"Obama, Romney energy views are similar" April 05, 2012|By Callum Borchers
An examination of President Obama’s and Mitt Romney’s records reveals that Obama and Romney are hardly at opposite ends of the energy policy spectrum. Each has leveled criticisms against the other that could also apply to himself....
Obama, for his part, has over the years received more campaign contributions from BP — responsible for the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago — than any other politician, according to the Center for Responsive Politics....
“For all the huffing and puffing you hear during a presidential election, the reality is there is a lot more consensus on energy than on other issues,’’ said Pietro S. Nivola, a senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution and an expert on energy and American politics. “There’s really not a big chasm.’’
Romney’s assertion that Obama “wanted to see gasoline prices go up’’ is based on statements Obama made during the 2008 campaign.
And he did step on the gas for Israel.
Asked then if that year’s high gas prices could aid energy policy, Obama said, “I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps to help people make the adjustment . . . I think, ultimately, we can come out of this stronger and have a more efficient energy policy than we do right now.’’
More recently, Obama has said explicitly that he wants lower gas prices.
Then why did he drive up the price of oil with sanctions on Ira... oh, right.
Industry analysts challenge the notion that a president exercises much control over what consumers pay. “Oil is one of the most widely traded commodities in the world,’’ said Keith Crane, director of the Environment, Energy and Economic Development Program at the RAND Corp. “You pay what the global market dictates.’’
Translation: The oil companies have us over one of their barrels.
But Romney interprets the president’s words to mean he supports expensive gas as a way to advance his renewable energy agenda.
If that was Obama’s implication, Romney made a similar one as governor. Urged by members of his party to suspend Massachusetts’ 23.5-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Romney rejected the proposal and instead directed state residents to “find ways to conserve energy, to utilize it more efficiently.’’
When his lieutenant governor, Kerry Healey, led a second push for a moratorium on the state gas tax in 2006, Romney said he would rather encourage the production and purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles than the lowering of gas prices.
As he sees a general-election bout with Obama, however, Romney has outlined energy solutions that focus almost exclusively on nonrenewable resources. He supports fracking, a method of extracting oil and gas by injecting chemicals - including known carcinogens - into the ground, as an economic boon.
Causing earthquakes is an economic boon?
Related: What the Frack?
Boston Globe Bathroom Break
Yeah, who cares if the water taste like shit.
He also has backed the Keystone XL Pipeline for transporting Canadian crude oil to Oklahoma and Texas, and he lampooned the president for his reluctance to approve the project.
Related: US to hasten process for drilling permits
“When someone says, ‘We want to bring in a pipeline that’s going to create tens of thousands of jobs to bring oil in from Canada,’ how in the world could you say no?’’ Romney said last month....
Easy. N-O, no.
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Gonna need that oil:
"EPA rule targets new coal-fired power plants; Both sides criticize measure to curb carbon pollution" by Dina Cappiello | Associated Press, March 28, 2012
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration forged ahead Tuesday with the first-ever limits on heat-trapping pollution from new power plants, ignoring protests from industry and Republicans who have said the regulation will raise electricity prices and kill off coal, the dominant US energy source.
But the regulation also fell short of environmentalists’ hopes because it goes easier than it could have on coal-fired power, one of the largest sources of the gases blamed for global warming....
I care more about the acid rain and pollution.
And is there one group Obama hasn't broken a promise to since he became president?
Older coal-fired power plants have already been shutting down across the country, thanks to low natural gas prices, demand from China driving up coal’s price, and weaker demand for electricity....
I care more about the acid rain and pollution.
And is there one group Obama hasn't broken a promise to since he became president?
Older coal-fired power plants have already been shutting down across the country, thanks to low natural gas prices, demand from China driving up coal’s price, and weaker demand for electricity....
The rule announced Tuesday could either derail or jump-start plans for 15 new coal-fired power plants in 10 states, depending on when they start construction. Those that break ground in the next year would be exempt from the new limit. Those that start construction later will have to eventually comply with the rule.
Existing power plants, even if they make changes that increase emissions, would not be covered at all. New ones would have years to meet the standard and could average their emissions over three decades in order to meet the threshold.
But eventually, all coal-fired power plants would need to install equipment to capture half of their carbon pollution. While not commercially available now, the EPA projects that by 2030, no new coal-fired power plant will be built without carbon capture and storage....
It's always about the agenda.
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Related: US regulators approve 2 new S.C. reactors
An Energetic Obama
"In Wisconsin, Romney casts lot with governor in divisive recall" April 02, 2012|Michael Levenson, Globe Staff
FITCHBURG, Wis. - An emotionally charged, nationally watched battle over workers’ rights and collective bargaining, one that that has divided families and deeply polarized a state long known for amiable bipartisanship.
A year after thousands of demonstrators descended on the capitol in Madison to protest Governor Scott Walker’s efforts to slash the bargaining power and benefits of public workers, the state remains on the leading edge of a struggle over the loyalties of middle- and working-class voters.
Angry Democrats and union officials have initiated an election to recall Walker, the lieutenant governor, and four Republican state senators on June 5 that has all but overshadowed the primary here, consuming the time and money of political activists and animating countless, often bitter, dinner-table debates....
Related:
"Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who has battled public employee unions since taking office last year, will become the first governor in the state’s history to face a recall election, a state board ruled Friday after finding that critics had collected more than enough signatures to force a vote. The primary elections were set for May 8, and the general election for June 5."
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Also see:
Labor Has Lost in Wisconsin
Mass. House Worse Than Wisconsin
Unions Surrender Rights in Massachusetts
Democrats Abandon Unions in New Jersey
You see, it is different if Democrats screw you union folk.
Democrats take aim at Romney on outsourcing
As if Democrats have their hands clean and nothing to do with the policy.
"Romney-tied PAC has taste for secrecy" March 31, 2012|By Brian C. Mooney
Among all the super PACs that have deluged the presidential nomination race with big-money donations, only the one allied with Mitt Romney has established a pattern of accepting major contributions from corporate entities that obscure the actual source of the money or appear to have been created specifically as vehicles to mask the wealthy donors’ identities.
Twice, Restore Our Future has amended its reports to the Federal Election Commission after media reports indicated that contributions of $1 million and $250,000 were made through dummy limited liability companies (LLCs). In each case, individuals with past associations to Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Romney, or Bain and Co., the consulting firm Romney helped save, acknowledged they were the source.
Also see: The Bain of Mitt Romney
Don't Bet Against Mitt Romney
But there are many additional instances of this practice. A Globe analysis identified nearly $4 million of the $43.2 million Restore Our Future had raised through the end of February that came from at least 16 spinoffs of better-known corporations or from LLCs, some of them dummies. There is no parallel pattern in any of the other Republican- or Democratic-leaning super PACs, which have proliferated to support individual presidential candidates or partisan causes.
Restore Our Future has decimated Romney’s chief opponents for the Republican presidential nomination with negative advertising and has emerged as a political powerhouse in the new world of campaign finance after the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case two years ago opened the doors to unlimited corporate, labor union, and personal money to influence elections.
Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul, in response to a Globe inquiry, said in an e-mail: “Restore Our Future is an independent group which acts independently from the campaign.’’
Charles Spies, treasurer of Restore Our Future and one of several former Romney campaign aides working for the super PAC, declined to comment for this story. Brittany Gross, spokeswoman for the super PAC, said in an e-mail: “We don’t comment on specific donors.’’ Super PAC officials have said that they follow all Federal Election Commission disclosure guidelines, but the Globe identified at least 16 instances where the officials reported not the contact persons behind significant contributions but the less revealing corporate or LLC identities provided by the donors.
In the case of Gross’s response, the Globe had asked her for information about the source of a $5,000 donation that Restore Our Future reported was made last June by “Legacy Trust Dated 9/25/02’’ with an address in Tampa. The Globe could not locate the trust in an online search of Florida corporate records or court records in Hillsborough County, Fla.
“There seems to be a use of LLCs to make it far more difficult to know what’s going on,’’ Fred Wertheimer, founder and president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for more transparency on campaign finance issues, said of Restore Our Future’s reporting practices. “We saw $1 million contributions coming masked from LLCs, and only when stories were done did they amend their reports to show who really gave the money.’’
Wertheimer was referring to a contribution by “W Spann LLC,’’ a New York City-based entity that gave Restore Our Future $1 million in April 2011, five weeks after it was formed and seven weeks before it was dissolved, and a $250,000 donation from “Glenbrook LLC’’ with an address of a Redwood City, Calif., accounting firm. After a series of news media stories, Edward Conard, a former executive of Bain Capital, revealed that he was the $1 million donor behind W Spann, and Jesse Rogers, a former executive of Bain and Co., disclosed that he and his wife were the source of the $250,000 contribution from Glenbrook.
See: Romney's Law
In each case, Restore Our Future said it was complying with all federal disclosure laws at the time it recorded the contributions.
The pattern, however, extends well beyond those donations.
For instance, on March 31, 2011, the super PAC reported $1 million contributions from Eli Publishing Inc. and F8 LLC, both of the same address, an accounting firm in Provo, Utah. State corporate records listed Eli Publishing’s agent as Steven Lund, a top corporate figure in Nu Skin, a health products company and a big Romney supporter. Lund told a Salt Lake City television station that the corporation was originally set up to publish a book. F8’s agent was listed as Lund’s son-in-law, Jeremy Blickenstaff, who owns a store in Utah and is a former Nu Skin official. Neither returned Globe phone calls.
A $250,000 contribution to Restore Our Future in July 2011 from Paumanok Partners LLC, with a New Canaan, Conn., post office box address, is apparently tied to William Laverack Jr., a big Romney supporter who heads Laverack Capital Partners, a private investment firm. A New York Times graphics editor found information from a website under construction that linked Laverack to the contribution. Laverack also did not return calls from the Globe.
Two donors who gave under the names of companies related to but not their primary businesses told the Globe their contributions using those entities were not an attempt to obscure their identities.
John Catsimatidis, the billionaire chief executive of Red Apple Group, which owns chains of supermarkets in New York and convenience stores/filling stations in New York and other states as well as other holdings, said in a Globe interview he had the check to Restore Our Future for $25,000 come from a Pennsylvania-based company he controls and which supplies his gas stations, not to obscure his role but because “oil companies are on the enemies list of the current administration.’’
Catsimatidis is a major Romney fund-raiser.
Similarly, Marshall Merrifield, a longtime Romney backer and entrepreneur who owns a security device business in Carlsbad, Calif., said his use of a holding company, Tiger Ventures LLC, to make a $5,000 contribution to Restore Our Future last January was not an attempt to conceal his identity. “When you max out personally,’’ Merrifield said of making the maximum $2,500 donation to Romney’s campaign, “the super PAC is this sort of new game, an out of the box situation, and another way to help out.’’
His LLC is actually listed in California corporate records at another address in nearby San Diego under the name of a former controller of his company. The Globe reached Merrifield through the property manager of an office complex listed by the super PAC as the address of the LLC.
Restore Our Future spokeswoman Gross did not respond to an e-mail requesting an interview with the super PAC’s fund-raising consultant, Steve Roche. Roche has been a major Romney fund-raising operative since Romney’s campaign for governor of Massachusetts and left the presidential campaign last summer to work for the super PAC. You won’t find his name in any of Restore Our Future’s expenditure reports, however. Roche is being paid through an entity called Podium Capital Group, which he established a few months before leaving the Romney for president campaign. His name appears nowhere in the online corporate records in Delaware where Podium Capital Group was created. It’s a limited liability company with an address of a post office box in Beverly, Mass.
Podium Capital Group has been paid more than $1.9 million for “fund-raising services’’ by Restore Our Future, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
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"Obama off to northern N.E. for campaign fund-raisers
WASHINGTON - Ticket prices for the luncheon started at $7,500 per person. The president will close out his day with a private dinner with 130 supporters at the Portland Museum of Art. Tickets for that start at $5,000 per person.
Can you afford that, 'murkn?
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Related: Obama's Luncheon With Spike Lee
That's an expensive lunch.
"Obama warns against lumping women into single voting bloc" April 07, 2012
WASHINGTON - With Election Day seven months away, President Obama hopes to convince voters that he, like his Republican predecessors, is a reasonable moderate.
Just what you wanted when you elected a Democrat president, 'eh, America?
Obama yesterday showered attention on helping women, yet warned in the same motion that they should not be reduced to a uniform political bloc, declaring they are not an interest group and “shouldn’t be treated that way.’’
“When we talk about these issues that primarily impact women, we’ve got to realize that they are not just women’s issues,’’ he said at a White House forum on women and the economy. “They are family issues. They are growth issues. They are issues about American competitiveness. They are issues that impact all of us.’’
Obama’s comments came as women’s concerns, and the role women will play in choosing the next president, have taken on intensifying importance. Some Democrats have accused Republicans of waging a “war on women’’ and have turned national controversies over women’s rights into a vehicle for raising campaign cash.
Not tonight, honey, I have a headache.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Obama Sweet Talks Soccer Moms
You guys falling for it?
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Something else for which I no longer have the energy:
"Climate panel predicts weather disasters ahead; Poor regions may take brunt, but no area is called safe" by Seth Borenstein | Associated Press, March 29, 2012
WASHINGTON - Global warming is leading to such severe storms, droughts, and heat waves that nations should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of deadly and costly weather disasters, an international panel of climate scientists says in a report issued Wednesday.
The greatest danger from extreme weather is in highly populated, poor regions of the world, the report warns, but no corner of the globe - from Mumbai to Miami - is immune. The document by a Nobel Prize-winning panel of climate scientists forecasts stronger tropical cyclones and more frequent heat waves, deluges, and droughts.
The 594-page report blames the scale of recent and future disasters on a combination of human-directed climate change, population shifts, and poverty.
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Related: Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past
Dallas hit by violent storms, tornadoes
