As primaries are held today in the coal-rich but job-poor state of West Virginia, CNN — whose presidential debates have been sponsored by the coal industry front group ACCCE — is spending significant air time promoting coal-industry spin. The Wonk Room has previously highlighted CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi’s exploitative promotion of coal-to-liquids technology. Today, Velshi brought the rest of the CNN team into his coal-propaganda orbit.

CNN’s American Morning show was drenched with segments promoting coal above the chyron “MAKING GAS FROM COAL: REDUCING DEPENDENCE ON OIL.” Velshi even handed out coal to hosts John Roberts and Kyra Phillips. Phillips chirpily exclaimed, “We’ve got hope. We’re going to make gas out of coal.” Roberts introduced a segment on an eccentric inventor developing coal gasification — not the same as coal-to-liquids — technology by saying “We have huge supplies of it: coal!”

On “Your World Today,” senior correspondent Allan Chernoff confused coal-to-liquids with coal gasification and intoned, “Environmentalists want to get rid of coal. That’s not happening.” On CNN Newsroom, Brianna Keilar called the “250-year supply” of coal “seductive” before begging Ali to show off his lump of coal some more.

Watch video from today’s coalfest: Read more

Sen. McCain believes in much bigger government than I do. Who knew?

I don’t mean his endorsement of France’s nuclear strategy — although it is going to take a lot of government subsidies and mandates to get this country to build trillions of dollars worth of new nuclear plants by 2050, and McCain would have to force several states to build Yucca mountains-type storage sites (see “here“). Nor do I mean his embrace of a cap & trade that will subject most sectors of the economy to carbon regulations.

To a minor extent, I mean his embrace of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic offsets that will be “certified, measured, and verifiable” — since that will get the government in the business of measuring and monitoring everything else in the economy that isn’t in the cap, since offsets are, by McCain’s own definition, “credits for reductions made from sectors of the economy outside the trading system.”

But primarily he is a big government conservative because he loves adaptation, maybe more than he loves prevention, since his climate plan certainly won’t avert catastrophe. Adaptatation requires very big government — much bigger government than prevention does.

BIG GOVERNMENT ADAPTATION

In his speech (here), McCain spells out just the very beginnings of big government adaptation:

Read more

As first reported by the Chicago Tribune, Mary Gade resigned from her position as the Midwest regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency on May 1 amid an ongoing dispute with Dow Chemical over dioxin pollution from its Midland, Michigan headquarters. Gade told the Tribune that “There’s no question this is about Dow.”

The Wonk Room has extensively reported on her resignation and compared it to the politicized firings of U.S. Attorneys under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Today, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) have sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson:

We are writing to request from you full information of the circumstances surrounding Ms. Gade’s departure. As you know, Congress and the American people expect EPA to enforce vigorously our public health protections — and to preserve the integrity of the enforcement program by excluding politics from such activities. We are troubled by reports suggesting that there was a link between her efforts to assure an aggressive cleanup by Dow and her allegedly forced departure, and are seeking answers from you to key questions.

Boxer and Whitehouse serve on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and have oversight of the EPA. They have requested answers to their questions and all related documents “no later than May 27, 2008.”

Administrator Johnson, now mired in scandal, has refused to appear before Congress for over a month. In April he went to Australia. Upon his return he found himself unable to testify, due to “ongoing back issues.”

The EPA currently is refusing to honor multiple subpoenas for other documents.

Read the full letter below:
Read more

The primary goal of the global warming deniers and their disciples is to waste time and delay action, which is why I prefer to call them delayers (see here).

[This post is inspired by the surprising finding that only 27% of conservatives say the earth is warming because of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, and the surprising response I got on my post (here), especially those defending the deniers and delayers.]

THE DELAYER’S PARADOX

The deniers and delayers are those who argue that failing to embrace strict reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will not lead to serious or catastrophic impacts. The Delayer’s Paradox is — If the world actually were persuaded by the deniers and delayers, it would lead to levels of atmospheric GHG concentrations that ensure the most catastrophic impacts imaginable, proving them (fatally) wrong.

Read more