RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Hey Obama, It's the economy stupid.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is pushing to protect Antarctica's fragile environment by imposing mandatory limits on the size of cruise ships sailing there and the number of passengers they bring ashore.

At a conference set to begin Monday in Baltimore, U.S. diplomats will propose amending the 50-year-old Antarctic Treaty. The move would seek to mandate, under international law, the current voluntary restrictions on tourism.

A U.S. document provided to The Associated Press by the State Department says the plan would "minimize the likelihood of marine oil spills" in the Antarctic and "ensure that tourism is conducted in a safe and environmentally responsible manner."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was to kick off the conference in Washington on Monday by hosting the first joint meeting of Antarctic Treaty signatories and the Arctic Council, which covers the northern polar region. More than 400 officials and observers are expected to attend from the Baltimore meeting, which runs to April 17.

The Baltimore meeting will mark the 50th anniversary of the pact's signing. Many consider it the first modern international arms control treaty because it says Antarctica cannot be used for military purposes and freezes sovereignty claims on its territory.

The treaty says Antarctica can be used only for peaceful purposes and guarantees freedom for scientific investigations. It sets out guidelines under which the continent can be protected. There are 28 member states and 19 observer countries and organizations to the accord.

The new U.S. proposal contains no specific enforcement mechanism or penalties for limiting tourist operations. But it would require signatories to the pact to ensure that Antarctic tour operators bar ships with more than 500 passengers from landing sites, restrict landings to one vessel at a time per site and limit passengers on shore to 100 at a time.

It would mandate a minimum of one guide for every 20 tourists while ashore, according to the documents.

Limiting tourist access to the continent has taken on urgency because of a surge in visits and recent cruise ship accidents, including two groundings in the just-finished 2008-09 season and the highly publicized sinking of a vessel in November 2007.

The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators says visits have risen from 6,700 in the 1992-93 season to 29,500 in the 2006-07 season and 45,213 in 2008-09.

Members of the association first developed the restrictions and adhere to them voluntarily. Members are backing the U.S. proposal for the mandatory limits, which were first adopted by the Antarctic Treaty parties as recommendations in 2007.

"We follow them religiously," said the group's executive director Steve Wellmeier. He acknowledged that without mandated limits, enforcement is "an honor system to a large extent."

If history is just one damn thing after another, then we are
living in undeniably historic times. The federal government has injected
billions of dollars into the banking system to keep lenders solvent while the
nation waits, waving empty cups, until the bankers are ready to return the
favor and open up their vaults. The odd couple of American capitalism (big
business married to big labor) represented in Detroit is trying to get its act
together to qualify for a customized Washington bailout. And working stiffs,
many of whom once fecklessly voted to put the Republicans in part responsible
for the current fiasco into power, are losing their homes and jobs in record
numbers.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today called for a two-year "timeout" on new mining claims on nearly 1 million acres near Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona.

The move reverses a decision by the George W. Bush administration to open the land flanking the park for hard-rock mining. That ruling, which opened the way for lucrative mining of uranium ore, was opposed by some in Congress and within the National Park Service over concerns about the toxic heavy metal's potential effects on the park's watershed, wildlife, and cultural and archeological resources.

The Interior Department says it is placing a two-year hold on leasing on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land -- mostly on the north rim of the Grand Canyon and much of it within miles of the park -- while it studies the environmental effects of hard-rock exploration and mining.

The department could extend the mining ban for up to 20 years. The land remains open to leasing for the mining of other minerals and for geothermal projects, according to a notice in today's Federal Register.

National Mining Assn. spokesman Luke Popovich blasted the decision as a "de-facto ban on mining."

"We can't see how a sweeping ban for up to 20 years for all mining is justified," he said. "Particularly when we are at a time when we are trying to strengthen our nation's energy security."

Increased interest in nuclear power has sent uranium prices soaring, sparking a rush of exploration. Mining claims within five miles of the park increased to more than 1,100 last year, from 10 in 2003, according to government data reviewed by the Environmental Working Group.

Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who co-sponsored legislation that would permanently exclude uranium mining on federal land around the Grand Canyon, said: "This is a treasure that we cannot risk contaminating."

these stupid fucks, we are in a recession, this is a valuable and exportable mineral! wtf is wrong with them?

Today's Wall Street Journal contains some puzzling news for all Americans who are impacted by high energy prices and who share the goal of moving us toward energy independence.

For years, states rich with an abundance of oil and natural gas have been begging Washington, DC politicians for the right to develop their own natural resources on federal lands and off shore. Such development would mean good paying jobs here in the United States (with health benefits) and the resulting royalties and taxes would provide money for federal coffers that would potentially off-set the need for higher income taxes, reduce the federal debt and deficits, or even help fund a trillion dollar health care plan if one were so inclined to support such a plan.

So why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than two billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources? That's all Americans want; but such rational energy development has been continually thwarted by rabid environmentalists, faceless bureaucrats and a seemingly endless parade of lawsuits aimed at shutting down new energy projects.

I'll speak for the talent I have personally witnessed on the oil fields in Alaska when I say no other country in the world has a stronger workforce than America, no other country in the world has better safety standards than America, and no other country in the world has stricter environmental standards than America. Come to Alaska to witness how oil and gas can be developed simultaneously with the preservation of our eco-system. America has the resources. We deserve the opportunity to develop our resources no less than the Brazilians. Millions of Americans know it is true: "Drill, baby, drill." Alaska is proof you can drill and develop, and preserve nature, with its magnificent caribou herds passing by the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), completely unaffected. One has to wonder if Obama is playing politics and perhaps refusing a "win" for some states just to play to the left with our money.

The new Gulf of Mexico lease sales tomorrow sound promising and perhaps will move some states in the right direction, but we all know that the extreme environmentalists who serve to block progress elsewhere, including in Alaska, continue to block opportunities. These environmentalists are putting our nation in peril and forcing us to rely on unstable and hostile foreign countries. Mr. Obama can stop the extreme tactics and exert proper government authority to encourage resource development and create jobs and health benefits in the U.S.; instead, he chooses to use American dollars in Brazil that will help to pay the salaries and benefits for Brazilians to drill for resources when the need and desire is great in America.

Buy American is a wonderful slogan, but you can't say in one breath that you want to strengthen our economy and stimulate it, and then in another ship our much-needed dollars to a nation desperate to drill while depriving us of the same opportunity.

- Sarah Palin

Although President Obama won Virginia in 2008, due to strong showings in about a dozen major counties, he struggled to make inroads in the rural western portion of the state, or in much of Appalachia for that matter.

So with the nation, and this region in particular, grappling with the most challenging economic times since the 1930s, Obama would do well to reconsider his stance against a controversial coal mining technique important to the economies of rural Virginia and elsewhere.

Nationwide, the coal industry supports more than 500,000 jobs through both direct and indirect employment. And coal-related jobs are the employment backbone of West Virginia and the Appalachian regions of Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Alabama.

Coal also provides more than half the electricity used in the country, again playing an increased role in Appalachia, and does so at about a third the cost of other fuel sources.

Nevertheless, the president, at the behest of the environmental left and with some cover from at least one Republican in the Senate, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, is seeking to toughen scrutiny and review of a controversial but important aspect of this industry -- surface or "mountaintop" mining. The method involves removing mountaintops with explosives and machines to expose coal seams, disposing of rock and dirt in adjacent valleys, and replanting the site after the coal extraction is complete.

Critics believe that coal power is a thing of the past. They argue that mountaintop mining is environmentally destructive and say necessary quantities of the mineral can be harvested without using a method that currently accounts for about 40 percent of the product. Environmentalists also argue that green power and green jobs will be able to stabilize the state economies once mines are shut down.

While that may happen someday, it is folly to believe these jobs will materialize overnight. In fact, an AFL-CIO affiliated union has even expressed concerns about the impact of Obama's policy stance on its "members, their families and their communities."

The role coal will play in America's energy mix in the next century is uncertain, but it is undeniable that it is vital as both a power source and job producer today. Recognizing the need to spread this message, organizations such as FACES of Coal are emerging in order to "campaign for the economic prosperity coal provides through good jobs and affordable energy."

Of course, all of this has political ramifications. As Obama's stimulus package struggles to provide the promised recovery, chipping away at his popularity, the president should be leery of cutting jobs to satisfy political allies.

This November, Virginians will elect a new governor. Many believe this election will serve as a barometer to gauge how Democrats might fare in the 2010 mid-term elections. If it turns out Obama's policies make Virginia a red state again, it could be a harbinger of things to come in other places.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Obama administration on Friday stepped up its efforts to curb environmental damage from surface coal mining, announcing plans to give 79 permit applications in four states additional scrutiny.

The Environmental Protection Agency said it wants to make certain the proposed mines won't cause water pollution and violate the Clean Water Act. An initial review concluded all 79 probably would affect water quality and require additional study, the EPA said.

Forty-nine of the permits are for mines in Kentucky, the nation's No. 3 coal-producing state. The list also includes 23 mines in West Virginia, the nation's No. 2 producer behind Wyoming, six in Ohio and one in Tennessee.

The action targets a practice known as mountaintop removal mining. The highly efficient mining method involves blasting away mountaintops to expose multiple coal seams and, in most cases, filling nearby valleys with rock placed atop intermittent streams.

"Release of this preliminary list is the first step in a process to assure that the environmental concerns raised by the 79 permit applications are addressed," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement.

The coal industry said the decision could mean lost jobs.

But environmental groups cheered the administration, which they've been criticizing for not banning mountaintop mining altogether.

"We applaud this action by the Obama Administration to return the rule of law to the Appalachian coalfields," Sierra Club spokeswoman Mary Anne Hitt said in a statement. "The next step in the administration's review process should confirm that these permits cannot be issued."

The San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network called the news a "moment of truth" for the administration.

"EPA has taken an important stand in support of the people and ecosystems of Appalachia," Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement. "The agency seems to recognize that there is no environmentally safe way to demolish mountains."

U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., who is sponsoring legislation that would ban mountaintop mining, praised the action, but said it is not enough.

"The general practice of mountaintop removal mining and the associated valley fills continues to be a major problem and must end," Cardin said in a statement.

The coal industry blasted the decision, saying it jeopardizes tens of thousands of high-paying jobs.

"By deciding to hold up for still further review coal mining permits pending in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee, the agency damages a weak economy struggling to recover in the worst recession in postwar history," National Mining Association President Hal Quinn said in a statement.

Mountaintop mines in the states where the practice is most common — West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee — produce about 130 million tons of coal each year, or about 14 percent of the coal used to produce electricity in the U.S., and employ about 14,000 people.

The EPA said it's going to review the permits in tandem with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under an agreement worked out in June. The corps actually issues the so-called valley fill permits, though the EPA has a say in the process and under Obama has been doing so more frequently.

Last week, EPA asked the corps to suspend, revoke or modify a permit issued for a West Virginia mine two years ago. U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., has asked the EPA to retract the request. Rockefeller said EPA's action creates uncertainty in the coalfields, among other things.

EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy said the agency is sticking by its request.

"We take the senator's concerns seriously but believe that this mine raises unique and serious issues that deserve further consideration by the Army Corps of Engineers," she said in an e-mail.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it planned to use its authority for the first time to revoke a previously issued permit for a West Virginia surface mine.

Acting EPA Regional Administrator William Early said in a letter sent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Huntington district that the agency is "taking this unusual step in response to our very serious concerns" that the project could violate the Clean Water Act.

According to the EPA, the agency has never used its authority to review a previously permitted project since Congress enacted the Clean Water Act in 1972.

The permit was issued in 2007 for Mingo Logan Coal's Spruce No. 1 mine, which is owned by St. Louis-based Arch Coal Inc.

It would allow the company to fill valleys at the site with material removed to expose coal, a practice widely opposed by environmentalists.

The EPA's unprecedented move "reflects the magnitude and scale of anticipated direct, indirect, and cumulative adverse environmental impacts associated with this mountaintop removal mining operation," Early wrote.

The project would be the largest authorized mountaintop removal operation in Appalachia and it would occur in a watershed where the EPA says many streams have been affected by previous mining.

There are 12 more surface mining projects either proposed or authorized but not built in the same watershed.

Company officials said in a statement they were "shocked" by the action against the permit, saying it was "the most carefully scrutinized and fully considered mine permit in West Virginia's history," taking almost 10 years.

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, both Democrats, criticized the EPA. Rockefeller called it "wrong and unfair" to change the rules for a permit that already was approved.

"When businesses make good faith efforts and fully comply with all applicable laws and regulations, they must have the confidence that the commitments made by the government will be honored," Rockefeller said.

"To say that I am mad would be an understatement," Manchin said.

"The Spruce Number 1 Mine permit was one of the most reviewed and carefully examined permits in history ... and now the EPA is telling the employees and the business that made the investment that 'No, you cannot work.' This is a prime example of how the federal government is not working for the people," Manchin said.

Arch Coal received the corps permit in January 2007 for a 2,278-acre mine, after scaling back the project from what was initially approved in late 1990s.

The original permit covered 3,113 acres and allowed the company to dump waste rock and dirt into more than 10 miles of streams. The current permit allows the mine to dump waste rock and dirt into nearly seven miles of streams, according to Army Corps permit documents and state DEP records.

The EPA letter was released a day after EPA Director Lisa Jackson told West Virginia Democrat Nick Rahall during a U.S. House committee hearing that EPA does not have a hidden agenda against the coal industry. She also said EPA has a responsibility to address mining issues that affect water quality.

Officials with the EPA and the state Department of Environmental Protection also met Thursday in Charleston to discuss strategies on dealing with EPA concerns about mining operations through state-issued water pollution discharge permits.

The Sierra Club applauded the EPA's move and said it "underscores the need for the Obama administration to develop new regulations to end mountaintop removal mining once and for all."

Anyone is a coal or oil producing state who voted for Obama deserves to starve. He all but promised to put them out of work.

I know part of me thinks they should reap what they sow. The other part feels sorry for the ones who didn't vote for him it's not their fault that the majority were idiots.

More than 15 million taxpayers could unexpectedly owe taxes when they file their federal returns next spring because the government was too generous with their new Making Work Pay tax credit.

The Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration issued a report Monday saying that taxpayers are at risk if they have more than one job, are married and both spouses work, or receive Social Security benefits while also earning taxable wages.

The tax credit, which is supposed to pay individuals up to $400 and couples up to $800, was President Barack Obama's signature tax break in the massive stimulus package enacted in February. Most workers started receiving the credit through small increases in their paychecks in April.

Up to 1,000 jobs at Bucyrus International Inc. and its suppliers could be in jeopardy as the result of a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, funded by Congress, to deny several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees to a coal-fired power plant and mine in India.

About 300 of those jobs are at the Bucyrus plant in South Milwaukee, where the company has 1,410 employees and its headquarters. The remaining jobs are spread across 13 states, including Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana.

On Thursday, the Export-Import Bank denied financing for Reliance Power Ltd., an Indian power plant company, effectively wiping out about $600 million in coal mining equipment sales for Bucyrus, chief executive Tim Sullivan said.

The fossil fuel project was the first to come before the government-run bank since it adopted a climate-change policy to settle a lawsuit and to meet Obama administration directives.

"President Obama has made clear his administration's commitment to transition away from high-carbon investments and toward a cleaner-energy future," Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg said in a statement. "After careful deliberation, the Export-Import Bank board voted not to proceed with this project because of the projected adverse environmental impact."

The bank's decision is puzzling, Sullivan said, because the power plant will meet international standards and the bank's environmental criteria.

WINCHESTER, VA. - The last major GE factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the United States is closing this month, marking a small, sad exit for a product and company that can trace their roots to Thomas Alva Edison's innovations in the 1870s.

The remaining 200 workers at the plant here will lose their jobs.

"Now what're we going to do?" said Toby Savolainen, 49, who like many others worked for decades at the factory, making bulbs now deemed wasteful.

During the recession, political and business leaders have held out the promise that American advances, particularly in green technology, might stem the decades-long decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs. But as the lighting industry shows, even when the government pushes companies toward environmental innovations and Americans come up with them, the manufacture of the next generation technology can still end up overseas.

What made the plant here vulnerable is, in part, an energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014. The law will force millions of American households to switch to more efficient bulbs.

The resulting savings in energy and greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to be immense. But the move also had unintended consequences.

Rather than setting off a boom in the U.S. manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in China.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090706933.html?hpid=topnews

The top Republican on a Senate environmental panel released a scathing report Tuesday that he contends shows that the Environmental Protection Agency's new proposed rule on cleaning up boilers nationwide could devastate America's manufacturing base and imperil hundreds of thousands of jobs without providing any real public health or environmental benefits.

In June, the EPA issued a proposal that would force industrial, commercial and institutional boilers and heaters to use "maximum achievable control technology" to reduce harmful emissions that erode air quality and pose a public health risk.

The proposed rule covers industrial boilers used in manufacturing, processing, mining, refining and commercial boilers used in malls, laundries, apartments, restaurants and hotels, the report from Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma reads.

The agency, which is required to finalize the proposal by Dec. 16, has argued that implementing the rule would prevent 1,900 to 4,800 premature deaths in 2013 by reducing pollutants like dioxin, mercury and carbon monoxide, which are known or suspected to cause cancer and other serious health and environmental effects.

The EPA also lists a series of other benefits, including a reduction in asthma, bronchitis, heart attacks, hospital visits and lost work days. The agency says the value of the benefits ranges from $17 billion to $41 billion in 2013 alone -- outweighing the costs of implementing the new rule by at least $14 billion.

But the report found that the proposed rule, known as "Boiler MACT," could put nearly 800,000 jobs at risk over requirements on commercial and industrial boilers, cement plans and ozone standards.

"Reducing emissions of mercury, hydrogen chloride and other hazardous air pollutants from commercial and industrial boilers is good policy," the report reads. "But the manner in which EPA set standards to reduce those emissions is impracticable and costly."

That's because the proposed standards are so stringent that not even the best performing sources can meet them, according to the Industrial Energy Consumers of America, (IECA), an industry group that represents companies with 750,000 employees and $800 billion in sales and is cited in the report.

The IECA is "enormously concerned that the high costs of this proposed rule will leave companies no recourse but to shut down the entire facility, not just the boiler," the report reads.

The report also warned that the agency in the coming months is expected to propose, and in some cases finalize, job-killing standards for cooling water intake structures at power plants; national ambient air quality for dust and particulate matter; and maximum achievable control technologies for coal-fired power plants.

"In short, the cumulative effect of EPA's air rules will negatively affect growth energy prices, jobs, innovation and domestic manufacturing competitiveness," the report reads.

A spokesman for the EPA told FoxNews.com that the agency had not seen the report yet.

"But the doomsday predictions we hear now are the same sort we have heard every time EPA has taken any step to implement the laws that Congress wrote to protect Americans from pollution in the air we breathe and the water we drink," EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said in a written statement. "Experience has consistently proved those doomsday predictions wrong for the past 40 years."

President Obama repeated in an interview released Tuesday that energy policy remains one of his top priorities, and he will throw the weight of his office behind energy policy regulations in the same way he did for the new health care law.

"We're going to stay on this because it is good for our economy, it's good for our national security and, ultimately, it's good for our environment," the president is quoted saying in the Rolling Stone magazine interview.

The report comes one day after a bipartisan group of 41 senators and a month after a group of a 100 bipartisan House members wrote a letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson strongly condemning the agency's proposed rule to clean up industrial boilers.

The lawmakers said the rule could wreak havoc on U.S. manufacturing.

"As our nation struggles to recover from the current recession, we are deeply concerned that the potential impact of pending Clean Air Act regulations could be unsustainable for U.S. manufacturing and the high-paying jobs it provides," reads the letter written by Reps. Walter Minnick, D-Idaho; Robert Aderholt, R-Ala.; G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C.; John Shimkus, R-Ill.

"The EPA's regulatory analysis understates the significant economic impacts of the proposed rule," reads the letter written by Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Susan Collins, R-Maine.

The lawmakers urged the EPA to consider a flexible approach that allows companies to show that emissions of certain pollutants do not pose a public health threat.

"While we support efforts to address serious health threats from air emissions, we also believe that regulations can be crafted in a balanced way that sustains both the environment and jobs," both letters read.

Among the lawmakers who signed the letter were several endangered House and Senate Democrats from manufacturing states.