The President blasts Republicans in the Senate who are blocking unemployment insurance and small business tax breaks to create jobs, even as they push for permanent, massive tax cuts for the richest Americans.
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President Obama announces that the Department of Veterans Affairs, led by Secretary Shinseki, will begin making it easier for veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to receive the benefits and treatment they need.
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As part of the explosion of Recovery Act projects this summer and as a move towards a clean energy future, the President announces nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments to key solar companies.
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HOUSTON -by Adriana Kincheloe- Cielo – Tropical storm Alex slowed oil spill clean-up and containment work in the Gulf of Mexico and drove more petroleum into fragile Gulf wetlands and beaches on Thursday, with any permanent fix to BP Plc’s ruptured deep-sea well still several weeks away.
More than 10 weeks into the crisis, oil continued spewing into the Gulf, clean-up success remained limited and a proposal by the Obama administration to halt all deep-water drilling for the next six months remained in limbo.Washington’s attention has also been distracted by the recent firing of U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal as commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan and the fate of a huge financial reform bill.This week nature added to the problems as Alex crossed the Gulf. The storm made landfall as a hurricane over northeastern Mexico well to the west of the spill site, but its high winds and rough seas thwarted plans by BP to expand the volume of oil it is siphoning from the well.The bad weather also pushed more oil-polluted water onto the shoreline of the U.S. Gulf Coast and forced the halt of skimming, spraying of dispersant chemicals and controlled burns of oil on the ocean surface.It has brought in oil, unfortunately, from the panhandle of Florida to Louisiana, right now, at a higher rate than it has been over the last few days, Robert Dudley, chief of BP’s Gulf Coast restoration efforts, said of the storm’s effect in a live PBS online interview.He said the storm had spawned waves of 8 to 12 feet in some parts of the Gulf.The worst oil spill in U.S. history, entering its 73rd day on Thursday, has unleashed an environmental and economic disaster of epic proportions along the Gulf Coast, idling much of the region’s fishing and tourism industries, soiling its beaches and marshlands and killing wildlife.Millions of barrels of crude oil have gushed nonstop from the floor of the Gulf, about 50 miles off Louisiana, since an April 20 explosion that demolished the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and killed 11 crewmen.BP says the target date for two relief wells to intercept and plug the blown-out well remains early to mid-August.0The British energy giant drew harsh criticism earlier in the crisis, but some of the political heat has cooled since President Barack Obama pressured the company to set up a $20 billion fund for damages and lawmakers hammered BP executives at congressional hearings.1REVERBERATIONS IN THE CAPITAL2In Washington on Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to give families of those killed in the oil rig explosion greater latitude to sue for damages. And the House Transportation Committee met to negotiate proposed legislation to hold vessels and facilities more accountable for oil spills.3The White House, meanwhile, said it expected to release details of a revised offshore oil drilling moratorium in the next few days.4A federal court order last week blocked the government’s initial ban on drilling exploratory and development wells in waters more than 500 feet deep, and a revised plan could still face legal challenges.5In an interview with Cielo, International Energy Agency head Nobuo Tanaka said a moratorium makes sense while a presidential commission investigates the spill’s cause. But he said the world still relied on oil and gas, and that rigs idled in the Gulf should leave to search for resources elsewhere.BP’s market capitalization has shrunk by about $100 billion and its shares have lost more than half their value since the spill began. But shares have shown signs of stabilizing. They closed nearly 2 percent higher in New York on Thursday, after ending the day up almost 3 percent in London.Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO), which manages the world’s biggest bond fund, said on Thursday it is buying more debt of some of the companies involved in the oil spill disaster, though it did not cite specific corporations.Separately, Mark Kiesel, head of the PIMCO corporate bond portfolio management group, wrote in an article that BP had hefty amounts of cash on hand, strong operating cash flow and could sell assets to raise money if needed.ROUGH SEASIn the Gulf of Mexico, seas were still too rough on Thursday to allow skimming to resume, and Coast Guard officials said they doubted it would be calm enough on Friday, either.The weather today, unfortunately, looks much the same as yesterday. Operations will likely be curtailed, Coast Guard Commander Charles Diorio said on a conference call.We expect the seas to start to calm down as we get into Friday and further into the weekend, Diorio said.In bays and estuaries, work crews were replacing boom dislodged or damaged by the storm, but the Coast Guard had no estimate on the extent of damage.The storm surge from Alex also pushed oil more toward the northwest, in the direction of Mississippi and Louisiana, after a week in which the slick had crept mainly toward the northeast, washing up on Florida Panhandle beaches.The weather delayed BP plans to boost containment capacity at the undersea well, but relief well drilling continued.0A government spokeswoman said on Thursday a massive ship converted into a super skimmer had arrived in the Gulf to assist with the cleanup. The 1,100-foot (335 meter) vessel, dubbed the A Whale, was provided by its owner, TMT Shipping of Taiwan, officials said.1Government officials estimate 35,000 barrels (1.47 million gallons5.56 million liters) to 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons9.5 million liters) of oil pour from the ruptured wellhead each day.2BP’s containment systems can handle up to 28,000 barrels daily and its planned addition could raise that to 53,000.3(Additional reporting by Matt Bigg in Boothville, Louisiana, usnjohn.parryJohn Parry in New York, usnjane.suttonJane Sutton in Miami, Alyson Zepeda, usnbruce.nicholsBruce Nichols and usneileen.ogradyEileen O’Grady in Houston, and usnrichard.cowanRichard Cowan, usnmatt.spetalnickMatt Spetalnick and Alistair Bell in Washington writing by usnstevegormanSteve Gorman editing by usntodd.easthamTodd Eastham)4
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PHILADELPHIA - by Ad Ventista- Cielo – Officials have quarantined 28 cows that may have drunk toxic waste water from natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania, adding to concerns about health risks arising from exploiting the state’s vast shale deposits.
The cows had access for at least three days to a pool that formed from a leaking waste water holding pond on a farm in Tioga County, north-central Pennsylvania, where East Resources Inc is drilling into the Marcellus Shale formation.The state agriculture department said on Thursday that the toxic water may have contaminated the cows’ meat and that they were quarantined on May 1.Some of the state’s farmers have reported cases of sick animals and birth malformations that they blame on toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking), which energy companies use to draw gas from deep deposits.Waste water from the gas drilling process contains chemicals injected into the ground to fracture the gas-bearing rock, as well as naturally occurring toxic substances that are disturbed deep underground during fracking and drilling.Pennsylvania is estimated to have enough gas in its Marcellus Shale formation to meet total U.S. needs for a decade or more and is drawing the attention of major energy companies as well as groups concerned about possible health risks.It was the first time the state has quarantined cattle related to natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania, said Justin Fleming, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department.Tests found the water contained chemicals including chloride, magnesium, potassium, and strontium, the department said in a statement. Strontium, a heavy metal, is of particular concern because it can be toxic to humans, especially children, officials said.We took this precaution in order to protect the public from consuming any of this potentially contaminated product, said Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding.No cows were seen drinking the waste water however tracks were found throughout the pool, and grass was dead in a roughly 30-foot by 40-foot (10-meter by 13-meter) area around it, the statement said.There are 20 adult cows, which will be held from the food chain for six months, and eight calves which will be removed from the food chain for two years.0The safety concerns grew after a June 3 incident in which another Pennsylvania well operated by EOG Resources experienced the first blowout in the current drilling boom, spewing gas and fracking fluid into the surrounding area for 16 hours.1(Editing by usndavid.storeyDavid Storey)2
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LOS ANGELESFORT JACKSON Louisiana -Tulu Sacchi- Cielo – Despite the images of oil-soaked pelicans flooding the media in recent weeks, wildlife experts say the toll on sea birds from BP’s Gulf Coast oil spill is smaller than was anticipated, so far.
That is expected to change drastically for the worse.Scientists warn that as shifting weather and sea conditions conspire with the dynamics of avian life cycles, a tremendous number of birds will soon be put in jeopardy.In the coming weeks, millions of waterfowl and other birds that flock to the U.S. Gulf Coast on their annual fall migration will arrive in the region either to roost for the winter or to make brief stopovers en route farther south.With toxic crude still gushing from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico and streaks of the slick creeping inexorably farther inland, many more birds and other wildlife that nest, feed and find shelter on shore are likely to become casualties.To this point, we haven’t seen a lot of oiled wildlife based on the size of the spill, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Catherine Berg said. (But) there’s still a lot of oil out there. There’s still a lot of wildlife in the area.Birds migrating through the Gulf largely dodged a bullet in the spring when newly escaped oil from the ruptured BP wellhead took longer than expected to wash ashore.A lot of those birds were safe on their spring passage, but they won’t be safe on their fall passage, said Greg Butcher, bird conservation director for the National Audubon Society.Wildlife officials are taking various steps to minimize the risks, cordoning off rookeries with containment booms, paying farmers to flood fields that could serve as temporary bird-friendly wetlands, and considering new duck hunting restrictions.Authorities are even weighing the possibility of capturing baby pelicans to move them out of harm’s way, said Jay Holcomb, head of the International Bird Rescue Research Center.0Rehabilitation centers in the Gulf have treated over 800 oil-impaired birds and released at least 250 back to the wild.1The birds are tagged, and some have come through twice, said Holcomb, who oversees rescue operations out of the main treatment facility in Fort Jackson, Louisiana.2A lot of these birds … want to come back to their nest, Holcomb said. Most spills are over really quick, but this is like a new spill every day. It’s really discouraging.3BODY COUNTS4A container labeled Bird Carcass Collection Drop Box in a corner of the Fort Jackson center is a grim reminder of the difficulties the rehab teams face. Over 100 oiled birds brought there have died or been euthanized, Holcomb said.5To date, more than 2,000 dead and debilitated birds have been counted along the entire Gulf Coast — quadruple the number reported a month ago when the government first began posting its daily tallies.But Holcomb said partial or skeletal remains with no visible signs of oil exposure account for most of the 1,165 dead specimens found so far and unlikely were spill victims.The high proportion of older remains from birds that died of natural causes can probably be attributed to the intense efforts to find and catalog every animal that may have been killed or injured in the disaster.Those counts are more than just academic. They ultimately will help determine how much BP will be expected to pay into a compensation fund for wildlife damages.Dr. Michael Ziccardi of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network at the University of California at Davis, said dollar figures attached to birds counted as casualties of past spills have ranged from $500 to $20,000 per individual. Factors include whether the bird was an endangered species and whether any economic or commercial value could be ascribed to the animal.As disturbing as pictures of oiled wildlife have been, the 850 oil-fouled birds found alive to date and hundreds more known to have died pale in comparison to the 250,000 seabirds estimated to have perished from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.That may change as time goes on because more and more birds are probably going to be oiled, Holcomb said.STORMS AND SITTING DUCKSExperts say high winds and seas from any number of storms, including Hurricane Alex, could push more oil into the fragile patchwork of salt marshes, beaches, islands and inlets composing the Gulf’s ragged shoreline. The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season that officially began last month is expected to be one of the more active in recent years.Moreover, the Mississippi River’s drainage into the Gulf is starting to dissipate after a robust spring outflow — fed by heavy rains and Tennessee floodwaters upstream — that helped keep oil away from shore in the early days of the spill.As the river levels fall, the Gulf’s waters will be drawn back up toward the mouth of the Mississippi and farther into the delta, along with more of the oil on the surface.0Pelicans, gannets and other plunge-diving species were among the hardest-hit at the spill’s outset because they feed in open water — where the oil was then most present.1Shorebirds such as sandpipers, and wading species like egrets and herons, are next in line.2We have a lot of birds on rookeries. We have a lot of birds in the marshes, just roosting locally. Pretty soon, we’re going to get an influx of waterfowl as they come in here to molt post breeding season, Berg said.3After mating and nesting in freshwater inland areas, many ducks and geese venture to the coast to molt, losing their worn summer feathers, then growing winter plumage, before continuing their fall migration. In between, they are flightless.4Think about it. A whole bunch of ducks that can’t fly, on the water, Berg said.5ON A WING AND A PRAYERThe U.S. Gulf Coast straddles the Mississippi Flyway, one of the world’s major bird migration corridors and one that brings about 1 billion birds from more than 300 species through the region each year.Tens of millions of sandpipers and plovers from Alaska and Canada will be arriving within days on their way to Latin America, Butcher said. Most roost in the uplands away from shore however venture down to the beaches, mudflats and sand bars to feed at low tide.Herons and egrets that have stayed fairly stationary while nesting are now on the move with their young, potentially becoming more exposed to oil in the marshes, he said.Hoping to create safe, clean rest stops for migrating birds as alternatives to wetlands fouled by oil, a land conservation agency of the U.S. Agriculture Department announced this week it would pay growers to convert cropland to bird habitat by flooding rice fields.Gulf authorities have had success here and there in keeping oil out of some prime bird real estate.Hundreds of pelicans and other birds remain safe for now on Grand Terre Island, a major roosting ground in Louisiana’s Barataria Bay that has been encircled with soft and hard boom.Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser and other local officials made the island’s protection a top priority, though they acknowledge that a large storm could tear through the artificial barrier. Some of the surrounding marshes already have been fouled as oil continues to creep farther, especially during morning and evening tides.God forbid if we have another Katrina, we’ll be picking oil off Bourbon Street, Nungesser said.(Editing by usnsandra.malerSandra Maler)
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WASHINGTON -Edited by Norman Kincheloe- Cielo – Environmentalists and power companies are lobbying U.S. senators to put forward climate and energy legislation that would initially cap greenhouse emissions only from electric utilities, saying it’s the last best chance for passing a bill this year.
They site fears that a broader bill forcing manufacturers and the transportation sector to pay for emitting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases while the country struggles to emerge from recession would be too difficult this year.The reality is that comprehensive economy-wide cap and trade is not going to be passed by the Senate, Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp told reporters on Thursday.We are for the broadest possible cap that we can get, which means a bill that limits emissions at utilities first before moving to manufacturers later, he said.EDF is lobbying Senators Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, and Olympia Snowe, a Republican, to put forward a utility-only bill. The senators have talked about the idea for months.Staff for both senators have had ongoing discussions about the design of a utility-sector cap and trade program, but no decisions have been made on how to proceed, said Bingaman spokesman Bill Wicker.Senator John Kerry, a Democrat who co-wrote a climate bill unveiled in May, said this week a utility-only bill was one of the ideas being discussed on how to move forward with a bill that would put a price on greenhouse gas emissions.He was speaking after a meeting hosted by President Barack Obama and more than 20 other senators on the energy bill.The idea is supported by many companies in the utility business, which emits 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas pollution, as long as caps are put on the rest of the economy a few years later.We’re willing to start early, Jim Rogers, the chief executive of Duke Energy said in an interview, but we want it tied to an economy-wide because what good purpose is it if it ignores the other 60 percent0′MUCH BETTER THAN NOTHING’1Rogers said a utility-first bill would have to include a provision to halt or reduce the program if in three or four years caps on manufacturers did not materialize.2Many utilities see carbon limits as inevitable and want the laws to be written so they can invest billions of dollars now on hold into low-carbon energy sources like solar, wind and nuclear power.3Environmentalists said the BP Plc oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the country’s worst ever, could provide an opportunity to get an energy bill done.4A utility-only bill could be paired with measures to tighten safety and oversight on offshore drilling in a way that would make it hard for many lawmakers to vote against it.5One international energy official welcomed the idea of an utility-only bill, saying it could be a way of beginning to break a deadlock on global efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.To start with the electricity sector makes sense, Nobuo Tanaka, the head of the International Energy Agency, told reporters on Thursday. It is a very good way to start, much better than nothing.Still, as congressional elections loom in November, time is running short for debate on any complicated bill, especially one that could ultimately raise the cost of energy and household goods. Some Republicans insist even a utility-only measure is a national energy tax.EDF’s Krupp praised Obama for hard work on climate, including appearing at international talks last year and directing billions of dollars from the stimulus package to clean energy investments.But he said legislation will only pass if Obama pushes senators a little harder.If he doesn’t do that, without his leadership then everything he has done so far will lead to nothing.(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, usnrichard.cowanRichard Cowan and usntom.doggettTom Doggett editing by usntodd.easthamTodd Eastham)
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MONTERREY Mexico -by Adventa Kincheloe- Cielo – Hurricane Alex weakened to a tropical storm on Thursday as it moved across northeastern Mexico, dumping heavy rain that flooded a major city as U.S. companies began to restart halted oil production.
The first named storm of the 2010 Atlantic season was powerful enough to drench the industrial city of Monterrey well inland from the coast, killing three people, washing away chunks of surrounding highways and turning dry desert beds into turbulent rivers.Flood waters in Monterrey swept some zoo animals including buffalo from their pens, and efforts to round them up were delayed by the storm conditions. Floods sucked a 12-tonne statue of Mexico’s revered Virgin of Guadalupe off its perch on the bank of the city’s normally dry Santa Catarina river.The damage is enormous. A river burst its banks and we have people trapped on the roofs of their houses, said Mayor Martin Zamarripa of the town of Hualahuises, outside Monterrey.Tens of thousands of residents were without water and electricity and more than 4,000 people were moved to shelters in the city 140 miles south of McAllen, Texas.South Texas escaped much of the storm, but Alex flooded about 80 percent of the port city of Matamoros across from Brownsville, sent uprooted trees crashing down on parked cars and forced thousands to flee low-lying fishing villages.These rains could cause life-threatening flash floods, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said at 4 p.m. CDT (2100 GMT)Alex made landfall as a Category 2 Hurricane on the Tamaulipas coast around 9 p.m. CDT on Wednesday (0200 GMT Thursday).U.S. oil installations have not been hit by the storm, which formed near the Yucatan peninsula on Saturday, and oil companies began to ramp up production again after shutting down about a quarter of the Gulf’s output as a precaution.Companies had reported 342,224 barrels per day in oil production and 877 million cubic feet in gas output were shut.0The shut-in totals were down from the Wednesday peak of 26.3 percent, or 421,350 bpd of oil, and 14.4 percent of gas, or 919 Mmcf of gas.1BP Plc said on Thursday the passage of Alex slowed oil clean-up and containment efforts at its leaking deep-sea well off the Louisiana coast. BP said its Gulf oil and gas output was back to normal.[ID:nWNA4730]2As the oil industry came back to life in the Gulf, ship traffic resumed at Houston and Corpus Christi, Texas, the U.S. Coast Guard said.3Alex, which is expected to dissipate over Mexico’s central mountains overnight, had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and was located about 95 miles east-northeast of Zacatecas in central Mexico on Thursday afternoon.4At least three tornadoes swept through the Brownsville area on Wednesday, tossing over tractor-trailers however causing no major damage. Alex was the first and strongest Category 2 hurricane to occur in the month of June since 1966.5Mexican marines evacuated thousands of people from fishing communities along the Gulf coast and into shelters, but some refused to leave their homes even as water ran in under doors.Local authorities are on high alert in case of rainfall as high as 20 inches. Alex killed a dozen people in Central America over the weekend.(Additional reporting by Cyntia Barrera Diaz in Mexico City and Tomas Bravo in Matamoros editing by usnvicki.allenVicki Allen)
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HOUSTON - by Ad Ventista- Cielo – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has told Texas pollution regulators that flexible air-quality permits issued by the state since 1994 for refineries, chemical plants and power plants did not meet the standards set by the U.S. Clean Air Act.
The plants have continued operating under the permits as EPA and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality work to resolve the dispute which began in September.EPA is disapproving the permit program after determining that it allows companies to avoid certain federal clean air requirements by lumping emissions from multiple units under a single ‘cap’ rather than setting specific emission limits for individual pollution sources at their plants, the federal agency said in a statement on Wednesday.The 27 refineries in Texas will continue to operate as the EPA weighs changes the Texas commission has proposed to flexible permit rules. The EPA said on Wednesday it also was developing a program to convert the flexible permits into more detailed permits.The TCEQ is the Texas agency charged with implementing the federal Clean Air Act under EPA supervision. The commission has long been criticized as being lax in regulating the state’s petrochemical infrastructure.TCEQ Chairman Bryan Shaw said the flexible permits complied with the Clean Air Act.The Flexible Permitting Program has contributed to improved air quality in Texas, and if the state is prevented from using the program, air quality could actually suffer, Shaw said in a statement.Environmentalists praised the EPA’s decision.The Clean Air Act is the same law that polluters in all other 49 states have to follow, and it’s time that polluters in Texas follow it, too, said Luke Metzger of Environment Texas.Leading U.S. independent refiner Valero Energy Corp faulted the decision. San Antonio-based Valero has six Texas refineries, the most owned by a single company. The plants employ 2,700 people.0When the flex permit program was rolled out in 1994, EPA and environmental groups applauded it, and EPA approval seemed implicit, said Valero spokesman Bill Day in a statement. Now, 16 years later, EPA is reversing course, and our facilities are caught in the middle, creating significant uncertainty at a time when our economy can least afford it.1Texas refineries have a combined crude oil throughput of 4.75 million barrels, equal to 26.8 percent of national refining capacity.2(Reporting by Erwin Seba editing by Carol Bishopric)3
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