DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

David Lazarus of the SF Chronicle agrees with my assessment of the recent CAFE mileage-standards revision in the Senate:

“This is a good day for American consumers and the environment, since we finally have gotten on the right path to better fuel economy,” said California Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, saw things differently. “This is not a win, nor is it a step forward for fuel economy, consumers or the environment,” she said.

Claybrook was former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Read more of her comments on the new CAFE standards.

There’s more of the Lazarus piece that’s worth reading:

Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry group, called the goals of HR6 [a more aggressive version of the bill that finally passed] “wildly extreme,” and said such ambitious fuel-efficiency standards “would eliminate some of the most popular vehicles on the road today and devastate both consumer choice and the auto industry.”

Probably not. What they’d do is compel Detroit to produce vehicles that reflect this nation’s increasingly precarious energy security and send a message to overseas oil producers that we no longer intend to dance to their tune.

Significantly higher fuel-efficiency requirements would also prompt engineers in Detroit and in universities nationwide to do what this country has always done better than all other countries — innovate.

In more positive news about reducing oil consumption, Google .org (the philanthropic arm of Google, Inc) has given $1 million in grants to promote use of plug-in hybrids. Here are the grant recipients.

Google.org has pledged another $10M to to fund development, adoption and commercialization of plug-ins, fully electric cars and related vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology.

Excerpt from a campaign update from my favorite eco-charity, the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Late last night the Union of Concerned Scientists and our allies won a major victory on fuel economy! Thanks in part to your numerous emails and phone calls, the Senate voted yesterday to substantially increase the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard of America’s cars and trucks for the first time in over 30 years — setting a target of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

I’m all for raising CAFE standards, but this sounds like a pretty feeble compromise. I drove a car in 2004 — nearly 3 full years ago — that measured 53.9 mpg over a 4-5 hour commute. Yet in 13 more years, the best average our politicians are willing to demand is 35 mpg?

I suppose what makes this newsworthy is, as noted above, that the numbers have moved at all. The original CAFE standards were proposed in 1975 (when the average fleet mileage was apparently a dismal 14 mpg) and never amended, except for a period in the late 1980s when mileage minimums were lowered. Detroit, you go girl!

Answering the call (note: requires login) for slogan suggestions for deadelephant.org, I humbly submit:

(Click here if it doesn’t make sense.)

Update 2006-10-13: This Foley Family Values bumper sticker design is now available as a downloadable PDF; click the image.

I sort of hate to kick the GOP while they’re down… but on the other hand, what a pack of assholes.

Check out deadelephant.org for a stack of great bumper stickers that say what you’ve been thinking for the past six years. Print them at home for $nada or buy the real thing for $cheap.

The cover of the weekend’s Parade Magazine asks, “Who is the world’s worst dictator?”

I scanned the collage of headshots for George W. Bush. True story.

(No, I don’t believe he’s as bad as the 10 guys in the article. He’s only imprisoned and tortured a few dozen people, most of whom were not even US citizens. He will need to work much harder to make next year’s lineup.)

In related news, I really enjoyed Molly Ivins’ editorial, I will not support Hillary Clinton for president (mirrors) , especially this part:

The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush’s tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do “whatever it takes” to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

The new book is out. Do your local democracy a favor and buy a copy today. It’s sure to induce fits of stammering and denials from anyone who’s still a fan of the Bush Regime.

Peter Phillips, the director of Project Censored, told me last Fall that the project’s bandwidth fees skyrocket this time of year, as the world tunes into the website for the annual book release. So, although you can read the book online, ~$19 would go a long way toward ensuring the project’s success.

Here’s just one of the eye-opening stories you didn’t read about in the mainstream press: The US is spending more money in Iraq than on securing the homeland. National security spending has risen just 4% since September 11, 2001. “There are many [U.S.] chemical plants that have no fencing requirements, cameras, and no guards.” We have a “department of Homeland Security,” but whose homeland is getting secured? Hint: I won’t tell you its name, but its initials are not U, S, or A.

According to the Independent (article was originally here but now pay-per-view; see archived copy here):

Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US government official has told The Independent on Sunday. And, he added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger.

In an exclusive interview, Hugh Kaufman, an expert on toxic waste and responses to environmental disasters at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the way the polluted water was being pumped out was increasing the danger to health.

The pollution was far worse than had been admitted, he said, because his agency was failing to take enough samples and was refusing to make public the results of those it had analysed. “Inept political hacks” running the clean-up will imperil the health of low-income migrant workers by getting them to do the work.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone with a memory; the Bush Administration did the same thing after the WTC attacks in 2001:

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available.

That finding is included in a report released Friday by the Office of the Inspector General of the EPA. It noted that some of the agency’s news releases in the weeks after the attack were softened before being released to the public: Reassuring information was added, while cautionary information was deleted.

Hugh Kaufman has worked at the EPA for 30 years. He investigated Love Canal in 1977. His credentials as an expert on toxic waste would be difficult to question.

In contrast, President Bush is well-known for suppressing and distorting science to suit political ends.

In a radio interview with Living on Earth, Kaufman describes the scope of the problem:

…first of all you have a large amount of hazardous materials in the area. Industrial discharges to the sewers have now been released. Sewage that would go into the sewers and into wastewater treatment plants, all of that is being released. You have oil and gas from gasoline stations, and waste oils that have been released. You’ve got household hazardous materials; you’ve got pesticides; you’ve got chemicals. There’s a lot of hazardous materials storage areas in the area. So what you have is a witch’s brew of water that not only contains bacteria and viruses from sewage, but you also have heavy metals and other toxic hazardous materials.

Any sane recovery plan will need to address these problems.

This is just too good:

A businessman has asked the town of Weare, N.H., to seize the home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter in order to build a hotel and museum on the property. (local mirror)

Seriously, go read the whole thing. It’s the best thing you’ll see all week.

“Just Desserts.” Ha!

(Backstory.)

Quoting an emergency dispatch from the California Solar Center:

The California Million Solar Roofs bill (SB1), which would provide ten years of incentives to help Californians install one million solar rooftops by 2018, is facing a critical vote in the State Legislature. On Monday May 23, the bill goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee for a vote.

The opponents of this bill argue that California can’t afford to provide incentives for solar energy. But when all the costs of our dependence on fossil fuels are taken into account, the truth is that we can’t afford not to. Please let the Senate Appropriations Committee know how important it is for California to become the cradle of the clean energy technologies of tomorrow and pass the California Million Solar Roofs bill.

There are two ways to contact California’s senators:

• the renewableenergyaccess.com site
• the Union of Concerned Scientists’ solar action center

Earlier this month, Bush repealed the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, opening up nearly 60 million acres of formerly protected national forests to the possibility of development.

Arnold Schwarzenegger declared on May 5 that California’s roadless lands would remain protected:

California’s forests are one of our state’s most treasured and valued resources. I am committed to protecting the vibrant health and sustainable future of our forests. In keeping with that commitment and the assurances we have from the U.S. Forest Service, roadless areas in California will remain roadless.

This is a big win for generations of Californians and the state’s remaining 4.4M acres of forest land. And it’s a curious turnaround for Schwarzenegger, who previously said he wouldn’t do what he just did.

Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Utah governors: we’re looking at you.

For more information, see the Chron’s piece on this issue, Bush carves up the backcountry (in which George Bush is dubbed “Chainsaw in Chief”).

According to the Chronicle:

The last 58.5 million acres of untouched national forests, which President Clinton had set aside for protection, were opened to possible logging, mining and other commercial uses by the Bush administration on Thursday.

The Heritage Forsts Campaign team is at the front lines of this battle. Their homepage summarizes the news:

The Bush Administration has declared that it is repealing the Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

The repeal, announced by the Administration at a press teleconference with Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, ends years of speculation over the fate of a policy that protected millions of acres of national forests. It effectively ends all protection for these forests and should be considered a huge victory for the timber and mining industries.

On the one hand I have a hard time getting excited about fax laws, because I don’t have a fax machine. On the other hand, I remember what a pain in the ass it was to get unsolicited faxes when we used our main voice line to receive the occasional fax from Europe a few years back.

Unsolicited faxes are currently illegal, and have been since 1991, since the passage of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. This doesn’t prevent some companies from sending them, nor does it prevent other companies from buying unsolicited faxes by the boxload in hopes of winning legal judgements against fax-spammers.

I believe the problem is that the TCPA was not specific enough in spelling out when fax communications are legal; for example, according to Sen. Lautenberg (NJ), “[the TCPA] generally prohibits anyone from faxing unsolicited advertisements without prior expressed invitation or permission from the recipient.”

What does “prior expressed permission” mean?

The TCPA stands as a law with its existing language, but the FCC published an “interpretation” of the law in October 1992. According to Lautenberg, the FCC’s interpretation contains this footnote: “facsimile transmission from persons or entities who have an Established Business Relationship with the recipient can be deemed to being invited or permitted by the recipient.” (Lautenberg’s speech can be found in the video transcript of a Senate meeting, at 41:15 in this RealVideo stream.)

Does this footnote to an “interpretation” constitute an amendment or revision to a law passed by Congress? I wouldn’t think so, but lots of junk-fax companies apparently disagree, or there would be no such thing as “junk faxers.”

Curiously, the courts disagree with the FCC’s interpretation, according to an editorial in the Mercury News: “courts have repeatedly rebuked the FCC, saying that Congress had not authorized the [EBR interpretation].”

In response, the FCC revised its initial TCPA interpretation in July 2003, requiring that companies have written consent prior to faxing solicitations. This is a neat idea, not only that I’d have to opt in, but that I’d have to do it in writing. But it places an unreasonable burden on business owners and consumers alike: if I want a written bid from a vendor, I wouldn’t want to have to fax or mail a request for it.

Enter Representative Fred Upton (R, Michigan)… he proposed Senate bill 714, which would make the FCC’s initial footnoted interpretation into law. In other words, according to the Mercury News editorial, “any business you’ve ever walked into, visited online, called or bought from would be exempt from” the 1991 junk-fax ban.

EBRs are evil, especially for large companies such as banks, hotels, and chain stores, for they often have tens to hundreds of affiliate relationships with other companies, so if you’ve done business with any of them, you’re eligible to solicited by of all of them.

The Senate hearing (see the video link above) provides an entertaining, but frustrating half-hour of education on the issue. Senator Boxer spoke intelligently on the matter, and called out the bill’s Luntz-esque name when she said the “Junk Fax Prevention Act” should more appropriately be called the “Junk Fax Promotion Act.” Leave it to a Republican to name a bill for exactly the thing it will not do.

The Merc editors were even less kind; they suggested calling it the “License to Advertise by Theft Act.”

Read more news at Steve Kirsch’s junkfax.org website.

By the way, the title of this article comes from Sen. Boxer’s prediction (quoting unnamed analysts) that the current annual total of 2,000,000,000 faxes sent would double to 4 billion, should the “Junk Fax Prevention Act” become law.

I am simultaneously elated and sad:

The Bush administration is violating a law…

The law in question is the Energy Policy Act, passed in 1992 following the Gulf War. Its goal is to replace 30% of all oil used for transportation in the U.S with alternative fuels by 2010.

It’s an ambitious goal, and the benefits would be huge:

• significantly reduce dependence on foreign oil
• create less toxic air and water pollution
• push down prices on alternative fuel vehicles through economies of scale

The law focuses not on individual auto buyers, but on fleet operators, beginning with the biggest vehicle fleet operator in the country: the federal government.

The Energy Policy Act requires that at least 75% of the vehicles purchased by federal agencies use alternative fuels. Further, the Energy Policy Act gave the US Dept. of Energy the ability to mandate that state, municipal, and even private fleets (e.g. national package delivery companies) also purchase some percentage of alternative-fuel vehicles, if it determined that that would be necessary to meet the Act’s goal of a 30% reduction in oil used for transportation.

Unfortunately for everybody on the planet, the DOE punted this responsibility by announcing in January 2004 that it would not require private or local-government fleets to purchase AFVs, because, as far as I can tell, it wouldn’t do enough good. Add that to the list of the dumbest things I’ve heard this year: it will help, but not enough, so don’t bother. Curiously, the DOE requests voluntary compliance, which makes even less sense to me than not enforcing minimums: We don’t think alternative-fuel vehicles will help reduce petroleum consumption, so we won’t require you to buy AFVs… but we’d like you to buy AFVs anyway because they will help reduce petrol— er, umm… Bah.

Fortunately, the federal mandates of the Energy Policy Act still apply. The Center fo Biological Diversity and Bluewater Network have filed a lawsuit demanding compliance.

My favorite quote from the Chronicle article notes the stupidity of the Bush Administration’s energy policy:

Full compliance with the law would save 1.4 billion barrels of oil a year, or four times as much oil as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as the administration proposes, said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity.

For additional info, see the following:

• the press release announcing the lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Bluewater Network: Environmental Groups Sue 14 Federal Agencies for Failure to Implement Energy Policy Act (PDF; 104k)
• the main site for the Energy Policy Act

Security guru Bruce Schneier dissects the papal election process in a 1750-word essay. He comes away impressed with the security of the procedure: it would be very hard to hack this election.

In related news, Diebold is not going after the papal election vote-machine market.

Schneier’s conclusions are interesting and disheartening:

[O]pen systems conducted within a known group make voting fraud much harder. Every step of the election process is observed by everyone, and everyone knows everyone, which makes it harder for someone to get away with anything. Second, small and simple elections are easier to secure. This kind of process works to elect a Pope or a club president, but quickly becomes unwieldy for a large-scale election.

I find this disheartening because it would be great to apply the procedures of the Congress of Cardinals to our own horribly flawed national election procedure… but due to scale, we can’t.