Tag: Radical Green

Input on Bay input

And we’re not talking the pretty input of a mountain brook, either – it’s more like overflow from a clogged commode.

This is something I didn’t know about Jim Pelura; he has a little more than a layman’s grasp of the controversy behind septic systems here in Maryland. Let’s just say that there’s a far greater cause of Chesapeake Bay pollution not being addressed.

Pelura wrote in an e-mail to me:

The pending legislation centered around septic tanks is another example of Annapolis putting emotions ahead of science in lawmaking.

To listen to Governor O’Malley and his supporters in the Maryland General Assembly, one would think that septic tanks are the major contributor to Bay pollution.  They have consistently ignored actual data from the Maryland Department of the Environment concerning the cause of over-nutrification (pollution) of the Chesapeake Bay.

In 2005, as a Trustee of the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation, I explained in a letter to Ms. Kim Coble of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation that,  according to the Maryland Department of the Environment, close to 700 million gallons of raw or minimally treated sewage was dumped into Maryland waterways in 2004 and over 400 million gallons in 2005.  I also indicated in that letter that the Maryland Department of the Environment has been aware of this situation, and in 1995 cautioned that antiquated and poorly maintained sewage treatment plants were a major cause of Bay pollution.

While the situation is improving, unfortunately this trend continues to today, with sewage treatment facility malfunctions being the major source of pollution to the Bay.  

The recent numbers for sewage spills due to malfunctioning treatment plants are: 20 million gallons in 2008, 98 million gallons in 2009, and 97 million gallons in 2010.

According to the Patuxent Riverkeeper, the Dorsey Run Waste Water Treatment Plant in Anne Arundel County (just one example) had 24 violations between 2005 and 2010.  Records show that, between July 2003 and June 2009, problems at this facility and in the sewer pipes leading to it caused sewage spills totaling about 2.2 million gallons of raw sewage.  A further 11 million gallons of partially treated sewage were discharged when the plant failed in October 2007.  According to the Riverkeeper, “there are a potpourri of buggy, outmoded and troubled industrial facilities and wastewater plants that exist by virtue of state-issued permits that are regularly violated and that the State rarely enforces.”

It is up to all of us to insure that our waterways are kept clean and free of contaminants, including sewage. 

We can do this by insisting that our elected officials from both parties promote legislation based in fact and on science instead of popular opinion.

Blaming those folks with septic tanks is not only wrong but indefensible. (Emphasis in original.)

Yet what is the solution the state desires? Hooking future developments up to new or existing sewage treatment plants!

We have a situation in Salisbury where the wastewater treatment plant still isn’t performing properly, even with expensive upgrades that local ratepayers remain on the hook for. Obviously adding to the problem by hooking up even more homes and businesses isn’t going to help fix the problem, so apparently the solution is to not have new development at all. (Sorry, biology won’t permit us to address the root cause. We all have to eat.)

There are times I suspect that the true aim of these radical greenies is to depopulate large rural areas of the state so the creatures of precious Gaia can move about freely, and eliminating the prospect for development can accomplish that goal through attrition. Imagine the economic chaos which would ensue here if Perdue moved away – aside from the area immediately around the university, Salisbury could well look like Detroit if that were to occur. They couch it as ‘farmland preservation’ but in driving around the area I see a lot of rural places where crops aren’t grown – it’s either stands of forest or wetlands.

To those people who fear our area looking like MoCo or the Baltimore suburbs, I assure you we have a LONG way to go before we even come close to that density. It ain’t happening in my lifetime.

So Pelura’s right: before we start taking development rights away from our area of the state as well as rural areas around the bigger cities, perhaps the state should address the problems with the system in place. Adding development and jobs to the state will help in that respect by bringing in revenue that could work to fix these treatment plants; sadly the General Assembly seems more intent on making the state even less business-friendly and spends far too much effort debating unimportant issues like gay marriage.

I realize that upgrading the system will cost billions and maintaining it on an ongoing basis will cost even more. But it’s a relatively legitimate function of a state or local government to treat wastewater and combat the spread of disease, as long as they keep the process and regulation as simple and basic as possible to achieve desired results. Cleaning up untreated sewage shouldn’t require multiple volumes of rules and regulations to do a basic task: filter out the solids and neutralize harmful bacteria.

As it turns out, Mother Nature has a pretty good method for doing this on its own – otherwise we would become violently ill simply by drinking well water. As someone who has drank well water for much of his life, I think I’ve made it through without adverse effects so the rest of us can too. There’s no need for reinventing the wheel just to get rid of less than 1/10 of the problem when Pelura identifies a much more target-rich environment.

Conway, Mathias join O’Malley in electric rate hike bid

It’s more than just the regular hot air coming from Annapolis – in this case, they want to mandate that it turns a wind turbine.

Proponents of a wind farm off Ocean City say electric rates could ONLY increase $1.44 a month for residential electric customers, but others claim it could be more like $3.61 per month. Or it could be much, much more – what government-sponsored plan ever comes in on time and under budget?

Included in that group backing the rate hikes are Delegate Norm Conway and Senator Jim Mathias. They are respectively co-sponsoring House of Delegates and Senate measures that will force utilities to purchase power from a offshore wind farm which could be on line as soon as 2016, according to a recent Washington Post story by Aaron C. Davis and Steven Mufson. Never mind that:

  • the project will produce power at 16.4 cents per kilowatt hour (the average going rate is about a dime.) I thought wind was free!
  • O’Malley’s former Chief of Staff, Michael Enright, is spearheading the effort for one company to secure federal leases. No conflict of interest there, move on, there’s nothing to see…
  • The last line of the Post story: “Banks consider the projects high-risk, so developers are seeking Energy Department loan guarantees to bring down financing costs.” Can you smell the pork? I can.

Contrast this with O’Malley’s approach to extracting the proven and much less expensive natural gas reserves at the opposite end of the state, our small portion of the Marcellus Shale formation. He’s supporting a moratorium on natural gas permits until August, 2013. (A bill dubbed the “Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Act of 2011” is also in both the House of Delegates and Senate; notably, none of the co-sponsors are from the affected area. Instead, it’s the usual gang of limousine liberals, mainly from MoCo.)

If it wasn’t already crystal clear, this is more proof that O’Malley and his environmentalist wacko friends are just a bunch of liberal do-gooders who would love to saddle the average consumer with much higher energy costs. Even if they wouldn’t love to do so, their actions will create the situation of making Maryland even less industry-friendly than it already is, if that’s indeed possible.

A far smarter approach would be to leave the wind farmers (who ironically are leasing territory originally intended for oil exploration) twisting in the wind and let the natural gas companies do what they do best out west in the Maryland panhandle. Considering unemployment in two of Maryland’s three far western counties was above even the national average in December, they sure could use the jobs that natural gas exploration would bring.

And I’d rather have jobs in the hand now than those pie-in-the-sky green jobs in the bush, perhaps three years down the road (if they ever come at all.) The electric ratepayers of Maryland, who already get about 3% of their power from natural gas, would be thankful as well.

As for the duo of Conway and Mathias, well, we see where their loyalties lie. Sure, there could be some temporary job creation as these windmills are built, but those rate increases are much more permanent. It’s worth noting that Delegate McDermott isn’t signed on so apparently he stands with the ratepayers and not the special interests and friends of O’Malley. But I repeat myself.

Setting back energy policy

Besides the crowd who rightfully is chanting “drill, baby, drill” when it comes to domestic energy policy, a number of energy advocates call on our nation to resume building nuclear power plants after a hiatus of over thirty years. For example, they point to France as a nation which gets it right in that regard – the vast majority of her electricity comes from nuclear power. Japan is another nation heavily reliant on nuclear power, with 55 plants dotting their landscape.

But the recent drama there obviously raises concerns, with the recent earthquake and resulting tsunami heavily damaging a number of nuclear facilities in the land of the rising sun – one teeters on the edge of a meltdown after an explosion heavily damaged one of its main buildings.

While only small portions of our nation along the Pacific coast and along the Mississippi River have the potential for major earthquakes, the cause of this potential nuclear disaster is one not unlikely in the wake of any number of other natural disasters such as a tornado, hurricane, or fire – an extended power outage which has depleted the plant’s backup cooling system. Certainly nuclear power has been shown as a reasonably reliable source of energy, but critics will point to the Fukushima plant much as they did to the Three Mile Island nuclear facility in Pennsylvania and create another halt to any planned resumption of nuclear power plant construction.

This debate extends to Maryland, where the fate of the Calvert Cliffs facility remains in question. A planned third reactor there is on hold due to the reluctance of Constellation Energy to accept excessive fees as part of a $7.5 billion loan guarantee from the federal government. Given the situation in Japan, one has to ask if Martin O’Malley’s radical environmental backers will convince him to withdraw his support of that project? It’s highly unlikely an earthquake or associated tsunami would overwhelm that bayfront facility, but it would be vulnerable to a hurricane, or, more likely, a tornado.

Still, the risks of such an event are small, and it’s more likely a power outage would occur simply from having a lack of supply or an unrelated catastrophic infrastructure failure like the Northeast Blackout of 2003. All that stimulus money which was supposed to go toward fixing these sorts of problems somehow managed to find its way to local and state governments instead, thus the lingering issues have been unaddressed.

And while nuclear power has this obvious drawback which has created sensational headlines around the globe, bear in mind that any other source of power would have been adversely affected by these conditions as well. In short, this is an extreme circumstance that we should be mindful of in future planning but not overly cautious about.

But those who oppose nuclear power are sure to play the situation up for all it’s worth.

Friday night videos – episode 61

I have a bunch of political stuff this week, so I’m right back at it.

We’ve been saddled with a moratorium on Gulf drilling ever since the Deepwater Horizon accident almost a year ago. Now other real people are being hurt – those who depend on black gold for their livelihood. Frank McCaffrey of Americans for Limited Government investigates.

On the other hand, government has to provide incentives for “green” projects to commence. But what if the money runs out? Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains.

I can’t stay off the music the whole time. It was the late, great Ronnie James Dio who sang, “if you listen to fools, the mob rules!” Here’s a real-life example.

You may have heard about this video, which rocked National Public Radio and forced a corporate shakeup. Speaking of government-subsidized projects, why do we keep paying for this?

The next two videos depict a day in the life of an Arizona rancher on the Mexican border. I got these from the Center for Immigration Studies.

Imagine living life like that. This poor guy needs help, and securing the borders better would be his best source of assistance.

And yes, I have tunes. This was taped last week on Kim’s iPod as Semiblind rocked the Lagoon here in Salisbury. This is an original called “Take Control.”

So there you have it, done on the fly. By the way, I think I can do Semiblind videos from now until Christmas thanks to Kim!

McDermott’s state of the state

While he is a freshman in the Maryland General Assembly, Mike McDermott has had to deal with the O’Malley administration for the last four-plus years as mayor of Pocomoke City – he used the experience to move on to his current job.

So I found his response interesting and I asked Mike if I could use it here. (I took the liberty to fix a couple minor grammatical errors in the meantime.) I told the Delegate I agreed with much of it, although I have a few more comments after his.

Today, the full body of Maryland’s General Assembly heard from Governor O’Malley about his vision for Maryland, and his interpretation of the past year. The Governor stated in his speech, “Everything has a cost…” Well, the question Marylanders are asking is, “How much?”

His proposed budget holds our deficit at $1.2 billion while actually increasing spending by over $2 billion. There are several fund raids conducted from the Transportation Trust Fund ($120 million) and the Chesapeake Bay Trust Fund ($90 million) with additional tax increases to replace the raided funds. At the same time, the governor plans to increase our debt through the issuance of bonds. This will further push our debt ceiling to the edge.

We cannot afford bonuses for all state employees ($750.00), nor the five additional paid holidays he is offering. We cannot afford to continue cutting Medicaid reimbursements while, at the same time, taking our enrollment up over a million Marylanders (20% of our population). We simply cannot afford to extend ourselves at a time when the revenues from our citizens are contracting.

Today the governor spoke about the state creating winners and losers when it comes to business and industry. If you are about “green” jobs, you’re a winner; if not, you’re a loser. When the state predicates tax incentives and government backed funding sources to favored industry, it is akin to the king extending the scepter to whomever he wishes. Wind farms may be a great idea, but they need to stand on their own as a business endeavor. When the governor talks about “investments”, he should be talking about the private sector, not tax dollars.

We heard about the governors desire to place a moratorium on septic systems in rural developments, with no regard of the chilling effect this could have on land values, private property rights, and development on the Eastern Shore. He stated that “where we eat, sleep, and live…” is affecting our environment as if this, too, is something the government should control.

The governor stated we were “moving forward”, while his budget anchors us to our indebtedness. He called us a grand “experiment in self government”, while he offers only additional regulations, fees, and taxes on the business community. He says, “It’s all about jobs”, as if the government is the one who creates those jobs. The “ghost of disconnect” continues to haunt Maryland policy.

The bottom line is the governor expressed more visible outrage over the recent power outages in Prince George’s County than he did about the dismal state of our economy, and our failure to address critical budget areas when time was of the essence.

Governor O’Malley wants us to move toward a “knowledge based” economy. Well, that begins with a wisdom based budget, and that was sorely missing from the State of the State Address I heard today.

Obviously McDermott looks at the budget mostly from the standpoint of fiscal conservatism, but the part of O’Malley’s address which stood out to me was the effort to ban the use of septic systems. Yesterday, he bleated about those devices, which:

“…by their very design are intend to leak sewage into our Bay and water tables.

You and I can turn around this damaging trend by banning the further installation of septic systems in major Maryland housing developments. This is common sense, this is urgently needed, this is timely, and for the health of the Bay we need to do what several rural counties have already had the good sense to do.”

That “good sense” is actually law mandated by the General Assembly, and passed over the objection of Delegates and Senators from both parties. In fact, such a ban would essentially halt residential development within the Bay’s watershed unless a municipality extends sewer lines to the new plat. (Of course, that’s the overarching goal of those who advocate so-called “smart growth” anyway.) The state already can’t pay for all those who have septic systems but are forced by regulation to install nitrogen reduction units, even though they promised to help.

So “investment” (read: taxpayer subsidy) in “green” jobs in other countries (where they make components for wind turbines and solar panels) are okay, but home construction jobs on the Eastern Shore are verboten. Is that the way it works, Governor?

Then again, he and the Democrats tend to believe in the “One Maryland” theory while I contend there’s actually at least three: the Eastern Shore has more in common with rural Delaware while the western end of the state has a mindset like the rest of Appalachia. It’s those along the I-95 corridor between Baltimore and Washington who are arrogant enough to believe the rest of the state should be like them – on the other hand, it’s my impression those of us on the Eastern Shore wouldn’t be all that unhappy if the Bay Bridge suddenly collapsed into the Chesapeake. Policy dictated to us from on high in Annapolis doesn’t fly well here – wonder why?

While Delegate McDermott probably already knew all he wanted to know before taking the job, he’s getting a firsthand look at the situation now.

By the way, I was hoping to get a second perspective on Mike’s remarks but haven’t received it yet. I’ll either add the remarks here or make a second post, depending on how I think they’ll work best.

What’s overlooked in the top story

Today it was announced that the Gulf oil spill, better known around these parts as the Deepwater Horizon disaster, was voted the top news story of 2010 in an annual AP poll of editors and news directors.

But there’s an overlooked element of the story that may last longer than the effects of the light sweet crude which spewed from the ruins of a wellhead (and has mainly either dissipated in the seawater or been removed as tar balls onshore.)

It was the perfect excuse for the Obama Administration to place a lengthy ban on giving out new permits for offshore drilling and then rescind the plans for new drilling leases in offshore waters. In turn, that’s costing our economy thousands of jobs, as Jack Gerard of API points out:

“The oil and natural gas industry is a reliable vehicle for growing the economy and creating good-paying jobs. This decision (to cancel new offshore leases) shuts the door on new development off our nation’s coasts and effectively ensures that new American jobs will not be realized. It will stifle investment, deny billions in revenue for critical government services and increase our dependence on foreign energy sources.

“The oil and natural gas industry is committed to safe and environmentally responsible operations, and both the industry and regulators have added new safeguards to ensure such operations. This reversal on new lease sales off America’s coasts comes on top of a de facto moratorium, which has all but stopped new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Obviously the story focused on the economic damage to the Gulf seafood industry. Indeed, it was a very tough blow to their finances but for many assisting BP or filing claims for damages with them, they were made as whole as possible. Yet taking away the livelihoods of thousands of oil company workers didn’t seem to be nearly as high on the priority list, and little attention was paid to their demands when they had their own “Rally for Economic Survival” back in July.

Yet where the energy industry is allowed to do its job, there are jobs being created. An oil boom in, of all places, North Dakota has led them to the lowest unemployment rate in the nation (3.8% in November) and the state is doing its best to encourage the Williston Basin boom. And private industry is following suit – see how this works?

On the other hand, so-called ‘green’ jobs tend to be one-time production jobs for the components and limited-duration construction jobs for installations. Once you set a windmill or solar panel, it’s not going to create any new jobs.

It seems to me that the government is quite happy to create or save jobs in the pencil-pushing field, but when it comes to promoting employment by making stuff and extracting natural resources within our borders they seem to fall short (even if they have the prospect of being their precious union jobs.) We’ve lost something around 8 million jobs since the employment peak a couple years back, and while the energy industry might not be able to bring them all back we certainly can make a dent in the number.

That is the story which needs to be reported. Spread the word.

Another falls for the ‘green energy’ scam

And to think, if I didn’t have Martin O’Malley as a Facebook friend I wouldn’t have noticed this. We’ll see how long that lasts before I’m defriended! Then again, just because I didn’t vote for him either time doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have a say in state affairs, particularly when a dose of common sense is needed.

It all stems from an article by Erin Cunningham in the Gazette detailing a Montgomery County resolution on wind turbines. The Montgomery County Council (all Democrats, of course) unanimously approved a measure calling on the Maryland General Assembly to “pass legislation requiring the state’s Public Service Commission to direct public utilities to enter into long-term contracts for offshore wind power.”

Gee, a little more government interference in business – just what the state needs! </sarc>

Needless to say, Governor O’Malley was thrilled about the news and asked a question on his Facebook page:

I believe that wind power and other alternative energy sources will help our state move forward in a sustainable way. Do you think it is important that we invest in clean, green sources of energy?

After reading about 50 or so mostly deluded sycophants and hangers-on, it was time to set them straight as I often like to do.

Sure, the wind blows a nice, steady speed all the time and the sun comes out 12 hours each and every day. Wait, you’re telling me that’s not true?

There’s a reason we depend on coal and natural gas to create the electricity we need – they are both RELIABLE sources. And, contrary to popular belief created by those with an agenda in both the press and in government, both are in plentiful supply. In fact, there’s a nice supply of natural gas locked under the hills of far western Maryland.

Instead, your administration would rather shake down energy producers and distributors with a phony carbon-trading scheme (RGGI) that simply serves as a device for wealth redistribution while propping up the ‘green’ energy industries with a subsidy to artificially make these other sources come to a competitive price point.

In a time where our budget needs to be prioritized and the burden on job producers needs to be lightened, these so-called ‘investments’ probably aren’t the best use of tax dollars. If the person from Dorchester County thinks wind power is that important and would be such a good investment they should be happy to pony up $40,000 and not rely on the state for a handout.

It’s also worthy to note that Cunningham’s article says Montgomery County gets 25 percent of its electricity from wind power. Perhaps someone should compare price and verify if that’s a prudent use of tax dollars?

I have little objection to the state making an effort to assist local property owners who wish to use alternative sources of energy (although I wouldn’t consider it a funding priority in these lean budgetary times) but I recall one expert in the field who would prefer to streamline the process and invested his own funding before getting a dime back from the state of Maryland. The state is in the position to make it easier and less expensive if they so desire.

My larger objection comes from the state mandating how the energy required to produce electricity needs to be harnessed. There are two good reasons we rely on burning coal and natural gas, as I alluded to in my comment: they are relatively inexpensive, quite efficient, and sources are fairly reliable. (They would be moreso if Washington scrapped its wrongheaded approach to energy exploration.)

Seems to me the usage of windmills as power providers in rural areas ended over a half-century ago once the government decided to force utilities to bring electricity to sparsely populated areas and farmers found being wired into the grid to be much a more reliable means of power – so the government getting its nose under the camel’s tent is nothing new! Where were the environmentalists objecting then?

I guess everything old is new again. In the meantime, how about terminating the program of wealth transfer and allowing instead utilities to invest in stupid stuff like improving infrastructure and building new power plants? Now THAT would be moving Maryland forward!

A scam raising your bills

It’s been about two years since Maryland utilities were forced to participate in the scam better known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It’s a scheme which has transferred over $139 million away from the utilities and, to some extent, into state coffers for redistribution to low-income Marylanders.

But, as an investigation by Mark Langerkvist at the New Jersey Watchdog website reveals, while progress has been made toward the stated goal of reducing carbon emissions the auction and carbon market has had little to do with it! Instead, their internal probe revealed that the carbon cap is much higher than actual usage; thus, it’s projected that the per-ton price will be far less than thought and has already plummeted to half its 2009 peak.

So why is the carbon market in a tizzy? For one thing, utilities have been relying more and more on natural gas to generate electricity. Not only did the price for natural gas become much more favorable, but natural gas is a cleaner burning fuel than coal as well – thus, lower emissions. Moreover, general demand for electricity has dropped 7% since the calculations were made. The market demanded more efficiency and businesses made do with less as a cost-saving measure.

All this seems to come as a shock to everyone except those of us with common sense. Yet I don’t see the state of Maryland saying to the utilities and other carbon allowance purchasers, “oops, sorry, you’re reaching these (artifically based) goals without our help so here’s your $139,117,061.91 back.” Instead they’re saying, “suckers!”

And since the Democrats were handily re-elected earlier this month, even that realization won’t end the open season on utilities and their ratepayers. They’ll still insist that we as a state would be better off depending on more expensive (and less reliable) ‘alternative’ sources like wind and solar power – both great ideas except the sun only shines an average of 12 hours a day (when it’s not obscured by clouds) and those days you really want to crank up the air conditioning in the summer tend to be those days where the wind’s not blowing!

(Nor need I mention that the infrastructure to move that juice around isn’t exactly handy, and we’re already staring at an issue with that over the next few years on land, not to mention underwater.)

There has been talk in the past (particularly from New Jersey) about dropping out of RGGI, and Chris Christie would likely be the only governor of the ten involved with the cajones to do so – assuming such legislation could pass since his state likes the cash just as Maryland does. (Maine and Pennsylvania have both elected Republican governors and legislatures, so they could follow suit.)

In a saner legislature, Maryland would follow suit and withdraw from this group which only seems to be effective at wealth transfer and worsening an already poor business climate. Instead, conservatives have far too few seats in the General Assembly so we know the fate of such a bill before it’s even written.

However, that doesn’t mean Maryland Republicans shouldn’t try to overturn legislation which was based on the faulty premise of so-called ‘global warming’ to begin with and which amounts to a hidden tax on utility ratepayers – even if the committee chairs lock the bill in their desk drawers. (Just get a hearing and committee vote out of it, or better yet make withdrawal a floor amendment the next time there’s an energy-related bill. Putting the Democrats on record is what counts here.)

It’s part of the truly needed reforms the state has to undertake to make it a job-friendly zone, and right now the top three issues are jobs, jobs, and jobs. Perhaps the state won’t ever cash in on the possibility of offshore oil or the natural gas that’s likely sitting below its western panhandle, but it can reverse its most egregious laws and make life a little easier for working families.

Postscript: This American Thinker piece by Jeffrey Folks is well worth the read. It nationalizes what we have done as a state.

Friday night videos episode 47

I’m going to warn you now – this may be controversial.

The first video I’m going to feature is in “honor” of the 10-10-10 celebration being promoted by the world’s greenies. It’s been called an “environmental snuff film” and I don’t disagree. But you need to know the mindset of these people.

“No pressure” indeed. These people are mentally ill to think this way. I know that 90% of environmentalists just want clean air and water, and so do I. But I want a balance between our economic interests and way of life too. These people just want their way and don’t care.

Speaking of economic interests – well, where are the jobs, Frank?

Certainly I make no assertion that Frank thinks like those people who did the first video, but he agreed with them when he voted for cap-and-trade. I’m sure he’s just in the 90 percent.

On the other hand, it’s sort of unfortunate that we don’t have our own version of a strong conservative woman in this race. But Frank McCaffrey of Americans for Limited Government takes a look at Maryland LG hopeful Mary Kane in this piece.

But some still don’t get it. I’m not a big fan of ‘gotcha’ journalism, but this guy parrots the line that the wealthy don’t pay their fair share, when in fact they overpay.

And yes, as I’ve explained over the last week in the Daily Times, I support the Fair Tax.

Anyway, as I promised last week, I’m doing two music videos. This week has some heavy subject matter and I need a break, too.

The first one I’ve featured before but I was in the mood for Southern rock, and this is among my most-viewed music videos I’ve done.

The second one comes from the exact same venue (WinterPlace Park) but several months later. Not My Own won the Unicity Festival and hopefully it will take them to bigger and better things.

Usually I feature something heavier from the boys, but as I recall this is one of the first songs I heard out of them and it has a nice sound with the acoustic guitar.

Until next week, that’s a wrap on another edition of FNV. I’m hoping to have more music from this weekend’s Good Beer Festival and its solid lineup.

Friday night videos – episode 42

We’ll see how this week’s episode of FNV flies as I patch together goodies I’ve become aware of.

With tongue strictly in cheek, Andrew Klavan looks at Obama’s “Recovery Summer.”

President Obama can’t catch a break. Even Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has to point out another flaw.

“This is an outrage!” You got that right, Governor. Here’s a look at our porous border through the eyes of hidden cameras.

While we’re at it, let’s look at another issue Obama is on the wrong side of: environmentalism. R.J. Smith and the Center for Private Conservation explains that capitalism tends to be environmentally friendly, despite what some may lead you to believe.

I don’t know if this guy will win a Senate seat, but he has funny videos. Len Britton is running for Senate in Vermont and a couple months back I featured another commercial of his.

Billy is like the rest of us who are furiously bailing. Wonder how that works for bankers and automakers?

Okay, now to the music. This one is loud, this one is hard, this one is Not My Own.

And this one is a wrap until next week.

Cleaning up politically

It goes without saying that thousands of people who depend on Gulf tourism or aquaculture have suffered an economic impact in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. They may suffer for months or years due to the loss of income during this period when these industries would normally be producing.

But there is another group which has been thrown out of work at a time when they, too, would normally be producing – those who ply their trade in helping to provide America’s energy needs. As the group Freedom Action notes:

Freedom Action calls on President Obama to immediately lift the damaging, counterproductive ban on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The six-month ban, which has closed down dozens of safe, productive operations, is doing nothing to help clean up the spill…but is keeping thousands of oil and gas workers from making a living and having a far larger economic impact throughout the region.

“In a knee-jerk move with perverse consequences, the President’s total ban on drilling in the Gulf has created further hardship for communities already reeling from the impact of the BP spill,” said Myron Ebell, Director of Freedom Action. “Now in addition to the tourism and fishing sectors – which together account for about 5% of Louisiana’s economy – the oil and gas sector – which accounts for 16% – is also being knocked down at exactly a time when its high-paying jobs could be helping to support families in the region.”

Louisiana’s Gov. Bobby Jindal and Sen. Mary Landrieu have already spoken out strongly against the White House’s blanket ban, urging the President to allow offshore platforms to re-open and begin providing energy again to the American people. Sen. Landrieu has even proposed a list of several possible alternatives to the ban, including increased safety inspections, while at the same time pointing out that continuing with the current policy could cost as many as 38,000 jobs.

“The empathy and concern from around the country for the affected residents of the Gulf Coast has been tremendous, and it is understandable that Americans would want to see a policy that protects the area from further harm,” said Ebell. “But keeping locals from making a living and sabotaging their economic recovery so that a handful of environmentalists and Washington politicians can congratulate each other on their concern for wildlife is an arrogant and immoral policy. President Obama needs to remove the drilling ban now.”

Allow me to restate one factoid mentioned in the Freedom Action release for you. We see the pictures and interviews of shrimpers idled by the oil spill, and yes they do contribute to the economy of the state of Louisiana. But the energy industry contributes over three times as much and, as I have pointed out, had a long unblemished safety record even through some of the nastiest Mother Nature could throw at them – including Hurricane Katrina.

Even thousands of miles away, our Governor O’Malley and Senator Cardin smirk and gladly dismiss the prospect of offshore oil drilling off Maryland’s coast, regardless of the number of jobs which could be created. To be honest, it’s only a guess to this point whether there’s enough oil and natural gas offshore this far north to be commercially viable for collection, and it would take exploratory wells just to find out.

Instead, O’Malley believes that offshore wind power is the way to go despite the effects that could have on marine life and ocean currents, not to mention the precious ocean view off Ocean City.

To me, it’s shortsighted to dismiss out of hand energy sources proven to be successful at powering our nation’s prosperity. The Gulf shores will eventually be cleaned up just as Alaska’s Prince William Sound has been after the Exxon Valdez accident, hopefully without completely bankrupting British Petroleum (a company which obviously has capping the well as its best interest too since otherwise millions of dollars’ worth of oil gushes forth on a daily basis.)

The answer is not in banning deepwater offshore drilling, but encouraging energy production in shallower waters and in areas where reserves are proven to be but overzealous environmentalism prohibits production. We have plenty of oil within our borders – what we need are the stones (and the courts) to tell the environmentalist wackos to go pound sand.

By the way, I’ve caught wind of a local effort to help out with the cleanup – a number of area musicians are putting together plans for a benefit concert to raise funds for the cleanup. Obviously I’ll see what I can find out and pass it along.

The results are in…

You may recall that back on Wednesday I took Fedzilla to task for soliciting additional public comment on whether to build barrier islands off Louisiana to mitigate the damage done by the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

In the 24 hour period they received only about 700 comments, many anonymously. I’ll grant I’m no scientist or geologist but the point I made in my comment (see page 166 here) was that the process is reversible. Given enough time and inattention, the islands would likely disappear on their own.

Look, every few years we pay millions to replenish the beaches in Ocean City and the Delaware resorts because the sand eventually leaches out to sea, so why not be expedient and try this solution? Barrier islands need not be permanent, and the failure of multiple efforts along the bottom of the Gulf to stem the tide means we’re learning about all this by trial and error anyway.

One last thing. Those on the left who want to punish BP and the rig operators for their transgressions against Gaia need to consider that containing and cleaning up this gusher is not just costing BP and the taxpayers directly in terms of the actual spill, but that thousands of barrels of oil won’t be sold by BP because they’re instead leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. At a conservative estimate of 12,000 barrels of oil per day multiplied by the going price (about $75 a barrel) each day the well remains uncapped costs BP nearly a million dollars – obviously the figure is much more if the 100,000 barrel a day leakage number bandied about at the high end of estimates is accurate.

Moreover, their market capitalization has taken about a 1/3 hit as stock which was trading above $60 per share before the incident now lies south of $40 per share. Add to that the implied threat from Washington – “we will keep our boot on the throat” of BP – and the question may become one of BP’s continuing to function as a business.

Obviously there’s a lot of ecological damage, but the economic damage may eventually be more widespread. Making oil into the villain and giving in to the desire for punitive measures may eventually cost us over a million jobs, and no one else is making the break from oil exploration. Perhaps they know something we don’t?