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In a surprise to the Daily Mail, but not to long-time observers of Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, she chose not to run and is already making excuses:
Capito gave several reasons for staying out of the race, including a possible legal challenge that could confuse an already confused process.
"There has been enough unnecessary chaos and controversy surrounding the vacancy in the U.S. Senate," she said in a statement released this morning. "My candidacy would create more uncertainty, invite a legal challenge, and misrepresent my priorities as a public servant."
So considering the whole Republican pushed Capito Amendment squandered the state legislature's time and money so she could run for the House and Senate at the same time to clear the way just for her to run, is she going to reimburse the state back?
How often will she play West Virginia Republicans as suckers? Every opportunity, apparently.
Here's the video of Capito making her announcement.
Hoppy Kercheval states what we've been saying this cycle and in previous election cycles too here at West Virginia Blue:
...she's also cautious, and there is a body of evidence that suggests Capito will keep her powder dry for another race on another day.
Here's what Kercheval, who often carries water for the WV GOP doesn't admit: Capito will tease out a potential Senate run as long as she can in order to entice more people to contribute to her war chest for WV-02.
She's done it before when Republicans in the state and nationally wanted her to challenge Senators Rockefeller and Byrd in their last races. (Here's video footage of her discussing her decision not to run against Rockefeller in 2008 after teasing out a potential bid for those with short memories.)
All along she kept telling Republicans she would consider it, but in each case it was clear to anyone with a brain, which of course excludes anyone who is a Republican these days, that she would not run.
She's got a good gig and the power of the incumbency in WV-02. She is helped by low information voters who don't know she's pro-choice and who believe she is moderate when she votes in a very partisan rightwing manner.
The last thing Capito needs is a run for a different office that will lead to her facing real scrutiny about her lack of accomplishments.
She'll tease the Republicans as long as she can get money for it but at the last opportunity she'll find a reason not to run.
She's done it at least twice before. Will the third time be different with her facing the juggernaut Gov. Joe Manchin? Bloggers on the left and right who think because President Obama is not popular in the state will hurt down ticket candidates in elections here have clearly not looked at how the elections in '04 and '08 played out. Obama lost in a landslide in WV, nailing almost the exact vote percentage as he did with white voters nationally (41 percent in WV to 43 percent nationally). But the Democrats gained seats in the House of Delegates and State Senate and won every statewide office that year.
Of course not. But it's a good con game for her to play for her own selfish reasons. And all those Republicans in the state legislature who squandered the state's time and money to go to bat for her are just her suckers. If she "runs" for the Senate, it'll be just to get more money for her WV-02 campaign. Like any scam artist, she'll have to be watched closely so that she doesn't pull any election shenanigans like she did in 2008 when she used Congressional office signs at her political campaign HQ. But if past behavior is any guide she'll tease it out before racing for the House.
If you want to know why Joe Manchin is eager to run for Senate as soon as possible, look no further than the results of this Rasmussen poll released today:
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in West Virginia, taken Thursday night, shows Manchin with 53% support, while Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito earns 39% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer another candidate in the race, and five percent (5%) are undecided.
If former West Virginia Secretary of State Betty Ireland is his GOP rival, Manchin captures 65% voter support. Ireland picks up 26%. Three percent (3%) again like some other candidate, while six percent (6%) are undecided.
Yet while 77% of the state's voters approve of the job Manchin is doing as governor, he would be running in a challenging political environment for any Democratic candidate.
Only 35% of voters in the state approve of how President Obama is doing his job, while 64% disapprove. This is a much higher rate of disapproval than is found in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
Now, I take this all with a giant grain of salt as Rasmussen has rated poorly among all of the pollsters. But, they generally have a strong Republican bias, so if this is Manchin's floor, that's really saying something.
It's too bad they didn't poll any other Democrats. It would be nice to know how someone like Rep. Rahall matched up across the state vs. Capito, if for no other reason to get a better pulse of Dem/Rep party strength independent of Manchin's personal position as incumbent Gov.
In order to help better acquaint readers who may be out of the news cycle, I have put together (to the best of my ability) a bit of a preview for the district congressional elections that will occur in the fall.
The primaries will be in early May, and there hasn't been a lot of buzz (at least to my knowledge) about them. I only found out a month or so ago that The first district was receiving a democrat to challenge.
So here we go
Let's start with the First Congressional DIstrict.
Current seatholder: Alan Mollohan (D-WV)
The long-time serving Democrat, Mollohan, first got elected into the house in 1983, meaning he has served roughly 27 years at this position. In 2008, Mollohan ran unopposed. Mollohan has seen his share of controversies, and will also see a democrat contending for his seat in the primary. This will be his first Democrat to challenge him since Harley Staggers Jr. in 1992.
Challenger: Michael Oliverio II
Oliverio has worked his way up from the bottom. He was elected student body president at WVU. Eventually, Oliverio ran for a seat in the house of delegates and was elected in 1993, and in 1995 assumed office in the West Virginia State Senate where he currently remains representing the 13th district.
Oliverio has had a tendency to focus hard on the national debt, and how to attend to and fix it.
It should be interesting to see how this one plays out, although I would predict a Mollohan victory given the difficulty of unseating a 14 term incumbent.
Other Challengers on the republican side include Mac Warner, Cindy Hall, Tom Stark, Sarah Minear, David McKinley, and Patricia Levenson. Further information will be provided in the coming months.
WV Second Congressional District
Current Seatholder: Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
Captio is the daughter of the infamous Arch Moore Jr. and has held the seat since 2001. She was elected after Former Governor Bob Wise vacated the seat for the governor position She is the only Republican Congressional representative for the state and she intends to keep her seat. Capito is running for re-election during a good time for Republicans, polls show democrats are favored to lose more than they gain this November. She is considered safe in her district. Last time around, Capito won by a comfortable margin against Byrd state director Anne Barth.
Challenger: Virginia Graf
35 year veteran as an educator who has served as a school principal and is focused on improving education in the district. Graf is very active in volunteerism and political organizations throughout her community. Graf has a steep hill to climb if she wants to take this seat. Democrats are not the most popular delegation, she is facing an incumbent Republican, and the district is considered safe for Capito.
WV Third Congressional District
Current Seatholder: Nick Rahall (D-WV)
Rahall is heading into his 33rd year in the House, being elected in 1977. He succeeded Ken Hechler when he ran for governor. Rahall and his district are considered by CQ Politics to be a safe democrats, and him being a 33 year incumbent will very much improve his chances.
Challenger:
Rahall could be facing opposition from any of the following
Bruce Barilla (D)
America's Christian Heritage Week Founder & Hotel Worker
Lee Bias (R)
Nurse Anesthetist
Marty Gearheart (R)
Sign Company Sales Executive, Ex-Teacher
Of course Insurance Rep.Shelley Moore Capito won't criticize a Republican. Her faux "civility caucus" was never about creating a civil atmosphere from debate, but just a way for her to be incivil while allowing her to pretend otherwise. Sort of like how she pretends to be opposed to abortion one day and pro-choice the next day, depending on her audience.
Of course Capito voted how the insurance companies told her to vote. They want to cut off people with pre-existing conditions and deny coverage of the sick. The insurance industry has given Capito more than $930,800 in campaign contributions over the years. Nearly 20 percent of Capito's constiuents currently have no health insurance and the vast majority of them will benefit from this healthcare reform measure. But those people don't write her big campaign contributions so there's no sense in expecting her to look out for their interests.
Pelosi, in an e-mail from spokesman Nadeam Elshami, pointed out Thursday that the legislation gave 282,000 of Minority Whip Eric Cantor's constituents tax cuts, in addition to providing tax breaks to Republican Reps. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Scott Garrett of New Jersey and Tom Rooney of Florida.
and:
Pelosi on Wednesday pointed out that Republicans have been to "ribbon cuttings" related to stimulus projects.
As this site and others have pointed out, Capito has tried to take credit for projects funded by the same recovery act that she opposed in lockstep with the House GOP.
I was listening to a national radio show this morning (I think it was Marketplace Morning Report but I'm not sure) and Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV-02) was on talking about the 1000 jobs in the Toyota plant near Charleston, many of them "her constituents" and "people she's met."
She went on to say while she's certainly concerned about those jobs, she's more concerned about the safety of her constituents that drive Toyotas on snowy hilly roads. She wants to know Toyota has a safe product.
I think it's great that Capito is embracing the role of government regulation and oversight to ensure that consumers are protected from corporate greed that leads to injury or death. This certainly is a legitimate role for government regulation.
Now, after over a decade in public office with mounting evidence of the detrimental effects of processing and burning coal, and mining coal, when will Capito's concern for her constituents extend to exposure from those hazards?
Surely, Shelley, that's an equally legitimate place for sound government oversight, right?
Good afternoon, West Virginia Blue readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos. We'll be here all weekend.
Some of the Hill news that's fit to blog is over the fold...
First, it calls for big cuts in Social Security benefits for everyone currently under 55 years of age. On top of the cuts it also calls for privatizing Social Security.
Basically the exact plan President Bush tried in 2005. Next, it calls for the full privatization and phasing out of Medicare. It'll be replaced by a system of vouchers in which instead of getting Medicare you get a voucher to buy un-reformed private insurance.
Weirdly, with all that, the draft GOP budget doesn't get the federal budget into surplus until sometime after 2060, which seems like a pretty long time. But isn't this sort of a big deal? House Republicans are poised to run in 2010 on slashing or abolishing the two most popular federal government programs -- Social Security and Medicare.
You may remember that Capito brought President Bush to West Virginia to talk up his Social Security privatization plan, so presumably she'll be on board with that.
Really though, someone ought to ask Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV-02) what she thinks of her party's budget. And, if she's not for it, what is her plan for reducing the deficit?
The field for the West Virginia Representatives to the U.S. House is complete. Here's the candidates who have filed for office in each of the three district races.
The Candidates
WV-01
Alan B. Mollohan (Democrat) from Fairmont, Marion County
Mike Oliverio (Democrat) from Morgantown, Monongalia County
Cindy Hall (Republican) from Wheeling, Ohio County
Patricia VanGilder Levenson (Republican) from Wheeling, Ohio County
David B. McKinley (Republican) from Wheeling, Ohio County
Sarah Minear (Republican) from Morgantown, Monongalia County
Thomas Stark (Republican) from Parkersburg, Wood County
Mac Warner (Republican) from Morgantown, Monongalia County
WV-02
Virginia Lynch Graf (Democrat) from Charles Town, Jefferson County
Shelley Moore Capito (Republican) from Charleston, Kanawha County
WV-03
Bruce Barilla (Democrat) from Bluefield, Greenbrier County
Nick Joe Rahall II (Democrat) from Beckley, Raleigh County
Lee A. Bias (Republican) from Barboursville, Cabell County
Marty Gearheart (Republican) from Bluefield, Mercer County
Conrad G. Lucas II (Republican) from Huntington, Cabell County
Elliott E. "Spike" Maynard (Republican) from Williamson, Mingo County
What to expect
WV-01 While six different Republicans bloody each other up to face the incumbent Alan Mollohan he'll have, on paper at least, just as tough a challenger in the Democratic primary. The primary challenge from the conservative Democrat Oliverio may be a blessing in disguise for Mollohan if it brings out Mollohan supporters early and awakens a campaign apparatus that was dormant when he ran unopposed two years ago. The national GOP want WV-01 to be a high profile race, but with the recent clearing of Mollohan of any criminal wrong-doing in a long-simmering FBI probe, Mollohan can now focus on building up a war chest. Rep. Mollohan may have to campaign harder than usual, but with the advantages of incumbency he should have no returning for another term.
WV-02 After facing a well-supported and well-financed challenge by DCCC-recruited strong challenge by DCCC-supported* candidate Anne Barth in 2008, Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is breathing a major sigh of relief this year. The DCCC and state Democrat party was unable to recruit any high profile candidates for this race. Democrats are lucky that grassroots activist Graf has stepped up to challenge Capito, so the seat remains contested. Graf benefits from no primary challenge so can immediately focus on Capito and a general election campaign. Capito has 'bought a landslide' two cycles in a row, Graf can only hope Capito is complacent and gets caught by surprise if the Graf campaign catches fire.
* Updated: In my haste earlier, I may have left the wrong impression. To clarify: Anne Barth was well supported by the DCCC once she entered the race; State Sen. John Unger was the original DCCC-recruited candidate up until he unexpectedly dropped out just prior to the filing deadline. Also, although Anne Barth did well with fund-raising, she was still out-spent by Rep. Capito by around 3:1.
WV-03 Incumbent Democratic Nick Rahall will have no problem dispatching Barilla in the primary. Former Democrat Spike Maynard is widely expected to be well funded by Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship and prevail in the Republican primary field. A Rahall vs. Maynard general election will almost certainly be a hugely negative, substance free affair. This race will draw national interest--after all, can you think of any other congressional candidates who have inspired Grisham novels? In the end, the interest will benefit Rep. Rahall's fund-raising and he'll be returned for yet another term.
Several folks have posted about the exchange between Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito and Pres. Obama and the GOP retreat last week (h/t JB). If you haven't watched the video, here it is.
Here's how I look at this exchange. The basic assumption in Capito's question is in this part:
I represent the state of West Virginia. We're resource rich. We have a lot of coal and a lot of natural gas.
Towards the end of his response President Obama reminds her that's not the full picture.
So what I want to do is with West Virginia to figure out how we can seize that future. But to do that, that means there's going to have to be some transition. ... what does that industry look like in the next hundred years?
How would you answer the question for West Virginia--what does coal mining look like in the next 100 years?
The first thing I think about is, 100 years from now--probably just 50 years from now--there's not going to any coal mining to speak of going on in West Virginia--all the coal will be gone. Just looking out 30 years from now, there's a whole lot less coal mining than today. So, what about 20... or 10 years from today?
This is the twilight of coal wealth for West Virginia... its heyday is in the past... we're in the final lap. The President is responding to Capito--West Virginia doesn't have 100 years worth of coal--and reminds us all we need to do even more to prepare for what comes next.
Stripped to its essence, it's the most pressing question I take away from the Q&A between Capito and Obama.
To prepare for the next 100 years: what economic development do we as a state want to promote that is not coal-related?
Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is expected to cruise to an easy victory in 2010. Despite an occasional rumbling over the past year, the DCCC has been unable to recruit a high profile candidate. So far, two Democratic challengers have filed pre-candidacy papers to run for West Virginia's second congressional district.
One of them, Virginia Lynch Graf, introduced herself to voters this week with an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette, Why I'm running for Congress. Here's a good portion of the article:
Over the last nine years, I became drawn to politics because I saw a downward pull in the way government was operating. Deregulation of the financial markets, allowing corporate lobbyists to write political policy and politicians angling over power impelled me to become a better-educated citizen.
[snip]
Why run for Congress in 2010? My passion for turning the government again toward its course of representing people motivates me. Although in our history we have never achieved a perfect democratic republic, we have consistently strived for it.
Why now? In West Virginia, and across America, there is a lack of credibility from those we elect to act for the common good. Devotion to protecting people has been replaced by devotion to political parties.
[snip]
My opponent, Shelley Moore Capito, is one of those obstructionists. She sends out materials about health-care reform filled with simple platitudes and misinformation.
Health-care reform is just one issue in a pattern of choosing corporate interests over citizens' concerns. Corporations who seek tax shelters and government subsidies despite locating overseas and exporting American jobs are a blatant affront to our citizens.
My opponent, and other like-minded politicians, take our people to the laundry with their opposition to corporate controls. Rep. Capito voted against the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act aimed at overhauling financial services regulations and placing new controls on institutions deemed to pose a risk to the entire financial system. She voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay for Equal Work, against Helping Families Save Their Homes, and against Pay for Performance Act, which highlights corporate accountability and executive compensation. She voted against veterans' care, clean energy and security, student aid, fiscal responsibility and against a stimulus package aimed at putting people to work.
To constantly favor wealth diminishes opportunities for ordinary citizens to earn decent wages, to receive quality education, and to take care of the health and well-being of their families.
Critical thinking in America is becoming a lost art. TV ads, talk-show hosts and politicians take advantage of the time constraints most Americans have as they work and raise their families. A bombardment of lies, half truths and fear-mongering has replaced honesty. Those engaged in preying on trusting Americans in this manner have become extraordinarily wealthy.
While America is still ranked No. 1 in innovation and entrepreneurship, we see lending institutions strangle that gleaming light offered by small business as they withhold needed funding. Job opportunities are being exported to countries with low labor costs. Just like with the steel industry, manufacturing jobs are almost gone. Political office is fast becoming the domain of the wealthy, who turn their offices into financial feeding grounds.
Graf is hitting many of the same themes we've been "critiquing" Rep. Capito on for years. Here's hoping that Graf has the energy, persistence and resources to get this message out to enough voters to gain traction in the voting booth.
I posted a version of this diary at DailyKos on Saturday morning. Thank you to everyone who engaged in a constructive dialogue on the topic there and on Facebook over the weekend.
If you're not really sure what "Clean Coal" is, that's easily forgiven. Clean Coal has meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Many decades ago, one enterprising company sold "clean coal" that burned with less smoke in your home heating furnace. Today, the term usually refers to carbon capture and storage (CCS) or coal-to-liquid fuel (CTL).
The Obama administration and leading figures in Congress are still pushing for tens of billions of dollars of investments in "cleaner coal." With a pause in consideration on the energy and climate change legislation, it's a good time to ask... just what we would we get in return for that investment?
:::
For those who like to cut to the chase, here's the short answer. Carbon capture and storage is risky and expensive. Coal to liquid only makes sense if you ignore carbon emissions or if expect we'll lose access to foreign sources of oil. But, read on. There's another major challenge you probably aren't aware of.
Sadly, although it might make little economic or scientific sense, the political logic behind clean coal is overwhelming. Coal is mined in some politically potent states-Illinois, Montana, West Virginia, Wyoming-and the coal industry spends millions on lobbying. The end result of the debate is all too likely to resemble Congress's corn-based ethanol mandates: legislation that employs appealing buzzwords to justify subsidies to a politically favored constituency-while actually worsening the problem it seeks to solve.
The Meigs piece is good at laying out the basics of carbon capture and storage, but an even more detailed look at the economics is provided by Richard Heinberg, writing for the Solutions Journal. (All emphasis in quotes is mine.)
The "clean coal" argument runs like this: America is brimming with cheap coal, which provides almost half our electricity and is the most carbon-intensive of the conventional fossil fuels. The nation will need an enormous amount of energy over the next few decades, but renewable sources just aren't ready to provide all-or even the bulk-of that energy. Meanwhile, preventing catastrophic climate change requires that we stop venting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is possible to capture and store the CO2 that would otherwise be emitted from burning coal, and elements of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology are already in use on a small scale. Put all of these factors together and the case for government funding of research and development of "clean coal" seems strong.
However, several recent studies of US coal supplies suggest that much that we think we know about coal is wrong. If these studies are correct, the argument for investing in "clean coal" becomes tenuous on economic grounds alone. These studies call into question the one "fact" that both pro-coal and anti-coal lobbies have taken for granted: that the US has a virtually limitless supply of cheap coal.
Back in April, Democrat Rep. Nick Rahall (WV-03), spoke to this unpleasant truth. He noted "the state's most productive coal seams likely will be exhausted in 20 years." The backlash from in-state coal interests was strong. Rahall has not spoken about coal supplies since, and for that brief moment of truth his consequence is a coal-industry funded primary challenger.
What would it take for Rep. Rahall to say something like this? Back to the Heinberg piece for the answer...
Doubts were first raised in a book-length 2007 report by the National Academy of Sciences titled "Coal: Research and Development to Support National Energy Policy" (1), which noted that "Present estimates of coal reserves are based upon methods that have not been reviewed or revised since - 1974," and concluded that a newer and better assessment "may substantially reduce the number of years' supply."
Also in 2007, an energy analytics organization founded by a member of the German Parliament, Energy Watch Group (2), released a study of US and world coal supplies concluding that global coal production will reach a peak and begin to decline sometime around 2025, and that US coal production will peak only slightly later-perhaps by 2030 or 2035.
Last December the USGS issued a report (3) on the nation's largest and most productive coalfield, in Wyoming, finding that, at current prices, only about six percent of the coal can be profitably mined; if coal prices soared, then more of the coal would be recoverable-but then coal wouldn't be economically competitive with other energy sources.
But I keep hearing we have hundreds of years of coal left in the United States. That has to be correct doesn't it?
America's coal resources are indeed vast-none of the studies claims otherwise. However, during the past century, coal reserves (the portion of total coal resources that can be mined profitably with existing technologies) shrank much faster than could be accounted for by the depletion of those resources through mining. That is because geologists are doing a better job now of taking into account "restrictions" that make most coal impractical to mine-factors having to do with location, depth, seam thickness, and coal quality. In recent years, some nations have reduced their booked coal reserves by 90 percent or more on the basis of new, more realistic surveys. The National Academy of Sciences report mentioned above is essentially a plea for an updated US national survey, and it offers abundant reasons for thinking that such a survey would almost certainly reveal a much smaller reserve base than the one on which current supply forecasts are founded.
Moreover, when it comes to forecasting future coal supplies the official agencies seem to have been asking the wrong question, namely, "When will the nation run out of coal?" The customary answer is, "Not for a couple of hundred years or more"-which is a sufficiently long period for current energy planning. But more relevant questions are, "When will it no longer be possible to increase the rate at which coal is being extracted?", and "When will coal cease to be an economically competitive energy source?" These are addressed in the Energy Watch Group study, which reasons that, long before the nation runs out of coal, production will peak and start to decline due to the depletion of easily accessible, high-quality deposits. Already some of America's most important coal regions are long past their glory days, and recent field surveys by the USGS (including the one cited above) suggest that the capacities of even the most abundant coalfields in the nation have been over-estimated.
So what? As long as we've got coal to mine, shouldn't we try to burn it as cleanly as possible?
A 2007 MIT study, "The Future of Coal" (4), found that if just 60 percent of the CO2 from US coal-fired power plants were to be captured and compressed to a liquid, its daily volume would equal the amount of oil Americans consume each day (about 20 million barrels). The study also concluded that a huge increase in investment in industrial-scale demonstration plants would be required now even to know in 10 or 15 years if the technology can work at a meaningful scale. All of this underscores the basic fact that carbon capture and storage is going to be very expensive-if it is even possible to accomplish on the scale that is being proposed.
Yet there is a subtler but possibly even more decisive price tag for "clean coal": the energy cost. According to the most recent estimate (from Harvard University's Belfer Center (5), at least 30 percent of the energy produced by burning coal will be needed to run the system for capturing, compressing, pumping, and burying CO2. Therefore any efficiency benefit from gasifying coal at IGCC power plants would be canceled out.
But already the average quality of coal being mined is declining-that is, we get less energy for each ton of coal burned today than we did ten years ago. This is a natural consequence of the "low-hanging-fruit" principle of resource extraction, in which we tend to consume the highest-quality, most easily accessed resources first.
So as time goes on, the US will need to burn more coal, while the coal itself will be more scarce and costly. And the technology used will be far more expensive and complex, both to build and to operate, than the system of power plants we have today. Taken together, these factors read like a recipe for cost overruns and spiraling electricity rates.
That doesn't sound good. Wait... did he just say "spiraling electricity rates?" You mean, you and me and me and you are the ones who are going to be paying higher rates if this coal carbon-capture-storage stuff doesn't work out quite right?
Imagine a scenario in which the US goes ahead with the attempt to develop "clean coal" technologies. During the coming decade tens of billions of dollars (mostly from government) would likely need to be invested in research and the construction of demonstration projects. By 2020, the price of coal will already have begun to rise, as supply problems multiply, yet "clean coal" technology won't be ready to deploy widely (the most ambitious proposals don't see that happening until after 2025). Even if renewable energy doesn't get cheaper due to technological advances (and most analysts assume it will), at some point along this timeline the "clean coal" bandwagon will almost certainly grind to a stop because it is simply too expensive to keep going.
That's a rather ugly and all too plausible scenario. West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller insists "that efforts to address greenhouse gas emissions give our economy and our industries the time that's needed to develop and implement these new technologies."
If Rockefeller is right that CCS needs decades and these studies are right that we're fast running out of coal, then we're talking about one massively expensive boondoogle in "clean coal" that will do nothing to clean up our atmosphere, do nothing to secure our economic future, and do nothing to prepare us for a post-carbon future.
I don't agree with the premise that it is okay to waste billions of dollars just to provide political cover to win a vote for energy and climate change legislation. Those Senators and Representatives who say that "cleaner coal" technology is essential to win their vote need to prove how it could ever be an economically viable option.
Let us never forget the horrors inflicted upon our nation by President George W. Bush and the Other President Dick Cheney. This originally appeared in November 2007 at Daily Kos. Carnacki
At this point in the rule of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, I thought I had reached shock fatigue. We've seen illegal invasions, torture, unprecedented levels of corruption, a warrantless wiretapping on a nationwide scale, and an erosion of national credibility on everything from the environment to the rule of law.
Yet this morning I read a story that filled me anew with fresh outrage and I think exemplifies the horrors - the absolute horrors - of this administration and the political ideology behind them.
The article is in Vanity Fair's November edition, The People vs. the Profiteers. (If this was diaried earlier this month, my apologies. I did a search on several key words and did not see it. Vanity Fair is a very thick magazine and I read it from front to back so I usually read it spaced out over the entire month).
In it, the writer, David Rose, covers how an attorney, Alan Grayson, has led a campaign against government corruption. He's done so for 16 years. In the past the Department of Justice often allied with him to root out corrupt officials. But when it has come to the Iraq war, the DOJ has thrown up roadblock after roadblock.
In this administration corruption on a massive scale is a statistic. It's an example Rose uses from among the cases that is the outrage.
Consider the case of Grayson's client Bud Conyers, a big, bearded 43-year-old who lives with his ex-wife and her nine children, four of them his, in Enid, Oklahoma. Conyers worked in Iraq as a driver for Kellogg, Brown & Root. Spun off by Halliburton as an independent concern in April, KBR is the world's fifth-largest construction company. Before the war started, the Pentagon awarded it two huge contracts: one, now terminated, to restore the Iraqi oil industry, and another, still in effect, to provide a wide array of logistical-support services to the U.S. military.
In the midday heat of June 16, 2003, Conyers was summoned to fix a broken refrigerated truck-a "reefer," in contractor parlance-at Log Base Seitz, on the edge of Baghdad's airport. He and his colleagues had barely begun to inspect the sealed trailer when they found themselves reeling from a nauseating stench. The freezer was powered by the engine, and only after they got it running again, several hours later, did they dare open the doors.
The trailer, unit number R-89, had been lying idle for two weeks, Conyers says, in temperatures that daily reached 120 degrees. "Inside, there were 15 human bodies," he recalls. "A lot of liquid stuff had just seeped out. There were body parts on the floor: eyes, fingers. The goo started seeping toward us. Boom! We shut the doors again." The corpses were Iraqis, who had been placed in the truck by a U.S. Army mortuary unit that was operating in the area. That evening, Conyers's colleague Wallace R. Wynia filed an official report: "On account of the heat the bodies were decomposing rapidly.... The inside of the trailer was awful."
(As an aside, I have smelled the sickly scent stench of putrified corpses more times than I care to recall. It is one of the worst smells in existence. I cannot imagine what 15 trapped inside a metal trailer for two weeks in the desert heat would have been like.)
Under any consideration, the rule of civilian or military regulations or laws, religious taboos, and basic human decency, there are prohibitions against carrying food and water in the same containers that had been used to carry human corpses - yet alone putrid corpses.
But that is exactly what is being done in Iraq. To our soldiers. With our tax dollars.
But when Bud Conyers next caught sight of trailer R-89, about a month later, it was packed not with human casualties but with bags of ice-ice that was going into drinks served to American troops. He took photographs, showing the ice bags, the trailer number, and the wooden decking, which appeared to be stained red. Another former KBR employee, James Logsdon, who now works as a police officer near Enid, says he first saw R-89 about a week after Conyers's grisly discovery. "You could still see a little bit of matter from the bodies, stuff that looked kind of pearly, and blood from the stomachs. It hadn't even been hosed down. Afterwards, I saw that truck in the P.W.C.-the public warehouse center-several times. There's nothing there except food and ice. It was backed up to a dock, being loaded."
This is where a Republican ideology leads us. The for-profit contractor used a refrigerated tractor trailer permeated with human remains in the wood floor and on the floor itself to carry ice and probably food.
Profit over people - even when it comes to the troops they claim to support. They outsourced a basic government service of the feed and care of the troops for a for-profit enterprise which didn't care about their health or human decency.
It came down to a shortage of refrigerated trucks. Rather than buy more, Kellough Brown and Root kept it running from corpse hauling to food hauling. Conyers was fired by KBR for not being a "team player."
How KBR treated Conyers would itself be an outrage but after hauling ice for human consumption with the remains of putrid corpses, anything KBR does under that pales in comparison. The entire story is well worth a read, including how the DOJ is using a provision of the whistle-blower law probably to keep incidents like this covered up rather than to investigate them as it should.
Grayson has hope that one day the deep-rooted profiteering and corruption of the Iraq war will come to light.
There are a few encouraging signs that a day of reckoning is drawing near. Committees in both the House and the Senate have held hearings on contracting in Iraq, and several plan to hold more. Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, has introduced a War Profiteering Prevention Act, which would make it much easier to investigate corrupt contractors and call them to account. And in August, the news that tens of thousands of weapons intended for Iraqi security forces had vanished or been stolen prompted the Pentagon to announce that its inspector general, Claude M. Kicklighter, would lead an 18-person team to investigate "contracting practices" in Iraq.
In the more distant future, a Democratic administration might open up the vaults and expose the American public to the scale of what has been looted. "What we have seen up to now is the worst of the worst in terms of a deliberate cover-up," Grayson says. But if and when it comes to an end, he thinks it's entirely possible that Congress will appoint a special prosecutor-one whose targets might one day reach "an extremely high level."
We can only hope. But I think the stench will linger forever.
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