Trouble arrives: Obama proposes opening East Coast to oil drilling

There is a bright side to the Obama administration's surprise announcement Tuesday to open up 167 million acres of ocean along the Eastern Seaboard to oil and gas exploration. Isn't it better to get the work out of the way now, with a responsible government in Washington and strict safeguards in place, than to wait until the next oil shock forces a stampede to irresponsible exploitation? Hopefully, that's just what officials were thinking when they proposed the massive program that includes the Atlantic coast of the United States from Delaware to Florida, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska, according to the New York Times. The plan will be publicly revealed tomorrow at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, the Times said, even though officials began briefing members of Congress today. Under the proposal, years of geologic and environmental study by the U.S. Department of the Interior will be required before any of the tracts will be open for bidding, the Times said. The plan, developed after a series of public hearings and review of more than 500,000 public comments, is designed to help reduce the nation's oil imports, raise more revenue for the government and help gain support for the administration's climate change proposals. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said through aides that the proposal reflects the administration's desire to "rebalance" the nation's energy policies between drilling advocates and those who oppose any oil drilling on environmental grounds, the Times said. Sales of leases for the newly opened public lands are not expected before 2012, although a tract off Virginia already cleared for leasing could go out for bidding as early as next year, the newspaper said. The proposal also would open nearly 130 million acres in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea north of Alaska to exploration after extensive study, the Times said, but protect the environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska, as well as the entire West Coast of the United States. The Obama proposal is sure to arouse opposition from his environmental allies, who oppose nearly all drilling out of concern for the environmental effects of oil spills, which are virtually certain to occur despite efforts to prevent them. But Obama argued during his successful 2008 campaign that he favored opening some areas to drilling to reduce the country's dependence on imported oil, the Times said. At Wednesday's announcement, Obama also is expected to announce an agreement between the Pentagon and Agriculture Department to use more biofuels in military vehicles and to purchase hybrid vehicles for the federal motor pool.

Coalition of states claims climate change is still up in the air

Well, if U.S. President Barack Obama has learned anything in his first year in office, it's that there's no way to please everybody, no matter what. So, news from Washington today that 12 states had joined lawsuits seeking to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions shouldn't surprise anyone. Lawsuits are one of the major ways that public policy gets done, especially when business interests are involved. Florida, Indiana, South Carolina and nine other states asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to block the EPA from issuing rules to control such emissions, according to the Reuters international news service. Their petitions join three filed earlier this year by Virginia, Texas and Alabama, Reuters said. The suits ask the EPA to reopen hearings on an "endangerment finding" it issued last year that greenhouse emissions are dangerous to people. The April finding, which became final in June, enabled the EPA to begin regulating greenhouse emissions under the Clean Air Act. Regulations expected to be issued shortly would require cars and light trucks to increase their energy efficiency. "If EPA doesn't reopen the hearings we will move forward to try to stop them from regulating greenhouse gases," said Brian Gottstein of the Virginia Attorney General's office, Reuters said. The states complain that the new rules are too heavily based on climate change reports from the United Nations that have been criticized for exaggerating some data. But 16 other states have petitioned to join the case in support of the EPA. The new rules are consistent with an Obama administration pledge to use regulations to curtail emissions if Congress does not pass a climate bill, which has been stalled in the legislature, Reuters said.

Justice can wait -- charges against Blackwater defendants dismissed

The longer the United States puts off a comprehensive review of George W. Bush's presidency, the more disgraces like these are going to happen. We're discussing, of course, Thursday's decision by a federal judge to dismiss murder and other charges against five private security guards involved in a 2007 shooting that killed 17 civilians in Iraq. In a 90-page ruling, U.S. Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of Federal District Court in Washington said government officials had misused statements made by the five defendants in such a "reckless violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights" that dismissal of the indictment was the appropriate sanction, according to the New York Times. That works out well for the five guards who worked for Blackwater Worldwide, the McLean, Vir., company that provided security for foreign diplomats in Baghdad following the U.S. invasion in 2003, and, perhaps, for the rest of us in the long run, because it discourages prosecutorial overzealousness by the government. But there is a price to be paid. The decision further delays the urgently needed reckoning - the conduct of the U.S. government during the Bush administration has put the philosophical basis of the country at risk. The U.S. government has put its own survival ahead of its founding principles -- that's why it feels justified in operating secret prisons in other countries, torturing suspects, kidnapping suspects in other countries and holding them for years without charge or access to attorneys, in spying on its own citizens. These were supposed to be the truths we held self-evident and, yet, our government has chosen to restrict them with the support of the citizenry. It is an outrage.