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House Committee Censors Testimony of Appalachian Activists
The House Natural Resources Committee has some explaining to do.
In a blatant disregard of the concerns of affected West Virginia coalfield residents who actually live under the fallout of devastating mountaintop removal operations, a press release summary from the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources' field hearing on "Jobs at Risk: Community Impacts of the Obama Administration's Effort to Rewrite the Stream Buffer Zone Rule" completely deleted any mention of the official testimonies by Appalachian coalfield leaders Maria Gunnoe and Bo Webb. The press release reported exclusively on testimony from coal industry representatives, Big Coal-bankrolled politicians and hired coal industry supporters.
"Yesterday a House Natural Resources subcommittee tried its very hardest not to hear West Virginians' concerns about the destruction and heartbreak of mountaintop removal in their communities," noted Natural Resources Defense Council staff Melissa Waage. "Now the subcommittee leadership is trying to pretend these people don't even exist."
Makes you wonder: Is such censorship in an official document released by the House committee a violation of Congressional rules? And will Democrats on the subcommittee or Natural Resources Committee follow up with an investigation and hold responsible committee staff and members accountable?
A resident of Raleigh County, West Virginia, and a long-time mountaintop removal critic, Webb had openly challenged the hearing's focus: "The very title of this hearing indicates a bias from this committee against those that are living (and dying) in mountaintop removal mining communities. The title suggests that jobs are at risk if the SBZ rule is corrected. The SBZ rule must be corrected in order to protect The People's health. It was rewritten by George W. Bush at the cost of people's health and it needs fixed."
Gunnoe, who was awarded the prestigious Goldman Prize in 2009, foretold such unfair tactics: "The coal industry and the politicians have for most of my life manipulated and twisted the law in order to legally break this law by destroying our valuable headwater streams. Surface mining has demolished our quality of life and life expectancy in our native homes."
Here's the video of Goldman Prize winner Maria Gunnoe:
Maria Gunnoe testifies at Congressional hearing from jordan freeman on Vimeo.
Video courtesy of Jordan Freedman
Here's the video of Purpose Prize winner Bo Webb:
Untitled from jordan freeman on Vimeo.
Video courtesy of Jordan Freeman
Comments
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12 Comments so far
Show AllWe live in a world without umpires, not only that, we live in a radically relativistic world, my truth is mine, your truth is yours. Pollution is a matter of opinion, que sera sera. Mr. Jones said the world is round, but there are others who say it's flat.
At least they just omited the testimony they did not like, instead of deleting prhases to make the trestimony sound different.
Are you being serious? This still smacks of a criminal intent to hide relevant information and evidence.
It is hard to display sarcasm on CD.
WOW! How is this different from what went on during the Bush-Cheney regime when official reports on climate change were tampered with and scientists such as James Hansen were sought to be muzzled?
For one brief moment, due to a bit of careless reading of the news story, I was astonished to read the following line:
>>"A resident of Raleigh County, West Virginia, and a long-time mountaintop removal critic, Webb had openly challenged the hearing's focus..."<<
For a second, I thought that was Jim Webb, the senator from Va, a known supporter of the coal industry. He was also a strong supporter of Sen. Jay Rockefeller's bill earlier this year to curtail the EPA's powers to regulate greenhouse gases from fixed sources - such as coal-fired power plants. Here are two examples of supposedly "progressive" Dem. politicians who still haven't "got it" when it comes to the complete untenability of the continuation of coal burning. They are senators, of course, whereas this particular censorship is from a House Subcommittee report. But it all shows what the climate change activists are up against.
Photo of mountaintop removal (and other environmental disasters):
http://lightbox.time.com/2011/04/20/terribly-beautiful-industrial-pollution-seen-from-above/#9
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Solidarity!
Excerpt from "Appalachian Coalfield Leaders Join Tar Sands Pipeline White House Protest: Which Side Are You On, Mr. President?" by Jeff Biggers, August 31, 2011:
Not quite a year ago, NASA climatologist James Hansen joined hundreds of Appalachian coalfield activists, including Teri Blanton, Maria Gunnoe, Bo Webb, Mickey McCoy and Bob Kincaid at a sit-in in front of the White House, and called for the abolition of mountaintop removal mining.
In an extraordinary act of solidarity, Blanton and other Appalachian coalfield leaders will join the growing climate justice sit-in at the White House today, calling on President Obama to deny the TransCanada Keystone pipeline permit. Hansen, who has defined the pipeline decision as a litmus test for the Obama administration’s commitment to dealing with climate change, was arrested earlier this week.
“If this pipeline is built and they continue to mine tar sands the climate that I have enjoyed over my lifetime in Kentucky will forever be changed. It is already changing, and our people are drinking poison water and breathing unhealthy particles from the extraction, transporting, processing and burning of coal,” Blanton said. “We must take back our democracy and demand that decisions be made based on sound science, just as the President said he would. There is nothing sound about building a pipeline across our country.
Article URL: www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/31-5
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My Comment:
Solidarity!
We must work together to halt global warming fossil carbon emissions and the destruction of mountaintops and mountain hollers.
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"Those who do not move, do not notice their chains."
- - - Rosa Luxemburg
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Support Fee and Dividend, Oppose TransCanada's
Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline
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Excerpt from "Canadian Arctic Loses Nearly Entire Ice Shelf" by Associated Press, September 30, 2011:
Two ice shelves that existed before Canada was settled by Europeans diminished significantly this northern summer, one nearly disappearing altogether, Canadian scientists say in newly published research.
The loss is important as a marker of global warming, returning the Canadian Arctic to conditions that date back thousands of years, scientists say.
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Excerpt from "Canadian Arctic Loses Nearly Entire Ice Shelf" by Associated Press, September 30, 2011:
Floating icebergs that have broken free as a result pose a risk to offshore oil facilities and potentially to shipping lanes.
The breaking apart of the ice shelves also reduces the environment that supports microbial life, and changes the look of Canada's coastline.
Article URL: www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/09/30-5
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Excerpt from "Ottawa Action Kills Notion of Ethical Oil", by Curtis Morrison, Waging Nonviolence, September 30, 2011:
According to Article 32 of the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Harper is required to cooperate in good faith to obtain:
free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting
their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection
with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other
resources.
“We’ve been informed and we do not consent.” said Chief Jackie Thomas of the Saik’uz First Nation, to the crowd during the rally. Her Nation is one of five nations making up the Yinka Dene Alliance. Enbridge Pipeline offered to give the Alliance a 10-per-cent ownership stake in the proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline, and the Alliance declined.
Article URL: www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/30-6
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Canadians and USans need to overcome the opposition within their respective countries to government action to counter global warming, catastrophic climate change and the direct destruction of the environment, and force their governments to enact Fee and Dividend legislation.
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Support Fee and Dividend, Oppose TransCanada's
Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline
- - - - -
It would be great if the Barack Obama administration or the Stephen Harper government would put a stop to the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline or the pipeline was somehow blocked by other means.
The Yinka Dene Alliance has rejected Enbridge Pipeline’s offer to give the Alliance a 10-per-cent ownership stake in the proposed North Gateway pipeline project from the Alberta tar sands to Kitimat, British Columbia. But that is unlikely to deter Enbridge.
When the Arctic Ocean becomes largely free of sea ice year round, there will also be an incentive to build a tars sands pipeline from Alberta to Port Churchill, Manitoba on the Hudson Bay.
On August 20, 2009, the U.S. State Department issued a presidential permit for an Alberta Clipper Pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin. The pipeline will be capable of carrying up to 450,000 barrels of crude oil a day to refineries in the U.S.
Clearly, a more comprehensive approach to preventing extensive exploitation of the Alberta tar sands, as well as reducing our dependence on other fossil fuels energy sources, is needed.
How about getting nasty and forcing the U.S. Congress to pass Fee and Dividend legislation that puts an economy wide premium on the cost of fossil carbon products collected at the point of importation or extraction, where the proceeds from the fee are periodically returned to the people throughout the year?
Placing a premium on the cost of fossil carbon products through a Fee and Dividend system is the best approach to reducing fossil carbon emissions.
Fee and Dividend is specifically designed to protect the poor and the middle class (what's left of it) from the rising cost of fossil carbon and to enable them more directly to participate in the choice of alternatives to fossil carbon consumption, including their own efforts to manage their consumption through conservation and lifestyle changes, by adding a large premium to the cost of fossil carbon through the payment of a fee by corporations that import or extract fossil carbon, and then distributing the proceeds of that fee as a dividend to the people in the form of periodic payments during the year.
Sure, corporations may still obtain windfall profits on steeply rising oil prices as the market price changes due to fluctuations in "available" supply, speculation, and the dynamics of peak oil; but the large premium added to the cost of fossil carbon products as a result of the fee is transferred from corporations to the people as a dividend. Corporate windfall profits on fossil carbon based energy should be taxed separately.
The fee adds a stable and predictable premium to the cost of fossil carbon. Usually, Fee and Dividend proposals include provisions for the steady increase in the amount of the fee on fossil carbon importation and extraction with the passage of time. Presumably, the increase in the fee per unit of fossil carbon will correspond with reductions in fossil carbon consumption as more alternatives are developed. The initial fee should be large enough to make current alternatives economically attractive and to encourage the development of new alternatives.
Rather than simply letting large corporations manage the increase in fossil carbon costs and the development of alternatives for consumers in ways which perpetuate corporate control, Fee and Dividend puts money in the hands of the people, who can then more easily make their own choices regarding alternatives to fossil carbon consumption including conservation and lifestyle changes.
Instead of a "trickle down" approach Fee and Dividend transfers money from corporations to people; giving people the "carrot" that works with the fee based premium on the cost of fossil carbon "stick" to generate market incentives for the development of innovative alternatives.
Given what was once a consumer driven economy, the great disparities in wealth and income in the United States, and the fact that large corporations are essentially withholding $2 trillion in liquid assets from the real economy, just about any transfer of the ill gotten gains of wealthy people and wealthy corporations to the middle class and the poor is more likely to stimulate the economy and generate jobs than another tax break for the rich and for large wealthy corporations. When that transfer of funds also puts a premium on the price of fossil carbon, then there is an additional incentive favoring the development of a healthy economy.
Fee and Dividend in a Nutshell
1. Corporations and other types of businesses that import or
extract fossil carbon pay a fossil carbon fee per unit of fossil
carbon and choose whether or not to pass on the increased
cost to consumers or possibly develop a new line of business.
2. Corporations and other types of businesses choose whether
or not to pay the increased cost of fossil carbon and
other products and pass on the increased cost to consumers or
find more suitable alternatives.
3. People periodically receive the proceeds from the fossil carbon
fee as dividend payments, which buffer the impact on them of
the increase in fossil carbon prices due to the fossil carbon
fee and enable them more easily to purchase alternatives.
4. People choose whether or not to pay the increased cost of fossil
carbon and other products or find more suitable alternatives
using what funds they have available including funds from fossil
carbon dividend payments as they see fit.
By the way, Fee and Dividend is the approach to putting a premium on the price of fossil carbon that is favored by NASA climatologist James Hansen and many economists.
If Canadians get nasty too, maybe they can force their government to enact Fee and Dividend legislation.
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"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters"
- - - Frederick Douglas
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"Makes you wonder: Is such censorship in an official document released by the House committee a violation of Congressional rules? And will Democrats on the subcommittee or Natural Resources Committee follow up with an investigation and hold responsible committee staff and members accountable?"
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Muuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaa
Oh, yeah!