Pop Quiz

Here’s your quiz for today. Who said the following?

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things.

Go ahead, take a guess. Barack Obama? Bernie Sanders? Ron Paul? How about that conservative bastion Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956? What goes around comes around. Okay, try one more. Who said,

We had to struggle with the old enemies of [domestic] peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hatred for me—and I welcome their hatred.

Oh, I knew you’d get that one. That was FDR in 1936. This is stuff you should know. It’s stuff you would know if you had taken The U.S. Inequality Quiz by Michigan history professor Juan Rudolph. If you take the quiz you’ll pick up some great tidbits like,

• In 2005, [US] households in the bottom 20 percent had an average income of $10,655, while the top 20% made $159,583—a disparity of 1,500 percent, the highest gap ever recorded
• From 1947 through about 1978, wages and benefits for rank-and-file workers grew roughly in tandem with the overall productivity of the U.S. economy: both more than doubled over that period.…Between 1979 and 2007, productivity shot up by another 70 percent. But compensation for the American rank and file hardly moved, inching up only 5 percent, after factoring in inflation.
• In 2007, Warren Buffet commented “that his receptionist paid 30 percent of her income in taxes, while he paid only 17.7 percent on his taxable income of $46 million.

So, have some fun. Go take the test. Maybe you’ll learn something in the process.

Death From a Distance

You see, some older coal-fired power plants don’t have the technology needed to burn better, cleaner coal so they produce their power using dirty, high-sulfur coal. In Michigan, a new study found that accounts for about 180 deaths per year.

The study found that the old coal plants are responsible for 180 premature deaths in Michigan each year as well as approximately 230 hospital admissions or Emergency Room visits and 68,000 asthma attacks.

The report also found that health impacts from the particulate emissions at Michigan power plants extend as far east as the Atlantic Ocean and as far west as Colorado.

Now, where would someone like, say Detroit Edison, get all that crappy, dirty-burning coal that is killing and maiming hundreds of Michiganders every year? Ummm… that would be Montana. Most of our coal isn’t very good quality and since we don’t want to burn the ugly stuff here, we export about 90-95% of the coal we mine in Montana to northern tier states, like Michigan. If we mine more dirty coal from someplace like, say Otter Creek, we may have to send the surplus to China because Montana already has pretty much got a lock on the high-polluting coal market in the U.S.

The EPA is about to crack down on some of these high polluting coal plants, which will further limit the U.S. market for Montana coal.

One of the rules, expected in final form as early as Wednesday, would force states in the eastern half of the country to reduce pollutants that travel hundreds of miles to create dangerously bad air days in other states. The other rule, due in November and the subject of much wrangling, will be the first national requirement to reduce mercury, lead, arsenic and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants.

And just so we don’t forget to tie our dirty coal to the Flathead lake trout situation;

There are 84 hazardous air pollutants from power plants, including acid gases, dioxins, lead and other metals, and mercury. Many are carcinogens. Many also are linked to childhood developmental problems. The best-known is mercury.

Mercury settles in water and accumulates in fish. Ingesting it can cause developmental birth defects and damage a child’s memory and ability to learn. Mercury also damages the kidneys and liver.

The state of Montana recommends that you don’t eat larger Flathead Lake lake trout. They have such high levels of mercury, PCBs and other pollutants that the fish are toxic to pregnant women and small children. The Colstrip power plant is one of the worst pollution offenders in the nation. You don’t have to live in Michigan to be affected by the burning of Montana coal.

Dam Salmon

On June 8, President Obama nominated Rebecca Wodder for assistant secretary of the Department of Interior. Wodder has been CEO of American Rivers since 1995 and before that was with the Wilderness Society. Even though she is eminently qualified for the post, it didn’t take long for the right-wing crisis machine to jump into gear against another lefty, socialist, enviro-Nazi nomination that may help to protect our nation’s resources.

As assistant DOI secretary, Wodder would oversee both the Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. During her tenure at American Rivers, the organization came out in favor of removing the Snake River dams so, of course, that gave business groups the perfect line of attack. If Wodder is selected, she would use her overwhelming personality and power to force removal of the dams. The economy of the northwest will be in shambles and CEOs will have to eat beans in the dark.

Last week, Flathead Electric Coop sent out a warning to its members about the nomination asking that they quickly write their senators opposing the nomination. FEC warned its members that a Wodder confirmation would “impact Flathead Electric’s access to the clean, renewable, cost effective electricity the hydroelectric system provides.” and further;

“Ms. Wodder is not recognizing the massive effort and dollars spent to protect and recover salmon species and the amazing success in increasing the returns of listed stocks.“

Not surprisingly, that phrasing has shown up from various business interests in the northwest. Don Brunell, president of the Washington Association of Business wrote almost word for word in opposition saying;

“Most troubling, Ms. Wodder’s continued pursuit of dam removal and statements that extinction is imminent show she has missed or purposefully ignored the massive effort made to protect and recover salmon species and the amazing success in increasing the returns of listed stocks,”

Not that I would suggest a coordinated effort by the right wing to scuttle the nomination of a qualified Obama nominee, but nevertheless there doesn’t seem to be a lot of respect for the truth in their campaign. Let’s take a quick look at a couple of myths surrounding removal of the Snake River dams.

• Electricity rates will go up if the dams are removed: These four dams are low-head run-of-the-river installations. They store little water and produce most of their power during the spring freshet when there is already a surplus of hydropower in the system. Indeed, with this years high flows, BPA forced the shutdown of many wind-energy installations due to the over-production of electricity by the regions dams. Estimates say that the impact on electricity customers would be less than 2-4%. It will cost ratepayers $8-9 billion over the next ten years to keep the dams operational and raise the levees around Lewiston, ID to prevent flooding due to sedimentation. These factors will impact rates far more than removal.
• Fish are doing better due to “massive effort and dollars spent to protect and recover salmon species”: We have spent on the order of $8 billion in an attempt to recover the Snake River salmon and steelhead stocks so far. At this point, as shown in the accompanying graphic, Snake River steelhead populations are at 36% of their minimum recovery goal. Spring and summer salmon populations are at 23% of their goal.
• On Monday, the Western Division of the American Fisheries Society issued a resolution saying in part;

Click for Big

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that based on the best scientific information available, it is the position of the Western Division of the American Fisheries Society that the four lower Snake River dams and reservoirs are a significant threat to the continued existence of remaining Snake River salmon, steelhead, Pacific lamprey, and white sturgeon; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that if society-at-large wishes to restore Snake River salmon, steelhead, Pacific lamprey, and white sturgeon to sustainable, fishable levels, then a significant portion of the lower Snake River must be returned to a free-flowing condition by breaching the four lower Snake River dams, and this action must be comprehensively planned and implemented, using appropriate techniques and management practices, in a timely manner;

Most Snake River salmon and steelhead returns remain at the same levels now as they were when first listed in the 1990s. There have been some ups and downs of hatchery returns, but native fish have seen no impact from the “massive effort“. NOAA estimates the cost of the recovery plan at $600 million per year over the next ten years.

According to the Revenue Stream study, “Dam removal will save American taxpayers and Northwest ratepayers between $2 billion  and $5 billion over  20 years, and will also  generate at least $9  billion in new revenue. The cost of salmon recovery with the dams in place ranges between about $8-9 billion in the next 10 years to $16-18 billion over the next 20 years.

According to a new DOI study, recreation in Idaho already provides more jobs than grazing, mining and energy combined.  There is no biological or monetary reason for keeping the Snake River dams. They were built during the cold war between 1961 and 1975 to provide power for the Hanford Nuclear Weapons facility near the tri-cities and really don’t serve a useful purpose since the nuclear facility became a Super Fund site and closed down. The amount of power they provide is trivial and the problems they cause for both people and fish multiply each year they continue to exist. As the planet continues to warm over the next decades, Snake River salmon and steelhead stocks need access to higher, cooler habitat in the upper river drainage if they are to survive. Tweaking around the edges has failed so far and will continue to fail until this precious resource is lost forever.

The Montana to China Railroad

On Wednesday the federal Surface Transportation Board, acting in its role as an arm of the railroad industry, rejected an attempt by environmental groups to obtain further review of the Tongue River Railroad project in Montana. For twenty years, developer Mike Gustafson has been trying to rip apart ranches, destroy lives and pollute the Tongue River Valley. Prior to coal giant Arch Mineral bribing the state of Montana with $80 million for coal from Otter Creek there was no particular reason for the railroad other than to move Wyoming coal more easily to west coast ports for export to Asia.

The board rejected claims by the Northern Plains Resource Council that global warming is a bad thing and that cheap, crappy Montana coal burned in China will only add to the problem. The price of coal in the U.S. has fallen for several years due to decreased demand and increased awareness of the true cost of burning fossil fuels for Hot Yoga salons. Montana already has a corner on the crappy coal market in the U.S. and there is no reliable market for the low quality carbon fuel from the Otter Creek tracts near Ashland. Alas, there is a market for the highly polluting rocks in Asia. China has no problem with burning high-sulfur coal as long as they can get it cheap and Arch Coal will sell cheap if they can mine and ship the coal using government subsidies. Think Progress, reports that in 2009 Arch Coal “netted over $42 million, yet was able to use tax loopholes and gimmicks to avoid contributing anything in corporate income taxes.” I guess I never got the thank you note.

Currently, western coal producers have to ship their coal east through a port way up in Vancouver, B.C. That increases the cost to producers so, why not build a deep-water port on the Columbia at taxpayer expense? Two Oregon ports are currently engaged in secret talks with coal producers about becoming lucrative shipping hubs for Wyoming and Montana coal.

Community activists in Longview and Bellingham — including Bellingham’s mayor — say they worry about coal dust and increased train traffic. Environmental groups also note that both Washington and Oregon are phasing out their only coal-fired power plants to reduce pollution and carbon emissions, and argue that the emissions shouldn’t simply be shifted to China, India and other Asian countries.

Sending subsidized Montana coal to China will result in large profits for energy corporations, higher bonus payments for already overpaid CEOs and near-total destruction of the Tongue River Valley. What else do we get? Being downwind, Montana will receive the full benefit of the increase in mercury and PCB pollution from Asian power plants. Our snow will melt even earlier, our forests will burn with more vigor and our cancer rate will increase. According to the American Lung Association, 75 percent of voters support EPA setting stricter limits on smog, 65 percent say that stricter standards on air pollution will not damage our economic recovery, with 54 percent believing that updates are likely to create more jobs, not less. Of course, EPA regulation doesn’t apply if the coal is burned in China, does it? According to Northern Plains;

“Asian power plants, such as in China, have very few pollution controls. The Tongue River Railroad will be built to serve Asia, not the U.S. Why destroy our land and ship our coal to Asia not only to help their economies but to increase the release of mercury and greenhouse gases. The Surface Transportation Board is serving the interests of Asia and ignoring the people who live along the route all the way to the ports on the West Coast.”

When If the Tongue River Railroad is built, it will provide a cheap and easy route to move coal from Wyoming and Montana to the new west coast ports. The losers will be the people of Montana, our environment, our wildlife, our waters, our air and our health. An appeal of the Tongue River Railroad approval goes to oral arguments in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals next month. Hopefully, the court will allow arguments that will benefit the people of Montana and not just those that benefit corporate profits. Watch, listen and learn.

Rehberg and Gibberish

UPDATE 06/08/2011: The Huffington Post asks the question this way this morning,

Montana, Could Your Congressman’s Actions Someday Make Your Child Sick?

The risks of wasting antibiotics on healthy animals to our health are well documented and too great to ignore for long. I just can’t believe that the citizens of Montana would knowingly want to take those risks. Why should parents take more chances of their children getting sick because we are squandering their best medicines to fatten animals faster? I can’t believe that is what they elected Congressman Rehberg to do. Montana moms and dads, please, call your congressman. There is no time, or antibiotics, to waste!

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I hate to hit Dennis Rehberg two posts in a row, but it’s been a while since the last one and I’m just getting really tired of having the entire state of Montana embarrassed every time he opens his mouth. There’s a note in U.S. News & World Report yesterday about Denny and the GOP delusional concept of science. The Missoula Independent covered the story today. The House Appropriations Committee, led by Rehberg, introduced language stop Federal agencies from using actual science to come up with regulations. To explain how science is used and misused by agencies, Rehberg opened his mouth, which is almost always a bad idea;

“I hate to try and define the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist, between a sociologist and a geologist, but there clearly is a difference.”

Walt Handelsman—Tribune Media Services

The analysis by Anson Kay in US News was insightful;

What Rehberg was saying was: Hey everybody, slow it down. We can’t go on making rules like this when we don’t understand the basics. Wheat bread vs. white bread? Green pepper v. Dr. Pepper? Kids should smoke or they shouldn’t? Who knows? The science just isn’t there yet.

The Independent called it the “gibberish defense” of the amendment. In the Washington Post, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) said “This amendment ties FDA’s hands and will prevent the agency from taking basic steps to protect us from highly lethal threats, like tainted foods and drugs,” Waxman said in a statement. “Simply put, it will endanger American lives.”

We only hear from Rehberg once every four years when an election rolls around and for my money, that’s way too often.