Posted by Rob Perks in Moving Beyond Oil
This Halloween the oil industry is enjoying all the treats while we endure their tricks. Fueled by sky-high oil prices over the summer, Exxon Mobil broke its own eye-popping records by raking in nearly $15 billion in profits. Third quarter earnings for...
Posted by Rob Perks in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
The coal industry has a dream -- that one day our cars and trucks will run on liquefied coal. They tout this as a way to free America from its addiction to oil -- 60% of which we export from foreign...
Posted by Rob Perks in Moving Beyond Oil
Last month I blogged about Congress letting the federal moratorium on drilling the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) expire. This came in the face of political pressure triggered by high gas prices over the summer. The economic troubles have sparked a...
Posted by Rob Perks in Moving Beyond Oil
Interesting article by a Texas college professor who points out that most Americans wouldn't recognize crude oil if it oozed onto their lap. The author of the piece, Professor John Crisp, suggests that those people clamoring to drill offshore ought...
Posted by Rob Perks in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Reviving the World's Oceans
Last week I wrote about how Congress allowed the 26-year-old federal offshore drilling moratorium to expire, but I noted that the issue is not a done deal. Lo and behold, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), chair of the House Natural Resources...
Posted by Rob Perks in Moving Beyond Oil , U.S. Law and Policy
At midnight on Tuesday, September 30th, the federal moratorium on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) will be no more. The OCS drilling ban, renewed every year by Congress since its enactment in 1981, will be allowed to lapse. ...
Posted by Rob Perks in Moving Beyond Oil
This is the week that Democratic leaders in Congress are expected to bring their energy legislation to a vote. Although details have yet to emerge it’s a safe bet that opening some offshore areas to oil drilling will be a...
Posted by Rob Perks in Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Confession: I’m don’t care much for country music. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Bluegrass and enjoy listening to legendary country artists like Johnny Cash, Charlie Daniels and Emmylou Harris. But today’s mainstream country music just doesn’t...
Posted by Rob Perks in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
It took over 300 million years for the Appalachian mountains to form. But apparently it only takes a few years to flatten one. And that’s just what rapacious coal companies have been doing to hundreds of mountaintops over the past...
Posted by Rob Perks in Moving Beyond Oil
Answering “All of the Above” was rarely a good idea during multiple choice tests back in school. It always felt like that choice was meant to trip you up. These days it seems that some in Congress are using the...
Posted by Rob Perks in Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy
House Republicans gathered en masse on the steps of the Capitol this week, ready to launch a choreographed full-throated cheer for more drilling before the Washington press corps. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. The...
Posted by Rob Perks in Moving Beyond Oil
He came on like a Texas tornado, after first approaching as quietly as a ninja wearing those soft-soled shoes, to take center stage as boldly as a tophat-and-tails circus ringmaster, letting his ideas gush forth like a newly tapped oil...
Posted by Rob Perks in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Reviving the World's Oceans
I was lucky enough to grow up not too far from the beach, so I've spent a good part of my life – but not nearly enough – surfing. I rode my first wave as a teenager off the Outer...
Posted by Rob Perks in Curbing Pollution , Green Enterprise , Moving Beyond Oil , Nuclear Weapons, Waste and Energy , Reviving the World's Oceans , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy
We expect much from our elected leaders yet rarely do we get the opportunity to engage them on the issues we care about. So many members of Congress, yet so little chance to actually ask them where they stand on...
Posted by Rob Perks in Moving Beyond Oil
High gas prices have become the dominant political issue this summer. Clearly, people are feeling pain at the pump and they want the government to do something…anything…everything (!) to ‘fix’ this problem. Unfortunately, many in Congress are exploiting this situation...
