don’t bite the hand that feeds you

We all remember the drama surrounding the big auto bailout, with the CEO’s from the Detroit Three showing up in their private planes.  

Well, here is another tale that should be filed with the absurd.

Prior to the bailout the auto companies had filed suit against individual state EPA’s over their amendments to Clean Air Acts and emissions standards, for example what is happening in California.  Apparently, after taking taxpayer money and promising as part of the stimulus that they will pursue new ‘greener’ options in car manufacture… they are still moving forward with all of their lawsuits!!

California’s attorney general, Jerry Brown, observed today on NPR, “The irony here is the auto companies want a bailout, in many ways because they weren’t building the kind of cars that were compatible with today’s energy market—and at the same time, they want to keep going with their lawsuits, which have already cost millions and millions of dollars.”

You know what the saddest part of this whole thing is, however?  That we, the citizens, will probably do absolutely nothing in fighting the auto industry for this audacity.  The money that has come to these corporations is being taken out of our future holdings either through Social Security or the fact that we will have to pay back the Federal Reserve interest from all of these loans.  That we are going to sit by and allow this to happen is an atrocity.

This was first reported through the New Yorker.

california dreaming

Two bits of environmental news bits came out of California today that are of interest.

Bush eyes oil reserves off California coast, via ENN

The federal government is taking steps that may open California’s fabled coast to oil drilling in as few as three years, an action that could place dozens of platforms off the Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt coasts, and raises the specter of spills, air pollution and increased ship traffic into San Francisco Bay.

The bans that protected both of the nation’s coasts beginning in 1981, from California to the Pacific Northwest to the Atlantic Coast and the Straits of Florida, ended this year when Congress let the moratorium lapse.

Brown Takes on “Audacious” Bush EPA Plan, via NBC

California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed suit in federal court to block an “audacious attempt” by the Bush Administration to gut provisions in the Endangered Species Act mandating scientific review of federal agency decisions that may threaten endangered species and their habitat.

The new regulations, initially proposed by the departments of the Interior and Commerce in August 2008 and made final on Dec. 16, largely eliminate a requirement in the Endangered Species Act that mandates scientific review of the agency decisions that could affect endangered and threatened species and their habitats.

The changes allow federal agencies to undertake or permit mining, logging and other commercial activities on federal land and other areas without obtaining review or comment from federal wildlife biologists on the environmental effects of such activities.