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A. This is no redneck riviera. 112,642,503 (36% of the country’s total population) live in states bordering the Eastern Seaboard.
B. This is Hurricane Alley. Imagine Sandy with massive BP oil spills attached.
C. The Gulf Stream is a major climate modifier, and environmental life line. Spills get carried to Europe.
There is one good thing. It could create several turnovers in Congressional districts in the south from being Republican over to Democrat. If done, and should the Congress become democratic with super majorities in both houses, the overall benefit to America will outweigh the cost…
Still, it is one hell of a cost.
Courtesy of AP/Nati Harnik
This is the DOT 111…. It is called the traveling nuclear bomb. This rail car was deemed unsafe in 1990… it still carries 65% of the crude across North America…. It is these cars that blew up La Magnetic in Quebec. It is these cars that blew up Casselton, North Dakota. It is the cars that blew up in Lynchburg, VA just last week…
Here is the explanation via video.
The National Transportation Safety Board has been urging replacing or retrofitting the tank cars since 1991 (George H.W. Bush was president), but the most recent federal effort to write tougher regulations for new cars didn’t get underway until 2011…. You can rightly blame the oil presidency for that delay. New rules are to be out by this upcoming December….
Though these cars look nice, they are easily ruptured in an accident, spilling out their contents. With US oil production being up 70% over 2009 levels, increasing per day production from 5 million barrels to 8.5 million barrels per day, these cars are getting a heavier workout than at any time in their history. Increased exposure means increased potential for a harmful accident….
U.S. freight railroads transported about 415,000 carloads of crude in 2013, up from just 9,500 in 2008, according to government and industry figures. That is an increase of 4200%…. So yes, that translates to having 4200 times more of a chance at a spill, 4200 more of a chance at an explosion, or 4200 more chance of a death or maiming….
The rail and chemical industries have committed to a safer design for new tankers but are pressing regulators not to require modifications to tens of thousands of existing cars, despite a spike in the number of accidents… It is modifications to these cars that will save lives..
Essentially we and regulators are being asked to trade in our lives for their money…. In other words they can fix the problem, but it will cost them money to do so, and they don’t want that. Since if a train explodes not that many people will die, that is an acceptable loss society should bear they say, so as not to invest any money into a tank car that will soon be scrap metal once newer safer cars are available…..
After last years explosions Canada has moved forward on making their railroads safer… The US has gotten as far as a Congressional Hearing.
Then 2 months ago, the NSTB issued an emergency order. The order requires all crude oil be properly tested before being transported. And all crude that travels by rail must be carried in these DOT-111 tank cars. The older DOT-111 tank cars were deemed inadequate by the National Transportation Board more than 20 years ago.
Some crude from the Bakken region, including the oil in the tragic Lac Megantic derailment, was misclassified. What that means is that potentially explosive crude oil was being shipped in rail cars even less safe than the DOT-111’s. The so-called misclassification has resulted in $93,000 in fines.
So if you are driving through Bear, and a train is crossing your path, look up and see if the rail cars look like the one above, If so, make U turn and get out of there… quick! The extra few minutes your drive may cost you, could mean a lifetime of thank-yous….
Hagel told members of the House of Representatives in Congress it would be in the “10’s of millions…”
Each cruise Missile costs $1.5 million. In Libya, we fired 221; 110 in the opening salvo. Alone, that totals to $331 million.
B-2 Bombers’ fuel costs $60,000 per hour… They travel from Missouri 18 hours there, and 18 hours back… so 36 hours times $60,000 is $2.16 million for each bomber’s fuel on each run.
Weekly costs for a carrier strike force… $25 million in normal operations. In combat mode, the cost rise to $40 million due to extensive flying, and fuel for the planes.
When reporters brought up these discrepancies to Pentagon officials, all declined to comment. Pentagon spokesman George Little told a briefing on Thursday….”This is in the national security interests of the United States,” Little said. “When something is that important, we’ll find a way to pay for it.”
Word leaked from the MId-East is we have…
Exhibit A: Saudis have put ”on the table” their offer to pay for the entire US assault on Syria.
Why would they do that?
Hedge funds are betting if war in Syria occurs, oil jumps from $109 to $125 a barrel. At the pump that translates from today’s pump cost of $3.45 per gallon up to $3.95 a gallon of 87 octane… At 9.8 million barrels a day, Saudi’s will make $156 million extra …per day…. If oil jumps to top line, $150 a barrel, our pump costs soar to $4.74 a gallon and the Saudi’s pocket an extra $401.8 million a day. War is very profitable for them and the Gulf States…
Oil, at $150 a day, has China very worried. The global economy may take quite a hit on the chin.
As an indicator of how close the price of oil is tied to this, as reports of opposition to Obama attacking Syria grow, and the attack looks less likely, the price of oil futures are coming down…
it is always nice to say “I told you so” even when it irritates those listening to have to hear it. I apologize in advance for this is one of these moment. But the first story I saw today, was one that i went on a limb to state and took flack for. It has now come to pass.
in what now seems like a previous lifetime, when there actually were Conservatives on the blog circuit, I stated that teeming up with the Chinese was our solution to stabalizing and getting out of Iraq. I made the point that we’d lost the right to develop all of Iraq’s oil and would never get it being the oppressor; we should use a third party as a front, and partner with them to at least get some access.
The oil barons all cried traitor…
Lol. Well, today Reuters broke the story that Exxon was partnering with PetroChina to develop one of the massive oil fields near Basra. As an aside to that story, it mentions that one of Iraq’s targets is to be outproducing Saudi Arabia by 2020.
it is always nice to always be right. 🙂 But just imagine if we’d done it back in 2007.
We knew this but it is now being published… and so it is in the news.
The world is getting warmer… and we can now predict our climate by looking at map at 300 miles south and guessing what our weather will be from that…
Just as plate tectonics and Darwin’s origin of the species were able to lay the groundwork of reason for explaining puzzling observations, this simplifies what to expect from global warming rather startlingly.
Texas is now what we alway thought of when we considered the weather of Mexico; Oklahoma is now West Texas; Kansas is now Oklahoma; Nebraska is now Kansas; South Dakota is now Nebraska, North Dakota is now South Dakota: Southern Manitoba is now North Dakota…..
If West Texas had 3 days of rain, now Oklahoma is getting 3 days of rain; If it snowed 12 times in South Dakota, it is now doing the same in North Dakota… and so on.
So, to predict our heat, rain, winters, etc, our guide would be North Carolina. Longer growing seasons, some winters with no snow, hot summers…
However due to Global warming, the East Coast has a caveat. An anomaly so to speak and actually some relief from the North Carolina summer heat we would normally expect….
With the unprecedented melting of the Arctic and Greenland icecaps dumping its excess into the Labrador Current, that cold water drops South hugging the East Coast shoreline all the way down to North Carolina’s Outer Banks where it finally becomes neutralized… Therefore even though we have hotter air masses, the colder ocean temperatures creates a buffer against Global warming off the entire northeastern US.
Europe, Japan, and Alaska all experience the same mitigating effect, although with both Greenland and the Arctic Icecaps melting into the Labrador, the US East Coast gets a stronger volume of cold water. Call it our icy shower effect….
Once melting stops and the currents dry up, we return to the North Carolina scenario of the twentieth century….
Chart Courtesy of NOAA
So, we in Delaware really get the best climate on the East Coast. Warm winters, little or no snow, and cool breezy summers….. as well as a longer growing period, and… less dependence on fossil fuels for winter heating.
Gee, global warming isn’t so bad for Delaware after all…. Oh, the rising seas? There you go again… Why did you have to spoil the rosy picture I was painting?
Facts are a Republicans worst nightmare…..
Republicans zero’d out the Interagency Council on Homelessness. This agency is what makes churches and private taking care of homeless possible.
Republicans zero’d out $1.1 billion from Head Start. Putting 200,000 toddlers on the streets, and eliminating 55,000 teachers.
Republicans zero’d out the Administration on Aging, and cut out block grants which keep Meals on Wheels and Senior Centers alive.
Republicans cut out 81,000 people from getting food each day, by zeroing out the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which provides food to low-income Americans….
Republicans zero’d out money being sent to poverty-focused international assistance programs, which will largely hurt women and girls who have no other source of food or medical help.
But they will not raise one penny on millionaire and billionaires…
These guys are really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, … sick.
WHEREAS gasoline prices are almost at record highs, and are expected to break new ground this summer,
WHEREAS the economy is just beginning to pull out of the recession.
WHEREAS international turmoil has driven up fears over the amount and cost of barrels of oil this summer.
WHEREAS government of the United States of America has full right to apply any tax on items it chooses, during periods of national emergencies, as it did during WWII,
SO BE IT RESOLVED, that as long as gasoline prices are over $3.00 a gallon, a provision will be placed in the IRS code that taxes on all capital gains emanating from profits gained through hedge funds or all parts of hedge funds earning their income off of oil, at a rate if 95%.
Synopsis: This bill takes out all incentive of artificially driving up the price of oil, by taxing the capital gains made from doing so at 95%. It does not affect the hedging by American businesses, who seek to stabilize their energy costs over time, and actually receive and use the products they buy. The escalation of the price of oil, costs America tremendous amounts of money. This bill seeks to recapture the portion based on speculation, using that amount to assist in the emergency funding of the extra expense that higher gasoline prices exert on the day to day running of our government. ….
Duffy is God’s answer to a prayer.. I miss the old days of blogging when we were debating principals instead of people… Duffy has stuck to the old line of debating principals with facts, and that is what makes him special in the eyes of bloggers everywhere…
Since the passing of Steve Newton, he has been the only one to challenge me in any argument, and usually some pretty good stuff comes out of both sides during the exchange… I have respected that.. Cause once again, opinions mean dick. Facts are what we steer by.. It is my hope that in responding to his challenge that an answer may make itself apparent.. Who knows? It may not come from me… But if I’m the catalyst for bringing it out in the open, then… none of this was in vain..
Why I like to debate Duffy is simple.. Neither side, he or I, is concretely set in their opinions… We accept it when the other side makes sense… I usually go into such debates having no idea where they’ll end up… I hope the rest of you enjoy the ride as welI….
That said..
kavips rebutt’s:Uh… Mr. President. That’s not entirely accurate.
First off, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was developed for, and locked in on, urban developmental areas and had no part of the subprime boom, which primarily occurred out in western desert regions where owning 4 to 5 investment homes was normal… Those homes were overwhelmingly funded by loan originators NOT SUBJECT to the act… We all know the crises was not because people couldn’t afford a payment on their house. It came about, because with no occupants, people could not afford the payments of 4 to 5 houses….. Instead of one loan per borrower turning up in default; four to five were.
Second off, The housing bubble reached its point of maximum inflation in 2005.
Courtesy of NYT
Third off, During those exact same years, Fannie and Freddie were sidelined by Congressional pressure, and saw a sharp drop in their share of loans secured by the Feds… Follow the dotted line on the very bottom of the graph…
Courtesy of NYT
Fourth off; During those exact same years, private secures, like Delaware’s own AIG, grabbed the lions share of the market.
Courtesy of NYT
Remember these graphs for later on when I discuss the results of deregulation, versus regulation… But like it or not, these graphs conclusively show that private insurers, who thanks to Marie Evans, we now know were deregulated by Phil Gramm in the 2000 Omnibus Bill, were the primary cause of the worlds financial collapse.. Probably put best by these words of AIG’s spokesperson, who when asked why they didn’t have sufficient funds to cover losses, said point blank, “We were deregulated. We were no laws requiring us to keep any funds, ..so we spent it…”
kavips rebutt’s:Uh… Mr. President. That’s not entirely accurate. I agree that the hedge funds did survive better than the banks. Not because of bailouts, but because they sold short during the crises and made billions while firms closed and people got thrown out of work. There is nothing wrong with that; I did the same. In fact close readers may remember my warnings that the crises was impending almost a year earlier. Very close readers may remember my telling them exactly when to sell, and at what point the stock market would rebound… I must say: I called it rather well. 🙂
De regulated hedge funds are not the issue… De-regulated, excessively leveraged, mortgage securities, are a different story however… They, not the banks that held them, are the cause of the crises…Years from now, when academics search for causes of the stock market crash of 2008, they will focus on the pivotal role of mortgage-backed securities. These exotic financial instruments allowed a downturn in U.S. home prices to morph into a contagion that brought down Bear Stearns a year ago this month – and more recently have brought the global banking system to its knees.
Where you err is when you state that banks too big to fail, assumed they would be bailed out… By implication, you say imply they failed from squandering money, and wanted the bailouts.. But your tax dollars didn’t flow directly to the bottom line.
So in that sense, the bailout money represents an expense for banks. That’s one reason a number of banks have said they want to give the money back as soon as possible.
You say big banks were counting on a bailout, and they got them? That didn’t happen to these banks. New Mexico, Georgia, and Florida each lost a bank just last Friday. That brings to 8, the number of banks failed in June. Unfortunately if a bank is failing, it can’t bet on itself to fail, as can a hedge fund.
kavips rebutt’s:Uh… Mr. President. That’s not entirely accurate. The idea is that the banks made bad decisions knowing taxpayers would bail them out is the issue that is inaccurate. For the record, I have no qualms that it was the Clinton legacy who tore down the wall between banks and investment banking. Like you, I feel it was a good idea to do so… Again the problem was not primarily with banks making loans to people who could not pay.. Although, it was as late as October 2009, when I was made aware of one private Bank in Denver still exaggerating income to make loans look good enough on paper to get approval of securitization. What caused the collapse was the leveraging of those loans as securities, so that as the housing market became overextended, and the ARM jumped past the low cost opening years, the damage was 100 times worse because of leveraging. What made the collapse criminal, was that the insurance most financial institutions had bought from AIG, to cover such an improbable event, had already spent by that companies executives, out on bonuses to themselves. What made it doubly criminal, was that when they received government dollars through a taxpayer bailout, those same executives assumed it was to first go towards paying their bonuses again. However, very recent events may give some cover to the argument that some collusion was implicit in the bailing out of Goldman Sacs and AIG… Basically, once bailed out, AIG paid Goldman Sacs for shares twice as much as they were worth. The documents also indicate that regulators ignored recommendations from their own advisers to force the banks to accept losses on their A.I.G. deals and instead paid the banks in full for the contracts.
Failed. The Republican leadership has failed…
They are fighting a healthcare plan that benefits all Americans except those directly receiving compensation from the excessive profits being made by insurance companies…
You can’t win by fighting everyone… Look locally at Copeland, Adams, McDowell, and DeLuca… They took on 94.9% of Delawareans over offshore wind and now (in same order as above), they are a joke, dead, silent, and flipped over to the winning side….
If there were such a thing as a smart republican (an oxymoron to be sure), they would be thinking on how to offer the Republican version of the public option.. NOT voting to kill that option outright… The public option is a necessity and all of America knows it. So it is inevitable that it will pass. Therefore voting against it, makes them losers. Not only losers with a big “L” but voting against the public option gives their opponents the ammunition needed to blow them out of political waters for the next thirty years… (thirty years being the living memory of most voters).. However, putting in a better plan than the ones being offered by the Democrats would set them as a positive force in the function of things… Even I would be interested in their version of a public option plan.
Sometimes a politician has to recognize the trend of the future… Like a giant wave off Hawaii, he needs to position himself on the crest and ride it into the beach… not stand firm and have it crash down on him, uniting his body parts with the jagged lava of the shoreline.
Republicans made a mistake. That is the result of their failure to lead….
They didn’t lead, and for that reason, they can’t be taken seriously… Using a local political analogy, one could say the national Republican party has been Copelandized…
kavips 
