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Socialism is America
Socialism is something that both the RIPublicans and the Democrats support, just for different reasons and for different demographics. Maybe if people on the right would actually THINK, rather than spout talking points they would see that this is true and necessary for America's or any nations survival.Socialism is something that both the RIPublicans and the Democrats support, just for... more-
- kvb1
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- 5 days ago
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- 73 comments
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No secret farm bill and other things to be thankful for
Mark Bittman has provided the ultimate Thanksgiving guide for anyone interested in making our broken food system work again. His exhaustive list of the 25 people or groups for which he is most thankful is a must-read.* It starts with nutritionist and food system reform pioneer Marion Nestle and ends with "anyone who's started a small farm in the last five years, and anyone who's supported one; anyone who cooks, and especially anyone who teaches others to cook." That covers a good portion of Grist readers, I'd like to point out. So good on all of you, too. Heaven knows, I'm thankful for you.
In the glass-half-full spirit, I thought I'd take a moment to point out some recent news developments for which we should also all be thankful.
The collapse of the deficit supercommittee
There are, no doubt, many reasons to be thankful for this. After all, we can cut our national debt by $7.1 trillion by doing absolutely nothing, so it's not clear why we need a bunch of old men sitting in a room to come up with ways to cut less by performing all sorts of budgeting gymnastics. But, more to the point, it also follows that no deal in the supercommittee means no Secret Farm Bill. Or at least it means that reformers might still get a chance to weigh in on farm policy, in hopes of moving it away from large, wealthy corporate farms and towards farms who need and better deserve the support.
The Secret Farm Bill, which is no longer a secret thanks to the Environmental Working Group, won't be entirely scrapped, I'm afraid. But at least it will probably move back to the more open House and Senate Committee process and will likely require a standalone vote from the full Congress. That fact alone may turn back the most egregious elements of Big Ag's attempted raid on the treasury. A more public process may ensure that such brilliant maneuvers as cutting the subsidy criteria from $1 million all the way down to $950,000 might be seen as the accounting tricks they truly are. That eligibility cut was admittedly a fiendishly clever move on the part of farm state representatives. After all, "No farm subsidies to nine-hundred-fifty-thousandaires" doesn't have quite the ring that "No farm subsidies to millionaires" does.
Marion Nestle does a nice job of summarizing the contents of the Secret Farm Bill, which will likely form the basis of the 2012 Farm Bill, warts and all. At least reformers know what they're up against.
More at the linkMark Bittman has provided the ultimate Thanksgiving guide for anyone interested in... more-
- JanforGore
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- 3 months ago
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- 1 comment
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Will "a secret farm bill" be passed this week?
Last week, we wrote about the likelihood that the $300 billion 2012 Farm Bill would take shape weeks before 2012 even begins, in the form of a dashed-off bill swept into the larger "super committee"-driven deficit-cutting process. As this week starts, that troubling prognosis remains.
In fact, last week, several congressional aides told agriculture trade publication Agweek that lawmakers planned to "work through the weekend to try to complete a Farm Bill proposal for the super committee in charge of deficit reduction by November 1." But so far, nothing decisive has been announced.
This might explain why the food and farming advocacy site Food Democracy Now sent out an email this morning with the subject line "24 hours to stop the Secret Farm Bill." The site asked subscribers to call a short list of senators and congressmen and tell them to say "‘No' to the Secret Farm Bill," because "rushing this vital piece of legislation behind closed doors is unfair and undemocratic."
Sustainable food advocates have been struggling to adjust to this new reality. As the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) described it last week:
No hearings, no amendments, no debate. Under this scenario, we may have very little idea about what is in the Farm Bill until after it has passed ... It's hard to overstate how messed up this is. We now have an environment where highly paid lobbyists thrive and citizen's voices, along with real reforms, evaporate.
Oxfam American chimed in with a list of reasons Occupy Wall Street supporters aren't likely to appreciate this rushed Farm Bill:
1. It was negotiated to satisfy high powered industry lobbies that pay lots of money to influence the Ag Committee.
2. It's a giveaway to big industrial farms at the expense of family farmers.
3. It promotes unhealthy, unsustainable farming practices at the expense of sustainable farming.
4. It targets conservation and nutrition programs for cuts disproportionately.
The bill's details remain unclear, but we know it will involve $23 billion in cuts. One Republican senator from Iowa went on record last week saying he believed the committee would cut $15 billion from farm subsidies and $4 billion each from conservation and nutrition. Another House conservative told the press that the cuts would "reduce farm subsidies about 20 percent and cut conservation spending about 10 percent. Nutrition programs, including food stamps, would be cut about 1 percent."
Advocates for sustainable and local food movements have rushed out two bills of their own, to be included in the larger Farm Bill process. The Local and Regional Food Bill would bolster support for family farms, and "expand new farming opportunities and rural jobs, and invest in the local agriculture economy." The Beginning Farmer Bill would help new farmers get access to capital (the lack of which is a well-known roadblock for beginning farmers) using microloans, matched savings accounts, and similar strategies.
Whether these additions have a chance of passing, or are simply symbolic, remains to be seen. Meanwhile, California food, farming, conservation, and environmental groups have been lobbying hard to have some say in the proposed Farm Bill. But the state -- whose agricultural industry is said to produce more than 400 different crops, employ 800,000 people and generate annual revenues of $37.5 billion -- will most likely continue to be left out of the discussion. One reason is that California farms don't produce the bulk of those commodity crops -- like corn, soy, and wheat -- that farm bills tend to concentrate on.
More at the linkLast week, we wrote about the likelihood that the $300 billion 2012 Farm Bill would... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 3 months ago
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- 12 comments
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Occupy Earth: Nature is the 99% too
What if rising sea levels are yet another measure of inequality? What if the degradation of our planet’s life-support systems -- its atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere -- goes hand in hand with the accumulation of wealth, power, and control by that corrupt and greedy 1% we are hearing about from Zuccotti Park? What if the assault on America’s middle class and the assault on the environment are one and the same?
Money Rules: It’s not hard for me to understand how environmental quality and economic inequality came to be joined at the hip. In all my years as a grassroots organizer dealing with the tragic impact of degraded environments on public health, it was always the same: someone got rich and someone got sick.
In the struggles that I was involved in to curb polluters and safeguard public health, those who wanted curbs, accountability, and precautions were always outspent several times over by those who wanted no restrictions on their effluents. We dug into our own pockets for postage money, they had expense accounts. We made flyers to slip under the windshield wipers of parked cars, they bought ads on television. We took time off from jobs to visit legislators, only to discover that they had gone to lunch with fulltime lobbyists.
Naturally, the barons of the chemical and nuclear industries don’t live next to the radioactive or toxic-waste dumps that their corporations create; on the other hand, impoverished black and brown people often do live near such ecological sacrifice zones because they can’t afford better. Similarly, the gated communities of the hyper-wealthy are not built next to cesspool rivers or skylines filled with fuming smokestacks, but the slums of the planet are. Don’t think, though, that it’s just a matter of property values or scenery. It’s about health, about whether your kids have lead or dioxins running through their veins. It’s a simple formula, in fact: wealth disparities become health disparities.
And here’s another formula: when there’s money to be made, both workers and the environment are expendable. Just as jobs migrate if labor can be had cheaper overseas, I know workers who were tossed aside when they became ill from the foul air or poisonous chemicals they encountered on the job.
The fact is: we won’t free ourselves from a dysfunctional and unfair economic order until we begin to see ourselves as communities, not commodities. That is one clear message from Zuccotti Park.
Polluters routinely walk away from the ground they poison and expect taxpayers to clean up after them. By “externalizing” such costs, profits are increased. Examples of land abuse and abandonment are too legion to list, but most of us can refer to a familiar “superfund site” in our own backyard. Clearly, Mother Nature is among the disenfranchised, exploited, and struggling.
Democracy 101: The 99% pay for wealth disparity with lost jobs, foreclosed homes, weakening pensions, and slashed services, but Nature pays, too. In the world the one-percenters have created, the needs of whole ecosystems are as easy to disregard as, say, the need the young have for debt-free educations and meaningful jobs.
Extreme disparity and deep inequality generate a double standard with profound consequences. If you are a CEO who skims millions of dollars off other people’s labor, it’s called a “bonus.” If you are a flood victim who breaks into a sporting goods store to grab a lifejacket, it’s called looting. If you lose your job and fall behind on your mortgage, you get evicted. If you are a banker-broker who designed flawed mortgages that caused a million people to lose their homes, you get a second-home vacation-mansion near a golf course.
If you drag heavy fishnets across the ocean floor and pulverize an entire ecosystem, ending thousands of years of dynamic evolution and depriving future generations of a healthy ocean, it’s called free enterprise. But if, like Tim DeChristopher, you disrupt an auction of public land to oil and gas companies, it’s called a crime and you get two years in jail.
In campaigns to make polluting corporations accountable, my Utah neighbors and I learned this simple truth: decisions about what to allow into the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat are soon enough translated into flesh and blood, bone and nerve, and daily experience. So it’s crucial that those decisions, involving environmental quality and public health, are made openly, inclusively, and accountably. That’s Democracy 101.
More at the linkWhat if rising sea levels are yet another measure of inequality? What if the... more-
- JanforGore
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- 3 months ago
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- 9 comments
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"Obama’s Oil Giveaway"
"On the same day that Democrats railed against letting oil and gas companies keep their tax breaks in the debt deal, the Obama administration handed out $12.4 million in research grants to help the industry improve the way it drills for oil and gas."
Because as we all know, Big Oil can't afford their own research!
Question to Mr. Obama,
How many times are you going to make us pay for the same gallon of gasoline?
I hope you received a big off shore birthday present for this gift of my money to Big Oil!
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/02/obama-s-energy-department-gave-research-funds-as-democrats-criticized-oil-tax-breaks.html"On the same day that Democrats railed against letting oil and gas companies keep... more-
- COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
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- 6 months ago
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Boehner claims Big Oil should be paying their fair share!!
Will Boehner back out of this also?-
- harleyblueswoman
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- 10 months ago
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WHO'S CREATING THE ENERGY CRISIS?
A WAR TIME EFFORT, EQUALLING THE MANHATTAN PROJECT, AT LEAST, WOULD MAKE US ENERGY INDEPENDENT IN A COUPLE OF YEARS ONLY!
Energy in general, and the cost of oil/gasoline in particular, with their exhaustive drain on consumer purchasing power and adding prohibitively to the cost of most production, has been a NATIONAL CRISIS for some time now. Why then, is this most essential issue still being dallied with, and treated like something that we have to get around to, sometime, when it's "really" necessary.
While the "greatest" country in the world is dragging it's feet on the issue, Europe and China are racing ahead with plans to build enough high tech solar power collectors to power all of Europe: ( http://inhabitat.com/worlds-largest-solar-project-sahara-desert/ )
The priceofoil.org lays out how the subsidies which are given to the oil industry in exchange for large campaign contributions to legislators, are preventing the development of, and move towards clean sustainable energy. In other words, legislators are holding the entire nation, and our entire population, hostage to bankrupting oil dependency in exchange for campaign c ontributions. To make matters worse, they're giving Big Oil large sums of your money, and only getting back pennies on the dollar in campaign contributions. It's estimated that the various forms of subsidies given to oil this year tally in the range of 90 billion dollars! ( http://priceofoil.org/thepriceofoil/clean-energy/ ) ( http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0309/Budget-hawks-Does-US-need-to-give-gas-and-oil-companies-41-billion-a-year )
One can only conclude from all of this information, that the absence of campaign finance reform and the end of corporate personhood, which permits and fosters legislative corruption and the legislative betrayal of this country, for forty pieces of silver in the form of campaign contributions, is what is preventing this country from solving it's energy crisis and holding us hostage to foreign oil! And if this isn't a breach of legislative fiduciary to the people of the United States, can anyone clarify what is?A WAR TIME EFFORT, EQUALLING THE MANHATTAN PROJECT, AT LEAST, WOULD MAKE US ENERGY... more-
- COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
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- 10 months ago
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BUDGET ? ONLY THE PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS GET'S IT !
Only the congressional progressive caucus evidences that they "get" what the people demand, and what needs to be done to begin healing our economy; and it's not further fattening of the corporations and wealthy, like force feeding a goose to produce foie gras!
Only THEY, insist that we must remove all military from Iraq and Afghanistan, as the keystone to spending reduction. That, coupled with cuts in subsidies, tax abatement, closing loopholes and taxing those who have stolen, and now have, all of our money, we have no deficit or debt problems.
"The broad sketch proposes to end the Bush-era tax cuts on high income earners, enact a surtax on millionaires and billionaires, increase the the estate tax and eliminate corporate tax loopholes and subsidies for oil and coal companies. It also aims to create a public health insurance option, end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and invest $1.45 trillion in "job creation," energy, housing and education programs.", as reported in the Raw Story.
Why then, "would ( it ) have a hard time winning over more than a handful of Democrats in the Senate."? Because all of the other Democrats are apparently on the take as much as the Republicans are! Any legislator who does not wholly support the progressive caucus budget, are conspicuously, NOT, advocates for the people!
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/11/house-progressives-offer-budget-tax-the-rich-end-the-wars-slash-oil-subsidies-invest-in-jobs/Only the congressional progressive caucus evidences that they "get" what the... more-
- COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
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- 10 months ago
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Michele Bachmann Cashed In On $250,000 In Welfare
Michele Bachmann has become known as the Queen of the anti-government Tea Baggers, protesting health care reform and slamming every other government handout as “socialism.” But what her followers don’t know is that Rep. Bachmann is also a queen of another kind—a welfare queen. That’s right, the anti-government insurrectionist has taken more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts thanks to corrupt farming subsidies she has been collecting for at least a decade.
And she’s not the only one who has been padding her bank account with taxpayer money.
Bachmann, of Minnesota, has spent much of this year agitating against health care reform, whipping up the tea-baggers with stories of death panels and rationed health care. She has called for a revolution against what she sees as Barack Obama’s attempted socialist takeover of America, saying his presidential policy is “reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom.”
But data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with living on the government dole. According to the organization’s records, Bachmann’s family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann’s recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized—or “socialized”—businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls. These subsidies are at the heart of America’s bizarre planned agricultural economy and as far away from Michele Bachmann’s free-market dream world as Cuba’s free medical system. If American farms such as hers were forced to compete in the global free market, they would collapse.
However, Bachmann doesn’t think other Americans should benefit from such protection and assistance. She voted against every foreclosure relief bill aimed at helping average homeowners (despite the fact that her district had the highest foreclosure rate in Minnesota), saying that bailing out homeowners would be “rewarding the irresponsible while punishing those who have been playing by the rules.” That’s right, the subsidy queen wants the rest of us to be responsible.
Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate that her personal stake in the family farm is worth up to $250,000. They also show that she has been earning income from the farm business, and that the income grew in just a few years from $2,000 to as much as $50,000 for 2008. This has provided her with a second government-subsidized income to go with her job as a government-paid congresswoman who makes $174,000 per year (in addition to having top-notch government medical benefits). “If she has an interest in a farm getting federal subsidy payments, she is benefiting from them,” Sandra Schubert, director of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, told Gannett News Service in 2007, when the subsidies to Bachmann were first publicly disclosed.
But Bachmann isn’t the only welfare recipient on Capitol Hill. As it turns out, there is a filthy-rich class of absentee farmers—both in and out of Congress—who demand free-market rules by day and collect their government welfare checks in the mail at night, payments that subsidize businesses that otherwise would fail. Over the past couple of decades, welfare for the super-wealthy seems to be the only kind of welfare our society tolerates.
(much more at link)
why should the richer of the two classes continue to get buckets of money when im watching families cut back more and more as they cant find jobs... as they resort to quick and easy fast food... as their health declines.... crazy times in an capitalist monarchy.Michele Bachmann has become known as the Queen of the anti-government Tea Baggers,... more-
- Darevalo
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- 10 months ago
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- 49 comments
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Protecting Big Oil at the Expense of Consumers
Paul Ryan’s budget proposal eviscerates green technology projects, but leaves massive subsidy loopholes for the oil industry.
House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposed FY 2012 budget resolution is a backward-looking plan that would benefit big oil companies at the expense of middle-class Americans. It retains $40 billion in Big Oil tax loopholes while completely eliminating investments in the clean energy technologies of the future that are essential for long-term economic growth.
This budget would lock Americans into paying high, volatile energy prices. It would ensure that millions of clean energy jobs are created overseas -- not here in the United States. It is a path backward to Bush-Cheney Big Oil energy policies that cost jobs and harm American competitiveness. In short, the Ryan plan ensures that we lose the high-stakes competition for the $2 trillion worldwide clean tech market.
Ryan claims in an April 4 Wall Street Journal op-ed that his plan “rolls back expensive handouts for uncompetitive sources of energy, calling instead for a free and open marketplace for energy development, innovation and exploration.” This is false. Ryan’s proposal actually violates his assertion in two ways......
Continue at:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/protecting-big-oil-at-the-expense-of-consumers/Paul Ryan’s budget proposal eviscerates green technology projects, but leaves... more-
- Schnookums
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- 10 months ago
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- 24 comments
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Rep. Graves Calls GOP’s Billions In Oil Subsidies ‘Market Manipulation;’ Forgets That He Voted To Extend Them
In February and again in March, Republicans in the House of Representatives, on a largely party-line roll call, voted to extend tens of billions in taxpayer subsidies to big oil companies. At the sparsely attended “Continuing Revolution” Tea Party rally on Thursday calling for more budget cuts, we talked to a number of attendees about their thoughts on Republicans giving so much taxpayer money away to already ultra-profitable oil companies. Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) was among the many lawmakers to vote twice to extend over $50 billion in taxpayer subsidies to the oil companies:
– House Vote 153 on H.J.Res.44: Graves voted to extend billions in oil subsidies.
– House Vote 109 on H.R.1: Graves voted to extend billions in oil subsidies.
However, when we caught up with Graves yesterday, he said he had no idea that the vote had taken place. He didn’t seem to remember voting for them. In fact, after pressing the congressman, Graves called the idea of giving oil companies taxpayer subsidies “a manipulation of the market place”:
FANG: Four billion dollars in oil subsidies that the Congress just passed to extend for the next ten years maybe forty billion for the next ten years to oil companies. Do you agree with that type of subsidy given the state our budget and deficit?
GRAVES: Uh, when was that passed? I’m not aware of what you’re speaking.
FANG: It was in the continuing resolution debate. I think the Democrats raised a point of order to vote on it and it passed.
GRAVES: Hm. Yeah as far as subsidies, I mean I believe in the free market system all together, the capitalism system one hundred percent. Let the markets determine who is going to succeed throughout the market place.
KEYES: Do you think those subsidies are an aberration of the free market?
GRAVES: I mean they definitely influence the market place. Its somewhat of a manipulation of the market place if products aren’t willing, aren’t able to succeed on their own because of consumer demand and likeness of that product then why should government get in there and manipulate it?
Republicans have convinced the media and the Tea Party movement that they are concerned about the deficit. Even as the GOP has voted in lockstep to balloon the deficit with billions in tax giveaways to millionaires and billionaires, they have used concerns about the deficit to justify cutting food stamps, Pell grants, the Weather Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other consumer and middle class protections. The billions in oil subsidies Graves voted to protect — then forgot about — is part of the same ideology of soaking the poor to help the rich.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/02/graves-oil-subsidies-forgot/In February and again in March, Republicans in the House of Representatives, on a... more-
- bundlebear
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- 10 months ago
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- 30 comments
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Farm subsidies paid to members of Congress while they slash other programs
These subsidies are nothing more than payola for supporting industrial fossil fuel intensive GMO agriculture. No wonder some of these farmers don't want to stop planting these crops for their GMO masters. Making over 200,000 a year in planting their crap and trashing the planet seems like a good trade off for them. Are you really a farmer then, or simply no better than a greedy selfish Goldman Sachs vampire?
And I am not as nice about this as the EWG when it comes to Congress. If you aren't a farmer who actually works the land you should not get one. Period.
Excerpt:
"This would be a good place to point out that just five crops – corn, cotton, rice wheat and soybeans – account for 90 percent of all farm subsidies. Sixty-two percent of American farmers do not receive any direct payments from the federal farm subsidy system, and that group includes most livestock producers and fruit and vegetable growers.
Among the members of the 112th Congress who collect payments from USDA are six Democrats and 17 Republicans. The disparity between the parties is even greater in terms of dollar amounts: $489,856 went to Democrats, but more than 10 times as much, $5,334,565, to Republicans.
One reason for the disproportionate number of Republican lawmakers benefiting from farm subsidy programs is the current scarcity of rural Democrats in Congress – casualties of the Tea Party wave that swept into office in November of 2010. (This was despite the Democrats’ decision to bow to the wishes of the subsidy lobby by passing a status quo 2008 farm bill in a misguided bid to hang on to those seats.)
Several new members of Congress who won with tea party support have been less than eager to talk about farm subsidies ever since the news broke last year that they, or their families, personally benefit from those very taxpayer dollars.
EWG doesn’t believe that the payments to lawmakers are improper or illegal. But the fact that so many more Republicans in Congress receive so much more in farm subsidies than their Democratic colleagues does highlight the GOP’s controversial decision to spare those programs from the budget ax – even as it slashes funding for so many others. Consider:
•In January, David Rogers of Politico, and Phillip Brasher at the Des Moines Register, reported that the Republican Study Committee proposed to eliminate the meager federal funding for an organic food growers’ program without even mentioning the the possibility of cutting spending for entitlements that send checks out to largest producers of corn, cotton and other commodity crops – regardless of need.
•Then last week (March 21), National Journal reported that the Republican-led House Agriculture Committee is backing cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – previously known as food stamps – in the face of record enrollment levels triggered by high unemployment. But not even minimal reductions were proposed to the excessive payments to wealthy farms.
The GOP-led support for subsidies also comes at a time when big commodity farms clearly don’t need taxpayer funding.
The farm sector is white-hot, and has generally fared extremely well as recession gripped the rest of the economy. Farm income and prices for commodity crops are soaring. In 2008, $210,000 was the average household income of farms that received at least $30,000 in government payments that year. But according to the House Agriculture Committee and the Republic Study Committee, payments to those farms should stay in place while the record 43 million Americans enrolled in SNAP – millions of whom are unemployed for the first time – face slashes in the help they get to put food on the table.
It’s important to note that two of the Republican senators who collect subsidies – Charles Grassley of Iowa and Richard Lugar of Indiana – have been long-time leaders in the effort to reform federal farm programs. Both have fought to right the gross inequity of sending 74 percent of taxpayer-funded payments to the largest and wealthiest 10 percent of farm operations and landlords. The top-heavy support for the biggest operations puts smaller family farms at a serious disadvantage and works against a more diverse and resilient food production system that could stand up against wild swings in weather or global markets – and provide Americans with a healthier food supply.
Of course, Democratic members of Congress have historically been subsidy recipients too, notably former House Agriculture Committee Chairman Charles Stenholm of Texas and former Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.
Nor is the phenomenon of lawmakers receiving farm subsidies limited to the federal level. Recent media reports have shown that direct payments are even more common in state legislatures in Wyoming, Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho and South Dakota.
At EWG, we believe that farmers deserve a reasonable safety net to protect against damage from drought, storms and fickle markets. But the American public’s investment portfolio in agriculture needs to change. It’s indefensible to provide subsidies to well-off farmers and landowners, especially in the face of a booming farm economy and a federal budget squeeze. Meanwhile, farmers seeking modest federal support to protect water, land and wildlife are being turned away for lack of funds.
We’re also committed advocates for government transparency, and it’s deeply disturbing that the public’s ability to see who gets what from the federal farm subsidy system has been curtailed by the Obama administration. Under the Bush administration, the rules allowed the public to see through shell corporations and paper entities to identify the part owners of subsidized farms and show where the money ended up. The transparency pertained to lawmakers as well. For this analysis EWG was forced to resort to harvesting data from members’ disclosure forms. That was an arduous but ultimately worthwhile task when advocating for greater accountability and transparency, and it didn’t use to be necessary.
Some Congress members (or their families) collecting federal farm subsidies are major players in the annual farm subsidy drama, others have only bit parts in terms of the amount of subsidies they receive. Overall, the distribution of subsidies among members of Congress reflects the highly distorted distribution of farm subsidies among farmers and landlords in the United States – between 1995 and 2009, 10 percent of subsidy recipients collected 74 percent of all subsidies.
The current salary for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year, and members enjoy robust health benefits. But whether major or bit players, members of Congress who receive farm subsidies are part of a system that cries out for reform and poses stark choices between helping wealthy landowners or doing right by struggling farm and urban families and the environment."
continuedThese subsidies are nothing more than payola for supporting industrial fossil fuel... more-
- JanforGore
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- 10 months ago
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- 17 comments
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Southern Co: Japan quake won't stall Ga nuke plant
"ATLANTA -- The head of the Atlanta-based Southern Co. does not expect an earthquake that triggered a nuclear crisis in Japan will delay construction of two more nuclear reactors in Georgia."
Not if I can do anything about it. I'm ready to protest, how about you?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/14/AR2011031402700.html
http://www.ukrivers.net/nonewnukes/header2.jpg"ATLANTA -- The head of the Atlanta-based Southern Co. does not expect an... more-
- covelogibbs
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- 11 months ago
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$93 BILLION GIFT TO BIG OIL!
Well, you know what they say: A gift of a billion here, and a gift of a billion there, and suddenly they have given our asses away!
Not only do the Repubs want to further subsidize oil, but oil doesn't pay any royalties on the oil which they take from the gulf now. Further, not only do they not pay any income tax in the U.S., but our government GAVE THEM millions of dollars of our tax money. This is a three ring heist and fleece of epic proportions, and it leaves little wonder that this country is penniless.
Check out a different tally on these oil numbers and facts from MSNBC:
http://www.cpa-connecticut.com/blog/?tag=big-oil-companies-exempt-from-paying-ro...
Also, check out Taxpayers for Common Sense's report:
High Reward From Targeting High Risk
Volume XVI No. 7: February 18, 2011
When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton supposedly observed "because that's where the money is.” Not a bad maxim, and for a Congress hungrily seeking cuts they should go where the waste is. Or at least where it will likely occur.
Cue the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, which released its biennial "High Risk" report that highlights "problems impeding effective government and costing billions of dollars each year.” The usual suspects made the list: Medicare and Medicaid waste, poor enforcement of tax laws by the IRS, the Department of Defense's questionable weapons procurement process. But the GAO added a new player to the list that has long been in our waste sights: The Department of the Interior's management of revenue from gas and oil leases.
The GAO has made it no secret that our nation's oil and gas royalties are not measuring up. In 2008, they reported revenues from oil and gas production had gone down for 93 of the 104 total resource owners. Examining the program further, the GAO found that over the last two years the Department of the Interior (DOI) - the agency charged with assuring the public's revenues are collected - has made continual blunders with the collection of company-reported data and offers unreliable sales data that doesn't reflect market prices for oil and gas. Furthermore, DOI is restructuring its oil and gas programs under a severely constrained resources environment. All of this led GAO to slap a "high risk for waste” tag on the program.
We're not surprised with the tag. A few years ago regulators from the agency were found to be in bed with industry – figuratively and literally. The GAO doesn't go as far to estimate the public's loss of revenue, but one thing is clear: Our policy makers must hold the Department of the Interior more accountable to ensure taxpayers are getting their fair share of money from oil and gas production. This is the least we could ask for since the federal government is already giving an estimated $40 billion in subsidies to the oil and gas industry over the next ten years.
In the other, usual areas of fraud, mismanagement, and waste of our money, GAO also examined the high risk of Medicare and Medicaid payments and the government's management of excess federal property.
Although the GAO finds significant progress has been made over the last decade, a 2011 report found 45,190 underutilized excess buildings remained in federal hands, and the number is increasing. Furthermore, these buildings account for $1.66 billion annually in operating and maintenance costs. The GAO reports that attempts to rid the federal government's involvement with these properties has been stymied by poor corrective actions from the General Services Administration (GSA) and Office of Management and Budget, financial limitations, and competing stakeholder interests. We're happy to see that the FY11 spending bill currently being debated in the House of Representatives cuts the GSA facilities budget by $1.7 billion (sound familiar?) to get their attention.
As potentially the biggest elephant in the room, the GAO estimates billions in Medicare and Medicaid funds are lost to improper payments. In 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services estimated improper payments accounted for more than $70 billion in taxpayer dollars. Although the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services has made progress to target improper payment rates, more must be done to profile fraud, streamline payment systems, and better manage payment for services. Eliminating these improper payments would cut the budget by more than House Republicans are targeting in the FY11 spending bill.
TCS lauds GAO's continual update of its High Risk list. As Congress and the Administration proceed in their efforts to reduce federal spending, this report offers a great starting point to rightfully collect the public's fair share, and reduce our trillion-dollar deficit.Well, you know what they say: A gift of a billion here, and a gift of a billion there,... more-
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Cargill rolling in cash, relying on child labor
"Business is booming for the behemoth agricultural commodities trader Cargill. This week, the company announced a tripling of profits in the second quarter of its fiscal year. In the three months prior to November 30, Cargill's net earnings were a whopping $1.49 billion compared to $489 million during the same period a year ago. So why is this company still sourcing products made by forced and child labor?
Cargill's success is due in part to its ability to profit from the high food prices that are gripping the world. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Bank have recently warned about the threat that continued rising prices at an all-time high pose for food security globally. From Haiti to Senegal to Bangladesh, food riots have broken out in reaction to price hikes on basic food items, echoing the protests that hit many countries throughout 2008. Recently, Algeria raised the prices of staples like flour, sugar and cooking oil by an average of 30 percent, leading to protests that left three people dead, hundreds injured and close to 1,000 people in jail.
High prices for food may be devastating for millions of people around the world, but clearly companies like Cargill have little to complain about as their corporate profits accumulate. While Cargill makes more money than ever, it is shocking that the company is somehow unable to mobilize its immense resources to stop the use of forced labor and abusive child labor by its palm oil supplier. As I wrote on Change.org last month, there are numerous cases of workers being trapped and forced to work under unsafe conditions on palm oil plantations supplying for Cargill in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Almost 200 Change.org readers have already called on Cargill to stop forced and child labor in its palm oil supply chain and they are not alone. Forty five companies have signed on to a pledge organized by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) that specifically calls on Cargill to take action to responsibly source its palm oil to avoid environmental and human rights violations. RAN's campaign activities even helped convince General Mills to become a leader among major corporations in committing to responsible and sustainable palm oil production.
While Cargill rakes in profits from products harvested using exploited labor, it is often able to avoid public scrutiny since it is a privately-held company with little name recognition among consumers.
cont."Business is booming for the behemoth agricultural commodities trader Cargill.... more-
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Article: Eliminating Taxpayer Subsidies for Arms Sales
U.S. arms corporations assiduously promote exports to maintain their profits. (Publicly, of course, they talk about the need to maintain jobs and the "defense industrial base.") These corporations are among the largest in the world, and they have tremendous political influence. Arms industry executives sit on federal advisory commissions at the Commerce, Defense and State Departments dealing with arms export policy issues, ensuring that their preferences are well known to administration policymakers. In addition, the industry provides hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to Congressional campaigns, ensuring that their lobbyists have access to Members of the House and Senate. They also pump cash into Presidential campaigns (usually to both sides, just to be safe), ensuring access at the very highest levels.U.S. arms corporations assiduously promote exports to maintain their profits.... more-
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Learning Intricate Film Finance the European Way - Baseline Intelligence
Specialty Film Researcher Jeremy Juuso points out the wealth of film finance knowledge to be gained from an understanding of European film finance.Specialty Film Researcher Jeremy Juuso points out the wealth of film finance knowledge... more-
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"Miami Rice": The business of disaster in Haiti
"As we file this article, Port-au-Prince is thick with the smoke of burning tires and with gunfire. Towns throughout the country, along with the national airport, are shut down due to demonstrations. Many are angry over the government’s announcement on Tuesday night of which two presidential candidates made the run-offs: Jude Célestin from the widely hated ruling party of President René Préval and the far-right Mirlande Manigat. This is another obvious manipulation of what had already been a brazenly fraudulent election. A democratic vote is one more thing that has been taken from the marginalized Haitian majority, compounding their many losses since the earthquake of January 12.
What is at stake in Haiti? What interests underlie the grab for power in the country? One answer is the large amount of aid and development dollars that are circulating. Among those benefiting handsomely from the disaster aid are U.S. corporations who have accessed U.S. government contracts. Below is the tale of one U.S. corporation and its subsidiaries, who have received contracts which involve both a conflict of interest and harm to one of Haiti’s largest and most vulnerable social sectors, small farmers.
“We were already in a black misery after the earthquake of January 12. But the rice they’re dumping on us, it’s competing with ours and soon we’re going to fall in a deep hole,” said Jonas Deronzil, who has farmed rice and corn in Haiti’s fertile Artibonite Valley since 1974. “When they don’t give it to us anymore, are we all going to die?”
Deronzil explained this in April inside a cinder-block warehouse, where small farmers’ entire spring rice harvest had sat in burlap sacks since March, unsold, because of USAID’s dumping of U.S. agribusiness-produced, taxpayer-subsidized rice. The U.S. government and agricultural corporations, which have been undermining Haitian peasant agriculture for three decades, today threaten higher levels of unemployment for farmers and an aggravated food crisis among the hemisphere’s hungriest population.
Two subsidiaries of the same corporation, ERLY Industries, are profiting from different U.S. contracts whose interests conflict. The same company that is being paid to monitor "food insecurity" is benefiting from policies that increase food insecurity. American Rice makes money exporting rice to Haiti, undercutting farmers’ livelihoods, national production, and food security. Chemonics has received contracts to conduct hunger assessments and, now, to distribute Monsanto seeds.
Haiti is the only country in the hemisphere which is still majority rural. Estimates of the percentage of Haiti’s citizens who remain small farmers – or peasants, as they call themselves - are 66% to 80%.[1] Despite that, food imports constitute upwards of 50% of what Haitians consume.[2] And still the nation suffers under a dire food crisis, with more than 2.4 million of 9 million Haitians estimated to be food-insecure. Acute malnutrition among children under the age 5 is 9%, and chronic undernutrition for that age group is 24%.[3]
snip
Rice is among the five most heavily subsidized crops in the U.S., with rice growers receiving $12.5 billion in subsidies between 1995 and 2009.[5] The subsidized production and the industrial scale, on top of the lowering of import tariffs in Haiti, combined to become a money maker: beginning in the early 1980s, rice grown in such places as Arkansas and California and shipped by boat to Haiti could be sold cheaper than rice grown in a neighboring field in the Artibonite Valley. With the U.S. television show Miami Vice in high popularity during the time the threat to local producers unfolded, Haitians named the imports ‘Miami rice.’
Between 1992 and 2003, rice imported into Haiti increased by more that 150%, with 95% of the imports coming from the U.S.[6] The USA Rice Federation claims on its website that 90% of the rice currently eaten in Haiti is from the U.S.[7]
The flood of imported rice has shot up since the earthquake. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, USDA purchased 13,045 metric tons of rice for Haiti.[8] In such a dire humanitarian crisis, even Haitian peasant organizations who normally oppose food aid agreed that short-term assistance was essential.
At the same time, however, locally grown food was and is available. “If the foreigners want to give aid, it shouldn’t be food. We have the capacity to produce. They should give us a chance to grow our own food so agriculture can survive,” said Rony Charles, a farmer and member of the Agricultural Producer Cooperative of Verrettes. But a supplemental aid bill in the U.S. Congress – the Haiti Empowerment, Assistance and Rebuilding (HEAR) Act - which, among other things, would have increased the percentage of food aid purchased from Haitian producers, seems doomed because of Republican opposition. Advocacy groups in Washington such as Haiti Reborn will work to get the bill reintroduced in January, but it is unlikely that any local procurement will happen for several years.
ERLY Industries is one U.S. corporation that amply benefits from aid and trade opportunities in Haiti. ERLY is the parent company of American Rice, which has been selling rice in Haiti since 1986 via its Haitian subsidiary, the Rice Corporation of Haiti. By the mid-nineties, American Rice was importing 40-50% of all rice eaten in Haiti.[9] A press release by the USA Rice Federation, of which American Rice is a member, referred to the federation’s “collaboration” and “proactive efforts” with USDA and USAID in getting rice to Haiti just after the earthquake.[10]
Chemonics, another subsidiary of ERLY Industries, has been running two USAID-funded projects since before the earthquake and received one of the first post-disaster contracts in Haiti, for $50 million from USAID. Chemonics gets 90% of its funding from USAID and works in more than 75 countries.[11] One of Chemonics’ focus areas is agricultural work, with many projects aimed at developing international trade opportunities. Chemonics has also been a large beneficiary of USAID contracts in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.[12]
One of Chemonics’ pre-earthquake contracts in Haiti, as in other countries around the world, (2006-2010) is the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network. FEWS NET II, as it is known, monitors food security and reports on such issues as food prices, climate, and market flows.
Chemonics also holds a $126 million USAID contract for 2009 through 2014 for its Haiti-based Watershed Initiative for National Natural Environmental Resources (WINNER). Some of WINNER’s stated contract goals include increased agricultural productivity, strengthened watershed governance, and reduced threat of flooding.
WINNER now has a new role of distributing Monsanto’s recent donation of 475 tons of hybrid corn and other vegetable seeds throughout Haiti. While this year’s seeds were free of charge, farming advocates familiar with Monsanto’s history around the world consider the donation a Trojan horse, with Monsanto seeking to gain a foothold in the Haitian market. The full extent to which Monsanto will now join Chemonics and American Rice as economic beneficiaries of the earthquake remains to be seen. Elizabeth Vancil of Monsanto gave “special thanks to USAID and USDA, who connected us to be able to secure this approval.”[13]
cont.
By Beverly Bell and Tory Field"As we file this article, Port-au-Prince is thick with the smoke of burning tires... more-
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Supreme Court may kill Arizona’s fair campaign financing law | Raw Story
Less than a year after the controversial Citizens United ruling, the Supreme Court is expected to rule against an Arizona law that seeks to moderate election spending by providing subsidies to candidates who face big-spending opponents.
On Monday, the Supreme court announced it would hear a challenge to the Clean Elections Act, a law adopted by Arizona voters in 1998 that is designed to limit campaign spending by providing public funding to candidates.
Candidates can opt out of the public funding to avoid its pre-set spending limits, but by doing so they may be inadvertently helping their opponent. If a candidate opts out of the public funding, and receives private funding above the pre-set limit, the state provides "matching" public funds to the other candidates.
The court has already signaled its disapproval of the legislation. In June, it blocked the state from providing "matching funds" to candidates running for office.
The law is being challenged by libertarians who claim it unfairly punishes candidates who raise private money by forcing them to cut back their spending in order to avoid their opponent receiving additional public funds.
The court is set to hear arguments for McComish v. Bennett in the spring.
"Public financing has a number of benefits, including reducing the threat of corruption and the appearance of corruption, providing a jump start for new candidates who are not professional politicians, and freeing up candidates and officeholders to have more time to interact with voters," Richard Hasen of the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles said. "The whole point of the extra matching funds in the Arizona plan is to give candidates assurance they won't be vastly outspent in their election."Less than a year after the controversial Citizens United ruling, the Supreme Court is... more-
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Weekly Mulch: Why Energy Reform is on Shaky Ground
by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Since national energy reform is on the rocks, ethanol subsidies for the Midwest and ballot propositions to roll back progressive energy legislation in California are the most important policy fights to watch right now.
Neither will revolutionize the way Americans get power, and in both cases, moving forward could actually mean moving away from a sensible energy future. In California, voters could turn back progress the state has made towards holding down carbon emissions. And Washington’s support for ethanol reveals the static thinking that’s smothering our ability to address climate change.
More important than legalizing pot
In 2006, California passed a law that would take effect in 2011 and put an ambitious plan in place to decrease the state’s carbon emissions by 2020. Even after the law passed, however, the debate over its merits continued. This being California, that debate made its way onto this November’s ballot.
The most commonly floated line of reasoning against the law focuses on negative impacts to job growth: Increasing the price on carbon increases the cost of doing business, limiting economic growth and the resources that businesses have to dedicate to expansion. Proposition 23, a ballot initiative that will come to a vote next Tuesday, would delay the carbon bill’s enactment until the state’s economy takes a turn for the better.
But Mother Jones‘ Kate Sheppard knocks down the economic argument against the 2006 law (AB32):
While enacting AB32 could cause job loss in some sectors, most independent experts actually forecast growth in jobs in the renewable energy, transportation, and efficiency sectors. In fact, green jobs are pretty much the only sector growing in the Golden State. The number of green jobs grew 36 percent in California between 1995 and 2008. The rate of growth for regular old jobs was only 13 percent.
Double trouble
Activists have focused on shutting down Prop 23 (check out, via The Washington Independent’s Andrew Restuccia, this clever campaign to flip “yes” voters), but as Amy Westervelt points out at Earth Island Journal, that initiative is not the only one that could free companies from their environmental responsibilities.
It turns out another California proposition, Prop 26, could raise the threshold legislators would have to meet in order to make companies pay for their pollution, including from oil spills. As Westervelt writes:
While some companies have steered clear of the Tea Party-backed Prop 23, which seems to be losing popularity every week, California companies interested in slowing down AB32 and maybe ridding themselves of responsibility for pollution altogether have been quietly funneling money to Prop 26.
California has long been a leader on energy issues. If either of these propositions goes the wrong way, it will be yet another troubling sign of the failure of progressive energy policy.
The other ethanol
Although environmentalists have fought hard since 2008 to pass cap-and-trade, the policy was always fundamentally conservative one. The Obama administration has always tried to map out a middle path on energy policy, and so far it has been ineffective. Ethanol is yet another case in point.
As Lynda Waddington reports at the Iowa Independent, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced last week that the administration was moving forward with a program that aids farmers producing crops (in addition to corn) that could be turned into ethanol. Switchgrass, the foundation of Brazil’s much-touted ethanol system is one example. Notably, the arguments Vilsack advanced for the program had more to do with the economy than with energy.
Pros and cons
This type of cellulosic ethanol, Brooks Lindsay explains at Change.org, would go mainly towards fueling cars. Lindsay weighs the pros and cons of producing this sort of ethanol in general, and comes down against it. His reasoning: “At best, cellulosic ethanol is just a stop-gap measure while electric cars slowly replace liquid-powered cars….But, a stop-gap fuel does not deserve massive investments and government attention.”
Indeed, progressives across the board have long argued that politicians’ support for ethanol derives from political calculation, not from practical policy. (Ethanol states are swing states.) Ethanol is energy-intensive to produce, and it has a slew of negative environmental consequences that outweigh the cuts in carbon emissions.
Rethinking the politics
Before they rush to back the Obama administration’s policies, however, policymakers should consider this news from Heather Rogers, author of Green Gone Wrong. Rogers reports for The Washington Monthly:
As I discovered on a recent reporting trip through Iowa, many farmers there would welcome a way to break free of the ethanol-industrial complex. The people I met said they’d rather cultivate crops using ecologically sound methods, if they could do so and still earn a decent living. It’s not as if midwestern farmers don’t know—better than the rest of us—that growing crops for biofuels damages their soil and keeps them at the mercy of predatory multinational corporations.
The article is worth reading in full, but fast-forward to the end to find Rogers’ sensible policy proposal. Instead of enlisting farmers in a complicated energy-production procedure that ultimately keeps Americans in their cars, why not aide the work they’re already doing to reduce carbon emissions on their farms? After all, farms are responsible for a huge portion of the country’s carbon burden — they just have lobbyists savvy enough to keep their business from being regulated. As Rogers puts it:
Paying farmers to sequester carbon is sound public policy, but it’s also, and just as importantly, good politics. By helping to preserve farmers economically while also allowing them to be the stewards of land most want to be, it peels farmers away from the agribusiness coalition that is pushing the Obama administration to bet the country on a failed biofuels energy strategy.
Now there’s a bit of thinking that could move energy policy forward.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger Since national energy reform is on the... more-
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