In The News
Senator Inhofe to deliver a speech on global warming at CPAC tomorrow
Thursday March 1, 2007
WHO: Senator James M. Inhofe, Ranking Member of the EPW Committee
WHAT: Speech on global warming at CPAC
WHERE: The Omni Shoreham Hotel 2500 Calvert Street, NW Washington, DC 20008 (800) 843-6664
TIME: 9:00 a.m. (ET) Friday, March 2, 2007
SENATOR INHOFE OPENING STATEMENT: Hearing on State, Regional, and Local Perspectives on Global Warming
Thursday March 1, 2007
Today we are discussing State perspectives on climate change. As you know, the States are 50 laboratories of this country – each taking a unique policy pathway forward. In doing so, the experiments give federal policymakers examples of what policies work. Of course, the federal government also has examples of failed ideas it should avoid repeating at all costs – cap and trade ranks high among these.
Multiple approaches have been taken that purport to address climate change. Some states have clean coal R&D; programs, others have tax credits for renewable energy or hybrid cars, and still others have renewable portfolio standards. Most of these States have taken a pragmatic approach that recognizes the uniqueness of their circumstances.
A group of Northeastern States and California have enacted cap and trade programs to reduce emissions. Additionally, four Governors have joined Governor Schwarzenegger in pledging to come up with plans to reduce emissions. Today we will hear how ambitious and important they are, and what they plan to accomplish. But these programs haven’t accomplished anything. They are simply empty promises that won’t be kept and denials about costs that will surely be paid.
California is a good example of an empty promise – it passed a law bringing emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020. This baseline was not chosen arbitrarily, but to support the Kyoto Protocol, which also uses a 1990 baseline. Since Kyoto is the only cap and trade program that is under way, it’s worth asking – how well is that program working?
Of the 15 original EU countries, only two will meet their targets – Sweden and Britain, and Britain only because it eliminated its coal industry in the early 90s. And like most signatories, Canada and Japan won’t meet their targets either. The simple fact is that the U.S. has spent more federal dollars on basic science, as well as research and development, and done more to reduce our emissions rate than Europe since 2000. How did we do that? – By rejecting Kyoto’s cap and trade approach.
Global Warming on Mars & Cosmic Ray Research Are Shattering Media Driven "Consensus’
Thursday March 1, 2007
According to National Geographic: "Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.
‘The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars,’ Abdussamatov said."
This scientific research regarding Mars and the Sun, follows another new study about the impact of cosmic rays on the Earth’s climate. A release from the Danish National Space Center details the latest research from scientists from Denmark, Canada and Israel.
"Nir Shaviv of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, together with Ján Veizer of the Ruhr University and the University of Ottawa, link [Earth’s temperature] changes to the journey of the Sun and the Earth through the Milky Way Galaxy," the release stated.
The leader of Sun-climate research at the Danish National Space Center, Henrik Svensmark said, "The past 10 years have seen the reconnaissance of a new area of research by a small number of investigators.'"
DuPont's Actions Compared to Enron
Wednesday February 28, 2007
Fact: DuPont’s claims of environmental altruism have been questioned. According to the Wall Street Journal on January 26, 2007, "DuPont has been plunging into biofuels, the use of which would soar under a [mandatory C02] cap." The Wall Street Journal called cap-and-trade seeking corporations a "pack of climate profiteers." In addition, potential DuPont carbon credits coulud have an estimated market value of roughly $470 million per year.
CEI president Fred Smith explained that DuPont stands to benefit under even the most modest cap-and-trade proposals. "DuPont would realize more than a 900 percent return on investment," Smith said during a Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) hearing on February 13, 2007.
Senator Kit Bond noted the similarities between corporations clamoring for a cap-and-trade system and the failed energy giant Enron.
DuPont’s Actions Compared To Enron
Wednesday February 28, 2007
DuPont claims it joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) to support global warming cap-and-trade legislation out of concern for the Earth’s climate.
Fact: DuPont’s claims of environmental altruism have been questioned. According to the Wall Street Journal on January 26, 2007, "DuPont has been plunging into biofuels, the use of which would soar under a [mandatory C02] cap." The Wall Street Journal called cap-and-trade seeking corporations a "pack of climate profiteers." In addition, potential DuPont carbon credits coulud have an estimated market value of roughly $470 million per year.
CEI president Fred Smith explained that DuPont stands to benefit under even the most modest cap-and-trade proposals. "DuPont would realize more than a 900 percent return on investment," Smith said during a Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) hearing on February 13, 2007.
Senator Kit Bond noted the similarities between corporations clamoring for a cap-and-trade system and the failed energy giant Enron.
"This is not the first time that industry has worked alongside environmentalists. Indeed, this is not even the first time that some in industry have thrown their support toward carbon caps. Indeed, we need only think back to Clinton administration meetings with Enron’s Ken Lay over Kyoto treaty negotiations," Senator Bond said during the February 13, 2007 hearing.
"This Washington Post article ‘Enron Also Courted Democrats: Chairman Pushed Firm’s Agenda With Clinton White House’ chronicled how, ‘[i]n a White House meeting in 1997...Lay urged President Clinton and Vice President Gore to back a market-based approach to the problem of global warming - a strategy that a later Enron memo makes clear would be "good for Enron stock,"’" Senator Bond explained.
"This text bubble details why Enron officials later expressed elation at the binding carbon caps in the Kyoto protocol. According to the Washington Post: ‘an internal [Enron] memo said the Kyoto agreement, if implemented, would "do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States,"’" Senator Bond added.
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President Bush's Crawford TX Home is Model of Environmentally Friendly Living
Tuesday February 27, 2007
Chicago Tribune
Bush loves ecology --at home
April 29, 2001
By Rob Sullivan. Rob Sullivan is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles
The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude.
Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this "eco-friendly" dwelling use about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize.
EPW COMMITTEE TO HOLD FIELD HEARING IN LOUISIANA
Friday February 23, 2007
NYTIMES Book Review: The Problems in Modeling Nature, With Its Unruly Natural Tendencies (New York Times, 2/20/07)
Tuesday February 20, 2007
Orrin H. Pilkey, a coastal geologist and emeritus professor at Duke, recommends another approach: just dredge up a lot of sand and dump it on the beach willy-nilly. This “kamikaze engineering” might not last very long, he says, but projects built according to models do not usually last very long either, and at least his approach would not lull anyone into false mathematical certitude.
Now Dr. Pilkey and his daughter Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, a geologist in the Washington State Department of Geology, have expanded this view into an overall attack on the use of computer programs to model nature. Nature is too complex, they say, and depends on too many processes that are poorly understood or little monitored — whether the process is the feedback effects of cloud cover on global warming or the movement of grains of sand on a beach.
'Advice to limit seafood consumption could actually be detrimental,' Scientists Conclude
Tuesday February 20, 2007
"Drawn from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a project involving about 14,000 women and their kids, they show that the benefits of eating most types of seafood during pregnancy far outweigh any risks."
"Indeed, skimping on seafood during pregnancy appears to produce the very problems that scientists feared could occur from eating too much seafood containing mercury. 'Advice to limit seafood consumption could actually be detrimental,' concludes the study's team, which includes scientists from the University of Bristol."
"The ALSPAC report is the third in recent years to find few or no adverse effects from consuming most types of seafood during pregnancy."
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...Pregnant? Say Yes to Seafood (The Washington Post, 2/20/07; HE01)
Tuesday February 20, 2007
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...
The Washington Post
Pregnant? Say Yes to Seafood
By Sally Squires
Tuesday, February 20, 2007; HE01
Pregnant and nursing women, as well as those who want to conceive, are advised in the United States to avoid certain types of seafood and to limit consumption of other varieties as a way to reduce potential ill effects from mercury and other contaminants.
But a new report from a huge, ongoing research project in the United Kingdom suggests that if women skimp on seafood during pregnancy it may be detrimental to their children.
Feeling a bit like a fish that flip-flops out of water?
Conflicting nutrition advice can be confusing, particularly for pregnant women, who often feel that they must become nutritional experts overnight as they start to eat for two. Just ask Eric Rimm, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, whose female relatives were so worried about the reports of contaminants in fish that they were ready to give up all seafood when they became pregnant. "I said, 'No, no, no, you have to eat fish,' " Rimm relates. "There's so much more benefit than risk."
The latest findings, published last week in the journal the Lancet, confirm his advice. Drawn from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a project involving about 14,000 women and their kids, they show that the benefits of eating most types of seafood during pregnancy far outweigh any risks.
What surprised scientists most is that women who ate 12 ounces or less of seafood per week -- the amount that pregnant and nursing mothers are advised to stick to by the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency -- "were almost 50 percent more likely to have children with low verbal IQ scores compared with women who exceeded the advisory," says Joseph R. Hibbeln, a researcher at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and co-author of the report.
At age 3, children whose mothers ate less seafood during pregnancy were more likely to have social and communication problems with their peers, Hibbeln says. By ages 7 and 8, they tended to have more behavioral problems and trouble with fine motor skills and were more likely to have lower academic scores, Hibbeln says.
Indeed, skimping on seafood during pregnancy appears to produce the very problems that scientists feared could occur from eating too much seafood containing mercury. "Advice to limit seafood consumption could actually be detrimental," concludes the study's team, which includes scientists from the University of Bristol.
The ALSPAC report is the third in recent years to find few or no adverse effects from consuming most types of seafood during pregnancy.
Will the current advice change? That's not yet known. The EPA and the FDA still have to review the latest findings. And some scientists, including Rimm, think that it's too soon to do more than reword the advice so women understand that 12 ounces per week is a goal, not a limit. That way, he says, women won't "think that they should be eating zero to 12 ounces per week."
Here's a sampling of the latest nutritional advice for women who are pregnant, nursing or planning to conceive:
Choose seafood lowest in mercury. The more variety, the better. Don't sweat the nutritional consequences of wild vs. farmed fish. A recent Harvard School of Public Health report showed that farm-raised fish contains as much, if not more, healthy omega-3 fatty acids as wild species do. Good choices include salmon, herring, sardines, anchovies, catfish, shrimp and light tuna. Skip shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish (found mostly in Hawaii).
Limit albacore tuna to six ounces per week. This large species is highest in mercury, which is why there is widespread agreement that it should be avoided by women of childbearing ages and by young children. Also skip fried fish, especially from fast-food restaurants. It contains few omega-3 fatty acids and may have unhealthy trans fats.
Avoid raw fish, steak tartare and any other raw meat, poultry and dairy products. That means sushi, clams on the half shell, prosciutto, lox, smoked meats and various meat jerkies. All can be sources of listeria, a bacteria that sickens about 2,500 people annually and is particularly dangerous for pregnant women and their fetuses. For the same reason, skip refrigerated pâté and other meat spreads, as well as unpasteurized dairy products. These include cheeses made from raw, unpasteurized milk such as brie, Camembert, feta, blue cheese and queso blanco (as well as Mexican-style soft cheeses).
Eat these foods "only if the package says they are made from pasteurized milk," advises W. Allan Walker, director of Harvard Medical School's Division of Nutrition and author of "The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating During Pregnancy" (McGraw-Hill, $16.95). Skip them at restaurants where you can't be sure they are from pasteurized milk, Walker advises.
Abstain from alcohol. There is no safe level for pregnant women. At Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., registered dietitian Trudy Theiss advises women trying to conceive to be teetotalers, because it takes at least a couple of weeks to confirm a pregnancy.
Reheat deli meats and hot dogs. Make sure they are steaming hot, Theiss advises, so that they reach a temperature of about 160 degrees, the level needed to kill listeria and other bacteria.
Go easy on the caffeine. Up to 300 milligrams per day seems to be safe, Theiss notes. That's the amount found in one or two small cups of coffee.
And if you like your beverages sweet but don't want added sugar, choose sugar substitutes wisely. Splenda does not seem to cross the placenta, Walker says, making it a safe choice for pregnant women who want to use a sugar substitute.
But skip saccharin, a sweetener that is a weak carcinogen, as well as stevia, which is sold as a dietary supplement but has not been approved as a food ingredient by the FDA. Also go easy on aspartame, sold as NutraSweet and Equal, since the FDA sets daily levels based on body weight.