Exxon Valdez – The Final Showdown?
~An Exxon Valdez oil-filled footprint on a beach in Prince William Sound, known as “The Death Marsh” and “Diesel Beach.” Taken July 4, 2010 – twenty-one years after the spill. (photo by Jeanne Devon) By Prof. Rick Steiner In what could be the final court showdown regarding environmental damage from the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, tomorrow (1:30 PM, Tuesday Nov. 15, 2011) the U.S. District Court in Anchorage will hear oral arguments regarding the final payment from Exxon for long-term environmental injuries from the spill. The present Court proceedings were triggered initially by my 12/7/10 amicus motion, then the…
EPA v. Polluters – Senators Begich & Murkowski on the Wrong Side
Alaskans have a (how shall I put this) prickly relationship with the EPA for the most part. You can live most anywhere in the lower 48, and chances are you’ve never had to personally interact with the EPA and don’t know anyone who has. You live in your house, you do your thing, and the only time it comes up is when you hear the Tea Party talk about how all them damn regulations keep mucking things up and killing business and jobs. But in Alaska, the EPA and its involvement in development both big and small seems to…
Voices from the Flats – The BP Gulf Disaster Taught Us Lessons We Already Knew
By Hal Shepherd, Acting Executive Director, Kachemak Bay Conservation Society Homer, Alaska The BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year should serve as a stark reminder to Alaskans just how vulnerable our fisheries and the families they support are to spilled oil. Alaska is no stranger to such events. Cook Inlet, which supports one of the state’s premier commercial and sport fishing economies, is a clear example of what we have to lose if an uncontrollable well blowout occurs here. Such an incident is not so difficult to imagine. Right now, two independent oil companies, Houston-based Escopeta…
Alaska Governor Sean Parnell’s Big Oil Bailout
~Senator Bill Wielechowski explains ACES *ATTENTION BLOGGERS – If you have a blog, and would like to repost this article in its entirety including links, photos, and attribution, please feel free to do so. This is important information, and it’s never easy going against the well-funded falsehoods continually pushed forward by the oil companies. Often, the truth is free and the lies cost a lot of money. So, help yourself and pass it on. You can also post the link in your Facebook page, or post the link in a Tweet. Thanks! By Thomas Dewar and Jeanne Devon “Each…
Voices from the Flats – Orwellian Juneau and Sean Parnell’s $2B Oil Tax Rollback
By Rep. Les Gara (D-Anchorage) The slick oil tax ads are starting. And when political ads begin, you start to wonder whether telling a fib is cheaper than telling the truth. Well, because political ads cost lots of money, and they tend to be more fib than truth. So, fibbing must be cheaper than telling the truth, right? Or, maybe in politics it’s just more effective to mislead people. Nah. No one would ever do that. Not when billions in state oil revenue are at stake. As you know, the governor has proposed the biggest oil company tax rollback in…
Bedtime in Alaska – Odds & Ends
Don Young Twitterjacked! Oh, the Twitter fun just never ends. Not only is the good governor tweeting up a storm on her brand new Twitter account, but so is Don Young…..or so we thought. Turns out that according to Young’s office an imposter has been tweeting weird stuff using the name and image of Don Young, and Palin was briefly taken in and followed the scoundrel on her own Twitter account! Now that the jig is up, he’s been un-followed. And on an amusing note, Mudflats, too, was briefly on the governor’s “follow” list and then removed. Interesting… The Dirty Truth About…
Question of the Day from Drift River.
The legislative session in Juneau is over, and there’s sort of a “sigh of relief” vibe going around. But some things just won’t go away. There is still the question of oil. Actually, there are many questions about oil. The questions may not be as “provocative” as our governor in Arctic Cat leathers, or as entertaining as the filling of our vacant senate seat, but they are there, constantly, like a big dark spectre hanging over our heads. Chevron has millions of gallons of crude oil stored in tanks sitting in between the slopes of an active volcano, and a large…