Why Americans distrust their government, part 5

Dear Friends,

We have been hearing alot lately about the disastrous consequences of the BP oil spill.  Most of those discussion focus on the impact on the wildlife, marshes and beaches in the short term.  What BP, other big oil companies and our government do not want to talk about is that the impact will last for decades if not longer.  They want us to believe that oil spills like this one and the Exxon Valdez can be cleaned up and things will be back to normal in a few years.

Here is an excerpt from 2003 article from sciencedaily.com reporting on a study conducted at the University of North Carolina about the lasting impact of the Exxon Valdez disaster. 

"Studies we reviewed and synthesized showed that oil has persisted in surprisingly large quantities for years after the Exxon Valdez spill in subsurface reservoirs under course intertidal sediments," Peterson said. "This oil was sequestered in conditions where weathering by wave action, light and bacteria was inhibited, and toxicity remained for a decade or more."
"Higher mortality was induced by concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons of only a few parts per billion," Peterson said. "These results require a complete reconsideration of the foundations of ecological risk assessment and ecotoxicology because acute mortality from oil involves concentrations perhaps 1,000 times greater. Earlier experiments incorrectly implied that lower oil concentrations were safe, which the new work clearly showed was not true."
Beyond their acute losses, marine mammals and sea ducks suffered high mortality for years after the accident in part because they ate invertebrates contaminated by the hidden oil and also contacted oil directly while digging up prey. Species as diverse as sea otters, harlequin ducks and killer whales suffered large, long-term losses. Oiled mussel beds and other tidal shoreline habitats will take an estimated 30 years to recover.

Here is an excerpt from another article from sciencedaily.com on April 14, 2010 noting the continuing problems over 20 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Now, using the biomarker CYP1A, which is induced upon exposure to crude oil, an international team led by Daniel Esler, from the Centre for Wildlife Ecology, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, has measured prolonged exposure to oil in local wildlife populations.
"One of the more remarkable and unanticipated findings of recent research is the length of time over which animals were exposed to residual oil," said Esler. "Our research has shown that oil remaining in the area, particularly in inter-tidal areas, was encountered and ingested by some near-shore animals."
"We believe it is important to recognize that the duration of presence of residual oil and its associated effects are not limited to a few years after spills, but for some vulnerable species may occur over decades."

Our government is not being honest with us.  There is no way that the Gulf coast will recover from this oil disaster in a few year or even a few decades.  The oil will kill the marshes, and they will erode away even faster than they do now.  The loss of the marshes as protection against storm surge will cause incredible damage to the communities along the coast every time a storm hits.  The wildlife will continue to ingest oil and suffer from it.  Some species will never return to anything like normal.

If we insist on relying on cheap gasoline and diesel fuels, we can be certain that environmental disasters like the Exxon Valdez and the Deep Horizon well disasters will happen over and over again.  The American people already know that if we keep drilling offshore, these disasters will keep happening and they also know that the impacts of these environmental disasters will last for decades.  We need a government and leaders who are willing to stand up and say that the emperor has no clothes on.  So far no one in our government is willing to say that because it would also require that person to tell the American people another fact that they already know, that we can not continue to guzzle oil and ignore the consequences.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

President Obama grants benefits to same-sex partners

Dear Friends,

It is important to keep in mind the good things that President Obama is doing.  In some cases, they are small steps, but they are small steps in the right direction.  The New York Times carried the following article yesterday (here).  Since it is very short I will reprint it in full.

June 2, 2010, 7:32 pm

New Benefits for Same-Sex Partners

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

President Obama on Wednesday extended a modest package of benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees, a move that will make them eligible for day care, travel and relocation allowances, employee assistance programs and, in some cases, enable them to inherit retirement benefits.
But Mr. Obama lamented that federal law – the Defense of Marriage Act – prevents him from extending the full range of health and retirement benefits to federal employees. He called on Congress to pass legislation that would allow him to do so.
The announcement, timed to coincide with Mr. Obama’s designation of June as Lesbian, Gay, Transgender and Bisexual Pride Month, builds on a memorandum he issued last June, when he directed federal agencies to study ways to deliver more benefits to domestic partners of their employees. Gay rights advocates said it was a meaningful, if incremental, step.
“There are big ticket items like health insurance and retirement that are outside the scope’’ of what the administration can do, said Brian Moulton, chief legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group here. “So anything they do is going to be relatively minor, but anytime you are taking action to make sure that one of these employees is treated as well as the person in the next cubicle, that’s a positive step.’’

While I am in many ways disappointed with President Obama so far in his presidency, I am very pleased with many things that he has done.  He is finally taking some positive steps with respect to human rights issues as they relate specifically to GLBT issues and that is a good thing that no Republican President would be doing.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

President Obama may be getting started

Dear Friends,

In my last post I complained that President Obama needed to engage the American people in a real discussion about energy issues and stop trying to get the Republicans to help.  Well, he must have read my blog because yesterday he gave a speech in Pittsburgh.  Here are some highlights and commentary from Rachel Maddow:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This speech was not very well covered by the media.  However, tomorrow, President Obama will be back in Louisiana with full news coverage. We will see what he says with all the cameras on. I certainly hope that he continues to engage the country in a real discussion of the issues.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

William K. Reilly, Exxon Valdez, ConnocoPhillips and BP

Dear Friends,

I apologize for being absent for awhile.  I am actually overwhelmed by President Obama's failure to use the BP oil spill to engage the American public in a dialogue about energy and why we must change our ways and how we can do that.  Instead, he is making pronouncements that mean nothing and do nothing toward stopping the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico and destroying the gulf coast - the people, the economy and the ecosystem.  It is time for serious discussions about alternatives, and President Obama is looking for Republican support before he takes any steps.  That is not why I supported him.

So here are some fact about William K. Reilly who is the co-chair of President Obama's commission to investigate the oil spill.  Mr. Reilly is obviously the Republican co-chair since apparently, it is a requirement to have a Democrat and a Republican as co-chairs if you want to appoint a commission to investigate something.  Mr. Reilly was the head of the EPA from 1989 to 1993.  He was also the head of The World Wildlife Fund from 1985 to 1989 and is currently the chair of the board of that organization.  He seems to have had a continuing interest in the environment. 

But a little known or perhaps overlooked fact is that Mr. Reilly currently sits on the Board of Directors of ConocoPhillips among other boards.  According to the 2010 proxy statement for ConocoPhillips, non-employee directors like Mr. Reilly get $120,000 of stock annually, plus $100,000 cash annually, plus certain meeting fees and perks.  The proxy showed that last year Mr. Reilly received stock, cash and perks worth $246,515 from ConocoPhillips.  Not a bad gig for attending a few meetings a year.  Just so you don't worry about Mr. Reilly not having enough income.  Mr. Reilly is also on the Board of Directors of DuPont.  According to DuPont's latest proxy statement, Mr. Reilly received a total of $279,526 in cash, stock and perks for being on that board.  So he gets over $500,000 from two huge corporations that have a significant interest in how oil and chemicals are handled in the United States.


Mr. Reilly was the head of the EPA at the time of the Exxon Valdez oil spill that still has not been completely cleaned up.  See here if you don't believe me.  It is instructive to read the executive summary of the report issued by Mr. Reilly as the head of the EPA and the Secretary of Transportation at the time, Samuel Skinner (here).  I have reprinted below one of the findings that I am sure Mr. Reilly will espouse once again when the report on the gulf catastrophe is submitted to President Obama.

Some oil spills may be inevitable. Oil is a vital resource that is inherently dangerous to use and transport. We therefore must balance environmental risks with the nation's energy requirements. The nation must recognize that there is no fail-safe prevention, preparedness, or response system. Technology and human organization can reduce the chance of accidents and mitigate their effects, but may not stop them from happening. This awareness makes it imperative that we work harder to establish environmental safeguards that reduce the risks associated with oil production and transportation. The infrequency of major oil spills in recent years contributed to the complacency that exacerbated the effect of the Exxon Valdez spill.

If you are balancing the environmental risks of oil spills against our country's use of oil and you live off the largess of big chemical corporations, can we really trust you to conduct such a critical balancing act?

I do not blame Mr. Reilly.  He is getting rich from the corporations and to assuage his conscience he stands up for the environment from time to time.  Mr. Reilly is not the President of the United States.  He is a private citizen exercising his rights, but why would President Obama pick him to be the co-chair of a commission to investigate a huge oil spill diaster?

Yesterday Bob Herbert started his column in The New York Times with the following:

If a bank is too big to fail, it’s way too big to exist. If an oil well is too far beneath the sea to be plugged when something goes wrong, it’s too deep to be drilled in the first place.
When are we going to stop behaving so stupidly? We nearly wrecked the economy and we’re all but buried in debt. But we can’t break up the biggest banks, and we can’t raise taxes. Now we’re fouling the magnificent Gulf of Mexico and ruining entire communities along the southern Louisiana Coast.
And, by the way, we’re still fighting a futile war in Afghanistan that we’ve been fighting with nonstop futility for nearly a decade. (I’m sure the troops saddled with this thankless task were thrilled to see fans and teams demonstrating their undying support for their efforts by wearing fancy baseball caps on Memorial Day.)

When will President Obama stop behaving the way all presidents and politicians behave and start engaging the citizens of our country in a discussion that is fact based and relies on common sense and logic instead of stupid sound bites and attempts to get some Republicans to agree with something that he says.  The American people are capable of understanding problems, issues and complexities, but it requires leadership and constant vigilance to keep the fringes from becoming mainstream.  It also requires calling people liars when they lie and teaching them when they don't know.  President Obama can be that kind of leader, but he certainly has not been so far.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal