Will Energy Costs Go Up?

If you listen to Repubs, it will.  They pick some obtuese figure to use and scare the public into submission.

Recently Gov. Barbour made this observation:

“Instead of a policy of more American energy, the proposed Obama policy is to establish a cap and trade tax, increase taxes on oil and gas companies by $81 billion and create a requirement that a certain percentage of electricity be generated with renewable fuels … a so called renewable portfolio standard,” Barbour said. “These policies have in common that they would all inevitably and substantially increase the cost of energy to the American families and American businesses, especially manufacturing.”

This should not effect manufacturing in the state….why?….they are given a free ride at every turn….so Barbour BS concerning industry is just so much crap.  Barbour is just repeating the playbook and daily talking pointys issued for Repubs to use in their count-offensive against “clean air”.

The Barbours have been champions of eliminating litter in Mississippi…good idea…but some how clean air means NOTHING to them.  Eliminating litter would involve getting free labor out of the the residents…..eliminating air pollution would require the govs donor base having to do the work…something we cannot have (that is sarcasm, in case you missed it).

Time To Make The Coast Presentable

Recently I read an article in my local paper about the “program” to Clean-up the Coast ahead of the National Governors Conference to be held on the Coast in the coming weeks.

It is all about appearance….we would not want the nation’s govs to get the wrong impression of Mississippi….and besides this will cost no or little cash…and that is what the governor and the politicians want.

If they think they will embarrass Bubba into playing ball and not littering…they are on CRACK!  Bubba cares less about what the Coast looks like as long as he can drink beer, riding around wasting gas in his boat and going to Hooters.

What these moronbic politicians should be worried about is the condition of the people in the state.,..that is a never ending embarrassment….low education…high amount of poor…high teen preggies…..crappy health care…these thing is what should be worked on and not how many years Toyota gets a free ride on taxes.

Mississippians are slobs and they will seldom change…but good luck with trying to bullshit the other governors.

To Pollute Or Not To Pollute?

That is the question.

Ask yourself these questions:  Would companies voluntarily stop polluting?  What would be the plan to get them to stop polluting?

First, companies will NOT voluntarily give up their polluting ways.  If they are gonna stop polluting it must be profitable for them.

The state is the midst of a very lean time, there is not enough money to fund needed programs.  The state is considering raising some taxes to cover the monetary shortfall.  The state has given away more money than it has collected, at least it seems so.  All in the name of good business practices.  So in the meantime, health, work, etc has suffered from a reduction in funds.

But one of my fav bills in consideration is HB349.  Which states and I quote:

AN ACT TO PROVIDE THAT CERTAIN POLLUTION CONTROL EQUIPMENT MANDATED BY FEDERAL OR STATE LAW OR REGULATION SHALL BE EXEMPT FROM AD VALOREM TAXATION, EXCEPT AD VALOREM TAXATION FOR SCHOOL DISTRICT PURPOSES, FOR A PERIOD OF TEN YEARS FROM THE DATE OF INSTALLATION OF THE EQUIPMENT; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSe.

Why would the state reward a company for doing what it is ordered to do and clean up the environment from any toxic crap that it is spewing into the air or water that the residents will be using?  Will the state compensate any insurance company that must foot the bill for the illnesses the companies cause?  Will the companies compensate the people if they are not forced to?

This is all so ridiculous and just reinforces my premise that the state is business friendly and cares little for the plight of its residents.

Clean Coal Plant?

First of all, there is no such thing as clean coal–the emissions can be cleaned up a bit–but as far as coal goes–it is not clean–none of it!  Clean coal is an oxymoron like military intelligence and jumbo shrimp.

Mississippi Power is moving forward with plans to build a clean-coal plant in Kemper County,

He said the company soon will file a request for certification to build the $2.2 billion facility with the Public Service Commission.

The plant would create energy from lignite coal and capture the carbon dioxide for other uses.

Topazi said the plant could be operational as early as November 2013. The company’s efforts will need regulatory approval before construction can begin.

Mississippi Power serves about 188,000 customers in 23 southeastern counties.

Oppose The Richton Proposal

Members of the state House Conservation and Water Resources Committee heard from South Mississippians on a variety of issues including the strategic-petroleum reserve plan at Richton and a massive post-Katrina water and sewer project.

About 35 residents showed up at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s Jackson County campus for the meeting Tuesday. Some from rural parts of Jackson County wanted more oversight of the $640 million post-Hurricane Katrina water and sewer project, which aims to install water and sewer lines north of interstate 10 to handle expected development there.

Eric Richards, of Pascagoula, said he was concerned about the proposal for a strategic petroleum reserve in a Richton salt dome. The plan would use a water source, of which one option is the pristine Pascagoula River, to flush out the large underground dome formation, to make room to store petroleum. Other water sources, including the Gulf of Mexico, are being studied by the U.S. Department of Energy, which is overseeing the project. The brine water bi-product would be dumped into the Gulf of Mexico, under one plan.

Richards told the committee he didn’t favor using the Pascagoula River to drain the dome, but he said the Mississippi River would be a better option. Richards also said he believes many of the industries would suffer if the Pascagoula River was used because they also depend on the water from the river, but would have to compete with DOE, which is overseeing the project.

AL: Sewage Contaminates Bay Minette

A manhole overflowed today in Bay Minette, discharging an unknown amount of sewage into Hollinger Creek, the Baldwin County Health Department said in a written statement.

The health department advised residents to exercise caution if using the creek for recreational purposes, to thoroughly cook any fish or seafood caught there and wash hands after handling it.

FL: Cold War Pollution?

The government owns hundreds of underground fuel tanks — many designed for emergencies back in the Cold War — that need to be inspected for leaks of hazardous substances that could be making local water undrinkable.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has known since at least the 1990s that tanks under its supervision around the country could be leaking fuel into soil and groundwater, Associated Press interviews and research have found.

The agency knows of at least 150 underground tanks that need to be inspected for leaks, spokeswoman Debbie Wing said.

One of the tanks is located in Pensacola.

There has been no documentation of reported leaks or harm to communities from the FEMA tanks, Wing said, although former agency officials and congressional testimony suggest that the federal tanks have long been seen as a problem.

Many of these tanks were built to store 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel and placed around the country at the height of the Cold War back in the 1960s to fuel electric generators that could sustain emergency broadcasts by radio stations in case of a nuclear attack or other catastrophe. Made of steel, the tanks inevitably rust over time and allow fuel to escape.

LA: More Oil For The River

Local government agencies got another scare Wednesday as 2,500 gallons of oil still inside a wrecked barge near the Crescent City Connection bubbled to the surface, halting river traffic through New Orleans for six hours and forcing officials in three parishes to again stop drawing water from the Mississippi River.

Although shipping and water intake resumed by late afternoon, Coast Guard officials did not rule out the possibility of additional fuel leaks in upcoming days as the barge remains in the river, prompting criticism from port officials.

Officials attributed Wednesday’s new leak to a three-foot drop in the river in the past week, which allowed the broken barge to shift and disrupt the oil still inside. Removing the barge from the river is still days away, according to the Coast Guard, as divers inspecting the barge have run into setbacks because of strong currents near the river bottom.

The slow salvage process has drawn criticism from some local officials, including the head of the Port of New Orleans, who called it “the slowest process I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Meanwhile, residents in Algiers, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes again were questioning the safety of their drinking water after the leak forced officials to temporarily close intake systems.

Robert Jackson of the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board said the department performed in-house tests and found no contaminants in the water samples. The department has put out its own protective booms in addition to the ones provided by cleanup crews.

LA: More River Oil Problems

Commerce resumed Tuesday along the Mississippi River six days after an oil spill halted marine traffic, but more oil discovered near the mouth of the river could again complicate navigation by the end of the week.

Dredging operations meant to maintain navigational channels at the river’s juncture with the Gulf of Mexico have ceased until further notice after the Army Corps of Engineers confirmed Tuesday that oil had mixed with river sediments. The discovery came as a surprise to environmental officials, who thought most of the oil had been contained upriver.

Dredging is crucial for the shipping industry, which needs machinery to clear the gateway to the river, a channel called Southwest Pass, when the river is high. But disposing of the tainted mud in an environmentally sensitive way presents new logistical problems for the corps.

LA: River Reopens

A sheen of oil coated the Mississippi River for nearly 100 miles from the center of this city to the Gulf of Mexico on Friday following the worst oil spill here in nearly a decade. Around noon, after two days with no ship traffic, the Coast Guard opened the river to limited use.

The thick industrial fuel pouring from the barge could be smelled for miles in city neighborhoods up and down the river, even as hundreds of cleanup workers struggled to contain the hundreds of thousands of gallons. Some environmentalists worried about reports of fish and bird kills in sensitive marsh areas downstream, though officials said they had so far heard of only a handful of oil-covered birds. Booms to protect areas richest in wildlife, at the river’s mouth, were being deployed, officials said.

The Mississippi had been closed to all boat traffic, stranding about 200 vessels. The Coast Guard said 58 vessels were stopped in the river, the Associated Press reported Friday morning, and 97 were waiting at Southwest Pass — the narrow entrance from the Gulf of Mexico into the river. Another 37 were waiting on the Intercoastal Waterway, a shallow canal system that extends across the Gulf Coast. Forty-eight more were en route and expected to arrive over the weekend, and it could take days to clear the backlog.