Yesterday, the NRDC Action Fund launched a campaign featuring a powerful new ad by renowned environmental activist and celebrated actor, Edward James Olmos. In the video, which you can view here, Olmos explains what makes people - himself included - "locos" when it comes to U.S. energy and environmental policy. Now, as the Senate moves towards a possible debate on energy and climate legislation, we need to let everyone hear Olmos' message.
Hi, I'm Edward James Olmos. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I guess that's what makes Americans "locos." We keep yelling "drill baby drill" and expecting things to turn out ok. But the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is nothing new. The oil industry has been poisoning our oceans and wilderness for decades. It's time to regain our sanity. America doesn't want more oil disasters. We need safe, clean and renewable energy now. Think about it.
Sadly, Olmos' definition of "insanity" is exactly what we've been doing for decades in this country -- maintaining policies that keep us "addicted" to fossil fuels instead of moving towards a clean, prosperous, and sustainable economy.
As we all know, dirty, outdated energy sources have caused serious harm to our economy, to our national security, and of course - as the horrible Gulf oil disaster illustrates - to our environment. In 2008 alone, the U.S. spent nearly $400 billion, about half the entire U.S. trade deficit, importing foreign oil. Even worse, much of that $400 billion went to countries (and non-state actors) that don't have our best interests at heart.
As if all that's not bad enough, our addiction to oil and other fossil fuels also has resulted in tremendous environmental devastation, ranging from melting polar ice caps to record heat waves to oil-covered pelicans and dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico.
As Edward James Olmos says, it's enough to drive us all "locos."
Fortunately, there's a better way.
If you believe, as we passionately do, that it's time to kick our addiction to the dirty fuels of the past, then please help us get that message out there. Help us air Edward James Olmos' ad on TV in states with U.S. Senators who we believe can be persuaded to vote for comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation. If we can convince our politicians to do their jobs and to pass comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation this year, we will be on a path to a brighter, healthier future.
Tim Walberg will finally make himself useful to his constituents today - he will pump your gas at the Riverside C-Store, 240 E. Columbia Avenue in Battle Creek, starting at 1PM. Good to see him putting in an honest day's work. If you are in the area, might want to stop by and ask him a few questions.
For example, let's concede his talking point on new drilling. Just give it to him up front. The real question behind that is - what makes Walberg think that Big Oil will invest in physical operations, when currently they sink 55 percent of their money into the stock market, and only spend in the "mid-single digits" towards finding new deposits?
No one questions that Big Oil is rolling in cash. The cash the biggest oil companies bring in from running their businesses, or operating cash flow, is four times what it was in the early 1990s.
"It becomes a management decision," said Howard Silverblatt, a senior index analyst at Standard & Poor's. "It's not like they're going to the board and saying, 'Well, I can do one or the other or the other.' The balance sheets are flush with cash."
So what's Big Oil to do?
The companies say they are doing what they can to find more fossil fuels around the world, but the easy oil is gone. Exploring these days may mean expensive projects in thousands of feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico or costly ventures pulling petroleum from Canada's vast oil-sands deposits.
Even if we opened up new areas to drilling, there is no guarantee the oil companies would actually drill. They have shareholders that they answer to, not the consumer, and they have made it clear that is their priority. Wonder what Tim would say about that.
You also might want to ask him why he voted against lowering gas prices. A release from the reserves in the past has had an immediate effect on raising supplies, and that in turn has cooled the market. Granted, this is not a long-term solution, but it would help to curb the increasing inflationary pressures on products that are happening due to high energy costs that, coupled with the housing crisis, are curbing consumer spending in all areas and are pushing the nation's economy towards recession.
Walberg on Thursday voted against a bill that would have required the Energy Department to release 70 million of the 706 million barrels of oil stockpiled in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a network of underground caverns along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. The 70 million barrels would have been replaced with a heavier grade oil, keeping the emergency reserve at capacity.
The bill failed, but proponents argued it would have put a bunch of oil on the market and, as a result of natural supply-and-demand logic, necessitated a lowering of gasoline prices across the country. That's how it worked with past releases in 1991, 2000 and 2005.
If there was ever a time for a strategic release, it's probably now. Why won't the Republicans help out regular people and our economy? Because they are more interested in giving Big Oil more breaks before they are ushered out of office. No other reason is plausible; the excuse from Bush about "an emergency" doesn't fly when the reserves will be replaced. Dick Durbin spells it out in no uncertain terms.
Top Senate Democrats also charge that Republicans are more interested in helping oil companies than finding solutions to high gas prices.
"Now they want to give them [the oil companies] a big, fat, sloppy smooch as they leave office by extending millions of acres for drilling across the United States and the outer continental shelf," said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate Democratic whip. "It isn't going to happen."
Ask Tim why he wants to help the oil companies rather than the consumers. Ask Tim why they won't drill in the untapped space they have now. Ask Tim why he would vote against a measure that would help ease inflationary pressures on our economy and your wallet.
And just for fun, ask Tim to "check the oil" while he's pumping your gas today. It might be good for a laugh.
OIL, HOW HIGH WILL IT GO
"One of the biggest challenges our country faces is our addiction to oil."[N]
Oil is up by almost 30 per cent this year alone. That's not the fault of greedy energy companies, or that other current favorite, unscrupulous speculators. It is a simple fact of economic life in a world economy that is, in effect, experiencing a new industrial revolution among half its population.[T2]
______________________
GOOD MORNING FLINT!
BY Terry Bankert 5/21/08
You are invited to join me at Face Book http://www.facebook.com/people... _________________________
Full article at http://goodmorningflint.blogsp... Flint Talk
http://flinttalk.com/viewtopic... _______________________
BLOGGING FOR MICHIGAN http://bloggingformichigan.com/ Great information from caring people in Michigan USA
________________________
REFLECTIONS;Watching our economic decline reminds me of watching the decline of a parent. You don't notice many of the little adjustments made then one day the end is at hand. I feel the same way about our middle class. Possibly its going away. We do not notice the little adjustment but one day the end is near, gas is $10 a gallon, food cost quadrupled, we cannot afford houses, our kids cannot afford an education, the rich are richer and the poor are poorer and the poor are now a larger group because we are in it. Its happening ....unless we act united as a country with strong leadership.,kiss your life style good bye. Will you be able to explain to your grandchildren why you did nothing to protest what is happening, today. Count me in for the battle how about you.? [trb]
(Senator Jim Barcia served in the Michigan House from 1977 - '82, and the Michigan Senate from 1983 until he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan's 5th congressional district in 1992, where he served until 2002. When the 2000 census eliminated a congressional seat, Barcia was encouraged by his constituents to return to the Michigan Senate, where today he serves the 31st district as the Associate President Pro Tempore of the Senate, as well as the Democratic Whip. Welcome Senator Barcia! - promoted by wizardkitten)
There's a big argument going on among scientists and environmental experts about how long the world's supply of oil and natural gas is going to last. The one thing they agree on is that it won't last forever. While we're experiencing shortages and price fluctuations, our children and grandchildren could see a day when the oil supply runs out entirely, especially from politically volatile areas like the Middle East. But we can prepare for and even capitalize on that dire prediction. Michigan's future lies in renewable energy and renewable fuels, and it's a theme that Gov. Granholm emphasized in her radio address last week, prior to her departure to Sweden and Germany to recruit high tech businesses to Michigan.
I too believe Michigan's future is in renewable energy and renewable fuels. That is why I'm sponsoring SB 385 to require that 20% of electricity used here in Michigan come from renewable resources, like wind, biomass from agriculture, hydro, or solar power, by the year 2020. More than 20 states and the District of Columbia have implemented Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), ranging from a low of 2.2% by 2011 in Wisconsin up to 25% by 2025 in Minnesota. So, while this legislation I'm offering is ambitious for Michigan, it's firmly in the mainstream of policy decisions being made across the country.
The manager of British Petroleum's Whiting, Indiana, refinery said Thursday that the company will not dump additional waste into Lake Michigan despite having the nessecary permits to do so.
