• “The finances of many states have deteriorated so badly that they appear to be in a recession, regardless of whether that’s true for the nation as a whole, a survey of all 50 state fiscal directors concludes.” [AP]

• “After struggling with soaring heating costs through the winter, millions of Americans are behind on electric and gas bills, and a record number of families could face energy shut-offs over the next two months, according to state energy officials and utilities around the country. [NYT]
  

• “Though the Pentagon doesn’t keep statistics on foreclosures, officials say a growing number of service members are struggling with their mortgages.” [NPR]
  

• “The Bush administration regularly dismisses the idea of stepping in to prop up the housing market. Behind the scenes, a government agency is doing just that. Last year, the Federal Housing Administration’s insurance fund paid $158.6 million in incentives to keep lenders from foreclosing on mortgages backed by the government. That is a 61% leap from five years ago, according to government data. As a result, more than six in 10 homeowners who defaulted on FHA-insured loans were able to stay in their houses, up from three in 10 in 2000.” [WSJ]
  

Yesterday, President Bush announced his new strategy for combating climate change, which one might assume is a diversion from the administration’s “rational, balanced approach,” as Bush calls it. That person, however, would be wrong.

While it is great that Bush is even acknowledging that climate change is a problem, a simple acknowledgement does not make up for his lack-luster proposals. The President’s plan includes stopping the growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 and giving $1 billion to Clean Coal Research.

The President stated that adopting Kyoto would have caused our economy to take a hit and would have shifted “American jobs to other countries.” One way of preventing economic and job loss would be to begin appropriating money for the Green Jobs Act of 2007 [pdf] which creates jobs for “energy efficient building, construction and retrofits, renewable electric power, energy efficient vehicles, biofuels, and manufacturing that produces sustainable products and uses sustainable processes and materials.”

The President also took credit for legislation which would set fuel economy standards at 35 mpg by 2020. As GRIST points out, “the administration fought this energy bill tooth and nail, and eventually succeeded in stripping the most ambitious elements out of it.”

The President also criticized those who wish to continue or even begin enforcing environmental protection laws passed 30 year ago:

As we approach this challenge, we face a growing problem here at home. Some courts are taking laws written more than 30 years ago — to primarily address local and regional environmental effects — and applying them to global climate change. The Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act were never meant to regulate global climate. For example, under a Supreme Court decision last year, the Clean Air Act could be applied to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. This would automatically trigger regulation under the Clean Air Act of greenhouse gases all across our economy — leading to what Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell last week called, “a glorious mess.”

The President is right that the government should not be enforcing 30 year old laws. It should be passing and enforcing laws that are tougher and more broad than those laws.

President Bush is facing criticism for his speech at home and abroad. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) called the President’s plan “the height of irresponsibility.”

South Africa called Bush’s strategy a unilateral approach to confronting climate change:

“There is no way whatsoever that we can agree to what the US is proposing, which means that the fundamental distinction between developed and developing countries should be erased and that we should turn a blind eye to historical responsibility for the problem.

“In effect, the US wants developing countries that already face huge poverty and development challenges to pay for what the US and other highly industrialized countries have caused over the past 150 years,” he said.

House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-MA) said, “By the time President Bush’s plan finally starts to cut global warming emissions, the planet will already be cooked.”

While some people are thrilled to have anything on the table, it is obvious that the President has no real desire to stop climate change or protect the environment. Over the last seven years, Bush has effectively made the Environmental Protection Agency EPA, an agency within his own administration, impotent to being able to protect the environment. Being led by Stephen Johnson, the EPA has no intention of protecting the environment, even if it has been sued or has a court order to do so. Bush’s strategy for combating climate change is nothing but fluff.

The National Toxicology Program reported yesterday that polycarbonate bottles which are used as shatter-proof water bottles and baby bottles contain bisphenol A, a chemical found to cause precancerous tumors, urinary tract infections, and early puberty in rats. The federal agency pointed out that the possibility of it affecting humans “cannot be dismissed.”

The International Formula Council disputed the report, stating that bisphenol A has “overwhelming scientific evidence [that] supports [its] safety.” Regardless of the International Formula Council’s stance, New Jersey state lawmakers have banned the sale of all products containing bisphenol A.

A federal lawmaker from New Jersey has also accused the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of allowing “far too many unregulated contaminants in our water.” Senator Frank Lautenburg (D-NJ) has demanded that the EPA begin regulating pharmaceuticals in drinking water. Sen. Lautenberg went on to say that “beyond drugs, there are 140 chemicals in the water the EPA doesn’t regulate,” even though the EPA admits some of the chemicals can cause cancer.

Instead of regulating the chemicals, Benjamin Grumbles of the EPA suggested that people just not use their toilets as a trash can. While people should heed Mr. Grumbles advice about throwing trash and medication in the toilet, I wonder where he suggests people put their urine and fecal matter, which contain those drugs.

Maybe people should just follow the same advice given to those who are traveling to Mexico — “don’t drink the water.”

Coal is clean like Congo is a democratic republic; both are oxymorons. As the Sierra Club points out:

Entire mountaintops are removed to get at it; emissions from coal-fired power plants contribute to at least 24,000 premature deaths a year in this country alone; and it accounts for 36 percent of our overall releases of carbon dioxide…Despite the industry’s hype, there’s no such thing as “clean coal.”

While “approximately 600 Appalachian strip mines, including mountaintop removal operations, unearth 145 million tons of coal a year,” CNN has allowed “Clean-Coal” to sponsor their presidential debates this election season.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has released a report showing that Liquid Coal is not a viable replacement for oil. High costs, efficiency, and coal mining hazards are just a few reasons. The NRDC also points out that “clean-coal” is not clean.

Even If the CO2 Is Captured, Liquid Coal Still Pollutes More Than Current System
If the CO2 from liquid coal plants is captured instead of being released into the atmosphere, then well-to-wheels CO2 emissions would be reduced some but would still be higher than emissions from today’s crude oil system. Even capturing 90 percent of the emissions from liquid coal plants leaves emissions at levels somewhat higher than those from petroleum production and refining; emissions from the vehicle using the coal-derived liquid fuels are equivalent to those from a gasoline vehicle. As a result, with CO2 capture well-to-wheels emissions from coal-derived liquids fuels would be 8 percent higher than for petroleum.

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that “three of Wall Street’s biggest investment banks are set to announce today that they are imposing new environmental standards that will make it harder for companies to get financing to build coal-fired power plants in the U.S.” This shows that not only does the public desire clean energy from renewable resources, but it shows that the markets do as well.

All Evolve currently supports a tax on carbon emissions — first, on the supply side, to encourage the development of technologies that produce clean fuel from renewable/sustainable resources. Then, a demand-side tax can be implemented on those that refuse to adopt these new technologies. Once technologies are developed, it is necessary to subsidize those technologies by granting a tax break to those who chose to adopt the new technologies, while they might still be expensive. All Evolve also supports extending tax breaks to companies that already produce alternative energy sources. Tax breaks and subsidies on clean fuel technology can be off-set by the taxes garnered from both the supply and demand carbon emission taxes.

The New York Times has also supported similar measures:

There is a way that Congress can quickly begin to make amends. That is to extend important tax breaks for alternative energy sources that are set to expire at the end of this year. These incentives have been critically important to the development of wind and solar power; wind power has become increasingly cost-competitive with natural gas, although not yet with coal. Investors are unlikely to pump much new money into clean power unless they are sure the credits will be available next year. The American Wind Energy Association has already detected a drop in new capital spending.

As we have said before, the surest and probably the only way to encourage meaningful and swift commercial development of cleaner fuels and energy sources is to put a stiff price on carbon emissions. That, in turn, would inspire — indeed require — industry to invest heavily in energy efficiency and low-carbon fuels.

But until Congress sets such a price, through a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade program — and it is a long way from doing so — every effort should be made to encourage the development of alternative energy sources. The first step is to extend the tax credits for alternative sources like wind and solar power.

To draw a conclusion on “clean-coal,” I must use the words of Bill Clinton: “This is the biggest fairytale I’ve ever seen.”

President Bush left today for his African “peace safari.” Before leaving, he boasted that America was the only country to call Darfur a genocide, although he defends his decision not to send troops to the region. Bush also renounced calls for boycotting the Beijing Olympics, regardless of the fact that “China is now the biggest obstacle to meaningful international sanctions” against the Sudanese government. Many are also criticizing Bush for not visiting any countries in turmoil, such as Sudan or Kenya, while on his trip to Africa.

Today, as China denies they are in any way related to the Darfur genocide, the AP reports that the Sudanese government bombed Darfur rebels in West Darfur pushing them into Chad.

Darfur rebels denied any of their fighters were in the towns attacked by the government and said some 200 people were killed. They said helicopter gunships and fixed-wing aircraft battered Sirba, Sileia and Abu Suruj, setting buildings on fire and causing thousands to flee.

“The government attacked using aircraft bombardment, troops and janjaweed (Arab militiamen),” said Abdelaziz Ushar, a senior commander with the rebel Justice and Equality Movement.

Sudan’s Arab-dominated government has been accused of unleashing janjaweed forces to commit atrocities against Darfur’s ethnic African communities in the fight with rebel groups. At least 200,000 people have been killed and 2.2 million displaced since the fighting began five years ago.

The AP only acknowledges fighting and deaths since 2003, but it is important to remember that the genocide began in 1994 and over 500,000 have been killed.

Technorati Tags:
Beijing, China, Darfur, genocide, human rights, olympics, Sudan

First strike:
Yesterday the New York Times reported that the FDA violated its own rules when it failed to inspect a Chinese plant and a Wisconsin plant prior to approving the drug Heparin. The paper paraphrased Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) as saying “no matter what happened with the heparin inquiry, the F.D.A.’s inability to provide basic information about the Chinese manufacturing plant weeks after concerns were first raised was deeply troubling.” Baxter International, the manufacturer of Heparin, decided to pull the drug from the shelves after four people died and 350 people suffered complications. Peter Barton Hutt, a former FDA attorney, said “This heparin situation shows that F.D.A. has no people to prevent contaminated products from coming into this country.”

Second strike:
This morning, Reuters reported that a new CBS study showed that 22,000 patients died because the FDA delayed the recall of the Bayer drug Trasylol, which is used to stop bleeding during open heart surgeries. The drug was linked to kidney failure and was eventually withdrawn by the FDA in November. According to CBS, “The chairman of the FDA advisory panel, Dr. William Hiatt, told 60 Minutes he would have voted to remove Trasylol from the market had he been informed about Bayer’s study.” Bayer has declined to comment until the episode airs.

Third strike:
Law.com reports –

Plaintiffs in New Jersey and six other states who claim the antibiotic Ketek caused liver disease are getting a booster shot from a congressional inquiry into the clinical trials that led to FDA approval.

On Tuesday, witnesses at a hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations testified that Ketek’s trials were flawed and that the company had knowledge of flawed data even before FDA approval.

More than 100 pending suits raise product liability and consumer fraud claims against the manufacturer, Sanofi-Aventis Pharmaceuticals of Bridgewater, N.J. Ten suits are in Middlesex County, N.J., and the rest are in Illinois, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee and California.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Ketek, or telithromycin, in 2004 for treatment of respiratory ailments but later limited its use because of reported health problems, such as liver failure.

The first death due to liver disease linked to Ketek was reported in February 2005, seven months after the drug was introduced, according to the FDA.

In early 2007, the FDA started placing “black box warnings” on the drug packaging, but did not ban its use. At least 12 people have died and 93 have been injured by the use of Ketex. The House of Representatives became involved because of the possibility that fraudulent data was used in the safety trails of the drug.
In late January, the House Committee said, they “want to issue four subpoenas, two to FDA investigators, one to a former investigator, and one to a private individual who once worked for a contractor overseeing a study of Ketek.”

– These are just three examples of major, current and ongoing cases of corruption and malfeasance in the FDA.

UPDATE: The Washington Post reports that the FDA APPROVED THE WRONG DRUG!

The Chinese facility that supplies the active ingredient of the widely used blood thinner heparin was never inspected by the Food and Drug Administration because the agency confused its name with another just like it, agency officials said yesterday.

Technorati Tags:
drug companies, FDA, drug, Ketex, Heparin, Trasylol

In the Spring of 2007, CBS began investigating whether FEMA trailers were making people sick and by late fall, FEMA had directed its own employees not to enter the trailers. When FEMA sent out the directive, they still had 50,000 families living their trailers.

Congressman Waxman (D-CA) said, “They are telling their employees it’s too dangerous to go into the trailers, yet we’re letting people continue to live in these trailers with excess formaldehyde levels.

The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) included FEMA on their top ten worst ethics violations of 2007:

Between March and July 2006, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency and the media reported that dangerous levels of formaldehyde had been found in trailers FEMA provided to house victims of Hurricane Katrina. Concerned about legal liability, FEMA suppressed warnings about the health problems and resisted testing the trailers. Instead, FEMA downplayed the problem, even issuing a public statement claiming there was no ongoing risk. Although 52,000 of these trailers are still occupied, FEMA prohibits its own staff from even briefly stepping inside unoccupied trailers, claiming they are “too dangerous.”

Today, the Washington Post reported that the CDC confirmed at least 38,000 FEMA trailers in the Gulf Coast have toxic levels of formaldehyde gas. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) remarked on the CDC’s findings that “After dragging its feet for over a year, the administration has finally come clean and released data on the health risks facing occupants of travel trailers in the Gulf Coast. I fully expect FEMA to comply with CDC’s recommendation and begin moving people out immediately.”

DIGG THIS!

Technorati Tags:
environment, Katrina, FEMA

Yesterday we told you about a coalition of human rights groups that are calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics. Today, Steven Spielberg, who was an artistic consultant for the Olympics, decided to stop working on the event because of China’s unwillingness to pressure Khartoum to stop killing its own people. “With this in mind, I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual,” Spielberg said. He went on to say, “While China’s representatives have conveyed to me that they are working to end the terrible tragedy in Darfur, the grim realities of the suffering continue unabated.”

China, who buys over two-thirds of Sudan’s oil in return for weapons and ammunitions, responded — saying that “the Darfur issue is not China’s internal affair and was not started by China. Linking the two is nonsense; it is also irresponsible and unfair…Many people think the Olympics are a sports event but the West wants to bind sports and politics, this is a clumsy trick.”

All of this political maneuvering comes amidst new violence in Darfur. Amnesty International reports:

Around 12,000 Sudanese have sought refuge in Chad in the past few days after government forces, reportedly supported by Janhaweed milita conducted lethal ground and air attacks against Sirba, Sileah and Abu Suruj in West Darfur. The Sudanese government defended the bombing as a strike against the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), as the targeted areas are known for being a stronghold of the Sudanese opposition group. But the JEM fighters pointed out that they were not in the bombed villages and mainly civilians have been killed in the violence. A refugee from Sileah reported that the attacks nearly destroyed Abu Suruj and heavily damaged some of the IDP camps in the Darfur region.

Acknowledging that “the atrocities in Darfur continue to intensify,” a long list of Nobel laureates have also petitioned Beijing to act on the violence in Darfur.

The complete list of signatories:

continue reading » »

SaveDarfur, the ENOUGH Project, the Genocide Intervention Network, STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, and Dream for Darfur released a Joint Statement on China and Darfur on Wednesday. The letter began:

All nations share in the responsibility to do all they can to help bring an end to the genocide in Darfur, and, after five years of conflict, to help bring peace and security to the people of Sudan. China, though, has a special obligation to respond. China also, more than any other government except Khartoum itself, has the ability to help bring peace and security to the people of Sudan.

China’s responsibility and leverage stem from its intricate economic, military, and diplomatic relationship with Sudan. China is Sudan’s largest trade partner, major military provider, and consistent defender of Sudan’s interests in the United Nations.

The coalition goes on to demand that China meet the following guidelines:

permit the swift, full and effective deployment of UNAMID

implement the North-South peace deal and participate constructively in the Darfur peace process

allow the unfettered delivery of humanitarian aid in Darfur and Eastern Chad.

Olympic minister Tessa Jowell responded, “Most progressive governments accept that there are wholly unacceptable aspects of Chinese policy but that did not stop the International Olympics Committee awarding them the Games. A call for a boycott doesn’t serve any purpose and it would be a great pity.”

All Evolve supports the boycott of the Beijing Olympics. The purpose of the boycott is to point out that it is unacceptable to violate and/or support the violation of human rights. Those who do so should not be rewarded until those basic human rights are met.

DIGG THIS!

Technorati Tags:
Darfur, genocide, human rights, Sudan, China, olympics, beijing

Mohamed Yahya spoke to members of The Washington Center today at the Carnegie Institute of Science in Washington, DC. Mohamed Yahya is Executive Director and a founding member of Damanga, an organization pushing for human rights, peace, and democracy in Darfur. Yahya also founded the Representatives of the Massaleit Community in Exile (RMCE) in 1995 to tell the world about the genocide being carried out in Western Sudan.

Mohamed Yahya began his talk by telling about when the Janjaweed troops, backed by his own government, moved into Western Sudanese villages in 1993 and demolished them and the people who lived there. Yahya lost 22 friends and family members, including his grandparents who were burned alive in their home. Luckily, Yahya was able to escape. He later traveled to Cairo, Egypt to study Islam. From 1993-1999, Yahya worked to educate muslims and Arabs about the atrocities in Sudan, but failed to receive help from his Arab brethren.

After Mohamed Yahya translated his writings into english, Kofi Annan began to realize the horrors taking place in Darfur. Annan would go one to call it a “human catastrophe,” but refused to call it a “genocide,” because it would require him to send peace-keeping troops to Sudan against the wishes of the Sudanese government. Colin Powell, in 2004, was the first state official in the world to call the killing of — black — muslims in Darfur, a genocide.

Yahya tells how race is the most important factor in Sudan. The Darfur genocide is enacted by muslim Arabs against muslim Blacks in an attempt to replace the indigenous people of Sudan with Arabs. The rest of the Islamic world has also turned their back on the — black — muslims in Sudan. The Arab League has refused to condemn the Sudanese government.

In 2003, students finally took up arms against the government and the Janjaweed. This marks the beginning of the genocide according to the UN and other government organizations. Mohamed Yahya points out that this is an egregious mistake, because it changes the dynamics of the debate. The genocide, in reality, began in 1993 when the Janjaweed first started attacking Darfuris. The discrepancies on determining the beginning effects the official death toll by hundreds of thousands.

In 2005, the WHO had the death toll at 70,000. In actuality, the number of dead reached over 400,000. Today, according to Yahya, the total death toll now stands over 500,000.

Mohamed Yahya spends the latter part of his speech speaking about the 20+ UN resolutions and how none of them have truly been implemented. The UN continues to bow to the desires of the Sudanese government and refuses to call Darfur a genocide zone. One reason this continues is because China is a veto-yielding member of the UN Security Council. Yahya points out that China is a partner of the government of Sudan, provides munitions and buys over 67% of Sudan’s oil exports. He states that this is not surprising since China does not even care about the human rights of its own people.

Yahya called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics. All Evolve gladly supports this boycott.

Yahya also urged the people of the US to act by writing your senators and congressmen; urging the US government to send troops to Sudan. He said troops are a necessity because “you cannot negotiate peace without security,” and if the US does not lead, no one else will.

Mohamed Yahya’s speech was followed by a standing ovation.

*To learn more about Mohamed Yahya and the genocide in Darfur, please visit Damanga: http://www.damanga.org

or

Save Darfur: http://www.savedarfur.org

Technorati Tags:
genocide, human rights, Darfur, Sudan