Posts Tagged ‘Energy’

June8

How many public interest groups does it take to change the nation’s electicity rate structure?

By: Dorry Samuels

Scott Nelson is Public Citizen's attorney taking on FERC in federal court

Public Citizen is arguing a huge case today in federal appeals court that could change how the nation is charged for its electricity use.

Since the 1990s, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has been allowing wholesalers to charge market-based rates with disastrous results. (Consider, for example, the 2000-2001 California energy crisis.)

In this case, Public Citizen, along with the Colorado Office of Consumer Counsel and the Public Utility Law Project of New York, is challenging a rule by FERC that allows sellers of wholesale electric power to charge market rates for electricity and to avoid the Federal Power Act’s requirements that rates be just and reasonable and that all changes in rates be filed with FERC before they go into effect.

Public Citizen argues that the rule exceeds FERC’s authority and conflicts with the plain language of the act. In case we needed even more support, the attorneys general of Illinois, Connecticut and Rhode Island joined Public Citizen’s brief challenging the lawfulness of FERC’s market-based-rate regime.

Learn more about the case. And check back to find out how the 9th Circuit judge rules.

9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a case that could upend the agency’s market-based rate structure.

Posted in: Energy, Litigation, Regulation0 comments

May17

Senate gives Big Oil another free pass

By: Tyson Slocum

Tyson SlocumJust what Big Oil needed: another victory. First, Congress fails to pass legislation that would respond to last summer’s catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Then, President Barack Obama announces that his administration will expand offshore drilling, which means more money for the oil industry.

But now, despite overwhelming public support, the U.S. Senate has failed to pass the Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act (S. 940), which would have repealed tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks for oil and gas companies over the next decade.

Big Oil is racking up the victories while working families pay the price. Yet again Big Oil defies the odds and gets a minority of lawmakers to support its narrow agenda at the expense of the American public.

The oil industry has killed efforts to be fully liable for the messes it makes in offshore oil spills, and now it holds on to its coveted tax breaks, despite overwhelming evidence that they are no longer needed. What is desperately needed are investments in clean energy to reduce our dependence on oil and deficit reduction. But Big Oil can’t be bothered to be a part of the solution. Instead, the industry uses its money and influence to keep its taxpayer handouts coming.

The big five oil companies – which in the last quarter racked up $36 billion in net profits – will continue to receive taxpayer money because many in the Senate have closer ties to those giant corporations than their own constituents.

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Posted in: Energy1 comments

March30

Obama misses the point on energy security

By: Tyson Slocum

President Barack Obama should rethink his definition and strategy of energy security.

While Obama touted lofty goals about cutting our dependence on foreign oil in his address today, he missed the point.

Energy security is not just about reducing oil imports. It’s also about addressing how we get energy here at home. The crisis following last year’s BP oil spill showed us that domestic drilling is not a pathway for security. It shut down the Gulf economy for months, and the fishing industry may never rebound. Energy security starts and ends with curbing our oil addiction – period – not just cutting off oil imports.

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Posted in: Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Nuclear Power, Regulation0 comments

March21

Public Citizen’s Twitter Poetry Challenge, an ode to #bigoil?

By: Rachel Lewis

Today is World Poetry Day and it is also the anniversary of “Twitter,” an online information sharing powerhouse recently leveraged by the Egyptian people to organize for social change. For those of you who don’t know, Public Citizen uses Twitter to try and organize for social change as well.

In honor of Twitter’s anniversary and in celebration of World Poetry Day, Public Citizen would like to invite those of you with a Twitter account to follow us on Twitter @Public_Citizen and take us up on our challenge:

Follow us on Twitter and then tweet us a poem, 140 characters or less,  expressing your thoughts on any of the issues we cover. From energy policy to financial regulation, have your voice heard and help us get the word out about our work by using the hash tag #PCpoem. To the left, is an example from our very own wordsmith Dorry Samuels, who opted to take the challenge on nuclear in the form of a haiku. We will retweet our favorites.

For those curious about Twitter but not familiar with it or how it works, try checking out this YouTube channel.

Yours truly is about to work on a short poem about BP, that is “Beyond Pathetic,” a phase that aptly describes both British Petroleum and congressional languishing we are seeing on the Oil Spill Commission recommendations in Washington.  Last week, Congress held offshore drilling hearings and the head of the House Natural Resources Committee announced that he would soon be introducing legislation to speed up the federal water lease approval process to aid the oil industry.

The New York Times reported of the hearings,

Democrats on the panel accused Interior critics of massaging statistics and neglecting the devastation caused by the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, which included the loss of 11 lives and spilled 4 to 5 million barrels of oil. . . . “This hearing is apparently taking place in a parallel universe,” said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) the ranking member on the committee, who pointed to the “systemic” problems with the offshore drilling industry identified by the presidential Oil Spill Commission earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration issued approval for a third deep water oil drilling permit in the Gulf of Mexico. Bloomberg reported that ATP Oil & Gas Corp., the company the permit was issued to, saw an immediate jump in New York trading.

Please tell your representatives to act on the Oil Spill Commission recommendations today!

Posted in: Activism, Uncategorized0 comments

March15

“It can happen here” … are you listening Mr. President?

By: Angela Bradbery

As the situation in Japan grows more dire, countries around the world are re-evaluating their nuclear programs. Germany has already acted; it has decided to mothball seven 1970s-era reactors.

You would think we here in the U.S. would stop our mad drive to build new reactors. Not yet, but many pundits are rightly questioning the wisdom of the push to do so. The Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum said it well in a column today:

If the competent and technologically brilliant Japanese can’t build a completely safe reactor, who can? … [N]uclear power is also promoted because it safe. Which it is — except, of course, when it is not.

Her colleague Eugene Robinson said even more bluntly:

[T]he one inescapable lesson of Fukushima is that improbable does not mean impossible. Unlikely failures can combine to bring any nuclear fission reactor to the brink of disaster. It can happen here.

Meanwhile, some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are calling for a hearing on the safety of nuclear power here in the U.S.

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Posted in: Environment, Nuclear Power0 comments

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