Ruby Pipeline Update

Environmental Groups Push For Halt Of Ruby Gas Pipeline Construction


David Nogueras
September 14, 2010
Bend, OR

Three environmental groups have asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to halt construction of a natural gas pipeline that’s being built in Oregon, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming.

The latest challenge to the 680-mile Ruby Pipeline project comes from three environmental groups: the Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter and the Great Basin Resource Watch.

The lawsuit, filed late last week, alleges federal agencies conducted incomplete and inadequate environmental reviews during the permitting phase of the project.

David Von Segern is with the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter.

David Von Segern: “They’ve chosen a route that should pretty much shoot it though pristine northern Nevada, a high desert steppe that is supporting wildlife especially the sage grouse and we’re very concerned about fragmentation of habitat.”

As spokesman for the El Paso Corporation, the company behind the project defended the permitting process, arguing it adequately protects wildlife along the route.

The 9th Circuit is still reviewing a separate request by the Center For Biological Diversity to halt the project.

Link

Here is an update on the Ruby Pipeline.  You may remember that El Paso Corp. tried to buy off the opposition by giving the Western Watersheds Project and Oregon Natural Desert Association $20 million dollars.  But when the rest of these environmental groups saw what was happening, they came to the trough hoping for a handout as well.  El Paso has found out what happens when you make deals with the devil.

Betting On Green Costs Sierra Club

Risky 'green' investments could put Sierra Club in the red
By: David Freddoso
Commentary Staff Writer
12/10/09 11:28 AM EST

High electrical bills this winter? You don't have to look far for someone to blame. The Sierra Club volunteers to take the blame with this gleeful announcement that it has killed 100 coal-fired power plants nationwide.

But if green energy is such a great investment, then why is a hundred-million-dollar donor to the Sierra Club Foundation informing his favorite charities that they might have cost him his shirt, and that therefore he will be curtailing his gifts for the time being?

David Gelbaum, a major donor to the Sierra Club Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and an organization that provides services to military personnel, said he would cut donations next year because investments in alternative-energy firms have "placed me in a highly illiquid position."

Gelbaum, who had been an anonymous donor, revealed himself so that his beneficiaries would know to seek new sources of funding this year. Link

It’s more than a little ironic that one of the Sierra Club’s biggest donors will not be able to give them money this year because of the person’s investments in renewable energy. The Sierra Club recklessly advocates polices that will cost hard working families a lot of money in increased energy costs. This time, however, it seems that it has come back to bite them. ~TH

Hopi Tribe Tells Sierra Club To Take A Hike

Hopi Tribal Council Bans Environmental Groups
Navajo-Hopi Observer, News Report, Staff reports,
Posted: Sep 30, 2009

KYKOTSMOVI, Ariz. - The Hopi Tribe has a message for the Sierra Club and other environmental groups: Keep out!

That is the response of the Hopi Tribal Council on Monday to what it says has been continuous concerted attacks from local and national environmental groups "bent on advancing their interests and agenda at the expense of the Hopi Tribe and its sovereign interest."

The council wants the Sierra Club and other environmental groups and on-reservation organizations affiliated with these groups to know they are not welcome on the Hopi Reservation, declaring them persona non grata - no longer favored or welcome.

By a resolution approved 12-0, the council said environmentalists have deprived the tribe "of markets for its coal resources" and coal revenues needed to sustain governmental services, provide jobs for tribal members and safeguard Hopi culture and tradition.

In 2005, environmental groups played a significant role in the shutdown of the Mohave Generating Station, which the Hopi Council contends "deprived the Hopi Tribe of many millions of dollars of annual operating revenues," according to the resolution.

Revenue losses from the Mohave power plant range from an estimated $6.5 million to $8.5 million annually.

The council feels that the economic viability of the Navajo Generating Station - the tribe's only remaining coal customer - is also being threatened, and that environmentalists' actions could lead to "total economic collapse of the tribe."

The Navajo Generating Station provides about $11 million a year in revenue for the tribe.

"The Mohave closure did little more than balance the politically expedient needs of these environmental organizations on the already impoverished backs of the Hopi and Navajo people ... without providing any reasonable means of replacing the tribal revenues lost to the closure," the resolution states. Read More

Consider this an example of what will happen on a national scale if the Sierra Club is successful in passing cap and tax legislation through Congress. It will take away our ability as a nation to utilize these abundant natural resources and leave us with only “blue-sky” replacement options. The Sierra Club should start supporting responsible energy policies that guarantee we have affordable energy available to replace what they are trying to shut down. Their current efforts to take us back to the stone age are a far cry from that.

Give Up Coal? No, Let's Not

Give up coal? No, let’s not

By Hasso Hering, Commentary
Posted: Sunday, September 20, 2009 3:00 am

The Sierra Club is trying to get students at universities including Oregon State to agitate against the use of coal as an energy source. The campaign is misguided. Let's hope it fails.

The organization has launched what it calls a coal-free campus campaign. There's no coal at Oregon State, so the campaign has won before it started. But if they mean they don't want colleges to buy electricity generated from coal, OSU would have to give up buying from Pacific Power.

Pacific has sources of alternative energy, but by far most of its supply, some 70 percent according to one recent brochure, comes from burning coal, mostly in Wyoming.

Coal has environmental drawbacks, but so do other forms of generating vast amounts of electricity. Writing in the Wall Street Journal last week, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee notes that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has announced plans to cover 1,000 square miles in the desert Southwest with solar collectors. Other federal energy goals call for 186,000 50-story windmills, covering an area the size of West Virginia. Alexander calls this a "massive intrusion into the natural landscape." By comparison, coal plants and the mines on which they depend occupy only a few square miles each. Read More

There are many environmentalists that would try to tell you it’s impossible to use coal energy and not destroy the planet. However, there is technology to deal with many of these environmental issues. It’s irresponsible to advocate for the elimination of a energy source that powers half the country without first having an equally affordable system ready to replace it. There is no doubt that our society will evolve into using different forms of energy, but it shouldn’t be done if it is going to bankrupt our nation and leave us with massive amounts of people that can't afford electricity.

EPA May Bypass Congress

EPA could create U.S. CO2 cap-and-trade: Sierra
Tue Sep 8, 2009 6:45pm EDT
By Peter Henderson

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would step in and regulate carbon dioxide emissions by creating a cap-and-trade system or take other measures if Congress fails, but is likely to wait for 2010 elections, the head of the Sierra Club said on Tuesday.

The possibility of an end-run around Congress makes the prospect of U.S. carbon emission regulation likely despite current legislative debate, although President Barack Obama would prefer Congress lead the way, Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope told the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco.

"I would guess that between now and the (2010) midterms, you will see two things happen. One, EPA will begin actively regulating all of the other kinds of problems with coal fired power plants," Pope said, naming mercury emissions, particulate matter and mountaintop removal mining as examples.

"They will begin to create a context in which all the clunkers (coal plants) are going to get retired anyway. And they will lay the ground work for establishing carbon emissions standards for all large sources of carbon dioxide," he said. Read More

There is a very simple solution to all of the problems surrounding climate change legislation and that is for Congress to pass a one sentence bill that states carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. That would make this whole thing disappear and it would be in line with the original intent of the Clean Air Act. Even the original writers of that legislation said that they never intended for carbon dioxide to be regulated. Regardless of all that, it appears that the EPA will try to go around Congress and decide for themselves how to do this if the current legislation doesn’t go anywhere in the Senate. It’s obvious that people do not want cap and trade because if they did the free market system would already be meeting that demand.

Animal Rights Groups Tied To Terrorists

This is a summary, written by the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance, of a recent report released by the Department of Homeland Security about the ties of certain animal rights and environmental organizations to domestic terrorists.

DHS Reveals NJ Based Groups Provide Cover for Ecoterrorists

New Jersey Outdoor Alliance

Belmar, NJ – -(AmmoLand.com)- NJOA E Action Alert members continue to ask that we keep them apprised of the animal extremism in New Jersey, since the movement targets fishing, hunting, trapping and conservation practices.

Yesterday I was forwarded an unclassified “For Official Use Only,” document. It is apparently from The Department of Homeland Security alleging national groups (that also have operations in NJ), and a local New Jersey group, are providing cover for “ecoterrorists.” I have read similar reporting from two premiere civil rights organizations; Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center.

Contents from the document follow:

The term ecological terrorists, or ecoterrorists, refers to those individuals who independently and/or in concert with others engage in acts of violence and employ tactics commonly associated with terrorism to further their sociopolitical agenda aimed at animal and/or environmental protection.

From a security standpoint, the activities of the ecoterrorist movement are significant for several reasons and should be of interest to domestic security and law enforcement officials. First, Ecoterrorists have perpetrated more illegal acts commonly associated with terrorism on U.S. soil than any other known group, including al-Qaeda and radical Islamic militants.
In addition, various groups that constitute the ecoterrorist movement [Animal Liberation Front aka "ALF"] are also believed to interact, to one degree or another, with mainstream environmental and animal-rights organizations and/or individuals. Although none of the mainstream organizations officially endorses or participates in the illegal and violent activities championed by ecomilitants, some prominent members of mainstream groups are known to sympathize with the ecoterrorist movement.

Mainstream organizations with known or possible links to ecoterrorism include the following:

• Greens
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
• The Sierra Club
• National Wildlife Federation
• Audubon Society
• Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)
• Friends of the Earth
• Greenpeace
• Earth First!
• Coalition to Save the Preserve (CSP)
• Environmental Task Force
• The Frogs
• In Defense of Animals
• New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance
• Fund for Animals

Read More

Down Load the entire report here: DHS: Eco Terrorism in US 2008

The Department of Homeland Security is taking the threat of domestic terrorism from these eco-terrorists very seriously. Some of the mainstream animal rights groups that very softly denounce this type of activity have now been exposed as having links to the terrorists. Groups like HSUS, PETA and The Sierra Club have all caught the attention of the Department of Homeland Security. These groups may talk a good game, but it’s their actions that truly show their intentions of total animal liberation.

Sierra Club's War On Affordable Electricity

Utah coal plant scuttled, 100th in U.S. since 2002
Thu Jul 9, 2009 11:23am EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Intermountain Power Agency said on Thursday it will not continue efforts to seek an air permit for a third 900-megawatt coal-fired power unit at its plant in Utah.

The Sierra Club said the once-proposed Unit 3 at the Intermountain power station 120 miles southwest of Salt Lake City is the 100th coal-fired power plant to be scuttled since 2002.

IPA spokesman John Ward said allowing an application for an air permit to expire was a formality as plans for the plant have not been viable since 2007 when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) pulled out of the project.

There are no plans to stop production of the existing two units at Intermountain, which produce 1,800 MW of power.

"More than 400 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution, a main cause of global warming, have been kept out of the air annually as a result of stopping these 100 plants," said a Sierra Club statement issued Thursday. Read More

The Sierra Club continues their war on affordable electricity. It’s interesting that they endlessly brag about stopping coal plants from being built, but I never see the progress they are making to replace them. Where is our electricity going to come from? With their plans, electricity may very well become a luxury that only the wealthy can afford. They continue to say they want renewable energy, but that’s as far as it goes. It must be a hard way to go through life being against everything. The sad part is that hard working families will be the ones that suffer for the Sierra Club’s actions. Remember, a tree doesn't think CO2 is a poison.

More CA Water Wars

Sierra Club Wages Water War With Growers Over Run of Carmel River
By MARIA DINZEO

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - A long-running feud between growers and environmentalists in California is now centered at the base of the lush Santa Lucia Mountains, where the Carmel River winds through the Monterey Peninsula. Growers want water to alleviate the harsh days of drought and environmentalists are fighting to protect the flow needed by steelhead trout, whose numbers are dropping sharply.

In a federal lawsuit, the Sierra Club and the Carmel River Steelhead Association claim the California American Water Company's unauthorized diversion of water from the Carmel River is responsible for the steelhead's decline. The groups say that despite their fish-rescue efforts, they cannot "prevent the death of an unknown but presumably large number of juvenile steelhead that perish as flows decline."

Growers say that environmentalists are naïve to blame them for the decreased fish populations.

"Certain environmental groups argue that certain fish species are endangered and that requires a change in the water policy in our state. Their solution is to flush more water out to the ocean and all will be good," says Joel Nelson, president of California Citrus Mutual, a growers' association.

But restricted water flow leads to crop shortages, higher produce prices, fallow land and unemployment, said Nelson, who has been in the agriculture industry for 25 years.

"But most parties are unwilling from the environmental community to connect the dots. I have my biases, but we've always been able to work issues out before, until now. You can't stop watering certain parts of the state and expect the state to survive," he said. Read More

Arguments over water are nothing new. However, the arguments today normally pit farmers and their ability to grow food for people to eat against environmentalists that seem to value things other than people or food production. It’s important to remember that no one in agriculture is advocating letting any type of species go extinct. Obviously that’s not a good option. But neither is forcing farmers from their land and causing food shortages. People need to understand that we have a very limited supply of food on this planet. When land is taken out of production it can’t be replaced somewhere else. The world just has to get by with less available land. There is plenty of water on this planet, we just need to do a better job storing it and prioritizing how it’s used.

Pricing Electricity Out of Reach

Renewable power will cost consumers more
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, June 13, 2009

California's push for renewable power could prove costly to consumers.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to get one-third of the state's electricity from renewable sources by 2020 could cost $115 billion in new infrastructure, according to a report released Friday by the California Public Utilities Commission. Last year, a similar report from the commission estimated the cost at $60 billion.

That money would come from Californians' utility bills.

By 2020, the state's average price for electricity could rise as much as 28 percent above today's levels, based on current dollars. However, the report says most of that increase will happen even if the state abandons its drive to build more wind farms and solar power plants. Without adding any renewable power, prices would rise 17 percent.

That alarms consumer advocates, who have long complained about California's high electricity prices.

"The notion of California struggling under (28) percent higher prices - it's a sobering picture for the California economy," said Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network, a watchdog group.

"This would be a bargain," said Carl Zichella, regional director for the Sierra Club. "Early actions are by far the most cost-effective, and they have the biggest bang for the buck in fighting climate change." Read More


Again, we see the Sierra Club put hard working families at the bottom of their list of things they are concerned about. Advocating for higher prices for electricity is an elitist view point, especially when so many families are struggling to pay their bills already. I doubt the Sierra Club has ever looked into how this would affect young families since that isn’t their concern. A reasonable balance needs to be struck in situations like this.

Environmentalists Doing More Harm Than Good?

How Environmentalism Misses the Forest for the Trees
By Edward L. Glaeser
Edward L. Glaeser is an economics professor at Harvard.

Can environmentalism be bad for the environment?

In Massachusetts, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound has led the fight against providing alternative energy with a wind farm off of Cape Cod. Greenpeace declares that “nuclear power is unsafe, uneconomical and unnecessary.” In Canada, the Sierra Club fights against the development of hydroelectric power, fearing “toxic mercury increases in fish.”

In these cases, groups are putting local environmental concerns first and the planet second. Wind farms, nuclear power plants and hydroelectric dams are ways of providing clean energy, which would reduce carbon emissions and the threat of global warming.

The old mantra “think globally, act locally,” is pretty silly. Local environmentalism is often bad environmentalism, because keeping one’s backyard pristine can make the planet worse off.

Preventing wind farms leaves Cape Cod’s views untouched, but increases carbon emissions.

In my own field of housing, a similar phenomenon occurs when some environmental groups put their own local interests ahead of global warming. Read More

When do environmentalists hurt the environment? When the issue is in their backyard. They seem to be all for a project or regulation when it affects someone else, but when they are forced to make the sacrifice, they seem to change their tune. The thing this author doesn’t take into account is agriculture. He claims that California farmers should pay the “true social cost” of the water they are irrigating with. The author should weigh the true social cost of importing food.

Environmentalists Battle Each Other

March 24, 2009
Environmentalists in a Clash of Goals
By FELICITY BARRINGER

WHITEWATER CANYON, Calif. — As David Myers scans the rocky slopes of this desert canyon, looking vainly past clumps of brittlebush for bighorn sheep, he imagines an enemy advancing across the crags.

That specter is of an army of mirrors, generators and transmission towers transforming Mojave Desert vistas like this one. While Whitewater Canyon is privately owned and protected, others that Mr. Myers, as head of the Wildlands Conservancy, has fought to preserve are not.

To his chagrin, some of Mr. Myers’s fellow environmentalists are helping power companies pinpoint the best sites for solar-power technology. The goal of his former allies is to combat climate change by harnessing the desert’s solar-rich terrain, reducing the region’s reliance on carbon-emitting fuels.

Mr. Myers is indignant. “How can you say you’re going to blade off hundreds of thousands of acres of earth to preserve the Earth?” he said.

As the Obama administration puts development of geothermal, wind and solar power on a fast track, the environmental movement finds itself torn between fighting climate change and a passion for saving special places. Read More

It’s an interesting situation that these environmental groups are facing. The old saying of careful what you wish for is starting to come into play. They have been very vocal about all the things they wanted done for energy production yet now when they have the chance to see it come to fruition, they are facing arguments from their own. I have noticed this seems to be the problem with most of the ideas you see from animal rights and environmental groups. They propose these grand ideas but seldom will they work well in reality.

Fighting Coal

EPA Rejects S.D. Coal-Fired Power Plant
SustainableBusiness.com News

Environmentalists say a new era has begun concering coal-fired power plants in the U.S., following a decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday to overturn the State of South Dakota's approval of a massive coal-fired power plant.

The decision came less than three days after President Barack Obama took office; however, Carl Daly, unit chief for EPA Region 8, said "It would be fair to say" the decision would have been made under the Bush administration.

Nonetheless, the Sierra Club said the EPA's decision to require state-of-the-art pollution controls on the new facility marks a turnign point.

"This is a great day not only for clean energy and people's health, it's a victory for the rule of law," said Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club's Move Beyond Coal Campaign. "EPA is signaling that it is back to enforcing longstanding legal requirements fairly and consistently nationwide." Read More

You can almost hear the joy in their voices through this article. The Sierra Club, in all of their shortsightedness, has successfully blocked the building of an electric plant. And while they are celebrating, the hard working people of Minnesota and South Dakota will suffer from an increasingly unreliable power supply.

The Other "Livestock Tax"

Groups sue EPA over farm emissions
WASHINGTON, D.C. January 16, 2009 12:02am

A coalition of environmental groups is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over a last-minute Bush administration rule that exempts factory farms from federal laws requiring them to alert government officials when they release unsafe levels of toxic emissions into the surrounding community.

The environmental law firm Earthjustice filed the suit on behalf of the groups, arguing that the exemption will harm people living and working near factory farms.

Earthjustice is representing the Waterkeeper Alliance, Sierra Club, Environmental Integrity Project, the Humane Society of the United States, Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future and Center for Food Safety.

So-called “factory farms,” formally known as Confined Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs, are large-scale livestock facilities that confine large numbers of animals in relatively small spaces. A large factory farm may contain upwards of 1,000 cattle, 2,500 hogs or 125,000 chickens. Read More

Make no mistake about the intent of this lawsuit. It’s not about helping the environment; it’s an effort to make regulations so onerous that it would be impossible for producers to continue their operations. These size operations are already under strict environmental regulations. Adding more will only further the goal of a meat free society that has become the center of these groups existence.

Attacking Food Production

Farm law underwrites nauseous, large-scale pollution
By Larry Beahan
Updated: 01/05/09 6:26 AM

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a well-deserved tax on the greenhouse gas methane, produced by New York State’s 146,600 dairy cows. Industrial farm lobbyists seem to have gotten to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N. Y., because he calls such control “absurd.” The senator has stepped into something that smells.

We all favored “Right to Farm Laws.” Then corporations invented Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, known as CAFOs. These polluting profit machines flew in under the radar. Now they produce 80 percent of our milk and meat. We have 14 of them in Erie County. Wyoming County has the highest concentration of them in the state.

In 2003, 1,000 small New York farms closed, unable to compete with expensive, federally subsidized CAFOs. These factory farms can feed 7,500 cows jammed into tiny lots. The manure drains into lagoons to evaporate into the air and seep into the water. Read More

The pure hatred for modern livestock facilities is quite apparent from the Sierra Club. It’s the same old song and dance though that Sierra Club normally puts out. They tell people how unbearable the smell is, how the environmental damage will be worse than dumping nuclear waste on the ground, etc. I have been around much, much bigger operations than the ones mentioned here and have never run into these smells that I always read about. The fact of the matter is that there is no sound science ever utilized by groups like these. The UN study has been debunked several times. This article only uses the Sierra Club’s only weapon, and that is emotion.

Pro-Coal

Saving Lives with Coal
Paul Driessen
Saturday, January 03, 2009

There is no such thing as “clean coal,” environmentalists insist. Burning coal to generate electricity emits soot particles that cause respiratory problems, lung cancer and heart disease, killing 24,000 Americans annually.

It’s the kind of claim that eco-activist Bruce Hamilton says “builds the Sierra Club,” by generating cash and lobbying clout for his and similar groups.

It’s also disingenuous, unethical and harmful.

Since 1970, unhealthy power plant pollutants have been reduced by almost 95% per unit of energy produced. Particulate emissions (soot) decreased 90% below 1970 levels, even as coal use tripled, and new technologies and regulations will nearly eliminate most coal-related pollution by 2020, notes air quality expert Joel Schwartz.

Moreover, the vast bulk of modern power plant particulates are ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate. “Neither substance is harmful, even at levels tens of times greater than are ever found in the air Americans breathe,” Schwartz says. Read More

If you follow coal stories in the media, you will see it being cussed and discussed, but rarely appreciated. The fact of the matter is that we need electricity and more of it all the time. With a growing population, demand continues to rise. There are alternative sources for electricity, but they all have their drawbacks as well. Meanwhile, we have several hundred years worth of coal at our disposal. It’s a great natural resource that can be used responsibly.

Messing With The Bible's Message

'Green Bible' controversial
Published: Dec. 29, 2008 at 4:33 PM

PHOENIX, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- U.S. evangelicals say they are divided over a new "Green Bible" which embraces environmentalism and a need to protect the Earth.

The Green Bible, which has been endorsed by secular groups such as the Humane Society and the Sierra Club, shows people that "God is calling us to care for the world around us," said Rusty Pritchard, editor of Creation Care Magazine, a publication for evangelicals.

Other evangelicals are concerned the Green Bible will mislead Christians because it does not interpret Scripture literally, said James Taylor, a founding elder at Living Water Christian Fellowship in Palmetto, Fla.

"These groups don't have a religious focus; they have a desire to spread their environmental message," Taylor said of the essayists who contributed to the Green Bible, which contains a foreword from Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

An estimated 25,000 copies have been sold by HarperOne since the book's release in October, The Arizona Republic reported Monday. Link

Why do you suppose that secular groups such as HSUS and Sierra Club endorse this “green” bible? It’s because it helps further their agenda of a controlling what people eat and how they live. These groups don’t care about people going to church, they are only looking for donations to keep spreading their messages of veganism and environmental doom.

New Power Plants Denied Permits

Coal plant permit blocked
By H. JOSEF HEBERT – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency has been blocked from issuing a permit for a proposed Utah coal plant without addressing global warming, jeopardizing the fate of scores of other proposed coal plants that will likely be left to the Obama administration.

An EPA appeals panel ruled Thursday that the agency's regional office didn't adequately support its decision to issue a permit for the Bonanza coal burning power plant in Utah without requiring controls on carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas.

Michael Gerrard, an attorney not involved in the Bonanza case and author of "Global Climate Change and the Law," said the EPA appeals panel decision "will embolden the lawsuits" challenging construction of new power plants based on their impact on climate. Read More

There is no doubt that all efforts should be made to have the most efficient coal plants that we can. However, this new ruling has shifted the burden to the power companies to prove their limited impact on the climate rather than the benefit to human beings that need electricity to maintain life. As a society, we can’t continue to let our electric infrastructure deteriorate or fall behind demand. The irony of writing this this morning is that we don’t have any electricity right now, most likely related to our recent blizzard. It’s not much fun when the power goes out, but apparently that is the path that the Sierra Club would like us to go down.

Whale Wars

'Whale Wars' on Animal Planet
By Mary McNamara, Television Critic

It's difficult to begrudge anyone their media savvy in this synergistic age, but there is a level of TV-consciousness in Animal Planet's new weekly docu-series “Whale Wars” that often seems at odds with its dramatic and controversial subject.

The seven-week series, which premieres tonight at 9, follows an anti-whaling "campaign" against Japanese fishing vessels conducted on the high seas by Capt. Paul Watson and his Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Watson, a co-founder of Greenpeace, was kicked out of that organization when his activism was deemed too extreme.

Although it is illegal to kill whales for commercial use, the law allows the killing of 1,000 whales each year for the purposes of research. Watson and his crew consider this a bogus loophole, used by the Japanese as a smoke screen for a purely capitalist enterprise, and they are not content to simply protest and document.

Not surprisingly, many on both sides of the Save the Whales issue consider Watson more terrorist than activist, and the Japanese fishing industry has labeled him a pirate.

Watson may be certain, and persuasive, in his belief that these whales are not dying for research and that research does not justify slaughter, but the fishermen he and his crew are stalking are within the law. Which means the Sea Shepherds are not. Read More

I have heard other parents say to us that their kids watch a lot of the Animal Planet Channel because they thought it was always safe to let the kids watch. Then along comes “Whale Wars”. Paul Watson is a professional pirate engaged in illegal activities and Animal Planet will most certainly paint him in a positive light. And, here is a guess from me, I would imagine that we will also hear about climate change, hunters and maybe even get into the evils of livestock farming on this show.

Former SC Official Favors Coal Plant

Sierra Club blasts ex-official over coal plant ad
MADISON, Wis.

The Sierra Club is blasting one of its former officials for using its name in an ad supporting a proposed coal-fired power plant in Wisconsin.

Brett Hulsey appears in the Alliant Energy radio ad as part of the company's push to convince regulators to approve the $1.3 billion plant in Cassville. He notes he's the Sierra Club's former Midwest representative.

The Sierra Club opposes the project, saying it would cause too much pollution. The group says the ad is an attempt to confuse the public into thinking it will be good for the environment.

Hulsey admits he's been a paid consultant for Alliant for two years, but says he supports the plant because it will generate up to 20 percent of its energy from burning biomass.

Hulsey says the Sierra Club is being unreasonable in opposing the project. Link

Even a former Sierra Club official admits that the group is being unreasonable when it comes to generating electricity from coal. Our electrical needs have to come from somewhere, and while the Sierra Club has a laundry list of where it shouldn’t come from, a list of ways we should generate it seems hard to come by.

Fighting Back

Electric co-op sues Sierra Club for trying to stop coal-fired generators

10/1/2008 10:00 AM
By Michelle Massey, Texarkana Bureau


MARSHALL - The East Texas Electric Cooperative claims the actions of the Sierra Club to stop the co-op from constructing coal-fired generators will only result in higher electric bills for rural customers, according to a recent lawsuit.

The ETEC is a not-for-profit rural electric cooperative that provides the generation and transmission of electric services to rural customers in East Texas and Louisiana. ETEC provides electricity to the Sam Rayburn G&T Electric Cooperative, Tex-La Electric Cooperative of Texas Inc. and Northeast Texas Electric Cooperatives.

The co-op participates in a government program enacted by the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, which guarantees government loans to bring electricity to rural Americans. ETEC uses the money for construction and expansion of electric generation facilities, distribution lines and other physical structures necessary to generate and carry electricity. Read More

I have shared other stories about the Sierra Clubs’s goal of stopping all new development of coal fired plants. What you get from the Sierra Club in return is higher electricity costs, which make it especially tough on our rural electric co-ops. However, the Sierra Club finds themselves on the other side of a coal related lawsuit this time. Electricity is something that none of us would look forward to not having. But, if we do not build new generation plants, they will not be able to keep up with demand.