To just about everybody's surprise it appears that even the Trump Administration has serious concerns about the opening of Pebble Mine in Alaska.

Courtesy of The Hill:

The Trump administration is reviving a controversial Obama administration proposal to block a massive gold mine proposed in Alaska after previously saying it would revive the proposal. 

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt announced the surprise reversal late Friday, saying that the EPA now believes that the Pebble Mine project would be unacceptably harmful to Bristol Bay and its tributaries. 

Pruitt said he made the call after speaking with various stakeholders involved in the decision, citing serious concerns with the impact from mining and mining waste on the bay. 

“We have restored process, reviewed comments, and heard from a variety of stakeholders on whether to withdraw the proposed restrictions in the Bristol Bay watershed,” Pruitt said in a statement. 

“Based on that review, it is my judgment at this time that any mining projects in the region likely pose a risk to the abundant natural resources that exist there. Until we know the full extent of that risk, those natural resources and world-class fisheries deserve the utmost protection.”

Seriously I would NEVER have thought that freaking Scott Pruitt would put the brakes on this thing. 

I figured that Pruitt carried around an industrial strength condom just so that he could personally rape the land himself.

But I guess this just goes to show you that this Pebble Mine proposal is certain to be an environmental disaster of Biblical proportions.

So bad that even an administration which sees restrictions on development as a personal affront to their capitalist ideals cannot bring themselves to sign off on it.

EPA chief Scott Pruitt may be the king of paranoia.

Courtesy of the AP: 

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency used public money to have his office swept for hidden listening devices and bought sophisticated biometric locks for additional security. 

The spending items, totaling nearly $9,000, are among a string of increased counter-surveillance precautions taken by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who also requires around-the-clock protection by an armed security team. 

The EPA’s Office of Inspector General is already investigating Pruitt’s $25,000 purchase of a custom-made soundproof privacy booth for his office to deter eavesdropping on his phone calls.

An accounting of Pruitt’s spending for the bug sweep and pricey locks was provided to The Associated Press by an EPA employee who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing concerns of retaliation.

Does Scott Pruitt realize that he works for a government agency that deals with the environment and is NOT in fact working with the CIA?

Kind of makes me wonder if Donald Trump chooses his cabinet members based on the number of voices they hear in their heads.

EPA chief comforts fossil fuel companies by assuring him that new report which specifically blames climate change on humans will not impact his policy decisions.

Courtesy of USA Today: 

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said a newly released government report that lays most of the blame for the rise of global temperatures to human activity won't deter him from continuing to roll back the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, a major rule aimed at combating climate change. 

"We’re taking the very necessary step to evaluate our authority under the Clean Air Act and we’ll take steps that are required to issue a subsequent rule. That’s our focus," Pruitt said in an interview with USA TODAY Tuesday. "Does this report have any bearing on that? No it doesn’t. It doesn’t impact the withdrawal and it doesn’t impact the replacement."

You might be asking yourself why a scientific report would have zero impact on EPA policies, considering the job they are supposed to perform, and the answer to that is because it's only some report done by scientists.

Courtesy of the LA Times:  

Rigorous, independent research and analysis should undergird everything the government does. Nowhere is that more true than at the Environmental Protection Agency, which crafts and enforces a wide range of regulations aimed at limiting damage to the environment — and to people — from pollutants. Democratic administrations tend to use data to justify more aggressive regulation, while Republican administrations tend to prefer a lighter touch. But the current administration is following a third path, seemingly bent on converting the EPA into a science-be-damned rubber stamp for industry. And if director Scott Pruitt is successful, we will be living in a much more dangerous environment.

So no, a report from a bunch of scientists will NOT have an impact on the polices of the EPA, because the head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, simply does not believe in all that science mumbo jumbo.

Trump's EPA may be working to find a way to green light the Pebble Mine. Have I told you how much I dislike the people in this administration?

Courtesy of CNN: 

Within hours of meeting with a mining company CEO, the new head of the US Environmental Protection Agency directed his staff to withdraw a plan to protect the watershed of Bristol Bay, Alaska, one of the most valuable wild salmon fisheries on Earth, according to interviews and government emails obtained by CNN. 

The meeting between EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Tom Collier, CEO of Pebble Limited Partnership, took place on May 1, Collier and his staff confirmed in an interview with CNN. At 10:36 a.m. that same day, the EPA's acting general counsel, Kevin Minoli, sent an email to agency staff saying the administrator had "directed" the agency to withdraw an Obama-era proposal to protect the ecologically valuable wetland in southwest Alaska from certain mining activities. 

In 2014, after three years of peer-reviewed study, the Obama administration's EPA invoked a rarely used provision of the Clean Water Act to try to protect Bristol Bay after finding that a mine "would result in complete loss of fish habitat due to elimination, dewatering, and fragmentation of streams, wetlands, and other aquatic resources" in some areas of the bay. 

"All of these losses would be irreversible," the agency said.

The EPA is suggesting that this does NOT mean they will give the go ahead for the mining project, suggesting that they  want to simply do an environmental impact statement first, but we know they are going to green light this project.

Remember everything that President Obama did, Donald Trump wants undone.

Alaskans fought this project for years, and now all of that hard work might be for nothing, because some racist white guy has a hard on for the first black president.

Seriously, have I mentioned how much I dislike the people in this administration?

Well now Donald Trump's ignorance about climate change is directly impacting Alaska.

Courtesy of The Guardian:

The Trump administration has moved to dismantle climate adaptation programs including the Denali Commission, an Anchorage-based agency that is crafting a plan to safeguard or relocate dozens of towns at risk from rising sea levels, storms and the winnowing away of sea ice. 

Federal assistance for these towns has been ponderous but could now grind to a halt, with even those working on the issue seemingly targeted by the administration. In July, Joel Clement, an interior department official who worked with Alaskan communities on climate adaptation, claimed he had been moved to a completely unrelated position because of the administration’s ideological hostility to the issue. 

“We were getting down to the brass tacks of relocation [of towns at risk] and now work has just stopped,” Clement told the Guardian. He has lodged an official complaint over his reassignment.

“Without federal coordination from Washington DC, there isn’t much hope. This will take millions of dollars and will take years, and these people don’t have years. I think it’s clear I was moved because of my climate work. It feels like a complete abdication of responsibility on climate change.” 

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, 31 Alaskan communities face “imminent” existential threats from coastline erosion, flooding and other consequences of temperatures that are rising twice as quickly in the state as the global average. A handful – Kivalina, Newtok, Shishmaref and Shaktoolik – are considered in particularly perilous positions and will need to be moved. 

“It was clear from the start of the Trump administration that there was no interest in helping Alaskan communities, particularly coastal communities, adapt to climate change,” said Victoria Hermann, president of the Arctic Institute. 

“There’s now no liaison from Washington on the issue. The biggest loss has been momentum. It feels like the Obama administration was kickstarting something useful but now it has dropped dead.”

It should be noted that Alaska natives overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton, and in an unusual move even endorsed her during the 2016 campaign.

They knew what the danger was in electing Donald Trump, and they feared what he would do to the country and how it could negatively impact their lives.

And they were right to fear.

These villages are in a very dire situation, and without government help they may lose the home they and their ancestors have inhabited for literally thousands of years.

The Denali Commission in Anchorage is working right now to raise funds and help them, but as it turns out they are also targeted for elimination by the Trump Administration.

When President Obama came here in 2015 he saw the problems facing our native communities and he implemented plans to help them.

If Hillary Clinton had won this election you can bet she would have kept those promises made by her predecessor.

Donald Trump on the other hand wants to literally undo EVERYTHING President Obama set in motion to help this planet and her people.

Like I said, the Alaska natives knew. Too bad so many failed to listen.

The once dead Pebble Mine project has now been resurrected, thanks to Donald Trump.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

Plans to mine alongside Alaska’s pristine Bristol Bay, where half the world’s salmon are fished, had appeared dead in the water in recent years. 

Not anymore. The Environmental Protection Agency has dropped a regulatory plan that would have protected Bristol Bay from the planned Pebble Mine, encouraging the project’s backers to seek permits and move forward. 

Northern Dynasty, the mining concern behind the Pebble project, has had a rough few years. In 2014, the Obama EPA moved to block its plans to mine for copper and gold under the Clean Water Act, prompting the company to launch a costly court battle. Then a New York investments house announced it believes the company’s stock is effectively worth $0.00 — because even if Pebble gets approved it will be economically impossible to extract the minerals there in a profitable fashion. 

Optimists, meanwhile, began pushing Northern Dynasty stock as a get-rich-quick opportunity following President Donald Trump’s election victory, in anticipation of a reversal in federal policy toward Pebble. On Friday, that prediction was proven at least partly correct: EPA head Scott Pruitt announced the agency would settle Northern Dynasty’s lawsuit, abandon Obama-era regulatory plans, and allow the company to apply for a mining permit.

Alaska natives, fishermen, and environmental groups worked pretty damn hard to put the kibosh on this terrible project, and now with one hijacked election we are back to square one. 

Elections have consequences, perhaps if Alaskans had bothered to research the candidates they would not have helped elect the man who will help to poison our precious Bristol Bay and murder thousands of our fish.

Did the much reviled Pebble Mine project just die with a whimper and not a bang?

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

A 15-year fight to mine for gold along Alaska’s pristine Bristol Bay might have just ended — with a whimper. 

Canadian mining firm Northern Dynasty Minerals has been a hot topic in investment advice since Election Day. The company’s stock jumped 326 percent after Donald Trump’s victory, as newsletters feverishly pitched the company’s prospects under the new regime. One even went so far as to label the stock “Trump’s Gold.” 

But Northern Dynasty’s long-planned gold and copper mine, located inside a key salmon spawning habitat, is less a secret fortune-maker and more an elaborate pump-and-dump stock scheme, investment analysts from Kerrisdale Capital said Tuesday. 

“All this enthusiasm is misplaced. We believe Northern Dynasty is worthless,” the analysts said in the note. Despite the stock jump, the company is actually “worth nothing because its key asset is not commercially viable.”

Well that's a little underwhelming. And yet gratifying. 

However it should be noted that this project has changed hands at least three times in the last fifteen years, and faced court orders and numerous protests, and yet it still refuses to completely die despite almost universal opposition from the Alaskan people. 

So is this it? Could this be the final nail in this project's coffin?

Well damn I hope so.

Rachel Maddow sounds the alarm concerning Donald Trump's threat to the environment.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Rachel Maddow said scientists who scrambled to save their data and copy it to non-government databases in the final days of the Obama administration weren’t being paranoid. 

 “Now we know, day four of the new administration, those people were not wrong to be freaked out,” Maddow said on her show Tuesday night. “And they probably, in the interest of science, were not wrong to be downloading and trying to save data privately because the data is disappearing.” 

The EPA has been “effectively stopped” with no official announcement from the agency or the White House. 

“The scientists are being told they are not allowed to speak or publish, it is already happening,” Maddow said. “It’s day four, it is already happening.” 

I think this may be one of the most important stories that MSNBC is covering right now, and we all need to pay attention.

And it gets worse: 

A leaked copy of the Trump team’s plan for the EPA calls for slashing its budget, “terminating climate programs,” ending auto fuel-economy standards, and executing “major reforms of the agency’s use of science and economics.”

Donald Trump is a 70 year old conspiracy theorist with no respect for facts or science.

He is quite literally the WORST person to be put in charge of agencies that help to protect this planet.

And yet thanks to James Comey and Russia, there he is. 

Among those who are hopeful about a Trump presidency, the folks behind the Pebble Mine.

Courtesy of ADN: 

The companies behind a decade-long effort to build a massive gold and copper mine in Alaska's Bristol Bay region are hoping the new administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump will breath new life into their struggling efforts. 

Trump was adamant during his campaign that he would pull back government oversight for natural resource projects, limiting the scope of environmental regulations and slowdowns that stand in their way. His pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has been a staunch courtroom opponent of what he sees as federal overreach. 

So now, the company is "hopeful," said Mike Heatwole, vice president for public affairs with Pebble Limited Partnership, the company created to ferry the project through to its golden end.

I imagine this is how a lot of companies behind potentially environmentally hazardous projects.

The Pebble Mine, the Keystone Pipeline, drilling in ANWR, there is no telling the number of environmentally damaging programs the Trump administration might okay before they are replaced with a more intelligent and Eco-friendly administration.

In other words, a Democratic one.

Before leaving office President Obama protects the Arctic by declaring portions of it off limits for oil exploration.

President Obama in Kotzebue, Alaska.

Courtesy of Phys.org:  

US President Barack Obama on Friday declared portions of the Arctic off-limits for oil exploration for the next five years, dealing a blow to Republican efforts to expand fossil fuel extraction. 

The decision means new oil and gas exploration leasing in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea will not be considered until after 2022. 

"Given the unique and challenging Arctic environment and industry's declining interest in the area, forgoing lease sales in the Arctic is the right path forward," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a statement. 

The US government made a similar announcement in March, when it removed the Atlantic Ocean from the five-year road map. 

Environmental groups hailed Friday's decision as historic and coming at a key moment, as President-elect Donald Trump has promised to expand drilling for oil and to revive the American coal industry. 

Apparently the decision pissed off Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski which proves that it is a good one.

However it is also a fact that if Donald Trump decides to do away with his ban it is within his power to do so, though he will receive significant resistance from environmental groups and Democrats.

Even with only weeks remaining of his term President Obama is still doing what he can to protect us, and our planet.

Sarah Palin gets herself all excited and has herself a gusher over the possibility of a Trump administration raping the planet a little harder.

Courtesy of the fracking moron's Facebook page: 

Drill, Baby Drill! American Made Energy Makes America Great Again (Not to be all science-y or anything but you cannot MAKE energy. You can only release energy or harness energy.)

Permian, ANWR, Prudhoe, Bakkan.... and so much more. NOW is the time to shut off the Saudi oil cartel flow valve and develop our own God-given natural resources. The only excuse not to become energy independent is a political excuse. (Exactly which is why President Obama spent so much of his time and political capital toward developing renewable energy sources. But of course that's not what she means is it?)

The inherent link between energy and security, and energy and prosperity, is real and recognized by every American except sketchy politicians and deceived faux environmentalists. We have the resources, we have the technology, we have the manpower. America has the highest environmental and worker safety standards in the world... it's time to say, "Screw Arab oil. We're making America great again!" We've always led in oil, gas and mineral development innovation. Let's tap it. (There is a reason those are called "fossil fuels," because they are rapidly becoming old and outdated. Kind of like your moldy old catch phrases.)

Politics have kept us beholden to countries that do not like us and use energy as a weapon. It's a farce when Pres. Obama and other progressives claim we're not reliant on those resources anymore. And a sicker farce is the claim we must go to war over oil. (Okay well that "sicker farce" was a product of the George W. Bush administration, NOT the Obama administration. Let's put the blame where it belongs.)

Shut off foreign rulers' flow that has kept their peasants poor and terrorizingly (Not a word.) desperate, and watch the world become a safer place.  (Do you know what else might help to accomplish that? Abolishing religion. Just a thought.)

And here at home, shovel out the BS "Peak Oil" claim that demands we abandon conventional energy sources in favor of unrealistic, uneconomic, unreliable, lobbyist- driven green energy boondoggles. ("Peak oil" is the point in time when the maximum rate of extraction of petroleum is reached, after which it is expected to enter terminal decline. Some would suggest that we have already reached it or are about to reach it soon.)  Drill now while we shore up realistic renewables for a legitimate "all of the above" future energy plan. (Why waste more money drilling up dirty oil, and mining pollution causing coal, which damages our environment when we are making such progress with renewable energy sources that leave the atmosphere virtually untouched, the blogger asked himself knowing that using logic and facts like that would only confuse and anger the co-author of this Facebook post.)

Be ready for faux environmentalists - with their disdain for American jobs dressed in Carhartts and steel toed boots - to target this massive Texas find, despite all commonsense and responsible reason to explore and produce. (Confused "commonsense" and "responsible" with "illogical" and "unnecessary" again.)


It's time to unleash the private sector on new refineries, rigs, pipelines, infrastructure, service provisions, etc... all basic needs for more responsible domestic extraction, and all leading to the USA boom our working class deserves.

Man you can almost feel how excited she is at the prospect of having an administration in place with as little respect for the planet as she has can't you?

You know I thought about simply ignoring this, because you know Sarah Palin who?

However the fact is that she, and others of her ilk, really do now have a sympathetic ear in the White House, and we stand the very real possibility of seeing years of research and development concerning renewable energy tossed aside like one of Donald Trump's former wives.

Trump himself has said that he believes that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by "Jina," so even if he does not choose Palin as the Secretary of the Interior, the person he does pick will very likely be almost as dangerous to our environment.

I just had a terrible thought.

Do we think it conceivable that Trump will believe in Palin's mythological energy bona fides and actually ask her for advice on energy and oil exploration?

Well since he apparently appointed a racist, antisemitic,  misogynistic pig as his adviser I think that seems more than feasible.

Okay how soon will those commercial trips to Mars be available again?

I'm asking for a friend.

Another reminder as to why Alaskans can never honestly deny the existence of man made climate change.

Courtesy of Truth Out:

In late June, due to glaciers melting at unprecedented rates, the side of a mountain nearly a mile high in Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park, which had formerly been supported by glacial ice, collapsed completely. The landslide released over 100 million tons of rock, sending debris miles across a glacier beneath what was left of the mountain. 

This is something that has been happening more often in recent years in the northernmost US state. While Alaska's local conservative media often tend to feign ignorance of the cause of such phenomena, what's causing it is all too clear. The state has been hitting and surpassing record temperatures over the last year, and the same can be said for the globe. It's plainly obvious why ice is melting at record rates. To see more stories like this, visit "Planet or Profit?" 

Mountains that have been largely covered by glaciers for eons are losing their ice cover and the soggy, unstable land underneath is giving way. The landslides are usually large enough to cause seismic tremors and sometimes, when close enough to the ocean, tsunamis. 

Also in June, Arctic sea ice had melted down to a record low, with 29,000 miles of it disappearing each day. By month's end, the sea ice was 100,000 square miles below the previous record for June -- set just six years ago -- and more than half-a-million square miles below the 1981-2010 long-term average, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Excepting March, every single month of this year thus far has set a new record low for ice cover in the Arctic. 

To Alaskans, at least those who are not making a living off the oil industry that dominates the state's financial and political economies, the evidence before them is impossible to ignore.

That last sentence is key.

The first Alaskans to start making a stink about climate change up here, after the scientists of course, were the rural natives whose subsistence lifestyles were the first to feel the impact of melting ice, changing migration routes, and unpredictable weather patterns.

But these days the changes are so obvious that you would have to be an idiot on the level of a Palin not to recognize that stepping outside your house is akin to being transported thousands of miles away into an environment that is only minimally reminiscent of the place where those of us living here in the 1970's and 80's knew to be our home.

It is likely much too late do anything to significantly impact the changes that are only right now starting to come our way, but doing nothing means we have failed to recognize the fact that we have an obligation as residents of this planet to contribute to its survival.  

Sorry scratch that, the planet will be fine. It is OUR survival that we need to be concerned about.

Perhaps that is enough to kick start our desire for self preservation so we can start voting some of these Koch sucking Republicans out of office and replacing them with politicians who see the big picture and will vote for policies to dramatically reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and start spending some serious money on renewable energy sources.

At least one would hope.

Last oil company relinquishes oil drilling leases in the Chukchi Sea.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

Repsol, a Spanish oil company which owned a significant portion of the drilling leases for Alaska’s Chukchi Sea, abandoned 55 of them last week and plans to drop the remaining 38 next year. 

“Repsol is in the process of relinquishing its Chukchi Sea acreage position offshore Alaska,” Repsol spokeswoman Jan Sieving said in a statement. 

The Spanish company joins the rush of oil drillers — Shell, ConocoPhillips, Eni, and Iona Energy — departing the Arctic region after concluding that offshore drilling is not worth the expense or the risk. After Shell spent over $4 billion attempting to develop offshore Arctic oil and completing just one exploratory well, it said it was done in the Chukchi “for the foreseeable future.” This was two years after Shell’s Kulluk rig ran aground and had to get rescued by the Coast Guard heading south attempting to avoid paying more taxes in 2013. 

Apart from one token Shell lease block that the company is retaining to keep the information it gained from its failed 2015 exploratory well, Repsol’s leases were the last blocks remaining in the Chukchi. 

“Last month we figured out that Shell and a bunch of other companies had given up their leases,” said Mike Levine, Oceana’s Pacific senior counsel, told ThinkProgress. “After eight years, billions of dollars, and significant controversy, we’re back to a clean slate in the Chukchi sea.”

Finally.

I always thought that drilling in the Chukchi Sea was incredibly risky to our environment and was very upset then President Obama gave Shell Oil a permit to start exploring for oil there in 2015.  

However I seemed to have underestimated our President, which is something I swore I would not do again, and late in 2015 he refused to issue any more licenses and then sat back waiting for these companies to fail and give up, which they have now done.

So now the pristine environment of the northern Alaska sea appears to be safe.

At least for now. Assuming of course we can keep Republicans out of the White House.

Obama administration cancels drilling leases. There will be no more drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

The Obama administration took a number of actions Friday to restrict future offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean. 

The Interior Department is canceling two lease sales it had planned over the next year and a half for Arctic drilling rights and denying two oil companies’ requests to extend the time on leases that they currently hold. 

The decision comes weeks after Royal Dutch Shell pulled out of the Arctic for the foreseeable future, saying the little oil it found in this summer’s drilling is not worth the cost. 

The administration said its decisions are based on the current oil markets and low interest in Arctic drilling. 

But it’s also a significant action to crack down on one of the most controversial types of offshore oil and gas drilling that has environmentalists fired up in opposition. 

“In light of Shell’s announcement, the amount of acreage already under lease and current market conditions, it does not make sense to prepare for lease sales in the Arctic in the next year and a half,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a statement, complimenting her staff’s work overseeing the safety and environmental standards of Shell’s drilling in the Chukchi Sea, about 70 miles northwest of Alaska’s coast. 

Shell’s Chukchi lease is due to expire in 2020. Norway’s Statoil had also requested an extension of a lease expiring in 2017 in the nearby Beaufort Sea, which was also rejected.

Well I guess that takes care of that. At least for the duration of the Obama administration.

And Hillary Clinton has already tweeted that she is opposed to drilling in the Arctic, which means unless there is a Republican in the White House in the near future the Arctic is safe from the environmental impact caused by oil spills.

Well at least from American oil companies that is.

Okay is it possible that we all got played by President Obama?

I mean I got pretty pissed off at the President over the fact that he allowed Shell oil to drill in the Arctic Ocean in the first place, only to see them fail miserably.

And now with this decision it seems he is using that failure to justify restricting ALL drilling in the Arctic. You know, just as if he planned it all along.

Why do I get the feeling that in about twenty years people are going to start learning what was really going on behind the scenes of this presidency and that their minds will be blown when they do?

President vetoes Republican bill to build Keystone XL project.

Nice try GOP.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

President Obama vetoed a bill authorizing the controversial Keystone XL pipeline Tuesday, carrying out a threat to reject one of the first measures the Republican-led Congress sent to the president's desk. 

"Because this act of Congress conflicts with established executive branch procedures and cuts short thorough consideration of issues that could bear on our national interest -- including our security, safety, and environment -- it has earned my veto," Obama wrote in a message to the Senate. 

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said earlier Tuesday that Obama planned to veto the bill because the State Department is still conducting a review of whether the massive pipeline — which would transport roughly 800,000 barrels of heavy crude from Hardisty, Alberta, to refineries in Port Arthur, Tex. — would serve the national interest. 

"Through this bill, the United States Congress attempts to circumvent longstanding and proven processes for determining whether or not building and operating a cross-border pipeline serves the national interest," Obama wrote.

Well this is going to piss off a whole lot of Republican lawmakers.

Not that they did not see this coming of course. 

I keep hearing some pundits suggesting that the President might ultimately allow the pipeline to be built, once the State Department review is complete, but I have a hard time believing he would do that.

Anybody of a different opinion?

Robert Reich explains why we should urge President Obama to veto the Keystone XL pipeline for good.

Courtesy of MoveOn.org:  

President Obama says he’ll veto the latest attempt by Congress to push through the Keystone XL pipeline, but he hasn’t yet committed to rejecting this dangerous proposal outright. 

That’s where we come in. Tell President Obama that he should stop Keystone XL for good—and do it now.

As usual Robert Reich explains something complicated in a way that makes it simple for even those a little slow on the uptake to understand. 

Probably helps that he was a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

I hope the President is listening and takes his advice.

President will veto bill for Keystone XL pipeline if it comes across his desk. Now we're talking.

Courtesy of CNN:  

President Barack Obama will veto the Keystone XL bill if Congress passes a measure green-lighting the oil pipeline, White House press secretary Josh Earnest announced on Tuesday. 

The pipeline is currently in a final phase of review from the State Department, which has already concluded that it would have a minimal impact on the environment. But the State Department also assessed that the pipeline would create about 42,000 jobs directly and indirectly during the construction period -- but just 50 permanent jobs. 

The White House reviewed the text of the bill to authorize the pipeline on Monday, Earnest said. 

Obama's objection to the legislation, Earnest said, is not based on the merits of the project so much as the idea Congress was trying to take the decision out of the hands of the executive branch. 

"The President has been pretty clear that he does not think that circumventing a well-established process for evaluating these projects is the right thing for Congress to do," Earnest said.

Can I just tell you how much I am enjoying this second half of his second term President Obama?

Kind of like to vote for him again if I could.

Well great now we are on the cusp of starting another war with the Native American people. Over a stupid pipeline yet.

Courtesy of Lakota Voice:  

In response to today’s vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to authorize the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, the Rosebud Sioux Tribal President announced that the Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Lakota Oyate) recognizes the authorization of this pipeline as an act of war. 

The Tribe has done its part to remain peaceful in its dealings with the United States in this matter, in spite of the fact that the Rosebud Sioux Tribe has yet to be properly consulted on the project, which would cross through Tribal land, and the concerns brought to the Department of Interior and to the Department of State have yet to be addressed. 

“The House has now signed our death warrants and the death warrants of our children and grandchildren. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe will not allow this pipeline through our lands,” said President Scott of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. “We are outraged at the lack of intergovernmental cooperation. We are a sovereign nation and we are not being treated as such. We will close our reservation borders to Keystone XL. Authorizing Keystone XL is an act of war against our people.” 

In February of this year, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and other members of the Great Sioux Nation adopted Tribal resolutions opposing the Keystone XL project. 

“The Lakota people have always been stewards of this land,” added President Scott. “We feel it is imperative that we provide safe and responsible alternative energy resources not only to Tribal members but to non-Tribal members as well. We need to stop focusing and investing in risky fossil fuel projects like TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. We need to start remembering that the earth is our mother and stop polluting her and start taking steps to preserve the land, water, and our grandchildren’s future.” 

The Rosebud Sioux Tribe, along with several other South Dakota Tribes, stand together in opposition to risky and dangerous fossil fuel projects like TransCanada’s Keystone XL. The proposed route of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline crosses directly through Great Sioux Nation (Oceti Sakowin) Treaty lands as defined by both the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties and within the current exterior boundaries of the Rosebud Sioux Reservation and Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation.

Well that could not be any more disturbing to read.

And the Lakota tribe is completely in the right on this issue.  Something that usually I would expect the Democrats to recognize.

Look I understand why Mary Landrieu sponsored the bill to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline, and I understand why some Democrats feel they must support it.

But ultimately it will not help Landrieu hang onto her Senate seat, and it WILL anger not only the native American people but also the environmentalist who have usually been a reliable demographic for Democrats.

Personally I would rather lose a Senate seat, than to lose the support of voters that we are desperately going to need in the next two years.

Elections have consequences. Thanks to the Republican takeover of the Senate this guy will now be in charge of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Courtesy of The New Republic: 

In handing Republicans control of the Senate on Tuesday, Americans effectively voted for the party's hostile plans against President Barack Obama’s environmental legacy. Their votes also put the Senate's environment and climate policy into the hands of the worst science-denier in national politics: Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who is almost certainly the next chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. 

Inhofe claimed in 2003 that global warming might help humanity. “It's also important to question whether global warming is even a problem for human existence. Thus far no one has seriously demonstrated any scientific proof that increased global temperatures would lead to the catastrophes predicted by alarmists. In fact, it appears that just the opposite is true: that increases in global temperatures may have a beneficial effect on how we live our lives.” In that same speech, he argued that an international body of climate change scientists “resembled a Soviet-style trial, in which the facts are predetermined, and ideological purity trumps technical and scientific rigor.” 

Inhofe refuted climate change science in 2012 by citing the Bible. “[T]he Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that ‘as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.’ My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”

I first heard this on election night from Rachel Maddow and I was hoping that there might be a slim possibility that she was wrong.

Nope.

So what do you think, since the UN says that most electricity must be produced through renewable energy by 20150,  we need to get off of fossil fuels altogether before 2100, do we think that Inhofe is going to do any work toward making that a reality?

Or do we think he is going to do everything in his power to defund climate science research and completely disregard any current findings that conflict with his belief that the climate is controlled by God with a thermostat in the sky?

We're doomed.

Conservatives are now modifying their diesel trucks into "coal rollers" which purposefully emit more pollutant in order to piss off liberals. WTF?

Courtesy of Business Insider:

"Coal Rollers" are diesel trucks modified with chimneys and equipment that can force extra fuel into the engine causing dark black smoke to pour out of the chimney stacks. These modifications are not new, but as Slate's Dave Weigel pointed out on Thursday, "rolling coal" has begun to take on a political dimension with pickup drivers increasingly viewing their smokestacks as a form of protest against environmentalists and Obama administration emissions regulations. 

Last month, Vocativ noted many coal rollers focus their fumes on "nature nuffies," or people who drive hybrids, and "rice burners," or Japanese-made cars. 

 "The feeling around here is that everyone who drives a small car is a liberal," a roller named Ryan told Vocativ. "I rolled coal on a Prius once just because they were tailing me." 

Here is how one salesperson explained it:  

"I run into a lot of people that really don’t like Obama at all," the salesperson said. "If he’s into the environment, if he’s into this or that, we’re not. I hear a lot of that. To get a single stack on my truck—that’s my way of giving them the finger. You want clean air and a tiny carbon footprint? Well, screw you." 

If that does not infuriate you enough take a look at one of these "cola rollers" in action.

Courtesy of Slate:  

At 23 seconds, the engine revs and the viewer finally learns what the arrows were pointing at. Smoke pours out of dual stacks, right in the path of the Prius, which retreats into the rear view. The truck’s passengers share a well-earned chortle. 

“Alright, enough!” says one of them. 

“You got ’im!” says another. 

“We got ’im!” says a co-conspirator.

Yep this is what the people who want to improve the planet for their children, and protect them from an environmental disaster, are up against. 

And they vote too.