Published on Thursday, February 21, 2013 by Common Dreams

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/02/21-0

by Brendan Smith

The American labor movement is once again facing a most controversial issue — the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. While the KXL debate has largely centered around the environmental risks, from labor’s perspective opening up the Canadian Tar Sands is often seen as an economic, not an environmental, issue. And it’s no wonder: Construction unemployment is double the national average and, from a worker’s perspective, Keystone jobs will be good-paying union jobs in an economy that increasingly offers up only minimum-wage service work.

As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka explained last year, “mass unemployment makes everything harder and feeds fear. . . opponents of the pipeline [need to] recognize that construction jobs are real jobs, good jobs.” KXL advocates have worked hard to capitalize on this fear by arguing that labor must choose between creating jobs and protecting the planet.

While labor leaders weigh the pros and cons of building KXL, they should keep in mind that the pipeline is as much a threat to our economy as it is to our planet. After a year of extreme weather — at an extreme cost to the economy — this age old jobs vs. environment debate is emerging as a false choice. Hurricanes, floods, and droughts are already having a devastating effect on American jobs, and that is nothing compared to what will happen if we throw open the spigot to the tar sands from Canada, considered the dirtiest oil in the world.

Here are 5 reasons why building the Keystone pipeline is bad for the economy — and workers.

1. Building the Keystone pipeline and opening up the Tar Sands will negatively impact national and local economies: Burning the recoverable tar sands oil will increase the earth’s temperature by a minimum of 2 degree Celsius, which NYU Law School’s Environmental Law Center estimates could permanently cut the US GDP by 2.5%. At the same time state and local economies are already buckling under the real-time economic effects of our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. In the past two years, the vast majority of U.S. counties – 67 percent – were affected by at least one of the eleven $1 billion dollar extreme weather events. Superstorm Sandy alone caused an estimated $80 billion in damage. The drought that affected 80% of US farmland last summer destroyed a quarter of the US corn crop and did at least $20 billion damage to the economy.

2. The same fossil fuel interests pushing the Keystone pipeline have been cutting, not creating, jobs: Despite generating $546 billion in profits between 2005 and 2010, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP reduced their U.S. workforce by 11,200 employees over that period. In 2010 alone, the top five oil companies slashed their global workforce by 4,400 employees — the same year executives paid themselves nearly $220 million. But at least those working in the industry as a whole get paid high wages, right? Turns out that 40 percent of U.S oil-industry jobs consist of minimum-wage work at gas stations. Instead of bankrolling an industry that is laying off workers and threatening our economic future, isn’t it time to take the billions in subsidies going to oil companies and invest instead in a sector that both creates jobs and protects the planet?

3. Unemployment will rise: According to Mark Zandi, the Chief Economist of Moody’s Analytics: “Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the job market in November, slicing an estimated 86,000 jobs from payrolls.” In the wake of Hurricane Irene, the number of workers filing unemployment claims in Vermont went from 731 before Irene to 1,331 two weeks afterwards. Hurricane Katrina wiped out 129,000 jobs in the New Orleans region — nearly 20 percent. For the U.S. economy as a whole, 2011 cost US taxpayers $52 billion.

4. Poor and working people will be disproportionately affected: KXL and projects like it result in disproportionately negative impact on already struggling working families. According to a recent report by the Center for American Progress called “Heavy Weather: How Climate Destruction Harms Middle- and Lower-Income Americans, lower-and middle income households are disproportionately affected by the most expensive extreme weather events. Sixteen states were afflicted by five or more extreme weather events in 2011-12. Households in disaster-declared counties in these states earn $48,137, or seven percent below the U.S. median income.

5. Building the sustainable economy, not the Keystone pipeline, will create far more jobs: Our nation is in desperate need of jobs. Approving the Keystone pipeline locks our nation into a trajectory of guaranteed job loss and threatens the stability of the US economy. Why keep the “job-killing” course, when the alternative-energy path is already out-performing other sectors of the economy. For example, the solar industry continues to be an engine of job growth — creating jobs six times faster than the overall job market. Research by the Solar Foundation shows a 13 percent growth in high-skilled solar jobs spanning installations, sales, marketing, manufacturing and software development — bringing total direct jobs to 119,000 in the sector. And according to the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, investment in a green infrastructure program would create nearly four times as many jobs as an equal investment in oil and gas.

A study by Synapse Energy Economics developed a Transition Scenario for the electric power industry based on reducing energy consumption, phasing out high-emission power plants, and building new, lower-emission energy facilities. The study estimated the number of “job years” — one new worker employed for one year — that would be created by the Transition Scenario over a decade:

444,000 job-years for construction workers, equivalent to 44,400 construction workers working full time for the entire decade.
90,000 job-years for operations and maintenance workers, equivalent to about 9,000 full time workers employed over the decade.
3.1 million indirect jobs for people designing, manufacturing, and delivering materials and jobs in local economies around the country induced by spending by workers hired in the Transition Scenario.

Organized labor is right to demand that public policy pay attention to our desperate need for jobs. But the Keystone XL pipeline will only make our jobs crisis worse by making our climate crisis worse. Plus, there are lots of pipelines that need fixing. Construction workers can be put to work rebuilding our crumbling natural gas transmission pipeline system — this will create good union jobs and cut carbon emissions. And these same workers can rebuild our crumbling water infrastructure. If labor is going to fight for jobs, let’s fight for jobs that build the future we want for ourselves and our children, not ones that will destroy that future.
Brendan Smith

Brendan Smith is an oysterman and green labor activist. He is co-founder of the Labor Network for Sustainability and Global Labor Strategies, and a consulting partner with the Progressive Technology Project. He has worked previously for Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — both as campaign director and staff on the U.S. House Banking Committee — as well as a broad range of trade unions, grassroots groups and progressive politicians. He is a graduate of Cornell law school.

http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Thousands-protest-Keystone-XL-pipeline-4286432.php#ixzz2LkN8g4y3
Stephanie M. Lee
Updated 8:28 am, Monday, February 18, 2013

Representatives from the Center for Biological Diversity join the protest in San Francisco.
Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

Protesters rally in Justin Herman Plaza to protest the Keystone pipeline as part of a climate change issue.
Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

Thousands of people rallied in downtown San Francisco on Sunday to urge President Obama to reject construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, an action they said would prove he is committed to fighting global warming.

The demonstration across from the Ferry Building was held at the same time as similar events in cities including Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles. The main event in Washington, D.C., drew tens of thousands of supporters in what was billed as the largest climate change rally in U.S. history.

Organizers of the San Francisco protest estimated that more than 4,000 people gathered to condemn the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline, which would run nearly 2,000 miles to connect Canada’s oil sands to refineries around the Gulf of Mexico. Because it would cross an international border, it requires Obama’s approval.

“We’re asking him to reject Keystone XL as one way to move forward on climate change,” said Jess Dervin-Ackerman, a conservation organizer with the San Francisco Bay chapter of the Sierra Club, which planned the event along with 350.org, the Natural Resources Defense Council and several other groups.

Opponents of the pipeline, including Democrats and environmentalists, argue the project could contaminate land and water along its route, particularly in Nebraska, and release high concentrations of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by increasing oil production from tar sands.

But proponents say the company behind the pipeline, TransCanada, has agreed to obey 57 special conditions designed to keep the pipeline secure from leaks. The line would create thousands of jobs and strengthen the country’s energy independence, they contend.

Canada views Keystone as a crucial step in furthering oil production and growing its economy. It would be the longest oil pipeline outside Russia and China, able to transport more than half a million barrels of crude oil daily.
Have Obama’s back

But activists who rallied in San Francisco said Obama would be hypocritical to give Keystone the green light after promising in his inaugural address and State of the Union that he would work to combat climate change.

“I think he has his heart in the right place on climate change, but I think he’s going to have to show tremendous backbone to make any progress on this issue,” said Karen Kramer, 54, a lawyer and an artist in Oakland. “I hope for everyone’s sake he can find the backbone. We’re here to show him we have his back on this.”

Kramer and her mother, Joan Allen, 78, a retired adoption worker in Berkeley, were part of a crowd that marched around One Market Plaza. The block contains an office of the U.S. State Department, which is responsible for permitting infrastructure projects that cross a border.

They chanted and held signs with slogans such as “Stop Tar Sands,” “Tar Sands = Game Over For Us All,” “Stop Keystone XL” and “Climate Action: It’s Our Obligation.”
Preservation fight

They gathered in Justin Herman Plaza to listen to speakers who included San Francisco District 11 Supervisor John Avalos, who touted CleanPowerSF, the city’s proposed clean-energy program, and his call for the city’s retirement system to divest from fossil fuel companies.

The speakers said that battling Keystone, along with pushing to reduce coal burning and hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, was critical in preserving the environment for future generations.

That message resonated with Woody Little, 18, a UC Berkeley freshman who held a sign that read “Love Each Other, Love the Earth.” Born one day too late to vote for Obama in the last election, he said he wanted climate change to be one of the president’s achievements.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Why would we be accessing this deposit, these tar sands’ dirty oil, when there’s so much out there to be used already?”

Stephanie M. Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: slee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @stephaniemlee

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Thousands-protest-Keystone-XL-pipeline-4286432.php#ixzz2LkMfzUIB

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20130211/ARTICLES/130219934/1350?Title=Feds-open-to-expanding-oil-drilling-protection-for-North-Coast

Rachel and Richard have it right; go all the way to Oregon with the sanctuary boundaries. DV

Santa Rosa, California

By GUY KOVNER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Monday, February 11, 2013 at 6:02 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, February 11, 2013 at 6:02 p.m.

Federal officials say they are open to suggestions from the public that more of the North Coast should be protected from offshore oil drilling under a proposed expansion of two marine sanctuaries.

“We want to know the scope of the area we should be looking at,” said Maria Brown, superintendent of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.

Brown and other sanctuary officials will attend the second of three public meetings on the sanctuary plan at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Point Arena, followed by the third meeting Wednesday in Gualala.

Officials are interested in the “boundary options” people might propose, as well as any “additional regulations” in the protected areas, Brown said.

Rachel Binah of Little River in Mendocino County, a longtime foe of offshore oil development, said the sanctuaries should extend to the Oregon border or beyond.

“I think the whole West Coast should be protected,” said Binah, who plans to attend both meetings.

Mendocino County Supervisor Dan Gjerde, who plans to attend the Gualala meeting, wants the sanctuaries to cover the entire Mendocino coast, an area he described as “pristine.”

Oil drilling is not “imminent this year” on the North Coast, but experience indicates the “only way to resolve it is to create permanent protection,” he said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced in December plans to more than double the size of the Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones sanctuaries, extending their northern border from Bodega Bay more than 60 miles north to Point Arena in southern Mendocino County.

The expansion, which does not need legislative approval, affords coastal waters permanent protection from energy development, officials say.

The proposal got a warm reception last month at the first public meeting in Bodega Bay.

Officials said the “scientific justification” for the proposed expansion is that it would protect a biologically rich upwelling system that starts at Point Arena and sustains an abundance of fish, birds and mammals along the Sonoma Coast and down to the Farallon Islands outside San Francisco Bay.

Former Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, who retired this year, embraced the sanctuary expansion plan backed by the Obama administration, acknowledging she could not get it through the House and Senate.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Binah, a Democratic National Committee member. But Binah said it was “kind of a slap in the face” that the proposal only goes to Point Arena.

Binah’s opposition to oil drilling dates back to a 1988 public hearing in Fort Bragg where more than 2,000 people protested an Interior Department plan to open 1.1 million acres of the North Coast to oil and natural gas development.

Binah said it became known as “the day California said no” and made the state’s offshore oil fight a national issue.

Four years later, then-Rep. Leon Panetta, R-Carmel Valley, got the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary authorized, covering 276 miles of the coast south of the Gulf of the Farallones sanctuary.

“We got nothing,” Binah said.

Gjerde, whose supervisorial district covers the coast from Caspar to Humboldt County, said he was a Fort Bragg High School student in 1988 and covered the anti-oil protest for the school newspaper.

He said he will offer a resolution calling for the entire coast to be included in the sanctuaries at the Mendocino County Board of Supervisor’s Feb. 26 meeting.

Tupper Hull, spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association, said his group’s members have expressed no interest in tapping North Coast oil deposits.

“I don’t think there is much oil there,” he said.

But Richard Charter, a veteran oil drilling opponent, said the industry has eyed oil deposits offshore from Bodega Bay, Sea Ranch, Point Arena, Fort Bragg and the Lost Coast in Humboldt County.

Those deposits are in a geologic formation called Monterey shale and would be tapped by the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing known as fracking, Charter said.

_________________________

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

February 14, 2013

The world’s largest offshore drilling contractor has been sentenced to pay $400 million in criminal penalities
By MarEx

PHOTO: United States Environmental Services workers prepare oil containment booms for deployment following the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spil – April 2010.

Second Corporate Guilty Plea Obtained by Deepwater Horizon Task Force, Second-largest Criminal Clean Water Act Fines and Penalties in U.S. History

Transocean Deepwater Inc. pleaded guilty today to a violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA) for its illegal conduct leading to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, and was sentenced to pay $400 million in criminal fines and penalties, Attorney General Holder announced today.

In total, the amount of fines and other criminal penalties imposed on Transocean are the second-largest environmental crime recovery in U.S. history – following the historic $4 billion criminal sentence imposed on BP Exploration and Production Inc. in connection with the same disaster.

“Transocean’s guilty plea and sentencing are the latest steps in the department’s ongoing efforts to seek justice on behalf of the victims of the Deepwater Horizon disaster,” said Attorney General Holder. “Most of the $400 million criminal recovery – one of the largest for an environmental crime in U.S. history – will go toward protecting, restoring and rebuilding the Gulf Coast region.”

“The Deepwater Horizon explosion was a senseless tragedy that could have been avoided,” said Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Eleven men died, and the Gulf’s waters, shorelines, communities and economies suffered enormous damage. With today’s guilty plea, BP and Transocean have now both been held criminally accountable for their roles in this disaster.”

Transocean’s guilty plea was accepted, and the sentence was imposed, by U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo of the Eastern District of Louisiana. During the guilty plea and sentencing proceeding, Judge Milazzo found, among other things, that the sentence appropriately reflects Transocean’s role in the offense conduct, and that the criminal payments directed to the National Academy of Sciences and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation are appropriately designed to help remedy the harm to the Gulf of Mexico caused by Transocean’s actions. The judge also noted that the fines and five year probationary period provide just punishment and adequate deterrence.

Transocean pleaded guilty to an information, previously filed in federal court in New Orleans, charging the company with violating the CWA. During the guilty plea proceeding today, Transocean admitted that members of its crew onboard the Deepwater Horizon, acting at the direction of BP’s well site leaders, known as “company men,” were negligent in failing to investigate fully clear indications that the Macondo well was not secure and that oil and gas were flowing into the well.

The criminal resolution is structured to directly benefit the Gulf region. Under the order entered by the court pursuant to the plea agreement, $150 million of the $400 million criminal recovery is dedicated to acquiring, restoring, preserving and conserving – in consultation with appropriate state and other resource managers – the marine and coastal environments, ecosystems and bird and wildlife habitat in the Gulf of Mexico and bordering states harmed by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This portion of the criminal recovery will also be directed to significant barrier island restoration and/or river diversion off the coast of Louisiana to further benefit and improve coastal wetlands affected by the spill. An additional $150 million will be used to fund improved oil spill prevention and response efforts in the Gulf through research, development, education and training.

Transocean was also sentenced, according to the plea agreement, to five years of probation – the maximum term of probation permitted by law.

A separate proposed civil consent decree, which resolves the United States’ civil CWA penalty claims, imposes a record $1 billion civil Clean Water Act penalty, and requires significant measures to improve performance and prevent recurrence, is pending before U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier of the Eastern District of Louisiana.

The charges and allegations pending against individuals in related cases are merely accusations, and those individuals are considered innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The guilty plea and sentencing announced today are part of the ongoing criminal investigation by the Deepwater Horizon Task Force into matters related to the April 2010 Gulf oil spill. The Deepwater Horizon Task Force, based in New Orleans, is supervised by Assistant Attorney General Breuer and led by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John D. Buretta, who serves as the director of the task force. The task force includes prosecutors from the Criminal Division and the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice; the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana, as well as other U.S. Attorneys’ Offices; and investigating agents from: the FBI; Environmental Protection Agency, Criminal Investigative Division; Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Inspector General; Department of Interior, Office of Inspector General; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of Law Enforcement; U.S. Coast Guard; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.

This case was prosecuted by Deepwater Horizon Task Force Director John D. Buretta, Deputy Directors Derek A. Cohen and Avi Gesser, and task force prosecutors Richard R. Pickens II, Scott M. Cullen, Colin Black and Rohan Virginkar.

SOURCE: DOJ
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.islandpacket.com/2013/02/14/2381228/beaufort-mayor-offshore-oil-drilling.html

By BRIAN HEFFERNAN
bheffernan@islandpacket.com
843-706-8142
Published Thursday, February 14, 2013

Talk of offshore drilling strikes some in the Lowcountry as an unnecessary risk to the environment and tourism industry.

“Why would we risk and threaten the golden egg when there is no seeming emergency and when it has a potentially detrimental environmental impact that would kill that golden egg of tourism?” Beaufort Mayor Billy Keyserling said.

Keyserling said he would rather invest in South Carolina’s wind and mainland natural gas industries than expose the coastline to oil-spill disasters like the Gulf Coast has faced.
“I think it poses an undue threat to the quality of life to the people who live here and the people who visit here and those who want to live here,” he said.

Hilton Head Island Mayor Drew Laughlin said he would need more details about the locations of the drill sites and regulations governing them before making up his mind about the issue.

“Experience shows us that there are risks associated with offshore drilling,” he added. “Just ask the people in the Gulf.”

Read more here: http://www.islandpacket.com/2013/02/14/2381228/beaufort-mayor-offshore-oil-drilling.html#storylink=cpy

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http://www.wnct.com/story/21217398/3-govs-seek-reconsideration-of-offshore-oil-gas

WNCT

McCrory among 3 govs that want offshore oil drilling

Posted: Feb 15, 2013 8:35 AM PST
Updated: Feb 15, 2013 8:35 AM PST
By WNCT STAFF – email

RALEIGH, N.C. –
Governor Pat McCrory is teaming up with other governors to begin offshore drilling.

And he’s hoping the federal government will join in.

McCrory made that clear in a letter to President Obama’s administration. Virginia governor Bob McDonnell and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley are both on board.

They want the administration to revise its current policy to one committed to taking advantage of our natural resources, as long as we do it safely.

The governor says energy production off our shores would create 140,000 jobs over the next 20 years.

Special thanks to Richard Charter