Paul Ryan, Rep. Wisconsin is calling for cuts in federal spending on clean energy research and development and the elimination of subsidies and tax breaks for wind, solar, and other alternative energy technologies. He justifies these cuts to clean energy R & D by describing  them as expensive handouts for "uncompetitive" energy sources. He neglects to mention enormous subsidies and tax breaks for non-clean energies such as oil, gas, and coal, making it far from a level playing field. If the tax breaks and subsidies for dirty energy are continued, clean energy will find it impossible to become competitive in the global market place.

My support of nuclear as one of our choices, although luke warm, has been expressed in Running on Empty and in these blog pages. The recent melt down in Japan, now being called almost as serious as Chernobyl, has made us all spooked about nuclear. Yet even the Chernobyl accident affected relatively few people.

The UN Scientific Committee on the effects of Atomic Radiation (Unscear) reported that at Chernobyl, 134 suffered acute radiation syndrome and 28 died soon afterwards. Nineteen others died later, but generally not from diseases associated with radiation. Another 87 suffered complications including four cases of cancer and two of leukemia. In the general population there have been 6,848 cases of thyroid cancer among young children, arising "almost entirely" from the Soviet Union's failure to prevent people from drinking milk contaminated with iodine 131. Otherwise they found no persuasive evidence of any other health effects in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure. People living in the countries affected today "Need not live in fear of serious health consequences from the Chernobyl accident."

A vigorous discussion about this subject between George Monbiot, a British environmentalist and writer with the Guardian, and Helen Caldicott, the world's most vocal anti nuclear critic appears in Monbiot's blog.

Admittedly new nuclear plants are very expensive, but our addiction to fossil fuels is so pervasive that we will need every possible resource to bridge the gap between them and renewable clean fuels to power our modern world. New technology has produced new safer types of nuclear plants than those 40 year old plants used in Japan. Meltdowns of the type at Chernobyl, and Japan are highly unlikely. Go to www.Monbiot.com to read more about it.

Vitter-Bishop Bill Puts "Foxes In Charge Of the Hen House"
[A Statement from The Wilderness Society]

(March 31, 2011) - The following statement is from The Wilderness Society Senior Policy Advisor David Alberswerth in response to the 3-D, Domestic Jobs, Domestic Energy, and Deficit Reduction Act of 2011 introduced by Sen. Vitter (LA) and Rep. Rob Bishop (UT).

The following is a direct quote from David Alberswerth.

"This legislation puts the foxes in charge of the hen house. Under this bill, the oil and gas industry would essentially run the Interior Department’s offshore oil and gas program and the BLM’s oil shale program. It also mandates the destruction of the fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, eviscerates the Endangered Species Act, allows polluters to continue dumping greenhouse gases and endangering the public without any EPA oversight under the Clean Air Act, and restricts the right of Americans to use the federal courts to enforce environmental laws.

Another needless part of the bill reinstates a number of old Utah leases, even though those leases were deemed invalid in federal court. The Utah oil and gas industry doesn’t need more leases -- it is sitting on millions of acres of idle leases it isn’t using. According to BLM data, 4,855,833 acres of BLM lands are under lease in Utah, while only 1,088,431 acres of these leases are in production. In addition, last year the BLM issued 402 drilling permits (APDs) in Utah, while the industry only drilled 172 new wells on them. The bill is based on the myth that Administration policies are inhibiting oil and gas development on federal lands, while tens of millions of acres of federal leases lands sit idle in Utah and elsewhere, and thousands of drilling permits issued by the BLM go unused by the industry. What we really need to do is develop policies that will wean our economy from its dependence on oil and other fossil fuels, and toward a clean, efficient energy future. The Vitter-Bishop bill would take us backwards toward the twentieth century, rather than forward into the 21st."

The Wilderness Society is the leading public-lands conservation organization working to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. Founded in 1935, and now with more than 500,000 members and supporters, TWS has led the effort to permanently protect 110 million acres of wilderness and to ensure sound management of our shared national lands. www.wilderness.org

This week it was reported in the news that General Electric, the world's largest corporation paid zero taxes last year on a profit of $5 billion. That's $5,000,000,000. How much did you pay last year? Today it was reported that 2/3 of U.S. corporations also paid zero federal taxes. Bank of America hasn’t paid a nickel in federal income taxes for the past two years, and in fact raked in an additional $1 billion in tax “benefits.” The bank is enjoying these profits after accepting $45 billion from taxpayers, which the company then got to count as a deduction when they paid back the money and paid huge bonuses to its executives.

In its first session the 112TH CONGRESS has crafted a bill to amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas due to concerns regarding possible climate change, and for "other" purposes. That "other" is so vague as to be laughable if the rest of this proposal weren't so ridiculous. If it becomes law the country stands to set back the passage of a rational energy policy many years.

This week congress passed a new war funding bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and where ever we decide to invade next. (Pardon my sarcasm.) Tacked onto that bill was a little debated "cash for gas guzzlers" bill. It probably couldn't have made it on it's own. The bill gives the owners of clunkers who trade them in to be scrapped a voucher for buying a new vehicle. Will this do the environment any good, or is it just a stimulus package for the auto industry?....