Another Green Monday
The "ink" had barely dried on the announcment Wednesday that President Obama intended to drill for oil and natural gas off America's coasts when media outlets and social network streams took to the Jon Stewart model of journalism and began digging up past videos and stories to try and catch the President in a classic policy flip flop. Lost however was the news itself - and the reality and prospective doesn't say a whole lot for the President's so called comprehensive energy plan.
It's a move many say is to appease the Republicans, or more accurately,
a compromise to appease oil companies and domestic drilling advocates -
the"Drill Baby Drill" set. However, the Boehners and Palins of the world have strongly rejected it as not enough or as some sort of mouse trap scheme. Again - lost in the partisan BS and political positioning is the reality of the matter.
We know this for sure - the proposal would end a longtime moratorium on drilling from Delaware to central Florida and would affect nearly 167 million acres of ocean and open 24 million acres in the eastern Gulf to development. And nearly 130 million acres in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska would be eligible for exploration and drilling after extensive studies.
We also know that President Obama has nuclear ambitions - we learned that in February when he announced the initial $8 billion in loan guarantees for construction of the first new nuclear power plants in the United States in nearly three decades.
But where are the announcements about domestic renewables -wind, solar, hydro? Anything? We hear Interior secretary Ken Salazar talk a lot about President Obama's comprehensive energy plan for the nation, but so far that plan only seems to be about securing some sort of energy independence. Are we that stubborn of a nation where we have to win at all costs? Has national security handcuffed every federal decision-making process? The unfortunate reality is that our fragile environment cannot wait to be cleared of foreign oil dependence before attention is paid. To say that we are disappointed in the President's decision is an understatement - waking up and reading the news on Wednesday morning, we felt like we were back in the Bush administration.
After the jump are some stories you might have missed last week. And because we're not all doom and gloom - we want to recognizet that in the President's announcement, he did make it clear that drilling in the Bristol Bay area of Alaska would be blocked. Cheers to that!
It's a carbon offset world - we're just living in it. We think we've made it pretty clear that carbon offsets, as wonderful and do-goody as they often sound, are more of a delaying mechannism than a sound solution. That said, when one of our favorite bands steps up in such a large way to benefit our state, we take notice. Seattle's own Pearl Jam, a band that knows a thing or two about longevity, announced last week that it would donate $210,000 to plant 33 acres of native trees and plants in four Puget Sound communities: Seattle, Kirkland, Redmond and Kent, to mitigate carbon-equivalent emissions from its ongoing 2009 world tour. "Seek my part, devote myself, my small self. Like a book among the many on a shelf" - Sometimes by Pearl Jam. Read more of this story HERE.
Storm water gardens come to Spokane - dreams of green streets in our minds. Road work began last week on Lincoln Street, south of 17th Avenue, on what the Spokesman referred to as "arguably the most dilapidated street in Spokane." But there's more. According to the S-R, contractors will add a storm water collection system to reduce runoff going to the city’s sewer plant - a system that will also provide a source of recycled water for the pond at Cannon Hill Park. "Runoff will go into narrow planter areas that will treat pollutants and allow any excess amounts of the treated water to drain downhill to the park pond," the article read. "That in turn will reduce the need for fresh drinking water used to maintain pond level. Parks officials reported that they use 26 million gallons of water a year." Read more HERE.
Rock Creek Mine digging on hold... but for how long? A federal judge in Montana last week blocked a proposal to dig a major mine in the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness south of Libby. The plan was to drill three-feet underneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area to extract copper and silver by blasting out large underground rooms that would likely collapse, causing significant damage to prime grizzly bear and trout habitats, and then dump around 100 million tons of contaminated mine waste next to the Clark Fork River. Last week's ruling from U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said the U.S. Forest Service must reconsider its 2003 approval of the company’s proposal to mine up to 10,000 tons of ore a day. What's unknown is how long this delay will last. Revett Minerals, the Spokane (Valley) based operation behind the proposed mine hopes the setback will be minor, whereaas Tim Preso, an Earthjustice attorney who represented the plaintiffs, said he was hopeful the Obama administration would be more critical of the mine than the Bush administration, which supported the project. Read more HERE.
