One year after the worst eco-disaster in American history, Congress still hasn’t done a thing – NOT ONE THING – to repair the damage and help the fragile Gulf Coast recover.

What’s worse: there isn’t even a good reason. There are NO powerful special interests lined up against us. There are NO lobbyists standing in our way. It’s just the inability of Washington politicians to agree on what to do – with the Gulf wetlands and the communities who depend on them caught in the middle.

Please Take Action: Tell Congress to stop holding the billions of BP Clean Water Act fines hostage and pass the RESTORE The Gulf Act of 2011 to dedicate funds where they’re needed most – Gulf restoration.

We need Congress to act before the August recess and before the 2012 campaign begins in earnest and diverts political attention.

The Tyranny of Inaction

If Congress doesn’t pass legislation to direct BP’s fines to Gulf restoration, two things will happen:

1. The funds will simply go to the U.S. Treasury’s “general fund” – never to be seen again, and
2. We will have squandered a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in real Gulf Coast restoration.

Here is why this legislation matters. For decades, the fragile Gulf Coast wetlands have been cut up, channelized, and engineered to serve the offshore oil industry and shipping interests – starving the wetlands of silt and sediment and poisoning them with saltwater.

As a result, the wetlands are disappearing – not just shifting or changing – they’re actually vanishing.

So, after the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, last year’s BP blowout and resulting oil catastrophe battered an already depleted and vulnerable coastline.

And the damage is still being felt. To this day, oil continues to wash up on Gulf shores. As much as 30 percent of the spilled oil is still out there: on or under beaches, draped across marshes, sunk to the bottom, floating as tar balls.

This issue isn’t complicated. As the Gulf struggles to recover, the only thing we’re asking Congress to do is simply pass common sense legislation to direct the BP fines to fix the Gulf.

Sadly, in Washington these days, nothing is simple. That’s why we need you to help us force the issue.

Please Take Action: Tell your members of Congress to pass the RESTORE The Gulf Act of 2011 before they break for August recess

If you have time, here are three more things you can do to help:

1) Spread the word. Forward this link to your family and friends and urge them to join you in calling for Gulf Coast restoration: 

2) Check our our Restoration and Resilience blog to learn more about the issue.

3) Follow our EDF Louisiana Twitter account to keep up with our Gulf Coast efforts.

You can also Follow us on Facebook

Thanks again for all that you do as a member of our Action Network. We’ll keep you posted on the fight ahead.

Sincerely,
Environmental Defense Action Fund

Don’t they get it? What do they need — a disaster in their home town?

I wonder who’s pocket Congressman Bilbray is in? I can only assume that he is getting paid well or that he is stupid beyond belief.

I find it hard to believe that anyone with an ounce of empathy or foresight would not be able to see that what happened in the gulf and what happened in Japan could happen again, with disastrous consequences. Just because they want to drill in a far away place like Alaska doesn’t mean a spill won’t have an effect globally.

Are American’s so stupid and insensitive that they would trade a clean environment for their children for cheaper gas at the pump today? According to people like Bilbray, we ARE that stupid and insensitive. We think it can’t happen here, but our nuclear facilities are decades old, and we have proof that an oil spill can not only happen, but that the companies responsible will not clean it up. That one oil spill changed our weather forever, by changing the temperature of the gulf stream. (See article on this in this blog below.)

Apparently, the oil / nuclear power backers of congressmen like Bilbray are betting that we are hurting so much from the high gas prices at the pump that we will ignore the disasters that they cause. Meanwhile, they are raking in the dough.

My favorite part of this “personal letter” is that I can’t reply to it. So I decided to make it public. We need no further proof of the disregard of our “representatives” to their constituents. Who elected this bozo?

Following is the letter I received from Congressman Bilbray after I wrote to him protesting the stronghold that the oil/nuclear industries have on this country and on the world.

——

Thank you for contacting me regarding our nation’s energy policy.  I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

Providing our country with an affordable and sustainable energy supply is an important priority of mine.  Currently the United States imports 51 percent of the petroleum it consumes.  We can work to reduce this amount by focusing on America’s ability to develop our own natural gas and other energy resources.  Expanding domestic energy production will benefit jobs, enhance our energy security, and ultimately profit the American economy.

In an attempt to decrease our foreign energy dependence, I have co-sponsored H.R. 49, the American Energy Independence and Price Reduction Act, sponsored by Congressman Don Young (R-AK), to direct the Secretary of the Interior to implement a competitive leasing program for the exploration, development, and production of oil and gas resources on the Coastal Plain of Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  This legislation will make available an estimated 5.7 to 16 billion barrels of oil.  Once that oil is made available the world price of oil will decrease and gas prices will likely follow.

In addition, I support granting states the right to explore and drill for oil resources within their own domain.  For example, if the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama want to grant drilling rights off their coast, Washington, DC bureaucrats should not impede their leasing authority as long as environmental and safety concerns are properly and adequately addressed and that there are no national security concerns.

However, increasing supply through off-shore drilling is only an intermediate step, and does not address the imperative need to pursue policies that reduce oil reliance.  To prepare for the long term, we must invest in sustainable energy sources such as solar, nuclear, algae-based biofuels and hydrogen technologies.  For this reason, I have introduced H.R. 1149 which will provide tax credits for algae-based biofuel producers.  I have also been a long time supporter of a robust and sustainable nuclear energy industry in the U.S.  Nuclear energy is much cleaner than coal and oil energy and is much more efficient.  All of these legislative proposals, from drilling in Alaska, to allowing states the opportunity to drill of their coasts, from increasing the availability of biofuels, to expanding our nuclear energy portfolio, will help keep America independent of foreign energy sources and are the key to the future success of the American economy.

Please be assured that as we continue to discuss this issue and other matters that affect our nation’s energy needs I will keep your thoughts in mind. Again, thank you for contacting me.  If you should have any questions, please feel free to call me or my office at (202) 225-0508.

Sincerely,

Brian Bilbray
Member of Congress

The conversion of a 10-by-20-foot shipping container into an eco-friendly mid-town office is a fine example of workplace recycling.

We are seeking family oriented people who are interested in building off grid. Are you a young professional ready to give up the fast track and put down permanent roots? Are you retiring and looking for a mortgage free base camp? Perhaps you have the shirt on your back but are willing to work hard for a dream. If so, then you have found the right place. We are looking people to join the growing off grid community here in Tecoma Valley. Your skils and industry are welcome. To find out more contact us at:

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http://www.off-grid.net/2011/05/04/off-grid-community-seeking-new-memebers/

Robyn O’Brien is the next Erin Brockovitch. She will be speaking in NYC on April 27th. If there is no video above, it is probably because we are experiencing censorship!

See Robyn here:
http://www.robynobrien.com/speaking.html

It is official: There will be a Wisconsin recount. The ballots cast in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race will be counted in every county, from Racine to Eau Claire to Milwaukee, and yes, Waukesha. The undervotes will be analyzed. The wrongly invalidated ballots will be validated. The surprise announcement of 14,000 additional Waukesha votes will be investigated.

The credit goes to courageous Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, who today filed a recount request with Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board. The credit also goes to you, and to the literally thousands of Wisconsinites and other Americans who in just the past 24 hours stepped up to insist that every vote be counted by hand.

The coming days and weeks will be tough ones for Wisconsin. Incumbent Justice David Prosser has made clear that he intends to fight Wisconsin’s recount every step of the way. He will litigate (on what grounds, we’ve yet to hear). He will denigrate (no, Justice Prosser, democracy is not “frivolous”). And he will intimidate (they sent a heckler and two fake reporters to a Kloppenburg press conference today to challenge her with loaded questions).

But we are ready for this. After all, in just nine days, the Wisconsin Wave has:

 - 1 – Hosted the first Wisconsin People’s Assembly, uniting over 300 people from across the state in a two-day gathering, and marching over 1,000 on Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

 - 2 – Organized the counter-rally to Sarah Palin at the Wisconsin State Capitol. On just two days notice, we were able to turn out a crowd ten times as large as the Palin rally.

 - 3 – Since just yesterday, mobilized thousands of people to phone, email, and rally in person to show support for a statewide count of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

We are ready. We are stepping it up. But we need your continued, and increased, support.

Please donate now:  http://wisconsinwave.org/contributep>To be clear, the Kloppenburg

and Prossercampaigns will both be asking for support for their efforts around the recount. If you support their efforts, you should contribute to their campaigns.

The role of the Wisconsin Wave is different. We will continue to be an independent voice for genuine democracy and against corporatization. We are supported entirely by individual contributions. Your personal contribution will carry this vital movement forward.

Today, economic and environmental devastation remain. Thousands of Gulf Coast residents cope with massive health problems from oil and toxic dispersants.

BP, on the other hand, just scored a nearly $10 billion dollar tax credit, by writing off its “losses” incurred from the tragedy.

$10 billion is the entire annual budget of the EPA, whose funding was just slashed in the continuing resolution. It is almost one third of all the cuts in the continuing resolution.

Americans shouldn’t have to endure massive budget cuts because BP took a $10 billion tax deduction for destroying our gulf. Tell BP: Amend your tax return and pay your fair share. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Responding to BP’s monumental catastrophe cost a massive amount of resources from local, state and federal governments. Now, BP is dealing another massive blow to our nation’s tax revenue.

The $10 billion savings comes after BP wrote-off the $32.2 billion it set aside to cover clean-up costs, fines, and a $20 billion victim compensation fund (which has been notoriously slow and stingy in responding to claims, paying out less than $4 billion so far.

But there is an excellent precedent that says BP did not have to deduct these costs for tax advantages. Last year, Goldman Sachs waived a tax deduction it could have claimed as a result of paying $500 million in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission for giving bad information to mortgage investors.

BP’s $10 billion tax credit slashes its liability by one third — at every US taxpayer’s expense.

BP has cost our nation enough already. Tell BP it shouldn’t be rewarding itself with huge tax savings. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Over the weekend, I was in Washington D.C. for the Powershift conference, attended by 8,000 young climate activists.

Hundreds attended from the Gulf Coast, and I heard their stories of oil still remaining on beaches, of its smell still permeating the air, of legions of dead dolphin, turtles and fish, of neighbors who are sick or jobless. I heard them say that BP hasn’t done nearly enough to make it right.

Meanwhile in Washington, BP just restarted political contributions to the Republicans who continue to push for expanded offshore drilling,⁴ oppose lifting oil spill liability caps,⁵ and do everything in their power to keep our nation addicted to dirty crude, as millions of Americans literally drain their paychecks into their gas tanks every day.

To take our nation off of fossil fuels, we must force polluters to pay for the damage they do.

One year ago, BP brought us what would become the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history. We don’t owe BP a tax-credit. BP owes us our gulf back. The least it could do is pay its fair share.

Click here to automatically sign the petition to BP.

Thank you for holding polluters accountable.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

Or did you find the whole thing totally impenetrable as the story seemed to change daily?

Well, here’s a video that breaks it down. It’s a quick, funny, and honest explanation of what actually went down last week in D.C. Check it out, and then share it with anyone you think could benefit from a little straight talk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ9hVMN8UMY&feature=player_embeddedBig Mike Breaks It Down

We need to have a real national conversation about how we can address the deficit. This video can help kick that off, but only if you share it.
Daniel, Sarah, Laura, Adam Q., and the rest of the team

We’re entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here

.

And the looming fights over the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget will only make this dynamic worse unless Congress and President Obama see a broad and vocal movement to hold corporations accountable.

So, on Tax Day — Monday, April 18 — there will be hundreds of events across the country to call out the corporate tax deadbeats.

CREDO is inviting you to join MoveOn, and gather outside the headquarters and local offices of corporations not paying their fair share. For instance, activists will target corporations like General Electric, which made $14.2 billion in profits last year — but paid NO federal income tax.

Attend an event near you to deliver tax bills to the biggest corporate tax dodgers and demand that our elected leaders make them pay.

We hope you’ll take action. You can find the rally closest to you by clicking here.

Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes AltogetherDavid Kocieniewski, New York Times, March 24, 2011.

Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 (of the 50) States to convene a Constitutional Convention.

This will take less than thirty seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on.

This is an idea that we should address.

For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform… in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn’t seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don’t care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop.

If each person that receives this will forward it on to 20 people, in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message.. This is one proposal that really should be passed around.

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: “Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States .”

No one has been able to explain to me why young men and women serve in the U.S. Military for 20 years, risking their lives protecting freedom, and only get 50% of their pay. While politicians hold their political positions in the safe confines of the capital, protected by these same men and women, and receive full pay retirement after serving one term. It just does not make any sense.

Monday on Fox news they learned that the staffers of Congress family members are exempt from having to pay back student loans. This will get national attention if other news networks will broadcast it. When you add this to the below, just where will all of it stop?

Please share this: Tweet, email, like, copy and paste into your blog.