MoJo Blogs and Articles | Mother Jones

Grassroots Greens Challenge Environmental Defense Fund on Fracking

Kate Sheppard — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:49:22 +0000

A coalition of grassroots environmental groups—plus a few professors and celebrities—issued a public message to the Environmental Defense Fund on Wednesday: You don't speak for us on fracking.

The coalition of 67 groups released an open letter to EDF President Fred Krupp criticizing his organization for signing on as a "strategic partner" in the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD), a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit that bills itself as an "unprecedented, collaborative effort of environmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, energy companies and other stakeholders committed to safe, environmentally responsible shale resource development." CSSD's partners include Chevron, CONSOL Energy, and Shell. The partners have been working together on voluntary industry standards for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a controversial process used to extract natural gas from shale rock.

The groups that signed the letter included national organizations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, as well as regional environmental outfits such as the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Catskills Citizens for Clean Energy. Actors Mark Ruffalo and Debra Winger also signed the document. They wrote:

The very use of the word sustainable in the name is misleading, because there is nothing sustainable about shale oil or shale gas. These are fossil fuels, and their extraction and consumption will inevitably degrade our environment and contribute to climate change. Hydraulic fracturing, the method used to extract them, will permanently remove huge quantities of water from the hydrological cycle, pollute the air, contaminate drinking water, and release high levels of methane into the atmosphere. It should be eminently clear to everyone that an economy based on fossil fuels is unsustainable.

Gail Pressberg, a senior program director with the Civil Society Institute, criticized EDF for a "willingness to be coopted" by industry in a call with reporters about the letter. "For too long, nationally-oriented groups have tried to call the shots on fracking," she said. "These local people can and should be allowed to speak for themselves."

EDF's Krupp responded with his own letter on Wednesday, defending the group's participation in CSSD and its record of "fighting for tough regulations and strong enforcement" on natural gas extraction:

Let’s be clear about where EDF stands. It’s not our job to support fracking or to be boosters for industry. That is not what we do. In fact, we regularly clash with industry lobbyists who seek to gut legislation protecting the public, and we have intervened in court on behalf of local communities and their right to exercise traditional zoning powers. We have made it clear that there are places where fracking should never be permitted. But if fracking is going to take place anywhere in the U.S.—and clearly it is—then we need to do everything in our power to protect the people living nearby. That includes improving industry performance in every way possible. In our view, CSSD, a coalition that includes environmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, energy companies and other stakeholders, is one way to do that.

Make no mistake: CSSD is not and never will be a substitute for effective regulation. Stronger state and federal rules, along with strong enforcement, are absolutely necessary. However, voluntary efforts can build momentum toward regulatory frameworks.

I've covered the sparring between EDF and grassroots groups over gas before. At the heart of it is that many of the grassroots groups want there to be no fracking, period. EDF's position is that fracking is "never going to be without impact, never going to be risk free," as EDF Vice President Eric Pooley described it to me, "but we're also mindful that it's happening all over the country." Voluntary standards, Pooley said, are not the ultimate goal—but they can help reduce impacts in communities that already have drilling, and lay the groundwork for actual regulations. "How could we not, in good consciousness, want to engage if we see an opportunity to reduce impacts in communities?" he said.

For what it's worth, both enviros and industry folks have berated CSSD for being too accommodating of the other side.

New Louisiana Law Will Jail Journos for Publishing Gun Info

Gavin Aronsen — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:39:37 +0000

On Tuesday, the Louisiana Senate passed a bill that would imprison and fine journalists who intentionally publish information about the state's concealed-carry handgun permit holders. Reporters who violate the law would face penalties of up to $10,000, six months in jail, or both; public safety officials and police officers who leak permit information to the press would face penalties of up to $500, six months in jail, or both. Journalists in Louisiana say the bill is clearly unconstitutional, but that won't stop it from becoming law: After the Senate vote, it headed to Gov. Bobby Jindal's desk for his signature.

Pamela Mitchell, executive director of the Louisiana Press Association, the state's official newspaper trade organization, says the bill is a clear example of prior restraint—the preemptive censorship of free speech. "That's patently unconstitutional," she says—"think Pentagon Papers," referring to the landmark case New York Times Co. v. United States.

"It's one of those tricky areas, because in some ways [the bill] works as prior restraint, but in others, if they make it a law that penalizes you for publishing [the information], you're being penalized after the fact," says Gregg Leslie, legal defense director at the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press. "So it's not actually keeping you from publishing it." But, he adds, the state "would have to show a compelling interest" to apply a content-based restriction on free speech, and that test "is rarely met."

The Louisiana law is more extreme than other bills that aim to protect the privacy of concealed-carry permit holders. The National Rifle Association and pro-gun lawmakers around the country have pushed hard for state laws forbidding the release of concealed-carry information since last December, when the Lower Hudson Journal News, a local New York paper, published interactive Google maps that pinpointed handgun permit holders' names and addresses in two New York counties. But Louisiana already had a law banning the state from releasing concealed-carry information, so state Rep. Jeff Thompson decided his proposal needed to go even further by banning reporters from publishing the data.

Continue Reading »

Exciting New Book From Paul Ryan Will Be Like Every Other Right-Wing Book of the Past Decade

Kevin Drum — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:42:51 +0000

Paul Ryan is writing a book!

So far, Ryan has been doing the writing by himself. The early theme of the draft is a broad discussion of American renewal, with an emphasis on the Republican future and the party’s need to articulate what he calls the “American idea.”

So....it's going to be like every other book ever written by a conservative in the past decade. I can hardly wait.

The NRA's List of "Coolest Gun Movies" Is Astoundingly Dumb

Asawin Suebsaeng — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:51:54 +0000

When conservatives try to list their favorite pop-culture items to make a political point, the results are often baffling. In 2005, Human Events released the list of "Most Harmful Books" written in the 19th and 20th centuries (Charles Darwin and John Stuart Mill are put in the same league as Hitler and Mao). The following year, National Review compiled a much-discussed "50 greatest conservative rock songs," which for whatever bizarre reason included Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun." In 2012, the Telegraph declared their brazenly idiotic "top 10 conservative movies of the modern era." And just over a week ago, the American Enterprise Institute posted the "21 greatest conservative rap songs of all time," which prominently features Justin Bieber.

And now American Rifleman, the National Rifle Association's shooting and firearms consumer magazine, has published its official list of the 10 "Coolest Gun Movies." Writes American Rifleman blogger Paul Rackley, "Many of these movies also take us back to simpler times, when dreaming of saving the day got us through that oh-so boring class." Here's his list:

Red Dawn (1984)

The Terminator (1984)

The Alamo (1960)

Die Hard (1988)

The Godfather (1972)

Zombieland (2009)

The Matrix (1999)

The Delta Force (1986)

The Road Warrior (1981)

Tremors (1990)

Continue Reading »

Quote of the Day: The Pervasiveness of Bad Ideas

Kevin Drum — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:51:48 +0000

From Mark Thoma, commenting on Paul Krugman's evisceration of sloppy and ill-informed counterintuitiveness:

The degree to which bad/false ideas can be used to support political goals is still pretty frustrating.

I don't think I really have anything to add to that. I don't expect it to change anytime soon, though.

Making Deposits in the Sleep Bank

Kevin Drum — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:36:43 +0000

Today, the Wall Street Journal tells us that, within limits, extra sleep can make up for missed sleep. Plus this:

Recent data suggests that banking sleep in advance of a long night can actually offset upcoming sleep deprivation. "If you knew you were going to give birth on a particular day, for example, you could sleep for 10 hours a day for multiple days before the event, and be fine," he says. Just plan ahead.

Just plan ahead! Who are these people, anyway? Can most of us really just choose to sleep ten hours for a few days in a row even if we don't really need it? Hell, I can't do it even when I do need it. Which has been for approximately the past 20 years.

On the other hand, I'm also pretty unlikely to be giving birth anytime soon, so I guess it all evens out.

Here's How to Fool People Into Thinking They Know More Than They Do

Kevin Drum — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:20:13 +0000

Which do you learn more from? A presenter with good speaking skills and professional visual aids, or someone reading badly from prepared notes? Oddly enough, a team of psychologists actually decided to test this. Their test subjects, as usual, were university students:

Afterwards the students answered questions about how much they felt they had learned. As expected, students who had watched the lecturer with better presentation skills expected to remember more of the material, believed that they understood the material better, and rated their interest and motivation more highly than the students who watched the dud instructor.

The twist came when the students took a test that investigated their memory and understanding of the Calico cats concept. The students who watched the skillful (or “fluent”) lecturer barely outperformed the students who watched the “disfluent speaker.” But they did much poorer than they expected to do, whereas the other group did about as well as they expected.

If these results hold up, it means that flashy, TED-style lectures don't actually impart any more knowledge than boring old-school lectures. But they do make you more confident that you learned something. Is that worthwhile all by itself? Or is it better to have a proper grasp of just how much you really know? I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

POSTSCRIPT: And what's this business about calico cats? Well, that was the subject of the test lecture. Roughly speaking, cats are white by default, and their two sex chromosomes each add a color to their coat. Color is carried on the X chromosome, so female (XX) cats can potentially be tricolored (orange, black, and white). Male (XY) cats max out at two colors (white plus one other). So with rare exceptions, only female cats can be calicos.

POSTSCRIPT 2: Are you thirsting for a political angle to this? Well, Fox News is pretty well known for pioneering a much flashier, more visual approach to the news. Does this turn Fox watchers into tedious blowhards who think they know more than anyone else even though they don't? I report, you decide.

How Far-Right Activists Like E.W. Jackson Took Over the Virginia GOP

Tim Murphy — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:00:15 +0000

After dropping the last two presidential elections and the last three US Senate races, Virginia Republicans had good reason for optimism heading into this fall's elections: Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chair who bragged about nearly missing his child's birth so he could party with a gossip columnist, is at the top of the Democratic ticket. Things should be looking up for the Virginia GOP. Instead, the party’s activists have resisted calls for moderation and swerved hard to the right quicker than you can say transvaginal ultrasound.

Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican party's nominee for governor, once cited Martin Luther King Jr. as justification for his argument that sexual relations between two people of the same gender should be illegal. E.W. Jackson, the party's nominee for lieutenant governor, believes that gays are "degenerate" and "spiritually darkened" and will eventually destroy America. Mark Obenshain, the party's nominee for attorney general, recently attempted to require women to contact the police within 24 hours of a miscarriage.

The immediate cause is obvious. Virginia Republicans don't select their executive ticket via primary. Instead, they chose their slate last Saturday at a one-day nominating convention packed with grassroots activists. Jackson, a Baptist preacher who finished in the low single digits in last year's US Senate primary, was able to win on the first ballot by virtue of well-received speech typified by lines like, "I am not an African American, I am an American!"

"Conventions are not representative of the party," says Tom Davis, a former Republican congressman from Northern Virginia, referring to Jackson's nomination. "When you get a convention, this is what you get."

Continue Reading »

Conservatives Crawl out of the Woodwork to Claim IRS Persecution

Stephanie Mencimer — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:00:14 +0000

Wayne Allyn Root is no fan of President Barack Obama. He's a former Libertarian Party candidate for vice president and a "birther" who has questioned whether the president was really born in America. (Root studied at Columbia University when Obama was there and has questioned whether Obama really attended the school.) Root has been audited by the IRS—twice. And in recent days, within the right-wing media, he has become something of a poster child for the IRS scandal, suggesting that the IRS targeted him because of his political activity.

On Fox News last week, he proclaimed, "I am the face of Obama’s IRS attacks." In WorldNet Daily, he recently wrote, "As an outspoken critic of Obama, I've been under IRS attack since January of 2011. I am living proof of how bad it is, when it started and that it was directed at individuals, not just conservative groups." Root has offered his services to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), should Paul need a congressional witness.

But the root of his troubles could be not his anti-Obama politics, but his own finances, for Root's less-than-conventional tax returns might have indeed warranted a close look.

Continue Reading »

WATCH: What Does 400 ppm Mean? Talking with Climate Scientist Michael Mann

Chris Mooney — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:00:13 +0000

Last week in Washington, DC, leading climate scientist Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania sat down with Climate Desk Live to talk about the significance of an planetary milestone—we've reached 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As Mann explained, humans are altering the content of the atmosphere at an alarming rate—one perhaps never seen before in the history of Earth itself.