Slide 2 of nuclear safety presentation from Entergy CEO Wayne Leonard

Yes, Leonard is the winner of this month’s “What Were They Thinking” Award:

The clueless CEO in charge of the upstate Indian Point nuclear plant had a stunning meltdown in judgment when he kicked off an investor meeting by displaying the quote from the movie “The Hangover,” “By the way, we’re all gonna die!”

In a bonehead attempt to ease fears about potential disaster, Wayne Leonard, the boss at New Orleans-based energy conglomerate Entergy, littered his 111-page presentation with pictures and lines from the hit 2009 movie.

The slides, making up the first five pages and then randomly scattered throughout, included the characters discussing how to pronounce “retard” and the question, “Would you please put some pants on? I feel weird having to ask you twice.”

The slug from the Daily News piece says it all:  nuclear_knucklehead.

In case you think that U.S. nuclear safety concerns in general — and at Entergy in particular — are a laughing matter, read the Sunday NYT piece, “Nuclear Agency Is Criticized as Too Close to Its Industry” and the new ProPublica expos©, “NRC Waives Enforcement of Fire Rules at Nuclear Plants,” excerpted below.

In case you think Entergy’s Leonard didn’t pull a Charlie Sheen — a guy who knows his way around a Vegas hangover — go through the full PPT yourself.  This slide in particular has that Sheen sheen to it:

Read more

“The Australian TV show Hungry Beast teamed up with climate scientists to point out what the media won’t — while scientists may debate the degree & speed of change, the people who completely deny the reality of global warming aren’t climate scientists,” as Miles Grant put it.

Warning — This music video is a tad off-color:

Read more

The cost of action “pales in comparison to the price the world will pay if we fail to act now.”

We call on all people and nations to recognise the serious and potentially irreversible impacts of global warming caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, and by changes in forests, wetlands, grasslands, and other land uses. We appeal to all nations to develop and implement, without delay, effective and fair policies to reduce  the causes and impacts of climate change on communities and ecosystems, including mountain glaciers and their watersheds, aware that we all live in the same home. By acting now, in the spirit of common but differentiated responsibility, we accept our duty to one another and to the stewardship of a planet blessed with the gift of life. We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us. The believers among us ask God to grant us this wish.

The bumpersticker version of the Vatican plea for climate action:  Pray for science.

Humanity’s only hope is if we listen to what the science tells us is happening now and what is likely to happen if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path.  As the AP put it:

A Vatican-appointed panel of scientists has reported what climate change experts have been warning for years: the Earth is getting warmer, glaciers are melting, and urgent measures are necessary to stem the damage.

Precisely.  I suppose it is an open question as to whether anybody who doesn’t accept science — presumably the same people who ignore what their medical doctors say — will listen to the Vatican.  But humanity’s conscious decision-in-the-making to ignore science and thereby needlessly ruin the lives of billions of people in the coming decades is certainly one of the greatest moral issues in history, so the Vatican’s voice is certain welcome.

Here are some excerpts from the “Report by the Working Group Commissioned by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences“:

Read more

Boehner shares stage with David Koch at Wall Street club

Two ThinkProgress reposts tell the tale of the tentacles of the Kochtopus.

Charles Koch, the billionaire libertarian who has funded front-groups and lobbying efforts to expand his anti-tax, anti-regulatory agenda under the guise of “free enterprise,” has now widened his reach into another key public policy area: academics. The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation entered into an agreement with Florida State University in 2008 in which the foundation would provide millions of dollars in funds for the school’s economics department.

The funds were marked to add multiple faculty positions in the economics department. But the money came with multiple strings attached, including a demand that Koch have the ability to directly approve who ultimately filled the positions.  As the St. Petersburg Times reports, the agreement is now raising questions across the board about academic freedom and integrity at public colleges and universities:

Read more

At a recent townhall meeting, Rep. James Lankford (R-OK), an oil-funded freshman, dismissed the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico as the equivalent of a “health code violation” at a local restaurant. He criticized the now-ended six-month hiatus on offshore drilling permits as an overblown reaction to the BP spill:

Our reaction to the gulf coast spill would be like closing every restaurant in Shaw-nee because one restaurant had a health code violation.

Lankford’s analogy might be apt if the “health code violation” involved a deadly outbreak of Ebola or mad cow disease that killed 11 eleven people, caused in part by industry contractors that supply every single restaurant, with lax government regulators complicit in an epidemic that took months to overcome, leaving the entire region permanently scarred.

Lankford has already raked in $119,960 in contributions from the oil and gas industry, including $10,000 from Koch Industries.

A repost from CAPAF’s uber-blogger Matt Yglesias

Very reputable public opinion analysts tell me the voting public is absolutely obsessed with the high price of gasoline and thus that any suggestion of the (accurate) information that gasoline is far too cheap in the United States will lead you to be torn limb from limb. Nevertheless, as the BBC’s handy chart here shows, gas is extremely cheap in this country thanks to our inadequate taxation of it:

Read more

In the past week, the Mississippi Delta has been hit hard by flooding in the Mississippi River. The rising water wiped out crops, forced families out of their homes, and caused river-front casinos to shut down, costing the government up to $13 million a month. The Associated Press reported that the damage in Memphis was estimated at $320 million, but that “the worst is yet to come, with the crest expected over the next few days.”

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) –- instead of pledging to do everything possible to help the people of his state deal with the flood -– called for the federal government to declare a flooding disaster, moved his furniture out of his lake house, and told flood-stricken families to rely on their friends to get to higher ground because the state wouldn’t help:

As the water rose, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour moved furniture out of his lake house outside Vicksburg on family land that was inundated during the 1927 flood. A week ago, he urged residents to flee low-lying areas, saying that the state wouldn’t assist the evacuations and that people should help one another secure their property and get out.

With Barbour’s staunch opposition to efforts to reduce climate pollution — which is driving the extreme flooding — it’s probably a good thing for America that he took his hat out of the ring for the presidency late last month.

Defending taxpayer subsidies for oil companies, Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) claimed yesterday that the government is a “profiteer” who takes gas taxes and puts the revenues into “phony green jobs”:

Let’s talk about subsidies. We hear about subsidies. Well, you know, there is a profiteer when it comes to oil. 36 to 63 cents per gallon is swept off the top. And who profits from that? The government profits from it. And what does the government do with much of that money? It puts it into so-called “alternative energy,” with so-called phony “green jobs” that we’re yet to see being produced. Wind and solar, et cetera.

Watch it:

Fleming’s attack is doubly nonsensical. Firstly, the federal gas tax revenues go into the Highway Trust Fund, effectively subsidizing gasoline consumption. The small percentage of the fund that goes to alternative transit actually helps drivers by reducing congestion and lowering demand for gasoline, keeping prices low.

Secondly, green jobs are not only real, they’re providing economic power to Louisiana itself.

“We have trained over 2000 professional students without any federal money to do so,” Stephen Shelton, executive director of the Louisiana CleanTech Network, tells ThinkProgress. “All students paid for the class with their own money. Over 400 companies have developed solar businesses that employ real green jobs workers. We started a new company in Houston and last year sold over 50,000,000 of real solar panels that were installed by real solar workers on real buildings and are producing real electricity.”

As it turns out, the only thing that’s phony is Fleming’s concern for the future of the nation’s economy.

Does coal really care? Almost immediately after a prank website, “Coal Cares” was rolled out yesterday poking fun at Peabody Energy – The world’s largest private coal company – the company fought back with some dubious claims about the health benefits of burning coal.

The site is meant to spoof Peabody’s insistence that increased use of coal is the only way to fuel global prosperity. As numerous studies have pointed out, that is not true.

Read more

Politico reports that Republican presidential prospect Mitt Romney is “seeking counsel” from Jeffrey R. Holmstead, a top industry lobbyist who worked to corrupt air pollution laws at the Environmental Protection Agency during the George W. Bush administration:

The mating dance has begun as top Republican presidential candidates try to snare seasoned energy exports for their campaign. Mitt Romney is off to a strong start, rubbing elbows with Mike Leavitt – a former Utah governor who led the EPA during the Bush administration – and seeking counsel from Jeff Holmstead, a fellow Mormon and former top Bush EPA air pollution chief who now works on K Street with Bracewell & Giuliani.

Holmstead has long been a top pollution lawyer for the Bush family, following in the footsteps of his mentor, C. Boyden Gray:

1989: Holmstead Joins Bush I Administration. In 1989, George H.W. Bush’s counsel C. Boyden Gray hired Holmstead, who had been clerking for Douglas Ginsberg, a Reagan-era anti-regulation official and judge. As Associate Counsel to the White House, Holmstead was involved in the implementation of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.

1993: During Clinton Years, Holmstead Becomes Top Pollution Lawyer. With Clinton’s inauguration in 1993, Holmstead joined the “environmental” practice of corporate law firm Latham & Watkins. Clients included the Chemical Manufacturers Association, fighting pesticide regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency. Holmstead also represented the Alliance for Constructive Air Policy, a coal-fired utility front group that coordinated state-level efforts to water down smog standards.

Holmstead Joins Koch Front Group. While at Lathan & Watkins, Holmstead became an adjunct scholar for the Citizens for the Environment, a spin-off of Koch Industries’ Citizens for a Sound Economy. CSE was founded in 1984 by the Koch brothers. C. Boyden Gray, Holmstead’s former boss, became chairman of CSE in 1993.

2001: Bush II Appoints Holmstead To Head EPA Clean Air Program. As Associate Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation, Holmstead drafted a mercury rule based on verbatim language from memos by his former firm Latham & Watkins. Holmstead’s mercury rule was thrown out by the courts. [Washington Post, 1/31/04]

2007: During Obama Years, Holmstead Returns As Top Pollution Lawyer. Since 2007, Holmstead heads the environmental strategies division at Bracewell & Guiliani, and is a lobbyist for Southern Company, Duke Energy, Arch Coal, and other industrial polluters. Holmstead advised Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) for her bill to block EPA authority to reduce greenhouse pollution. [Lobbying Disclosure Database]

Although Koch has said he won’t publicly support any candidate until next year, Romney is on the petrochemical billionaire’s inside track: Romney held a “meet and greet” at David Koch’s Hamptons estate last summer, and participated in a Koch-sponsored summit this April.

(H/T: Frank O’Donnell)

Constellation to build largest U.S. solar rooftop project

Australia Cuts Funding for Renewable Energy Programs to Reduce Spending

Australia’s government reduced its funding for solar-power plant projects to curtail spending.

Read more

*assuming you are an average American and not a tax dodger

Exxon Mobil Corp.’s robust balance sheets have become a poster child for what The New York Times dubs the “paradox of the United States tax code.”  CAP’s Valeri Vasquez has the story.

Read more

Why Free Inhalers? Because COAL CARES.

Puff-Puff„¢ inhalers are available free to any family living within 200 miles of a coal plant, and each inhaler comes with a $10 coupon towards the cost of the asthma medication itself.

Dominique Browning, in a Moms Clean Air Force cross-post

Just when I thought things could not get any weirder, as the House votes on the environment got more cynical-a friend sent me a spoof about coal plants and asthma inhalers.

Read more

Energy efficiency remains the most cost-effective climate strategy

Of the rigorously-framed hypotheses claiming that large negative rebounds exist, we measure them against the data, which refute the hypotheses. Rebounds at the end-use level are small and decrease over time. Rebounds at the economy-wide level are trivially small, and might well be a net positive.

The false narrative industrial complex has been working overtime to attack the myriad benefits of energy efficiency (see links below). Now a new report provides a definitive rebuttal to the “rebound effect.”  Here is a summary by lead author Dr. Goldstein, who co-directs NRDC’s Energy Program.

Every few years, a new report emerges that tries to resurrect an old hypothesis: that energy efficiency policy somehow results in consumers using more energy instead of less.

Read more