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Activists to Interior: Stop letting coal companies pillage our land, atmosphere, and treasury

by y0afvun Posted on April 16, 2013

Activists to Interior: Stop letting coal companies pillage our land, atmosphere, and treasury

By Lisa Hymas

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On her first full workday at her new job, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell got a loud message from green groups: Stop selling publicly owned coal for a pittance and destroying our atmosphere.

AP reports:

Environmental groups are calling for a moratorium on coal leasing in the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming until the federal government reviews the program.

Representatives of 21 groups including Greenpeace and the Sierra Club requested the moratorium Monday in a letter to newly confirmed Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. …

As companies seek to ramp up coal exports, the environmentalists say the government needs to make sure companies are paying proper royalties. They also want more attention given to the climate change impacts of greenhouse gasses emitted when coal is burned.

On the royalty issue, the enviros put it a little more sharply in their letter:

The Department of Interior must ensure that coal companies do not cheat U.S. taxpayers …

A 2012 report from the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis revealed that BLM’s inaccurate assessment of the “fair market value” of coal has cheated taxpayers out of almost $30 billion over the last thirty years, a massive subsidy to the coal industry.

David Roberts put it more sharply still in a post last year: “taxpayers are getting screwed.”

it’s time climate hawks clued in to the fact that the feds — that is to say, we, collectively — own a sh*tload of land and resources, much of which can be used for energy. Among other things, this land we own provides 43.2 percent of the nation’s coal. Not only do we offer this coal up, but we practically beg coal companies to mine it, offering them, [as the Center for America Progress puts it,] “billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies via preferential tax treatments such as the ability to expense exploration and development costs, tax deductions to cover the costs of investments in mines, and favorable capital gains treatment on royalties.”

This week’s letter to Jewell means that a lot of climate hawks are cluing in. Policy analysts Matthew Stepp and Alex Trembath argue that it’s none too soon:

Targeting coal is … an appropriately ambitious strategy against climate change. While Keystone is a single project, U.S. coal is an entire energy system. A fight against it can draw support not only from Bill McKibben’s anti-Keystone troops but also from local clean-air organizers, conservationists who are against strip mining and mountaintop removal, and the many clean-energy industries that stand to gain from coal’s loss.

Indeed, McKibben’s 350.org is one of the groups that signed on to the letter. Activists from 350, the Sierra Club, and other groups know they have to do battle on multiple fronts. It’s not Keystone or coal. It’s Keystone and coal and fracking and offshore drilling and Arctic exploration …

—

Editor’s note: Bill McKibben is a member of Grist’s board of directors.

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Activists to Interior: Stop letting coal companies pillage our land, atmosphere, and treasury

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, solar, solar panels, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Activists to Interior: Stop letting coal companies pillage our land, atmosphere, and treasury

Obama talks green with California donors, says environmental stuff is tough

by N0bodyh56 Posted on April 5, 2013

Obama talks green with California donors, says environmental stuff is tough

By John Upton

President Barack Obama addressed wealthy donors in San Francisco this week, including at one event held in the lavish home of a super-wealthy opponent of the proposed Keystone XL tar-sands oil pipeline.

Rebecca Bowe / San Francisco Bay GuardianProtestors at an Obama fundraiser in the exclusive San Francisco neighborhood of Pacific Heights.

He didn’t tell the donors whether his administration planned to approve the pipeline, which if it leaks will spew the same sticky bitumen that’s coating Mayflower, Ark. But he did talk about the environment. And he wants his wealthy, environment-appreciating donors to know that environmental causes are a tough sell.

From the New York Times:

Mr. Obama appears to be leaning toward the approval of the pipeline, although he did not specifically mention it to the donors. But he acknowledged that it is hard to sell aggressive environmental action — like reducing pollution from power plants — to Americans who are still struggling in a difficult economy to pay bills, buy gas and save for retirement.

“You may be concerned about the temperature of the planet, but it’s probably not rising to your No. 1 concern,” Mr. Obama said. “And if people think, well, that’s shortsighted, that’s what happens when you’re struggling to get by.”

Mr. Obama delivered his remarks to a group that hardly needs to worry economically: Thomas F. Steyer, the hedge-fund billionaire, and his wife, Kat Taylor, along with 100 guests at their home who each paid $5,000 to $32,400. The event was the first of four over two days in Northern California, the president’s first fund-raising drive in hopes of winning a friendlier Congress in 2014. …

The challenge for Mr. Obama is to find a way to balance the political demands of supporters like Mr. Steyer, who has criticized the pipeline, with the insistence of Republicans, Canadian officials and some unions that the pipeline will create jobs and lower the cost of fuel in the United States. The president also faces pressure from some members of his party who argue that the economic benefits of the pipeline are too important to ignore. Last month, 17 Democratic senators signed on to an amendment backing construction of the pipeline. Included in the group were seven senators from conservative or swing states who are up for re-election in 2014.

In the face of those pressures, at the fund-raiser on Wednesday — and at a second one at the home of the billionaire philanthropists Ann and Gordon Getty — the president sought to reassure his supporters that he would continue to fight for environmentally friendly policies.

Obama might not have mentioned the pipeline during his talk, but plenty of protestors outside the Gettys’ home showed up to chant about it. From the San Francisco Bay Guardian:

Around 6 p.m. [Wednesday], protesters gathered to parade past the rows of mansions, braving the chilly mist as they sang, chanted and waved signs opposing the pipeline. “If the environment were a bank, it would have been saved already,” one handmade cardboard sign read.

Police set up barricades to restrict access to the Getty residence, and when protesters spilled into the nearby intersection of Broadway and Divisadero, police officers stationed on the street with megaphones joined with motorcycle cops in urging the crowd backward onto the sidewalk, creating a tight squeeze.

Chants included phrases like, “What do we say to the president? No pipeline for the one percent!” And, “Hey, Obama, we don’t want no pipeline drama.” The action was organized by a host of prominent environmental organizations including 350.org, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Credo Action, and the Rainforest Action Network (RAN).

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Obama talks green with California donors, says environmental stuff is tough

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Northern California sees driest winter on record

by mirorita02 Posted on February 27, 2013

Northern California sees driest winter on record

By Susie Cagle

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Nearly 100 years ago, Dust Bowl refugees from the middle of the country sought new lives and livelihoods in the Golden State. Now California is fixing to become its own damn dust bowl. The last two months in the northern Sierra Nevada, normally the wettest time of the year, have shattered an all-time weather record as the driest January and February in recorded history.

From The Sacramento Bee:

The northern Sierra is crucial to statewide water supplies because it is where snowmelt accumulates to fill Shasta and Oroville reservoirs. These are the largest reservoirs in California and the primary storage points for state and federal water supply systems.

If February concludes without additional storms — and none are expected — the northern Sierra will have seen 2.2 inches of precipitation in January and February, the least since record-keeping began in the region in 1921.

That is well below the historical average of 17.1 inches.

Other spots throughout the state have also seen record dry conditions after November and December brought an epic atmospheric river to the West Coast, drenching the North Sierra in twice the average precipitation.

Another such Pineapple Express is unlikely in the months to come, though, and that reality has left residents dry and a bit itchy. Farmers are scaling back their plans to account for the lack of water. One water authority director laments that “there will be a lot of land fallowed” even though the state was “almost in flood-control conditions back in December.”

From feast to famine in just two months — quick work, California!

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While protestors surrounded the White House, Obama was golfing with oil executives

by graptorm Posted on February 20, 2013

While protestors surrounded the White House, Obama was golfing with oil executives

By Philip Bump

Obama playing golf closer to home.

When some 35,000 protestors descended on Washington, D.C., on Sunday, they hoped to send a message to President Obama: Kill the Keystone XL pipeline. Show real leadership on the climate. From the Mall up to the White House they marched, hoping that Obama would see the crowd and read the signs and be moved.

But Obama wasn’t there to see the crowd. He wasn’t in the White House. He was in Florida, playing a round of golf with two directors of Western Gas Holdings, a subsidiary of Anadarko Petroleum focused on natural gas fracking. From the Huffington Post, which broke the story:

Obama has not shied away from supporting domestic drilling, especially for relatively clean natural gas, but in his most recent State of the Union speech he stressed the urgency of addressing climate change by weaning the country and the world from dependence on carbon-based fuels. …

But on his first “guys weekend” away since he was reelected, the president chose to spend his free time with Jim Crane and Milton Carroll, leading figures in the Texas oil and gas industry, along with other men who run companies that deal in the same kinds of carbon-based services that Keystone would enlarge. They hit the links at the Floridian Yacht and Golf Club, which is owned by Crane and located on the Treasure Coast in Palm City, Fla.

Not only are Crane and Carroll with Wester Gas Holdings, Carroll is also the chair of CenterPoint Energy, which provides residential and commercial electricity and natural gas — and which just today announced it is accepting bids for proposals to transport its oil out of the North Dakota Bakken region.

When news of Obama’s golf partners broke, environmental organizations responded as you might expect. Public Citizen’s Tyson Slocum: “It’s clear that folks in the oil industry have access to the president.” The Sierra Club’s resident law-breaker Michael Brune: “There’s an old adage that you’re only as good as the company you keep” — though Brune remains optimistic.

A bit of good news for those activists whose rallying cries probably didn’t carry the 950 miles from D.C. to Palm City: If I know anything about golf, the president and his oil industry executive friends weren’t talking during their entire round. Even if they pled their case for expanded drilling, Obama didn’t hear them, either. If I know anything about golf, that is. Which I don’t.

Source

Obama Golfed With Oil Men As Climate Protesters Descended On White House, Huffington Post

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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While protestors surrounded the White House, Obama was golfing with oil executives

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Tens of thousands march on White House in rally for climate action

by vserko45 Posted on February 18, 2013

Tens of thousands march on White House in rally for climate action

By Susie Cagle

Organizers called it the largest climate rally in U.S. history, and it was. Depending on who you ask, there were 30,000, 40,000, even 50,000 people in Washington D.C. Sunday to lobby for political action on climate change. Depending on who you ask, the tone was joyous or righteous. And depending on who you ask, those 30,000, 40,000, even 50,000 people were giving President Obama an angry demand, a stern but friendly prodding, or the “support he needs” to take action.

350.org

350.org, the Sierra Club, the Hip Hop Caucus, and a comprehensive list of basically anyone in the U.S. who cares about climate change joined with politicians, investors, indigenous peoples, and an assortment of celebrities (can’t have a climate rally without some celebs!) to rally and lead a march on the White House Sunday afternoon, calling for an end to politics and policies that are cooking our planet to death. For all the serious stuff, it was also a party — chants for justice were mixed in with mini dance parties to pop music. But for all the Gangnam Style, there was an overwhelming sense that, while this rally was a glorious show, it was also indicative of just how bad things have gotten.

“We have a very entrenched system that’s going to really require us to work together for a vision of people, peace, and the planet,” the Green Party’s Jill Stein said in an interview. “We are here for the long haul.”

From fracking and coal to factory farming, activists called for an end to all the little things that are adding up to climate meltdown. But mainly today we were here because of the Keystone XL pipeline — the long-embattled project to pump vast quantities of tar sands oil from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico, halted a year ago by President Obama and up for a final decision this spring.

“This President has lifted the hope for the world with his inaugural address, with his State of the Union address. He cannot turn around in two weeks and crush the hopes of the world and his base and the next generation and the children of all species by letting a very dumb and dangerous project go through our country,” Rebuild the Dream’s Van Jones, former green jobs adviser to President Obama, told me. “I think it is up to us to make sure that he does not accept the pipeline. I don’t have any reason to believe at this point that the pipeline won’t go through.”

350.org’s Bill McKibben kicked off the rally in the early afternoon, listing some of the many (many!) different battles being waged nationwide in the war on climate change. “You are the antibodies kicking in as the planet tries to fight its fever,” McKibben said as a Park Police helicopter circled low and slow overhead. “And we have waited a looong time to get started.”

At first glance, it seemed a united front of climate activism, a relatively diverse and good-spirited crowd coming together to make change. It was indeed a broad coalition, but there were definite blocs within the group. Stein told me she wanted to speak at the rally but hadn’t been allowed to, for political reasons. “Fighting climate change” seemed to take on different meanings for different people: Was it marching in a permitted protest through the streets, blockading pipeline construction, or a more extreme escalation?

Within a span of five minutes while paused in front of the White House, I heard a soft rendition of “Down by the Riverside” and a rousing chant of “a-anti-anticapitalista.” Some dressed as polar bears while others wore black bandanas over their faces. Some signs asked nicely; others screamed.

As those tens of thousands circled the White House, President Obama was playing golf in sunny (warmer every day!) Florida with Tiger Woods. By the time the afternoon rolled around and the icy wind picked up, the crowd dispersed (but not until after a rousing round dance led by First Nations peoples from the Idle No More movement).

In all, the rally seemed to mark the end of the beginning of the new environmental movement. But the thing’s gotten so big, it seems to be having a bit of an identity crisis — torn between mainstream and radical aspirations.

In some ways, Sunday’s event was an absolutely historic response to a historic moment. And in some ways, it was exactly the same as these things always have been.

We come, we chant, we go home. So: What’s next?

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Tens of thousands march on White House in rally for climate action

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Courting White House arrest over Keystone XL: Rancher, financier, Kennedy, Sierra Club head

by RubinkJoseph Posted on February 13, 2013

Courting White House arrest over Keystone XL: Rancher, financier, Kennedy, Sierra Club head

By Philip Bump

For the first time in the Sierra Club’s 121-year history — and only 164 years after Henry David Thoreau’s famed treatise on the topic — the executive director of the organization will be arrested in an act of civil disobedience.

The event (which entices members of the press with a promise of “great visuals”) will happen shortly before noon today outside of the White House. The issue spurring such drastic action by Sierra Club director Michael Brune is the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, meaning that Brune will be something like the 1,200th person arrested at the White House protesting that issue.

Brune will be joined by about 50 others, including Bill McKibben of 350.org (and Grist’s board), civil rights leader Julian Bond, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and actress Daryl Hannah (who has been arrested at a White House Keystone protest before). Also included at the event: Randy Thompson, a Nebraska rancher who has emerged as a leader in that state’s fight against the pipeline. According to Fortune magazine, fund manager Jeremy Grantham also plans to participate. “I have told scientists to be persuasive, be brave and be arrested, if necessary, so it only seems proper to do this,” Grantham told the magazine. (Full disclosure: Grantham’s foundation is a funder of Grist.)

tarsandsaction

From a November 2011 protest against Keystone XL.

In a tweet this morning, McKibben suggested that the goal isn’t protest.

A letter from event organizers reinforces that message.

The president can’t work miracles by himself. An obstructionist Congress stands in the way of progress and innovation. But President Obama has the executive authority and the mandate from the American people to stand up to the fossil fuel industry, and to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline right now. …

Today we risk arrest because a global crisis unfolds before our eyes. We have the solutions to this climate crisis. We have a moral obligation to stand stand for immediate, bold action to solve climate disruption. We can do it, and we will.

Several years ago, NASA climate scientist James Hansen suggested that building the Keystone XL pipeline would be “game over” for the climate, helping to inspire robust opposition to it from environmentalists. Last January, the president declined to approve the permit needed to build the pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border, following the initial campaign of protests from 350.org and other activists.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Courting White House arrest over Keystone XL: Rancher, financier, Kennedy, Sierra Club head

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Sierra Club OKs law-breaking in battle against Keystone

by MayeskiLatouf679 Posted on January 23, 2013

Sierra Club OKs law-breaking in battle against Keystone

By Susie Cagle

The Sierra Club seems like the kind of folks who button the top button, not the ones who hang out on the barricades. Until now.

For the first time in the hallowed green group’s 120-year history, it will be engaging in civil disobedience at the Feb. 17 Washington, D.C., rally against the Keystone XL pipeline. Is the Sierra Club really getting wild? Well, probably not. The group won’t say what the civil disobedience will be exactly, but it will be invite-only (!), it’s been approved by the board of directors, and it’s a one-time-only event.

A 2011 Keystone XL protest at the White House.

From the Club’s Executive Director Michael Brune:

Next month, the Sierra Club will officially participate in an act of peaceful civil resistance. We’ll be following in the hallowed footsteps of Thoreau, who first articulated the principles of civil disobedience 44 years before John Muir founded the Sierra Club.

Some of you might wonder what took us so long. Others might wonder whether John Muir is sitting up in his grave. In fact, John Muir had both a deep appreciation for Thoreau and a powerful sense of right and wrong. And it’s the issue of right versus wrong that has brought the Sierra Club to this unprecedented decision. …

The Sierra Club has refused to stand by. We’ve worked hard and brought all of our traditional tactics of lobbying, electoral work, litigation, grassroots organizing and public education to bear on this crisis. And we have had great success — stopping more than 170 coal plants from being built, securing the retirement of another 129 existing plants and helping grow a clean energy economy. But time is running out, and there is so much more to do. The stakes are enormous. At this point, we can’t afford to lose a single major battle. That’s why the Sierra Club’s board of directors has for the first time endorsed an act of peaceful civil disobedience.

The Keystone XL pipeline fight has seen all manner of extralegal resistance over the last year from far scrappier characters than the Sierra Club. But for some people, engaging in civil disobedience can be a transformative, radicalizing experience. They say it’s one-time-only now, but what happens after they get their first taste of pepper spray?

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Green and lefty groups band together, pledge millions to fight right-wing evildoing

by aleidasharrington Posted on January 10, 2013

Green and lefty groups band together, pledge millions to fight right-wing evildoing

By Lisa Hymas

Andy Kroll at Mother Jones writes about “the massive new liberal plan to remake American politics”:

A month after President Barack Obama won reelection, top brass from three dozen of the most powerful groups in liberal politics met at the headquarters of the National Education Association (NEA), a few blocks north of the White House. Brought together by the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Communication Workers of America (CWA), and the NAACP, the meeting was invite-only and off-the-record. Despite all the Democratic wins in November, a sense of outrage filled the room as labor officials, environmentalists, civil rights activists, immigration reformers, and a panoply of other progressive leaders discussed the challenges facing the left and what to do to beat back the deep-pocketed conservative movement.

At the end of the day, many of the attendees closed with a pledge of money and staff resources to build a national, coordinated campaign around three goals: getting big money out of politics, expanding the voting rolls while fighting voter ID laws, and rewriting Senate rules to curb the use of the filibuster to block legislation. The groups in attendance pledged a total of millions of dollars and dozens of organizers to form a united front on these issues—potentially, a coalition of a kind rarely seen in liberal politics, where squabbling is common and a stay-in-your-lane attitude often prevails. …

The liberal activists have dubbed this effort the Democracy Initiative. The campaign, Brune says, has since been attracting other members—and also interest from foundations looking to give money—because many groups on the left believe they can’t accomplish their own goals without winning reforms on the Initiative’s three issues.

As Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune puts it, “We’re not going to have a clean-energy economy if the same companies that are polluting our rivers and oceans are also polluting our elections.”

Shutterstock

Somebody’s gotta fight the bad guys.

The Democracy Initiative, which first started meeting last June, now includes 30 to 35 groups, and Brune expects that to soon swell to 50. “[A]ttendees at the December meeting included top officials from the League of Conservation Voters, Friends of the Earth, Public Campaign, the AFL-CIO, SEIU, Common Cause, Voto Latino, the Demos think tank, Piper Fund, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, People for the American Way, National People’s Action, National Wildlife Federation, the Center for American Progress, the United Auto Workers, and Color of Change.”

[Brune and other instigators] say the Democracy Initiative is no flash in the pan; they’re in it for the long haul, for more than just this election cycle and the one after it. It took four decades, these leaders say, for conservatives to shape state and federal legislatures to the degree that they have, and it will take a long stretch to roll back those changes. “The game is rigged against us; the corporate right has done such a good job taking over the Congress and the courts,” [says Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford]. “We’re saying we need to step back and change the whole game.”

The first order of business is pushing to change the Senate’s operating rules and curb use of the filibuster, which probably has to happen by Jan. 22 in order to take hold in this new Congress. Wondering why filibuster reform is so important? Grist’s David Roberts explains.

Source

Revealed: The Massive New Liberal Plan to Remake American Politics, Mother Jones

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Controversial California oyster farm fights to stay

by biglermyrta910 Posted on December 19, 2012

Controversial California oyster farm fights to stay

By Susie Cagle

It’s a salty Christmas miracle for Drakes Bay Oyster Company — albeit a temporary one.

two_wrongs

The bivalve purveyor in Point Reyes, just north of San Francisco, was set to be dissolved at the end of the year: equipment dismantled, employees laid off, land vacated. This was the plan all along for the feds, who had issued a 40-year lease to the company with the intent of its expiration on Jan. 1, 2013, at which time the land would be returned to federal wilderness and cute scampering seals on the Point Reyes National Seashore.

After the Interior Department refused to extend the company’s lease for another 10 years, Drakes vowed to fight the decision and filed suit. Now it’s reached at least a temporary agreement with Interior. From the Marin Independent Journal:

Under the agreement, the oyster company which has long been a fixture in Point Reyes National Seashore may continue activities involving planting and growing new oysters in the water at Drakes Estero, avoiding layoffs of one-third of its 30 employees right before the holidays …

Under the agreement, the oyster company has withdrawn its request for a temporary restraining order and instead will file a motion for a preliminary injunction challenging [Interior Secretary Kenneth] Salazar’s decision.

A hearing is set for Jan. 25 on the injunction.

Everyone loves them some seals, even in molting season (this is saying a lot, seals), and many environmentalists — the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, other usual suspects — support closing the farm, citing the importance of pure wilderness. But many other environmentalists support letting it stay, and their voices have grown stronger over the past couple of weeks. Writes Earth Island Journal editor Jason Marks:

Wilderness is all too rare (and becoming rarer) and we need more places that aren’t stamped with humanity’s insignia.

But Drake’s Estero is not that place. Having followed this controversy for years — and having spent several spells living in Point Reyes Station, the hamlet at the edge of the park — I strongly believe the oyster farm should stay.

It seems to me the debate over the ecological impact of Drakes Bay Oyster Company is all backwards. The issue isn’t whether shellfish farming is compatible with the ideal of wilderness. Rather, it’s whether a wilderness is compatible with the pastoral landscape that surrounds Drake’s Estero …

A National Academies of Science report from 2009 said the data on oyster farm-related harbor seal disturbance was so thin that it “cannot be used to infer cause and effect,” and called for “a more detailed assessment.” A professor from UC-Davis who reviewed the Park Service’s draft environmental impact study on the oyster farm removal observed that “impacts of oyster aquaculture on birds are speculative and unsupported by peer-reviewed publications.”

Some locals say the feds even took their comments out of context, misrepresenting them as being against the farm when they support it. One kayak touring company said paddling in the estero has only gotten more pleasant in recent years, under Drakes’ new ownership. “Not only have they cleaned and improved the physical location but they offer an educational and historical component that enhances our client’s experience of the area.” The kayakers also said they rely on the farmers for potential emergency rescue.

In the meanwhile, Drakes is still farming and harvesting per usual, and open for business. And if you’re feeling crafty, you can hit up its massive piles of castoff oyster shells and DIY one of these very eco-friendly holiday trees.

Peach Tree

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Interior: We’ll maybe finalize those fracking rules next year

by Myrna Posted on December 12, 2012

Interior: We’ll maybe finalize those fracking rules next year

By Philip Bump

Bad news, water lovers: You’re going to need to wait until at least 2013 before you know if you’re drinking fracking fluid.

Last May, the Department of the Interior, America’s most introspective governmental bureau, announced proposed regulations for the fracking process. The proposal was … not very strong. Companies would have to provide information on chemicals used in the process, but only after the fact.

ncindc

The fast-acting Department of the Interior.

Nonetheless, the fracking industry was hella mad, because if you government pencil-necks say companies have to worry about where chemicals end up or, worse, have to tell everyone what chemicals they use, those companies will have to fire everyone and probably resort to a life of crime. And besides, they noted, the existing rules states have are already so oppressive.

But Interior was all, too bad, guys. We’re going to crack down! By the end of the year, you watch, we’ll have final rules.

And, lo, The Hill reports:

The Interior Department no longer plans to finalize rules this year that will impose new controls on the controversial oil-and-gas development method called hydraulic fracturing, a spokesman said.

“In order to ensure that the 170,000 comments received are properly analyzed, the Bureau of Land Management expects action on the [hydraulic fracturing] proposal in the new year,” Interior spokesman Blake Androff said.

So that’s that.

Incidentally, I am not clear why it will take so long to go through those 170,000 comments. The breakdown is almost certainly as follows.

152,000 comments are in support of fracking regulations, but call for them to be tighter than proposed. All 152,000 share 82 percent of the same language; 76,000 include the words “Sierra Club” and 76,000 include the abbreviation “NRDC.” 98.6 percent of them originated from the states of California or New York.
18,000 comments oppose any regulation and are from “regular Joes,” including people named Tex Rillerson, Won Jotson, and, for some reason, Bon Jaynor. In those 18,000 comments, the word “jobs” appears 269,000 times.

So once they’ve sorted those comments out into two piles, measured the height of each, and applied some magic calculus to the result, Interior will announce final rules. Sometime. Maybe 2013. We’ll see.

In the meantime, drink up.

Source

Interior delays ‘fracking’ rules, The Hill

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Interior: We’ll maybe finalize those fracking rules next year

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