Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) says Democrats killed THE comprehensive climate bill because Americans "reject further burdensome cost increases on aspects of everyday life." Johanns is concerned about a plan to pass the current non-climate bill and add cap and trade later in a House-Senate Conference bill.
Time for a reality check. The current energy policy is the Bush/Cheney policy with some green. The burdens and costs of this policy, Mr. Johanns, are not borne by the fossil fuel industry, but by people living in fossil fuel territory hit by major oil disasters and thousands of "incidents" that killed OR injured many and assaulted our environment each year.
If the GOP wants to keep this extreme policy, then IT SHOULD at least be honest by mandating that the fossil fuel industry pay for external costs upfront, or impose a fossil fuel tax on all Americans to pay for a victims' recovery fund to cover the costs of health care, economic impacts and environmental recovery that your victims will need to deal with the damage from your backwardness. No more hiding reality from the public.
A policy based on desperation to remain on fossil fuels combined with corporate greed and weak lawmakers means more disasters in our future. Extreme sports are known for activities that have a high level of inherent dangers. Cheney and Bush inserted this extreme philosophy into our energy policy in 2001 because the U.S. is "running out of conventional, easily tapped reservoirs of oil and natural gas located on land or in shallow coastal waters." Cheney's solution was to increase drilling in what BP has called the new energy frontiers of "unconventional energy reserves" in "deep offshore areas," Alaska, Arctic and "complex geological formations such as shale oil and gas."
The BP oil gusher is exhibit 1 of the predictable impacts of our fossil fuel energy policy. The fact that the BP gusher was the 4th major oil spill in North America in 33 years gives the false perception of a minority occurrence that can be eliminated with regulatory reforms.
While BP and the fossil fool industry claim the Gulf Gusher is a one-off, the dots on this map evidence a pattern of destruction during 2000-2009 from oil spills and accidents. A new report by the National Wildlife Federation shows the cumulative impacts of "hundreds of deaths, explosions, fires, seeps, and spills as well as habitat and wildlife destruction in the United States" from our fossil fuel addiction. The NWF report "provides a sampling of the oil and gas industry’s performance over the past 10 years."
The story behind the little dots is one of the costs for Americans and our environment. The top 10 states affected by pipeline accidents include Texas, Louisiana, California, Kansas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Ohio, Michigan and New Mexico. The number of significant incidents per state ranged from 58 to 523 while the per incident range of fatalities was 2-15 and injuries of 8-60. A federal agency reported that during 2001-2007, there were 1,443 "incidents" in offshore drilling that caused 41 fatalities and 302 injuries. Data for onshore pipeline accidents during 2000-2009 show 2,554 significant "incidents" that caused 161 fatalities and 576 injuries.
Continuation of an extreme energy policy that by definition has more inherent dangers and risks does not bode well for how many dots may blot spill maps in the future. The GOP talk about how people should pay their way. Well, during 2009, the top 10 petroleum refining companies in the world reaped $2.8 trillion in revenue and $150 billion in profit. Part of this bounty is due to corporate welfare of not having to pay the costs for damages to our health, our environment and our quality of life. In order to continue this corporate welfare, the fossil fuel industry has spent $38 million only in 2010 to lobby Congress.
While the oil and gas industry has caused "accidents" and "spills" on a monthly, and sometimes daily, basis across our nation, the evening news does not often tell about the personal stories and lives behind the dots on the map.
In the summer of 2000, 3 families decided to enjoy a weekend camping trip in New Mexico. Unfortunately, they picked a camping area along the Pecos River that they did not know had a buried natural gas pipeline. They also did not know that that the gas company was negligent with its internal corrosion control program for the pipeline or that federal regulators failed to conduct appropriate inspections. The pipeline "violently ruptured and exploded beneath their campsite, shooting an enormous fireball 500 feet into the air, visible for miles." All 7 adults, 3 children and 2 infants died.
The NWF report includes an incident list with one paragraph describing the tragedies for 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Common occurrences include pipeline ruptures spilling oil into waterways and lands destroying wildlife and habitat, fireballs from explosions at ports, land (including highways) and water; and leaking underground tanks, contaminating aquifers.
Sometimes it takes decades to clean up. In 2007, the NY Attorney General filed a lawsuit to force Exxon Mobil to clean up a 57-year old oil spill that formed giant plume of mixed petroleum products underneath the streets of NY. A gasoline explosion in 1950 alerted city officials to the serious nature of the spill, which in the 1990s led to "reports of elevated levels of several toxic chemicals in air and soil samples." Similar leaks and plumes are found nationwide:
Leaked underground oil and gasoline plumes such as these have migrated beneath residential communities, contaminating drinking water aquifers and wells. Toxic fumes have also have also threatened public health and safety. These are yet another real cost that society continues to pay for its oil and gasoline -- in health effects, community endangerment, local disruption, and cleanup costs.
MTR is part of this extreme energy policy. To appease the mining industry, we allow hardwood forests that serve as carbon sinks to be clear-cut before bombing to decapitate mountaintops of chains that formed millions of years ago. Deforestation then adds carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and then there are the emissions from burning coal. More corporate welfare is provided mining companies by allowing them to dump toxic waste into over 1,200 miles of streams so they don't have to pay for waste disposal.
The toxic goop from processing the coal is then stored in sludge ponds that sometimes breach, killing people and communities. The 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster killed 125 people, 1,100 injured, 4,000 rendered homeless and 16 communities destroyed. EPA called the Big Sandy River Disaster in 2000 one of the worst environmental disasters in the Southeast when toxic sludge 25 times the amount of oil spilled in Exxon Valdez flooded rivers and buried homes and aquatic life with 10 feet of toxic sludge. In 2002, a tidal wave of sediment water hit Winding Shoals Hollow, destroying 2 homes, and damaging 10 homes and hurtling 10 vehicles downstream.
The message is clear: The war zone in Appalachia is OK as long as our government sticks death, illness and destruction onto others. For example, last year, the North Carolina Senate had the nerve to vote to ban industrial-sized wind turbines from their mountaintops to protect aesthetic views in a state where outdoor tourism is important. However, North Carolina is the "largest state consumer of mountaintop removal coal, buying half of its coal from affected mountaintop removal sites."
Extreme energy also means exploring the new frontier of oil sands that is "kind of like the gulf spill but playing out in slow motion". Similar to BP polluting the Gulf of Mexico, huge amounts of freshwater will be polluted from the oil extraction process:
That water is then left in tailings ponds that currently cover 80 square miles. Those toxic ponds pose a hazard to migrating birds, risk contaminating nearby soil and water resources, present health problems to downstream communities and, the report notes, pose the risk of "a catastrophic breach."
There is also the risk of exploding water wells and homes:
In Bainbridge, Ohio, a house exploded in a fireball after methane gases had infiltrated the house from the groundwater below. A 2008 study by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources concluded that pressures
caused by hydraulic fracturing —– a technique used in natural gas well production —– had pushed the gases through underground geology into the groundwater aquifer beneath the house.
Each of our communities living in fossil fuel danger zones should join forces to tell the GOP to stick their fossil fuel privilege where the sun don't shine.
The EcoJustice series discusses environmental justice, and the disproportionate impacts of environmental degradation and the climate crisis on communities around the world.
Almost 4 decades ago, the EPA was created partially in response to the public health problems caused in the United States by environmental conditions, which included unhealthy air, polluted rivers, unsafe drinking water and waste disposal. Oftentimes, the answer, both here and abroad, has been to locate factories and other pollution-emitting facilities in poor, culturally diverse, or minority communities. EcoJustice demands equal rights for all persons to clean, healthy and sustainable communities.
Please join EcoJustice on Monday evenings at 7PM PST.