Drillusion

At times, we might forget that there are a good number of very bright, extremely dedicated, and fundamental people working in Congress. Elected officials and staff. Our funding system that seems to drive member after member to be begging, tin in cup, for funds can make the entire process look open to purchase.  The traditional media mania for ever lower quality reporting magnifies this, making foolish shallowness the norm.  Reality is far from this and it is worthwhile at times to take a moment to consider that reality. 

An e-mail came into me today that reminded me of this, a letter with perhaps the best single word I’ve seen to summarize Republican truthiness when it comes to energy issues but a letter with substance.

Drillusion

Thank you  Representative Earl Blumenauer. 

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What to do about gas prices?

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Americans United for Change has launched a campaign to Free Our Oil! While an interesting response to the Republican focus on lying to support drilling, I challenged this campaign, stating that this effort supports a quite dangerous framing of the problems and solutions.

If we make this just about gas prices, we are caught into a very dangerous framing. “Lowering” gas prices gets people thinking back to cheaper energy unit costs days. We need people, the nation thinking about enery as a system, as a “cost to own” rather than “cost to buy”. We (the nation) should foster upfront investment (help it) that will lower total “cost to own” by reducing wasteful use of polluting energy. While difficult in a robocall, every single message (I would argue) should avoid getting captured in messaging that fosters thinking that we can go back to days of cheaper gasoline. Over the long term (and likely short term), it isn’t going to happen.

In response, I was asked the following question:

Say, for example, you were on TV today as a representative of the Democratic Party. The interviewer asks, “A, what is the Democratic Party doing in Congress to help lower oil/gas costs for Americans who are hurting?” What’s your answer?

The GOP has an answer – gas tax holiday and drilling offshore. You and I know that these are two options that won’t do anything significant in the short-term, and we they do nothing to change the culture of oil that we live in. However, they are ideas and Americans want to hear ideas, be them good or bad.

What can the Dems do right now to bring down costs, without sacrificing their long-term message of changing the way we think about oil. OR, given our foreign policy and the world as it is today. is $4/5/6/gallon just the new reality and we need to suck it up?

For my off-the-top of the head (basically unedited) response, follow me after the fold.

Greening the SchoolHouse

Last month, to far (FAR) less attention than it merited, the House of Representatives (facing an Administration veto threat) passed the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act with $20 billion for greening public schools across the nation.

Taking aggressive action to green schools is about one of the smartest steps the nation can take, action that should go beyond bipartisanship to true unity of action as it is a win-win-win-win strategy along so many paths:

Save money for communities and taxpayers

Create employment

Foster capacity for ‘greening’ the nation

Reduce pollution loads

Improve health

Improve student performance / achievement

And, well, other benefits. In the face of these benefits, “The White House threatened a veto, saying it was wrong for the federal government to launch a costly new school-building program.”

Faux News: “Most Republicans crazy like a man stuck in a toilet”

Truth be told, the title isn’t an exact quote, but it isn’t far off.  

Yesterday on Fox News, anchor Shep Smith was recounting the story of a man in Pennsylvania who was stuck in a port-a-potty. According to the York Daily Record (PA), the man was “drunk, naked and wedged up to his waist in the hole of the toilet.” Toward the end of the segment, Smith compared people who get stuck in toilets to “people who deny the whole global warming thing.” “They’re just a little crazy, you know?” said Smith. “What do you do?”

Where do the Republicans come into this? The majority don’t believe that humanity is driving Global Warming.

A pause re profitability …

The Lieberman-Warner Climate inSecurity Act (CISA) can accurately be described as the Coal Subsidy Act. With all the embedded subsidies and support for the coal industry, why is the coal industry fighting the Coal Subsidy Act? In short: not enough.

Republicans: Do Nothing … unless it is Drill and Kill …

Just a short post to highlight something that is going on right now that merits attention. Courtesy of CSPAN Radio, I (and others) have the opportunity to be listening to the ongoing proceedings of the US Senate. Why? Because I wanted to be listening to the debates and discussions on the Senate floor related to the Lieberman-Warner Climate inSecurity Act (CiSA). As with so much of what has been going on in the House of Representatives, the Drill and Kill Republicans, engaged in a coordinated truthiness effort to falsely make it seem too expensive to do anything about Global Warming, are willing to be abusive of the Senate to disrupt legitimate and meaningful discussion of climate change and climate change legislation. What did they do today? Refused to grant unanimous consent to waive the reading of the bill. Thus, the poor clerk is reading the entire bill. A long … long … long bill. I am striving to listen, at least a little, so that she is not simply speaking into a void as it is hard to believe that a single Republican Senator is actually listening and paying attention to the reading of the bill. The refusal to accept waiving of the bill has nothing to do with good governance, has nothing to do with enabling meaningful discussion and debate about issues critical to the nation, but everything to do with disruptive political activities.

Truthiness into the inbox …

It had seemed that ABEC had bit the dust, having been transformed into ACCCE. But, it seems that obituary might have been a bit too soon as my in-box just was filled with truthiness and deception from the astroturfing Americans for Balanced Energy Choices. Let’s take a brief look at this material from America’s coal power purveyors.