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A Lot of Republicans Are Abandoning the Latest Trumpcare Plan

by JacelynBrigham Posted on May 2, 2017

Mother Jones

Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare could once again be in trouble. According to whip counts from various news outlets, Republicans have already lost nearly enough support from their own members in the House of Representatives to tank the American Health Care Act, the GOP’s bill that would rip apart and replace the Affordable Care Act.

The latest blow for House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) came Tuesday, when Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said that he’d vote against the bill. Upton is a particularly notable defection, since he’s the former chairman of one of the committees that deals with health care, and he’s spent years trying to undo Obamacare. But the current GOP repeal effort goes too far for Upton, because it would essentially end Obamacare’s ban on discrimination against people with preexisting conditions. “I’m not at all comfortable with removing that protection,” Upton said in a radio interview.

Last week, Republicans thought they were headed toward a deal that could pass the House. The hardcore conservatives in the Freedom Caucus had finally relented and offered their support for the AHCA after an amendment was introduced that would allow states to opt out of two of the core consumer protections in Obamacare: essential health benefits, and the prohibition on insurance companies charging higher rates for people with preexisting conditions. In other words, in order to win over the far-right members of their caucus, Ryan and other House leaders accepted a proposal that would allow insurance companies to once again price-gouge people with any sort of medical history.

But by caving to the Freedom Caucus and agreeing to ditch one of the most popular aspects of Obamacare, Ryan has lost support from a number of mainline Republicans in his caucus—Republicans who were already waffling thanks to the initial bill’s $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid and policies that would allow insurance companies to charge older Americans higher rates.

Republicans can likely afford to lose just 22 votes and still pass their bill. (The exact number depends on how many members of Congress are present if the vote ever happens.) Per a tabulation by HuffPost‘s Matt Fuller, there are 20 Republicans who have publicly said they will vote “No,” with another eight leaning against the bill. And those are just the Republicans willing to share their plains with the press. It’s possible that others are hesitant to publicly defy GOP leadership but are also wary of voting to repeal protections for their many constituents who suffer from preexisting conditions.

Ryan’s strategy for convincing his colleagues to support the bill seems to be to lie about what it actually does. After Upton announced his plans to vote against the proposal Tuesday, Ryan tweeted that it was “VERIFIED” that the bill protects people with preexisting conditions, despite the bill explicitly doing the exact opposite. Ryan’s own website acknowledges that fact, noting that the GOP plan would let states wave the current ban on preexisting condition pricing differences:

President Donald Trump has helped muddy GOP negotiations in recent days with a string of contradictory messages about what sort of health care bill he’d like to sign. In interviews, Trump has said both that the bill already protects people with preexisting conditions (not true) and also that the bill would be altered to add in those protections.

Still, despite all this bad news, Republicans have good reason to want to rush their bill through this week. While the public vote tallies aren’t favorable to Republicans, leadership is applying pressure behind the scenes that could possibly flip enough votes. Ryan reportedly asked his caucus to “pray” for the bill on Tuesday.

Ryan doesn’t have a ton of time, though. Congress is scheduled to leave town Thursday for a one-week recess, and a week of angry town hall events back home isn’t likely to shore up wavering moderates who are hesitant to overturn the preexisting condition ban and slash Medicaid.

What’s more, the amendment to end the preexisting condition protections hasn’t been analyzed yet by the Congressional Budget Office. When the CBO ran the numbers on the initial GOP proposal, it projected that 24 million fewer people would have health coverage if the plan became law. That number would probably rise under the new proposal, and premiums for people with preexisting conditions would likely skyrocket. But the CBO hasn’t yet had time to score the new legislation, leaving Republicans a brief window in which they could pass the bill before the American public has a chance to hear what it will actually do.

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A Lot of Republicans Are Abandoning the Latest Trumpcare Plan

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Now Google Street View is mapping gas pipeline leaks

by MariettSorrells Posted on July 16, 2014

what’s that smell?

Now Google Street View is mapping gas pipeline leaks

By

Emmadukew

Some of those Google cars that drive around photographing streetscapes and embarrassing moments have captured something extra — something that should embarrass major utilities. The cars were kitted out by University of Colorado scientists with sensors that sniff out natural gas leaking from underground pipelines. These methane-heavy leaks contribute to global warming, waste money, and can fuel explosions.

The sensor-equipped cars cruised the streets of Boston, New York’s Staten Island, and Indianapolis. They returned to sites where methane spikes were detected to confirm the presence of a leak. The results were released Wednesday by the Environmental Defense Fund, which coordinated the project, revealing just how leaky old and metallic pipelines can be, such as those used in the East Coast cities studied, particularly when compared with noncorrosive pipes like those beneath Indianapolis.

About one leak was discovered for each mile driven in Boston, Mass.:

EDF

The findings were similar in Staten Island, N.Y.:

EDF

In Indianapolis, Ind., by contrast, about one leak was found for every 200 miles that the cars covered:

EDF


Source
Natural gas: Local leaks impact global climate, Environmental Defense Fund

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Now Google Street View is mapping gas pipeline leaks

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Wasting water in California will now cost you $500

by LeilaniGMN Posted on July 16, 2014

Wasting water in California will now cost you $500

By

Shutterstock

Here’s a list of things that could now get you fined up to $500 a day in California, where a multi-year drought is sucking reservoirs and snowpacks dry:

Spraying so much water on your lawn or garden that excess water flows onto non-planted areas, walkways, parking lots, or neighboring property.
Washing your car with a hose that doesn’t have an automatic shut-off device.
Spraying water on a driveway, a sidewalk, asphalt, or any other hard surface.
Using fresh water in a water fountain — unless the water recirculates.

Those stern emergency regulations were adopted Tuesday by a unanimous vote of the State Water Resources Control Board – part of an effort to crack down on the profligate use of water during critically lean times.

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) asked the state’s residents to voluntarily conserve water in January, but they didn’t. Rather, as the San Jose Mercury News reports, “a new state survey released Tuesday showed that water use in May rose by 1 percent this year, compared with a 2011-2013 May average.”

Californians use more water on their gardens and lawns than they use inside their homes, as shown in the following chart from a document prepared for the board members ahead of Tuesday’s vote. So the new rules focus on outdoor use.

Extreme drought is now affecting 80 percent of the Golden State. Some 400,000 acres of farmland could be fallowed due to water shortages, and water customers in the hardest-hit communities are having their daily water supplies capped at less than 50 gallons per person.

The California Landscape Contractors Association sees an upside, though. It expects that the threats of fines could convince Californians to hire its members to replace thirsty nonnative plants in their gardens with drought-hardy alternatives. “If the runoff prohibition is enforced at the local level, we expect it to result in a multitude of landscape retrofits in the coming months,” association executive Larry Rohlfes told the water board in a letter dated Monday, one of a large stack of letters sent by various groups and residents in support of the new rules. “The water efficient landscapes that result will help the state’s long-term conservation efforts — in addition to helping the state deal with a hopefully short-term drought emergency.”


Source
Proposed text of emergency regulations, State Water Resources Control Board
California Drought: Conservation efforts failing despite pleas to save water, San Jose Mercury News

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Wasting water in California will now cost you $500

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Canadians are eating tar-sands pollution

by DaniellBlankens Posted on July 7, 2014

Canadians are eating tar-sands pollution

By

Caelie Frampton

Tar-sands extraction isn’t just turning swaths of Canadian land into postapocalyptic film sets. New research shows it’s also contaminating the wild animals that members of the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations have traditionally relied on for food.

We already knew that the tar-sands operations have been dousing northern Alberta with mercury and other forms of pollution. Now university scientists have collaborated with the First Nations to test the pollution levels in hunted animals found downstream from the tar-sands sites. Here are some lowlights from their findings, which were included in a report published on Monday:

Arsenic levels were high enough in in muskrat and moose muscle; duck, moose, and muskrat livers; and moose and duck kidneys to be of concern for young children. Cadmium levels were again elevated in moose kidney and liver samples but also those of beaver and ducks … Mercury levels were also high for duck muscle, kidneys, and livers as well as moose and muskrat kidneys, especially for children. …

Total levels of PAHs [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons] and levels of carcinogenic and alkylated PAHs were very high relative to other food studies conducted around the world.

The First Nations members aren’t shocked to hear this. Some have already started avoiding their traditional foods because of worries about contamination, they told researchers. More from the report:

Participants were concerned about declines in the quality of [traditional] foods, in the greatest part because of environmental pollutants originating from the Oil Sands. It was notable how many participants no longer consumed locally caught fish, because of government-issued consumption advisories and associated human health concerns. Muskrat consumption had also declined precipitously, along with muskrat populations, a decline that was attributed to changes in hydrology and contaminant levels associated with the WAC Bennett Dam and the Oil Sands. The only effective alternatives to traditional foods are store-bought foods. …

All participants were worried about ongoing declines in the health and wellbeing of their community. They generally viewed themselves as less healthy than their parents, who rarely got sick. Neurological illnesses (e.g. sleeping disorders, migraines, and stress) were most common followed, in descending order of frequency, by respiratory illnesses (e.g. allergies, asthma) as well as circulatory (e.g. hypertension, coronary) and gastrointestinal (e.g. gallbladder, ulcers) illnesses. Yet, everyone was most concerned about the current and escalating cancer crisis.

A documentary about the research — One River, Many Relations — will be released in October. Here’s a trailer:

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

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Canadians are eating tar-sands pollution

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Just how friendly are your “bee-friendly” plants?

by ConsuelStarling Posted on June 26, 2014

Buzz kill much?

Just how friendly are your “bee-friendly” plants?

By

Shutterstock

We don’t want to kill your bee-loving buzz, but if you buy “bee-friendly” plants and seedlings from Home Depot or similar stores, then you could be unwittingly killing the bees that you’re trying to protect.

Friends of the Earth tested 71 garden plants with “bee-friendly” labels purchased from major retailers in the U.S. and Canada and discovered that 36 of them had been treated with bee- and butterfly-killing neonic pesticides.

“Since 51 percent of the plants that were tested contained neonicotinoid residues, the chance of purchasing a plant contaminated with neonicotinoids is high,” states a new report detailing the findings. “Therefore, many home gardens have likely become a source of exposure for bees. For the samples with positive detections, adverse effects on bees and other pollinators consuming nectar and pollen from these plants are possible, ranging from sublethal effects on navigation, fertility, and immune function to pollinator death.”

Déjà vu? You bet. The nonprofit published similar findings last year.

The difference this year is that the some of the large retailers have responded to the findings by pledging to try to end the appalling practice of treating “bee-friendly” plants with bee-killing pesticides. Reuters reports:

Atlanta-based Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, is requiring its suppliers to start [labeling plants treated with neonic pesticides] by the fourth quarter of this year, said Ron Jarvis, the company’s vice president of merchandising/sustainability. Home Depot is also running tests in several states to see if suppliers can eliminate neonics in their plant production without hurting plant health, he said. …

Also on Wednesday, BJ’s Wholesale Club, a warehouse retailer with more than 200 locations along the East Coast, said it was asking all of its vendors to provide plants free of neonics by the end of 2014 or to label such products as requiring “caution around pollinators” like bees.

At least 10 other smaller retailers, with locations in Minnesota, Colorado, Maryland and California, have announced plans to limit or eliminate neonics from plant products.

Here’s a list of retailers that have pledged to sell neonic-free plants.


Source
Gardeners Beware (2014): Bee-toxic pesticides found in “bee-friendly plants sold at garden centers across the U.S. and Canada, Friends of the Earth
U.S. retailers look to limit pesticides to help honeybees, Reuters

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Climate action could spur $2 trillion in economic growth in 2030 alone

by TabathaPoole Posted on June 24, 2014

free money

Climate action could spur $2 trillion in economic growth in 2030 alone

By

John UptonUnclogging streets in India could encourage economic growth and help save the climate at the same time.

Republicans in Congress, dim-witted politicians abroad, and fossil-fuel companies would all like you to believe that taking action on climate change is too expensive. Better to blow all our cash and credit on unsustainable oil and coal today and live large and dirty for as long as possible, they argue.

Cue World Bank study.

The international lender, which has been belatedly waking up to the dangers of climate change in recent years, modeled the potential costs and benefits of using taxes, incentives, and regulations to clean up key sectors of some of the world’s biggest economies. It analyzed reforms that could spur cleaner transportation, more efficient industrial use of energy, and less energy-hungry buildings and appliances. It concluded that such reforms would create GDP growth of $1.8 trillion to $2.6 trillion per year by 2030.

Oh, and it would prevent 94,000 premature deaths annually.

In many cases, the analysts looked at local case studies, such as the benefits of providing rural Chinese with cleaner cookstoves and improving public transportation in an Indian city, then considered what the impacts would be if those initiatives were scaled up to national or regional levels. They concluded that the public-health, economic-development, food-supply, and energy-supply benefits of reforms in those key sectors far outweighed the costs of the reforms.

World Bank

“Thanks to a growing body of research, it is now clear that climate-smart development can boost employment and can save millions of lives,” states the World Bank report, released Tuesday. “Smart development policies and projects can also slow the pace of adverse climate changes. Based on this new scientific understanding, and with the development of new economic modeling tools to quantify these benefits, it is clear that the objectives of economic development and climate protection can be complementary.”


Source
New Study Adds Up the Benefits of Climate-Smart Development in Lives, Jobs, and GDP, World Bank

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Climate action could spur $2 trillion in economic growth in 2030 alone

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Federal bill would wash away plastic microbead problem

by PearleneEdmonds Posted on June 19, 2014

out damn spot

Federal bill would wash away plastic microbead problem

By

Eric T. Schneiderman Facebook page

Could America’s bathroom cabinets finally be cleansed of tiny ecosystem-disrupting plastic beads?

Ecologists, activists, and lawmakers in a number of states have grown increasingly alarmed at exfoliating plastic microbeads in products such as face wash, toothpaste, and shampoo, which wash down drains and end up in lakes, rivers, and oceans. Earlier this month, Illinois became the first state to outlaw the manufacture and sale of grooming products containing the microbeads, starting in 2017.

Now microbead worries have simmered up to Congress. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) on Wednesday introduced a bead-banning bill. From his press release:

The bill would ban the sale or distribution of cosmetics products containing plastic microbeads effective January 1, 2018.

“These tiny plastic particles that are polluting our environment are found in products specifically designed to be washed down shower drains,” said Pallone. “And many people buying these products are unaware of their damaging effects. If we know that these products will eventually reach our waterways, we must make sure that they don’t contain synthetic plastic that does not biodegrade and ultimately pollute our waterways. We have a responsibility to put a stop to this unnecessary plastic pollution.”

The bill is pretty much DOA in the Republican-controlled House. But a solution to the microbead problem could still be in the offing. As the AP notes, the companies that produce these polluting products actually cooperated with Illinois lawmakers in drafting the state’s recent bill. That’s largely because many of them have already announced plans to stop using the plastic ingredients altogether in the coming years.


Source
Pallone Introduces Legislation to Ban Use of Plastic Microbeads in Cosmetics, Pallone website
In Odd Twist, Industry Agrees to Ban ‘Microbeads’, The Associated Press

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Federal bill would wash away plastic microbead problem

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Oakland votes to keep coal and oil trains away

by EugeneWrixon Posted on June 18, 2014

get out!

Oakland votes to keep coal and oil trains away

By

Paul Sullivan

The working-class city of Oakland, Calif., wants to stop trains carrying crude, coal, and petroleum coke from reaching local refineries and export terminals.

The city council voted unanimously on Tuesday evening to “oppose” the “transportation of hazardous fossil fuel materials” along existing rail lines and through “densely populated” and waterfront areas — which includes much of the city.

The city will now formally urge California and regional governments to take action on oil-train safety, and will consider formally opposing projects that threaten to bring fossil fuel–bearing trains into Oakland.

Lawmakers in the Californian cities of Davis and Berkeley have passed similar resolutions that attempt to block oil trains. San Francisco is considering something similar too. Tuesday’s vote was particularly significant, given that Oakland operates a large port, which has recently been rejecting coal industry efforts to use its terminals for exports. Like Berkeley and San Francisco, Oakland, which is also in the Bay Area, is located close to major oil refineries, some of which are being expanded.

Local governments up and down the West Coast have been voting to keep coal-carrying trains out of their communities, aiming to protect themselves from coal-dust pollution and to prevent coal mined in the Intermountain West from reaching power plants in Asia.

Secrecy by railway operators makes it difficult for anybody in Oakland, or in any other city that’s home to an extensive rail network, to know for sure whether crude oil is being hauled through their communities. But oil trains are increasingly common in California and other states, as drillers in Canada, North Dakota, and other parts of the U.S. turn to rail cars to move their products to refineries.

The morning after Oakland’s vote, the Natural Resources Defense Council published results of a new analysis revealing that nearly 4 million residents in California’s Bay Area and Central Valley could be in danger should an oil train be involved in an accident. The NRDC found that crude-by-train deliveries spiked in California to 6 million barrels last year — up from a mere 45,000 barrels in 2009.

Local ordinances probably won’t be effective in limiting rail transportation of fossil fuels. Industry argues that only the federal government has the legal right to regulate such shipments. Unfortunately, the feds are doing a shoddy job of it.

“There’s a question over the ability of cities, or anyone else, to regulate the railways, if that entity is not the federal government,” said Roger Lin, a staff attorney for the nonprofit Communities for a Better Environment, which advocated for Tuesday’s vote. “But I feel that if as many cities as possible do this, it sends a great message — a very positive message — to the federal government.”

As if to truly sink the boot into the bloated body of the fossil-fuel industry, the Oakland City Council also approved a fossil-fuel divestment bill Tuesday might. Among other things, the city will now urge its pension funds to dump their dirty-energy stocks.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

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Oakland votes to keep coal and oil trains away

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Now Elon Musk wants to revolutionize solar panel production

by ClaudioFitzGibb Posted on June 18, 2014

another bright idea

Now Elon Musk wants to revolutionize solar panel production

By

Steve & Michelle Gerdes

Thanks in part to Elon Musk, the world’s biggest and most advanced solar panel factory could be built in the U.S. in the coming years.

The Silicon Valley entrepreneur, fresh off announcing an effort to spur growth in the electric auto industry by opening up access to hundreds of Tesla Motors patents, on Tuesday pushed the cleantech envelope even further, announcing a bid to massively expand the solar panel industry.

Musk, chair of the solar panel installation giant SolarCity, told reporters that in the coming years the company plans to build a solar panel factory in the U.S. that’s “an order of magnitude bigger than any of the plants that exist” anywhere in the world today.

SolarCity is responsible for about a quarter of America’s residential solar panel installations every month — three times as much as its closest competitor. Its market dominance has been earned in part through its “zero-down” financing model. But that’s not enough. Musk says he worries that the company’s ongoing growth will be so rapid that it will start to encounter solar panel shortages, despite what now is an international glut of mostly Chinese-made panels.

So SolarCity is jumping into the development and manufacture of advanced solar panels through the acquisition for $200 million or more of Silicon Valley-based solar panel company Silevo, which has developed highly efficient rooftop photovoltaic cells. Using more efficient cells means fewer panels are needed for each rooftop, helping to push down the price of residential solar systems.

SolarCity

“If we don’t do this, we felt that there was risk of not being able to have the solar panels that we need to expand the business in the long term,” Musk said Tuesday during a call with reporters. “The rate at which solar panel technology is advancing — at least for the panels that are being made at large scale — it’s really not fast enough. We’re seeing high-volume production of relatively basic panels, but not high-volume production of advanced panels, so we think it’s important that the two be combined.”

In a blog post published Tuesday, SolarCity described its manufacturing ambitions:

We are in discussions with the state of New York to build the initial manufacturing plant, continuing a relationship developed by the Silevo team. At a targeted capacity greater than 1 GW within the next two years, it will be one of the single largest solar panel production plants in the world. This will be followed in subsequent years by one or more significantly larger plants at an order of magnitude greater annual production capacity.

Ultimately, Musk says, he wants to develop such advanced panels and manufacture them at such high volumes that fossil fuels simply cannot compete. “To be able to have solar power compete on an unsubsidized basis with fossil fuel energy coming from the grid, it’s critical that you have high efficiency solar panels,” he said.


Source
Solar at Scale, SolarCity blog

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Now Elon Musk wants to revolutionize solar panel production

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Berkeley could mandate climate warnings on gas pumps

by ThaliaZjpfqhrmb Posted on June 17, 2014

Berkeley could mandate climate warnings on gas pumps

By

Shutterstock

Motorists in the famously lefty city of Berkeley, Calif., could one day be confronted with a “CO2 ALERT” when they fill up their tanks.

Berkeley’s Community Environmental Advisory Commission has approved a proposal to mandate climate warning labels on gas pumps. It would require the approval of the city council before it could take affect; a council vote is expected in the coming months.

City of Berkeley

The idea is to mimic warning labels on cigarettes. It’s being pushed by Beyond The Pump, a group of San Francisco Bay Area activists associated with 350 Bay Area. If approved by the council, Berkeley would become the first American city to impose such a requirement. (Similar, but more specific, labeling proposals have been floating around Europe for years.) The tentative label design is shown on the right.

“I’d like to see this become a statewide policy for transportation emissions,” campaign manager Jamie Brooks told Grist. “We’d like to see it as a systematic point-of-sale ordinance, like the cigarette packs. We want to connect cause and effect for consumers.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the oil industry is freaking out at the idea that its customers could be confronted with reminders about the climatic effects of their gas-guzzling practices. In a letter sent to Berkeley’s planning department last week, Western States Petroleum Association President Catherine Reheis-Boyd argued that such a rule would be unconstitutional, setting the stage for a possible lawsuit. “Far less restrictive means exist to disseminate this information to the general public without imposing onerous restrictions on businesses and forcing unwanted speech in violation of the First Amendment,” wrote Reheis-Boyd.

She then compared the petroleum industry’s nascent struggle against climate warning labels with the historic free-speech movement at U.C. Berkeley in the 1960s. “Perhaps no city in our nation has as rich a tradition in the exercise of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech as the City of Berkeley,” Reheis-Boyd wrote. “Throughout times of tremendous civil upheaval in this country, citizens of this City have exercised great courage in resisting efforts by those at all levels of state and federal government to force them to agree with or advance government opinions.”

OK, thanks for the disingenuous lecture. Now, about all that global warming?


Source
New proposal would require climate change warning labels at city gas stations, The Daily Californian

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Berkeley could mandate climate warnings on gas pumps

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