Obama has decided to not allow offshore drilling for another seven years.
The Obama administration will reverse its decision and not allow drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines and the eastern Gulf of Mexico for at least another seven years, sources have confirmed to POLITICO.
The decision — which Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is announcing this afternoon — comes as the department is continuing to review and roll out new offshore drilling and safety standards in the wake of this summer’s unprecedented Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
President Obama in late March — less than a month before the April 20 deadly blowout of BP’s Macondo well — and Salazar announced that they would open up the eastern gulf and parts of the Atlantic Coast, including off the coast of Virginia, to offshore oil and gas drilling.
Meanwhile, the GOP has the following in play:
GOP lawmakers say they want to upend a host of Environmental Protection Agency rules by whatever means possible, including the Congressional Review Act, a rarely used legislative tool that allows Congress to essentially veto recently completed agency regulations.
The law lets sponsors skip Senate filibusters, meaning Republicans don’t have to negotiate with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for a floor vote or secure the tricky 60 votes typically needed to do anything in the Senate.
The House doesn’t have the same expedited procedures, but it’s assumed the GOP majority would have little trouble mustering the votes needed to pass disapproval resolutions.
A spate of contentious EPA rules that are soon to be finalized could be prime targets, including the national air quality standard for ozone, toxic emission limits for industrial boilers and a pending decision about whether to regulate coal ash as hazardous waste.
Bolding mine. Really, WTH? Coal ash is not considered hazardous despite even the 19th century recognizing it as such?
And the cherry on top: The GOP will abolish the climate change panel.
House Republicans will scrap the committee set up by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to investigate global warming, the panel’s top Republican announced Wednesday.
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) made official what many had already expected — the GOP majority will axe the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which Pelosi created in 2007.
“This hearing will be the last of the select committee,” Sensenbrenner announced.
Committee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called Wednesday’s hearing to give witnesses a chance to warn of the perils of climate change before the GOP launches efforts next year to roll back the Obama administration’s climate policies.
So the GOP claims that there is not enough evidence - then they scrap the panel charged with investigating it to be able to go "there is not enough evidence" in the future. Nice, I think Orwell would be proud.
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
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A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------ My LPs
Unsurprising when every GOP Senate candidate (incumbent or otherwise) in the election was/is on record as denying that man-made climate change exists, and that 83 out of 92 incoming freshman Congresscritters have signed the "No Climate Tax" pledge.
This is what you get when your federal legislatures are bought and paid for by corporations rather than representing the common good or even what their voters actually want - in a country where infinite corporate bribery of candidates is allowed as "free speech" by the highest court in the land.
Of course, it won't be these sub-human cretins that are sucking deadly industrial waste into their lungs, oh no. That's for the plebians.
GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:Unsurprising when every GOP Senate candidate (incumbent or otherwise) in the election was/is on record as denying that man-made climate change exists, and that 83 out of 92 incoming freshman Congresscritters have signed the "No Climate Tax" pledge.
And this is why I never vote Republican.
The Democrats may get a D- (60%) when it comes to grading their performance.
The Republicans? They are so low on my scale it is rather depressing.
'cause honestly
Coal Ash is Hazardous Waste and that has been known since before anyone living has been alive. I mean really....can you be any more obvious you sold your soul to the devil for money?
Many Republicans would actually like to abolish the EPA entirely, seeing it as an unnecessary component of Big Government. So this is kinda small-time, really.
Still goddamn insane, of course. Really, coal ash? Not hazardous? Next they'll go "no chlorine spills are not that big a deal, why fine people for them?"
JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. - NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
PeZook wrote:Many Republicans would actually like to abolish the EPA entirely, seeing it as an unnecessary component of Big Government. So this is kinda small-time, really.
Still goddamn insane, of course. Really, coal ash? Not hazardous? Next they'll go "no chlorine spills are not that big a deal, why fine people for them?"
Ask them to stick their hand in a bucket of coal ash, if it's not hazardous. Really. I'd love to see someone's reaction if they were asked that question, with big bucket of the stuff handy for visual effect.
PeZook wrote:Many Republicans would actually like to abolish the EPA entirely, seeing it as an unnecessary component of Big Government. So this is kinda small-time, really.
Still goddamn insane, of course. Really, coal ash? Not hazardous? Next they'll go "no chlorine spills are not that big a deal, why fine people for them?"
Ask them to stick their hand in a bucket of coal ash, if it's not hazardous. Really. I'd love to see someone's reaction if they were asked that question, with big bucket of the stuff handy for visual effect.
**internet tough guy mode**
I would love it if some one from Greenpeace or other group waited on the Capital steps and threw buckets of coal ash onto these guys as they walked by
PeZook wrote:Many Republicans would actually like to abolish the EPA entirely, seeing it as an unnecessary component of Big Government. So this is kinda small-time, really.
Still goddamn insane, of course. Really, coal ash? Not hazardous? Next they'll go "no chlorine spills are not that big a deal, why fine people for them?"
Ask them to stick their hand in a bucket of coal ash, if it's not hazardous. Really. I'd love to see someone's reaction if they were asked that question, with big bucket of the stuff handy for visual effect.
Hell, make the suggestion to a federal dem. We've had a couple of glorious moments from the dems this past year, even if they were sideshows - the Republican health plan being presented as "don't get sick" and "die faster," for example.
PeZook wrote:Many Republicans would actually like to abolish the EPA entirely, seeing it as an unnecessary component of Big Government. So this is kinda small-time, really.
Still goddamn insane, of course. Really, coal ash? Not hazardous? Next they'll go "no chlorine spills are not that big a deal, why fine people for them?"
Ask them to stick their hand in a bucket of coal ash, if it's not hazardous. Really. I'd love to see someone's reaction if they were asked that question, with big bucket of the stuff handy for visual effect.
Hell, make the suggestion to a federal dem. We've had a couple of glorious moments from the dems this past year, even if they were sideshows - the Republican health plan being presented as "don't get sick" and "die faster," for example.
To be fair, that really is what the Republican plan boils down to. I know enough people with financial and/or existing conditions that probably are never going to be able to get health care under the pre-Obamacare model. :/
WTH? Coal ash is not considered hazardous despite even the 19th century recognizing it as such?
This isn't just the GOP I think. You probably will find a nice cross section of democrats, like the late Robert Byrd (D-KKK) who want this too. If Coal Ash gets regulated as Hazwaste, it makes dealing with it a lot more damned expensive. That in turn means a lot of additional costs passed onto primary energy producers such as coal plants and coal mining. Which as you might have guessed is surprisingly strong in a lot of Appalachia; since it does have jobs and money.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
WTH? Coal ash is not considered hazardous despite even the 19th century recognizing it as such?
This isn't just the GOP I think. You probably will find a nice cross section of democrats, like the late Robert Byrd (D-KKK) who want this too. If Coal Ash gets regulated as Hazwaste, it makes dealing with it a lot more damned expensive. That in turn means a lot of additional costs passed onto primary energy producers such as coal plants and coal mining. Which as you might have guessed is surprisingly strong in a lot of Appalachia; since it does have jobs and money.
A nice cross-section? I wasn't aware that Appalachian areas contributed a significant fraction of Democratic Congresspersons. Not to mention that it is potential GOP opposition that would kill the EPA regulations, rather than broad bipartisan support.
Invited by the new age, the elegant Sailor Neptune!
I mean, how often am I to enter a game of riddles with the author, where they challenge me with some strange and confusing and distracting device, and I'm supposed to unravel it and go "I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE" and take great personal satisfaction and pride in our mutual cleverness?
ShadowOfMadness wrote:
To be fair, that really is what the Republican plan boils down to. I know enough people with financial and/or existing conditions that probably are never going to be able to get health care under the pre-Obamacare model. :/
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it isn't basically that - I'm just saying that we've got a handful of dems willing to put on a bit of a show to get at the enemy, and as a result, the "if it's not hazardous waste, how about inhaling some of this coal dust, Mr. Representative?" suggestion just might be feasible.
ShadowOfMadness wrote:
To be fair, that really is what the Republican plan boils down to. I know enough people with financial and/or existing conditions that probably are never going to be able to get health care under the pre-Obamacare model. :/
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it isn't basically that - I'm just saying that we've got a handful of dems willing to put on a bit of a show to get at the enemy, and as a result, the "if it's not hazardous waste, how about inhaling some of this coal dust, Mr. Representative?" suggestion just might be feasible.
Bakustra wrote:
A nice cross-section? I wasn't aware that Appalachian areas contributed a significant fraction of Democratic Congresspersons. Not to mention that it is potential GOP opposition that would kill the EPA regulations, rather than broad bipartisan support.
Coal is mined in 27 US states, and its burned all over the place as seen in the map below. With new power plants being billion dollar objects, even for something cheap like natural gas fired gas turbines, and over six hundred coal plants in operation today a tremendous inertia is stacked against change. http://realneo.us/system/files/ceres-lo ... ype650.jpg
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
