It’s hardly a secret that Senator Kerry is not one of Vice-President Cheney’s biggest fans. They’ve had numerous differences of opinion over the years, many of them having to do with questions of Congressional oversight of bureaucratic operations, Constitutional principles of checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches, and issues of what does and does not constitute open, honest government in a democratic republic of laws.

These differences of opinion and disagreement over Constitutional issues between John Kerry and Dick Cheney were in the news a lot again this past week. The Vice President’s unprecedented attempts to evade being called to account for the actions of his office by claiming exemption from executive orders issued by his own President on the grounds that his office is not actually part of the executive branch caused quite a bit of stir in the mainstream media and in the political blogosphere, especially in light of the many occasions on which he has also attempted to evade being called to account for the actions of his office by claiming executive privilege instead.

And the Senator’s response to the Vice President’s attempts to dodge accountability for his own actions was both prompt and pointed. As this press release from JK’s office noted earlier in the week,

Washington D.C. – Sen. John Kerry today wrote to David Addington, the Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, asking for details about why Cheney believes that he is not subject to agency scrutiny. Addington recently claimed that Cheney does not consider himself part of the executive branch of government, according to National Archives officials.

“It comes as no surprise that the ‘imperial president’ and his vice president are once again trying to dodge scrutiny with a ridiculous claim that Dick Cheney is not part of the executive branch of government,” Kerry said. “This is an unprecedented break with hundreds of years of history, and undermines the integrity of executive power and the Executive Order as an institution.”

<!-more-> Addington replied to JK’s letter, JK then replied to Addington’s reply, and the ensuing exchange was closely followed by progressive bloggers (a few typical examples being these threads from Daily Kos, TPMmuckraker, Democratic Underground, and Balkinization, among many others.)

But not all news is new news. Some of it is old news. And the Washington Post has been digging up plenty of old news in its exhaustive examination of Vice President Cheney’s unparalleled attempts to create a parallel shadow governmental branch outside the confines of the U.S. Constitution. As the WaPo noted in its intro to the 4th installment of its Cheney series,

Dick Cheney steered some of the Bush administration’s most important environmental decisions—easing air pollution controls, opening public parks to snowmobiles and diverting river water from threatened salmon.

And as WaPo reporters Jo Becker and Barton Gellman went on to say in the article they titled “Leaving No Tracks,”

Sue Ellen Wooldridge, the 19th-ranking Interior Department official, arrived at her desk in Room 6140 a few months after Inauguration Day 2001. A phone message awaited her.

“This is Dick Cheney,” said the man on her voice mail, Wooldridge recalled in an interview. “I understand you are the person handling this Klamath situation. Please call me at—hmm, I guess I don’t know my own number. I’m over at the White House.”

Wooldridge wrote off the message as a prank. It was not. Cheney had reached far down the chain of command, on so unexpected a point of vice presidential concern, because he had spotted a political threat arriving on Wooldridge’s desk.

In Oregon, a battleground state that the Bush-Cheney ticket had lost by less than half of 1 percent, drought-stricken farmers and ranchers were about to be cut off from the irrigation water that kept their cropland and pastures green. Federal biologists said the Endangered Species Act left the government no choice: The survival of two imperiled species of fish was at stake.

Law and science seemed to be on the side of the fish. Then the vice president stepped in.

First Cheney looked for a way around the law, aides said. Next he set in motion a process to challenge the science protecting the fish, according to a former Oregon congressman who lobbied for the farmers.

Because of Cheney’s intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.

Characteristically, Cheney left no tracks.

The Klamath case is one of many in which the vice president took on a decisive role to undercut long-standing environmental regulations for the benefit of business.

By combining unwavering ideological positions - such as the priority of economic interests over protected fish - with a deep practical knowledge of the federal bureaucracy, Cheney has made an indelible mark on the administration’s approach to everything from air and water quality to the preservation of national parks and forests.

The vice president also pushed to make Nevada’s Yucca Mountain the nation’s repository for nuclear and radioactive waste, aides said, a victory for the nuclear power industry over those with long-standing safety concerns. And his office was a powerful force behind the White House’s decision to rewrite a Clinton-era land-protection measure that put nearly a third of the national forests off limits to logging, mining and most development, former Cheney staff members said.

These egregious examples of Bush Administration officials riding roughshod over environmental regulations did not go unnoticed at the time, though they certainly didn’t get the attention they deserved at a time when the invasion and occupation of Iraq was in the forefront of most peoples’ minds. (It’s interesting to note in hindsight that most contemporary accounts of these events pointed the finger at Karl Rove rather than Dick Cheney, since at that point Rove was much more successful at serving as a handy stand-in straw man for Cheney than seems to be the case today.)

JK made his views known quite clearly in this press release and letter dated 09/05/2003:

In response to a request by Senator John Kerry that it investigate whether the Bush Administration exerted political influence over its management of the Klamath River Basin, the Inspector General of the Department of Interior has announced that it has launched an investigation into the matter.

“The Bush Administration has acted as if federal agencies like the Interior Department are a division of the Republican National Committee and at their disposal to give out political favors. The Klamath decision was but one more example of politics dictating policy in the Bush Administration,” said Kerry. “The Klamath decision should have been based on law and science and not a political operative’s agenda, polls, and campaign priorities.”

In the ensuing years Vice-President Cheney’s pronounced predilections for making high-level executive decisions based on his personal political operative’s agenda have become very well known. As the WaPo article brought to the fore again, Cheney and Rove’s deliberate diversion of scarce Klamath River resources to corporate farms at the expense of wildlife and individuals who care about the environment they live in was hardly atypical. An arrogant disregard for life, laws, and liberty would seem to have become a publicly-held hallmark of this administration in its waning years.

So this weekend’s updates on the years-old Klamath River fish kill crisis don’t seem to be either outdated or inappropriate, as indicated by this blog entry from Loaded Orygun:

The Klamath water controversy that flared in 2001 and 2002 and goes on to this day has become something of a national story, most vividly wrapped inside a devastatingly precise indictment of Dick Cheney’s term as Vice President. Jason Leopold’s story that we looked over on Monday reminded everyone of Karl Rove’s intervention and subsequent airy clearing of wrongdoing by the Interior IG (fedora doff to Bill at P3, noble work). Now Darlene Hooley has asked for an investigation into Cheney’s role.

And also by this one from The Next Hurrah:

In other words, the DOI did an investigation of this process, apparently didn’t question the folks like Barry Jackson and Dick Cheney who appear to have been involved, and concluded this was all normal.

I’m guessing Waxman’s committee is interested because this is an example of a prior PowerPoint where Rove appears to have used department resources for political gain, similar to the famous GSA PowerPoint earlier this year. But I’m just as interested whether—by revising the scope of this back to Cheney’s early involvement, the IG might come to a different conclusion about the political influence behind this decision.

What happened to the wildlife and the individual residents of the Klamath River Basin in the early years of the Cheney/Bush administration is completely outrageous from an environmental standpoint. Then as now, the evidence indicates arrogant and easily-bought operatives of a would-be imperial executive branch continue to think they can ride roughshod over the very land and its inhabitants that their oaths of office require them to be wise stewards of.

John Kerry has no intention of letting them get away with that kind of un-Constitutional excess. And he knows that you won’t, either.

Regular readers of this blog will recall a video interview that was posted here in April with Cheryl Osimo, Outreach Coordinator for the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition and Cape Coordinator of the Silent Spring Institute, both non-partisan, charitable organizations in Massachusetts. This post is a chance to catch up with Cheryl and see what she is doing this summer to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer prevention and research.
Well, the attempt was made to catch up with Cheryl, which is not an easy thing to do. Saturday, June 23rd was a beautiful day, just the perfect day for a fund-raising event at lovely Hopkinton State Park in Hopkinton, MA. I joined Kerstin and her husband Tony and dozens and dozens of volunteers at the 15th Annual Against the Tide festivities. Participants who have raised a certain amount of money for the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition (“MBCC”) could join in the various swim/walk/kayak events and have some fun for a very good cause. We caught up with Cheryl Osimo at around 7:00 am, and, after our brief visit to the coffee stand, went to work registering participants and handing out some ‘goodie bags’ and T-shirts to the volunteers and event participants.

Cheryl was incredibly busy organizing people and directing traffic. When I did get a chance to catch up with her, she told me that some of the folks from the DYS Homeward Bound program were unable to participate this year due to budgeting problems, but DYS area director, John Brennan, sent supervisors and kids from all over MA to help. Mr. Brennan also attended and helped out keeping the activities and volunteers going.

<!-more-> It takes an incredible number of very dedicated people to make events like this work. These are all people who, for the most part, have ‘day jobs’ and donate time to MBCC and Silent Spring Institute in their off-time. Many of the people at the fund-raiser had lost friends or loved ones to cancer and were proud to be able to do something to fund research into the causes of cancer. The motto of the MBCC is “Prevention is the Cure” and there were a lot of people who want to help the MBCC continue its work of exposing the nature of environmental toxins and the link between breast and other cancers and various pollutants in the air, ground and water in their communities.

The MBCC has a FAQ on their website that talks about the Precautionary Principle. This clearly state what this is:

What is the Precautionary Principle?

The idea of precaution has been handed down to us in the form of maxims, such as “a stitch in time saves nine,” or “better safe than sorry,” or “look before you leap.” The Precautionary Principle says that if there is a possibility of harm (instead of scientifically proven certainty of harm) to human health or the environment from a substance or activity, precautionary measures should be taken; the proponent of the activity should be required to prove that the activity is safe, rather than the public being required to prove that it is hazardous, the victims having to prove what has harmed them.

The Silent Spring Institute, located in Newton, MA, tries to do some of the research into the chemicals in products Americans use everyday that are not tested for carcinogens or other harmful health effects. Senator Kerry has often claimed that the current US Government and Food and Drug Administration are not doing enough pro-active work to guard US consumers from harmful chemicals in every day use. If the US Government followed the precautionary rules cited above, then a more pro-active FDA would be engaged in oversight on products like cosmetics, and cleaning products and so forth. MBCC in their efforts to inform the public about health problems and exposure to carcinogens in every day use is a performing a wonderful service for the people of Massachusetts and the country. Senator Kerry helped obtain some grants for research into “Green Chemical” production at UMass Amherst, a goal that is in line with that of the non-partisan MBCC.

All of which leads us back to that lovely beach in Hopkinton. This was a fun event. Various local businesses had donated fruit drinks, breakfast foods, coffee and bottled water for the crowd. A lot of people had a good time, a lot of information was given out and some wonderful volunteers and coordinators had a great time. There is another Against the Tide event planned for Brewster, MA for August. (This will be the 8th Against the Tide event to be held at Nickerson State Park down on the Cape. Check out the MBCC site for more information. )

Thank you, Cheryl, for your warm invitation to come to this event, and thanks to the wonderful people we met yesterday from the MBCC including Deborah Shields, MBCC Executive Director and the wonderful people from the Silent Spring Institute who shared their time and stories with me. Hope to see you again in August in Brewster, MA for the next swim/walk/kayak Against the Tide event.

Cross-posted at Grist.org

I’m a bit bleary eyed admittedly after midnight votes, and about to do an event in Boston on the energy fight, but I just wanted to come back here and tell you how good it feels to have gotten something good done in the Senate instead of just stopping bad things from happening.

A year ago I was battling to stop drilling in ANWR. Last night – finally - after years of battling and five years after we introduced the Kerry-McCain legislation to raise fuel efficiency standards - we’ve done it in the Senate.

This is something that never would’ve happened with Bill Frist as the Majority Leader, but with Harry Reid leading the Senate we were able to finally pass the first significant rise in CAFÉ standards in over a generation.

I can’t tell you what a difference this makes. Yes, this has been an issue for me for many years, and I took a lot of heat for this during the 2004 race – you might remember the Bush Cheney campaign saying we were going to cost jobs in Michigan, when the truth is this is going to create good jobs in Michigan. <!-more-> But after all the hits we took, after all the scare tactics, truth won out last night. Why? Because all of the activists of the Democratic Party helped to deliver a Democratic Congress, and now we can start the long process of building an energy economy that can work for us in the 21st century and can address climate change instead of making it a hell of a lot worse.

This isn’t the perfect solution to the CAFÉ debate, and the overall energy bill still lacks some important components. But I never thought this would happen right away, and legislative change can be a long battle of attrition. In fact, you bet that’s exactly what it will be – more on that soon. (In fact, in Boston I’m unveiling a scorecard of what we achieved and what we missed and the work that remains to be done.)

But bottom line, we’re moving the right way on this, and with continued pressure and continued work, we can change the way we get our energy and the way we do business.

The nitty gritty details of what’s in the energy bill can be found here, if you’d like to get the full run-down. But this is an historic moment; fuel fleet efficiency standards have been stagnant for 20 years, while oil prices have skyrocketed and our climate crisis has gotten more acute. Finally, we have a Congress that isn’t burying its collective head in the sand over this and beginning the long process of moving forward.

We also managed to include a great number of other environmental initiatives in this energy bill, including support for furthering the technology on carbon capture and sequestration. (Something I worked with the folks at MIT on and I think holds just huge potential.) There are also provisions providing support for the development of more efficient lighting materials and building materials, as well as authorizing a program for electric drive transportation. And we set specific guidelines for the reduction of gasoline usage from projected levels and required biennial reports on the progress toward meeting those goals.

So what’s next to do? We were very close to getting my major tax package included in this bill, one that rolled back $9 billion of tax breaks for big oil companies and added incentives for plug-in hybrids and many other environmentally beneficial technologies. We are only one vote short of breaking the GOP filibuster on that, and, when Tim Johnson returns to the Senate from his courageous battle back to health, we can try again to pass that.

We still need to pass legislation demanding that our nation gets 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. Proposals to set requirements like that were blocked by (you guessed it!) a GOP filibuster. But the American people are demanding action, so we’re gaining converts every vote.

This energy bill is not the single silver bullet solution to our energy and climate crises. But after years of fighting a losing battle to get any progress toward solving those problems, I am very happy to finally be moving in the right direction. The momentum is on our side on this, and we’ll continue to create truly revolutionary change in our economy.

Thanks for all of your help.

A strong focus on the environment has been a defining characteristic of John Kerry’s entire public life, from long before his time as a politician. The coordinator of the First Earth Day, Denis Hayes once said of John Kerry that “no constituency has more cause to rally to Kerry than environmentalists” and that “Kerry has always been there when [the environmental movement] needed him.”

This is one of those times when the environmental community (of which I consider myself a part) needs leaders. And, thankfully, Kerry is again there when we need him. <!-more-> There was an effort to push coal-to-liquid technology in this energy bill, a technology that would actually make our climate crisis worse. But John Kerry introduced some key provisions that will force liquid coal to either live up to the goals of reducing greenhouse gasses, or not be deployed at all. And his plan also rolls back tax breaks to big oil companies, along with boosting incentives for environmentally friendly fuels and buildings. Here’s the press release explaining all:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Senate Finance Committee accepted several key provisions introduced by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) to the energy tax package. Kerry’s plan rolls back tax breaks for big oil companies, saving taxpayers $9.5 billion during the next 10 years. His proposals for tax credits for energy efficient homes and buildings, plug in hybrids cars, and renewable fuel production were also agreed to by the Finance Committee.

The Committee also accepted a Kerry amendment to demand higher environmental standards on liquid coal facilities. The amendment mandates a 20% life cycle greenhouse gas reduction requirement to liquid coal facilities that receive the alternative fuels tax credit.

“Ending big tax breaks for the oil companies is a huge step forward in solving our energy crisis,” Senator Kerry said. “It’s just not right that big executives are riding the gravy train while Americans can’t afford heating and cooling bills and suffer historic pain at the pump. We aren’t going to solve our energy crisis until we start getting smart about efficiency and new fuels, and providing incentives for greening and production of renewable fuels will move the ball forward.”

“Coal to liquids hurts our efforts to adopt clean, new, renewable sources of energy that are good for our environment and our future,” Kerry added. “My amendment will help curb greenhouse gas emissions from liquid coal facilities. We can burn coal in a clean way, while keeping jobs in our country and adding new ones. This legislation is a good place to start.”

The formation of American unions was a boon to this nation. Not only were they a boon to the workers of this nation by their work instituting things we now take for granted (the 8-hour day, weekends, basic health and safety standards), but the effect their work had on spreading the prosperity around the American people laid the foundation for decades of unprecedented prosperity.

We all know that unions have been under siege. There are many reasons given for that (globalization, changing employment patterns, etc), and many of them do have an effect. However, the rules are stacked against unions. It can be extraordinarily difficult to hold free and fair elections when the question of whether or not to form a union is concerned. Workplace intimidation is a real phenomenon, and enforcement of the regulations that are supposed to make things like that illegal can be lax with an administration like the one currently in the White House. Even in the best of times, it’s a very tricky thing to create a fair election. <!-more-> For example, even though the NLRA (National Labor Relations Act of 1935) allows employers to recognize a union when presented with signatures from a majority of its employees, many employers choose instead to call for secret elections. Before the election, employers can hire anti-union consultants, conduct an unlimited number of employee meetings, and bar labor representatives from the workplace. Too often, employers also use illegal yet hard-to-prove tactics to pressure employees to change their vote including threatening disciplinary action or conversely promising wage increases and benefit to individual employees in order to change their vote. Even when employers are found to have violated the NLRA, its penalties are so insignificant that is it often more worthwhile for an employee to fire union organizers and intimate workers.

In 2005 alone, the National Labor Relations Board reported that 31,358 workers were disciplined or fired for union activity.

John Kerry announced today his strong support for legislation designed to correct this situation. The Employee Free Choice Act will require employers to recognize a union when they are presented with the signatures of a majority of the workers of the union. Again, from a majority of the workers. This is about recognizing the will of the majority of employees before the standard tactics of intimidation and misinformation are employed to try to sway the outcome of elections. It’s reinstating the respect for a clean and fair process in the forming of collective bargaining units.

The Congressional Research Service has reported that workers have a greater success in forming unions with automatic card check recognition than with secret ballot. And history has shown that workers with unions are better off than workers without the rights to collective bargaining.

Here is the full text of the press release from the Senator on this:

Washington D.C. – Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) pushed for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which will remove barriers for workers trying to organize. The legislation will mandate that employers recognize a majority vote by workers who want to form a union. Senator Kerry is an original co-sponsor of this legislation.

“The right of American workers to organize has been at the foundation of every march forward for working people in the history of our country,” Senator Kerry said. “The current law provides too many opportunities for employers to impose disincentives, hire anti-union consultants, or simply refuse to bargain when they don’t like the outcome of a vote. Union membership increases wages and improves benefits and makes sure that our workers and their families are treated fairly. After seven years of the White House giving tax away the store to powerful interests at the expense of working Americans, it’s long past time for Washington and our Democratic majority to uphold the rights, and listen to the voices of working Americans.”

In 2005, the National Labor Relations Board reported that 31,358 workers were disciplined or fired for union activity. The current law, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), serves as a foundation for modern labor rights, but includes a number of loop holes for employers. For one, the law does not adequately protect workers from employers that call for secret elections and then use coercion to pressure their workers from casting a pro-union vote. Even when employers are found to have violated the NLRA, its penalties are so insignificant that is it often more worthwhile for an employee to fire union organizers and intimate workers.

The Employee Free Choice Act fixes this problem by requiring the National Labor Relations Board, and by extension, employers, to recognize a union when a majority of employees have signed their names to authorization cards and present them to the Board. The bill also includes, for the first time, substantial fines for employers that engage in union busting activities, and requires binding arbitration if an employer and a newly formed union cannot agree to an initial contract.

Studies show unionized workers are paid 28 percent more than non-union workers, 92 percent of unionized workers have some health care coverage, and 3 out of 4 have defined benefit retirement plans—compared to 1 in 6 non-union members.

Merriam-Webster says that a conundrum is “an intricate and difficult problem.” When it comes to questions about Cape Wind, that definition could not be more apt. And since questions about Cape Wind tend to come up among Senator Kerry’s constituents on a regular basis, it’s a conundrum worth taking a look at here.

If you’re not from Massachusetts, questions about Cape Wind might not be the first things on your mind when you stop to consider the complex questions of global warming, climate change, energy independence, and alternative renewable fuel sources. But while the core of the conundrum might be physically located in Nantucket Sound, the questions raised by the Cape Wind project have powerful implications for the entire nation as well.

The Cape Wind project is a wind farm—more specifically, an offshore wind turbine complex that would cover 24 square miles of Nantucket Sound off the coast of Cape Cod. That’s an area the size of Manhattan Island. It would consist of 130 power-generating wind turbine towers (down from the original project plans of 170 turbine towers) set into the sea bed approximately 5 miles offshore on average, spaced several hundred yards apart, with the tips of their 170-foot diameter three-bladed propellers soaring some 426 feet above sea level. (By way of reference, the top of the Statue of Liberty stands 305 feet above New York Harbor.)

This is not a small project by anyone’s definition. It would be the largest privately-owned alternative energy producing project in the nation, producing up to 420 megawatts of clean, renewable electric power when winds are favorable and the turbines are operating at expected capacity. That’s a lot of power, approximately 3/4 of the Cape Cod and Islands region’s normal electrical needs, and it’s environmentally friendly power to boot. In an era when global warming is a critical issue and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is a crucial matter, that is a very attractive proposition.

Proponents of the Cape Wind project cite these environmental factors at every opportunity. They also point to the positive economic benefits of the project—up to a thousand jobs created during the construction and installation phases, with several hundred permanent jobs being involved in the ongoing operation of the wind farm operation. The Cape Wind project would produce green power for the benefit of local residents while being able to supply the overage to the rest of the New England power grid as well. As laid out by its advocates, this is a very attractive scenario for Massachusetts on many levels.

The state has taken particularly bold steps on the legislative level in recent years designed to cut back on fossil-fuel usage with its concomitant pollution and logistical problems, and to promote the use of alternative energy sources. It has a commitment to help grow local economies while advancing technical solutions to existing problems in order to create new economic opportunities for Massachusetts residents. The Commonwealth has plenty of good reasons to approve of this wind farm, and many of its residents strongly support its construction. Green power, new jobs, technological advancement—the Cape Wind project would seem to fit the bill perfectly. So where’s the conundrum, then? <!-more-> The Cape Wind project seems to be ideal on the face of it, but it’s also the subject of intense and long-standing controversy in the region. Advocates of the project have spent the last several years proclaiming what an ideal opportunity this is from environmental and economic standpoints, a perfect chance to make Massachusetts a world leader in progressive alternative energy initiatives while reducing our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. There’s no doubt that there would be many strong positives to making something like Cape Wind happen, and project proponents provide an impressive list of pluses for it finally coming to fruition. But opponents of the project have been equally adamant in pointing out the problems with putting a huge wind farm in the middle of Nantucket Sound.

They note that the Horseshoe Shoals area where the Cape Wind turbine farm would be placed is in a particularly sensitive location on annual fish and bird migratory pathways, that it’s in an area of high general aviation traffic and is quite close to a military radar installation where its turbines could cause potential interference problems, that its installation plans also include a very large transformer platform that poses serious environmental risks in case of fire or leakage. And they have serious concerns about what will happen to the wind farm’s installations when their useful life is over approximately twenty years after it begins operations.

There is dissension on both sides of the issue. Some major environmental organizations, such as Greenpeace, have decided that the many benefits of the Cape Wind project outweigh its potential dangers. Others, such as Nantucket Soundkeeper, steadfastly oppose it as currently proposed. Virtually everyone agrees that such a project is an excellent idea in theory—there’s every reason to approve of generating clean renewable energy by way of wind-turbine technology, and several parts of Massachusetts lend themselves to successful applications of wind farming. The conundrum isn’t about whether to do this or not. It should be done, and Massachusetts is a good place to do it. The conundrum, though, is about whether it should be done in Horseshoe Shoals.

And it’s not just a conundrum, it’s a conundrum with implications that extend far beyond the borders of one small state. The Horseshoe Shoals location was carefully chosen because it’s a small pocket of federally-controlled offshore property outside the state-mandated regulations of Massachusetts (which would not permit the project as currently configured.) There are a host of conflicting environmental and legislative policies that impact the Cape Wind project, which are gradually being worked out by the agencies involved. But it’s a slow and complicated process. There are a number of other similar offshore wind farm initiatives that are also working their way through the approvals process around the country - including one quite nearby, in Buzzards Bay - but by dint of size, timing, and physical placement the Cape Wind project is the bellwether of them all.

And that’s why it’s so important that the process be worked out carefully when it comes to Cape Wind, because it will be the precedent for all the other projects that follow. It’s a very large proposed privately-owned installation in federal waters, where unlike offshore oil and gas wells it will not be paying any royalties to the government to offset the costs involved. (As currently projected, the approximately 900 million dollar cost of the entire project would be subsidized to the tune of nearly 800 million dollars in federal and state alternative-energy funds.) The extent of its potential environmental risks is a matter of debate among equally qualified scientific and academic groups that disagree on many aspects of their findings. There’s no real question that the Cape Wind project could have huge benefits from a clean-power standpoint, but there are real questions about whether Horseshoe Shoals in Nantucket Sound is the best place that it should be built.

And the Cape Wind questions come up in conversations with Senator Kerry on a regular basis. He’s always been a staunch environmentalist, of course, dating back to when he was one of the organizers of the very first Earth Day events (in which an unprecedented twenty million Americans stood up and said that they weren’t going to let their planet be needlessly abused anymore). Over the years he’s been a consistent force behind alternative-energy legislation, with a particularly strong commitment to wind power and solar power development. So it goes without saying that he’s firmly behind the development of viable wind-power technologies such as those proposed for the Cape Wind project. In fact, he made a specific point of voting against an amendment that would have made the project impossible from a regulatory standpoint back in 2006.

However, Senator Kerry is also well aware of the need to develop a proper process when it comes to deciding on appropriate sites for massive enterprises involving public lands such as the Cape Wind project. He knows that what happens with Cape Wind will set the precedent for dozens of other such projects in the coming decades, and that it’s critically important to set the bar high enough to make sure that this and other such projects will be sure to create more public benefit than they might produce public harm. He’s been careful not to come out with a personal yea or nay pronouncement on the Cape Wind project while it’s still working its way through the regulatory approval process, not because he’s trying to avoid taking a stand on the issue but because he believes in letting the process proceed to its appropriate conclusion. It’s a cautious stance, but a correct one. That’s why he specifically voted against an appropriations amendment that would have prohibited Cape Wind and similar offshore wind farm projects back in April of 2006.

The Cape Wind project is a conundrum, yes. And it’s a hotly debated conundrum among Massachusetts residents (and to a lesser extent among those residents of other states who are aware of the broader precedents involved here.) Senator Kerry spends a lot of time interacting with individuals both online and off, and the Cape Wind question comes up regularly in those discussions. He’s always been quite direct in stating his position, as you can see from the following remarks that he made during in an interview with the editors of the Blue Mass Group blog on June 6:

“I’m a huge advocate of wind power. I have supported incentives for it. I will be fighting personally for larger incentives,” he began. But, “I think you have to have some kind of a siting process in place that is clear, understandable, universal. You can’t just have someone plunk something down wherever the hell they want. I’ve questioned whether this is the best location. We need a rational, national siting process. It doesn’t strike me as unusual to go through the process with a fine-toothed comb. You do that for a coal fired plant, you do that for a nuclear plant. It took 10 years for Seabrook,” he added. He did say that Nantucket should have more windmills. They have one of note at present, built in 1746.

Senator Kerry also posted a blog entry about alternative energy technologies and took questions in the comments thread on bluemassgroup.com on June 13. While the topic of that thread was coal-to-liquid technology - he as, as he noted there, strongly against it - questions came up in the comment thread about the Cape Wind project and the Senator reiterated his earlier stance on the subject, especially as regards the need to get the process right with this as a critical test case:

As I’ve said before, I’m a strong advocate for wind power, I’ve voted for it, I’ve walked the walk, and it may turn out that the current siting for Cape Wind is the best place to put it. But there’s an Environmental Impact process to decide that – and we have to let the process work itself out. We rightly criticize the Bush administration for putting politics above sound science and careful study, and I just want to make sure this gets the deliberation it deserves. This is a test case for projects like this around the country, so it’s important to get the process worked out satisfactorily. Just think about it this way: if the siting ends up wrong, the opponents of wind power will have a field day for years to come. That’s not good for anyone who believes in alternative energy.

Senator Kerry also addressed the Cape Wind conundrum in a speech and Q&A session that he gave at the National Press Club earlier in the month, which we live-blogged about here on the johnkerry.com site, and he’s also gone into more details of his positions on good and bad alternative energy technologies in a diary and comments at Daily Kos on June 14, in other posts at sites like Huffington Post, and in various speeches and public appearances over the years.

The Cape Wind conundrum is indeed “an intricate and difficult problem.” There are many factors to consider and very few hard-and-fast answers at hand when one is looking at the many pros and cons involved in putting such a huge wind turbine farm out in the middle of Nantucket Sound. We encourage you to spend some time using The Googles and learning more about all the complex aspects of the Cape Wind project, but here are a few links to get you on your way to knowing more about it:

Cape Wind project developers’ official website

Wikipedia entry on Cape Wind project

Cape Cod Online’s special Cape Wind project section

Nantucket Soundkeeper’s advocacy site about Cape Wind project

Energy Central Network article on Cape Wind project

New York Times op-ed about Cape Wind project by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Greenpeace issue statement on Cape Wind project

Massachusetts Audubon Society issue statement on Cape Wind project

Once again, one of the big battles of the current energy bill debate will be over raising the CAFE standards on cars and trucks. On the one side, John Kerry and others are insisting that standards be raised to 35 mpg by 2020. On the other side, you have folks like the Bush Administration, which expressed opposition to any numerical standards whatsoever, which is an almost shockingly outdated position.

The thing is, there’s zero reason why we shouldn’t adopt those higher standards. Wired Magazine has a multimedia gallery showing some of the technologies that are available right now, and, looking through it, I was struck again at how backward-looking the debate from the other side is. There are so many technologies out there that, with the true cost of carbon emissions built into the economy, would flourish and give us an entirely new economy. Here’s the description of one:

British electric motor manufacturer PML Flightlink yanks the engine, brakes and transmission out of a BMW Mini, and replaces them with small electric motors in each wheel. The result rivals the Tesla Roadster in performance: zero to 60 in about four seconds and 200 miles or more between recharging sessions. With a small gasoline motor to recharge the battery, the car gets 80 miles per gallon on longer drives.

That electric Tesla they mention that goes 0-60 in under four seconds and gets 200 miles to the charge is available for purchase right now (it’s a luxury sports car whose very high price is going to subsidize development of electric cars are normal prices, according to Tesla). The piece also mentions an engine from a Massachusetts company that compresses the air in one cylinder before it’s mixed with fuel and ignited in the other; this reduces toxic emissions by 80 percent.

All of this is available to us, if Congress has the vision to create a new playing field for automotive entrepreneurs. Call your Senator today and tell them that raising CAFE standards is important to you.

The British Empire dominated the age of coal and steam; the United States economy dominated the era of petroleum. Let’s create a new prosperity by transitioning to a 21st century energy economy.

Cross-posted at DailyKos

I just wanted to drop by Daily Kos to give all of you an update on the energy bill. To no one’s surprise, the Republicans are throwing sand in the gears and trying to block any meaningful progress. The energy bill, as it stands, is not nearly strong enough, so there are a number of amendments that must be adopted to give us a bill that actually gets us started on that path of dealing with our energy crisis and our climate crisis.

When we tried to bring up the Bingaman amendment last night that requires the use of alternative energy sources, the Republicans in the Senate simply refused to vote up-or-down on it, essentially demanding that the amendment get 60 votes to even be considered. They were trying to put everything on hold and block progress. The procedural details of what they’re doing and our responses get pretty arcane pretty quickly, but, as I type this, we’re locked in a battle to move all of this forward. <!-more-> It’s amazing to me that some people still refuse to see the gravity of the situation staring us in the face, with the best science telling us we may only have a decade to act before the climate crisis reaches a dangerous tipping point. But there are the same interests throwing up the same roadblocks. Take CAFE standards – I and many others are demanding that the standards be raised to 35 mpg by the end of the next decade, with light trucks and SUVs included in that and other mandatory requirements for medium and heavy trucks. And we want to close the loopholes that allow automakers to miss even those targets. But the Bush Administration has written to Congress that they are opposed to ANY numerical requirement in the statute. Think about that for a moment … they say they want fuel economy to get better, but they don’t want to put any numeric requirements about what that means. And they want medium and heavy trucks exempted from even that!

Another area where I’m pushing is to require that at least 20% of our electricity come from renewable sources by 2020. This has been a part of my energy plan since 2002, and I mentioned this over and over (and over) during the campaign in 2004. There has been significant support for this change now in Congress, but there are still the powerful interests arrayed against it.

Dogmatic refusal to consider new approaches to this crisis can have such enormous consequences, it boggles the mind how people can do it.

There’s been some articles and talk indicating the big fights were going to be over some of the same tired issues of the past—but that’s not entirely true. Sure, there is once again a proposal to drill in ANWR – and we once again will strongly fight that. But overall, there are significant steps being taken, and now there’s a leadership in the Congress that wants action on this. In addition to the CAFÉ standards, I’m fighting to get more conservation and efficiency throughout the economy, and we have a bill pending to make the Capitol complex green, so that the federal government can be a model of how to make workplaces environmentally friendly not a glaring example of “do as I say not as I do” politics. While I strongly oppose any bills promoting coal-to-liquid technology, I’m also fighting to make our most widely used electrical generating fuel, coal, cleaner with carbon capture and sequestration pilot projects and research funding. And I’m working to ban the building of any new coal-fired plants without that technology.

All of these proposals have significant support in Congress, and, unlike in the last couple of Congresses, the leadership is behind my efforts to get real votes on these issues and force some change.

But I’ve learned starting way back when I was working as an activist on the first Earth Day that environmental change doesn’t happen without a lot of activism from Americans. There are too many monied interests defending the status quo because they think it makes them more money. They don’t want to upset their old balance sheets by embracing the new economy and the prosperity that will flow from abundant clean energy.

There are lots of business people who do recognize that and many sectors of our economy are already leaping ahead of the federal government on these questions. (Fred Smith of Fed Ex testifies today in front of my committee about the importance of raising fuel economy standards.) But the entrenched interests (especially Big Oil) still hold sway with many in Congress. So the activism of ordinary Americans is desperately needed to tip the scales decisively in favor of a new direction. Call your Senators today and tell them that you want a new direction. Tell them that you want CAFE standards raised, that you want at least 20% of our energy to be from renewable resources, that you want significant action on energy policy.

Thanks for your time. Being in the thick of all of the floor fights, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to respond to any comments today, but I’ll try, and I’ll at least read through them all at the end of the day.

Cross-posted from BlueMassGroup.
Charley [from BMG] called up my office to ask about my position on coal-to-liquid technology and efforts in the Senate to promote it. Let me lay it out for you here in person:

I’m against it. Strongly.

Coal-to-liquid technology is a step backward in our fight to control greenhouse gasses. With CTL, there are actually two streams of carbon emission exhausts, at the production plant producing the liquid and from the vehicle burning the liquid as fuel. The total “well-to-wheels” emission is therefore much higher from CTL than regular petroleum.

A study from Argonne National Laboratory, a research arm of the Department of Energy, shows that every gallon of liquid fuel from coal produces as much as 2.5 times the global warming emissions as every gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel from crude oil. Even if we use carbon sequestration at the production plant, CTL emissions are still 17-25% higher. <!-more-> This is just the wrong way to go. Our climate crisis is growing ever more urgent, and putting federal resources into pathways that make the problem worse is not a good option. We were not elected to the majority last fall just to do things a little better than Republicans; we were elected to actually fix these issues and go in a bold new direction. As I said in a speech last week:

We weren’t elected to be like Republican Congresses of the past, only a little more progressive. No - if we merely tinker around the edges of energy policy or climate change, or write an energy bill indistinguishable from the ones we criticized Republicans for passing-then we have not earned our majority.

The energy bill the last Congress passed was a hollow exercise masquerading as a new direction while giving the majority of the spoils to the same old special interests.  It had no guiding national goal, no tough decisions, no change in priorities--just a collection of logrolling, back-scratching subsidies for any industry with the clout to get a seat at the table and a share of the pork.

There’s no reason why we shouldn’t take more effective action on global warming that will also reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We can raise CAFE standards in an aggressive way. We can require that 20% of our energy comes from renewable sources by 2020. We can encourage efficiency and conservation in a myriad ways. All of these will be effective on reducing our dependence on oil and will help to halt the warming of our planet.

So-called “solutions” that take us in the wrong direction aren’t “solutions” at all.

Sen Kerry is answering questions on this post today at BlueMassGroup.

Sen. Kerry has released a letter to the FCC today asking them to write the rules for the upcoming 700 Mhz spectrum auction to make the internet “more competitive, affordable and widespread.” The letter states the problem in the country now:

The U.S. is lagging behind much of the world in broadband penetration. Nearly 60% of the country does not subscribe to broadband service—in large measure because it is either unavailable or unaffordable. My home state of Massachusetts, which is a nationwide leader in innovation and technological advancement, still faces severe challenges in broadband deployment. There are many areas of our state that remain underserved. The 700 MHz auction could put this country one step closer to achieving ubiquitous broadband Internet access throught America.

<!-more-> The letter goes on to explain the benefits that reserving a large portion of the spectrum for public access will bring:

With the 7000 MHz auction we have a crucial opportunity to address these long-standing problems. This auction provides a rare opportunity to develop wireless broadband Internet services in pursuit of the President’s publicly stated goal to achieve ubiquitous broadband by the end of 2007.

Dramatically expanding wireless broadband may not be the silver bullet that solves all of our broadband challenges—but it will certainly be a big step in the right direction. Ultimately, the Commission should establish auction and service rules that maximize the likelihood of innovation and competitive entry in the broadband wireless market.

The rules should ensure the broadest level of participation in the auction with an eye towards promoting new broadband competition—enabling entrepreneurs and new market entrants to provide affordable, competitive high-speed wireless broadband services. The Commission should look to innovative methods to make the public airwaves a hotbed of technological development by making bandwidth available to new business models.

Save Our Internet, a non-profit coalition group set up to advance the cause of Net Neutrality and to ensure that the Internet remains free of as many financial roadblocks to access as possible, has published Sen. Kerry’s letter to the FCC here on their website.

Save Our Internet has already collected over a million and a half signatures on an online petition that calls for Congress and the FCC to support the principles of Net Neutrality and to preserve democratic access to the ‘net for all. Ensuring that the rules that govern how this spectrum will be divided up and used, aid that goal of making sure the Internet remains accessible and affordable to as many people as possible. Take a minute and go to the Save Our Internet website and see just how many different groups, from various political backgrounds, have come together to advance the goal of making sure as many people as possible can afford to join in on the digital conversation.

Save Our Internet has a great explanation of what Net Neutrality is on their FAQ page. This write-up explains what this issue is about, how the 700MHz spectrum auction plays into it and how you can take action to help keep the ‘net open and affordable to all’. Pay them a visit and learn how you can take action that keeps the Internet a vital and thriving place of open communications, accessible to and affordable by all.