Fake Cattle

Truth begins to emerge about Rick "Miracle Worker" Perry's Texas.



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Poisoning the Food and Water

Who needs all this pesky environmentalism stuff, anyway? We're not even talking global warming climate change anymore. We're talking about all the poison within 100 miles of home.



And for the poison just outside that circle, there's still oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. But don't worry, BP assures us it has nothing to do with them.



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Glow, Baby, Glow!

I guess the right-wing energy "experts" were right - nuclear power is just as safe as oil production in this country!

When are we going to have a serious national conversation about the dangers of our high energy consumption? It would be one thing if policy could be discussed with a deep national understanding that fossil fuel and nuclear energy production came with serious human and environmental costs, and the subsidies we make available to providers of cheap energy.

It is another thing entirely to have that conversation with blinders on, which is our current state of affairs.

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Unique Homeownership Opportunity

Located near the interection of Real Estate Oversupply Avenue and Spend At Least an Hour on Your Commute to Atlanta Highway, this incredible deal puts you in a mass produced cookie-cutter home just minutes away from not one, but TWO scenic Exurban Traffic-Choked Strip Malls. Fall asleep at night to the constant noise of jumbo jets approaching one of the world's busiest airports as you contemplate the multiple car notes you have to pay just so you and your spouse can get the kids to soccer practice on any number of winding non-grid surface streets. The area is zoned specifically to discourage foot and bicycle traffic, so you won't even be tempted to use alternative modes of transportation or interact with your pesky neighbors to form "community."

And with such a desireable place at such a reasonable price, you can afford the gasoline you'll need to use in order to live in a place like this!

What isn't to like?


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How's That Moratorium Working For You?

Maitri engages in some media criticism over the announcement that ExxonMobil has hit vast new oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.

Depending on your political bent and which talk-radio blowhard you listen to, you might have thought TEH EBIL COMMUNIZMS of KENYAN ANTI-COLONIALIST OBAMA were trying to keep anyone from drilling oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and that this "moratorium" was somehow affecting gasoline prices and killing jobs.

Or you could be surprised that any oil companies were allowed to think about fossil fuels within 200 miles of the Gulf of Mexico, much less have already resumed drilling. Wasn't this stuff shut down with the BP "shakedown?"

If so, congratulations! You've been misled by someone with an agenda. What I find interesting is that people on both sides of the issue (Drill, Baby, Drill vs. Spill, Baby, Spill) appear to have been misled into believing nearly the same things.

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Hooked on Subsidy

Jay Bookman at the AJC talks about real American tax dollars at work in Brazil.

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MOAR ROADS PLZ!

By passing a $0.01 sales tax referendum, voters in heavily conservative Cherokee County will get a lot of infrastructure improvements, mostly centered around widening their own roads.

Roads that will, of course, increase development opportunities, increasing residences, and increasing cars on the roads. Not to mention how badly it ties the exurban county to gasoline prices.

But whatever, it is their money and their time. If they want to spend that money on gasoline for their cars and they want to spend their time sitting in traffic, that's up to them.

Two things though:

I don't want to hear complaints from these folks when gasoline prices go up. Y'all chose where to live and how to live, and y'all chose those long commutes.

I think that tying these folks' vote into the regional transportation plan is folly. If they don't want to pay for their new roads, let them not have new roads and put the funds elsewhere. It is time we start letting the suburbs and exurbs pay their own damn way in this country.

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Streetcars & Cash Money

Owen Courreges at Uptown Messenger seems to think New Orleans is making unsound financial sense and living in the past by building new streetcars.

He uses Houston, TX as an example of how investing in light rail hasn't made a return on investment. Since folks who live in New Orleans seem almost contractually obligated to compare NOLA's decision making processes to those in Houston or Atlanta, I'll go with the devil I know and bring up the ATL. Here's part of my comment:

But when it comes to the capital costs of building and maintaining roads vs. streetcar lines, let us not kid ourselves – the fantasy land cost-benefit analyses come into play with roads.

Y’all may not be used to it in New Orleans, but I come from a place where no one ever saw a road project they didn’t like. In this land of massive concrete projects the pitiance of the gasoline tax doesn’t make a dent in the DOT budget – when a gasoline tax exists at all.

As far as streetcars are concerned, they will really provide the return on investment when gasoline runs up over $5 per gallon, and people are looking for alternatives.

Mass transit ridership increased 14% even in auto centric Atlanta the last time gas was over $4 a gallon. As prices continue to rise due to increased demand, you can expect more folks to ride transit, and buses to cost more.

You can also expect the politicians, fearing voter backlash over high gasoline prices, to gut road and transportation budgets as they fall over themselves lowering gas taxes so they can appear to be doing something about a problem they cannot control.

We can invest now and benefit, or we can invest later when it costs far more to do so.

You know what transportation budgets are often first to see the axe? Mass transit. You know what happens when you cut access to mass transit? Low ridership and less return on investment. The thing I don't understand is cutting back on transit precisely at the time it is needed most by American commuters.


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Chemical Weapons

I don't know what makes me angrier:

1. The company that has subjected the Gulf Coast to one of the worst environmental disasters in history

2. That the company gets tax subsidies for doing so

3. That Democrats allowed it to happen, and did everything they could to cover it up

4. That Republicans called what happened a "shakedown" and insist we do more to help the company responsible

5. That the big national media is obviously ignoring the story

6. That many Americans are happy to keep believing that everything is OK now

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Liveblogging Oil & Water

Loyola University New Orleans is hosting "Oil & Water: Spotlight on the Gulf" as part of the 2011 President's Forum Series.

Participants include Virginia Burkett, Ph.D. of the USGS; Amy Harmon of the New York Times; Cynthia Sarthou of the Gulf Restoration Network; and the panel is moderated by Robert Thomas, Ph.D., Loyola Center for Environmental Communcation.

8:55pm Questions.

Q. Are you finding oil in the water these days?
A. (Greco) No. Hasn't seen the first drop of oil where he works.

Q. Several companies producing bacteria-eating oil felt stymied by government.
A. (Sarthou) In the days after the spill, Gulf REstoration Network was contacted by hundreds of technologists with ideas, but those ideas had not been tested. BP created a number, but besides the Kevin Costner solution and the Whale, no one seems to have gotten through. Agents appeared uncomfortable with biological agents and preferred mechanical solutions.

Q. How has this affected oysters?
A. (Sarthou) Many oyster beds unaffected. Some areas were devastated. It depended on where you were.

Q. Government telling people oysters are safe, but some folks are saying they aren't safe.
A. (Sarthou) Again, it depends on where the oysters were. Oysters are filter feeders, if there was stuff in the water they take it in.
A. (Thomas) When you see studies, make sure you check sample sizes and where the areas were.
A. (Greco) Has checked on oyster leases and eaten dozens of oysters since the spill, and they've all been OK.

Q. What studies are examining the dispersant, and what have they found?
A. (Sarthou) Studies haven't really been finished yet. Have spoken to toxicologists finding disturbing information on whale autopsies, but studies have not been comprehensive. Using FOIA to find information. EPA has not complied with Oil Pollution Act over the last 20 years, so studies have not been conducted to determine a baseline or determine ingredients in some dispersants.

Q. Why haven't national media (NYT, LA Times) been ignoring human health impacts, only hearing about it in local papers.
A. (Harmon) Can't speak for all media. NYT has people looking into it, but she'd be receptive to evidence.

Q. Points of clarity: Louisiana had good luck in that oil didn't get into many oyster beds, and tests have proven they're ok. Many federal studies ongoing, but being held up by funding issues.

Q. Is Gulf Future plan working for true mediation, what is being done to promote new technologies to remove and neutralize oil and corexit?
A. (Sarthou) GRN does not promote technologies, if there are technologies available, you can go to the Feds. Examining dispersant and the claims that it is still being sprayed. Biggest problem in terms of technology is that many people have come to GRN and asked to promote technology, but there is a lack of expertise on technological issues. Sarthou is an attorney not a chemist or a bio-scientist. Try to refer technologists to Congress to institute a system to test technolgies. Congress is not very friendly to this issue since this last elections, and congress has Gulf fatigue - think the Gulf has too much money and too much attention.

Q. Entire Louisiana delegation is against oil industry accountability. What strategies or tactics does GRN use to get stakeholders involved?
A. (Sarthou) Partners of oil industry will talk to them. If you have long-term plans for diversions, you're talking 10 - 15 years. Trying to come up with short-term components that can be cost effective to "stop the bleeding." Try to talk to people about things, in addition to suing people.

Q. If they're building new canals, are they putting any back or filling any in?
A. (Sarthou) Sometimes, usually when it does happen, they put a block at one end of the canal instead of filling it in.

Q. Will you swim in the Gulf of Mexico this summer?
A. (Sarthou) Probably. I ran through DDT when I was a young child, so whatever damage it would do would already be done. There are tarballs all over the Gulf, but not sure the water is contaminated.

Q. What about privatizing the Gulf restoration, especially if the government refuses to help.
A. (Sarthou) Own opinion, not organizations. Everyone wants privatization, but when some disaster happens, folks ask where the government is. Where states have privatized prisons, treatment gets worse while costs go up. With restoration, you have to take private land and shut down industry, private businesses might not be able to make the changes necessary. In the central wetlands, they're having trouble figuring out who owns the land. Sometimes only the government has the ability to make the hard choices.
A. (Burkett) Louisiana wetlands are privately owned. Benefits of restoring the wetland aren't gained by the people that owned the land. Shrimp come in and out on tides, a land owner who restores his land doesn't get all the shrimp. Benefits of restoring the coast go to the city and the nation and the public. Private land owners may be able to lease land for duck hunting or camping.
A. (Thomas) Ownership comes out of mineral rights. That's where the money is. 90% of land privately owned by families or companies. Trying to set up Louisiana Wetland Trust so owners can donate surface rights to trust, but maintain mineral rights. Trust would manage surface areas. Right now, private interests own it and look at what it has become.



8:35pm
Amy Harmon. Discussing the Greco family from Delacroix Island - son chosing to become a fisherman in the family tradition. Will be the first full fishing season this year. Their story demonstrates why traditions for fisheries are important, and where America gets its seafood.

(New York Times video)

Today most Americans eat farm raised seafood from overseas. Only 5% of shrimp eaten in America is wild caught in American waters.

Buddy and Aaron signed up to help lay boom and clean up oil, which allowed Aaron to buy his own boat.

Prices of wild shrimp have been falling for decades.

(Back to the talk)

NYT sent many reporters to the Gulf for the oil spill. Image that sticks in everyone's mind was the underwater oil gusher. Media wrote a great deal about the gusher. "Everyone" writing about threatened livlihood of Gulf coast fishing industry.

Editor wanted a "narrative" a story that followed certain individuals. Harmon came to Gulf, met up with a photographer who was already working on a photo essay, and then met up with Aaron and Buddy. Aaron was 19 and could have chosen another profession or college, but chose to become a fisherman even though millions of gallons of oil and dispersant were threatening his ability to pursue his chosen livlihood.

Editors may have been looking for a story of lives ruined by oil, but she found one of the last vestiges of American life.

8:20pm
Cynthia Sarthou and the Gulf Restoration Network. Four priority issues: clean and healthy water; protected species; Gulf future post oil disaster; defend wetlands.

Focus on impacts of oil & gas industry to state of Louisiana. By 1980, LA had lost 46% of its wetlands, 8.8 million acres. Problem for New Orleans. Bigger problem for Houma and Thibbodeaux.

Causes of wetland loss.

Started in 1927 when USACE adopted "levees only" policy. Levees from St. Louis to mouth of Mississippi kept river water out of wetlands. Spring floods had renourished coast.

Oil and Gas Development has cut 10,000 miles of canals cut into environment starting in the 1940's. Canals were necessary to extract oil. As pipelines were built, mud dredging created small levees that cut off wetlands from water (spoil banks). Web of waterways allowed salt water to move from Gulf into salt-sensitive freshwater wetlands. LA has lost 40 - 60% of wetlands due to these canals.

Urban development in the wetlands - slab on grade housing. Deforestation - cypress mulch is created by cutting down forests. Agricultural use.

Then came the BP disaster. Estimate 5 square miles of direct damage to wetlands. No good options to clean up. Raking the marsh destroys marsh. Air cannons used to keep wildlife out of the marsh. Beach cleaning disrupting beach life. Uncertain that cleaning oil is actually helping.

Oil and gas canals still being built and dredged. Back filling oil canals would stop indirect destruction. $14 - 50 billion will be required to fix wetlands.

How do you ask America to fix something state isn't willing to fix itself? Oil and gas industry needs to be held accountable. Not going to stop drilling, but it will require industry to clean up after itself. Oil companies need to give a percentage of revenues to Louisiana to restore wetlands.

Restoring the Coast:

River diversions - reintroducing river and sediments. Need to capture sediment of the river and put it into the wetlands. Pipeline sediment delivery, increase connection to river and new sediment.

Multiple lines of defense strategy for communities. Infrastructure and houses need to be elevated. Creation of healthy wetlands. Have to effectively evacuate. Learn to live with flooding. Has been "adopted" by State of Lousiana but not implemented.

Current assault on coast by oil industry not the first assault, just the latest. But oil industry is part of this community, and needs to start acting like it.

7:50pm
Dr. Virginia Burkett on Climate Change.

Climate change has been happening throughout the geologic record. There is a regularly occuring cycle of CO2 increase, temperature increases, followed by decreases.

Over a period of last 150 years, CO2 has increased beyond all records in the geologic record.

Cycles tend to correlate to the elliptical orbit around the sun. Orbital eccentricity affects temperatures on earth.

Past 10,000 years, temperature of planet has been relatively stable. This is when civilization as we know it developed. This is also when coastline that we recognize developed. Including the Mississippi Delta formation.

Over the last 100 years, C02 increased 35%, methane increased 150% compared to pre-industrial levels. Atmospheric water vapor increases - increased volume and intensity of rainfall, but the time between rainfall has increased. Temperature of the ocean has increased, hurricane activity has increased, ocean acidity has increased, and global sea level has risen (1.7 mm/year during the 20th Century; 3.1 mm/yr during 1993 - 2003). Gulf Coast sea level rise has occurred even faster than the global average.

Future changes in temperature based on emissions - all models predict warming at different rates. Expecting fewer frost days, increase in heat waves, and an increase in growing season. Canada will have a longer growing season. Precipitation expected to increase as well as increase of dry days - spacing between rain events.

Nutria increasing range due to milder winters. Increase of invasive species. Chinese tallow is pretty, but it isn't good for local wildlife.

In the South, less rainfall in the Spring and Summer growing seasons, more rainfall in the Fall.

As you heat water, it expands. Ice cover decreases. Sea level rise will accellerate as water becomes warmer.

Greenland ice sheet disintegration would raise sea levels 6-7 meters.

Louisiana coast already sinking. Add subsidence and sea level rise.

Lower soil moisture leads to intense, frequen and widespread wildfires. Brown marsh events due to low fresh water inflows and increased evaporation speed marsh degredation and erosion. Bald cypress become stressed at higher salinity levels; loss of bald cypress increases erosion and removes natural protection from hurricanes. Old cypress swamps become open water.

Land loss will accellerate based on environmental stress. Expecting to see increase of water intrusion onto human infrastructure. Threshold of community sustainability will be crossed in low-lying areas.

Things that can be done to reduce affects of climate change. Mitigaton & Adaption. Reduce non-climate stressors: canal cuts. Reduce catastrophic fires. Prevent and control non-native species. Maintain connected, genetically diverse fish & wildlife populations so they can adapt to change.

Adapt infrastructure - raise houses. Do not rely on historical projections without considering climate change in fish and wildlife management. Adjust harvest models for fisheries. Establish corridors for species migration. Retreat from low-lying coastal zones; in some areas retreat is not cost effective, however. Factor understanding of natural processes.

Focus on water - with more intense droughts water becomes more valuable. Stop damage to coast, put Mississippi back into the Delta. Sediment is vital to health of Louisiana's coast. More dynamic view of systems. Education.




7:45pm
Dr. Thomas starts off with some of the facts on the ground. 11 people dead; 6 million gallons of oil, 1.8 million gallons of dispersant; the spill happened in one of a few spawning grounds for blue fin tuna; human health is degenerating without much empirical data; we have no idea how much oil still remains in the environment or how long it will be there.

It is frustrating to keep saying "we don't know." Thought we would have seen 2 feet of oil coming miles into the marsh. That didn't happen. But we aren't sure what did happen.

How do we plan for a future accident?

Louisiana's economy is dependent on shipping, fishing, and the petrochemical industry.

Explore 3 aspects of the health of Gulf of Mexico

1. Affects of Climate Change
2. Effects on Environment
3. Impact of Oil Gusher on Local Citizens

7:40pm
The room is still about a third empty. This is a good turnout for a panel at Loyola (it is more robust than the New Orleans education panel I came to recently), but the topic is the damn oil spill. You'd think with emotions so high about this issue, it would be standing room only.

This event is sponsored by the Center for the Study of New Orleans, the Center for Environmental Communication, the Environmental Studies Program, and the Women's Studies Program.

Loyola President Kevin Wildes, S.J., is introducing the panel. These forums are designed to elevate discourse on urgent issues on our time. Wildes mentioned impacts on human and environmental health, as well as regional dependency on dangerous industry.

Dr. Burkett is an expert on climate change. Amy Harmon has been covering the oil spill since it happened. Cynthia Sarthou and her partners filed a lawsuit against the EPA because of the use of dispersant chemicals.

7:30pm
People are still filing into their seats. There are two video cameras recording the proceedings. Many, many faculty in attendance; a bunch of students. Some individuals who live on the Gulf Coast made it up. I know because I was behind them as they showed up and introduced themselves to the moderator as such. You could hear Southeast Louisiana in their voices.

President Oil-bama

If you haven't already, you're going to start hearing how President Obama is somehow responsible for the high gasoline prices this country is paying. Americans should will blame the President. He is, after all "waging war" on American energy producers.

How?

Look at last year's shakedown of an oil company! Just what you would expect from someone who is into "Death Panels" and "Kenyan Anti-Colonialism" and who refuses to talk about his demonstrably proven Hawaiian birth certificate.

And I give the pundits trying to hang gas prices around the President's neck just about as credibility as I believe they had on those issues. The only action politicians in America can take to address rising gasoline prices is to ruthlessly try and assign blame.

This is, of course, not the first time we've seen this. Not even close.

Don't believe the hype, this is all crap. Here's just one reason why. All the "easy" oil is gone. Another reason? Oil producers are already some of the most subsidized businesses in the United States.

Oh yeah, that's another way the President is "waging war" on these poor, defenseless little altruistic energy companies, by working to eliminating their socialist feudal robust federal tax subsidies in the face of massive profits.

Maybe we should just start having the government pay oil companies directly. That might keep the prices down at $3.75 for another three months.

I thought maybe more Americans would have paid a little bit closer attention last year when BP was busy dispersing free oil to the Gulf of Mexico. I thought maybe more Americans would remember the last time gasoline hit $4 a gallon. For those of you who might have let the likes of Charlie Sheen cloud your too short memory, please allow me to refresh it.

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Indirect Subsidy

BP's going to get out of paying millions in taxes because they took a loss while nickel & dime-ing the Gulf cleanup and holding onto payments to those affected by their oil spill.

That was some shakedown, all right.

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The Big Secret

The national media likes to report the confusion of scientists trying to find out "Where's the Oil?" one year later. (Guess where!) Folks on the Gulf Coast are facing medical problems that threaten lives, and you hardly hear a word.

Outside of The Houma Courier, The Daily Comet and The Tri-Parish Times, their stories exist solely on blogs and Facebook — unless you visit Al Jazeera English, or sources in Germany, Belgium and elsewhere in Europe. A Swiss TV crew asks me why U.S. media aren't talking about this. It's a good question.

If there was ever a thing that would make you lose almost all faith in the ability of the national media to investigate news and inform the American people what is really going on in their country, living in Southeast Louisiana in the last 5 years or so should do the trick.

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"Who Are You Giving Money To?"

Jeffrey posted a roundup before I did.

Gulf Coast residents were arrested while trying to shakedown a BP shareholder's meeting.

I mean, this is such a big shakedown, the Mississippi Attorney General is now gettin' in on the act. You all know about those liberal, anti-business Attorneys General in Mississippi? Just following orders from the Kenyan-Anti-Colonialist In Charge, really. Shaking down the companies that create jobs.

But to answer the serf's individual's question, "Who are you giving money to?" The answer is simple: the money went to the "spillionares."

Of course it did. After the Road Home and now this, disaster affected residents of Louisiana can rest easy knowing that the levees may leak, the oil platforms may explode, but the money-traps - located between the coffers and the residents in need of aid - are working just fine. But I bet the rest of the country is going to get mad at folks down in this part of the world because, even after $20Billion in shakedown money, people down here still have the nerve to complain.

As far as the environment, the water, and the food that comes out of the water, that isn't working so well at all. A lot of right-wingers call environmentalists "tree huggers" as if humans aren't affected by crap dumped into the air, water, or food.

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Fear & Cartooning

Recognize the format of this video? They're riffing off a powerful information transmitter to spread a culture of fear.

Because, really, that was some shakedown?

Not to mention the fact that, it AIN'T EVEN BEEN A YEAR, and they're already back to drilling.

And spilling.

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That Was Some Shakedown

Like the oil spill never happened.

Despite its hefty spill-related spending, BP's cash pile more than doubled in 2010, to $18.6 billion. Free cash flow will likely be another $8 billion to $10 billion this year at current oil-price levels

Isn't that amazing? And some folks were worried that the socialist Kenyan anti-colonialist government of the United States might get in the way of BP making oodles of cash last year.

But even after all that "shakedown" and "extortion," BP's back to payin' dividends, baby!

Except, of course, to the creatures that live in the water and those pesky folks who live at the water's edge.

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Not One More Drop

A lot has been made over the "moratorium" on new deep-water drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. From the idea that drilling, left unregulated, is so safe that "not one drop" was spilled during the 2005 hurricanes (despite all factual evidence to the contrary), to the idea that the moratorium on drilling for oil is somehow raising gasoline prices now, even though functioning wells never stopped producing oil.

Today, even as we hear the the first new drilling plan has been approved, we also find out that even "permanently plugged," out of commission oil wells can be responsible for new, massive oil spills.

Well, not a massive spill as relative to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, or as Rush Limbaugh might say, naturally occurring.

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Part of Obama's Sneaky Plan

Remember how, in Rush Limbaugh Land, Obama praised oil production and offered to open up more American drilling suspiciously just before the Deepwater Horizon disaster? It was all a plot by TEH EBIL KENYAN ANTI-COLONIALIZMS!! to scare Americans away from the selfless executives of those community minded oil industry that create American jobs for Americans in America!

I wonder what El Rushbo's going to say when he finds out the President specifically praised nuclear power - in Japan! Suspiciously before this latest disaster! OH NOES TEH MARXISMS HAVE EARTHQUAKE CONTROLZ!!! Espcially now that Americans are questioning our national "renaissance" with noocyoolar power!

We'll not even mention the deregulation necessary to make both oil drilling rigs and nuclear power plants safe for the communities they serve...

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Whither John Galt's Oil Rig?

Lamentations! And to where shall he take his petroleum extraction infrastructure?

Oh, yeah. That's right. He'll take it to where he can find the oil. And he'll negotiate with the folks who manage the land or sea under which he can find said oil, if he chooses to make his living in the oil industry.

And, lo, should Atlas decide he feels unappreciated or too beset upon by those who expect him to adhere to pesky, profit cutting civic responsibilities, let him "shrug" and take his wares elsewhere.

There will be another who wishes to make their living in the oil industry. They'll be willing to follow the local regulations and turn a smaller astronomical profit. And they'll bed along directly to pick up where "Galt" left off.

Because that is the largest failing of the utopian-libertarian misunderstanding about America. That is the largest miss of the whole "Who Is John Galt?" rhetoric. No one is going to pick up their business and move elsewhere. If there is even a dollar of profit to be made in America, there will be at least 10 people competing for that dollar, and they will do it here.

Like oilmen follow the oil, businessmen will follow the money. American markets have the money those businessment want to make.

So if anyone wants to go all "John Galt" and leave, please don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out. Delta is ready when you are. Have fun in those nations with higher taxes and more regulations, or those nations with higher externalities (payoffs to local oligarchs) and more instability. It must always be fun to live far away from the overreach of American regulation and in constant fear that some local uprising will destroy all your capital.

Because if the oilmen want to leave Gulf waters for more favorable business climates, they can have fun in Brazil and off the coast of Mexico. If they don't want to negotiate with the State of Louisiana and the United States government, they are more than welcome to try their hand with Saudi Arabia or the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Have fun with that.

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End Energy Subsidies

This is win-win-win-win-win.

1. Cut Federal spending by $20 Billion per year.
2. Puts green energy on the same playing field as fossil fuels, from a subsidy perspective.
3. Stops hiding the true costs of fossil fuel dependence from the American economy.
4. Allows consumers to make more informed energy decisions based on the true costs of the energy they consume.
5. Renegotiates the energy lobby in Washington. If there aren't subsidies to squabble over, there won't be as many lobbyists.

To me, of course, 3 and 4 are the most important.

Bottom line? We already pay more than $3.07 per gallon of gasoline, and the decisions we have made under the illusion that gasoline is that cheap are unsustainable. That's something we can figure out now, or something we can figure out later.

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