Unearthed: The News Without the Chaff

This recurring blog series features a collection of recent news stories about threats to public health, our democracy and the planet which are ignored or underreported by the handful of corporate mainstream media conglomerates, TV pundits, and radio shock jocks who've turned the "news" into little more than an entertainment and product placement opportunity and let down the American public.

Rep. Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove: "It's Time For Him to Talk"

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers issued a subpoena to Karl Rove requiring him to testify about his role in the Bush Administration's politicization of the Justice Department, including the U.S. Attorney firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

"I have said many times that I will carry this investigation forward to its conclusion, whether in Congress or in court," Conyers said in a statement announcing the subpoena.

Rove refused to appear in response to a Judiciary Committee subpoena in the last Congress, claiming that executive privilege protects even former presidential advisers from compelled Congressional testimony. That position was supported by then-President Bush, but rejected by U.S. District Judge John Bates.

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, forwarded the subpoena to the Obama White House, asking the President's opinion on whether Bush administration officials retain their ability to assert executive privilege. President Obama has previously dismissed the claim of "absolute immunity" as "completely misguided."

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly interviewed Rove Wednesday night, portraying the subpoena as a "witch hunt," and offered Rove a spot in the Fox News bunker. "Now, if you need a place to hide out, we have it here at the Factor. We have all kinds of tunnels and places we can put you," O'Reilly said.

"I don't need to hide," Rove replied. "I don't need to hide."

The subpoena requires Rove to testify in front of Conyers' Judiciary Committee next Monday, February 2nd.

"Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it. After two years of stonewalling, it's time for him to talk," Conyers added.

King Coal and Nuclear Set to Benefit from Senate stimulus package

The coal industry's indentured servants in the Senate managed to include more than $4.5 billion in benefits for King Coal in the Senate version of the economic stimulus package. West Virginia Senators Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, whose state has been devastated by mountaintop removal coal mining, injected several of the so-called "clean coal" projects into the bill.

Sen. Rockefeller already secured $2.8 billion for the coal industry in last year's massive Wall Street bailout.

Coal-friendly provisions in the latest Senate draft include $2 billion for "near-zero emissions" power plants designed to capture and sequester carbon dioxide; $1 billion for the Department of Energy's Clean Coal Power Initiative; and over $1.5 billion for carbon capture at industrial plants.

The bill also aims to secure billions in loans for new nuclear plants and coal-to-liquid fuel plants. Coal-to-liquid fuels would double greenhouse gas emissions over conventional gasoline and require up to seven gallons of water for every gallon of fuel produced.

"Clean, carbon-neutral coal can be a 'green' energy," Byrd said in a statement announcing his contributions to the stimulus package.

As the New York Times editorialized last week, the myth of "clean coal" has collapsed in the wake of a recent billion-gallon spill of toxic coal ash at the TVA Kingston coal plant, which buried 300 acres of land, destroyed several houses and devastated the Emory River and other local waterways in Tennessee.

The editorial skewered "the coal industry's cheery 'clean coal' campaign, whose ads would have us believe that low-polluting coal is here or just around the corner. It is neither," the Times' editors wrote.

Obama blocks some of Bush's last-minute environmental rollbacks but others may survive

Within hours of taking the oath of office, President Obama blocked several of the Bush administration's 11th-hour attempts to weaken environmental laws, including plans to loosen air quality standards and to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list.

Several other controversial, late-term environmental regulations issued by the Bush administration remain to be addressed, including a major assault on the Endangered Species Act, initial approval for oil shale development on Western lands, oil and gas drilling leases near several national parks, a rule allowing mountaintop removal mining companies to fill stream beds with toxic mining wastes and debris, and initial steps toward opening new offshore oil rigs off the Atlantic, Gulf, Alaska and California coasts.

Although the Obama administration retains the ability to review many of those 11th-hour decisions, it appears that on several fronts the outgoing administration explicitly tried to finish its rule-making early enough to tie Obama's hands and make overturning them increasingly difficult. Since some of the measures - such as the oil shale regulations - were published in the Federal Register and cleared a statutory waiting period before taking effect, it could take months or years to reverse them.

"The number of examples where they succeeded far exceeds the examples where they failed," according to John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Study Confirms that Clean Air Regulations Work, Extend U.S. Life Expectancy

A new study confirms that laws aimed at reducing air pollution in the U.S. have added nearly five months to average U.S. life expectancy over the past two decades. Between 1978 and 2001, Americans' average life span increased almost three years to 77, and as much as 4.8 months of that can be attributed to cleaner air, researchers from Brigham Young University and Harvard School of Public Health reported in a federally funded study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Joel Kaufman, an expert on environmental health at the University of Washington, said the study "shows that our efforts as a country to control air pollution have been well worth the expense."

Passage of the Clean Air Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency have helped to protect people from particulate matter, carbon monoxide and other pollutants. Scientists have long known that particulate air pollution from factories and coal-burning power plants raises the risk of lung disease, heart attacks and strokes.

"We saw that communities that had larger reductions in air pollution on average had larger increases in life expectancies," said the study's lead author, C. Arden Pope III.

Palin Administration Plans to Sue Federal Government Over Endangered Whales

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's administration announced plans to challenge the listing of the Cook Inlet beluga whale under the Endangered Species Act, the second time in a year that her administration has sparred with the federal government over an ESA listing. Last summer, Alaska sued the Interior Department for listing the polar bear as threatened, at the behest of the oil industry.

NOAA scientists estimate there are only 375 Cook Inlet belugas left, almost half the 1994 population estimate. The whales have been protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act since 2000, but that alone was not enough to help the species recover from dwindling numbers. A 2005 government estimate put the number at an all-time low of 278 Cook Inlet belugas, prompting federal officials to list the species as endangered last Fall.

The Palin administration argues that the belugas show signs of recovering and that additional regulation is unnecessary. "The State of Alaska has worked cooperatively with the federal government to protect and conserve beluga whales in Cook Inlet," Palin said last week. "This listing decision didn't take those efforts into account as required by law."

Echoing last summer's challenge over the polar bear, the Palin administration's objections are based on the fear that additional safeguards will interfere with oil and gas development. "I am especially concerned that an unnecessary federal listing and designation of critical habitat would do serious long-term damage to the vibrant economy of the Cook Inlet area," Palin said in 2007.

In the ongoing fight over the polar bear listing, the Palin administration has tried to cast doubt on the underlying science by citing the work of global warming skeptics, one of whom acknowledged receiving funding from the American Petroleum Institute and ExxonMobil for his work.

In this latest legal challenge, Palin's administration has attacked the accuracy of beluga population estimates, citing the "questionable use of computer population modeling." And it has challenged "the contention that the belugas in Cook Inlet are a separate and distinct population from other belugas." Meanwhile, the state's claim that Cook Inlet beluga's are recovering is at odds with the judgments of federal scientists, whose systematic surveys indicate this population is not recovering."

NSA Whistleblower Reveals Bush Administration Snooping on U.S. Citizens, Journalists

Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice came forward less than a day after George W. Bush left office to reveal that the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program targeted U.S. journalists and the domestic communications of all Americans, not just those suspected of communicating with overseas terror suspects.

Tice revealed the details to MSNBC 'Countdown' host Keith Olbermann in two interviews last week, and confirmed his role as one of the anonymous sources who spoke with The New York Times for its 2005 story on the government's illegal wiretapping program.

Tice described his own role in the spying program as trying to "harpoon fish from an airplane." He was charged with monitoring U.S. journalists, ostensibly to eliminate them as suspects for further scrutiny, but Tice soon discovered that the NSA was stockpiling news organizations' communications "24/7, you know, 365 days a year -- and it made no sense," Tice said.

James Risen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter and co-author of the 2005 NSA spying story, joined Tice on 'Countdown' to reveal that he was targeted for surveillance during his investigations. "What I know for a fact is that the Bush administration got my phone records ... we know for a fact that they showed my phone records to other people in the federal grand jury, and we have asked the court to investigate that," he said.

Risen asserts that the point of the program was to intimidate whistleblowers inside the government from speaking to journalists about the illegal spying on Americans, rather than to intimidate the journalists themselves. The effect, Risen said, is to "frighten people in the government from talking ... to have a chilling effect on potential whistle-blowers in the government to make them realize that there's a Big Brother out there that will get them if they step out of line."

President Bush asserted after the 2005 Times story that the NSA only targeted those in the United States who were communicating with terrorists overseas, and that a court order was required to monitor Americans' communications. Tice confirmed that, in fact, "the National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications," including "faxes, phone calls and their computer communications."

"It didn't mater whether you were in Kansas in the middle of the country and you never made any ... foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications," Tice explained.

 

Comments

[Sportswoman]

island-in-alabama, you nailed it. I recently submitted a story to a major newspaper and was told they dislike 1st person stories, no matter how relevent or eye-opening the subject may be. I countered that 3rd person often leaves open the door of plaigarism, falsities and veiled opinions. Long story short, they have no interest in depth or creativity of thought on major newspapers; thr name of the game is corporate interests represented.
Recently the LA Times editors released a statement in which they portended to dismiss the local news page as commercially unviable and thus eradicate it . This is patently absurd. The newspaper has an obligation to fully report the news of its locality.

[shotzi]

just the fact that palin would use science as a defense for her objections is objectionable,she has no clue.

[CindyMax]

Illuminating post as usual. Thank you!

The effect of the long-term collusion between our government and corporations has bred a stultifying, single-minded approach to problem solving. To have fallen behind other nations in innovation is a disgrace.

Rather than squander the talent and ingenuity we know we have, government and corporations should fund problem solutions that meet their immediate objectives while preserving the health and well-being of the planet's species and natural resources.

The argument is always that it costs too much to fund responsible projects. For starters, there's obviously lots of money out there in golden parachutes, bonuses, and unpaid taxes. That money needs to be collected and diverted to problem solutions that maintain a healthy planet and ensure a sustainable future.

[RepugsOut08]

So, Sarah Palin doesn't believe beluga whale and polar bear numbers are dwindling. That's the kind of mindset that kept her from seeing that her Republican party is on the road to extinction as well.
While I'm all for protecting the polar bears and whales, let's not get too excited about protecting the Repubs. Sometimes extinction is a good thing.

[shotzi]

indeed it is.

[PWM]

Republicans would allow the hunting of rare animals if there is a profit in it.

[joevecchio]

If you don't like coal then support more drilling here in the US.
Increasing oil production here would only DISPLACE oil we import from Algeria and Angola. Remember this oil is shipped in polluting oil tankers that burn millions of gallons of disesl fuel just to get here so as to fuel the inefficient cars that the liberal democrats drive. I went to a Hillary Clinton fundraiser and other democratic fundraisers and me and my film crew didn't see one fuel efficient car. Why? We filmed 35 SUV's, Jeeps, two hummers, fuel inefficient minivans and luxury V6 cars. Congressman Pat Kennedy bought that inefficient Mustang that gets 19 mpg when he could have bought a GM Geo Metro that gets over 40 mpg. Why are Democrats hypocrtites? Robert Kennedy was on the Larry King show and he lied about how all the oil drilled in Alaska goes to Asia. Why lie? Robert e-mailed us back saying he never said this. I got it on film. Yes coal is dirty but oil is less evil so promote it so the liberal democrats can have gas for their 19mpg cars. Change your party's hypocracy and then a cleaner earth will follow. You people created this coal problem by being so arrogant about oil. Cheney was right. Conservation is a personal virtue. Right Mr Kennedy????

[Kassandra]

You don't get it, as usual. Any oil we drill for here in the USA does NOT stay in the USA but goes into the world market to be bid on. Low information is not going to save you. Stop listening to whomever you're listening to and go get some real facts instead of blowing smoke.

By the way, have you heard that much of climate change is already irreversible. Can you figure out what that means? if you can't now, just pray you don't live to an old age, because we're seeing the leading edge of it now.

If you think world leaders who haters would like to take out are going ot drive around in small unarmed vehicles so they can be assassinated more easily, then you've got a real time problem, SIR.
And wow, No, none,No hypocrisy with Bush/Cheney at all. You exhibit the perfect totalitarian mindset...­.....SIR..­..........­.......

[PWM]

Excellent reply

[vietveter]

Coal-to-liquid fuels would double greenhouse gas emissions over conventional gasoline and require up to seven gallons of water for every gallon of fuel produced.

We should be spending money making sure that this type of program is stopped right now
Wake up and smell the dying people!!!

There are alternative fuels

There is NO ALTERNATIVE WATER

[Stephen Johnson]

No coal-to-liquids plant will be built in the US without Carbon Capture and Sequestration. The developer would never be able to get the necessary permits.

CTL+CCS delivers a carbon footprint roughly the same as that of conventional fuels (+-5% depending on which study you look at).

If you start blending biomass alongside coal on the front end of a coal to liquids plant with CCS, you can achieve dramatic reductions in lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions. The more biomass, the lower the footprint. At roughly 40% biomass, the fuels produced by a biomass and coal to liquids +CCS plant are roughly lifecycle carbon neutral.

In terms of water consumption, the numbers you mention are on the worst-case end. If the plants are responsibly designed with air cooling and significant water recycling, the water intensity is much lower. Additionally, the water intensity for biofuels is much higher, and biofuels are creating dramatic and demonstrable effects in terms of the increased application of nitrogen fertilizers and the like dramatically degrading water quality, and creating a 10s of thousands of sq miles dead zone off the gulf every year. And that doesn't even touch on food VS fuels... if you want to "wake up and smell the dying", start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Mexico_dead_zone

[RoseMerry]

Now THIS is journalism! With a great signal to noise ratio.

We have our information. It is time to act. DO IT!

[rnelsonbrown]

If Karl Rove doesn't '...have to hide,' then why is he doing just that? Does he think that using a bogus writ from his bogus ex-boss is any different than secreting himself in a bunker under a safe house? Really? Coward.
Most people would be proud to stand forth and deliver the evidence of their labor after serving their nation. Maybe even get a medal. C'mon Carly boy. Stand forth. Deliver. Show us what a good boy you've been.

[TheEmptinessOfTruthiness]

Hehe. Exactly. Show some pride in yer work, boy genius!

[alvdh1]

I don't care if he is a Democrat, he is still a Rockefeller. What would 4.5 billion do for retraining coal miners to install green energy.

[brassminnie]

Pay for any who actually need it, though strip mining requires heavy equipment operators who don't need it, keep your water bill from skyrocketing, lengthen your life, because you're breathing cleaner air, reduce dependence on oil from people who consider terrorists heroes... The list is long..

[Stephen Johnson]

I fail to see what the coal ash spill has to do with clean coal technology. Most modern clean coal gasification technologies do not even produce coal ash. Instead they produce a nontoxic non-leachable slag that can be used as a building material. Anyone trying to link the ash spill to the state of clean coal technology has absolutely no idea what they are talking about, and has probably never set foot in a clean coal plant. I have, and I can say without reservation that despite what Mr. Gore's commercials might say, the technology really does exist, and it works well.

[NoDirtyFuels]

Spoken by a truly objective observer, eh Stephen? You wouldn't by chance be a hopeful recipient of these coal handouts would you? As President of American Clean Coal Fuels, a company trying to build a $1.8 billion coal-to-liquids plant, you ought to announce your conflict of interest before chiming in with your 'facts' about 'clean coal' technology.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5712/is_/ai_n23749818

Is this what your clean coal facility looks like Stephen?
http://www.thisisreality.org/#/?p=facility

Kudos on your company's logo btw. http://www.cleancoalfuels.com

A coal nugget flower, jeez I thought that's what I saw floating in the Emory River just the other day. Aren't they pretty?

Contrast that with the actual view...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/appvoices/sets/72157611858721236/

[Stephen Johnson]

Well, you hit the nail on the head, yes, I am Stephen F. Johnson, founder and president of American Clean Coal Fuels, and we are working on developing the world's first lifecycle carbon neutral synthetic fuels plant.

If we are going to drop anonymity in comments, then who many I ask, am I talking to?

As it relates to the question of "does clean coal technology really produce toxic coal ash", yes, I am an impartial observer. I have a small package of the nonleachable slag produced by modern gasification processes sitting on the desk in front of me. I collected it at a German coal gasification plant. It was very real, and did not resemble the empty desert in the ad you linked. if you would like to see numerous images of real clean coal plants, you might start by looking here: http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/gasification/pubs/photo.html Tours can usually be arranged if you ask nicely.

The existence of the plant from which I collected the nonleachable slag, and the fact that it produces slag and not ash, are physical reality, and not subject to political bias or motivation, which is what makes me impartial on the topic.

How about yourself, do you work for some sort of nonprofit or competing industry that stands to make money/more donations if you make clean coal look bad through baseless attacks on it's very existence?

[Stephen Johnson]

And Yes, that is the hogwash ad in question. I am utterly dumbfounded that an organization backed by someone with such claims of scientific integrity would be willing to publicly distribute an ad claiming that a technology that truly does exist, does not. Dont believe me? Go to Terre Haute Inidana, Schwarze Pumpe Germany, Tampa Florida, Eastman Tennessee, Beulah North Dakota, or any one of the many many other places where this technology exists and is working today cleanly at full commercial scale. I have.

You might want to go after something easier than trying to disprove the very real existence of multi-billions of dollars worth of existing, operating, physically-there energy infrastructure.

Also, when linking to stories about my project, you might want to use a more recent one, that story is extremely dated. We have since committed to carbon capture and sequestration, and are blending a significant amount of biomass (which can be gasified right alongside coal, making us effectively a cellulosic biorefinery), reducing our carbon footprint town to substantially lower than that of any other alternative fuel available on the market today.

[lgillooly]

What saddens me the most is we have heard details of Bush Administration crimes over and over again.Yet,nothing is being done to these criminals. It is almost overwhelming the number of serious crimes we read about. Nixon was a Saint relatively speaking.....Where is the 4th Estate? Do we have one any longer? If these crimes go unpunished can we really believe we live in a Democracy? What a joke...

[island-in-alabama]

The Mainstream Media, almost completely owned by a small number of corporations, has transformed our Fourth Estate into a Fifth Column.

The MSM is now mainly composed of incompetent hacks who parrot the corporate line, and disingenuous pundits, who espouse the corporate propaganda.

Witness how much the MSM attacked the Clinton White House. Then note how they cheer led and largely covered up for the Bush White House. Now we see their current efforts to excuse the use of torture by BushCo. This past week they have provided Republican attacks on the economic recovery act a platform where the number of Republicans on the TV outnumbers the Democrats 2:1 and proven lies are allowed to be repeated without challenge.

The Fourth Estate is not going to help us restore our Democracy, since they work actively to undermine it.

[steamboat]

Do you feel that way that the Daschle's, Geithner's, Hillary's, etc. are not being asked to drop-out of their up & coming cabinet positions like they would be DEMANDING had it been a Bush or Clinton appointee? Or that everybody is quiet that 60 private jets flew to the inauguration, even though some of these folks were those shouting global warming/energy control the most? Talk about hypocrites. Or that John Conyers, whose always pointing fingers at others, has a wife CAUGHT on FBI tapes taking a payoff and kickback? Please, no double standard.

[m6020]

Does it sadden you that John Conyers wife is under a federal investigation of bribery and racketeering?

[Kassandra]

Link? and don't give me a Red State article.

[PWM]

The new Administration has been in office less than a month - give it time.