Compass

Oil Disaster Deja-Vu

Here's a disturbing segment from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow show last night - all about some Gulf of Mexico oil spill deja-vu. Turns out a very, very similar situation as this current BP tragedy happened just over 30 years ago. And we still don't know how to fix the problems all these years later.



Have you joined the BP Oil Disaster group on Climate Crossroads? That'll keep you up to date on all the news like this. And be sure to keep checking out our official BP Oil Disaster website for updated maps and actions and more.

Coal: Good News, and An Opportunity for More

This is the weekly blog post from Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign.

I've got two good news pieces this week - and one issue that needs your help. Last week our Michigan Chapter and everyone who loves clean air and clean energy got some great news when the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Environment (MDNRE) denied a permit for the proposed Wolverine coal-fired power plant.

We're cheering the news - the DNRE decision states there is no need for the proposed power plant, in Rogers City, Michigan, and that alternative methods are available that would supply the customers of the four electric cooperatives that make up Wolverine with electricity at a much cheaper rate than the cost of building a new coal plant.

State officials estimated that the proposed plant would increase the electric rates charged by the cooperatives by at least 59.2% even after Wolverine suggested reducing the plant by half.

Residents had been fighting this plant and calling for clean energy options instead for almost three years now!

"The cost of Wolverine coal would have meant diminished health, diminished economy, and great injury to our environment which sustains our lives," said Jean Veselenak, a resident of Rogers City. "Wolverine must now put its head to the real thing; wind, solar; and new technology that already exists in Michigan. Our families deserve these jobs and their health after long promises."

We also saw good news from Ohio last week when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA and Department of Justice announced a settlement with American Municipal Power that will shut down AMP's last coal plant in Ohio by 2012: the Richard Gorsuch Station, located near Marietta, over its Clean Air Act violations.

This move will clean Ohio's air, reduce global warming pollution, and prevent destructive coal mining by AMP. The company will also spend $15 million on an energy efficiency program that will further reduce polluting emissions and save consumers money.

Now after that good news, we head to West Virginia, where we need your help bringing good news to the residents of Logan County. There is a very important deadline rapidly approaching - on June 1st EPA will stop taking public comments on its proposed veto of the permit that would allow devastating mountaintop removal coal mining at the massive Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County, West Virginia.

Local residents have been actively challenging the approval of this permit at the Spruce No. 1 Mine for more than twelve years. The proposed expansion of the mine would bury more than seven miles of headwater streams, directly impact 2,278 acres of forestland, and degrade water quality in nearby streams. This EPA veto would stop that expansion.

We urge you to join us in supporting EPA in its proposal to veto Spruce No. 1, one of the largest proposed mountaintop removal coal mines ever authorized in Appalachia. Take action right now to block this mine's permit.
 
As with the Ohio AMP plant closure settlement, this is another example: EPA has a critical role in protecting our health, and the health of our environment. We must not let this dirty coal mine move forward in Appalachia.

Coalition Gathers to Call for Clean Energy, No Oil

Clean Energy Works and a coalition of environmental and veterans groups (including the Sierra Club) gathered on Capitol Hill today for a press conference calling for some major action on ending the BP oil disaster and passing comprehensive clean energy legislation. The coalition's top five priorities are:

1. Stop the gusher
2. Now is not the time for new drilling
3. Make the Gulf communities and environment whole
4. Demand more accountability and transparency from government and industry
5. End dependence on oil and move to a new clean energy economy

It was an impressive list of speakers:

• Margie Alt, Executive Director, Environment America
• Lt. General John Castellaw, US Marine Corps
• Gene Karpinski, President, League of Conservation Voters
• Mindy Lubber, President, Ceres
• Kevin Knoblach, President, Union of Concerned Scientists

The speakers all echoed this sentiment: We can do better than oil - there's no need for our country to be so addicted to it. The words were dramatic when combined with the feed of the BP oil pipe gushing playing on a TV behind them - you can see that behind LCV head Gene Karpinski in this photo.


I also particularly enjoyed hearing from Lt. General John Castellaw (retired, and shown at the podium in the photo at the top of this post) of the Marine Corps, who spoke about the threat of our oil addiction to our national security.

Today's press conference also highlighted a letter to President Obama that 26 groups signed onto calling for those five points listed above to be met.  Click here to read the letter.

Sierra Club Illinois Marches Against BP with Rev. Jesse Jackson

Our Illinois Chapter got a visit from a major icon. On Monday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson invited Illinois Chapter staffers Jack Darin, Jen Hensley and Sarah Gulezian to march with him and his Rainbow PUSH Coalition at a Chicago BP Station. Check out this video from the event:



Jen Hensley, the Illinois Chapter program manager, said the march started with 10-15 people, but added people at each block and ended with around 50 people all calling for BP to pick up the full tab for its oil disaster on the Gulf Coast. Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition is calling for a full BP boycott.

For Hensley and chapter director Jack Darin, the whole experience happened very quickly and left them a little awe-struck.

"It was last second - about three hours before-hand his staff asked us to team up with him for this," said Darin. "It was a very powerful experience to be teamed up with one of the most inspirational civil rights leaders of our time."

To Darin, it was great to see the opportunity to take such a tragic event as the BP oil disaster as a chance to build a broader base of support for clean energy policies.

Hensley agreed. "We talked about how there are so many similarities between the civil rights movement and the environmental movement. It was very awe-inspiring, interesting and humbling."

Darin added that a figure as powerful and well-known as the Rev. Jesse Jackson made for a great response to the march. "Usually with our events, if the police show up it's because they want you to move. This time they were stopping to get their pictures taken with Rev. Jackson."

The Sierra Club's Illinois Chapter will again team up with Rev. Jackson and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition on Friday, May 28, at 4pm (CT) for another march. They're inviting people to meet them at the BP station at the corner of Roosevelt and Wabash in downtown Chicago (a location right off a public transit stop, too).

Darin said they look forward to the continued work with Rev. Jackson. "He's really a household name as a champion for justice with so many Americans. He brings sort of an ability to connect with millions of Americans in a way the Sierra Club often cannot. Together we can really be very powerful teammates for change."

The Future (for getting off oil) Is So Bright...

This post was written by Jesse Prentice-Dunn of the Sierra Club Green Transportation Campaign. Be sure to join the Green Transportation Group on Climate Crossroads.

Definitely should have worn sunglasses this morning – both for the early summer sun beaming down on the White House Rose Garden, but also for the bright future for ending our dependence on oil.

This morning in the Rose Garden, President Obama announced that his administration would issue the first ever standards for medium and heavy duty trucks (think UPS delivery vehicles and tractor trailers). Freight trucks are only 4% of the vehicles on the road, but spew more than 21% of all global warming pollution from transportation. Amazingly, the heavy trucks on the road today average 6 mpg, barely more than they did in 1970.

Improvements to freight truck engines and trailer design, using technologies already on the shelf, can significantly increase efficiency. These improvements will save truckers money, lower costs for businesses, and reduce oil use and emissions from freight shipping. To seriously tackle emissions from freight shipping, we must begin to shift freight to rail and make freight trucks more efficient.

Also this morning, the President announced that the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would begin work on the next round of efficiency standards for our passenger cars and trucks for 2017 and beyond. Importantly, California will be at the table, as it is currently developing state greenhouse gas standards for cars from 2017-2025.

My take on this morning - it is clear that the years of inaction that have hooked us on oil are over. This administration has set a path that will cut oil from our freight trucks for the first time ever and is moving aggressively to develop and deploy advanced technology vehicles that can provide a cleaner alternative to oil altogether. This is a wonderful first step, and we must continue to push for a future not dependent on oil.

Brief Live-Tweeting from the White House

Sierra Club Executive Chairman Carl Pope and Green Transportation Campaign Representative Jesse Prentice-Dunn are at the White House this morning at President Obama makes an important announcement on emissions and fuel economy standards for trucks. Jesse will be live-tweeting from @SierraClubLive - so go check that out (unless White House officials block that fun capability!).

Here's our statement on today's announcement:

New Truck Emissions Standards a Strong Start
New Rules Will Decrease U.S. Global Warming Pollution, Oil Dependence

Washington, D.C. – President Barack Obama is announcing today that the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are setting the first-ever emissions standards for medium and heavy duty trucks starting in 2014 and will begin the next round of standards for cars and light trucks for 2017 and beyond.

Statement of Carl Pope, Chairman of Sierra Club

With the oil disaster in the Gulf showing us of the true cost of our oil dependence, we applaud President Obama for this historic announcement to improve the fuel economy of trucks.  We urge the administration to set the strongest standards to drive us towards an oil-free energy future.

We need to end our dependence on oil as quickly as possible and the steps the President announced today will help us move us closer to that goal while also cleaning the air we breathe.

After cars and light trucks, freight trucks are the second largest consumers of oil – burning more than 2.4 million barrels per day and growing.   Right now these trucks only average 6 miles per gallon--a number that has remained virtually unchanged since the 1970’s. 

We are thrilled that the administration is moving forward with the next round of standards for cars and light trucks.  Setting standards for vehicles for the longer term is needed to push old technology out and bring in the new.  We are pleased that California is joining with EPA and NHTSA in looking at technology, continuing its critical leadership in setting a high bar for reducing vehicle greenhouse gas pollution. 

For heavy duty trucks, these standards are a great start, but it is important to begin moving more freight by rail.  This will yield the greatest savings in both oil and global warming pollution. 

As part of the plan to end our oil dependence, we are also calling on President Obama to issue a presidential moratorium on offshore drilling. We already have the technology to create a clean, 21st century transportation system that will end our addiction to oil. We've been talking about getting off oil for decades. The disaster in the Gulf is a wake up call. It's time to get off oil and on to clean energy.

Some Other Energy & Global Warming News

There's still news happening out there related to other energy and global warming issues beyond the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

We'll start with a news hit that's slightly related to the BP drilling, though. Recently we lost our final appeal against Shell in its bid for oil drilling leases in the Arctic's Beaufort and Chukchi seas. One of our many arguments against allowing drilling in the Arctic waters is because an oil spill there would be even harder to clean up due to icy waters and how remote the region is.

Well Shell is now attempting to respond to those concerns - see this LA Times article:

Shell Oil Co. pledged Monday to deploy a prefabricated coffer dam ready for "immediate" use in the event of a blowout, with a full-scale oil spill response within an hour.

In a letter intended to reassure federal officials that offshore drilling can safely begin in the fragile Arctic in July despite the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Shell said it also would be ready to apply dispersant immediately underwater near the source of any oil flow and would have a remotely operated submersible and trained divers at the drilling site.

Sorry Shell, despite this move, we still think Arctic drilling is a bad idea. Learn more in this LA Times article from earlier this month.

Moving on from oil drilling to another dirty energy source: Coal. Today in Richmond, Va., a coalition of unions, environmental and faith groups joined for a rally and march to remember the 29 coal miners who died in April at a Massey Energy coal mine in West Virginia, as well as to call for safer mining conditions and for Massey CEO Don Blankenship to step down.

Why a rally in Richmond? Today is the Massey Energy shareholders' meeting. There was also a vigil last night. If you were there, please comment and let us know how it all went and share some photos.

Speaking of coal, looks like our corporate accountability pressure on one of the many banks that finances mountaintop removal coal mining is moving in a positive manner. JPMorgan Chase announced a change in its policy this week (PDF). I'll let Mark Kresowik, our Beyond Coal Campaign Corporate Accountability Rep explain it:

After the Sierra Club and our partners began campaigning to end JPMorgan Chase's coal financing in September of 2008, JPMorgan Chase conducted an internal review of their environmental policies and financial support for coal companies engaged in mountaintop removal.  Starting in 2009 JPMorgan Chase began an "enhanced due diligence" process for any potential financial transactions related to mountaintop removal coal mining, which means extra review of potential risks to their bottom line or their reputation. 

As a result of that process JPMorgan Chase decided not to conduct business in 2009 with any coal companies engaged in "significant" mountaintop removal operations, such as Massey.  While Bank of America and Citigroup have similar policies in place, JPMorgan Chase still lags behind Credit Suisse and Wells Fargo which have policies that end or phase out any financial involvement with companies engaged in mountaintop removal, respectively. 

In global warming news, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced yesterday that "The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for both April and for the period from January-April, according to NOAA. Additionally, last month's average ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for any April, and the global land surface temperature was the third warmest on record."

It's getting hot on earth! But who doesn't care? Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski. After blocking an attempt last week to hold BP fully accountable for its oil disaster, Senator Murkowski is expected to introduce a resolution in the Senate this week that will block the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to enforce the Clean Air Act to reduce global warming pollution. You can take action against this resolution today!

BP Oil Disaster, Bikes, and Haiku?

This is a guest post by Ann Mesnikoff, director of the Sierra Club Green Transportation Campaign. Be sure to join the Green Transportation Group on Climate Crossroads.

The BP oil disaster seems to get worse and worse, if that is possible. Last night, NPR reported that oil gushing from the ocean floor is many times the 5,000 barrels BP has admitted to. In fact, as much as 70,000 barrels could be surging up from beneath the mucky bottom of the ocean a mile down and 50 miles from shore.

The oil mess in the Gulf is far more than a spill. Spill makes it sound like a glass of milk that got knocked over and is slowly spreading out across the table top. A quick swipe of a dish towel solves a spill. BP's mess in the Gulf is not so easily solved.

And, we know we are in trouble when the companies ripping up Canada's boreal forest for the dirtiest and most carbon intensive oil we can find try to use the BP mess to make their mess look clean. As Bruce Nilles and Kate Collaruli noted in their blog the other day: "One could compare the tar sands industry in Canada to a massive and permanent oil spill on land. When the tar sands industry destroys the environment from the get-go, who needs a spill?"

May could well end up being the first full month of BP's disaster - but it is also National Bicycle Month. In cities across the country, bike to work days are being held - providing a great opportunity for biking enthusiasts and those who just want to give a try a chance to hit the road on gasoline-free wheels en-masse. Here's a blurb on yesterday’s bike-to-work day in San Francisco:

And not just any Bike to Work Day, the most successful one in the event's 16-year history, with more than 1,000 bikes accounting for a record-breaking 75 percent of morning traffic Thursday on Market Street, organizers and city officials said.

To help celebrate May as Bicycle Month (and not BP oil disaster month) Sierra Club challenges you to write a haiku about your bike -- a 17-syllable verse form consisting of three metrical units of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. And, send us a photo with that haiku!

Here's mine:

My beat up red bike
Has a nice basket in front
And needs no gas, yeah

Exposing the Financers of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

This post was co-written by Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign Director Bruce Nilles and Mark Kresowik, Corporate Accountability and Finance Representative for the Sierra Club.

The idea of corporate responsibility has come up repeatedly in recent weeks following the coal mine and oil disasters. That responsibility extends beyond profits to the health and well-being of our communities. By continuing to finance mountaintop removal coal mining these banks are throwing that responsibility aside.

Many of us talk about the harm that coal companies are doing to people and the environment with mountaintop removal coal mining, but the blame is not just at Big Coal's doorstep.

It takes billions of dollars to destroy communities, blow the tops off Appalachian mountains and bury thousands of miles of streams, as mountaintop removal coal mining does. Today the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), and BankTrack are grading the lending policies of nine of the world’s largest banks that help finance the most destructive practices of the coal industry. See the report card here:

www.ran.org/ReportCard

The report card reviews the financing practices of Bank of America, Citi, Credit Suisse, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, GE Capital, PNC and UBS, and found that since January 2008, these banks have provided more than $3.9 billion in loans and bonds to companies practicing mountaintop removal coal mining, including Massey Energy and Arch Coal.

So who are the biggest losers?  PNC, which finances almost half of all mountaintop removal coal mining, ranked worst of the worst. The bank earned an "F" for its total failure to take environmental risks into account in its lending practices. Also flunking this year's report card were UBS and JPMorgan Chase, which respectively finance about one-third of all the mountaintop removal coal mined in Appalachia, and GE Capital, which backs about one-quarter of all operations.

Credit Suisse topped the list this year, earning an "A-" for their efforts to promote responsible mining practices. Credit Suisse has confirmed, although their policy isn't publicly available, that they do not finance the extraction of coal in a mountaintop removal setting. Wells Fargo received a solid "B+" for their commitment to phase out financing for mountaintop removal coal mining, including some deals the bank inherited from their purchase of Wachovia. 

RAN and Sierra Club disclosed the findings of this report card to each of the nine banks in the report card and offered them the opportunity to clarify their policies in case we missed something. We were a bit surprised by what happened next. In response to initial report card findings, Morgan Stanley released a public mountaintop removal policy (on Tuesday, May 11th) that demonstrated significant progress and moved them from a failing grade to an average "C" grade. 

Bank of America and Citi, two of the first banks to release mountaintop removal coal mining policies after years of pressure from RAN and other partners, also ended up in the "C" range. But perennial mountaintop removal coal mining laggard JPMorgan Chase has yet to make public changes to their mountaintop removal financing policies, and even went so far as to omit a shareholder resolution on the topic from the ballot for the bank's annual meeting on Tuesday, May 18th. 

The Sierra Club and our partners will continue calling for each of the nine banks reviewed in this report card to strengthen their policies and cease their financial support for mountaintop removal coal mining. Our recommended 'best practice' is a clear exclusion policy on commercial lending and investment banking services for all coal companies who practice mountaintop removal coal extraction. It is time for JPMorgan Chase, UBS, PNC, and GE Capital to move up from the very bottom of their class.

Oil Disaster Doesn't Mean We Should Switch to Other Dirty Fuels

This is the weekly blog post from Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign. This week's post was co-written by Kate Colarulli of the Sierra Club Dirty Fuels Campaign.

As we've watched the Gulf Coast clean up from the massive BP oil disaster, besides BP picking up its own PR mission to improve its image, we've also noticed another disturbing PR campaign: the coal industry and the tar sands industry are both starting to use this disaster to tout the supposed "cleanliness" of their respective energy sources.

There are more and more "clean" coal ads appearing alongside oil cleanup articles, and the tar sands (also known as oil sands) industry has already made the outrageous claim that they are "safer" than offshore drilling. One executive said "that while there can be failures with conventional oil and oil sands projects, 'the damage would be much smaller and more modest' than with offshore spills.'"

This could not be farther from the truth, of course. One could compare the tar sands industry in Canada to a massive and permanent oil spill on land. When the tar sands industry destroys the environment from the get-go, who needs a spill?

Here's a fact for you: The Canadian tar sands operations are intending to expand to the size of Florida (and have already destroyed 200 square miles). 

The mining and production of oil from tar sands creates three times the carbon emissions as that of conventional oil. As if its global warming pollution were not bad enough, tar sands mining also results in the destruction of the Canadian boreal forest, a vital carbon reservoir for 11% of the world's carbon and a global nesting ground for 166 million birds. In other words, not only does tar sands development create vast quantities of new carbon emissions, it destroys the Earth's natural ability to capture carbon through the forest.

And think BP's bad behavior only crops up in oil? Think again - BP is actively involved in the tar sands industry and has recently been cited for cutting corners on a tar sands project that would have impacted the drinking water for the eight million people residing in the Chicago area.

In October, BP was caught trying to under-count the pollution that would result from a proposed expansion of its BP Whiting refinery in order to process tar sands. The tar sands expansion would increase the refinery's discharges of ammonia into Lake Michigan by 54 percent and its discharges of suspended solids - the byproducts of making gasoline - by 35 percent. Surely the people of Chicago would thank BP for adding "byproducts of making gasoline" to their drinking water.

If that incident doesn't scare you, one of BP's tar sands operations, ironically named Sunrise, is situated above Canada's biggest freshwater aquifer. Rick Boucher, vice-president of the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region One, fears that "It's just a matter of time before an accident causes injury or death, and pollution of this massive underground freshwater system."

Instead of taking every precaution to protect this water resource, last month BP's management successfully beat down "a resolution that would have required the company to report on the environmental, financial and reputational risks of developing Canadian tar sands projects."  The tar sands have been called "the greatest environmental crime in history," yet BP is steadily increasing their involvement.

This BP oil disaster should be a turning point in our energy policy here in the U.S. We should not keep relying on dirty energy sources like coal, oil and tar sands. We have available technologies such as electric vehicles, solar and wind power which would allow us to get off oil. It's time to make the switch.

There is no room in America's future for coal, oil and tar sands - don't let the BP oil disaster help chain our country to more dirty energy.