[Mb-civic] More environews!

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

TAXHOLES
House Republicans fight to preserve $5 billion in oil industry tax breaks

In public, prominent Republicans are chastising oil companies over high gas
prices, and threatening price-gouging investigations and windfall-profit taxes.
Behind closed doors, House Republicans are fighting to protect some $5 billion
worth of tax loopholes for those very same oil companies. Luckily for them, the
country's Strategic Outrage Reserve has been completely tapped. At issue is a
tax bill designed mainly to extend the tax cuts for the rich passed in Bush's
first term. The Senate version includes changes in arcane tax accounting rules,
among them rules that allow oil companies to grossly underestimate the value of
their inventories. House Republicans are furiously fighting the changes, with
backing from the White House. In February, Treasury Secretary John Snow sent
letters to Congress stating that "the president's senior advisors would
recommend that the president veto the legislation if this provision remains."
After all, populist-friendly rhetoric is one thing, but we're talking about
real money here!

straight to the source: The Washington Post, Jonathan Weisman, 26 Apr 2006
http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6842


YUCCA FOOL SOME OF THE PEOPLE SOME OF THE TIME
Feds won't press charges against scientists who falsified Yucca documents

Scientists accused of falsifying quality-assurance documents for the proposed
Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste site in Nevada will not be charged by federal
prosecutors. Emails between U.S. Geological Survey hydrologists from 1998 to
2000 indicate that dates were invented and inconvenient data was deleted as
hydrologists conducted a data review before the Energy Department sought a
license for the nuke-waste dump. The White House is pushing to speed up
construction at Yucca, which is supposed to store 77,000 tons of waste from
nuclear power plants. Despite the decision not to file charges, the Energy
Department's inspector general admitted that the scientists' lapse has "had the
effect of undermining public confidence in the quality of the science
associated with the Yucca Mountain Project." Because that confidence was
sky-high before, don't you know.

straight to the source: The Salt Lake Tribune, Robert Gehrke, 26 Apr 2006
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6837>

straight to the source: Bloomberg, Tina Seeley, 25 Apr 2006
http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6838

WONDER IF NEW ORLEANS WROTE THEM A RECOMMENDATION LETTER
Army Corps can continue its Missouri River meddling, Supreme Court says

In bad news for enviros (why are we always saying that?), the Supreme Court has
declined to hear challenges in three cases questioning the Army Corps of
Engineers' authority on the Missouri River. With authority now decidedly in
hand, the Corps can continue to prioritize the downstream shipping industry
over upstream recreation and environmental concerns. North and South Dakota and
green groups had urged the Corps to store more water in upstream reservoirs,
benefiting the fishing industry and endangered aquatic life. "The Corps has
favored the larger, downstream states for far too long," said Montana Attorney
General Mike McGrath. However, in a teensy bit of good news, the Supremes'
decision also means that the Corps can go ahead with a planned early May
"spring rise," a release of water to encourage spawning by the endangered
pallid sturgeon. Enviros support the release, while upstream states worry about
a water shortage and downstream states worry about flooding.

straight to the source: Great Falls Tribune, Associated Press and Gwen Florio,
25 Apr 2006
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6830>

straight to the source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Bill Lambrecht, 24 Apr 2006
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6832>


LET'S BAIKAL THE WHOLE THING OFF
Russian president changes route of Siberian pipeline to protect lake

Last month, we reported that a Siberia-to-Asia oil pipeline backed by
Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to be built half a mile from the
world's deepest lake, home to hundreds of unique species. Well, we've been
Putin our place: yesterday, the Russian prez ordered the pipeline rerouted
to avoid Lake Baikal by at least 25 miles. Widespread public protests and
opposition from Russian scientists and green groups likely had, well,
nothing to do with it -- this is Putin we're talking about. More likely
the dramatic reversal was theater to impress the G8, which he's chairing
this year. Nonetheless, enviros -- who had feared that an oil spill in the
seismically unstable area around Baikal could, you know, damage the lake
somehow -- celebrated the decision. Said a Greenpeace spokesperson, "We
... see it as a sign that the government does not only listen to those
people who have political and business power." Mm-hmm.

straight to the source: Reuters, Oliver Bullough, 26 Apr 2006
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6843>

straight to the source: The New York Times, Steven Lee Myers, 26 Apr 2006
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6844>

straight to the source: RIA Novosti, 26 Apr 2006
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6845>


OLLUTE SUIT RIOT
States sue EPA for not regulating CO2

Ten states have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. EPA over what has become
a central point of contention between the feds and ... people who have to
live on the planet for the next 50 years: whether or not the agency has
the authority to regulate planet-warming carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
Plaintiffs -- who've been joined by two cities and three green groups --
insist that the Clean Air Act covers CO2, and want the EPA to cap CO2
emissions from power plants (and tighten restrictions on other
pollutants). The issue is urgent, as some 135 new power plants are in the
planning stages, and if they're free to spew greenhouse gases without
restriction, says Daniel Becker of the Sierra Club, they will "blow a hole
in the world's effort to curb global warming." Two related suits were
dismissed last year and are under appeal, but plaintiffs say this suit is
more narrowly targeted on the CO2 issue and, says one state lawyer, "we
feel we have an extraordinarily strong argument on that point." 

straight to the source: Bloomberg, Michael B. Marois, 27 Apr 2006
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6854>

straight to the source: The New York Times, Danny Hakim, 28 Apr 2006
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6855>


THROW IN A PONY, AND WE'LL TALK
In lieu of real energy policy, senators propose sending people checks

Apparently driven insane by high gasoline prices, congressfolk are
reaching virtuosic heights of pandering and venality, approaching some
sort of Platonic ideal of What's Wrong With Politics These Days. Exhibit
A: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) just unveiled a proposal
that would bribe the American people with $100 checks in exchange for
permission to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We wish that
were some kind of metaphor or figure of speech, but really, that's what it
does: Everyone with an income below $125,000 would get a $100 check -- to
help with gas prices, you see -- and oil companies would get drilling.
Exhibit B: Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) introduced a bill that would
repeal $5 billion in oil-company tax cuts and send a $500 tax rebate to
families earning under $119,950. We don't have a crystal ball or anything,
but we'll hazard a guess that this legislative race to the bottom is not
going to end in sensible energy policy. Anyone wanna take bets?

straight to the source: Bloomberg, Tina Seeley, 27 Apr 2006
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6852>

straight to the source: Petoskey News-Review, Fred Gray, 25 Apr 2006
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6853>


THEY PUT THE "DIES" IN "SUBSIDIES" 
Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" traced back to farm subsidies

You know that massive "dead zone" that shows up every year in the Gulf of
Mexico? The oxygen-starved, life-free patch of water about the size of,
oh, Connecticut? That's your tax dollars at work. The zone is caused
largely by nitrogen-based fertilizers, which flow downriver from farms in
a small set of counties in the Midwest -- farms the Department of
Agriculture subsidized to the tune of some $30 billion between 1997 and
2002. In contrast, in that period conservation programs in those same
counties received ... $75 million. Love those priorities. This info comes
from a new study by the Environmental Working Group. "In the crudest
sense, we're paying people to pollute," says an EWG ecologist. A
multistate compact to shrink the dead zone to one-third its current size
by 2015 has been ineffective so far, possibly because despite incentives,
the program is voluntary. The hypoxic area is a major threat to
Louisiana's fishing industry, one of the world's most productive. 

straight to the source: The Times-Picayune, Matthew Brown, 17 Apr 2006
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6781>


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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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