Trump Backs Down On Drilling Off The Coast Of Red States Turning Purple

Oil Can Harry by Nancy Ohanian

Yesterday, in a complete about face, while campaigning in Jupiter (FL), the Trumpist regime announced a decade-long ban on oil drilling off the coast of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Politico reported it as "a decision that surprised energy industry executives by reversing the administration’s earlier pledges to open those waters to exploration... [I]t comes despite vows by a series of Republican presidents-- Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and now Trump-- to open up more of the U.S. coast to drilling to foster American energy independence."

It comes because Trump fears he will lose Florida and Georgia, where voters (rather than money)don't want oil slicks fouling their beaches, destroying their fishing and tourism industries and bringing down their standard of life.

A congressional aide who works on the issue said their office had gotten no advance heads-up from the White House.

“As of yesterday they said there would be no announcement,” one congressional aide said on Tuesday morning.

The new move is expected to be done by Presidential Memorandum, according to an administration official. That vehicle-- the same one the Obama administration used to withdraw parts of Alaska from drilling-- would have the same impact as a Congressional moratorium, an industry source added.

Half a dozen industry officials and lobbyists who had been working on the offshore exploration issue with the Interior Department, which develops the federal government’s five-year drilling plans, told Politico the administration never mentioned extending the moratorium.

“It’s a complete ambush,” said one industry official who had been abreast of Interior’s plans. “Nobody knows where this came from. It totally seems like a campaign sort of thing.”

...The Trump administration had originally announced in 2017 it would seek to open nearly all the U.S. coastal waters to oil and gas drilling, but it quickly walked that plan back after complaints from then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott and other governors. People familiar with the administration's plans had told Politico as recently as June that the administration was still aiming to open up those waters to drilling, but that it would wait until after the November election to announce the move.

The oil industry has aggressively lobbied the Trump administration to open up the Eastern Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling when the current moratorium on exploration there ends in June 2022. Florida residents are strongly opposed to opening up the area to drilling rigs, however, fearful that an oil spill would wreck the state's tourism and fishing economy-- something its Panhandle region got a taste of during the catastrophic BP spill in 2010.

...One oil and gas industry executive said with Trump behind in most national polls, securing states he won in 2016 has taken on increasing urgency for his re-election campaign. In 2016, Trump won Florida by 1.2 percent.

“Industry views on this right now-- they don’t matter," said an oil and gas industry official. "All the decisions they're making right now, they're probably like, 'We helped you. We don't care.'”

Issuing a presidential memorandum to rescind Florida waters through the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which Obama used to withdraw many Arctic areas just before leaving office, could have a lasting effect. Federal courts have so far upheld Obama's memorandum by rejecting the Trump administration's attempts to open the offshore Arctic areas. The Trump administration is challenging that ruling.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis joined Trump at his Florida appearance. But the governor’s office has no details about the moratorium, suggesting the policy change had not been shared with DeSantis’s office.

The clownish Trump, universally considered the most environmentally unfriendly president in modern American history, was quick to try to generate some enthusiasm for himself. The L.A. Times reported that his proclamation is just symbolic. "Since taking office, Trump has shredded dozens of environmental protections, dismissed the scientific consensus on climate change and tapped energy lobbyists to lead the agencies entrusted with safeguarding the country’s natural resources, but he dramatically recast his record in an effort to woo environmentally minded voters." Señor Trumpanzee: "Number one since Teddy Roosevelt. Who would have thought? Trump is the great environmentalist."

Janelle Christensen, chair of the Florida Environmental Caucus, wasn't fooled. "Like a bad magic act that doesn't even bother to hide the slight of hand," she told me today, "Trump goes through the motions of pretending to do the right thing. An executive order can be lifted by the president at any point. Likely he'll put this in place to trick gullible people into thinking that he cares about the environment hoping he can slip back into office. Of course he's going to lift it as soon as he gets what he wants. This is how he operates. Trump is a developer first, President second and has absolutely no interest in anything except for his self interest."

Cindy Banyai is running to represent the Ft. Myers/Naples congressional district, an open seat now that Francis Rooney is retiring. Her opponent, far right Trumpist Byron Donalds, has an F rating on the environment from the Democratic Environmental Caucus of Florida. Banyai noted today that "It's convenient that Trump comes to Florida, a swing state, just ahead of the election and signs an order banning offshore drilling when it wasn't even set to expire until 2022 in a clear ploy to win over pro-water voters here. The showman strikes again! Then again we will see what really happens when his corporate masters come calling after the election."

Progressive Democrat Joshua Hicks is running for a state House seat in northeast Florida that encompasses Nassau County and some of Duval. The incumbent, Cord Byrd is a garden variety Florida Republican-- he doesn't talk about oil drilling a lot but since he represents a coastal district, he twists himself into knots trying to square a pro-development agenda with a tepid opposition to oil drilling off the coast (of at least his own district). Joshua is clearly the environmental candidate. "Floridians," he told me this morning, "don't need empty promises from empty suits. This is just an election season joke by Donald Trump. He announced the moratorium but then said the plan wouldn't be released until after the election. This is coming from a man who wanted to drill off the Florida coasts as recently as June, but somehow he's now had a change of heart? I don't believe him and won't fall for lies from a liar. Florida needs a permanent ban on oil drilling off our treasured coasts-- so that politicians like Donald Trump can't play these games. If we really want to protect our coasts, we need to elect Joe Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot."

The Trump Kiss Of Death: Republicans Learn To Lose In South Carolina

Yesterday in this time slot, we looked at the most unexpected congressional win of 2018, Kendra Horn's in Oklahoma City. But there was an almost an unlikely a win in another deep red state: South Carolina. OK-05 has a PVI of R+10... and so does SC-01. Trump won both districts by double digits in 2016-- and his candidates narrowly lost each November 6. The similarities are stunning:

• OK-05

• Trump v Hillary- 53.2%- 39.8%
• Horn (D) v Russell (R)- 50.7%- 49.3% (3,338 vote margin)

• SC-01

• Trump v Hillary- 53.5%- 40.4%
• Cunningham (D) v Arrington (R)- 50.7%- 49.3% (3,982 vote magin)

Joe Cunningham has already added his name to the Moulton letter against Pelosi, an inauspicious beginning of a congressional career for a Democrat. No one inside the Beltway thought he had any chance to win. Nate Silver's final forecast was a 9.4% shot (not even 1 on 10. He gave Arrington a 90.6% chance winning and the only public poll had her over Cunningham 49-42%.

Cunningham outraged Arrington $1,908,175 to $1,313,382 with $346,909 of her money self-funded). It's worth noting that much of what she raised had gone into the primary campaign against incumbent Mark Sanford. The NRCC spent $228,412 attacking Cunningham, while neither the DCCC nor Pelosi's SuperPAC spent a cent to help Cunningham. They didn't believe his race was worth investing in.

Cunningham's policy positions were moderate (neither progressive nor conservative). Example: he didn't come out for Medicare-for-All but his website states that he believes "healthcare is a right, not a privilege. No one in America should go bankrupt because they get sick. In the United States, no one should forego necessary or preventative care because they are unable to afford it... One of the many ways we can improve our current healthcare system is by encouraging the federal government to negotiate with drug companies to lower medication prices for people on Medicare, similar to how the Veterans Affairs Department does. Another possibility is allowing more middle class families to qualify for tax breaks to reduce their healthcare costs. We should also explore lowering the Medicare age requirement from 65 to 55 over the course of ten years." What you might term a liberal-leaning position for a red district. The Blue Dogs ignored him and the New Dems put him on their watch list rather than endorsing him.



The ad above was devastating for Arrington. But Monday evening the Post and Courier took a deep dive into how she could have lost in such a red district, a Republican disaster almost entirely of Trump's making. She beat Sanford because of Trump's last minute endorsement but she could never raise the money she needed to deal effectively with Cunningham and the NRCC refused to put significant resources into the race. They had, according to her general consultant, Andrew Boucher, been "pressing panic buttons since June here, screaming and yelling to little avail.”

But outwardly, the Arrington campaign exhibited little, if any, signs during the race that they were concerned about some of the factors they now say led to their candidate’s electoral downfall. The Trump-heavy messaging that worked for them in the primary stayed largely the same.

Some trouble spots are obvious, like the fundraising gap Arrington could never seem to close, or the fact that Cunningham beat them to TV and stayed on the air throughout the general election campaign.

Other challenges, like Arrington’s failure to appeal to suburban Republican swing voters, becomes a more complicated story to tell. Was it really a split among Republicans who backed Sanford, like she hinted at during her concession speech, or was this a Trump referendum vote?

What happened in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District has been largely reduced to catch-all explanations and sweeping generalizations about issues like offshore drilling, but the story of Arrington’s loss is as nuanced as the coastal district itself.

Though historical election data gives a Republican candidate in the district a built-in 10-point advantage, it is a unique district. In 2016, Trump bested Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the district by 13 points.

By contrast, the more moderate Mitt Romney outdid President Barack Obama in the district by 18 points.

But Charleston, the most populous county in the district, has shown some movement to the left, morphing in recent years from red to purple in voting preference.

Fundraising challenges

While national analysts continually categorized the district as “safe Republican,” Arrington and members of her campaign team met with the National Republican Congressional Committee in Washington, a customary practice following a primary win.

At the June 20 meeting, Boucher said their goal was to be placed into the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program for competitive congressional seats, where the NRCC would aggressively invest in TV ads and staffing resources for candidates.

Instead, they were put into the Vanguard Program, a designation that treated Arrington like a victor-in-waiting rather than a challenger-in-need. Even NRCC Chairman Steve Stivers said in a July press release that he had “no doubt” that Vanguard candidates like Arrington would win in November.

Efforts to reach the NRCC for comment were unsuccessful.

Arrington, meanwhile, struggled to fundraise.

On TV alone, the Arrington campaign said their numbers show Cunningham outspent them nearly 3 to 1.

The latest publicly available federal election reports from October show Cunningham raised about $1.9 million to Arrington’s $1.3 million during the election cycle. Arrington also dropped an estimated $346,909 to self-finance her run, according to campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.org.  Post-election numbers due in December could show an even wider gap.

However, the numbers alone don’t tell the full story.

“Her dollar amount comes in over $1 million but a huge chunk of that went into the primary,” Boucher said. “When we were running in the primary, we had to spend every dollar we had to win. We couldn’t spend money to build campaign infrastructure.”

Arrington’s campaign had just three full-time staffers compared with the 10 or so with the Cunningham campaign.

None of Arrington’s full-time positions were dedicated to fundraising. Boucher confirmed that position was contracted out. By contrast, Cunningham dedicated four full-time staffers to fundraising.

But when fundraising numbers showed Arrington trailing Cunningham in a Republican district in mid-October, Arrington campaign strategist and spokesman Michael Mulé issued comments about their alleged momentum and the “tremendous support Katie has across the district.”

South Carolina Republican strategist Walter Whetsell said fundraising can be a reflection of a candidate’s ability or inability to connect with voters. He has run GOP congressional campaigns in South Carolina for U.S. Reps. Jeff Duncan and Ralph Norman.

“In political terms, there are two primary factors that define the best candidates: Their ability to raise money and their ability to get voters to like them,” Whetsell said.

But when pressed as to whether they thought they had a likeability issue with Arrington, Mulé and Boucher denied it. Boucher called Arrington “one of the best stump speakers” he had ever seen. Mulé said she was relentless despite being in excruciating pain every day following her June 22 car accident in which she was critically injured.

“Money talks, and it certainly did in this race,” Mulé said. “But money also made an issue out of something that wasn’t really an issue.”

Offshore drilling

In August and September, the Arrington campaign conducted polls asking voters for their most important issue in the race.

Illegal immigration was at the top followed by jobs and the economy. Offshore drilling polled at 1 percent, Boucher said. The highest it ever got, he said, was 4 percent.

“This is what is called a MacGuffin. It is an issue by which someone can target a specific demographic that they need, right?” Boucher said. “This was the issue that Joe Cunningham successfully was able to use to target the Democratic vote. If it has been a different Republican nominee, it would have been a different localized issue.”

The issue began to take off after Arrington stated during the primary at a Beaufort League of Women Voters forum that she supported Trump lifting the ban on offshore drilling along the South Carolina coast.

When two coastal mayors, who identify as Republicans, later endorsed Cunningham because of Arrington’s stance, she then issued a statement saying she did not did not support drilling.

To combat the comment, Arrington reiterated her opposition to offshore drilling at every turn. She also accused Cunningham of being a one-issue candidate.

Behind the scenes, the Arrington campaign spent about $50,000 on digital advertising to get their message out along with a targeted mailer campaign.

The issue was important enough that Arrington addressed the issue in a TV ad, where she stated she had met with the president to demand an exemption for the Palmetto State.

But by then, it may have been too little too late.

The Cunningham campaign had the Republican mayors-- Isle of Palms Mayor Jimmy Carroll and Folly Beach Mayor Tim Goodwin-- appearing on TV ads supporting Cunningham.

“That gave Republicans permission to cross the aisle and vote for a Democrat,” said Tyler Jones, Cunningham’s spokesman and strategist. “I’ve been working in this business 15 years in South Carolina, and I can tell you that’s never happened before-- ever.”



Whetsell said the offshore drilling issue also represented something far more challenging for Arrington to overcome.

“Katie Arrington’s defenders have missed the point on the relevance of the offshore drilling issue,” he said. “It’s arguable that offshore drilling cost her this election. If it did, it wasn’t on the merits of the issue. It was on the perception that she changed her position.

“What made this issue toxic was that voters perceived that she was misleading them. They perceived that she took one position in the primary then flip-flopped in the general.”

But when Arrington got her chance to speak publicly after her loss, she first blamed Sanford, whom she hammered in the primary for his Trump criticism.

Her unconventional concession speech comments flicked at something few national watchers understood about the underlying dynamics on the ground in this political race.

“You had an internal Republican war going on down there,” said Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina GOP Chairman.

  “With Katie backing the president in the primary and getting some help from him at the last minute to whip Mark, while you’ve got Mark talking about the things that matter to him and his opposition to the president, well, that just doesn’t lend itself to a unified party.”
Charleston’s suburbs turned out to be the battlefield.

Suburban voters and the Trump factor

Arrington’s loss looks baffling on a map. The 1st Congressional District wraps around parts of Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester, Colleton and Beaufort counties-- linking a conservative mix of retirees, suburbanites and military veterans.

Arrington won Berkeley, Dorchester, Colleton and Beaufort counties. Where she lost was Charleston County, and specifically in suburban areas like Mount Pleasant and West Ashley.

“What defines a suburb?” Boucher hypothetically asked his fellow Republicans. “It’s a place where people care more about what their neighbors think than they do about their own political opinions.”

More seriously, Boucher said the hallmark of a suburban district is looking at the split between “Romney Republicans” and “Trump Republicans.” Where 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney performed better than Trump did in 2016, they considered a suburb.

Arrington knocked on doors in suburban areas of Mount Pleasant and West Ashley from August through the third week in September, Boucher said.

But if the Arrington campaign was aware that they needed to sway Republican swing voters-- especially GOP-leaning women who are finding it difficult to defend Trump-- their messaging didn’t reflect that.

Instead, it echoed national GOP talking points, which included equating a vote for Cunningham as a vote for Nancy Pelosi and claims that Cunningham favored an open border policy.

Already, Charleston Republicans are trying to take lessons from the loss.

“We can’t act like things haven’t changed,” said Larry Kobrovsky, chairman of the Charleston Republican Party. “To win in Charleston County, we have to now go beyond our base.”

A Devil’s Advocate Rings in a Bad Night for Bankers

-by Skip Kaltenheuser

It was a long hard slog to publish Lucifer's Banker. Had Brad Birkenfeld managed to get his book out say, a year or so earlier, we might not be staring at the political train wreck we are now. It might have changed the political landscape, perhaps the standard bearers. Maybe even elevated different issues for the last lap beyond the cursory checklist now fed us. But I’m glad it’s arrived. This book underscores every lament Bernie Sanders uttered about the gravity of the finance sector's black hole. There's ample material to make Washington insiders lose sleep, plenty to bring out loosely-defined authorities saying move along, nothing to see here. Above it all the central question floats like a banshee-- when a whistleblower revealed the largest systematic American tax fraud to surface, why was the only person to go to prison the whistleblower?

Birkenfeld is that whistleblower, logging long house arrest and thirty-one months of a forty-month sentence to a Federal penitentiary, with the added insult of a thirty-grand fine, never mind his legal expenses. His tale of DOJ's whistleblower smack-down, of its shooting the messenger, makes an entertaining read. But it ought to frighten the hell out of everyone. With dollops of irony, fright is likely the reason behind this whistleblower whacking, a warning to those who might raise curtains on the very rich and very powerful and very, very connected.

Birkenfeld worked for UBS in Switzerland as a private banker serving wealthy American clients. He went to jail on what seems a DOJ engineered Catch-22 that made him vulnerable to a charge of covering for a client, a Russian immigrant in California who hit it big in real estate. After Birkenfeld voluntarily approached the US government in 2007, DOJ sought to replace his whistle with a supersonic one no one could hear. It refused to give him the subpoena he requested that would protect him from prosecution under Swiss bank secrecy laws. Those laws once protected Germans from execution under the Third Reich for slipping money out of Germany. Now they serve darker purpose. Try to imagine the incredible weight of the money and power pushing out of Swiss vaults against DOJ's door.

Birkenfeld went to every other agency he could think of. He got the necessary subpoenas he needed and divulged accordingly, including on that client DOJ claimed he covered for. And he cued in the US Senate in a private hearing. But someone in DOJ couldn't take a joke, and they nabbed him as if what he'd already divulged was done in an alternate universe. Given the profile of the case, Birkenfeld has no doubts the hammer came down from on high.

If you'd like to hear the jaw-droppers from that Senate hearing-- most of which were his answers to Senators’ questions, join the club. The government sealed it and refuses to provide Birkenfeld with a transcript of his testimony.

Plenty of black eyes for plenty of politicians, and in particular for the Department of Justice-- let's just lump DOJ with the politicians. This book shreds that agency's credibility, laying bare once again Eric Holder's real legacy-- smooches to banks. Sadly, it's a legacy he's spreading around, including to his former boss.

I interviewed Birkenfeld awhile back as a component for an essay on the revolving door, (my apologies to the editor for my slow pace). The first thing that rides in on Birkenfeld's earnest, down-home Boston accent is that he isn't someone easily intimidated. He knows the territory, remembers who did what and won't quit shoving his boulders up the hill until credit is given where it's due. Gold stars are not in the offing.

That was underscored at Birkenfeld's book party Tuesday night at the National Press Club. He does have an advantage few of the royally screwed enjoy. After he was released a new law brought him an IRS whistleblower award, $104 million before the tax man's knock. Why not? His revelations enabled the US Treasury to recover $15 billion in back taxes, fines and penalties. They also put in motion international investigations of offshore banking's many misdeeds, and juiced up reformers seeking tougher oversight. Impacts on Swiss private banks-- there are scads of such banks, all shapes and sizes-- include a 2013 tax treaty facilitating the exchange of tax data between countries. This put a hitch in Switzerland's offshore tax haven status that vacuumed money. And plenty of dirt. Alas, though trickier, Birkenfeld says the multitude of nefarious practices requiring secret accounts still have plenty of global options.

Thing is, what the US reaped was a fraction of what could have been garnered had the massive tax evasion been fully brought to heel. That failure only increases the debt load every American carries. Why the lack of DOJ prosecutorial enthusiasm against tax cheats and their enabler bankers?

I don't want to step on too many nuggets, but Secretary of State Clinton stepped in to do the negotiations with UBS. She required UBS to disclose only 4,700 out of 19,000 illegal account holders. Birkenfeld's curious, as we all might be, as to who made the selection and how, and why the names were never made public. Why was the fine so inadequate compared to long-term profits, and why did DOJ so carelessly offer undeclared account holders anonymity and repeated amnesties?

Who are these titans of favoritism? Will the real masters of the universe please stand up?

It brings to mind proposals for excessively reduced corporate taxes for repatriating money sloshing around abroad, but I digress.

In Washington's small world of startling coincidence, before the negotiated deal UBS only contributed sixty grand to the Clinton Foundation. Afterwards, notes Birkenfeld, it went up by a factor of ten. UBS also partnered with the Foundation providing a low-interest thirty-two million dollar loan for a Foundation program. And President Clinton, the First, earned over a million and a half dollars "for a series of fireside chats with the bank's Wealth Management Chief Executive, Bob McCann...Bill Clinton's biggest payday since leaving the office of the Presidency."

I’m not a finance guy, but I’m getting better at the smell test. Ah,well, what's to worry? A legion of editorialists, commentators and spinners assures us there's no quid pro quo. The Trump gun at our temple is a curiosity killer.

In Washington, “pay it forward” is a concept not fully embraced.

Birkenfeld reckons Americans are on the hook for a trillion dollars escaping off-shore, so they ought be making demands.

The book balances entertaining asides and stark realities. One notable is how big players like UBS distribute business and retainers to put major law firms on the shelf as they avoid conflicts of interest. And the inescapable revolving door-- lubricated by so-called public servants sugaring up those they're supposed to ride herd on, while anticipating wildly better compensated employment elsewhere. Birkenfeld expresses particular fondness for DOJ prosecutors who shepherded him through his adventure in criminal prosecution. The lead prosecutor negotiated Birkenfeld’s plea and signed off on his motion for a sentence reduction. Then he sat quietly while a judge nailed Birkenfeld with a much longer sentence than Birkenfeld was led to expect.

Later, Birkenfeld discovered his lead prosecutor signed a secret non-prosecution agreement for the UBS kingpin who oversaw the 19,000 US accounts (including all of the North and South American offshore business), the show-runner for approximately $20 billion in assets. That banker was quietly allowed to go back to Switzerland two weeks later while the US Senate committee was on summer recess.

Birkenfeld's lead prosecutor then left DOJ to partner with a law firm that's now defending a Credit Suisse private banker who also handled US accounts (which Birkenfeld told the DOJ prosecutor about in 2007). The Credit Suisse banker is being prosecuted by another prosecutor, still at DOJ, that also dealt with Birkenfeld. Before leaving DOJ, Birkenfeld's lead prosecutor supervised the indictment of the Credit Suisse banker, which was signed by both prosecutors. The former prosecutor now with the law firm isn’t listed as attorney of record on the case. He’s merely a partner in the firm.

In any case, here’s a September 6th letter Birkenfeld sent to the Federal judge hearing the case regarding the Credit Suisse banker.

No word on the future plans of the prosecutor still lingering at DOJ.

Speaking generally, the revolving door is powered by contacts left behind in government.

His book might not be on the White House wish list, but on Oct. 1st Birkenfeld dispatched Lucifer to President Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Secretary of State John Kerry. It went with this letter urging action and answers. All members of Congress can look forward to Lucifer coming their way.

Among the questions posed, why was a key UBS official allowed to return to Switzerland after he agreed to cooperate but instead pleaded the Fifth at a Congressional hearing? Why was what Birkenfeld characterizes as a sham prosecution conducted against another top UBS official, who was acquitted and returned home after DOJ refused to call Birkenfeld to testify?

That’s high contrast with the French, Greeks, Canadians and others now eager for Birkenfeld’s assistance, which he’s giving, in government actions against the bank.

Note that UBS US employees have long poured money throughout America’s political system, including considerable largess to President Obama since he was a US Senator.

There's been press on Birkenfeld before, much of it sympathetic, when he blew the whistle, when he went to the hoosegow in 2010 and on his record IRS whistleblower award. He's since had plenty of time to ponder life. His book weaves together new threads connecting what happened and why. The resulting fabric is a brilliant lesson on how the fix is in. Read more at Birkenfeld's site. Can a movie be far behind?

Back to Washington's small world of coincidence. The first Sunday after Birkenfeld was sentenced, President Obama went golfing at Martha's Vineyard. His golfing partner was Robert Wolf, Chairman of UBS Americas.

Cue the Church Lady.

---------

A quick aside and a disclosure. Not all the levers of power, the finance villains and their aiders and abettors, are on Wall Street or in mega-banks. This writer has regrettable first-hand knowledge of the impacts on individual families from government indifference to, if not complicity with, people who in my view were financial predators on my mom, at the so-called community bank level. In my view, there was even a well-wired US Attorney-- with a conflicted background - running interference against my efforts to get government to focus on what in my view was glaring bad faith and deception. Confronted, that US Attorney refused multiple opportunities to comment.

In my opinion, we were also treated to a self-serving "trustee" in the DOJ administered bankruptcy system. When I spoke with the top supervisor in the region she asked if I was going to the FBI or planned to try and have him disbarred, warned about liability if I went public with what happened, and was basically told resistance is futile. But she refuses to put in writing that everything the trustee did was hunky-dory.

The saga ultimately cost my 99 year old mom her Iowa family farm and much more, most of it avoidable if, in my view, the trustee had not primarily been self-serving his interests at our expense, in my view to keep his gravy train rolling even if it meant destroying asset value. No matter how high I push it, the FBI won't even acknowledge my complaint. Nor will DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, famed as a burnout system. I have a legal background and once served as an asst. AG for the state of Kansas. I can't begin to describe my disillusionment with what has happened to justice, and about what I believe to be happening to people across the country who are theoretically less armored.

After reading Birkenfeld's book, and speaking with an FBI whistleblower at the launch party, I have to laugh at my quaint notion that government waits eager to ride to the rescue of the little guy, to champion even those dwelling far beneath potential headlines with political mileage. Nothing to do now but to try and tell the story. No payouts in cases like mine. But if Birkenfeld's book inspires the aggrieved to find voice, to tell their own stories of injustice at the ground level, they may awake others to the peril slack government places us in. That alone would make the book worth its ink.

SK

Merkley & Sanders Introduce Bill to End New and Non-Producing Oil and Gas Leases on Public Lands

Source: Bureau of Land Management. Does not show area available for offshore drilling

by Gaius Publius

The idea of ending the hypocritical role of the federal government in aiding and betting the warming of our planet is not a hard idea to hold, especially if you're a climate-aware citizen, or climate-aware president. Yet, for some reason, the federal government, the guardian of land owned by the public, is still in the coal, oil and gas business.

Bernie Sanders and Jeff Merkley want to end that, with a bill called the "Keep It In The Ground" Act. Meteor Blades at Daily Kos (my emphasis):

Merkley and Sanders introduce bill to end new and non-producing oil and gas leases on public lands

Flanked by Sierra Club president Aaron Mair, tribal rights attorney Tara Zhaabowekwe Houska‎, and 350.org founder Bill McKibben, Sen. Jeff Merkley and Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced legislation Wednesday to stop issuing leases to extract fossil fuels from on- and off-shore federal lands. Titled the Keep It in the Ground Act, the bill would also terminate all existing federal leases that are not producing. Co-sponsors of the legislation are Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer, Ben Cardin, Kirsten Gillibrand, Patrick Leahy, and Elizabeth Warren.

Behind the legislation is a simple message: When the common good depends on our adapting to and ameliorating the impacts of climate change, it makes no sense for public land meant for that common good to continue as a source of the fuels that are driving global warming.

Standing with a crowd of supporters near the Capitol in Washington, Sanders and Merkley praised the aggressive grassroots environmental movement that has been at the forefront of climate change activism, including opposition to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that looks closer than ever to extinction.

The two senators and Mair also spoke about ensuring that workers in the fossil fuel industry are not left behind. Merkely said their legislation, in particular, and fighting climate change, in general, by ending the extraction and burning of fossil fuels should not be an exercise in green vs. blue. Ours, he said, "must be a green and blue movement" with eco-activists working side by side with workers in the transition to renewable energy sources now underway.

Sanders said we have a "moral responsibility" not to bequeath a planet to our kids and grandkids "that is unhealthy and in some cases uninhabitable." You can't just "talk the talk" and then support extracting huge amounts of oil and gas from federal lands, he declared.

There's quite a bit more at the link, including this, about how to protect workers during the transition.

Mair, who has been president of the Sierra Club since May, said what is needed is a "green TARP" for fossil fuel workers, referencing the 2008 bail-out of financial institutions. Activists need to push a fully funded clean-green energy transition that protects workers, he added. He recommended "retooling" America just as was done to defeat the Axis powers during World War II. Houska, a member of the Couchiching First Nation, spoke in favor of the legislation, noting that indigenous people have been in the forefront of the climate change fight because they are among the most affected by those changes and by the extraction of fossil fuels.

Note the reference to World War II and its "retooling" of America. If I remember my history, that wasn't a "free market" effort — as in, General Motors didn't get to "free market decide" how many tanks and jeeps to build. The word for that kind of effort is "emergency mobilization." Stay tuned for more; this actually represents a way out of the worst of the mess we're headed for.

The article also notes that "Current extraction of fossil fuel from federal lands and waters accounts for nearly one-fourth of all emissions in the United States" (my emphasis) so this is not nothing. On the other hand, it will take quite a bit to get this passed.

How You Can Help

What this bill does:

1. It lays down a marker, a stake in the ground. "Keep it in the ground" is a moral obligation and a doable one. It's also easy to understand and an easy phrase to remember.

You can help — by asking, as the writer says, "every candidate for public office, Democrat or Republican—from city councils to state legislatures to Congress—whether they agree climate change has created what Sanders calls a 'major, major, major' crisis and if so, what they propose to do to meet the challenges that crisis presents." As the writer correctly notes, "Anybody who blows off such questions or treats them as a side issue is worthy of progressives' disdain, not our support."

2. It tells you what a President Sanders would strive to do if he achieves the Oval Office. That's big. Will any other announced candidate back this bill, and by implication, support the ending of climate-killing carbon leases on public land?

You can help — by supporting Bernie Sanders in his bid for that office. Adjust the split any way you wish at the link. You can also help by asking Mr. O'Malley and Ms. Clinton the same question. They deserve the right to answer.

GP

If The Oceans Rise 40 Meters, Will Your House Be Underwater?

Sometimes I wonder why I bother following the deranged rantings of right-wing sociopath Bryan Fischer on twitter. I keep wanting to delete him from my twitter-feed but, it's like a 50 car pile up you just can't stop watching... or it's my cross to bear. Yesterday I woke up with him racing about how Republican are the science party:

The hate talk radio host and satan-worshipper is like a contrary indicator of reality. I'm am glad he reminded me about global warming today though. The science section of The Guardian has a warning for humanity that satanists and End-of-Times activists like Fischer cheer with glee. Climate warming greenhouse gas have reached 400 parts per million for the first time in human history, not the first time in the earth's history, the first time since humans walked the earth. The last time there was so much CO2 in the atmosphere, there was no ice in the Arctic and the Sahara Desert was a fertile savannah... "and sea level was up to 40 metres higher than today." 40 metres... that's high-- 131 feet. There wouldn't be much of Florida above the surface.

These conditions are expected to return in time, with devastating consequences for civilisation, unless emissions of CO2 from the burning of coal, gas and oil are rapidly curtailed. But despite increasingly severe warnings from scientists and a major economic recession, global emissions have continued to soar unchecked.

"It is symbolic, a point to pause and think about where we have been and where we are going," said Professor Ralph Keeling, who oversees the measurements on a Hawaiian volcano, which were begun by his father in 1958. "It's like turning 50: it's a wake up to what has been building up in front of us all along."

"The passing of this milestone is a significant reminder of the rapid rate at which-- and the extent to which-- we have increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," said Prof Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which serves as science adviser to the world's governments. "At the beginning of industrialisation the concentration of CO2 was just 280ppm. We must hope that the world crossing this milestone will bring about awareness of the scientific reality of climate change and how human society should deal with the challenge."

The world's governments have agreed to keep the rise in global average temperature, which have already risen by over 1C, to 2C, the level beyond which catastrophic warming is thought to become unstoppable. But the International Energy Agency warned in 2012 that on current emissions trends the world will see 6C of warming, a level scientists warn would lead to chaos. With no slowing of emissions seen to date, there is already mounting pressure on the UN summit in Paris in 2015, which is the deadline set to settle a binding international treaty to curb emissions.

Edward Davey, the UK's energy and climate change secretary, said: "This isn't just a symbolic milestone, it's yet another piece of clear scientific evidence of the effect human activity is having on our planet. I've made clear I will not let up on efforts to secure the legally binding deal the world needs by 2015 to avoid the worst effects of climate change."

Two CO2 monitoring stations high on the Hawaiian volcano of Mauna Loa are run by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and provide the global benchmark measurement. Data released on Friday shows the daily average has passed 400ppm for the first time in its half century of recording. The level peaks in May each year as the CO2 released by decaying vegetation is taken up by renewed plant growth in the northern hemisphere, where the bulk of plants grow.

Analysis of fossil air trapped in ancient ice and other data indicate that this level has not been seen on Earth for 3-5 million years, a period called the Pliocene. At that time, global average temperatures were 3 or 4C higher than today's and 8C warmer at the poles. Reef corals suffered a major extinction while forests grew up to the northern edge of the Arctic Ocean, a region which is today bare tundra.

"I think it is likely that all these ecosystem changes could recur," said Richard Norris, a colleague of Keeling's at Scripps. The Earth's climate system takes time to adjust to the increased heat being trapped by high greenhouse levels and it may take hundreds of years for the great ice caps in Antarctica and Greenland to melt to the small size of the Pliocence and sea level far above many of the world's major cities.

But the extreme speed at which CO2 in now rising-- perhaps 75 times faster than in pre-industrial time-- has never been seen in geological records and some effects of climate change are already being seen, with extreme heatwaves and flooding now more likely. Recent wet and cold summer weather in Europe has been linked to changes in the high level jetstream winds, in turn linked to the rapidly melting sea ice in the Arctic, which shrank to its lowest recorded level in September.

"We are creating a prehistoric climate in which human societies will face huge and potentially catastrophic risks," said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics. "Only by urgently reducing global emissions will we be able to avoid the full consequences of turning back the climate clock by 3 million years."

"The 400ppm threshold is a sobering milestone and should serve as a wake up call for all of us to support clean energy technology and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, before it's too late for our children and grandchildren," said Tim Lueker, a carbon cycle scientist at Scripps.

Professor Bob Watson, former IPCC chair and UK government chief scientific adviser, said: "Passing 400ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is indeed a landmark and the rate of increase is faster than ever and shows no sign of abating due to a lack of political committment to address the urgent issue of climate change-- the world is now most likely committed to an increase in surface temperature of 3C-5C compared to pre-industrial times."

The graph of the rising CO2 at Mauna Loa is known as the Keeling curve (see video up top), after the late Dave Keeling, the scientist who began the measurements in March 1958. The isolated Hawaiian island is a good location for measurements as it is far from the main sources of CO2, meaning it represents a good global average.

On February 16, 2012, House Republicans passed Greg Lamborn's H.R. 3408 to push forward the Keystone XL Pipeline Project and open up vast stretches of federally-owned territory to corporate oil and gas companies. It passed 237-187, with 21 right-wing Democrats joining most of the Republicans to pass it. The GOP made their point and then never bothered sending it to the Senate. These are the Democrats who backed it:

• Jason Altmire (Blue Dog/New Dem-PA)- defeated in primary
• John Barrow (Blue Dog/New Dem-GA)- still hanging on
• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
• Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)- forced to retire
• Leonard Boswell (Blue Dog-IA)- defeated
• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog/New Dem-TN)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Mark Crtiz (PA)- defeated
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)- saved from political extinction by Richard Mourdock
• Al Green (TX)
• Gene Green (TX)
• Rubén Hinojosa (TX)
• Kathy Hochul (New Dem-NY)- defeated
• Larry Kissel (Blue Dog-NC)- defeated
• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT) came within 768 votes of defeat
• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC)- came within 654 votes of defeat
• Bill Owens (New Dem-NY)- came within 4,985 votes of defeat
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Cedric Richmond (New Dem-LA)
• Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)- forced to retire

All day on the 15th and 16th of February, there were dozens of amendments offered to ameliorate the negative environmental impact of the bill. They were all voted down by Climate Change deniers and Big Oil's congressional shills. The first to be defeated was Anna Eshoo's amendment to put off approval of the Keystone XL pipeline until the completion of a safety report. 18 Democrats joined all but two Republicans voting against it. That was immediately followed by the defeat of Ed Markey's amendment to require all oil imported through the Keystone pipeline be used in the U.S. and not exported. Two dozen Democrats joined the GOP against that one. There were amendments defeated to prevent offshore drilling in California and off the coast of the Northeast. Everything was defeated by the Republican Party with the help of corrupt Blue Dogs and New Dems in the pockets of Big Oil. Next time tells you there's no difference between the parties-- or no difference between real Democrats and the toxic New Dems-- think about sea level rising 131 feet.

Who ARE These People?, Part 3: Meet the man who isn't as crazy as John Shimkus and Joe Barton -- Fred Upton

Meet Fred Upton. In the YouTube poster's description: "1/14/10: Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) questions climate science and calls for Climategate hearings at a panel arranged by the Detroit News and WJR during the 2010 North American International Auto Show."

In his Thursday post, Noah wrote about the dizzying array of "talent" in the new Republican House majority, and on Friday he focused on the radical science-denying Bible-thumper John Shimkus. Today he takes a closer look at the man whose greatest distinction is that he's less crazy than the craziest of the crazies. (You can also think of this post as a continuation of the "Know Your Congress" series I kicked off Friday with my post "Meet incoming House Appropriations Committee chair Hal Rogers, prince of the new GOP, uh . . . revolution???") -- Ken

by Noah

In my Thursday and Friday posts I noted the struggle between over-the-top Bible-quoting goofus Rep. John Shimkus and BP apologist Rep. Joe Barton for the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the new Repug-controlled House. The job, as I noted, went instead to Michigan Rep. Fred Upton. I guess Shimkus and Barton split the total-nutbag vote, and an obsequious three-quarters-wackjob snuck in. That’s how politics works sometimes.

In Republican circles, Upton, whom normal people would call a conservative, is considered a “moderate.” I’m assuming that this means he has only small crosses to burn, and maybe doesn’t even have a lawn jockey in front of his house, but, never having been invited over, I can’t swear to it. Ah, but to Beck and Limbaugh, the word "moderate"’ just isn’t gonna cut it. Both had their straining hearts and souls all in a lather, set on Barton or Shimkus, men whose insanity, like their own, is beyond question!

Beck says Upton is “all socialist.” But if you’re Glenn Beck, everyone is in league with Stalin, Karl Marx, or Ming the Merciless. Everyone -- even the ants on the sidewalk and the birds in the trees. Especially the ants.

What’s Upton’s big crime? Well, I know this is horrific, and you might want to brace yourself as you read it. Warning: This is a crime so vile that it will paralyze you with terror. Are you ready? Here it is: Upton voted in favor of phasing out incandescent light bulbs! There, I said it. Now scrape yourself off the floor and read on, if you dare.

This light-bulb issue is one of the driving forces of Teabagville. Regular old incandescent light bulbs are being hoarded and stockpiled. Just like they want the government’s hands off their Medicare, Social Security, and Interstate highways, they want the government’s hands off of their light bulbs. Of course they blame Obama, that Commie rat, for all of this, but the fact is that the phasing out of the old-style bulbs in favor of those new squiggly ones was part of the 2007 energy law signed by Dubya. As usual, though, it’s “Don’t confuse me with your damn Marxist-Fascist facts. Obama doesn’t just wanna take away our guns. He’s coming for our light bulbs!” Republican goonies are also foaming at the mouth about the cost of the new bulbs. Never mind that they last eight times as long and would save them money save on their electric bills! “If Beck says it’s socialism, it must be! No damn government pinko’s gonna make me save cash. No way!”

So how did Upton stand a chance of getting his coveted position? Easy. As he promises in the Republican propaganda sheet Politico, “If I become chairman, we’ll be examining the light-bulb issue, no problem.”

I bet he was willing to wear a hair shirt and say just about anything else too, and probably did. No need to let conviction or self-respect get in the way. Having a big ego isn’t the same as self-esteem. Nope. It’s “I’ll do anything if you’ll just love me. Will you still respect me in the morning?”

What else do we need to know about Upton? Well, for one, the North Slope will become a slippery one. He’s big on opening up ANWR, Alaska's Artic National Wildlife Refuge, for some of that ol’ drill-baby-drill thing. He recently placed a pro-drill op-ed in Politico (where else?) calling for drilling. He has also sent a letter to President Obama urging him to open up the wildlife refuge for the oil companies, quoting a study from the American Petroleum Institute that, in a shocker, just happened to support drilling. With Joe Barton and John Shimkus on the same committee, you can expect these clowns to be pushing for putting an oil derrick in your kids’ playground too.

Representative Upton is also effectively on the same side of the global warming debate as Barton and Shimkus, saying that there is “no real science” that would verify the predicted temperature rises for the next 40 years. Earlier in 2010, he used the debunked story about some e-mails among scientists at the University of East Anglia which global-warming deniers say show a pattern of concealment when it comes to evidence against global warming, to call for “Climategate” hearings. Instead of saying God will protect us, as Shimkus does, Upton at least left the twisted interpretation of Bible verses out of it when he said:

Consumers Energy told us just because of cap-and-trade, energy costs would rise in Michigan by almost 40 percent by 2020. Are any of those incurred costs actually going to impact the rising temperature of debate? The answer was no. No matter what we did between now and 2050, it, it, there was no real science to verify that it would reduce the temperature rise that some predicted. And that’s why we do need hearings.

There he goes again!

What is Consumers Energy? you ask. Is it some independent, unbiased organization? Surely, you jest! Consumers Energy is the principal subsidiary of CMS Energy, the company that supplies the majority of the natural gas and electricity to the people of Upton’s home state. This is a standard Republican tactic, like when they were all going around during the health-care debate quoting “The Lewin Group” without mentioning that it was set up by one of the nation's largest insurers, UnitedHealth Group.

So, when you look at it, Upton probably won the chairmanship, not because he disagrees with Shimkus and Barton, but because he is slicker and less bombastic. If he has any insanity, he is able to hide it, unlike his rivals. He will still hang out with the deniers, and he will continue to bring them into the halls of Congress to sit on panels and spout nonsense and absurdities, but he’ll do it without sounding like bin Laden quoting from the Koran or loudly apologizing to BP. Sadly, the result will be the same. He’s just less colorful. For Upton, like so many in Washington, being bland has won the day.

************

I guess teabaggers just want to spend more money on their light bulbs in a time when money and household budgets are short. Even more likely, though, we will begin to have a lot of citizens who just don’t turn on the lights at night, either because they don’t have them or because they are cutting back on their electric bills. They will just live by the light of their six-foot flat-screen TVs which will be tuned to Fox, since all other channels will be blocked. OK, maybe they’ll be watching the Sarah Palin show on TLC too. It’ll be just like the 1950s, when you only got two channels. These people want it to be the 1950s again anyway. Maybe they’ll even get some rabbit-ear antennas balanced on top of their flat screens! On cold nights, they’ll bask in the warmth and glow of Sean Hannity and whatever other head-case crap artists Fox cares to feature.

Watching Fox will become even more of a religious-worship-of-false-idols thing than it already is for these loons. I see a future where these people don’t want or can’t afford electricity, opting instead for slaves pedaling a home-bicycle generator in the basement, working just for food. The same people who rail and wail about Mexicans will be keeping a family of illegals in the basement, force-feeding them on rice, with beans only on Sunday.

#

Drill, Baby, Drill... In The Great Lakes?

This weekend Blue America hosted a live chat with Michigan progressive Democrat Fred Johnson at Crooks and Liars. And one of the issues in his race people were most worked up over involves drilling for oil in the Great Lakes. Republicans, always eager to please their buddies at Big Oil, are pushing for it. Fred, of course-- like most residents of the beautiful lakeside counties-- opposes it. In response to a question about drilling in Lake Michigan, Fred was crystal clear:

I talk about the windpower potential of the lakeshore with voters all the time. There is some NIMBYism out there, and I am cognizant of the local concerns relative to tourism. However, we have to get serious about this, or Big Oil will definitely come after the Lakes. I'm continually amazed that as a vast body of water is being destroyed by Big Oil there are still those who behave as though the threat from drilling was an issue that needed further study. We must become energy independent. We must start as soon as possible. We must begin the process of transitioning from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources and support the President's efforts to build a "Green" economy.

Drilling in the Great Lakes IS NOT THE SOLUTION TO ACHIEVING ANY OF THOSE AIMS IN THE SHORT OR LONG TERM. Further, suggesting such a thing only serves to validate the extent of Big Oil's influence in government. Enough!!!

Radical right Club for Growth kook Pat Toomey (R-PA) has been advocating drilling in Lake Erie for some time now, something that could endanger the drinking water for roughly 40 million Americans. Even back in 2001, when Toomey was in Congress, he voted against a tremendously popular-- and bipartisan bill, H.R. 2311 to prohibit drilling in the Great Lakes watershed. More recently, when Toomey was campaigning in Erie he was questioned by John Guerriero from the Erie Times-News, he was still talking about how wonderful drilling in the Great Lakes would be:

While Toomey was in Erie on what he called his small-business tour, his Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, of Delaware County, released a video online with a Lake Erie theme.

The video focuses on the lake and highlights Toomey's vote in 2001 to allow drilling in the Great Lakes.

The Sestak campaign said Toomey should be reminded how much Erie relies on a tourism economy and the jobs that come with it.

An oil spill similar to BP's crisis in the Gulf of Mexico would contaminate all of the lake, Sestak's campaign said.

Toomey called it a "ridiculous comparison'' because the blown-out BP wellhead is one mile below the water surface, while the deepest part of Lake Erie is 210 feet.

Toomey said he would not categorically and immediately rule out any Great Lakes drilling.

Rep. Joe Sestak, who beat the Establishment Machine and Arlen Specter to win the Democratic Senate nomination opposes Big Oil's calls for allowing drilling in the Great Lakes. Like Fred Johnson in Michigan, Joe Sestak is clear as a bell about drilling in Lake Erie: "Congressman Toomey's willingness to allow drilling in the Great Lakes shows that he does not understand the immense benefits of Lake Erie for the people of Erie County. He would put at risk the keystone of Erie's economy for the benefit of a few corporations and their shareholders. In the event of a catastrophic accident-- like the BP disaster-- countless small businesses would be forced to close, and tens of thousands of jobs would be lost."

Yesterday evening after reading this Sam Stein report at HuffPo, I tweeted this:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson found himself under the political microscope late last week after it was revealed that he owns up to $315,000 in BP stock while he has defended the oil giant against its critics and called for continued offshore drilling.

The Wisconsin businessman-- who is vying, in a closer-than-expected contest, for Sen. Russ Feingold's (D-Wisc.) seat-- has spent the last few weeks trying to temper criticism of BP in the wake of the Gulf spill. Johnson, whom national Democrats like to refer to as the "forgotten Tea Party candidate," has expressed disappointment with the administration's "assault" on BP. At the same time, he's been a vocal advocate for continued and even accelerated oil and gas exploration, going so far as to express an openness to drilling in the Great Lakes.

"The bottom line is we are an oil-based economy," he told the site WisPolitics in mid-June, when asked about drilling in the Great Lakes. "There's nothing we're gonna do to get off of that for many, many years. I think we have to be realistic and recognize that fact and, you know, I, I think we have to, get the oil where it is, but we have to do it where it is."

Those comments and many others make Johnson among the most pro-drilling pols in a Republican Party filled with drilling proponents. But in offering his support for the practice, Johnson didn't reveal that he has serious financial stakes in the continued success of BP and the greater oil and gas industry.

This is what it means to be a sociopath. It's not illegal... but it makes no sense at all to elect them to public office so they can turn us all into their victims. And, of course, it isn't just Ron Johnson putting this country in danger for his own narrow interests-- and it isn't only Republicans in the Great Lakes states either. Just yesterday, Heather Beaven reminded us that a Florida sociopath, John Mica, brags on his website that "I voted to drill in the Everglades in the 1970’s and I’d do it again today.” Mica is on Big Oil's payroll-- and so are several members of his family. He puts their financial interests ahead of the interests of the country. That's what it means to be a Republican politician in the 21st Century.


UPDATE: Russ Feingold Explains Why He Opposes Drilling In The Great Lakes



This is from a press release Feingold sent out this morning:

Johnson, who gave a speech before the Gulf oil spill in which he said, “Big Oil [is] not evil,” has repeatedly defended the oil industry, including BP, telling the media after the Gulf oil spill, “[T]his is not the time to be beating up on those guys, quite honestly.”

News reports have also detailed Johnson’s support for oil drilling in national wildlife areas and his opposition to more caution before undertaking new oil-drilling projects in light of the worst oil spill disaster in American history. Johnson also opposes the BP compensation fund for victims of the Gulf oil spill.

One month ago, Johnson was asked by the media, "Would you support drilling like in the Great Lakes, for example, if there was oil found there?"

Johnson said, “Yeah. You know, the bottom line is that we are an oil-based economy. There’s nothing we’re going to do to get off of that for many, many years, so I think we have to just be realistic and recognize that fact. And I think we have to get the oil where it is…”

Last week, with ongoing media coverage of the BP oil spill, and after weeks of delaying the financial disclosures required, it was revealed by the media that Johnson has invested as much as $315,000 with BP, $50,001 to $100,000 in Exxon Mobil and $15,001 to $50,000 in Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Wisconsin relies on the Great Lakes for everything from food to jobs and from power to recreation. According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, 1.6 million Wisconsin residents get their fresh water directly from the Great Lakes. 

On July 12, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported the area of the Gulf affected by the oil sheen is 84,101 square miles – an area nearly the same size as all five Great Lakes combined.

Feingold voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which has funded maintenance of Wisconsin’s harbors and canals, restored fish and wildlife habitats, and reduced pollution, including clean water and drinking water revolving loan funds, the Ashland NFWCO Fish Passage Program, Fox River dam infrastructure improvements, the Fox River navigation system’s lock keeper houses, improvements to the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal and harbor, and the Kewaunee and Manitowoc harbor dredging projects.

...The League of Conservation Voters recognizes Feingold as having one of the best lifetime voting records of any current U.S. Senator. The Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and National Wildlife Federation have honored him for his efforts to protect water quality and fight for wetlands protections.

The State of Wisconsin honored Feingold for his strong support of State Wildlife Grants and he was awarded the Clean Water Champion Award by the Clean Water Network for his leadership on the Clean Water Restoration Act.