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New Analysis Shows Simple Math: Keystone XL Pipeline = Tar Sands Expansion = Accelerated Climate Change

By Climate Guest Blogger on Jan 17, 2013 at 6:16 pm

By Susan Casey-Lefkowitz via NRDC’s Switchboard

New research confirms what we have heard time and again from the industry itself: the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will be a direct cause of an increase in tar sands oil development. More tar sands oil taken out of the ground means more dangerous pollution that hurts our climate and health. And, this new research also shows that tar sands will cause even more climate pollution than we previously thought due to the impacts of the high carbon byproduct petroleum coke.

This is especially important in a time where our communities are feeling the damage of climate change in violent storms, wildfires, droughts and floods. Just recently a federal advisory panel—established by Congress in 1990 to analyze climate research—released the draft of its third National Climatic Assessment. The report confirmed there is “unambiguous evidence” that the earth is warming.

The Pembina Institute’s analysis, “The climate implications of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline”, shows that pipelines are a key determinant of tar sands expansion, and argues that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions associated with supplying the Keystone XL pipeline with tar sands bitumen represents a significant barrier to Canada meeting its domestic and international climate commitments.

Oil Change International’s new report “Petroleum Coke: The Coal Hiding in the Tar Sands” reveals that current analyses of the impacts of tar sands fail to account for a high-carbon byproduct of the refining process: petroleum coke. Because it is considered a refinery byproduct, petcoke emissions are not included in most assessments of the climate impact of tar sands. Thus, the climate impact of oil production is being consistently undercounted.

This analysis is making headway in Washington. Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman noted:   “The new reports show that TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline is the key that will unlock the tar sands.  If the pipeline is approved, the world will face millions more tons of carbon pollution each year for decades to come.  After Hurricane Sandy, devastating drought, unprecedented wildfires, and the warmest year on record in the United States, we know that climate change is happening now, we have to fight it now, and we must say no to this pollution pipeline now.”

And scientists have been weighing in as well.

Read more

Justice

South Carolina Saved $3M Last Year On ‘Smarter’ Prison Terms

By Nicole Flatow on Jan 17, 2013 at 5:40 pm

“South Carolina is usually the first of everything bad and last in everything good,” state Senator Gerald Malloy (D) told a local newspaper this week. But not this time on criminal justice reform. In 2010, Malloy’s bill to reduce the prison terms for nonviolent offenders while strengthening penalties for some of the worst offenders was signed into law by the state’s Republican governor, and makes the conservative state a potential leader on criminal justice reform.

The bill rejects the “tough on crime” approach that politicians think voters like in favor of a “smart on crime” approach that polls show voters increasingly actually favor. And already, it is saving the state gobs of money. In 2012 alone, the South Carolina reform saved taxpayers more than $3 million, according to a Vera Institute study. Instead of the projected 3,200-inmate increase in the prison population by 2014, the population has already decreased by 2,700 since 2010. Probation for those whose prison terms are shortened costs the state just $1,088 per year, as compared to $17,342 per year to keep someone in prison.

South Carolina was prompted to pass the bill as its Department of Corrections faced a $27 million deficit. Nationwide, state corrections spending is the fastest-growing budgetary item after Medicaid, according to a New York Times report. And while it is still early to gauge the long-term impacts of the South Carolina change, a recent report by the Pew Center on the States concludes that longer prison terms are “high cost” and “low return”:

Although few Americans would question the wisdom of tough sentences for violent, chronic offenders, most criminologists now consider the increased use of prison for non-violent offenders a questionable public expenditure, producing little additional crime control benefit for each dollar spent.

During the past decade, all 17 states that cut their imprisonment rates also experienced a decline in crime rates. And a 2006 legislative analysis in Washington State found that while incarcerating violent offenders provides a net public benefit by saving the state more than it costs, imprisonment of property and drug offenders leads to negative returns.

The report also finds that nearly 90 percent of those polled “support shortening prison terms by up to a year for low-risk, nonviolent offenders if they have behaved well in prison or completed programming.” Voters even support reinvesting prison savings in alternatives to incarceration, which is exactly what South Carolina is doing. The state is routing all of the savings back into more sentencing reform, a substantial portion of which includes better training for staff that work with the more serious, violent prisoners and a program to show inmates how their crimes hurt others.

Those released from prison early, meanwhile, are participating in probation programs that provide incentives for good behavior, rather than punishing violators with an automatic return to prison. Those without family support are assigned a counselor — a move that has already doubled the rate of juvenile offenders successfully completing probation in one South Carolina county.

Overall, early analysis of the law by the State newspaper reveals almost no negative effects, except that more of the savings need to go toward probation services. The law is rightly being viewed as a model for reform, not only to save states money, but to mitigate the U.S. epidemic of over-incarceration.

Health

How Racial Segregation Could Be Linked To Lung Cancer

By Sy Mukherjee on Jan 17, 2013 at 5:37 pm

African-Americans living in highly segregated counties are at significantly elevated risk of dying from lung cancer, according to the results from a new study.

African-Americans already suffer from the highest incidence of lung cancer in the United States. But as the New York Times reports, a study published in JAMA Surgery finds that black Americans in highly segregated areas are 20 percent more likely to die from the disease compared to those who live in the least segregated regions:

The study drew on federal mortality data from that period, and segregation data from about a third of United States counties that had African-American populations large enough to measure. About 28 percent of Americans live in counties with low segregation, 40 percent in counties with moderate segregation and 32 percent in counties with high segregation.

The gap in outcomes persisted even after accounting for differences in smoking rates and socio-economic status, Dr. Hayanga said.

Dr. David Chang, director of outcomes research at the University of California San Diego Department of Surgery, who wrote an accompanying editorial, said he hoped that the study would focus attention on the environmental factors involved in the stark disparities in health outcomes in the United States because they lend themselves to change through policy. Medical researchers tend to focus on factors that are harder to change, like the genetics and the behaviors of individuals.

This trend held true even when controlling for smoking rates and socioeconomic status, implying that other regional factors played into the discrepancy. While the JAMA report doesn’t delve into the causes behind the mortality rate disparity, other studies on American segregation have found that, in highly segregated locales, a larger minority population corresponded with significantly less access to surgical and emergency medical care. That data alone is not conclusive, but it does suggest that stratified access to health care remains an enormous hindrance to public health — particularly for people of color.

Politics

Defense Secretary: ‘I Don’t Know Why The Hell People Have To Have Assault Weapons’

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Jan 17, 2013 at 5:30 pm

President Obama’s new set of proposals on gun violence prevention are enjoying broad support within his administration — including the support of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. The Secretary not only heads up the armed forces but is himself a veteran and hunter, making his recent comments in favor of the initiative salient to the heated debate of how gun owners will receive the proposals.

Speaking in front of troops, Panetta’s comments came after a soldier critiqued that Obama was “tearing apart our Second Amendment.” In a (fairly foul-mouthed) defense, Panetta pointed out exactly how they relate to the military:

“Who the hell needs armor-piercing bullets except you guys in battle?” Panetta told the soldiers at the U.S. Army Garrison Vicenza in northern Italy. “For the life of me, I don’t know why the hell people have to have assault weapons.”

Panetta, who said he believes in the Second Amendment and has been a longtime duck hunter, was asked about the issue by a soldier who wanted to know what steps the Obama administration was going to take to deal with attacks in schools that “don’t have to do with tearing apart our Second Amendment.”

The Secretary is not the only military man to lend his voice to Obama’s cause. Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former Commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan, voiced his own support for Obama’s initiative yesterday.

Law enforcement officials have also lent their weight to the call for stronger gun safety laws. Former New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir called for more responsible gun laws in an op-ed yesterday — and his opinion has been widely echoed by local law enforcement who daily witness the dangers of firearms.

Alyssa

Oprah, Armstrong, and the Shame-Entertainment Industrial Complex

By Sharmin Kent, Guest Blogger on Jan 17, 2013 at 5:07 pm

After several years of indignant denials and aggressive dickishness in response to accusations of doping, cyclist Lance Armstrong has decided to seek absolution from omnimedia queen Oprah Winfrey. In a two-part interview airing Thursday and Friday on Oprah’s cable network OWN, Armstrong will come clean about using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his professional career.

I’m not all that curious about Armstrong’s revelations. It’s pretty open-and-shut: he’s been lying for years, and now he feels bad about it. It’s his choice of venue and inquisitor that intrigues me. Why would Armstrong choose to confess to Mother Oprah, patron saint of carefully constructed celebrity “media events?” And what does Oprah, whose network has run into some high-profile stumbling blocks, hope to gain by giving Armstrong a safe place to admit his wrongdoings? After all, she went full Jules Winnfield on poor James Frey after he admitted his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, was little more than a fiction writing exercise. Oprah later apologized to Frey—but that incident made it clear that she doesn’t suffer liars gladly.

Oprah’s Tuesday appearance on CBS This Morning gives us an idea of her motivations:

I think it’s certainly the biggest interview I’ve ever done in terms of its exposure. I think back in 1993, of course, I did Michael Jackson live around the world. This is going to be live-streamed around the world, as well as on OWN. If you can’t find OWN on your station, you should go to Oprah.com, and we have a channel finder there for people who are still trying to find it.

Millions will tune in to OWN to watch Lance Armstrong’s interview. And that’ll be great for ratings.

Economy

How Rising College Athletic Budgets Cost Taxpayers Millions Of Dollars Each Year

By Travis Waldron on Jan 17, 2013 at 5:00 pm

America’s colleges and universities spend far more money per year on athletes than they do on students, according to a new issue brief from the Delta Cost Project. At public colleges and universities, college sports were “a $6 billion enterprise” in 2010, according to the study, and expensive coaching contracts, facilities upgrades, staff additions, and larger scholarship commitments are driving those costs even higher. Athletics expenses are eating into school budgets, as athletic departments at colleges and universities often require subsidies to cover all their expenses.

Athletic departments spent three to six times more per athlete than colleges and universities spend educating the average individual student, the study found. In the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), college football’s top division, athletic departments spent roughly $92,000 per athlete in 2010, compared to less than $14,000 per full-time student. And the gap between the amount spent on each athlete (blue line) and the amount spent on each student (green) has grown substantially in the last five years:

The study also found that athletic departments were increasingly depending on subsidies from their colleges and universities to cover expenses. As the chart above shows, the average amount institutions subsidize per athlete has grown nearly $7,000 in the last five years. And as the chart below illustrates, athletic departments as a whole are relying on bigger subsidies, with the bottom tier of FBS schools (those that rarely compete for a championship but participate in the top division anyway) relying more on subsidies from their colleges and universities than the big-name schools at the top:

Athletic spending has grown twice as fast as academic spending at these schools, and even as academic spending slowed when university budgets were crunched by the Great Recession, athletic spending continued to grow in most divisions (incidentally, FBS was the exception). In the six biggest conferences, per athlete spending tops $100,000 a year.

The study notes that winning athletic programs are often tied to increases in revenues, from increased donations and ticket sales to higher enrollment rates (and thus more tuition and student fees). Those affects, though, are often “quite modest.” And the study does not answer whether the increased subsidization of athletics provides substantial benefits to the university, or to the success of the athletics program. What is clear, as The Atlantic’s Jordan Weissmann notes, is that the rapid growth of athletic budgets is costing taxpayers millions of dollars a year.

Health

California Health Insurance Company Sued For Barring HIV Patients From Pharmacies

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Jan 17, 2013 at 4:50 pm

Anthem Blue Cross, California’s largest for-profit health insurance company, is under fire for potentially targeting HIV-positive patients with its new prescription drug policy. Blue Cross is no longer allowing patients to pick up their HIV medications at a pharmacy, requiring them to instead go through a mail-order system — even though the policy hasn’t changed for people with other chronic conditions, like diabetes.

A consumer advocacy group has filed suit against the insurance company on behalf of an HIV-positive San Diego man, going by the pseudonym Jon Jones, who says he has incurred hundreds of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses now that he is no longer able to get his medications from his regular pharmacy. Jones asked Anthem Blue Cross for an exception to their new policy, but they refused — and now his lawyers are asking for an injunction to block the change:

Consumer Watchdog claims the change in programs is discriminatory under state civil rights law and potentially devastating for HIV/AIDS patients, many of whom rely on their local pharmacist to monitor potentially life-threatening adverse drug reactions.

According to the lawsuit, Blue Cross’ change will also cause consumers to lose access to drug discounts available only at retail pharmacies.

In addition to the serious health consequences of the program, patients’ fundamental right to privacy is also threatened because HIV/AIDS medications will be delivered to homes and businesses, according to the complaint.

Blue Cross says that any patients who feel the new requirement is causing them hardship may request an exception, although it’s unclear why Jones didn’t qualify for that.

Fortunately, Obamacare could help ensure that HIV positive individuals receive the best possible care from insurance companies. When the health reform law is fully implemented in 2014, insurers will no longer be able to treat HIV like a pre-existing condition and deny Americans coverage simply for having the virus. The health law will also eliminate lifetime caps on coverage, so HIV-positive individuals will be able to afford the care they need without reaching an arbitrary cut-off set by their insurance companies.

Politics

Idaho Lawmaker Compares Abortion To Prostitution

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Jan 17, 2013 at 4:47 pm

An Idaho lawmaker on Thursday compared abortion to prostitution, arguing that both are “a choice” that women make, and asking members of the Idaho American Civil Liberties to defend prostitution, since they were willing to protect women’s access to abortion services.

Presenting abortion and prostitution as cavaler choices women make and ignoring the real danger of sex slavery, State Rep. Ron Mendive (R) elicited “audible gasps” on Wednesday during a meeting with representatives from the group, which later condemned his comparison:

“He was correlating a criminal action with something that is constitutionally protected. Those are two completely separate issues,” [an ACLU representative said after the event. [...]

“It was just a question,” he said. “I do believe it’s a double standard.”

Prostitution is a choice “more so than an abortion would be,” he said.

“Because (in an abortion) there’s two beating hearts. And then there’s one,” Mendive said.

Asked later whether he stood by what he had said, Mendive offered, “Maybe it was a poor illustration.”

For some women, sex work is in fact a choice, and questions have been raised as to whether the United States should consider honoring that work as legal employment. But that does not mean that all sex work is voluntary, and, in any case, it is no reason to invite a comparison with abortion.

Climate Progress

Study Links Oil And Gas Extraction To Ozone Chemicals

By Public Lands Team on Jan 17, 2013 at 4:32 pm

By Tom Kenworthy

Oil and gas development in an area of Colorado that is in the midst of a huge drilling boom is contributing more than half of the chemical pollution that contributes to the formation of ozone, a new study by University of Colorado scientists has found.

The research by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado may have important implications for the shale oil and shale gas revolution underway in many parts of the U.S. It may have particular relevance to other rural areas of the West – in the Uinta Basin of northeastern Utah and Sublette County, Wyoming south of Jackson — that have been plagued by high ozone alerts in recent winters, sometimes higher than the Los Angeles basin.

Both the Utah and Wyoming regions have intensive oil and gas development and the ozone alerts in those areas have often been described as a puzzle with possibly many contributing factors. A $5 million study is underway in the Uinta Basin to ferret out the likely causes of the region’s ozone problem.  Ozone pollution is a factor in a range of health problems including respiratory illnesses and asthma.

In the Colorado study, published online in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, researchers determined that 55 percent of the airborne volatile organic compounds that contribute to ozone in the town of Erie were coming from oil and gas operations. The scientists were able to make that precise determination using a recently discovered chemical signature that can differentiate between oil and gas emissions and those coming from vehicles and other sources.

“We had a very strong signature from the raw natural gas,” said Jessica Gilman the CIRES study lead author in an interview with the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper.

The town of Erie is located in Weld County, a 4,000 square mile county northeast of Boulder and east of Fort Collins. That county, which overlays a hot new oil and gas play in the Niobrara Formation, has nearly 20,000 oil and gas wells, though it had about 15,000 during the study period.

Recent intensive development of oil and gas that is creeping into urban and suburban areas has prompted widespread concern in some Weld County communities about health and social impacts, with residents complaining about ill effects ranging from nosebleeds and headaches to asthma attacks.  The town has imposed a six-month moratorium on new drilling permits, and another community to the north, Longmont, has voted to exclude drilling within city limits, prompting a suit by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission that regulates drilling.

Tom Kenworthy is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Justice

Will Hawaii Be The Next State To Legalize Marijuana?

By Nicole Flatow on Jan 17, 2013 at 4:10 pm

In the wake of laws in Washington and Colorado to legalize small amounts of marijuana and regulate it like alcohol, a new poll shows that 57 percent of Hawaiians favor a similar law. This is a 20 percent jump from the last time a poll was conducted in 2005. A whopping 69 percent think jail time for marijuana is inappropriate, and 78 percent support a medical marijuana dispensary system to bolster the state’s medical marijuana law. Arrests for mere possession of marijuana have increased 50 percent since 2004, and disproportionately affect people of native Hawaiian descent.

An accompanying study on the budgetary implications of passing such a law found that decriminalizing marijuana would save state and county governments $5 million per year, and that legalizing and regulating the industry would save another $5 million, in addition to generating $4 million to $20 million in new revenue. Of course, Hawaii would probably not be alone in taking up a measure to legalize marijuana. Oregon and California have already held referenda on the question, and drug policy advocates are eyeing a number of other states where political will has strengthened since November, several of which have already decriminalized possession.

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