tar sands pipeline struggle is still in full swing. These battles are a long ways from the political wars in the halls of Congress, an epic election-year fight that has captured the nation’s attention. But they are much more real to those who will have to live next to a heated, pressurized steel pipeline that will gush a steady stream of chemically-treated tar sands crude across their land, flowing to the Gulf for export.   As Wells, TX, landowner and welding expert Mike Hathorn says of the Keystone XL project; “Nobody wins in the end… and the American people aren’t going to win over this.” That’s some useful down home advice from the Texas frontlines that folks in Congress need to start listening to.

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John DeCock: Keystone XL vs. High Speed Rail — Tale of Two Job Creators

March 7, 2012

It appears that the interests behind the looming environmental disaster known as the Keystone XL pipeline are confident that they will be victorious in their continuing quest to have this pipeline built.  No presidential order or trivial vote in Congress will deter them from exploiting the commons for still more profit and destruction. Like so many bad ideas, this is being sold as a job creator.  ”America needs the construction jobs this pipeline will provide, dammit.”  It is being sold as a solution to energy problems.  ”Gas is almost five bucks a gallon! We need domestic oil production, dammit!  Get out of the way, we’re coming through with this thing and it’s for your own good.” But how does it really stack up in terms of job creation and easing pressure on gas prices? Underlying this project are two facts: First, extracting the oil from tar sands in Canada will destroy vast, unspoiled regions and ecosystems .  It cannot be credibly argued that this is the not the case, only that it is somehow worth it.  Second, the greenhouse gas produced by exploiting one of the most dirty, polluting sources of energy available will essentially overwhelm any human efforts to mitigate climate change .  Unless you are adept at ignoring science, these two facts are established. Because there are many here among us who are adept at ignoring science , or willing to be led away from considering consequences by greed or ideology, we are forced to address the two canards being used to advance this thing. The jobs which will be created by the pipeline are few in number and temporary.   TransCanada , the company behind the pipeline, claims 20,000 jobs will be created.  Although that is a fairly humble number of jobs for which to sacrifice the future of the planet, it is greatly overstated.  The Chamber of Commerce advances the fanciful notion that the pipeline will create “250,000″ permanent jobs.  Yee haw!  However the United States State Department sees things differently.  They project 5,000-6,000 jobs U.S. jobs.  But wait there’s more!  An analysis by the  Cornell University Global Labor Institute sites even lower projections.  They project only 500 to 1400 temporary construction jobs.  Their projections are burdened by rigorous research and analysis so they cannot be as optimistic as TransCanada who would make billions of dollars in revenue. That’s not to say that jobs won’t be created.  They just won’t be created in the U.S. This leads us to the second point.  The oil extracted at great cost to all of us will not be for the United States market .  Most of this oil is being exported, along with the jobs they will create.  The pipeline ends at a sea port city for a reason.  The Keystone XL pipeline won’t do a damn thing about gas prices, but there are those who find comfort in fantasy. The pipeline is a project of a corporation, albeit one that would likely receive public subsidies.  That means a profit must be built into the project and anything that mitigates the scale of the profit, such as responsibility toward humankind, reduces that profit and interferes with progress toward the most important goal of the project.   Let’s compare that with another gigantic construction project — High Speed Rail. By contrast, High Speed Rail is a government funded project, spurred by Recovery Act grants.  The purpose of this project is to establish efficient alternatives to airplane and car travel, reducing greenhouse gases and lowering the cost and inconvenience of travel.  There is no profit built into the model, it’s designed to provide transportation.  It will create construction jobs and permanent jobs operating the trains and systems, along with indirect jobs generated by business which provide service to the rail system and travelers. As the network of High Speed Rail systems grows, so will the jobs and the reduction in carbon emissions.  In theory, High Speed Rail has the potential to run on electricity that is generated entirely by alternative sources which do not contribute to global warming.  In fact, there is substantial interest, enthusiasm and initiative to build the systems in just that manner.  High Speed Rail creates jobs across the spectrum from blue collar construction to the cutting edge of high tech. The job creation potential of High Speed Rail completely dwarfs even the most optimistic, and frankly, false projections of job creation from Keystone XL.  In citing just one area of job creation, the American High Speed Rail Alliance sees enormous potential and serious obstacles to prosperity : Talgo, a Spanish rolling stock manufacturer, is already manufacturing HSIPR train sets in the United States and purchases the majority of train parts from 250 separate American companies located in 30 states. The establishment of Talgo’s new facility in Milwaukee created 125 direct manufacturing and maintenance jobs and 450 initial indirect manufacturing jobs. Talgo estimates that a $1 billion investment in passenger rail creates 30,000 jobs. However, amid Wisconsin’s rejection of passenger rail funds and the overall setback in HSIPR funding, Talgo may be forced to shut down their manufacturing facility as early as fall 2012. Ideological opposition to a government funded source of job creation and small business success has stifled the establishment of High Speed Rail projects in many places and slowed down progress in others.  However the massive public subsidy provided by the destruction of the commons through projects like Keystone XL on the thin premise that it is a job creating dynamo, is considered just dandy by the same ideologues. An honest dialogue about energy, jobs, infrastructure and our common responsibility to protect global resources would result in a very different choice of which job creation project makes the most sense. As the Senate gets ready to vote on yet another attempt to pass Keystone XL legislation, contact your Senator and ask they why they would sacrifice our future for Canadian billionaires instead of developing energy efficient transportation which will create many thousands of permanent jobs.  They’ll either tell you they get it or they will tell you a lie.

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Iowa Nuclear Power Plant Likely To Be Built

March 7, 2012

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A legislator said Tuesday that he had struck a deal on a plan that would give MidAmerican Energy new incentives to build a nuclear power plant in Iowa. Sen. Matt McCoy, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said his panel will approve the compromise Thursday. “We have the votes,” McCoy, D-Des Moines, told The Associated Press. “We have a consumer-friendly amendment.” The compromise would require that MidAmerican, Iowa’s largest utility, have financing in place before beginning construction of a nuclear power plant. Once state regulators approve a new plant, the utility would have to carry out construction. Some legislators had worried earlier versions of the measure would allow the utility to raise rates to pay for the plant, without being committed to actually building the facility. They said consumers could end up with higher rates, and no new power plant to show for it. Lawmakers reached the agreement even as opponents held a Statehouse news conference, where they argued that nuclear plants are inherently dangerous. Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, was among the speakers at the event, timed to mark the upcoming anniversary of the March 11 meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. The accident occurred after a massive earthquake caused a tsunami that knocked out power to the plant. Hogg said he didn’t share McCoy’s confidence that the Iowa measure would be debated on the Senate floor. “I would be surprised if it moved, but it’s obviously still a live round,” Hogg said. Francis Thicke, a farmer and environmental activist from Fairfield, said the compromise backed by McCoy only dealt with the potential financial risks of the proposed nuclear plant. “My concern is the whole environmental issue and they are not addressing the environment,” Thicke said. The incentives for developing another nuclear power plant cleared the House last year, but the proposal has been stalled in the Senate and backers had feared it wouldn’t be approved as the Legislature moved toward adjournment next month. MidAmerican spokeswoman Ann Thelen was cautious about the agreement, saying the deal was just struck Tuesday and officials have not had a chance to review it. As head of the Commerce Committee, McCoy controls which issues are debated, and he’s scheduled his panel to take up the nuclear plant bill Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said no decision had been made about the measure if it wins committee approval. “It’s available for the rest of the session,” Gronstal said. “We may or may not debate it.”

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Coors Announces Iced-Tea-Flavored Light Beer

March 7, 2012

* Company rolling out Coors Light Iced T, Carling Zest * Sees less reliance on cost-cutting for profit growth * Shares down 2.7 percent in down market March 6 (Reuters) – Molson Coors Brewing Co said on Tuesday it will launch Coors Light Iced T and other new products, as the beer company fights to win a greater share of the struggling beer market. Molson executives said during a meeting with analysts that the new products should help spur sales so the company can put less reliance on cost-cutting to drive its profit. It also seeks to make beer more attractive to people who have moved on to wine or cocktails. “Someone else is eating our lunch in the alcohol space,” Molson Coors Chief Executive Peter Swinburn said at the meeting, which was broadcast over the Internet. Coors Light Iced T will go on sale first in Canada, where consumers are interested in flavored beers and other refreshing drinks, Molson executives said. They did not, however, rule out an expansion into the United States. Other new products include Carling Zest, a limited-time-only beer with citrus flavors and an autumn-inspired Leinenkugels beer. Molson shares were down $1.19, or 2.7 percent, at $42.16 on the New York Stock Exchange in late trading. The overall market, as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, was down 1.6 percent.

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BP Settlement Offers Hope For Victims With Health Concerns

March 4, 2012

BOOTHEVILLE, La. — A settlement that BP is hammering out with victims of the massive Gulf oil spill finally provides a system for monitoring health concerns and compensating people whose illnesses are found to have a link to the disaster. Government and university doctors studying locals’ health haven’t found significant evidence of spill-related illnesses, but problems years from now remain a question mark. Gulf Coast residents say they’re happy their complaints are getting a serious look, even if they’ll face hurdles in proving that rashes, shortness of breath and other maladies were caused by the oil or chemical dispersants sprayed to break it up. Under the settlement announced Friday, BP said it expects to pay out $7.8 billion to settle a wide range of claims that also include property damage, lost wages and loss to businesses. While a previously created fund had already been paying such economic loss claims, it hadn’t paid claims over illnesses related to exposure. Nicole Maurer, a resident of this fishing community, said she feels optimistic about getting medical bills paid under the court-supervised process. She blames the spill for a number of her family’s health problems. “Bright and early, I’m getting my kids on the school bus and calling my lawyer tomorrow, and see what’s going on,” she said Sunday. “I’m being very hopeful and that it all works out in our favor.” First, Maurer and others like her will have to show that they got sick from the spill. To receive compensation, claimants will be examined by a court-approved health care practitioner. Then, a claims administrator working under the supervision of a federal judge will determine who should be paid. “The workers have a different kind of exposure because they were there all the time, but anybody living in an area where they were at risk of exposure will be eligible to participate in the program,” said Ervin Gonzalez, one the plaintiff lawyers leading the litigation. The settlement also establishes a program to monitor claimants’ health for a period of 21 years. People whose physical symptoms haven’t yet developed will also be able to pursue claims. BP has also promised to pay $105 million to improve health care around the Gulf region. “You don’t know what the long-term (health) effects will be,” said another of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Steve Herman. “You don’t know how the science is going to play out.” Herman said medical claims won’t be paid until U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier gives final approval to the overall settlement, which could take months. Observers said the legal wrangling over who will be eligible for medical compensation likely will be contentious and could take years to play out. Blaine LeCesne, a tort law professor at Loyola University New Orleans, said getting medical claims covered under the proposed settlement was a victory for the plaintiffs. At a trial, he said it would have been difficult to prove medical damage. “Medical claims are inherently speculative. We really don’t know what the full scope of the medical problems are to exposure to the dispersants and the oil itself.” How much BP will be forced to pay will depend on how broad the criteria for verifying health problems are, he said. Mitch Crusto, a Loyola business and environmental law professor, said it was a smart move for BP. “It helps give the impression that BP is a responsible company.” He added that Barbier will be more likely to approve the settlement offer because of the medical provision. “Barbier would be less inclined to accept settlement if there was not some process to handle medical claims.” The process is a step in the right direction for residents who felt their health concerns had been ignored. The previous compensation fund, called the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, received roughly 200 claims asserting spill-related illnesses, but none were paid. The older fund did cover injured rig workers on the Deepwater Horizon, the drilling rig that exploded on April 20, 2010. Since shortly after the spill, government and university researchers have been investigating public health complaints, but so far haven’t found significant evidence of illnesses caused by the spill. Still, some caution that their work has only begun. For example, studies by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Health Sciences are in their early stages, according to a researcher involved. “We are trying to pinpoint exposure and unravel those complex questions,” said Maureen Litchveld, a lead researcher at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. “Two of the most persistent concerns are those about seafood safety and if the air is safe to breathe.” Some doctors along the coast say they routinely treat cleanup workers and residents for chemical exposure and other problems that they blame on the spill. Dr. Mike Robichaux, a nose and throat specialist in Raceland, La., said he has treated 50 people for a range of health problems that he believes were caused by exposure to chemicals released during the disaster. “The illnesses are very real, and the people who are ill are apparently people who have sensitivities to these substances that not all of us are sensitive to,” he said. BP employed thousands of fishermen and other locals to respond to the oil spill, and scores have expressed health concerns. Many of those people can be found along the sliver of land south of New Orleans in the fishing and oilfield communities of Plaquemines Parish. Glen Swift, a fisherman in Buras, said he worked cleanup boats and got sick one day cleaning up a big patch of oil. “I got nauseated, just real weak and sick with diarrhea for a few days,” he said. Swift said he wasn’t sure if he would file a medical claim. More serious were the complaints of the Maurer household in Bootheville. Maurer said she’d developed cysts on her body since the spill, while her fisherman husband has suffered bleeding from his ear and nose since he did cleanup work. They also believe their daughter’s asthma has gotten worse. “I’m so tired of being sick,” she said. ___ Associated Press writer Michael Kunzelman in New Orleans contributed to this report.

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BP Begins To Put Oil Spill Behind It With Settlement

March 3, 2012

NEW YORK — BP’s settlement deal with thousands of victims of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a major step toward putting the worst oil spill in U.S. history behind it. BP says it will not have to increase the $37.2 billion it has set aside to pay for the spill, and analysts say the settlement could allow BP to quickly resolve outstanding claims by states and the federal government. If approved by a federal court in New Orleans, Friday’s deal would settle lawsuits filed by some 100,000 individuals and businesses affected by the spill. They include fishermen who lost work, cleanup workers who got sick and others who claimed harm from the oil giant’s April 20, 2010, disaster. The accident destroyed a drilling rig called the Deepwater Horizon, killed 11 workers, spilled an estimated 200 million gallons of oil and disrupted thousands of Gulf Coast lives. The spill soiled sensitive tidal estuaries and beaches, killed wildlife and closed vast areas of the Gulf to commercial fishing. The momentous settlement announced late Friday will have no cap to compensate the plaintiffs, though BP PLC estimated it would have to pay out about $7.8 billion, making it one of the largest class-action settlements ever. The settlement would come out of a $20 billion trust the company had established to pay these types of claims. The trust has $9.5 billion in assets. Whatever remains in the trust after victims are paid out would come back to BP. The settlement does not resolve state claims against the company or federal fines and penalties that could total $20 billion to $25 billion. BP is also mired in lawsuits with some of its partners in the Macondo project in the Gulf. Also, individual victims are not required to agree to terms of the settlement and they could choose to bring separate cases. But analysts say individual claims aren’t expected to amount to much, and they now expect BP to be able to move quickly to settle the rest of the claims against it. “They are clearing the decks for a potential deal with the government that would end this litigation and enable them to move beyond the Gulf oil spill,” said David Uhlmann, a University of Michigan Law School professor who served as chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section. Uhlmann called the deal fair for both sides and said it cleared what appeared to be the biggest hurdle to a global settlement in the case. “The only trial I thought we would see in this case is the one that just went away,” he said. Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., said the settlement shows BP is willing to pay in order to try to put the oil spill behind it. That willingness, he said, will help the company reach deals with governments and other plaintiffs. BP is the largest oil producer in the Gulf, and it needs to be able to continue to drill for oil there to ensure its future, he said. “They have been telling the government: `We’ll do whatever it takes. We’re just going to pay and get this over with. We want to be back in business,’” Gheit said. The main targets of litigation resulting from the explosion and spill were BP, Transocean, cement contractor Halliburton Co. and Cameron International, maker of the well’s failed blowout preventer. BP, the majority owner of the well that blew out, was leasing the rig from Transocean. The Justice Department sued some of the companies involved in the ill-fated drilling project, seeking to recover billions of dollars for economic and environmental damage. The department opened a separate criminal investigation, but that probe hasn’t resulted in any charges. The companies also sued each other, although some of those cases were settled last year. In one of the pending lawsuits, BP has sued Transocean for at least $40 billion in damages. A series of government investigations have spread blame for the disaster. In January 2011, a presidential commission found that the spill was caused by time-saving and money-saving decisions by BP, Halliburton and Transocean that created unacceptable risk. But the panel also concluded that the mistakes were the result of systemic problems, not necessarily the fault of any one individual. In September 2011, however, a team of Coast Guard officials and federal regulators issued a report that concluded BP bears ultimate responsibility for the spill. The report found BP violated federal regulations, ignored crucial warnings and made bad decisions during the cementing of the well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico. BP has repeatedly said it accepts some responsibility for the spill and will pay what it owes, while urging other companies to pay their share. ___ AP Writer Michael Kunzelman contributed to this story from New Orleans.

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New Wind Energy Bill

March 2, 2012

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A measure that would refund about half the construction taxes for large wind energy projects and an environmental upgrade at Big Stone Power Plant now awaits the signature of South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard. The House voted 52-16 to accept the Senate’s version of the bill, which would provide tax refunds beginning in January 2013 for wind energy projects or environmental upgrades at power plants costing more than $50 million. Supporters said it would usher along a couple of wind energy projects and would help Big Stone Power Plant make environmental upgrades required by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The bill would not interfere with a public vote in November on a more general economic incentive plan that the Democratic Party referred to the ballot. That law would use a different method of refunding construction taxes to a wider range of projects. Rep. Roger Solum, R-Watertown, said South Dakota’s sales taxes and contractor’s excise taxes during construction are far higher than those in surrounding states. Until the state’s tax bill is lowered, he said, companies may build large wind energy projects elsewhere. “These things are taken into consideration when they start making a decision to build a wind farm,” Solum said. Rep. Steve Street, D-Revillo, said the state needs to assist the Big Stone Power Plant with the $500 million of environmental upgrades to its coal-fired plant on the South Dakota-Minnesota border. Construction taxes would be passed on to the plant’s electricity customers, so a tax break will help many families in the state, he said. But House Democratic Leader Bernie Hunhoff of Yankton said the tax refunds for the Big Stone project could amount to $10 million or more, which means the state will have less money to spend on schools and other priorities. Hunhoff said he has no problem with the part of the bill giving tax breaks to wind farm projects, but the Legislature should wait until next year to deal with the issue. The bill approved by the House on Thursday would take effect next year regardless of the outcome of November’s vote on the referred law. Daugaard and others have said the ballot measure for the new business grant program has created uncertainty about state incentives that could hurt South Dakota’s efforts to attract new companies and help existing ones expand. Current South Dakota law gives partial refunds of sales taxes and contractor’s excise taxes to large construction projects, but that law expires Dec. 31, 2012. Last year, the Legislature approved Daugaard’s plan to replace the refund law with a new program that would take 22 percent of the receipts from the contractor’s excise tax — about $16 million a year — and put the money into a fund that a state board could use to give grants to large construction projects. The state Democratic Party collected enough petition signatures to put the new grant law to a public vote in the November election. Democrats argue that taking 22 percent of the contractor’s excise tax each year forfeits money that should go to other priorities. A House committee last week passed a bill that would have repealed last year’s law and replaced it with a similar one. That move would have cancelled the November vote, but earlier this week, the House killed that proposal.

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Robert J. Cabin: Carbon Canopy: A Model for Solving Problems by Protecting Rather Than Destroying Our Natural Resources

March 1, 2012

A consortium of forward-thinking environmental groups led by the Dogwood Alliance , major corporations such as Staples and Coca Cola , and large and small private landowners is demonstrating that even in today’s tough economic times and post-post partisan political landscape, it is possible to create a thriving economy by protecting rather than destroying our natural resources. Working as partners rather than foes, this consortium has launched a paradigm-shifting project called the Carbon Canopy that is attracting international attention. In February, the World Resources Institute , one of the largest environmental policy think tanks in the world, issued a brief highlighting the broader importance of the Carbon Canopy’s work in the Southern Appalachians. Highly endangered spruce-fir forest. Photo courtesy Barrett Walker The Carbon Canopy is developing markets that advance forest preservation and sustainable management by compensating landowners for the environmental benefits created by healthy forests that we all enjoy (removing and storing atmospheric carbon, providing timber and other forest products, renewing and filtering water and maintaining biodiversity, to name a few). Here’s how it works: In the Carbon Canopy, large U.S. corporations pay landowners to enhance a forest’s ability to remove and store carbon. This is done through leaving more trees intact during harvest operations, expanding protected areas, and avoiding damaging logging practices such as clear-cutting and converting natural forests to tree plantations. In return, these corporations receive valuable carbon credits towards meeting their own voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and bask in the resulting positive publicity. These corporate investments will bring urgently needed new revenue sources to landowners that commit to long-term forest conservation via a conservation easement or 100 year agreement. At a time when federal and state funding has been dwindling, Carbon Canopy is driving new private investment in forest conservation. Perhaps even more importantly, this project offers a feasible new model that makes protecting rather than destroying our natural resources a sound financial decision. This kind of green capitalism is potentially applicable to a wide variety of environmental goods and services generated by ecosystems all over the world. At present, however, Carbon Canopy is focusing their efforts on the carbon services provided by forests in the Southern U.S. This is because although this region is home to the most biologically diverse forests in North America, it is also home to the world’s most extensive industrial logging operations. In fact, although the Southern U.S. contains only 2 percent of the earth’s forests, it supplies 20 percent of the world’s wood and paper products and is the main reason why the U.S. has the highest percentage of forest cover loss on the planet. A recent U.S. Forest Service Report concluded that forests play an even greater role in climate change than previously thought. The impacts of the South’s intensive logging operations have been severe: Millions of acres of healthy, diverse, natural forests have been converted into degraded, low-diversity industrial pine plantations. Unique ecosystems such as the once extensive native long-leaf pine forests have been virtually eliminated, and species that depend on these ecosystems such as the red cockaded woodpecker have been driven to the edge of extinction. The massive loss of formerly forested coastal wetlands has led to increased and costly flooding. Adding insult to injury, rather than providing good jobs and a decent standard of living, economists have found a direct correlation between forest degradation and poverty throughout the rural South. But we don’t have to keep doing things this way. Mark Buckley, VP of Environmental Affairs at Staples, believes the alternative Carbon Canopy approach offers a win-win solution: “Staples and other buyers can purchase carbon offsets and the fiber supplied by engaged woodland owners,” he said , “and, in turn, woodland owners are financially compensated for providing valuable benefits to society, which helps protect forests.” At present, Carbon Canopy is developing projects with large and small private landowners across the Southern Appalachians. Their long-term goal is to use the developing markets for carbon and other ecosystem services to catalyze the sustainable stewardship of an additional 20 million acres of Southern forests within the next 20 years. “We’re building a new paradigm for landowners,” noted Andrew Goldberg, Director of Corporate Engagement at Dogwood Alliance. “Now they can actually profit from improving forest management practices that protect our climate, water and biodiversity.”

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Lucy Lawless Arrested In Oil-Drilling Ship Protest

February 27, 2012

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Police on Monday arrested actress Lucy Lawless and five Greenpeace environmental activists after the group spent four days protesting aboard an oil-drilling ship docked in New Zealand. Police removed the group from their perch atop a 174-foot (53-meter) drilling tower on the Noble Discoverer in Port Taranaki. Lawless and six activists climbed the tower early Friday in an attempt to raise awareness about oil drilling in the Arctic and prevent the ship from leaving. One of the activists left the tower Saturday and was initially charged with unlawfully boarding a ship. All seven activists, including Lawless, have now been charged with burglary, a more serious charge. All have been released and are due to appear in a New Zealand court Thursday. Chartered by oil company Shell, the ship had been due to leave over the weekend for the Arctic to drill five exploratory wells. Lawless, 43, a native New Zealander, is best known for her title role in the TV series “Xena: Warrior Princess,” and more recently for starring in the Starz cable television series “Spartacus.” Lawless spoke to The Associated Press from atop the tower Friday, where she said wind gusts were making it difficult for the group to stay put. She said she felt compelled to take a stand against oil-drilling in the Arctic and against global warming. “I’ve got three kids. My sole biological reason for being on this planet is to ensure that they can flourish, and they can’t do that in a filthy, degraded environment,” she said. “We need to stand up while we still can.” In a series of tweets over the weekend, Lawless described some of the challenges of staying on the tower. “I found last night pretty darn scary,” she wrote. “Not for sissies.” In a release, Rob Jager, Chairman of Shell New Zealand, said the protest had put people in danger and he was pleased it was over. He said he remained disappointed that Greenpeace hadn’t taken up the company’s offer to engage in a “productive conversation.” Shell spokeswoman Shona Geary said she thought the ship would leave port within the next few days. Bunny McDiarmid, the chief executive of Greenpeace New Zealand, said she thought the protest had gone “brilliantly” and that more than 100,000 people had sent messages to Shell to oppose the company’s Arctic plans.

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Banker Leaves 1% Tip In Defiance Of ‘The 99%’

February 24, 2012

A banker left a 1% tip in defiance of ‘the 99%’ at a Newport Beach restaurant the other week, according to his dining companion and underling who snapped a photo of the receipt and posted it to his blog, Future Ex Banker . A call to the restaurant stiffed with the 1% tip, True Food Kitchen , was referred to their corporate office, but has not yet been returned. In posting the photo, the employee gave some background on his boss and the receipt: Mention the “99%” in my boss’ presence and feel his wrath. So proudly does he wear his 1% badge of honor that he tips exactly 1% every time he feels the server doesn’t sufficiently bow down to his Holiness. Oh, and he always makes sure to include a “tip” of his own. The “tip” of his own in this case was to tell the server to “get a real job.” Pleasant. The whistleblower’s Future Ex-Banker blog includes additional background on his boss , and some insight into why he would out his gross behavior, likely resulting in an employment status of current ex-banker: I work in the corporate office of a major bank for a boss who represents everything wrong with the financial industry: blatant disregard and outright contempt for everyone and everything he deems beneath him. On top of that, he’s a complete and utter tool. At the same time, I’m still cashing paychecks, an admittedly willing—albeit reluctant—cog in the wheel of this increasingly ugly industry, so I’ve created this blog as a confessional of sorts. It won’t entirely clear my conscience, but hopefully it’ll help. I’m sure I’ll get fired eventually. Until then, enjoy.

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Willie Nelson: Why We Must Occupy Our Food Supply

February 24, 2012

Our food is under threat. It is felt by every family farmer who has lost their land and livelihood, every parent who can’t find affordable or healthy ingredients in their neighborhood, every person worried about foodborne illnesses thanks to lobbyist-weakened food safety laws, every farmworker who faces toxic pesticides in the fields as part of a day’s work. When our food is at risk we are all at risk. Over the last thirty years, we have witnessed a massive consolidation of our food system. Never have so few corporations been responsible for more of our food chain. Of the 40,000 food items in a typical U.S. grocery store, more than half are now brought to us by just 10 corporations. Today, three companies process more than 70 percent of all U.S. beef , Tyson, Cargill and JBS. More than 90 percent of soybean seeds and 80 percent of corn seeds used in the United States are sold by just one company : Monsanto . Four companies are responsible for up to 90 percent of the global trade in grain. And one in four food dollars is spent at Walmart . What does this matter for those of us who eat? Corporate control of our food system has led to the loss of millions of family farmers, the destruction of soil fertility, the pollution of our water, and health epidemics including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and even certain forms of cancer. More and more, the choices that determine the food on our shelves are made by corporations concerned less with protecting our health, our environment, or our jobs than with profit margins and executive bonuses. This consolidation also fuels the influence of concentrated economic power in politics: Last year alone, the biggest food companies spent tens of millions lobbying on Capitol Hill with more than $37 million used in the fight against junk food marketing guidelines for kids. On a global scale, the consolidation of our food system has meant devastation for farmers, forests and the climate. Take the controversial food additive palm oil . In the past decade, palm oil has become the most widely traded vegetable oil in the world and is now found in half of all packaged goods on U.S. grocery store shelves. But the large-scale production of palm oil — driven by agribusiness demand for the relatively cheap ingredient — has come at a cost: palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia are razing rainforests, releasing massive quantities of greenhouse gases and displacing Indigenous communities. From the global to the local, nothing is more personal than this threat to our food. And nothing more inspiring than the movement that is fighting back. On Monday February 27, tens of thousands of people — including farmers and food workers, parents and students, urban gardeners and chefs — will participate in a Global Day of Action to Occupy our Food Supply . Occupy our Food Supply is a day to both resist Big Food and highlight sustainable solutions that work for all of us. On February 27, more than 60Occupy groups as well as environmental and corporate accountability organizations are joining together. From Brazil, Hungary, Ireland, Argentina, the United States and beyond, people will be reclaiming unused bank-owned lots to create community gardens; hosting seed exchanges in front of stock exchanges; labeling products on grocery store shelves that contain genetically engineered ingredients; building community alliances to support locally owned grocery stores and resist Walmart megastores; and fighting back against industrial giants Monsanto and Cargill. The call to Occupy our Food Supply, facilitated by Rainforest Action Network , is being echoed by prominent thought leaders, authors, farmers and activists including the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, Food Inc.’s Robert Kenner, and authors Michael Pollan, Raj Patel, Gary Paul Nabhan, and Marion Nestle, among others. As Michael Ableman, farmer, author, and founder of the Center for Urban Agriculture puts it: “We need to focus on what we are for as much as what we are against; occupying our land, our soils with life and fertility, our communities with good food. We need to work to rebuild the real economy, the one based on seeds and sunlight and individuals and communities growing together.” If you eat food, grow food, love food, join us to Occupy our Food Supply. Anna Lappé is author of Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork (Bloomsbury USA) and a board member of Rainforest Action Network. Willie Nelson is founder and president of Farm Aid .

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Pepsi Preps For Its Biggest Product Launch In Years

February 23, 2012

NEW YORK — Pepsi is hoping to win back soda drinkers with a compromise. Some people don’t like the calories in regular soda, but loathe the taste of diet. So the nation’s No. 2 cola company is rolling out “Pepsi Next,” a drink that has about half the calories of regular Pepsi at 60 calories per can. The cola, which is slated to hit store shelves nationally by the end of March, is Pepsi’s biggest product launch in years. The drink comes as people increasingly move away from sugary drinks to water and other lower-calorie beverages because of health concerns. It’s also an attempt by Pepsi to revive the cola wars against Coke and others. Pepsi Next isn’t the first drink to try to hit the sweet spot between diet and regular cola. Dr Pepper Snapple rolled out its low-calorie Dr Pepper Ten, which has 10 calories. The company said the drink, which has sugar unlike its diet soda, helped boost its fourth-quarter sales. But coming up with a successful “mid-calorie soda,” which has more calories, has been more challenging for beverage makers. In 2001, Coke rolled out “C2″ and Pepsi in 2004 introduced its “Pepsi Edge,” both of which had about half the calories of regular soda. Both products also were taken off the market by 2006 because of poor sales. “The problem was that consumers either wanted regular soda or a diet drink with zero calories – not something in between,” said John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest. Pepsi says its latest stab at an in-between soda uses a different formula to more closely imitate the taste of regular soda. In addition to sugar, Pepsi Next is made with a mix of three artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrup. A Pepsi spokeswoman, Melisa Tezanos, said the company developed the cola by researching the “taste curve” that consumers experience when drinking regular soda. She compared that arc to how someone might evaluate a sip of wine, from the moment the liquid hits the tongue to the aftertaste it leaves. “We wanted to develop a taste curve that gives the full flavor of regular Pepsi,” Tezanos said. Pepsi Next also follows the company’s lower-calorie variations of its other drinks. Gatorade, a unit of Pepsi, has “G2,” which at 20 calories has a little less than half the calories of the original version. And the company’s Tropicana unit introduced “Trop50,” which is half of the 110 calories in a regular 8-ounce glass of orange juice. But orange juice and sports drinks have nutritional benefits that a drink maker can market. A mid-calorie soda is a tougher sell because it provides only empty calories. So health-conscious drinkers usually opt for diet soda or quit soda altogether. Sales in the $74 billon soft drink industry have been fizzling out, with volume falling steadily since 2005, according to Beverage Digest, which tracks the industry. Meanwhile, healthier drinks are growing more popular, with bottled water accounting for 11 percent of all beverages consumed in 2010, up from 2 percent in 2000. Consumption of sports drink rose to 2.3 percent, from 1.2 percent. Diet soda also rose to 29.9 percent of the carbonated drink market in 2010, up from 24.7 percent a decade earlier. To keep up with changing tastes, Coke and Pepsi have introduced newer versions of their diet drinks – Coke Zero and Pepsi Max – that promise a taste that’s more like their regular sodas. Pepsi hopes Pepsi Next will help it gain back the market share it’s lost in recent years. The company’s namesake drink had its share in the carbonated soft drink market fall to 9.5 percent in 2010, from 13.6 percent a decade earlier, while Diet Pepsi’s share remained steady at 5.3 percent. Coke is still the top selling brand, with 17 percent market share. Diet Coke follows with 9.9 percent. PepsiCo Inc., based in Purchase, N.Y., said earlier this month that it plans to increase marketing for its brands by $500 million to $600 million this year. A centerpiece of that will be the company’s first global ad campaign this summer, a peak time for the soda market. ___ Follow Candice Choi at http://www.twitter.com/candicechoi

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WATCH: Oil Man’s Son Fights Pipeline And ‘Decline Of A Civilization’

February 23, 2012

Lee Brain may claim to be “no one in particular,” but after a speech delivered last weekend to a pipeline review panel, many identify him as the oil man’s son who “does not see eye to eye” with his father. Brain delivered his stirring speech in Prince Rupert on February 18 to Canada’s Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review Panel. As the Vancouver Observer highlighted , it was “the most moving moment” of the hearings. The proposal to run a pipeline from Bruderheim, Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia has been fought by many environmental and aboriginal groups. According to their website , the government-mandated Joint Review Panel is working to “assess the environmental effects of the proposed project and review the application under both the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the National Energy Board Act.” Growing up in Prince Rupert as the son of an EPCM contractor, 26-year-old Brain is an unlikely pipeline opponent. A few years ago, his father sent him off to experience the oil industry first-hand. His month-long experience on one of the world’s largest oil refineries in rural India gave him serious doubts about the future of the oil industry. “It’s time for us to dismantle the institutions that are beginning to imprison us,” he said. Brain told the panel he witnessed villages that had slowly become impoverished — he believes this occurred after a refinery project arrived carrying a slew of troubles, from a pipeline break to cheap labor issues. Brain said that his experiences left him believing that “those who work in industry can get excited about growth and yet subsequently, can turn their eyes off towards any adverse impacts they are creating as a result.” Looking to the future, he suggested moving away from fossil fuels, and focusing on a new energy economy. Although Brain was interrupted for presenting an argument over oral evidence of his personal experience, his speech was met with loud applause and a standing ovation, according to the YouTube description . Brain concluded his speech by asking whether people will choose to embrace a new way of life or “a predictable path that leads to the slow, inevitable decline of a civilization.” The Enbridge Northern Gateway Project Joint Review Panel describes the panel’s mission on its website, stating they are “an independent body, mandated by the Minister of the Environment and the National Energy Board. The Panel will assess the environmental effects of the proposed project and review the application under both the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the National Energy Board Act.” According to Reuters, many groups that oppose Keystone XL are also against Northern Gateway : They say the route of the pipeline is too dangerous, owing to seismic activity, frequent landslides and other natural hazards that could lead to oil spills. They also say the chemical makeup of the diluted bitumen that would flow through the pipeline is more corrosive than conventional oil, a contention that has not been proven by independent study. Enbridge claims their pipeline follows a safe route and uses new technologies which will cut down on rupture risks.

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How Can You Green Your Roof?

February 22, 2012

From EarthTechling’s Susan DeFreitas: Those shingles on your roof have nothing better to do than soak up the sun all day long — why not put them to work in powering your home as solar power producers? It’s a commonsense concept, and one that Dow Solar (a division of Dow Chemical) has been working on for a while . But new research from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia may go one better, by helping to develop solar shingles that also help to heat your home. Researchers at the university have produced a prototype of a photovoltaic/thermal system that has demonstrated the ability to produce warm (25 degrees Celsius, or 77 Fahrenheit) throughout winter. The technology employed by the system was developed by UNSW’s School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Engineering , and will be integrated into roofing panels, which will then be tested and further developed through the school’s Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Low-Carbon Living this year. The shingles are one of a number of ‘carbon-positive’ products, as they’re called, designed to help to prepare Australia for a zero carbon building code, which is being introduced in the UK and Europe in 2016. With Australia increasingly ramping up renewable energy — and cutting the carbon emissions across the board, as evidenced by its recent passage of a significant carbon tax on big polluters — it seems likely to follow suit. These products, aimed at cutting the carbon footprint of the average Australian home, will be tested beginning later this year in UNSW’s “living laboratories,” the latest of which is located in the recently constructed Tyree Energy Technologies Building, built by Brookfield Multiplex, one of the CRC’s industry partners, at the university’s Kensington campus. During testing, the building’s residents and staff will test the effectiveness of these solar roofing materials, with feedback incorporated into the design process in preparation for the commercial market. In the U.S., similar efforts are under way to develop products for the green building industry through the Energy Innovation Hub in Philadelphia, which was established back in 2010 as a center for research innovations in the field of green building . This Hub brings together researchers from Penn State, the private sector and two national laboratories with the aim of developing and testing technologies with the power to cut the carbon footprint of the built environment. As for solar shingle technologies in this country, they have already hit the commercial market, but in a curiously small way, as Dow Solar has made its Powerhouse solar shingle systems commercially available exclusively to homeowners in the state of Colorado. They’re being sold as part of a three-part solar roofing system , which includes an array of shingles, an inverter and an energy monitoring system . Dow is certainly not the first company to throw its hat in the solar shingle ring, but its brand recognition and partnerships with mega-builders like D.R. Horton may well give it an edge in this burgeoning market for such tech. The company is currently working on establishing a network of authorized dealers for Powerhouse shingles in Colorado, and will also launch the product in another, undisclosed U.S. market soon.

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Fixing A ‘Gaping Hole’ In Fracking

February 22, 2012

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A nonprofit group has opened an office in western Pennsylvania to help the public with health concerns over Marcellus Shale gas drilling operations. The Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project opened an office last week in McMurray, southwest of Pittsburgh, and says its mission is to support people “who believe their health has been, or could be, impacted by natural gas drilling activities.” “The state lacks enough resources to really address this,” Director Raina Rippel said Tuesday. “There is this gaping hole for the community.” Rippel said the project has several paid staff members, including a nurse. Other medical and research experts are consultants. The onsite nurse will make house calls in Washington County, but phone calls or emails from other parts of the state are welcome, Rippel said. The nurse will provide referrals, help clients navigate the health care system and consult with environmental health specialists. All the project services are free, she said. Rippel said her group has met with local public health officials, and will work with them. The group also is setting up a network of physicians to refer people to, and has been in contact with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Timothy Kimmel, director of the Washington County Department of Human Services, was out of the office Tuesday afternoon and could not immediately be reached. The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, said it supports a thorough, unbiased health assessment. “We live, work and raise our families in these communities, and are absolutely committed to ensuring that our air, water and public health are protected,” coalition President Kathryn Klaber told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “There is no higher priority, and to the extent this initiative can advance objective, fact-based research, we welcome it.” Rippel acknowledged that some people who worry about gas drilling could have been exposed to pollutants from another industry or have medical conditions that originated before the drilling boom of the last five years. Old coal mines and oil wells have been identified as possible sources of methane gas in drinking water wells. “You don’t necessarily have clear data,” she said, of possible links between recent gas drilling and health problems. But she said the only way to better understand these issues is through outreach and research. Dr. Helen Podgainy, a pediatrician who has treated children from Washington County, said more studies need to be done on the health risks for those living near gas wells. “It’s difficult for those in the medical community to know what we should be on the lookout for, and how to address problems that we might see,” Podgainy told the Post-Gazette. “I do not want my patients to become ‘the canaries in the coal mine.’ A proactive approach is to everyone’s benefit.” The Health Project office is open Tuesday through Friday. It is funded by the Heinz Endowments, the Pittsburgh Foundation and the Claneil Foundation. ___ Online: http://www.environmentalhealthproject.org

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North Dakota Governor: Oil City Detours Could Make ‘Huge Difference’ In Perception Of Oil Industry

February 21, 2012

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Plans are under way to detour heavy truck traffic around several cities in western North Dakota’s oil patch, Gov. Jack Dalrymple announced Tuesday. A $10 million temporary highway bypass is slated to be completed this summer in Williston, along with a similar $6 million detour project in New Town, Dalrymple said. Other bypass projects are being planned for Watford City, Dickinson, Alexander and Killdeer, he said. “I think this will make a huge difference in peoples’ perception” of the oil industry, Dalrymple told The Associated Press in an interview. The detours, he said, “should change the whole atmosphere of the cities.” Bypasses, he said, “are the single biggest thing we can do to relieve the impact on people.” The projects were outlined in a report issued Tuesday that was crafted after state officials toured western North Dakota last month and heard from residents about the rapid growth in the oil patch. North Dakota oil drillers produced a record 152.9 million barrels of crude in 2011, up more than 35 percent and nearly 40 million more barrels than the previous record set a year earlier. The state has spent about $400 million in the past few months to address problems associated with record oil production, Dalrymple said. More than $800 million is still available over the next year and a half to rebuild roads and streets, improve housing, upgrade water and wastewater treatment systems, address growing student enrollments and improve law enforcement and emergency services, the governor said in a news conference. Dalrymple said he and officials from nine state agencies met with residents at 14 public meetings last month to listen to concerns. Dalrymple the state now intends to hire a so-called energy impact coordinator who will be based in the oil patch to relay residents’ worries directly to his office. Dalrymple told the AP that the bulk of the workforce associated with oil drilling already is in place and should not grow more than 10 percent, based on conversations he has had with industry officials. “We’re running like heck to try to catch up and we will get everything caught up,” he said.

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Warm Winter Threatens Maple Syrup Farms

February 21, 2012

TEMPLE, N.H. (AP) — A mild winter across the Northeast is injecting extra uncertainty into maple syrup season, but many producers say they’ll just go with the flow, whenever it starts. Temperatures have been up and snowfall totals have been down throughout the region this winter, raising some concern for the maple syrup crop. But syrup producers say the weather during the six-week season when sap flows matters more than the weather leading up to it. “The mild winter, I’m sure has some effect on the trees and the soil and the microorganisms and so forth, but as long as you get those freezes and thaws during the actual sap flow season, those are what control how much sap you get,” said Brian Stowe, sugaring operations manager at the University of Vermont’s Proctor Maple Research Center. Below-freezing nights followed by warm days are necessary to start the sap flowing from maple trees, a period that usually begins in late February or early March. But those conditions arrived early in some areas, prompting producers like Ben Fisk, of Temple, to start collecting and boiling sap Feb. 2, more than a month earlier than he did last year. “We made syrup the earliest we’ve ever made syrup this year,” said Fisk, 23, a fifth generation producer who has been making maple syrup since he was 5. “This time of year, there should be three or four feet of snow, and it should be cold out and we shouldn’t even be thinking about making syrup for another couple weeks.” Though Fisk was happy to get a jump start on the season, it could end early, too, if prolonged stretches of warm weather result in budding trees. That’s the main concern in New York state, where the director of the New York Maple Producers Association has been hearing from plenty of worried members. “I’ve had more phone calls this year than I’ve ever gotten before. Everyone wants to know what everyone else is doing. ‘Is it time?’ ‘Should we tap?’” said Helen Thomas, who set the 1,700 taps on her family’s farm about a week earlier than usual. With so little snow, she worries that all it will take is one warm day in March to trick the trees into thinking spring has arrived. Once trees start to bud, the sap develops an “off” flavor, effectively ending the season. “The snow moderates any warm-up. You can have a 60-degree day in March, but if there’s two feet of snow on the ground, that tends to keep the woods cool, so you can get past that warm day or two,” she said. In North Andover, Mass., Paul Boulanger of Turtle Lane Maple Farm, has decided not to tap his trees at all this year because he’s already seeing signs of leaf buds on the trees. “Even if we started tapping right now, we’d only get a couple of weeks of very watered down sap, and it’s just not worth it … We just didn’t have winter, and without winter, there’s no spring, and without spring, there’s no maple syrup,” said Boulanger, who still plans to give educational tours of his sugar house by watering down syrup he made last year and turning it back into sap. But in northern Vermont, Jacques Couture is optimistic. Couture, 61, has been sugaring since he was a toddler and has run his own operation for 40 years. Some of his best crops have been after winters just like this one, he said. “Some people say, ‘Is it worth tapping this year, you don’t even have any snow. It’s going to be spring before you know it,’” he said. “But the caution I would say is, ‘Don’t transplant your tomatoes outdoors just yet, because it ain’t over.’” Unlike points further south, there has been some snow in Westfield, Vt., where Couture lives. But it’s closer to knee-deep than the chest-deep drifts he faced last year when it was time to tap his trees. “We’ve had a lot of thaws this winter,” he said. “But the old timers say, every thaw in the winter is a run of sap in the spring,” he said. “This is agriculture, and you never what kind of crop you’re going to get, but you’ve still got to try to do the best you can. … So I’m not the least bit discouraged about it at this point.” It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. Last year, U.S. maple production hit an all-time high of 2.79 million gallons, led by Vermont with 1.14 million gallons. Beyond good weather, technology has played a role in the industry’s growth, with vacuum tube systems that pull he sap from trees and new taps with valves designed to prevent sap flowing back into the trees. Small amounts of syrup already have been produced in southern and central Maine, the No. 3 syrup-producing state behind Vermont and New York. Eric Ellis, a manager at Maine Maple Products in Madison and vice president of the Maine Maple Producers Association, said producers statewide are tapping their trees. “There certainly is concern, but going into any season there’s always a little bit of doubt,” Ellis said. “We don’t really know until it’s over what the crop’s going to be.” Bodan Peters, president of the New Hampshire Maple Producers Association, said he probably will wait until early March to set up his 800 taps in Sugar Hill. The mild winter doesn’t have him too concerned. “Everything leading up to this point is just what gets thrown at us,” said Peters, who grew up on a farm and has been tapping his own trees for 12 years. “If you’re going to get into maple sugaring, you’ve got to love it, the good and the bad about it,” he said. “If you can actually pay for your equipment, that’s a plus.”

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Hawaii Plastic Bag Fee Could Be First Of Its Kind

February 17, 2012

HONOLULU (AP) — A proposal to collect fees from customers who choose disposable paper and plastic shopping bags is gaining support as it works its way through Hawaii’s Legislature. If lawmakers pass the House Bill 2260 this session, Hawaii would become the first state to enact this kind of pro-environment legislation. The measure has been touted as a way to discourage shoppers from using single-use shopping bags by charging an extra 5 cents per bag. The average person uses 400 plastic bags each year, advocates say. Mark Fox, Director of External Affairs for the Nature Conservancy, told a House committee Thursday that the legislation has two benefits: “It works on changing people’s behavior and encourages them to bring reusable bags. And if you’re unable to change your behavior, you can contribute to helping our watersheds.” Maui, Kauai and Hawaii Island counties have all enacted measures to limit use of plastic bags. Melissa Pavlicek, testifying on behalf of Safeway and Times Supermarket, said plastic bag bans on Maui and Kauai have led more shoppers to ask for costly paper bags instead of bringing their own reusable totes. The grocery chains support the bill, however, but requested the state use some of the fee to help them cover the cost of administering the program. Supporters note the bags require fossil fuel for manufacture, harm marine life when they end up in the ocean, burden overcrowded landfills and wind up as unsightly litter. Sixty to 70 percent of the collected fees would go into the natural area reserve fund for watershed protection, restoration and reacquisition. “Only 10 percent of the watersheds are currently protected, and that’s taken 40 years to do,” said Guy Kaulukukui, deputy director of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. The disposable bag fee could help protect Hawaii’s mauka forests and all priority watersheds within the decade, he told lawmakers. Carol Pregill, president of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii, noted the proposal puts the burden on consumers, rather than businesses. The retailers Pregill represents support the bill, but want to ensure future changes would not result in additional costs to merchants, she remarked. Stuart Coleman, of the Surfrider Foundation, told committee members he was excited to see the bill moving after four years of urging the state to take action. “We feel like we’re going to be turning a problem into a solution,” he said. Coleman pointed out that it was unusual to see so many diverse groups united in support. “This is kind of win-win for everybody,” he said. “We’ve got businesses behind us. We’ve got government agencies. We’ve got environmental groups and just a whole wide array of school groups and citizens groups and such. It’s very inspiring to see everything coming together.”

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Leak Reveals Behind-The-Scenes Peek At Climate Skeptic Efforts

February 16, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — Leaked documents from a prominent conservative think tank show how it sought to teach schoolchildren skepticism about global warming and planned other behind-the-scenes tactics using millions of dollars in donations from big corporate names. More than $14 million of the money used by the Chicago-based Heartland Institute would come from one anonymous man, according to the leaked documents prepared for a meeting of the group’s board. Heartland is one of the loudest voices denying man-made global warming, hosting the largest international scientific conference of skeptics on climate change. Several of its documents were leaked this week to the news media, showing the planning and money behind its efforts. Heartland said some of the documents weren’t accurate, but declined to be more specific. As detailed in the papers, Heartland’s plans for this year included paying an Energy Department consultant $100,000 to design a curriculum to teach school children that mainstream global warming science is in dispute, even though it’s a fact accepted by the federal government and nearly every scientific professional organization. It also pays prominent global warming skeptics more than $300,000 a year and plans to raise $88,000 to help a former television weatherman set up a new temperature records website. “The stolen documents appear to have been written by Heartland’s president for a board meeting that took place on Jan. 17,” Heartland said in a statement. “The authenticity of those documents has not been confirmed.” The institute singled out one of the six documents — claiming to be a summary of efforts on the issue of global warming — as a fake. Because Heartland was not specific about what was fake and what was real, The Associated Press attempted to verify independently key parts of separate budget and fundraising documents that were leaked. The federal consultant working on the classroom curriculum, the former TV weatherman, a Chicago elected official who campaigns against hidden local debt and two corporate donors all confirmed to the AP that the sections in the document that pertained to them were accurate. No one the AP contacted said the budget or fundraising documents mentioning them were incorrect. David Wojick, a Virginia-based federal database contractor, said in an email that the document was accurate about his project to put curriculum materials in schools that promote climate skepticism. “My goal is to help them teach one of the greatest scientific debates in history,” Wojick said. “This means teaching both sides of the science, more science, not less.” Five government and university climate scientists contacted said they were most disturbed by Wojick’s project, fearing the teaching would be more propaganda rooted in politics than peer-reviewed science. Businesses and other interests often offer free curriculum materials to financially strapped schools, hoping that teachers will use them and help disseminate their views or promote their products. Energy Department spokeswoman Jen Stutsman said Wojick’s federal work has nothing to do with climate change and that the agency maintains that global warming is real and manmade. Heartland also planned to spend $210,000 to help Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas tour the nation to speak about municipal debt, according to one document. Pappas lost to Barack Obama in the 2004 Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat. Pappas confirmed this in a phone interview, saying what Heartland was doing was exposing a “financial tsunami” of municipal debt. The leaked document also discusses a new million-dollar Heartland initiative to promote the ability of patients to use experimental drugs that have not yet received federal safety approval, and efforts to support embattled Wisconsin Republican leaders in “Operation Angry Badger.” Those parts of the documents were not independently confirmed. The documents also show Heartland has raised more than $2 million from large insurance companies and nearly half a million dollars from tobacco interests. A person who emailed 15 media and bloggers as “Heartland insider” sent six different documents purporting to be from the libertarian think tank. The insider then killed the email account used to send the documents and could not be reached. Heartland spokesman Jim Lakely would not confirm or deny the claims made in the five documents that he did not call fake. The most sensational parts of the documents — and much of what has been confirmed independently — had to do with global warming and efforts to spread doubt into what mainstream scientists are saying. Experts long have thought Heartland and other groups were working to muddy the waters about global warming, said Harry Lambright, a Syracuse University public policy professor who specializes in environment, science and technology issues. “Scientifically there is no controversy. Politically, there is a controversy because there are political interest groups making it a controversy,” Lambright said. “It’s not about science. It’s about politics. To some extent they are winning the battle.” A 2010 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences surveyed more than 1,300 most cited and published climate scientists and found that 97 percent of them said climate change was a man-made problem. Yet, public opinion polls show far more doubt in the American public. An environmental advocacy group, Forecast the Facts, on Thursday started a petition and social media campaign to complain to two of Heartland’s corporate donors listed on the documents, Microsoft and General Motors. The two were not the biggest donors; Microsoft donated $69,000 over three years, while the General Motors Foundation gave $45,000. But those are companies that “need to hear from their customers” that they are not happy about promoting climate skepticism, especially after General Motors got a government bailout, campaign director Daniel Souweine said. General Motors spokesman Greg Martin said the company’s foundation gives money to “a variety of different groups holding a variety of opinions.” Microsoft said through its public relations agency that it donates software to 44,000 nonprofits that pass IRS standards, as Heartland does, and that it considers climate change a serious issue. The documents showed how heavily Heartland relies on a single person it identified only as “Anonymous Donor.” In the past six years, the man has given $14.26 million to the institute, nearly half its $33.9 million in revenue. ___ Online: Heartland Institute: http://heartland.org/ Forecast the Facts campaign against Heartland donors: http://bit.ly/wfd3uY

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Feds Want ‘Maximum Possible Sentence’ For WV Mine Security Chief

February 15, 2012

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Prosecutors want to make an example of a former security chief at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine who was convicted of lying to investigators after the worst mine disaster in four decades. U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin says Hughie Elbert Stover deserves the maximum possible sentence of 25 years in prison. Goodwin says Stover’s actions contributed to the 2010 disaster that killed 29 men. In a sentencing recommendation reported by the Charleston Gazette (http://bit.ly/z3Vdsm), Goodwin says U.S. District Judge Irene Berger could send a message that the federal government cares about mine safety crimes. He says a tough sentence would deter bad conduct for an industry that’s closely watching the outcome. But defense attorney Bill Wilmoth says the 60-year-old Stover deserves no jail time. He wants probation or home confinement.

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Despite Panel Report, Mass. Residents Claim Wind Turbines Make Some Sick

February 15, 2012

BOSTON (AP) — Neil Anderson says the headaches, dizziness and palpitations began shortly after Wind One, a 400-foot high wind turbine, began operating about a quarter mile from his Falmouth home. So did sleep disruptions, ringing in his ears and elevated blood pressure. Anderson was among a number of Massachusetts residents who on Tuesday disputed a recent report from a state-appointed panel of experts that reviewed existing scientific evidence and found no serious health risks associated with living near wind turbines. “Despite the conclusions of this expert health panel, wind turbines that are close to residences make people sick,” Anderson told the Statehouse hearing, adding that nearly all of his symptoms disappeared when the town-owned, 1.6 megawatt turbine was temporarily shut down in November amid complaints. Environmentalists, industry officials and other wind energy advocates were equally strong in their praise of the panel’s report, telling state officials who called the meeting that the findings were a resounding endorsement of wind as a safe and clean alternative to other types of energy. “When we say no to wind in Massachusetts we are saying yes to a bunch of dirty energy sources like coal, like gas, like nuclear power” that bring health risks far greater those posed by wind power, said Emily Rochon, a Northeastern University law student who attended the meeting with other members of the group Wind Action Committee. The report, commissioned by state environmental and public health officials and released in January, said there was no evidence noise or low-frequency vibrations from turbines trigger health problems like those described by Anderson and other neighbors, effects sometimes collectively referred to as “wind turbine syndrome.” The report did raise the possibility that sound generated by turbines could be annoying to nearby residents or cause sleep disruptions, and recommended that Massachusetts adopt noise limit guidelines similar to those in some European countries. State officials stressed Tuesday that they had not yet formally accepted the panel’s findings nor reached any conclusions about where new wind turbines should be constructed in Massachusetts. Gov. Deval Patrick has made wind energy a key tenet of his strategy to move the state away from carbon-emitting power plants. Critics have questioned both the methods and motivations of the panel, chastising it for relying on a review of data from previous studies done around the world rather than visiting the sites and conducting interviews with state residents who have complained of wind turbine syndrome. Eleanor Tillinghast, a Mount Washington resident and member of the statewide coalition Windwise Massachusetts, accused the panel of “passing off junk science as real science.” The group has called for a moratorium on the construction of new land-based wind turbines until all potential health risks are addressed. Projects have been proposed for several other communities in the state, including Fairhaven, Lenox and Plymouth. Critics have also suggested that at least two members of the state-appointed panel had previous ties to the wind energy industry, a claim strongly denied by the panelists and the state officials who appointed them. Some wind energy advocates, while acknowledging that they did not live in the shadow of a turbine, said the whooshing sound of turbine blades was not annoying but actually soothing — akin to ocean waves or a babbling brook. But Falmouth resident Kathryn Elder dismissed any notion that health concerns were more perception rather than reality. “It’s not my perception, it’s not my opinion, and it certainly isn’t annoyance that wakes me up repeatedly at night, or has caused myself and members of my family to have extreme anxiety and other physical issues in response to living close to the turbine,” said Elder, who urged the state to adopt “hard and fast regulations” that would require turbines to be kept a safe distance from residential areas and set strict noise limits.

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White House: Energy Department Loan Oversight Needs Overhaul

February 10, 2012

* Struggling to fill key positions to manage loans * Did not evaluate failed loan to Solyndra * Chu: will review ideas, but program is working By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) – The U.S. Energy Department relies on too many consultants and committees for managing its loans and needs to beef up its management, concluded a review commissioned by the White House in the wake of publicity over failed solar panel maker Solyndra. Herb Allison, a former investment banker known for his work helping government agencies manage large, complex financing programs, reviewed the energy loan program, and recommended an overhaul in oversight of the $23.769 billion portfolio. He said the Energy Department has struggled to fill vacancies in key positions without success. “At least one manager is acting head of several departments,” he said in a 75-page report. Decisions should be made by individual managers with expertise, Allison said, instead of using a committee process “where collective responsibility can obscure individual accountability.” Allison did not review a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, which filed for bankruptcy last year and has become a political sore spot leading into the 2012 election season. The loan was once held up by President Barack Obama as an example of how his administration was creating new jobs with “stimulus” funding while promoting renewable energy. It now is featured in at least two attack ads on television, and candidates for the Republican presidential nomination regularly invoke Solyndra as a symbol of what they say is government waste and misguided energy policy. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said he would review the recommendations to find ways to strengthen the program. But he said the program is working as it is intended, and noted that the review rated the overall risk of the loan portfolio as “slightly lower” than the department’s projections. “We have always known that there were inherent risks in backing innovative technologies at full commercial scale, and it is very likely that there will be other companies in the portfolio that won’t succeed, but the vast majority of companies are expected to pay the loans back in full, on time, and with about $8 billion in interest,” Chu said in a statement.

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BP Wins Ruling To Keep Old Accidents Out Of Gulf Spill Trial

February 10, 2012

* Evidence of Texas, Alaska incidents excluded * Judge: Older cases too dissimilar from Gulf spill * Feb. 27 trial expected By Jonathan Stempel Feb 9 (Reuters) – BP Plc won a court order to keep references to some previous accidents out of this month’s trial to assess blame for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the oil company’s second victory in as many days to bar potentially damaging evidence. Thursday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans followed a ruling Wednesday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan to keep out some emails questioning some of BP’s activities before and after the spill. Barbier blocked the introduction of evidence related to two accidents involving BP facilities: a 2005 explosion at a Texas City, Texas refinery that killed 15 people, and a 2006 rupture of a corroded pipeline at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. In the Texas case, BP pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act and accepted a $50 million fine. BP pleaded guilty to a criminal Clean Water Act violation and was fined $20 million in the Alaska case. Barbier, however, ruled that the prior incidents were “not sufficiently similar” to the April 20, 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and blowout of the Macondo oil well, which BP mainly owned. “The prior incidents were all land-based, while the Macondo incident occurred in the Gulf of Mexico,” Barbier wrote. “Additionally, the circumstances of oil refinery disasters and (an) exploratory drilling disaster are vastly different.” James Roy, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs, who include people and businesses harmed by the accident, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. BP was also fined a record $87 million by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration for safety problems at the Texas refinery. Barbier is scheduled on Feb. 27 to preside over a non-jury trial to assign blame for the Deepwater Horizon accident, which killed 11 people and caused the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Other corporate defendants include rig owner Transocean Ltd and Halliburton Co, which provided cementing services for the well. Plaintiffs also include the U.S. government, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. BP has set aside roughly $42 billion for spill costs. Chief Executive Bob Dudley this week said the London-based company is preparing for trial, but willing to settle on reasonable terms. The case is In re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig “Deepwater Horizon” in the Gulf of Mexico, on April 20, 2010, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, No. 10-md-02179.

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Owner Of ‘Illegal’ California Gold Mine Surrenders To Face Charges

February 10, 2012

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A man who state and local officials say is running a massive illegal gold-mining operation in California’s Sierra Nevada surrendered Thursday to face 14 criminal charges of operating without permits and polluting a creek. Joseph Hardesty also faces state fines of nearly $900,000. He was booked into El Dorado County Jail on the charges, which include four felonies, and was being held in lieu of $75,000 bond. His attorney, William Brewer, says Hardesty turned himself in after investigators from the district attorney’s office searched for him at his mother’s home and the home of his partner in the Big Cut Mine, near Placerville. Hardesty surrendered a day after The Associated Press published a story about the mine, which is in the Sierra foothills between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, and his three-year battle with authorities. “It’s unfortunate that our government has decided in this case to take away our liberties and our rights without adequate process,” said Brewer, of San Diego. “Joe really is a very honorable person and I just wish things were different.” He denies his client is mining gold, saying he is operating a sand and gravel business to complement another he owns in Sacramento County. State and local officials say they have evidence and statements indicating the site is being mined for gold at a time when the precious metal’s price is hovering near $1,700 an ounce. Hardesty, 54, had promised to surrender last week but failed to appear. Authorities said Hardesty turned himself in at the sheriff department’s office in Placerville about 11:30 a.m. and was taken to jail without incident. Brewer said investigators had looked for his client everywhere except where he was — his home in Elk Grove, south of Sacramento. Hardesty contends that he has a historic right to operate the Big Cut Mine on nearly 150 acres he bought seven years ago, based on a reclamation plan he had filed with El Dorado County in 2009 and $188,000 in bonds. Local authorities and the State Mining and Geology Board disagree. On top of the mining board’s fines, El Dorado County charged Hardesty with mining and grading without permits, working despite stop orders, releasing sediment into Weber Creek, violating zoning laws, and using hazardous materials without proper permits. Hardesty, his wife, Yvette, and his partner, Rick Churches, brought in heavy equipment to cut into a steep ridge high above the creek, although Joseph Hardesty is the only one facing charges. The site is guarded by locked gates covered with “no trespassing” signs, but an AP reporter and photographer were able to view the mining operation from a heavily forested ridge a few hundred yards away. Late last month, local and state inspectors with a warrant entered the property and documented at least 30 acres stripped bare, four drainage ponds and a football-field-sized gravel bed about 60 feet deep. Inspectors previously found gold on what is called a shaker table, which is used to separate the heavy metal from sand and gravel. Bruce Person, an engineer with the county transportation department who helped inspect the property, said a previous owner found an ancient riverbed on the property could produce between 1 and 3 ounces of gold for every ton of material. El Dorado County Deputy District Attorney Michael Pizzuti declined to comment Thursday on Hardesty’s arrest. He previously told the AP that Hardesty’s partner told a county inspector that they intended to remove gold and sell the rocks it was separated from as gravel. Hardesty already was on probation after pleading no contest last year to a misdemeanor charge of storing unpermitted hazardous waste in Sacramento County. He now faces allegations that he violated his probation by continuing to operate at both the Sacramento and El Dorado locations. The fines were levied in January by the State Mining and Geology Board, a division of the California Department of Conservation. The penalty climbs by $15,000 for each day he continued to operate.

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Olive Garden Owner Targeted In Race Discrimination Suit

February 6, 2012

Last week, Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC), an advocacy group dedicated to equality for restaurant workers, filed a federal employee discrimination suit against Darden Restaurants , the Orlando-based owners of Olive Garden, Red Lobster and five other full service dining chains. ROC claims that Darden systematically favors white workers over minorities at its Capital Grille chain of steakhouses and is seeking compensation for what it is calling an illegal system of discrimination. ROC specifically alleges that minority workers at the Capital Grilles in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. are shunted away from front-of-house jobs like waiters and hosts and towards lower-paying jobs in the kitchen. The suit also claims that many workers have been forced to work without pay and that tips were distributed to workers in positions ineligible for tipping. The advocacy group has also organized protests outside Capital Grille locations to support its cause, part of what it is calling the ” Dignity at Darden ” campaign. Sandra Pelicini of the Orlando Sentinel argued that Darden is an unlikely target for a racial discrimination suit . Its CEO, she notes, is black, and the company has a well-established history of promoting minority workers to managerial positions. Moreover, some have problems with the ROC’s methods. Its best-known case was a highly public suit against B&B Hospitality, Mario Batali and Joe Bastianach’s group of New York restaurants. Batali secured a restraining order against the ROC after its protestors became a serious nuisance . Of course, reputation only gets you so far — if the ROC can prove that Capital Grille acted improperly, it could win the case. Not that Darden seems all that worried. Representatives from the company, contacted by Crain’s New York , described the ROC’s allegations as ” baseless .”

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WATCH: Josh Fox On Why He Was Arrested

February 4, 2012

Documentary filmmaker Josh Fox and his crew on Wednesday walked into a congressional hearing on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” a controversial natural gas drilling technique. Fox left in handcuffs, charged with unlawful entry. The meeting of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment was focused on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Dec. 8 draft report on links between fracking and water contamination in Pavillion, Wyo. Fox, working on the sequel to the HBO documentary ” Gasland ,” planned to attend the hearing because the EPA investigation highlights subjects from both “Gasland” and the sequel. Thus, he told HuffPost, “we were not really going to be told ‘no.’” “Since the change in Congress when Republicans took over, we have been getting a lot of flack trying to get into the public hearings,” Fox said. Fox asked to attend when the hearing was announced on Monday. By Tuesday morning, he had been refused by Republican leadership on the committee. Fox appealed to the chairman, but did not hear back before the hearing. His crew, he said, was told, “If you’re working for ‘Gasland,’ just forget it.” Any credentialed reporter working on the documentary “will have their credentials jeopardized,” he said the crew was told. Fox said he sent emails and posted his struggles to attend the hearing on Facebook . As a result, the committee’s Republican leadership “knew what was going on,” he said. “It seemed there was someone there prepared to meet us.” Fox was unable to get official filming permission, and as he set up his camera tripod in the Rayburn building room on Wednesday, Fox said he was asked to turn off his camera. He refused. “The word from the chairman comes back — ‘He can stay, but his camera has to leave.’ And I said, ‘I don’t believe that’s the law, I’m within my First Amendment rights.’” Capitol Hill police arrested and handcuffed him. While a committee has the right to prohibit cameras at a hearing, it is rare . Fox later reflected, “It was my understanding that my credentials are my American citizenship.” As the events unfolded, others began filming, Fox said. “Congressional staffers are actually coming in to watch what’s going on and they start videotaping! That’s why you have a videotape of me getting arrested — congressional staffers all had their iPhones out. And the only one being threatened with arrest is me.” The committee’s leadership directed Capitol Hill police to detain Fox and his crew. He was taken to the Capitol Hill police station. “If it weren’t for the campaign contributions going to the Republican party on behalf of the oil and gas industry, I would not have been arrested,” Fox said. The hearing resumed after the film crew departed. Jim Martin , the EPA administrator for the region that includes Wyoming, said the agency’s analysis of geologic conditions in the Pavillion gas field shows “groundwater in the aquifer contains compounds likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing.” Subcommittee Chairman Andy Harris (R-Md.) refuted the study, saying, “In a remarkable display of arrogance and disregard for the plain facts, the president last week proclaimed his support for expanded shale gas production, while at the same time allowing every part of his administration … to attack these practices through scientific innuendo and regulatory straight-jacketing.” During his State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama said companies should disclose the fracking fluids they use, but in nearly the same breath declared, “We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years. And my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy.” “It was a painful moment for myself and a lot of the people who are concerned with fracking,” Fox said of the president’s speech. “He’s wrong that there’s a way forward in the future.” Ultimately though, “It doesn’t really matter who the president is,” Fox said. “The people make the change … I don’t think anyone is ever going to be challenged, at least in the near future, about walking in to a congressional hearing with a camera.”

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New Oil Shale Plan Would Limit Western Research Land

February 3, 2012

DENVER (AP) — The federal government’s new plan for oil shale development on public lands would keep activity off thousands of acres of environmentally sensitive areas, with new leases initially being issued strictly for research on how to commercially produce oil from oil shale in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. The George W. Bush administration had made almost 2 million acres available for potential oil shale development and 431,000 acres for tar sands development, but federal officials took a new look after conservation groups filed a lawsuit in 2009 alleging the government hadn’t fully reviewed possible environmental impacts. A new draft environmental impact statement released Friday says the preferred plan now is to make 35,308 acres in Colorado, 252,181 acres in Utah, and 174,476 acres in Wyoming available for oil shale research. Also, 91,045 acres in eastern Utah would be available for activities related to tar sands. Together, the total is around a half million acres. Areas with wilderness characteristics, core sage grouse habitat, areas of critical environmental concern, and the Adobe Town area in Wyoming are among those that would be off limits. The public has until May 4 to comment on the proposal. The Bureau of Land Management estimates the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming has 1.2 to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil resources, but not all may be recoverable. Getting petroleum-like substances out of oil shale, which is first mined, is tougher than pumping oil out of traditional wells, and companies haven’t found an economic way to do it in the U.S. Oil shale contains kerogen, which must be subjected to temperatures of more than 750 degrees before it can produce oil. Studies have indicated up to about 500 gallons of water may be needed to produce one barrel of oil from it, which could be an issue in the dry West, the Government Accountability Office has said. Following recommendations from the GAO, the U.S. Geological Survey is analyzing baseline water conditions so it can better understand how commercial-scale oil shale development could affect groundwater and surface water systems. The BLM in 2007 issued six leases of federal land in Colorado and Utah for research on how to make oil shale commercially viable. Three more applications are pending and wouldn’t be affected by the plan announced Friday. President Barack Obama’s administration says its development proposal continues to encourage research. “If oil shale is to be viable on a commercial scale, we must take a common-sense approach that encourages research and development first,” BLM Director Bob Abbey said in a written statement. Tar sands contain bitumen, which can be refined into oil. Canada has a commercial tar sands industry, but its oil sands and processing requirements differ from those in Utah. Energy companies had said they needed consistent regulations and pushed for the government to leave the Bush administration’s plan alone. “Within a week of encouraging an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy, the administration continues to introduce actions that delay and restrict development,” American Petroleum Institute spokesman Reid Porter said in a written statement. “There has to be certainty, and the BLM draft plan is not conducive to an operating environment that encourages investment.” Shell Oil Co., which already has some research and development leases, said it’s uncertain whether it could commit to any significant investments in such big projects “without regulatory certainty or a clear path forward.” However, Bill Midcap of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union said research is still needed on how much water will be needed to turn oil shale into oil. “We already face a water shortage in the West that threatens farmers and ranchers,” he said. Vernon Lovejoy, a former BLM state director in Wyoming, said he also wants to know the potential effects on hunting, fishing and recreation, which hold up economies in rural and mountain towns in the West. “I do believe oil shale can be developed in many places, as long as we realize the potential impacts before we enter into leases,” Lovejoy said. Earlier in the week, a House committee approved a bill from Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., that would require the Interior Department to offer far more land and leases for oil shale research and commercial production. It would allow lease fees and royalties to be reduced to encourage development. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., applauded the BLM’s move, saying the demands that development would place on local communities and water still need to be fully understood. “While I have long felt there is potential for oil shale development, it is critical that a number of unanswered questions be resolved before commercial-scale leasing takes place,” he said in a written statement. ___ Follow Catherine Tsai at http://www.twitter.com/ctsai_denver ___ Online: Proposal: http://ostseis.anl.gov/documents/peis2012/index.cfm

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Kumi Naidoo: Davos Failed to Address Fundamentals — Will the Next Earth Summit in Rio?

February 2, 2012

At the World Economics Forum in Davos last week, no one was denying that we face serious economic, social and environmental crises. When even the Financial Times runs a series of articles on ” Capitalism in crisis ,” it’s obvious that it’s not just the “Occupy WEF” protesters, who I joined in their igloos outside the meeting, that are asking fundamental questions about how we do business. What Davos failed to do, however, is provide adequate answers. The talk was mainly about symptoms, not the core of the problem. No question, issues such as the size of the Euro firewall or bankers’ bonuses are important. But if we are to deliver an economy that brings prosperity for all without destroying the planet, we need to achieve a much more fundamental change than putting together few hundred extra millions for a firewall, or a little less greed by the 1%. When I suggested fundamental changes, such as making corporations liable for their impacts on society and the environment, the reaction was often a nervous laugh. While I was freezing in snowy Davos, the Brazilian President Dilma was at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre calling for the fostering of “new model” of development that can be discussed at this June’s Rio Earth Summit. Greenpeace has some concrete proposals on how governments could use the Rio meeting to change course and not simply acknowledge the crises we face, as is happening in Davos. The Earth Summit should, for example, agree on strong regulation of financial markets, including a Financial Transaction Tax, agree the end of environmentally and socially harmful subsidies, and commit to sustainable energy for all and zero deforestation by 2020. But if President Dilma wants to lead the world in a great transformation, she first has to put her own house in order. Unless she vetoes it, Brazil will soon adopt changes to its the Forest Code, the main law in Brazil that protects the forests, that would allow an amnesty for past forest crimes and lead to an increase in deforestation. This is unacceptable. If Brazil wants to credibly discuss “new models” of development at the Earth Summit in June , it must urgently commit to a new model of sustainable prosperity based on zero deforestation. It can be done. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has declined year on year and in 2011 reached its lowest ever level. But unless Dilma acts, Brazil will be the nation that showed that deforestation could be halted, but failed to do so, in order to cater to short-term special interests. Unless she vetos the Forest Code changes, President Dilma will have as little credibility to talk of fundamental change as the “Davos Man” come June. The warm climate of Rio will certainly suit me better than the mountains of snow in Davos. But will I leave Rio with more hope that the fundamental changes we need can finally be implemented?

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Feds: Offshore Wind Power Will Not Cause ‘Major Environmental Damage’

February 2, 2012

BALTIMORE (AP) — Offshore wind farms from New Jersey to Virginia took a big step closer to reality with the completion of a review that showed the renewable energy source would not cause major environmental damage, officials said Thursday. Obama administration Interior Secretary Ken Salazar also said his department also was trying to speed up the process for issuing renewable energy leases. Wind projects off the coasts of Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and New Jersey are being studied. “There are a number of developers who are very interested in developing offshore wind here and our goal is to hold the auctions and be able to issue the leases now, in 2012,” Salazar said. “So, this is not something that’s going to be waiting around.” The Mid-Atlantic lease proposal follows the Cape Wind project in Massachusetts that was given the go-ahead in 2010 after years of federal review. That project is still in development and Salazar said the department had learned from that experience. “No developer should have to wait nine or 10 years,” for approval, Salazar said. Dominion Virginia Power said that it is interested in building up to 400 wind turbines in waters about 20 miles off Virginia Beach, but the cost of the power was an issue. The 2,000 megawatts the turbines could produce would generate enough power for 500,000 households. “If everything aligns and it makes good sense and we have our regulators on board, yes, we would be moving forward on a wind farm,” senior vice president Mary Doswell told The Associated Press. The Interior Department said before the waters would be opened, the public would have a chance to comment on the projects. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who appeared at the announcement with Salazar, said his administration had contacted Defense Department officials to discuss the possibility of the military using offshore wind energy. O’Malley, a Democrat, and Salazar both described the decision as a major step forward for offshore wind, and environmentalists agreed. Environment America Clean Energy Advocate Courtney Abrams said “tapping into the power of offshore wind along the Atlantic coast is vital to getting the region and the nation off fossil fuels without creating more pollution.” Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said the decision “just makes sense.” “It is a reliable, clean energy resource that will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, curb harmful air pollutants, and create good paying American jobs in manufacturing and construction,” Carper said. Jim Lanard, president of the OffShore Wind Development Coalition, said the decision means that a lengthier environmental impact assessment for offshore power along the mid-Atlantic won’t have to be conducted, although reviews for individual projects will still have to be done. Lanard said that could shave two years off the review process. Michele Siekerka, the Assistant Commissioner of Economic Growth and Green Energy in New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, said Thursday’s announcement will speed the building of offshore turbines by a year or more. Eleven developers have submitted proposals totaling 12,000 megawatts and are expected to be able to bid later this year for leases. The companies will still have to do environmental studies of their own areas, but could be producing power by 2016 or 2017, she said. “The key is the federal government is not doing another one,” Siekerka said. Lanard said legislation pending in the Maryland General Assembly could do a lot to entice developers. “If there’s a revenue stream, you’ll see a great deal of interest,” Lanard said. Lawmakers killed a bill last year that would have required utilities to enter into long-term power purchase contracts and O’Malley said it wasn’t clear how a toned-down bill would fare this year. Kit Kennedy, Clean Energy Counsel at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said offshore power holds the promise of clean energy that could also provide jobs, but it would watch the process carefully to make sure the environment is protected. Dominion’s Doswell said absent tax credits, power generated by towering wind turbines costs about 28 cents per kilowatt hour, while the state’s largest electric utility’s rates are now in the range of 11 to 12 cents per kilowatt hour. “So that’s what we’re battling,” Doswell said. “Wind is a great resource and you can do it with scale, but we’ve got to work on this cost equation.” ___ Associated Press writer Steve Szkotak in Richmond contributed to this report..

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Exxon Reaches Settlement For Yellowstone River Spill

January 19, 2012

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Exxon Mobil agreed Thursday to pay $1.6 million in penalties to the state of Montana over water pollution caused by a pipeline break last summer that fouled dozens of miles of shoreline along the scenic Yellowstone River. Montana Department of Environmental Quality director Richard Opper said the penalties in the case mark the largest in the agency’s history. The Texas oil company will pay $300,000 in cash and spend $1.3 million on future environmental projects, according to a copy of the document obtained by The Associated Press. Also Thursday, Exxon increased its estimate of how much crude spilled into the river during the July 1 accident near Laurel to 1,509 barrels, or more than 63,000 gallons. That’s up from earlier estimates of 1,000 barrels spilled — a number that Gov. Brian Schweitzer had disputed as too low. Schweitzer said Thursday that the settlement and revised spill estimate came only after the state pressured Exxon to be more accountable in the aftermath of the spill. “They’re not prepared to give you any accurate information if you don’t hold their feet to the fire,” the Democratic governor said. In an emailed statement, Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers reiterated that the company “takes full responsibility” for the accident. “We are pleased to be able to resolve this environmental compliance issue with the State of Montana,” Jeffers wrote of the settlement. Only about 10 barrels of crude were recovered by cleanup crews, federal officials have said. That’s less than 1 percent of the total spilled. The cause of the spill remains under investigation. The 12-inch Silvertip pipeline was buried just a few feet beneath the riverbed when it was installed 20 years ago. High water last spring and summer eroded that cover, which officials have speculated could have exposed the line to damaging debris. Thursday’s settlement came after more than three months of negotiations between attorneys for Exxon and the state. The agreement contains provisions to shield the company against any future lawsuits from state agencies, although it will not become final until after a 30-day comment period. “It was a significant violation. There were hundreds and hundreds of acres of land affected and it was a major oil spill,” Opper said. He added the penalties likely would have been “a lot higher” if Exxon had not cooperated on the cleanup. “They were responsible, but they really were committed to undoing the damage that was caused,” he said. The settlement requires continued monitoring of environmental damage by Exxon and for the company to clean up any more oil that is discovered. That includes any crude that might be stirred up when the Yellowstone rises again in the spring as mountain snow begins to melt. Testing of river sediments near public water supply intakes also will be required. As part of the settlement, Exxon will reimburse more than $760,000 in emergency response costs racked up by state agencies. Regarding the change in how much crude spilled, Jeffers said the company recalculated the volume after discovering the pipeline had been completely severed during the July 1 accident near Laurel. Jeffers says pipeline breaches typically involve a crack or fissure. That was the assumption used to craft the initial estimate. Jeffers added that the higher estimate would not have changed the response to the spill, which at its peak involved more than 1,000 Exxon Mobil contractors working to clean up oil-soaked sandbars, log jams and vegetation. “None of this would have made any difference,” he said. Still pending against the company is a lawsuit from a group of riverfront property owners who are seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages over allegations that the company failed to properly clean up after the spill. Plaintiffs’ attorney Cliff Edwards said the company’s revised spill estimate was suspect and that he had “no faith in that number.” Edwards added that the settlement with the state did not alter the fact that the company failed to protect the line as the Yellowstone was flooding in the weeks leading up to the spill. “They just continued to run crude,” he said. Attorneys for Exxon have asked U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull in Billings to dismiss the lawsuit. A decision is pending. Since the spill, Exxon has since installed a new section of the pipeline buried several dozen feet beneath the riverbed.

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Re-Opening In The Air For Quebec Plant?

January 16, 2012

MONTREAL – The Quebec government is exploring ways to revive the closed White Birch paper mill but doesn’t want to hold out false hope to laid-off workers. Economic Development Minister Sam Hamad met with company president Christopher Brant in Montreal on Monday. Hamad said he told Brant he was disappointed the situation had deteriorated to the point where 600 people have lost their jobs. Hamad also said the solution to the mill closure will be reached “between the owner and the workers.” U.S.-based White Birch Paper Co. announced late Thursday that the idled Stadacona plant was being closed permanently after its 600 unionized workers rejected a final company offer that would have slashed wages and pension benefits. Brant said last week the rejection of the offer left the company no choice but to close the mill, which was already struggling amid the economic deterioration in the newsprint industry. A government mediator is trying to bring the company and the workers together. The mill’s union says the company is demanding pay cuts of 20 per cent and reductions in pension benefits of between 45 and 65 per cent. Hamad reiterated Quebec’s willingness to help the company, either through financial assistance or with pension-fund relief. Hamad will meet with representatives of the union on Tuesday. Last week, Natural Resources Minister Clement Gignac said taxpayers won’t be put on the hook to keep the facility open and that the private sector would have to make any major investments. The company was the second-largest newsprint manufacturer in North America when it filed for bankruptcy protection in February 2010. At the time it had about 1,300 employees at three pulp and paper mills and a saw mill in Quebec and a fourth pulp and paper mill in Virginia. The company manufactures high quality newsprint, directory paper and paperboard.

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Anne Day: A Family Affair

January 16, 2012

How well do you get on with members of your family? That good, eh? Can you imagine working together, day in, day out? These days, running a business is not for the faint of heart, but operating a family-owned business takes even more courage, tenacity and diplomacy. Lately I have had the opportunity to chat to a couple of family business owners and they are the first to admit that it isn’t easy, especially if as a family, you tend to spend time together outside of the office. The gals at Mabel’s Labels are role models for us all. Not only are the four women business partners, but they are related too. Each woman brings a different skills set to the business and even when they have feisty business conversations, they don’t let it trickle into their personal lives. “We share a family cottage and our kids are all friends, so it would be very awkward if we took things too personally.” shares Julie Cole, one of the partners. Because they are such a talented group, one of the challenges has been to know when to get involved and when to step away and let your business partner run with it, something Julie admits “is always a tricky balance.” “Our partnership is always a work in progress.” she adds. Mutual respect is also crucial. You have to value and respect your partners’ contribution to the whole, because without it, it’s not going to work. Letting go of the reins as the parent hands over the business to the adult son or daughter can be daunting too. In the case of Geoff Stephens at Capital Paving, his father had been grooming him for that role since he was 16. Not that he forced him to join the company — he didn’t — but he didn’t want his son to be viewed as just the boss’s son and insisted that he work his way through the ranks and learn every aspect of the business. And he let him make mistakes. “I grazed my knees several times, but it was all part of the learning experience,” admits Geoff Stephens. He also went off to school to study business administration, so when he came back to the company, he had additional expertise to bring to the leadership role. In 1999 at the age of 36, Geoff took over the company and by that time his two brother-in-laws were also partners in the business. Having worked for seven years with my daughter, I know first-hand that the working relationship can be fraught with difficulties. It is all too easy to slip into the usual pecking order, with mother, of course, always knowing best. But I have discovered that isn’t always the case and sometimes having a young, fresh pair of eyes look at a situation can bring you a different perspective. When you do disagree, it can be all too easy to assume familiar roles and forego the courtesy you would normally extend to others, which, if other staff are witnessing the scene, is not a good thing. So as the others said, having mutual respect for what each player brings to the business is key. In fact, that rings true for any working relationship. We had to set boundaries so that in our free time or at family gatherings we didn’t talk shop. We also found that when people found out who my daughter was, often they treated her differently. Some were patronizing, almost giving her a pat on the head for helping her mother out, while others were syrupy sweet hoping to get to me through her. Both responses were not appreciated, especially given she played a vital role in the business. When she got married, she couldn’t wait to take on her husband’s name, sharing mine led to complications. A talented, young entrepreneur in her own right, she has recently moved on to spend more time in her own blossoming business. It’s the sort of success that every mother dreams for her child, but as her “employer” I sure miss her. But then for Christmas she proudly gave me a box of business cards — she’s made me VP of Sales — so I guess we’re still in business together, only this time she’s the boss!

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Major Grocery Chain To Close More Than 100 Stores, Slash Thousands Of Jobs

January 13, 2012

BRUSSELS — A Belgian supermarket chain that owns Food Lion said Thursday it will close more than 100 struggling stores, mostly in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee. The company will also shutter the Bloom brand, a sister grocery chain that had been launched as a higher-end alternative to Food Lion. Pierre-Olivier Beckers, CEO of Delhaize Group, said in a statement the company was dealing with tight consumer spending and increased competition. He said that the store closings, most of which will come in markets where the company has a low penetration, will allow it to focus on better-performing stores where the chain has greater market share. The store closings will result in about 4,900 job cuts in the U.S., the company said. Beckers said the decisions were difficult but “were in keeping with our responsibility to our shareholders to deploy resources where they will achieve the highest return.” Delhaize will close 113 Food Lion stores in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. It will close seven Bloom stores in Maryland and Virginia, and convert the remaining 42 Bloom stores to Food Lions. It will also close six Bottom Dollar Food stores in North Carolina and Virginia, and convert 22 others into Food Lions. A distribution center located in Tennessee will also be closed. But while Delhaize is retiring the Bloom brand, it says it sees promise for Bottom Dollar Food. It said the chain had enjoyed “considerable success” in the Philadelphia area, and that it planned to open its first stores in the Pittsburgh area early this year. Delhaize also reiterated that it plans to add “hundreds” of Bottom Dollar Food stores in the next five years. Delhaize has about 1,650 stores in the Eastern U.S.

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Canadian Natives Warn Against Pipeline To Pacific

January 10, 2012

* Haisla chiefs fear spill, oppose project * Hearing process slated to take two years * Ottawa sees Northern Gateway as nation-building project (Adds Enbridge executive comments) By Jeffrey Jones KITIMAAT VILLAGE, British Columbia, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Aboriginal leaders opposed to a C$5.5 billion ($5.4 billion) oil sands pipeline backed by Canada’s government warned on Tuesday that the project could devastate fishing and traditional life on the rugged Pacific Coast and called for it to be stopped. As hearings into Enbridge Inc’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline opened with drumming and native singing, hereditary chiefs and elders of the Haisla First Nation told the regulatory panel their greatest fear was the potential impact of oil spills on their community of 1,500. At stake, they said, are salmon, halibut and crab fishing and fur trapping that have sustained the Haisla for generations. “It worries me to think that all of these will be lost and destroyed when there is a spill – mark my words – when there is a spill. Experience shows it will happen,” Hereditary Chief Sam Robinson, 78, told the panel hearing Enbridge’s application. The oil industry and Ottawa are pushing hard for the project, especially after Washington delayed the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline to Texas, as they seek new markets for the Alberta oil sands, the world’s third-largest crude deposit. The proceedings, expected to last two years, began at the community center in Kitimaat Village on the Pacific Coast’s Douglas Channel, the terminus of the proposed pipeline. Battle lines have already been drawn between supporters on one side and environmental groups and aboriginals in the province of British Columbia on the other. The pipeline would ship 525,000 barrels of oil sands crude a day 1,170 km (730 miles) from Alberta, across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, where it would be loaded onto tankers and shipped to rich Asian markets. An adjacent line would carry light hydrocarbons called condensate back to Alberta, where it would be blended with the thick oil. Suncor Energy Inc, Sinopec Corp, Total SA and Cenovus Energy Inc are among oil sands developers that have put up tens of millions of dollars to help Enbridge move the project through the regulatory process. Janet Holder, Enbridge vice-president in charge of the project, would not comment directly on any of the concerns expressed by the elders. She and four others from the company were in attendance. “All I can say is we are here to listen and we are listening. We respect this process as we believe all Canadians respect this process,” Holder said. “NATION-BUILDING PROJECT” Opening up a supply line to Asia is expected to boost returns for the oil derived from the tar sands, allowing it to be priced against more valuable Brent-based international crudes. It spells a big boost for the Canadian economy and hence is “a nation-building project,” Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has said. But the Haisla people stand between billions of dollars in oil sands developments and thirsty world markets. It also puts them a position of “staring down a double-barrel gun” in terms of putting resources at risk, Chief Kenneth Hall said in his testimony. Robinson told reporters that his community would not support the development under any circumstances, but stressed it would restrict its opposition to the negotiating table and the courts. That said, opposition is not so cut and dried from the community’s standpoint, Ellis Ross, chief councillor of the Haisla elected body, told Reuters. He urged his people to let the hearings proceed before making up their minds. This issue is likely to go to a vote at some point, as was the case with other projects, including a liquefied natural gas plant last year. “The Haisla Nation council wants to ensure that we get through the Joint Review Panel process as planned first, and then we’ll decide what happens at that stage, depending on the decision,” Ross said. The arms-length makeup of the panel had been expected to mean a less hotly political process than the U.S. State Department’s review of Keystone XL. Officials with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government said they would not comment on the project specifically, other than to say they support diversifying Canada’s oil trade. PRESSURE MOUNTS Even so, Harper and his ministers have ratcheted up the rhetoric in recent days, charging that environmental groups that oppose Northern Gateway are tools of wealthy U.S.-based foundations bent on disrupting the proceedings and the economy. “Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade,” Oliver said on Monday. That elicited a barrage of criticism, with some aboriginal leaders and opposition lawmakers alleging that the Conservatives government seeks to influence the proceedings. Ross said some of the Haisla elders’ comments were prompted by anger over government remarks. “They’re trying to bully this panel. We’ve got a quasijudicial process here that’s rapidly losing its integrity as these ministers and this prime minister come out and try and re-instruct them,” said Art Sterritt, who leads a coalition of aboriginal groups called the Coastal First Nations that is opposed to Northern Gateway . Bob Rae, the interim leader of the opposition Liberals, said in Ottawa on Tuesday that Harper and Oliver should “keep quiet” on the project with the hearings underway. “It is absolutely unacceptable and it shows a government that does not understand its limits, that does not understand the rule of law, that does not respect due process, Rae said. There appeared to be few representatives from major environmental groups at the hearings on Tuesday. The applications are being heard by a three-member joint review panel representing the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment agency. Once the oral hearings portion of the proceedings are complete, the panel will prepare a report listing its conclusions on the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of the project. It then goes to the government for a response. The panel then must make its decision on whether the project can proceed and what conditions to impose. The government can either accept or reject the decision, but it cannot make changes. ($1=$1.02 Canadian) (Editing by Frank McGurty and Rob Wilson)

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Kona Farmers Request More Explicit Coffee Labeling

January 6, 2012

HONOLULU — Kona coffee growers want Hawaii’s labeling law modified to provide more details on packages of coffee blends that contain Hawaii-grown beans. Currently, coffee blends sold in the state that contain Hawaii-grown coffee must disclose what percentage is grown in the islands, and it must be at least 10 percent. The Kona Coffee Farmers Association said Thursday that it wants the state Legislature to consider a bill it has drafted that would also identify where the remainder of the blend is grown. If the association is successful an example of a package label would read, “90 percent Panamanian coffee, 10 percent Kona coffee.” The state senator from Kona said Thursday he plans to introduce the bill at the end of the month. “I respect the local community and Kona coffee is a big issue for us,” state Sen. Josh Green, D-Milolii-Waimea, said. For the farmers, it’s about truth-in-labeling and protecting the integrity of a world-famous Hawaii product. Hawaii is the only place in the United States where coffee is grown. Coffee aficionados pay a premium for coffee grown in farms in the Kona district, known for its rich volcanic soil and tropical climate. “The state of Hawaii needs to be with the Kona coffee farmers,” said Colehour Bondera, the association’s president. “We’re the most lucrative agricultural commodity in the state.” A pound of pure Kona coffee can sell for about $25 – more if it’s organic. Not giving consumers all the information about where coffee is grown dilutes the perception of Kona’s quality, Bondera said. When the 10 percent blend law was introduced in 1991, there was a provision mandating disclosing the origin of all coffee in the blend, he said, but pressure from Honolulu coffee blenders resulted in making it voluntary, which none of the major blenders have opted to do. But modifying the law to restore mandatory disclosure would just be a small step for the farmers, he said. Several years ago there was a failed effort to increase the minimum percentage of Hawaii-grown coffee in blends to at least 75 percent. The farmers would prefer only blends that are mostly Kona bear that name. “The name Kona should not be used on any products that’s not mostly Kona,” Bondera said. “When people talk about wines, you can’t a buy a Napa wine when it’s only 10 percent Napa.” Hawaii’s coffee blend labeling law is an offshoot of regulations put in place after a scandal in the 1990s when inexpensive coffee beans grown in Latin America were being passed off and sold as pure Kona coffee. It only applies to blends sold in Hawaii. In August, Safeway agreed to change the label on packages of Kona coffee blend sold in mainland stores in response to concerns from the Kona farmers that it didn’t provide information about what percentage of the famous bean it contains. The company also agreed to begin selling 100 percent Kona coffee in northern and southern California starting this year.

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Dunkin’ Reveals Lofty Expansion Goal

January 4, 2012

Dunkin’ Brands opened its 10,000th location of Dunkin’ Donuts in mid-December. That’s a major milestone; only a few restaurant chains have made it to five digits. But the Canton, Mass.-based company isn’t ready to rest just yet. According to CNN , Dunkin’ plans to double its number of U.S. locations over the next two decades. Talk about the long game! Doubling the number of outposts would mean opening a whopping 7000 new donut stores — which would bring the total above Starbucks’ current 11,000. But Dunkin’ is approaching this tremendous task with more than blind ambition. (Unlike, ahem, some of its rivals .) The company went public last summer, arming it with a half-billion dollar war chest . International sales, especially in Asia, have been strong, so the company has some real cash flow for opening new stores. And perhaps most importantly, Dunkin’ just announced that it had named DBP Partners as the sole distributor for foodstuffs to its franchises, which representatives have said will streamline the expansion process. Moreover though Dunkin’ Donuts feels ubiquitous in some places, like Connecticut, huge swathes of the country are almost untouched by the chain. That means there’s still plenty of room for Dunkin’ to grow — and as Dunkin’ grows, so do Americans.

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Soda Exec Sentenced To 15 Years In Prison For Massive Accounting Fraud

January 3, 2012

PITTSBURGH — The former chief revenue officer of defunct soft drink maker Le-Nature’s has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for his role in a massive accounting fraud. The sentence received Tuesday by Robert Lynn of Ligonier is second to that imposed earlier this year on former chief executive Gregory Podlucky who is serving 20 years in prison. Federal prosecutors contend that Podlucky, Lynn and other company officials overstated the company’s revenues in order to fraudulently receive more than $800 million in financing, which led to a loss of nearly $684 million to lenders, vendors and investors. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below. An accounting director-turned-government witness has been sentenced to five years in federal prison and five years on federal probation for creating fake financial records that fooled auditors of defunct Pennsylvania soft drink maker Le-Nature’s. Tammy Jo Andreycak, 44, asked for probation or house arrest because she has been cooperating with investigators since even before she pleaded guilty in April 2008 to wire fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy and filing a false tax return as part of fudging accounting records at the behest of former chief executive and company founder Gregory Podlucky. Podlucky pleaded guilty and is serving 20 years in prison for the scheme, which cost lenders and vendors about $684 million. Prosecutors contend Podlucky obtained $800 million in financing by fraudulently overstating the company’s revenues but spent much of the money on a lavish lifestyle while the company foundered, with sales a fraction of what he ordered Andreycak to report. She had faced between 12 and nearly 16 years in prison. Senior U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch said that, while he agreed that Andreycak deserved a break on her sentence, he disagreed with her defense attorney, who had hoped that she would receive only probation. “She was not a knave, low-level employee simply following orders she didn’t understand,” Bloch said. Rather, Block said, she was “one of only two people aware of the magnitude of the fraud,” referring also to Podlucky. Andreycak’s mother and son, who appeared to be in his late teens, were not initially in the courtroom, but were brought in after she was sentenced and handcuffed by U.S. marshals to say a brief farewell. They did not comment, but cried as they left the courtroom. “We are disappointed by the sentence, and it’s not what we expected,” defense attorney Edward Bilik said. “I think everybody in the courtroom was surprised.” Assistant U.S. Attorney James Garrett didn’t recommend a specific sentence, but stressed to the judge how crucial Andreycak’s cooperation was to his case. “She has worked diligently to try to set things right to the best of her ability,” Garrett said. He also said that, unlike Podlucky and some other company officials convicted in the scheme, Andreycak “did not do anything on her own initiative.” Bilik, who had asked the judge not to incarcerate his client, was asked afterward if he thought she did not get enough credit for her cooperation. “I think she received too much credit for what the CEO did,” Bilik responded. In a sentencing memorandum, Bilik described Andreycak as a single mother with a high school education and a secretarial certificate from a business school, with no accounting background, and as someone whom Podlucky called his “secretary” despite listing her as the company’s director of accounting. Among other things, Andreycak acknowledged inflating the company’s 2005 gross sales to $287 million – about $247 million of which were based on phony invoices and bank deposits, to defraud lenders. Andreycak reportedly used a computer program developed by Podlucky to keep two sets of books and “honestly believed the company would expand to profitability,” according to the memorandum filed by her attorney, Edward Bilik. When Andreycak learned otherwise as the company was forced into bankruptcy in 2006, she told a bankruptcy trustee everything she knew about the fraud. She continued to provide similar information to federal prosecutors, which is why Bilik has asked the court to consider probation or some form of home confinement, instead of federal prison. Also to be sentenced later Tuesday is Robert Lynn, former president of Le-Nature’s. Lynn, of Ligonier, was convicted of 10 counts of bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy in July despite claiming that he also was fooled by Podlucky and wasn’t part of the scheme.

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