Jun
23
Posted by W2G
06/23/2008
EPA Making it Easier to Pollute National Parks?
By: Jacque
Not if Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander has anything to say about it. In an interview with the Associated Press, the Republican Senator vowed to urge Congress to overrule the Environmental Protection Agency if necessary.
What is the issue? The EPA may adopt a rule, that has been pending since last June, that will make it easier to build coal-fired power plants near national parks. Instead of focusing on reducing the impact of a new pollution source, the rule would change the way the EPA calculates the impact. According to John Bunyak of the National Park Service’s Air Resources Division in Denver, instead of looking at peak periods of pollution, the new rule would use annual averages.
National Parks Conservation Association representative, Don Barger, compares it to someone puting one hand in a block of ice and the other in a fire. “Your average temperature is just fine, but your hands are not.” (AP)
Jun
23
Posted by W2G
06/23/2008
President Bush Wants To Rescind Executive Order Signed By His Father.
By: Jacque
“This is difficult time for many American families”
“Rising gasoline prices and economic uncertainty can effect everything from what food parents put on the table to where they go on vacation.”
President Bush
In his Saturday radio address, President Bush blamed Democrats for high gas prices. According to Bush, the Democrats in Congress are blocking his energy proposals. Bush wants Congress to lift it’s ban on offshore drilling. There are two prohibitions on offshore drilling, one by executive order signed by his father in 1990 and the other imposed by Congress. Even Bush’s brother Jeb opposed offshore drilling when he was govenor in Florida.
Bush says that offshore drilling has the potential of yielding 18 billion barrels of oil. According to Congress, oil companies already have 68 million acres of federal land and water under lease, outside the ban area, that are not being developed.
Perhaps Bush should revisit his “energy plan”. As for the rest of us, we will continue to search for and utilize alternatives to oil energy.
