Keystone Foes Seek to Disrupt Natural Gas Export Terminal

Environmentalists fighting the Keystone XL pipeline are rallying to block a Maryland natural gas export terminal as momentum builds to use the U.S. fuel as a weapon against Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.

The energy required to liquefy and ship gas at Dominion Resources Inc.’s proposed Cove Point terminal in Maryland will raise the fuel’s greenhouse-gas emissions to the level of coal, says Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. Such terminals threaten the climate like pipelines tied to developing oil in Alberta, such as Keystone, he said.

“This issue is a lot like the fight over tar sands,” Tidwell said in an interview. “It’s gone from non-existent to the biggest environmental fight in Maryland, and is on its way to being the biggest environmental fight in the Mid-Atlantic.”

Comparing Cove Point to the $5.4 billion pipeline project that’s fueled stiff environmentalist opposition shows a challenge advocates face in pushing to use gas, America’s newfound energy bounty, as a geopolitical tool. The export terminals are a “whole new category of fossil fuel trouble,” Bill McKibben, co-founder of the environmental group 350.org, said on a conference call with reporters today.

House Republicans introduced legislation to speed approval of applications for more than 20 terminals like Cove Point, in response to Russia’s actions. Russia, the second-largest global producer of natural gas after the U.S., twice since 2006 has cut supplies to Ukraine, a conduit for energy to Europe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called today for Russia to absorb Crimea, where voters overwhelmingly backed secession, after signing a draft treaty to take the Ukrainian peninsula. He said Russia wasn’t interested in annexing other parts of the former Soviet republic.

Dominion said a study it commissioned by ICF International Inc. found that liquefied natural gas exports would cut greenhouse gas emissions if the fuel replaces coal as a way to make electricity.

“Slowing or preventing natural gas exports from the United States is a step in exactly the wrong direction for those who are concerned about climate change,” said Pamela F. Faggert, Dominion’s chief environmental officer and vice president- Corporate Compliance.

Via: Newsmax
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SEIU Hit With Second-Biggest Campaign Finance Fine in Michigan History

The Service Employees International Union will have to pay the second-highest fine in Michigan history for its failed 2012 campaign to preserve forced union dues among home care workers.

Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson said that the politically powerful union agreed to pay the state nearly $200,000 for failing to properly disclose donors and file timely campaign reports.

The union funneled more than $9 million into two 501(c)(4) non-profit groups, Home Care First Inc. and Citizens for Affordable Quality Home Care, which served as the public face of a ballot initiative.

“These organizations cannot be used as a means to conceal the identity of the true contributors,” Johnson said in a release. “This agreement reflects our commitment to transparency and accountability in the campaign finance process, especially in an election year.”

The union could have faced millions of dollars in fines if it did not settle with the Secretary of State’s office. SEIU said in a statement that reporting oversights were inadvertent.

“We have decided not to dispute the preliminary findings of the Secretary of State and SEIU Michigan consider this matter closed,” the union said. “The mistakes were a result of errors and reports by the Citizens for Affordable Quality Home Care regarding the receipt and transfer of funds.”

The fine stemmed from an August 2013 complaint filed with the Secretary of State’s office. It alleged that the union and its 501(c)(4) groups misreported its campaign disclosures. For example, SEIU reported more than $4 million in direct contributions to the 501(c)(4)s in September filings, but those contributions were later scrubbed from an October campaign report, according to the Secretary of State’s complaint.

Via: WFB

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Democratic Strategists in 2014 Are Like French Generals in 1940

It is reminiscent of the quandary faced by Gen. Maurice Gamelin on the evening of May 15, 1940. Suddenly he realized that German panzer troops had broken through the supposedly impassable Ardennes.

French troops to the north were cut off and rendered useless, troops to the south were falling back in disarray on all sides and no reserves were available between the front and Paris. "Yes," he told the prime minister, "it means the destruction of the French Army."

Now, analogies between military history and politics are never exact, and no one in American politics remotely resembles the Nazis. But there is some resemblance between the plight of Gen. Gamelin and the plight of Democratic strategists in key Senate and congressional races this year.

The general had run out of feasible alternatives. His one hope was that the other side would make a mistake. Alas, the Germans didn't, and a great nation was lost within a few days.

Today's Democrats face losing an election, not a nation, and the cause is Obamacare. They stand on ground of their own choosing, which they suddenly find themselves unable to defend, and they must hope that the opposition makes disabling mistakes.

That has been made starkly clear by Republican David Jolly's defeat of the better-known Democrat Alex Sink in the Florida-13 special election on March 11. The margin wasn't large, 49 percent to 47 percent, and the dropoff in Democratic vote not huge -- President Obama carried the district 50 percent to 49 percent in 2012.

What was more significant is that the well-financed, national party-selected Sink was unable to defend her ground.

Entirely missing from her campaign was a message along the lines of "hands off my Obamacare." You would have heard something like that if a Republican had advocated repealing Social Security or Medicare a year or two after these programs were passed.

But support for Obamacare has been under 50 percent since before it was passed. Democrats would be running ads showing happy Obamacare consumers if they could find any.

Via: Real Clear Politics
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Michelle Obama Takes Another Taxpayer-Funded Trip

The first lady, her mother, her two kids, plus numerous White House aides and security personnel are going to tour China this month, but White House officials are refusing to say how much the taxpayers will pay for the trip.

However, they did say it would be a thrill for everyone on the trip, including for Michelle Obama’s top aide, Tina Tchen.

“It is a real honor and privilege, and I think we are all, here in the first lady’s office, quite excited about the upcoming trip,” said Tchen, just after she declared that “my parents emigrated from China in the late ’40s, so this … will be my fourth time returning to China but the first time, obviously, in a role such as this.”

(Read Full Article)

Via: California Political Review

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Energy-booming states continue to outshine energy-regressive states

The Federal Government released yesterday its monthly “Regional and State Employment and Unemployment” report of January. (The State numbers are released 4-6 weeks after the national numbers are out).

Here are some interesting numbers about January – the latest month available:

– The unemployment rate in Texas (5.7%), Utah (3.9%), South Dakota (3.6%), and in North Dakota (2.6%) are well below January’s national UR of 6.6%, while the UR in Illinois (8.7%), California (8.1%), and New York (6.8%) are higher than the national average. A key issue that empowers the first half state over the second half is energy production: ND and TX have massively increased their production in recent years while NY and CA have both cut their natural gas and crude oil production since 2008.

– In terms of jobs, Texas added 778,600 jobs in the last five years starting with February 2009 (Obama’s first full month in office), while California produced 644K jobs in the same period. New York State came in a distant third with 270,500 added jobs. ND in this same period produced about 85K jobs. Remember: ND does not even have close to 1M people living there while NY has almost 20 million and CA almost 40 million!

- The 863,600 combined jobs created in two of the most energy-producing states (TX-ND), account for 24.3% of the net jobs created since Obama’s first full month in office. Meanwhile, NY and CA, two energy-regressive states with a combined population more than double of TXND, produced only 25.7% of the jobs over the same period.

Considering that the jobs data are based on surveys and rough estimates subject to endless revisions, it’s fair to say that job gains in NYCA are essentially the same as in TXND despite boasting 58M people to the 27M of TXND.

If only the people running GOP messaging had the brains to showcase those numbers during the 2012 election.

Democrats try to dismiss  these numbers by claiming that those jobs are low-paying. Putting aside the fact that by saying this, the Democrats are trashing a BIG percent of the Obama-era jobs, the fact is that of all the state that income to the bottom 5% fell since the recovery began, it dropped least in TX. Better yet, of the three states that income to this class actually rose, it did best in ND!

Via: The Right Scoop

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