By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT), who is behind a recent effort to roll back 36 environmental and health laws along U.S. borders, spent part of a hearing today in the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands disparaging the value of natural wonders like national monuments and wilderness. He stated:

Contrary to claims by the administration and others, the designation of national monuments and wilderness are not a boon to local economies, but rather a detriment in most scenarios.

This statement is contrary to recent research by Headwaters Economics, which studied 17 large national monuments in the West to determine their economic impact on the counties in which they were situated. In every single case, local economies adjacent or host to national monuments grew after the designations. Headwaters Economics takes care to say that “this does not demonstrate a cause-and-effect relationship,” but shows that “national monuments are consistent with economic growth in adjacent local communities”—evidence that refutes Bishop’s claim that monuments are a “detriment.”

A number of Republicans have come out in support of national monuments as valuable to their communities. For example, Scott Tipton (R-CO), recently sponsored a bill to designate a new national monument in Colorado, saying:

A national monument designation would increase awareness and interest in Chimney Rock, and create new tourism opportunities for the Four Corners area, potentially generating badly needed revenue and new jobs in a southwest Colorado region ravaged by double-digit unemployment.

The state of Utah already benefits greatly from the revenue and jobs generated around public lands by tourism and the outdoor industry. But at a recent hearing, Bishop made the statement that the federal government doesn’t “add much” to the state of Utah. A website entitled “Bishop’s Blunders” refutes that statement:

Bishop: But the bottom line is, even with the federal presence in the state of Utah you don’t add much.

Announcer: According to a 2011 report from the Department of Interior, federally-owned public lands in Utah draw in 21 million visitors every year to the state. That translates to $1.7 billion for the local economy, as well as 20,319 jobs. Bishop calls that “not much?”

Watch it (minute 0:53-1:19):

A recent report from CAP determined that the conservation economy (which includes the protection of public lands) “has enormous economic value” and creates many jobs every year. Additionally, the outdoor recreation industry is speaking about the importance of these jobs, and 28 Utah businesses sent a letter to the Utah delegation in August in order to pushback on attacks on public lands and associated jobs. They stated, “…we urge you to not give away the places where we hike, hunt, fish, and recreate and instead protect our iconic landscapes, and support the parks and recreation areas that our businesses rely on. As business people we see these proposed changes as being bad for our business and bad for tourism.”

Our guest blogger is Kiley Kroh.

One day after the Interior Department formally issued citations to BP and its two main contractors, Halliburton and Transocean, for numerous safety and environmental violations connected to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) referred to the fines as “nothing more than a slap on the wrist.”

At Thursday’s hearing on the official report on the disaster, Markey noted that the maximum penalty stemming from the citations would be a mere $21 million for BP – just seven hours of profit for the oil giant.

Even in a worst case scenario for BP, these violations that resulted in the nearly 5 million barrels of oil spilling into the gulf would cost the company a total of $21 million. Not billion, million. Considering what we know about what caused this disaster, BP should stand for “Bigger Penalties.” BP is on pace to make more than $25 billion this year — $21 million represents a little over seven hours of profits for the oil giant. That fine obviously does not even begin to approach the amount needed to be a deterrent against a repeat of this tragedy. That fine is nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Watch it:

In a first step toward imposing civil penalties, on Wednesday Interior sent the companies formal notices that they violated multiple drilling safety regulations that were in place at the time of the spill. The government is accusing BP of violating seven regulations governing work on the outer continental shelf. Transocean, which owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, and Halliburton, which performed cementing work at the site, are charged with four violations each. By law, each charge carries a maximum penalty of $35,000 per day. The notices are just the beginning of a long administrative process to determine civil penalties – which are separate from the Clean Water Act fines also facing the companies – and marks the first time the government has moved to sanction contractors in addition to the well operator. The companies now have 60 days to appeal the citations.

Read more

by Cole Mellino

Today, more corn is grown in America for ethanol than for food or for livestock feed. For every 10 ears of corn grown in the U.S., two are consumed by humans, and the other eight are used for feed and fuel. In the last year, the scales have tipped so that ethanol represents the largest share of corn use — 5 billion bushels of corn went to animal feed and residual demand while “the nation used more than 5.05 billion bushels of corn to fill its gas tanks.”

That is sure to rile all those who see corn ethanol as an over-subsidized boondoggle for the climate, a group that includes Climate Progress (see “The Fuel on the Hill” and “Let them eat biofuels!“)

Corn ethanol was always touted as a “stepping stone” to advanced fuels. That is still true in theory.  But with the government supporting traditional ethanol for so long, it’s time to refocus our efforts non-food based fuels. Here are the top five reasons why the U.S. should shift incentives away from traditional corn ethanol:

Read more

“This aerial picture shows an under-construction temple surrounded by floodwater outside the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya, north of Bangkok, on October 11.”  AFP.  Click to Enlarge.

Meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters reports on the staggering floods that have hit Thailand:

Heavy rains in Thailand during September and October have led to extreme flooding that has killed 283 people and caused that nation’s most expensive natural disaster in history. On Tuesday, Thailand’s finance minister put the damage from the floods at $3.9 billion. This makes the floods of 2011 the most expensive disaster in Thai history, surpassing the $1.3 billion price tag of the November 27, 1993 flood, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).

And this is but the latest example of how extreme weather harms global food security (see “Global Food Prices Expected to Climb, Get More Volatile.”  As BusinessWeek reported, “Floodwaters have swept across 60 of Thailand’s 77 provinces over the past two months … destroying more than 10 percent of the nation’s rice farms.”  Masters notes “Thailand is the world’s largest exporter of rice, so the disaster may put further upward pressure on world food prices, which are already at the highest levels since the late 1970s.”

Eastern Thailand was deluged with 5 feet of rain in September.  And there’s more to come:

Some of the highest tides of the month occur this weekend in the capital of Bangkok, and the additional pressure that incoming salt water puts on the flood walls protecting the city is a major concern. A moderate monsoon flow continues over Southeast Asia, and the latest GFS model precipitation forecast foresees an additional 2 – 5 inches of rain over most of Thailand during the next three days.

Here’s more detail, along with  some astonishing graphics and images via Masters and The Atlantic:

Read more

by Tom Kenworthy

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s energy plan for the nation is deeply flawed on many different levels, as Climate Progress has already noted.

One item that stands out among all the craziness is his ludicrous claim that the oil and gas industry has a perfect record of safe drilling as it has adopted the now widespread practice of hydraulic fracturing. “The EPA’s war on American fossil fuel production comes despite the fact they can’t point to a single incident of unsafe hydraulic fracturing of natural gas,” he said in his speech today in Pittsburgh.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as it is commonly known, is a technique – unregulated at the federal level under the Safe Drinking Water Act – in which drillers use a blend of water, sand and chemicals to stimulate gas and oil production by pumping the mixture at high pressure into underground rock formations. That fractures the rock and releases hydrocarbons.

As natural gas production has swelled with the discovery of vast new reserves in shale formations across many parts of the U.S., so too have reports of methane and chemical contamination of domestic underground water supplies and streams and rivers.

The oil and gas industry has long maintained that there has never been a single proven case linking fracking to the contamination of underground drinking water supplies. Fracking takes place thousands of feet below drinking water supplies, and the chemicals used cannot penetrate intervening levels of rock, the industry asserts.

But the New York Times reported in August that in fact there is a documented case of such contamination by the EPA.

Read more

Our guest blogger is Daniel J. Weiss, Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Gov. Rick Perry’s energy agenda is the “Oil Above All plan” gone wild. It would allow oil companies to drill in some of our most precious places protected for our children. He justifies it by repeating Big Oil’s phony job creation numbers debunked by the Washington Post.

The Perry plan would undo safeguards from deadly smog, acid rain, mercury, and other pollution. And it ignores a clean tech future while returning to a fossil fuel past. It is of little surprise that the Perry Petroleum Pollution Plan would continue to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to big oil companies through subsidies, while eliminating incentives for American wind and solar companies to grow. The Perry plan should be stamped “Made By Big Oil.”

Gov. Perry’s speech in Pittsburgh today highlighted his ignorance of U.S. energy policy and its consequences. He relies on “drill, baby, drill” as the heart of his agenda, which ignores the 10 percent hike in U.S. oil production and 6 percent decline in imports achieved under President Obama. He would stop efforts to improve fuel economy standards that would reduce foreign oil dependence and save families money.

Perry would likely jettison offshore oil drilling safeguards that would prevent future disasters like the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. If he wanted to protect jobs and American lives, he would not offer such a reckless policy that resulted in economic devastation for Gulf state families.

Gov. Perry’s extreme antipathy for public protection from industrial waste is embodied in his speech and administration. He would “dismantle the EPA,” halting the enforcement of safeguards that keep our water safe for drinking and air safe for breathing — public health safeguards that have saved the lives of our children, parents, and the infirm. Instead, Perry asks Americans to choose between their lives and their livelihoods, falsely claiming that regulations kill jobs.

A brand new bipartisan poll, however, found that three-quarters of independents, and nearly half of all Republicans, favor two new major air pollution standards targeted by Perry, despite an overwhelming majority of Americans — across the political spectrum — signaling their support for stronger clean air standards.

Perry’s plan would also curtail citizens’ ability to legally challenge the federal government when they believe its decisions would harm themselves or their families.

The Perry Petroleum Pollution Plan would benefit the big oil companies and their owners, while harming the rest of us. It must be rejected.

Misinformed editor claims SunPower is getting a $1.2 billion loan guarantee, equating it to Solyndra. Note to real reporters: SunPower isn’t even getting the loan guarantee — it is simply building a 250-MW solar PV project for the global energy company NRG.

When Total, the 14th largest oil and gas company in the world, bought 60% of leading solar manufacturer/developer SunPower back in June, here’s what the company said:

We evaluated multiple solar investments for more than two years and concluded that SunPower is the right partner based on its people, world-leading technology and cost roadmap, vertical integration strategy and downstream footprint.

What did the pundits on Fox News say about it? Nothing.

But when an editor for Guns & Patriots magazine (yes, you read that correctly) strung together a completely bogus “scandal” about SunPower using disparate pieces of information, the network was all over it — allowing this “bigger than Solyndra” story about a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to take over the prime time airwaves.

Here’s the catch: None of this punditry is based on reality. SunPower isn’t even getting the loan guarantee. Although it was offered a conditional commitment originally, it is simply constructing a 250-MW project using its high-efficiency modules — and it has already sold the project to the massive energy company NRG while establishing an agreement to purchase the power. But that didn’t stop the hopelessly misinformed pundits and “business reporters” at Fox News to jump on the story.

Please be warned: The video segment below is filled with such egregious misunderstanding of the solar industry, you may need a toilet to throw up in. (I know it hurts, but please read on below the video so you can understand why the original story belongs in the toilet.)

Read more

While the Wall Street Journal was busy running its relentless campaign to discredit the existence of clean energy jobs, a report featuring some impressive job numbers was released quietly — with zero pick-up from the mainstream press.

According to McGraw Hill, more than one third of architects, engineers and contractors in the U.S. say they have “green” jobs. That’s 661,000 jobs, a number that is expected to climb to more than 900,000 jobs in the next three years.

That’s in line with the $71 billion American green building market, which represented 25% of all new U.S. construction activity in 2010. The value of that activity is on track to reach $145 billion in 2015.

Say what? I thought that green jobs weren’t real?

I went to the Greenbuild conference in Toronto last week to talk to some of the leading experts in green building for this story.  It became apparent very quickly why this story isn’t getting out. So-called “green” building practices are a natural progression of the conventional building industry, with many of the same companies participating in both sectors. As firms in this industry adopt new technologies and techniques, it’s difficult to determine the precise employment impact.

Read more

Other stories below:  Gore Links Climate Change to Great Lakes Problems; U.S. Allows BP to Drill in the Gulf; Marine Contractors Seek Jobs in Offshore wind.

China Targets GE Wind Turbines With $15.5 Billion War Chest

China has taken on General Electric Co. and Western peers that control the $70 billion wind-turbine market, striving to repeat its 2010 coup when the Asian nation sold more than half the world’s solar panels for the first time.

Armed with at least $15.5 billion in state-backed credit, China’s biggest windmill makers Sinovel Wind Group Co. and Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co. won their first major foreign orders in the past year. They plan to set up plants abroad, including China’s first in the U.S., easing entry into markets for delivering machines that can weigh 750 tons each.

Read more

– by Matt Trojan, in a U.S. ChamberWatch repost

Joining a growing list of major corporations that are upset with the U.S. Chamber’s pay-to-play model, where the U.S. Chamber’s brand is for-sale to the highest bidder, Yahoo! Has abandoned the U.S. Chamber citing the business lobby’s active work against their interests. According to Politico’s Morning Tech:

Read more