Find out how Cooch took $55,000 from the disgraced "U.S. Navy Veterans Association," in apparent exchange for his promise to get the Virginia Office of Consumer Affairs (which had "notified Thompson's group that it no longer qualified for an exemption from state registration requirements") off the group's back. Can we say "pay-to-play?" Find out more.
Update by Miles: "Dominion Virginia Power is interested in building up to 400 wind turbines in Atlantic waters in what could be a powerful message for an emerging domestic source of clean energy," reports the AP.
Good news, courtesy of Environment Virginia (see statement on the "flip") and the Obama Administration. Of course, Bob McDonnell - and even, in fairness, several leading Democrats - continue to focus on dirty energy development, including risky oil drilling off our coast (need I remind these folks of the Gulf of Mexico disaster?). That's misguided, given that the answer for Virginia, America, and our planet clearly is to move as fast as possible in the direction of energy efficiency, wind, solar, and other forms of clean, inexhaustible, 100% "made in the USA" energy. In other words, time to move forward into the 21st century, not stay tethered to filthy, increasingly outmoded 19th and 20th century energy sources (which, I'd add, continue to receive huge taxpayer-funded subsidies, which they have for over a century now - why?!?).
Richmond, VA - Virginia Democrats spoke out today against former-Senator George Allen's reckless and hypocritical rhetoric on the possibility of building more oil and natural gas pipelines in Virginia without giving them the proper environmental and public safety review.
"If there were an issue, gosh we'd put a natural gas pipeline, or should we put an oil pipeline through Virginia, it wouldn't be worrying about gosh, lets have a study, let's determine the danger of this." He continued, "if Virginia were trying to hold up a gas pipeline, or oil pipeline, it simply wouldn't happen because we have them."
House of Delegates Democratic Leader David Toscano (Charlottesville) condemned Allen's dangerous suggestion that new pipelines would not require study because "we have them:"
"Building a pipeline through Virginia without conducting a single study or review is not in the best interests of our citizens. While a decision to build may ultimately make sense, the failure to conduct a comprehensive review sets a dangerous precedent.
"George Allen's suggestion that we can build an oil pipeline through Virginians' backyards without a thorough review of the consequences demonstrates, once again, that he puts the oil industry's interests before public safety and the good of the Commonwealth."
Virginia Senator Adam Ebbin (Arlington), a member of the Argiculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee continued:
Bob McDonnell just proved once again how much smarter of a politician he is than Ken Cuccinelli. While Cuccy is like the gung-ho Marine who's always the first to rush into battle -- and hence the first to get shot -- Gov. Bob actually thinks and aims before pulling the trigger.
Today's case in point: uranium mining, about which the governor decided not to lift Virginia's current ban this year. Instead, he's directing state agencies to develop a "regulatory roadmap" and creating a workgroup to study the site in Pittsylvania County where Virginia Uranium is seeking to dig up the radioactive stuff.
It's a clever move, essentially a strategic retreat to allow the corporate-owned party to regroup and plan out how to give the uranium lobby most of what it wants a little further down the road. And it managed to stir the pot enough that Virginia Uranium supported the delay while the Virginia League of Conservation Voters criticized the governor for preempting legislative debate.
There's a ton of reaction this afternoon pouring in regarding President Obama's decision on the proposed Keystone XL Canadian tar sands project. The statement from the White House is available here (basically, it blames "the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people"). Also, keep in mind that this project would have created no jobs, and in fact might have caused a net loss in jobs, according to an independent study by Cornell University researchers. Basically, this thing is a boondoggle for Big Oil, combined with really bad news for the environment, for absolutely no good reason. Other than that, it's freakin' brilliant! LOL
Anyway, here are reactions by Virginian politicians and environmental groups, starting with Rep. Jim Moran, with whom I agree 100% on this. I'll add more as I see them, or as you let me know about them in the comments section. Thanks.
Moran Statement on Denial of the Keystone XL Pipeline Application
Washington, DC - Congressman Jim Moran, Ranking Member on the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, released the following statement on the Obama Administration's decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline:
"I applaud President Obama's decision to deny the application for the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline. Our collective national interests, whether economic, environmental, or national security, would be better served by reducing our addiction to fossil fuels. Instead, we should be investing in safer, cleaner energy sources of the future like wind and solar power. A robust investment in clean energy promotes thousands of higher-tech, higher paying jobs. Building a pipeline to tap one of the dirtiest sources of fuel and the few temporary jobs it might create are not in our nation's best long term interests."
The Virginia Sierra Club responds to Gov. McDonnell's "Energy Policy and Budget Initiatives" (see on the "flip"), released earlier today. I agree with the Sierra Club's assessment: McDonnell's approach does not acknowledge environmental reality, weakens an already weak, voluntary "Renewable Portfolio Standard" - exactly the opposite of the direction we need to be going - and is simply inadequate in every way to the energy and environmental challenges we face as a state and as a nation. As with the rest of his governorship, Bob McDonnell's initiatives always end up with reminding us of that old, comic tag line: where's the beef? In this case, it's a nothing burger.
Statement of Glen Besa, Virginia Director for Sierra Club in response to Governor McDonnell's Energy Policy Initiatives
The "all of the above" approach to energy policy touted by Governor McDonnell fails to acknowledge the hard reality of a changing climate and the vulnerability of Virginia to its impacts from hurricanes and droughts to sea level rise. The economic vitality of the Hampton Roads region is second only to New Orleans in vulnerability to sea level rise.
The Governor's package of legislation includes two weakening amendments to the already broken voluntary renewable energy standard that this past year rewarded Dominion Virginia Power with $76 million in increased utility rates despite the fact that the utility has not built one wind or solar facility in the state.
With legislation the devil is always in the details, and until we actually read the bills we are concerned with the legislation related to mining and natural gas development. Branded as promoting improved safety in mining, any efforts to expand development of fossil fuels ignores the reality of climate change. At the same time, despite the claim of an "all of the above" approach, we see too few initiatives to advance wind and solar. We are pleased that the Governor has allocated $500,000 devoted to supporting offshore wind power although we note this far less that is needed. We also are pleased the Governor is moving forward with alternatively fueled vehicles in the state fleet using federal funds available to the state.
As we speak, media moguls around the world are releasing lists of the top stories of the year gone by. But I guarantee that most will miss or underplay the one story of greatest consequence to our lives and those of our descendants - in 2011, Mother Nature demonstrated that climate change is real and dangerous, while leaders around the world did absolutely nothing in response.
2011 was a year full of big headlines, from bin Laden's capture to the earthquake in Japan to the Gabby Giffords shooting. But global warming has the capacity to kill and disrupt the lives of more people than any terrorist leader, crazed gunman or even tsunami can ever dream to. (Take for example the European heat wave of 2003 that killed over 40,000 people.)
Nationwide, more than 6,000 heat records have been broken this year. On average, the U.S. has three or four events every year that are considered major natural disasters. But, this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration counted at least a dozen such events. Based on reports to date, damages are expected to exceed $52 billion.
is the title of this New York Times op ed by Samuel Loewenberg. I think it should be mandatory reading. The Horn of Africa is facing massive famine. Loewenberg writes, appropriately I would say,
American attention to the hunger crisis has focused on the dire conditions of Somalis, but they account for just about a third of the 13 million people affected. According to the United Nations, hunger afflicts 4.5 million people in Ethiopia and 3.75 million people in Kenya, which has about half of Ethiopia's population. An estimated half a million Kenyan children and pregnant or breast-feeding women suffer acute malnutrition.
He also writes
Unlike earthquakes or hurricanes, droughts and food price increases take time to develop, and the resulting hunger crises are forecast well in advance. From water harvesting to livestock support to cash assistance, there are a plethora of steps that could have significantly ameliorated the current crisis. Why weren't they taken?
There is more, much more, in his op ed, including why it makes more sense to send money than our excess food - the latter loses half its value in transport, while the former allows local purchase which can help build up a sustainable food production system; to build roads - transport of food stuff and broader markets for local agriculture. We know that. You can read what he has to say.
I want to use his column as a starting point for a further discussion.
We now bring you this short break from the Virginia elections for a matter of extreme urgency for our planet:
I was at Lafayette Park and around the White House today, participating in and covering the massive protest against the proposed Keystone XL dirty tar sands oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. For now, I'm mainly going to focus on getting video and photos (click here for my Flickr set) up (see the "flip"). Let me just say GREAT job by the amazing, indefatigable environmental activist Bill McKibben for organizing this. Also, in general, there was tremendous energy there today, tons of young people, totally peaceful (yet determined), demanding forcefully that President Obama keep his promise to stop the destruction of this planet's climate and to get us off of our oil addiction. I couldn't agree more.
P.S. Good seeing The Green Miles there, although we got separated early on and never ran into each other again in the enormous crowd.
It appears that the good folks at Dominion "Global Warming Starts Here" Power have really stepped in it this time. Earlier today, I was on a conference call with the Maryland-DC-Virginia Solar Energy Industry Association (MDV-SEIA), at which several speakers from the solar and renewable energy industries slammed Dominion for its "punitive," "unlawful," "ludicrous" actions. The full press release put out by MDV-SEIA is below the "fold," but here are a few key points made in the release and/or the conference call.
*According to MDV-SEIA Director Frances Hodsoll, "Dominion's proposed charges [on solar arrays installed at a home or business] are excessive and potentially unlawful on its customers who install solar systems."
*Hodsoll adds that the charges also are "punitive to those customers who own clean renewable solar systems, actually harm all Virginians, and are the result of a misguided policy."
*Hodsoll points out that "Dominion's calculations fail to give due and equal consideration to the fact that solar power reduces operating costs and future infrastructure needs."
*According to Hodsoll, "Dominion's charges will severely dampen solar energy growth in Virginia -discouraging these clean sources of electricity and unnecessarily impeding the local job creation."
*Bottom line, according to Hodsoll: these charges are "not justified," "punitive," "discriminat[ory] against people who put solar on their rooftops," set a terrible precedent for Virginia as well as for other states, and are possibly "unlawful." Other than that, they're just peachy! :)
P.S. I'd be very curious to hear what Dominion's substantive (aka, not-Herman-Cain-like) response to all this might be.
Great speech, too bad it isn't really what the REAL Bob McDonnell had to say. Instead, this is "Virginia Sierra Club activist Daryl Downing giv[ing] the clean energy speech Bob McDonnell should have given (but did not) at the Governor's Conference on Energy in Richmond." For his part, McDonnell did the usual Republican/corporate tool "drill baby drill" and "mine baby mine" routine -- back to the 19th and early 20th centuries, in other words. Such visionaries, these Republican'ts. (snark)
The top line numbers were impressive, to say the least: more than 100,000 solar jobs in America, solar jobs up to 24 percent growth over the next 12 months, solar industry growth that is 10 times faster than the national economy as a whole over the last 12 months. However, not all states benefited equally. As Luecke discusses in the video, it basically comes down to whether a particular state has adopted smart energy policies -- or not.
As Luecke explains, "the states that are doing well in terms of solar job creation are the states that have those integral policies like [Renewable Portfolio Standards -- RPS], net metering...local rebate programs...third-party purchase agreements." In contrast, those states that have chosen not to put strong pro-solar policies into place are failing to reap the benefits that more enlightened states are seeing.
The story points out numerous examples in which, contrary to the right wing line that climate scientists are "alarmist", climate change impacts are proving worse and coming quicker than most scientists have predicted:
A decade ago scientists predicted the Arctic wouldn't be ice-free in summer until 2100. But the extent of summer ice in the North has rapidly shrunk and today covers 70 percent of the area it did in 1979. Now some scientists think the Arctic could be naught but open water within 25 years.
In August, a team lead by University of York researcher Chris Thomas published a study showing that plants and animals are moving to higher elevations twice as fast as predicted in response to rising temperatures. They're migrating north three times faster than expected, they found.
As for extinctions,[...]the real-world rates are more than double what the best computer modeling showed: While the studies, on average, warned of a 7 percent extinction rate, field observations suggested the rate was closer to 15 percent.
In short, scientists -- and I would add politicians, the media and much of the environmental community -- have been too conservative in their estimates. In trying to avoid scaring people or overstating the case, too many have understated it, and in the process, failed to rouse the world to action to prevent the awful consequences that are already beginning to come true.
Last night at a fundraiser for the Virginia Progressive Caucus (organized by Del. Patrick Hope) in Arlington, prior to a showing of the powerful, anger-inducing (against the rapacious natural gas industry) documentary film Gasland (on the hazards of natural gas "fracking," of which there are many!) two important environmental leaders - JR Tolbert from the Sierra Club and Jeffrey Painter of the League of Conservation Voters spoke about Virginia energy policy.
JR Tolbert focused on fracking in Southwest Virginia, as well as Governor McDonnell's foolish focus on making Virignia the "energy capital of the East Coast" solely through fossil fuels. Tolbert pointed out that fracking injects chemicals into the ground that have an impact on local communities. The question, in Tolbert's mind, is "do you choose corporations and corporate profits over public health and safe drinking water?" Sadly, it appears that Bob McDonnell sides heavily with corporate profits over public health. Tolbert also emphasized the crucial importance of maintaining our "Virginia State Senate environmental firewall" against the climate science deniers and "radical, anti-environmental agenda" of Bob McDonnell et al. So, get out and vote and protect that firewall!
Jeff Painter reiterated Tolbert's point about the crucial importance of keeping Democratic control of the Senate "firewall" against the Republicans' radical, anti-environment agenda. Painter then talked about uranium mining, and the need to keep the ban in place. Virginia Uranium, which is actually a Canadian company, has been lobbying hard, and spending boatloads of money (including to buy people off), to convince Virginia legislators to lift that ban. Painter emphasized the importance of contacting your legislator and letting them know what you think about this issue (e.g., oppose lifting the ban!). I asked Painter whether Virginia Uranium's lobbying efforts, including flying lawmakers to France and Canada, have been effective. According to Painter, they haven't been particularly effective, "for all the money that they have spent." So now, they're looking at other alternatives, maybe through the budget process and/or through the governor's office via regulations. In other words, these people are relentless, and they get paid good money to do this, so they're not going to stop until they get their way - or, better yet, are defeated once and for all.
P.S. The music in the background is the intro to the film Gasland. I actually think it's appropriate that it was playing during Tolbert's and Painter's remarks.
If the latest job numbers from The Solar Foundation's (TSF) National Solar Jobs Census 2011 are any indication, the bloviating by anti-solar jobs pundits and politicians is...well...really wrong. Unhinged from reality wrong.
Unlike self-appointed clean energy experts, such as Rush Limbaugh and the Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore, TSF Executive Director Andrea Luecke is actually an expert on such things. At TSF (a Tigercomm client), she authors the Solar Census and leads work on two U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grants: Solar America Communities and Solar Instructor Training Network. And, she used to run the City of Milwaukee's U.S. DOE Solar America Cities program.
Luecke stopped by the Scaling Green Communicating Energy lecture series to talk about the Census, a follow-up to the 2010 census. Together, the two years' of data show meaningful trend lines that cannot be ignored.
Among them is the fact that the U.S. solar industry has grown 10 times faster than the national economy as a whole over the last 12 months, in the middle of the worst economy since the Great Depression. What about the fossil fuels that underwrite many anti-solar pundits and politicians? Those sectors saw a net job loss of two percent.
I guess the "hate renewable energy jobs" crowd that has been using Solyndra to run down other clean energy companies [see here and here have to re-cork the champagne. Consider other Census findings:
A recent, blockbuster article in Bloomberg detailed how the dirty energy baron Koch brothers - who, the article points out, "blazed a path to riches -- in part, by making illicit payments to win contracts, trading with a terrorist state, fixing prices, neglecting safety and ignoring environmental regulations" - flouted U.S. law by "[selling] millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism." The connection between oil, corruption, and terrorism detailed in the Bloomberg article sounds like something out of the film Syriana. But in this case, it's not fiction, it's absolutely real: the connection between oil, corruption and Middle East-based terrorism cannot be clearer.
Barely over a week after the Bloomberg story broke, the oil-corruption-terrorism nexus was made even more glaringly obvious with breaking news of an Iran-backed terror plot against the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir.
In the Iranian plot outlined on Tuesday by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in Washington, officials in the elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are accused of scheming to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States by hiring assassins from aMexican drug cartelfor $1.5 million. The main suspects were identified as Mansour J. Arbabsiar, a naturalized American citizen of Iranian descent from Corpus Christi, Tex., who has been taken into custody, and Gholam Shakuri, described by the Justice Department as a member of the Quds Force, who is at large and believed to be in Iran.
The key thing to remember is that these are some of the most heavily subsidized jobs in the U.S. economy. They are subsidized at a level that makes anything Obama did with the stimulus bill look like pocket change.
Why is that so? Well, it's widely known by now, at least in economist circles, that the coal power industry grossly underpays for the damages it does. That's the unanimous conclusion of a flurry of new research that's been done on the question: see, e.g., the National Research Council (NRC), Harvard Medical School's Paul Epstein, or last week's bombshell from Yale's William Nordhaus and colleagues, which found that coal-fired power plants do 21 cents of unpaid damages for every single kilowatt hour of power they produce. Economists call these costs "externalities," but really they amount to subsidies -- the public is paying these costs on the coal companies' behalf. [...]
And these subsidies are not investments that pay back over time, like loans to innovative renewable energy firms. These subsidies come in the form of babies with birth defects, asthmatic kids, and adults with respiratory and heart ailments. These subsidies pay negative returns. They subtract value. All in the name of propping up a dying industry.
The Alexandria plant alone was estimated to kill 37 people & sicken hundreds of others every single year. But the coal industry keeps looking for someone to blame, and it's not just on the human costs of its pollution. As Coal Tattoo's Ken Ward Jr. reports, coal companies are desperately trying to pin falling Appalachian production on regulations & conservationists. That's instead of accepting the simple fact that the low-hanging fruit of Appalachian coal has long since been picked and what little is left is getting more & more expensive to blast out. For today's coal industry, reality is hard to face.
They don't make Republicans like they used to. And they sure don't make them like our former Senator John Warner -- honest, gentlemanly, respectful, and willing to take stands that don't conform to his party's orthodoxy.
Warner continues to expand his profile in courage even in retirement, as a leader in the effort to make the GOP come to its senses on climate change. As a senior advisor to the Pew Project on National Security, Energy, and Climate Change, Warner is in the front ranks of the campaign by a number of retired Republicans to convince their party leaders and members to pull their heads out of the sand and stop trying to drown scientific reality under Big Oil, Gas and Coal-funded climate denial campaigns.
Among the other brave Republicans in this effort are former Secretary of State George Shultz, ex-Congressmen Sherwood Boehlert and Bob Inglis, and John McCain '08 advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Shultz in particular is credited with helping to defeat the California referendum to overturn that state's climate change law.
Sadly, it is more common for politicians to show courage in retirement than in office. As the National Journal article hyperlinked above notes, even so-called "maverick" Republicans like John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Lisa Murkowski, who used to lead on this issue, are now avoiding it to appease the Tealiban.
But just compare John Warner with another ex-Senator of ours, George Allen, who took the precisely opposite path of selling out to the fossil fuel industries so as to peddle their propaganda. And guess which one of these former Senators is more acceptable to today's Republicans? Oy, what a party.
All I can say is: Thank you, John Warner. Somewhere, Teddy Roosevelt is smiling at you.
Back in February, a new Harvard study found that "when the entire life-cycle of coal is considered -- extraction, transport, processing, and combustion," they add up to a cost to the American people of "roughly US$300 to US$500 billion dollars annually." Then, in April, we wrote about our interview with Professor Michael Hendryx of West Virginia University, whose research has found that coal mining "is a loser economically, environmentally, and in terms of public health." Now we've got yet another economic analysis coming to the same conclusions.
When the authors add in highly conservative estimates of the cost of carbon dioxide pollution, they find that "the damages caused by oil- and coal-fired power plants are between 30 and 40 percent higher." With an estimated social cost of carbon -- a damage estimate of global warming pollution -- of $65 (far less than other estimates), the [Gross External Damages - GED] for coal-fired generators is $0.21/kilowatts.
In other words, instead of being "cheap" and "affordable," coal is actually the costliest fuel for electricity.
"The findings show that, contrary to current political mythology, coal is underregulated," Legal Planet's Dan Farber comments. "On average, the harm produced by burning the coal is over twice as high as the market price of the electricity. In other words, some of the electricity production would flunk a cost-benefit analysis. This means that we're either not using enough pollution controls or we're just overusing coal as a fuel."
Actually, we're doing both: not using enough pollution controls AND overusing coal as a fuel. Fortunately, we know how to eliminate both of those problems: by removing coal subsidies, by internalizing coal's externalities, and by removing the obstacles holding back clean energy from rapidly taking coal's place in America's energy picture.
Is this energy summit, being held on October 4 in Alexandria as part of Bob McDonnell's newly-announced "Energy Month" in Virginia, supposed to be satire, a bad joke, or is McDonnell actually serious? Just a few problems here. First, check out the people on the panels, listed below. Can we get any more biased, against clean energy and the environment, than this?!?
Oil and Gas Development: The Onshore and Offshore Challenge
8:45am Keynote: Honorable Mark Warner, U.S. Senate, Virginia
8:55am Remarks: Mr. Terry McCallister, Chairman and CEO, Washington Gas
9:00am Remarks: Mr. Mike Ward, Executive Director, Virginia Petroleum Council
9:05am Discussion: Beginning with Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama (more on climate science "skeptic" Bentley here)
Nuclear Energy: Renaissance or Requiem
9:30am Keynote: Honorable Lindsey Graham, U.S. Senate, South Carolina
9:40am Remarks: Mr. Stephen Kuczynski, Chairman, President & CEO, Southern
Nuclear Operating Company
9:50am Discussion Beginning with Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi
EPA Regulations and Impact on Energy and the Economy
10:15am Keynote: Honorable Joe Manchin III, U.S. Senate, West Virginia
10:25am Remarks: Mr. Kevin Crutchfield, CEO, Alpha Natural Resources, Inc.
10:35am Discussion Beginning with Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia
A few comments. First, where are the advocates for clean energy? Where are the voices for energy development that's safe for the environment? Where are the non-corporate voices? Where are the regular Virginians who would be harmed by oil spills, global warming, mountaintop removal coal mining, etc?
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Update by Miles: "Dominion Virginia Power is interested in building up to 400 wind turbines in Atlantic waters in what could be a powerful message for an emerging domestic source of clean energy," 
From the Democratic Party of Virginia, more criticism of George Allen's latest idiocy:
Bob McDonnell just proved once again how much smarter of a politician he is than Ken Cuccinelli. While Cuccy is like the gung-ho Marine who's always the first to rush into battle -- and hence the first to get shot -- Gov. Bob actually thinks and aims before pulling the trigger.
The Virginia Sierra Club responds to Gov. McDonnell's "Energy Policy and Budget Initiatives" (see on the "flip"), released earlier today. I agree with the Sierra Club's assessment: McDonnell's approach does not acknowledge environmental reality, weakens an already weak, voluntary "Renewable Portfolio Standard" - exactly the opposite of the direction we need to be going - and is simply inadequate in every way to the energy and environmental challenges we face as a state and as a nation. As with the rest of his governorship, Bob McDonnell's initiatives always end up with reminding us of that old, comic tag line: where's the beef? In this case, it's a nothing burger.
It appears that the good folks at Dominion "Global Warming Starts Here" Power have really stepped in it this time. Earlier today, I was on a conference call with the 
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