Debate persists as to whether or not it would be in everyone's best interests to settle the case all together. Obviously, any settlement made on behalf of the oil giant responsible for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster would be unimaginably large, though some argue that there may be more to lose than to gain should a settlement be reached before the trial begins. Thus far, BP has paid or set aside a total $41 billion in damages. Should U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier penalize the company to the full extent of the law it could face up to an additional $34 billion in criminal, punitive, and civil penalties. A more lenient ruling or settlement could slash that number down considerably, ultimately meaning fewer funds for the rehabilitation and preservation of the Gulf. An article from the Times Picayune discusses the dilemma in more detail.

This is not to say that there couldn't be large advantages to settlement. A trial of this magnitude could last years -- potentially increasing the economic and environmental damage that has already laid waste to the Gulf region. There are also those who advocate for heavy precautions in the case of a settlement. In a letter sent to President Obama earlier this week, Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune asked that any deal reached with BP include a fund to pay for comprehensive, long-term restoration of the Gulf's natural resources, including $10 billion set aside to implement early restoration strategies. In addition, any settlement must require each responsible party to pay maximum Clean Water Act penalty fines of $21 billion. Penalty money should be directed at projects that enhance the Gulf's natural resources. Sierra Club attorney Devorah Ancel explains that this outcome is possible. Under a settlement, penalty fines that would otherwise go into the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund may be designated to Gulf recovery projects.  

In either case, no solution will be simple. A trial will place the fate of the Gulf of Mexico in the hands of one judge, though the alternative may mean settling for less. While the costs have been tremendous for every party involved so far, it is still unclear who will be the biggest loser.

 -- Maxwell Gerson, Sierra Club Intern, Louisiana

-- Kim Lovell, Sierra Club's Population Campaign

-- Mary Anne Hitt, Director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign

"I've been in transportation 10 years in the Florida House and close to 20 here, and it was truly the worst bill I've ever seen. The piece that we (Transportation and Infrastructure Committee) passed at 3 o'clock this morning out of the transportation committee is the worst bill I have seen in the 30 years I've been elected."

Opposition crosses party lines, with Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio), a longtime ally of House Speaker John Boehner, opposing the measure in its current form and saying, "It's his bill." House Republicans in urban areas don’t want to see critical transit funding cut. 

The New York Times does a nice job of summing up "A Terrible Transportation Bill." In short, by the time three House committees had done their work, HR 7:

• Pushes money to highways while gutting investment in transportation options.

• Jeopardizes future funding for public transportation by ending dedicating funding for transit out of the Highway Trust Fund where transit receives a portion of gas tax revenues (transit funding has been part of the Highway Trust Fund since President Reagan was in the White House);

• Uses Big Oil's wish list as one of the ways to pay for transit and other programs (money the Congressional Budget Office says is not up to the task);

• Eliminates dedicated funding for options like walking, biking, and programs like Safe Routes to Schools that helps kids bike and walk to school safely, and takes an ax to Amtrak funding; and

• Allows states to ram through projects without environmental review or public input.

Sierra Club joined more than 600 groups from across the country to oppose the provision that ended dedicated funding for transit. Last Spring nearly 70,000 Americans sent a simple message to the House and Senate: 

"America needs a transportation system that ends our dependence on oil, cuts pollution, and provides clean, efficient, and affordable transportation options while putting the country back to work."

Join us in taking action to help kill this bill. Call your Representative today. Just dial:  877-573-7693. The message is simple: Oppose HR 7 and get back to work on a transportation bill that will help end our dependence on oil, cut pollution, and provide clean, efficient, and affordable transportation options while putting the country back to work.  If you can’t call, send an email!

-- Ann Mesnikoff, Director of the Sierra Club Green Transportation Campaign

If you live in Pennsylvania, yesterday the State House voted through a bill that allows natural gas companies to drill only 300 feet from your house, your child’s school, the hospital, and sensitive natural areas.

This dangerous pro-fracking bill is disguised as an "impact fee" bill, but it provided many more loopholes the natural gas industry can exploit. This bill will now go to Governor Corbett's desk to be signed.

The bill, HB 1950 effectively rewrites the drilling laws and adds several new dangerous provisions, including:

• It allows all types of gas operations in all zoning districts, including residential neighborhoods, near schools, parks, hospitals, and sensitive natural and cultural resource protection areas.  This means people could be forced to live only 300 feet away from a gas well pad, open frack waste pit, or pipeline, despite growing evidence that such development causes pollution, damages health, and lowers property values.

• The bill also mandates a one-size-fits-all ordinance that supersedes all existing ordinances and prevents municipalities from adopting any zoning provisions that are stricter than the weak, mandated standards.

• Municipalities will no longer be able to play a central role in protecting the health, safety, and welfare of residents from the oil and gas industry.

By tying the hands of the local municipalities, the State has taken complete control of where drilling takes place and is handing it over to the industry.

In response to this disastrous bill, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune released the following statement:

"The natural gas industry has once again found a way to exploit more loopholes and endanger more communities.  This bill shows politicians in Pennsylvania decided to put the gas industry profits ahead of their own people.  If Governor Corbett was to stand up for the citizens of Pennsylvania instead of the gas companies, he would veto this bill."

-- Deb Nardone, Director of the Sierra Club Natural Gas Reform Campaign

Early yesterday morning, Upton held a closed-door fundraiser with the Washington lobbyists from some of our nation's biggest polluters. There, he collected checks from the very people whose job it is to oppose the safeguards that keep the air we breathe clean from the toxic mercury and lead that cause cancer, asthma, and heart disease. Then, just an hour later, Congress' Energy and Commerce Committee – for which Upton is the Chairman – began the first of two hearings on the day attacking those same safeguards.

Meanwhile, shortly after it was revealed that a Super PAC supporting his candidacy took $1.2 million from oil, gas and coal companies, Romney got even cozier with big polluters at a high-dollar campaign fundraiser in Georgia. In fact, hosting the event for Romney was none other than David Ratcliffe - the former CEO of one of the country's largest coal-burning companies and a man deemed one of the “Planet's Worst Enemies” by Rolling Stone Magazine.

In spite of those packed schedules on Wednesday, Upton and Romney managed to also find time to pat each other on the back, as the Republican Congressman announced his support for Romney's presidential candidacy.

Take a look at their records.

Both Upton and Romney oppose the EPA's basic efforts to curb carbon pollution that would help protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the health of our families.

Both are clamoring for more oil, more gas, and more coal at any cost.

Both have turned their backs on science and the future of our planet by denying climate change.

And – though both are Michigan natives - Upton and Romney both reject the fuel efficiency standards that are helping put thousands back to work in their home state building the cars that are keeping our air clean and getting families further on a tank of gas.

The bottom line is that in their reckless hunt for campaign cash, both are putting the agenda of the most extreme elements of their party and a handful of billionaire donors ahead of the needs of American families. While Mitt and Fred may be a match made in heaven for big polluters, they're leaving everyone else behind.

-- Tony Cani, National Political Director for the Sierra Club

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Learn more about the positions of the Republican Presidential Primary candidates at Realrepubs.com.

The Sierra Club Voter Education Fund’s Real Republicans project seeks to educate voters about the records of the 2012 GOP presidential candidates by highlighting their extreme positions on public health and other issues of critical importance to the American people and encourage the public to find out more about the candidates and their positions on these issues.

The latest cool thing to come out of the "Car 2.0 era" was unveiled last week from the makers of PlugShare, which is a program that acts as a social network of EV-charger locations. They have designed and released an app called GreenCharge, which calculates how much oil, and how many dollars, you save with each mile you drive your EV. And like other EV apps, it will monitor the car's remaining charge and driving range.

But the best feature on this app is that it totals how many pounds of carbon you're keeping from the atmosphere by driving a plug-in vehicle. It will also keep track of local electricity rates and compare those to your local gas vendor.

It then allows you to share these results on Facebook and Twitter. With constant stories of Big Oil profits and volatile gas prices in the news, what's not to "like" about this? Techcrunch points out, "A vague sense of helping the environment isn't enough. EV sales won't surge until their financial benefits become common knowledge. By educating drivers and their social networks, GreenCharge could get the mainstream to plug in."

This is a pretty useful tool, because it makes it clear as day how much cleaner plug-in vehicles are than the typical hunk of metal that depends on oil. Plug In America board member and Sierra Club member Marc Geller explains, EV fuel gets cleaner over time "because the grid is getting cleaner. Electricity might not be getting cleaner as quickly as we would like, but it is getting cleaner. The dirtiest day you drive your Nissan Leaf is the first day you drive it."

Click here for a video demonstration. You can expect more interactive apps like this one as more plug-in cars hit the road and drivers chat about the experience.

Want to learn more about electric cars? Visit the Sierra Club's Go Electric campaign.

-- Brian Foley/image: GreenCharge

(via ThinkProgress.)

If you want to spread the good news about EVs, I hope you'll join our new EV Media Rapid Response Network.

Lately, many of us have been frustrated with the negative media coverage that electric vehicles have been getting. Few in the press seem to focus on the fact that 2011 was an incredibly exciting year for the EV market: There are thousands of new EVs on the road for the first time; customers are thrilled with switching from a gas guzzler; charging stations are popping up in states nationwide; and finally, EVs are proving to be a vital new way to reduce oil consumption and emissions.

Some in the media are instead focusing on sales numbers that fell a little bit short of manufacturer estimates. There has also been a deluge of misleading coverage of the safety of the Chevy Volt after a couple of simulated crash test fires. But the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and Consumer Reports all agree that the Volt is among the safest.

And let's put car safety in context. There were 184,500 reported gasoline vehicle fires in 2010, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

We need to get back to applauding the innovation that the Volt and other plug-in vehicles have showcased. EVs are significantly cleaner to operate than traditional vehicles, even when taking account the emissions from the electricity used to charge EVs.

The EV Media Rapid Response Network is a new informal group of people that will quickly respond when we see EV misinformation or missing information in print, on TV, or on the Internet.  

We need the focus to be on our country's foreign oil dependency. We need to talk about the Obama administration's proposed fuel economy standards of 54.5 miles per gallon average by 2025 –- and how EVs will help us meet these standards. We need EV owners to talk about how much they love their cars and the fact that they don't need to burn money at the pump anymore. In fact, when Consumer Reports surveyed Volt drivers, 93 percent said they would "definitely buy (the Volt) again," the highest ranking ever found by this survey of any car.  

Members of our new network have already begun to get out the message. For example, in his letter to the editor (see last letter on the page) published in the Oakland Tribune, Jack Lucero Fleck discussed the necessity of a switch to EVs in the larger effort to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

More than 20 different electric drive vehicles will be on the market within the next three years from Ford, Nissan, GM, Mitsubishi, Toyota, and others. Thousands of American workers will build electric vehicles and components in at least 20 states, finally giving us viable oil-free vehicle alternatives.

The commercial success of EVs will depend on a range of factors, including media coverage. You can help us deliver your EV story and EV views by joining the new EV Media Rapid Response Network.

-- Gina Coplon-Newfield, Sierra Club Senior Campaign Representative for Electric Vehicles

(image: Brian Foley)

With drilling and fracking happening at such a fast pace, natural gas companies are seeking ways to maximize profit margins by exporting their product to foreign countries.

That's why the Sierra Club has ramped up efforts to keep the industry in check, filing the first formal objection with the Department of Energy against the export of domestic gas produced from fracking. This export proposal would make a dirty fuel even more dangerous.

Although Monday's filing marked a new phase in Sierra Club's efforts, this is the third liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility the organization has opposed. Facilities in Coos Bay, Oregon, Sabine Pass, Louisiana, and Cove Point, Maryland, have all been challenged by the Sierra Club.  

"Liquefied natural gas is not only the dirtiest and most polluting form of gas, but it also requires an increase in fracking; a process we know to be unsafe and dangerous," said Deb Nardone, Director of Sierra Club's Natural Gas Reform Campaign. "The industry is pushing forward with these export facilities with their profits in mind, not the families who will bear the burden of increased fracking."

Yesterday's filing challenges the export of Marcellus shale gas and others from its Cove Point facility, citing that exports would raise gas and electricity prices nationally and expand destructive natural gas fracking. The filing also called for a full Environmental Impact Statement on the effects of increased Marcellus fracking that would be brought on by this export proposal. 

In addition to yesterday's filing, legal protests were filed in Sabine Pass, Louisiana, and Coos Bay, Oregon. On January 27th, the Sierra Club submitted comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on their Environmental Assessment of the proposed export facility in Sabine Pass, LA. Their current assessment does not consider the damaging effect of extracting natural gas through fracking.

On January 18th, the Sierra Club and coalition partners filed an appeal of the Oregon Department of State Lands' decision to issue a dredging permit for the Port of Coos Bay that would allow the port to export dirty coal and LNG. The "multi-purpose" dredging permit could cover the Port of Coos Bay's confidential agreement with an undisclosed coal export company seeking to ship between 6 and 10 million tons of coal overseas annually, and other agreements to export domestic liquefied natural gas. 

This is one more reason why we need federal safeguards in place to protect us from fracking. Send EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson a message.

Image of drilling pad by Kate Bartholomew.