Thank goodness we have leaders like this to illuminate our path in the global fight against climate change.
Celebrating clean energy’s castoff
You would think that on Earth Day an energy source that is affordable, abundant, reliable and most importantly doesn’t create any emissions would be celebrated. For some reason, though, nuclear power remains a pariah in clean energy circles.
It is likely that one in five of you reading this online right now is doing it on a computer powered by nuclear energy. There are more than 100 reactors in 31 states supplying about 20 percent of our nation’s electricity. Unfortunately that number hasn’t changed much since go-go boots and bell bottoms were all the rage.
The sad fact for both the environment and the job market is that it has been more than 30 years since a new nuclear facility has been constructed in the United States.
On this Earth Day we need to commit to making nuclear power a larger part of our nation’s clean energy future...
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-a-environment/157345-celebrating-clean-energys-castoffYou might remember the author for his relentless grilling of BP CEO Hayward during the House hearings on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill**. His concern for the environment in general, and climate change in particular, is equaled by very few of our political leaders. At last we have the kind of leadership for nuclear power that it deserves in its fight against the insidious coal lobby - Smokin' Joe Barton.
Contributions from Oil Companies
In the 2007-2008 period of the 110th Congress, Joe Barton has accepted $196,040 from oil companies and $135,549 of those dollars were from industry political action committees. In addition to that, he has accepted $834,386 from oil companies between 2000 and 2007. Also, he has accepted $121,050 from the coal industry, and $119,800 of those dollars were from industry PACS. See oil voting record above.
Contributions from Coal Companies
In late October 2010, during the lead up to the Congressional midterm elections, The New York Times reported:
Coal industry spending on campaigns and lobbying is substantial and growing, although it is dwarfed by the far better-financed oil and gas, electric utility, financial services and health care lobbies.
Among the largest recipients of coal money are Republican and Democratic members who have sponsored or voted for measures to block new E.P.A. regulations on climate cahnge pollution from the burning of coal and oil and who are most likely to support efforts to block other new rules.
These members include Representatives Roy Blunt of Missouri and Joe L. Barton of Texas, both Republicans, and Nick J. Rahall II of West Virginia and Rick Boucher of Virginia, both Democrats. Each had received more than $25,000 in contributions as of early October, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign spending...
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Joe_Barton‘Smokey Joe’ Barton: Global Warming ‘Is A Net Benefit To Mankind’
December 15, 2009
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), nicknamed “Smokey Joe” for his persistent advocacy on behalf of polluters, sat for an interview with C-Span this weekend to discuss a variety of environmental issues.
Barton expressed concern that regulation of carbon dioxide pollution would restrict his “convenient” and “modern lifestyle.” “I don’t want to go back to the 1870s where my great-grandparents lived on a dry land cotton farm in Texas with no running water and no electricity and their power source was their own muscles or animal power,” Barton feared.
He then argued that the warming of the planet is actually a “net benefit” for humans:
"CO2 is odorless, colorless, tasteless – it’s not a threat to human health in terms of being exposed to it. We create it as we talk back and forth. So, and if you go beyond that, on a net basis, there’s ample evidence that warming generically — however it is caused — is a net benefit to mankind."
**Oh, and in case you are worried about holding the fission industry to the high safety standard we've all come to hope will characterize oversight from today forward, this is the grilling that devastated Tony Hayward and possibly prompted Hayward to opine that he "wanted his life back".
“I think it is a tragedy in the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown, with the attorney general of the United States, who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to protect the American people, participating in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that’s unprecedented in our nation’s history, which has no legal standing, which I think sets a terrible precedent for our nation’s future.”