Pres ignores environmental appeal, panders to Big Oil, chooses sub-prime banker for Interior

“It is clear nominee has a passion for national parks but … will she value our wildlands and wildlife in the face of endless pressure by industry to drill…” ─ Center for Biological Diversity

Re-reporting, editing by 

Carolyn Bennett

BP Oil Spill 

In “Big Oil’s in Good Hands with Obama’s New Interior Secretary,” Stephen Lendman first recalls the anti-environmental stewardship of the previous secretary.

BP Oil Spill 

Outgoing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar

Supported BP’s Deepwater Horizon operation

 

Ignored environmental risks

BP Oil Spill 

Approved BP’s exploration plan with no environmental analysis

Permitted Gulf of Mexico disaster

Granted ‘categorical exemptions,’ after BP’s rig exploded, to expand offshore drilling

Surpassed the previous government’s anti-environmental policies

Shared anti-environmental culpability (with the current government) in having backed dangerous nuclear expansion and remained beholden to oil and gas interests, continued an official  drill-drill-drill policy, paid lip service without progressive action on  environmental concerns

Lendman said Kenneth Lee Salazar came into the office with a history of anti-environmentalism. As junior senator from Colorado, he opposed fuel efficiency, supported unrestricted oil and gas drilling on federal lands. He voted against Gulf of Mexico drilling protections and fought them as Interior Secretary. On resigning from Interior, he leaves “a deplorable environmental record,” Lendman said.

And he seemed in lockstep with his president, as indicated in comments by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit, quoted by Lendman:

So far under [President Barack] Obama, industry has been winning the race as it obtains more and more land for oil and gas.

Over the past four years, the industry has leased more than 6 million acres, compared with only 2.6 million acres permanently protected.

In the Obama era, land conservation has received little or no consideration.

A

n appeal from a broad spectrum of groups concerned with the environment and related issues was sent to the U.S. President last month urging him to nominate a qualified person to head the Department of the Interior.

  

“The selection of the next Interior Secretary … is an important moment to place renewed emphasis and urgency on some of the most critical issues of our age, including climate change, the protection of endangered species and preservation of water and wild lands,” the letter said. The opening of the position following the resignation of Secretary Salazar offers “an opportunity to continue a great American tradition of expanding parks and wildlife protection,” the letter said.

Cheetah

“Congressman Grijalva is the right person to oversee tribal relations in a way that is respectful and beneficial both to our Native American communities and the country as a whole.”

Signed by a broad coalition of 260 conservation, Hispanic, recreation, animal welfare, religious, labor, youth, business and women’s groups, the letter urged President Obama to nominate Rep. Raúl Grijalva, currently the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, and a leading Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee.

“

As ranking member and former chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands,” the letter said, “Congressman Grijalva has been a tireless and effective leader on conservation and land management issues faced by the Department of the Interior. Congressman Grijalva has unparalleled expertise with Native Americans and Indian tribes, a strong understanding of border issues, a well‐established and pragmatic conservation ethic, and valuable experience with a wide variety of funding challenges.…

Biodiversity
North Bengal

“We strongly believe Congressman Grijalva exemplifies the modern and forward thinking vision of the Department of the Interior.”

T

he President effectively ignored the recommendation and nominated a sports equipment seller and a shady-business-practices banker for the position of U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

Lendman reported in “Big Oil’s in Good Hands with Obama’s New Interior Secretary Sally Jewell” that in the years 1996 to 2000, Jewell had been “president of the Washington Mutual (WaMu) commercial banking group,” a concern that, before it collapsed, had been “the nation’s largest mortgage lender and “rife with fraud.” An investigation by the U.S. Senate, he said, “had discovered gross deception: loan officers receiving bonuses for speedy subprime mortgage closures, overcharging, and levying stiff prepayment penalties.”

Sally Jewell

Salazar’s successor

 Incoming Interior Secretary Sally Jewell

In his February 8 article at Global Research, Stephen Lendman assessed the chances of getting new, progressive leadership at Interior and said Sally Jewell “was not chosen to be a friend of the earth. Responsible stewardship,” he said, “is excluded from her mandate.

She’ll be low key and soft spoken.

She’ll conceal official policy.

She is Big Oil’s woman in Washington

Whatever Big Oil wants it gets.

T

he Keystone XL Pipeline System construction to carry “one of the world’s dirtiest fuels (tar sands oil) … to double America’s dirty tar sands oil supply and increase environmental toxicity exponentially”; on a route, likely “to devastate ecosystems, pollute water sources, jeopardize public health” ─ Sally Jewell, he said, will give the full backing of the U.S. Department of Interior.

The Keystone Pipeline System is a pipeline system to transport synthetic crude oil and diluted bitumen (‘dilbit’) from the Athabasca oil sands region in northeastern Alberta, Canada, to multiple destinations in the United States, which include refineries in Illinois, the Cushing oil distribution hub in Oklahoma, and proposed connections to refineries along the Gulf Coast of Texas. [Wikipedia note]

“She will oversee oil and gas production and give free rein to industry,” Lendman said. “No matter the stakes, Big Oil wants it, so do Republicans, many Democrats, and President Obama; and Jewell will support it as part of her mandate at Interior. She won’t disappoint.”

Issues warning

Destinies linked
Biodiversity

Friends of life concerned, guarded, strangely hopeful

Following the president’s public lauding of his sports equipment/shady banking candidate for Interior, the Center for Biological Diversity last Wednesday responded, dejectedly, it seemed, as they too had urged the appointment of Congressman Grijalva to the post. Executive Secretary, Kierán Suckling said, “America’s public lands and endangered species are in dire need of visionary leadership. We hope Sally Jewell brings the same determination and transparency to running the Department of the Interior as she did to REI.”

[Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI), President and CEO Sally Jewell sells outdoor gear and sporting goods through dozens of U.S. retail outlets, sales approaching $2 billion annually (Lendman reports)].

“The next Interior secretary will face monumental tasks in protecting species, preserving public lands, safeguarding clean air and water and preserving a healthy climate for future generations,” the Center for Biological Diversity’s Executive Secretary said.

“I

t’s vital that our oceans, forests, deserts and rivers are protected and preserved and not turned over to big businesses looking to make a profit from our publicly owned resources. 

We hope that Sally Jewell shows brave leadership in finally addressing the climate crisis, reversing the tide of species extinctions and protecting wild lands that are vital to wildlife and people alike.

Sally Jewell

“It is clear the secretary of the Interior nominee has a passion for national parks. But the challenge is whether she will value our wildlands and wildlife in the face of endless pressure by industry to drill for fossil fuels in areas within Interior’s jurisdiction. 

If she can stand strong against bad ideas such as Arctic oil drilling and fracking (hydraulic fracturing) on public lands, then she will likely be a success.

“Nature needs a true champion at this point in history.”

A

t the website for Center for Biological Diversity, its mission is rooted in the belief “that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants.

Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction.

We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.

We want those who come after us to inherit a world where the wild is still alive.

Sources and notes

“Big Oil’s in Good Hands with Obama’s New Interior Secretary Sally Jewell” (by Stephen Lendman), Global Research, February 8, 2013, http://www.globalresearch.ca/big-oils-in-good-hands-with-obamas-new-interior-secretary-sally-jewell/5322305

Author and broadcaster Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. His latest book is Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

His blog site: sjlendman.blogspot.com, his broadcasts at the Progressive Radio News Hour, the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time, Saturdays and Sundays at noon. Discussions archived, http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour. See also http://www.dailycensored.com/big-oils-in-good-hands-with-sally-jewell/

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Statement released February 6, 2013, by the Center for Biological Diversity on the nomination of Sally Jewell for Interior Secretary ─ Executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity Kierán Suckling:

“Center for Biological Diversity Statement on Nomination of Sally Jewell for Interior Secretary,” February 6, 2013, http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2013/jewell-02-06-2013.html

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 450,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/about/index.html

Letter December 10, 2012, to President Barack Obama

Re: Secretary of the Interior, http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/pdfs/obama_interior_2012_grijalva.pdf

Also at Friends of the Earth, http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-01-massive-coalition-calls-on-president-obama-to-nomina

“Massive coalition calls on President Obama to nominate Rep. Raúl Grijalva as interior secretary,” posted January 16, 2013 (Adam Russell)

Signers of the letter to President Obama recommending Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona for Secretary of Interior included: Latinos Go Green, Latina Lista, Ciudadanos Del Karso, Vegabajenos Impulsando Ambiental Sustentable, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Women Food and Agriculture Network, Friends of the Earth, Rainforest Action Network, American Forests, Labor Network for Sustainability, Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs, Christians Caring for Creation, Public Citizen, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Food and Water Watch, New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, Committee on Idaho's High Desert, Southwest Montana Wildlands Association, Washington Wild, Wild Utah Project, Wildlife Alliance of Maine, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, South Florida Wildlands Association, Tennessee Environmental Council, the Wisconsin Resource Protection Council, the Arizona Wilderness Coalition, Desert Protective Council, Friends of Animals, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Green Delaware, Kentucky Heartwood, Kids vs. Global Warming, United Church of Christ Network for Environmental & Economic Responsibility, Rocky Mountain Wild, Sea Turtle Conservancy, Tucson Audubon, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, West North Carolina Alliance, Wild Idaho Rising and WildWest Institute.

Fracking

Hydraulic fracturing is the propagation of fractures in a rock layer by a pressurized fluid.

Induced hydraulic fracturing or hydro-fracturing (commonly known as fracing, fraccing or fracking) is a technique used to release petroleum, natural gas (including shale gas, tight gas, and coal seam gas), or other substances for extraction. This type of fracturing creates fractures from a wellbore drilled into reservoir rock formations.

Some hydraulic fractures form naturally—certain veins or dikes are examples—and can create conduits along which gas and petroleum from source rocks may migrate to reservoir rocks.  

Opponents of hydraulic fracturing point to potential effects on the environment: contamination of ground water, risks to air quality, the migration of gases and hydraulic fracturing chemicals to the surface, surface contamination from spills and flow back and related health effects. For these reasons hydraulic fracturing has come under scrutiny internationally, with some countries suspending or banning it.

Proponents of hydraulic fracturing point to the economic benefits from vast amounts of formerly inaccessible hydrocarbons the process can extract. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing

Keystone XL (Wikipedia note continued)

The Keystone Pipeline System consists of the operational ‘Keystone Pipeline and ‘Keystone-Cushing Extension’, and two proposed pipeline expansion segments, referred to as Keystone XL Pipeline and the Gulf Coast Project. After the Keystone XL pipeline segments are completed, American crude oil would enter the XL pipelines at Baker, Montana and Cushing, Oklahoma.

The Keystone XL has faced lawsuits from oil refineries and criticism from environmentalists and some members of the United States Congress.

In January 2012, President Obama rejected the application amid protests about the pipeline’s impact on Nebraska’s environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region.

On March 22 Obama endorsed the building of its southern half that begins in Cushing, Oklahoma.

On March 22, the President said in Cushing: ‘Today, I’m directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done.’  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline

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Entrenchment costs

Re-reporting, compilation, editing, brief comment by Carolyn Bennett
U.S. Government, Corporate Black gold corruption sets back policy, progress

Three in four oil and gas lobbyists worked for federal government
Washington Post July 22
A Washington Post analysis shows “Three out of every four lobbyists who represent oil and gas companies previously worked in the federal government, a proportion that far exceeds the usual revolving-door standards on Capitol Hill.… All told, more than 430 industry lobbyists once had jobs in the legislative or executive branches according to the Post analysis based on CRP [Center for Responsive Politics] lobbying data, employment histories and other records.” Records show “scores had ties to major congressional committees that shape federal oil policies or to lawmakers who supported industry priorities while in Congress.”

(ALLEGED)
Bribes  abound ─ New York Times July 22
A four-member bipartisan subcommittee on Standards of Official Conduct has found evidence of U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel’s improper use of his position as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in supporting “a tax loophole worth more than half-a-billion dollars for an oil company” [Nabors Industries oil drilling company]. Allegedly the “oil company’s executive, Eugene Isenberg, had promised $1 million for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York..” As well, the committee has explored “whether Rangel broke ethics rules when he failed to report taxable income received from his Dominican villa.” At 80 years of age, this entrenched Member of Congress, reelected repeatedly by his constituency is slated to face an ethics violations trial.

Oil and gas and coal industries
Some of the most powerful lobbies in Washington ─ Kretzmann July 23
As the latest energy legislation misses the mark, Steve Kretzmann of Oil Change International recalls today on Democracy Now that twenty Democrats including climate champions like Sen. John Kerry in earlier actions had “voted against removing subsidies to the oil and gas industry.” This was happening as 100,000 barrels a day were spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.

BP again this week suspended cleanup due to weather.

Environment be damned
Friends of the Earth policy analyst Kate Horner on the Democracy Now program today spoke of the U.S.’s dangerously entrenched obstructionist and regressive energy policies. “I think that the position of the United States government in the negotiations is finally being made clear to the rest of the world,” she said. Of last year’s Copenhagen Climate Conference, she said, “No one really foresaw the extent to which the U.S. government would actually play such an obstructionist role.”

The biggest problem with the U.S. right now in the international negotiations is that they are actively trying to dismantle the international negotiations, trying to weaken the international architecture and replace it with a system of pledges, something far weaker, which is “not based on science and not based on equity.”

President Obama’s special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, has taken a stance whereby the government actively tries to undermine all of the relevant, important provisions in the international architecture ─ a most damaging stance.

We are in a place where the onus is on the rest of the world to continue to be leaders in their respective areas. Europe, for example, was the architect of the Kyoto Protocol, which is the only existing international legally binding instrument. The questions are whether European leadership will put muscle behind it and support it; and whether the rest of the world will pressure the United States, isolate it in its obstructionist role.

Oil is King/Queen

U.S. in IRAQ
Militarizing [oil] “diplomacy” in Iraq ─
“One more step in the blurring of the lines between military activities and U.S. State Department or diplomatic activities,” Richard Fontaine of the Center for a New American Security is reported by McClatchy Newspapers.

Under terms of a 2008 ‘status of forces agreement,” all U.S. troops are scheduled to be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of 2011. But a sizable American civilian presence including the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the largest in the world, and five consulate-like ‘Enduring Presence Posts’ in the Iraqi hinterlands will remain. Therefore, the U.S. “State Department is laying plans for “diplomats to field an army… In little more than a year, State Department contractors in Iraq could be driving armored vehicles, flying aircraft, operating surveillance systems, even retrieving casualties if there are violent incidents and disposing of unexploded ordnance.”

Entrenchment hurts the globe: the earth, the air, the waters, the land, the people.

Sources and notes
“Three of every four oil and gas lobbyists worked for federal government” (By Dan Eggen and Kimberly Kindy Washington Post Staff Writer), July 22, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/21/AR2010072106468.html?hpid=topnews
“House Panel Will Try Rangel in Ethics Cases” (ERIC LIPTON and DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI), July 22, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/nyregion/23rangel.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=rangel&st=cse
“State Dept. planning to field a small army in Iraq” (Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers), July 21, 2010, http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/21/97915/state-dept-planning-to-field-a.html#storylink=omni_popular
Democracy Now July 23, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/
“As Senate Dems Give Up on Climate Bill, What Does the Future Hold for US Energy Policy?” July 23, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/23/senate_dems_give_up_on_climate
“Three of Every Four Oil & Gas Lobbyists Worked for Federal Government,” July 23, 2010,
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/23/three_of_every_four_oil_gas

Friends of the Earth is an international network in seventy-seven countries around the world whose national groups put pressure on domestic governments for a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol and very strong provisions for additional resources for developing countries.

IRAQ’s OIL
Petroleum is Iraq’s most valuable mineral. This country has the world’s second largest known reserves. Before the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq was the second largest oil-exporting state. Oil production contributes the largest single portion to GDP and constitutes almost all of Iraq’s foreign exchange. Iraq is a founding member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), but disagreements over production quotas and world oil prices have often led Iraq into conflict with other members.

Because Iraq has such a short coastline, it has depended heavily on transnational pipelines to export its oil. Iraq’s narrow coastline is adjacent to that of Iran.

In 1985 Iraq constructed a new pipeline that fed into the Petroline (in Saudi Arabia), which terminated at the Red Sea port of Yanbu’. In 1988, that line was replaced with a new one but it never reached full capacity and was shut down, along with all other Iraqi oil outlets, following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. In December 1996, the Turkish pipeline was reopened under the oil-for-food program. Later the gulf terminal of Mīnā’ al-Bakr also was revived. In 1998, repairs were begun on the Syrian pipeline. Following the end of the 2003 conflict, Iraq’s pipelines were subjected to numerous acts of sabotage by guerrilla forces.

Oil was first discovered in Iraq in 1927 near Karkūk by the foreign-owned Turkish Petroleum Company, which was renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) in 1929. Finds at Mosul and Al-Basrah followed. Several new fields were discovered and put into production in the 1940s and ‘50s. New fields have continued to be discovered and developed. [Iraq notes from Britannica]

Kyoto Protocol
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change signed by 154 nations at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro calls for voluntary reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Under the convention, international negotiations for stronger commitments to reductions in emissions led to the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement proposed in 1997. The Kyoto Protocol is named for the Japanese city in which it was negotiated.

The Kyoto Protocol has been the subject of intense debate and discussion, which tend to distinguish developed countries (which are included under the protocol) from developing countries (which are not included). Within developed countries, the protocol has its proponents, who seek to reduce the risks of future human-caused climate change; and its opponents, who seek to avoid the risks the protocol poses to economic development and growth. Debate has focused on the United States because it emits more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than any other country; and because, in 2001, the United States government rejected the protocol for economic reasons. Despite the lack of support by the United States, the protocol garnered sufficient participation to go into force in 2005 [Britannica].