U.S. Senators urge Obama administration to block Arctic oil drilling

U.S. Senators urge Obama administration to block Arctic oil drilling

May 23rd, 2015 

by John Donovan. 

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Politics | Fri May 22, 2015 

U.S. Senators urge Obama administration to block Arctic oil drilling

When Shell lost control of a drilling rig that year it “put numerous lives at risk, including those of the Coast Guard crews” and those of 18 people on the rig…

A group of 18 mostly Democratic U.S. senators on Friday urged the Obama administration to stop Royal Dutch Shell’s preparations for oil exploration in the Arctic, saying the region has a severely limited capacity to respond to accidents.

The senators, from both coasts and several Midwestern states, sent a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, urging her to retire Arctic leases in the Chukchi Sea.

Jewell’s department earlier this month conditionally approved Shell’s exploration plan in the Arctic. The move means the company is likely to return to the Chukchi Sea this summer for the first time since a mishap-filled drilling season in 2012.

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Posted in: Alaska, Arctic, Business Principles, Chukchi Sea, Environment, Gas,Greenpeace, Litigation, Oil, Oil Spill, Reuters, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Shell, Shell Employee Safety, United States.
Tagged: Alaska · Arctic Ocean · Chukchi Sea · Environment · Oil · Royal Dutch Shell Plc ·Shell

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Shell CEO backs fossil fuels, climate change warnings -Guardian

Shell CEO backs fossil fuels, climate change warnings -Guardian

May 23rd, 2015 

by John Donovan. 

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Markets | Fri May 22, 2015 7:35pm EDT

Shell CEO backs fossil fuels, climate change warnings -Guardian

The world’s fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned unless some way is found to capture their carbon emissions, Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said on Friday.

In an interview published in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Van Beurden forecast that global energy use would produce “zero carbon” by the end of the century, and that his group would get a “very large segment” of its earnings from renewable power.

The interview came a day after Van Beurden slammed as a “red herring” calls to divest from energy companies as part of the fight against climate change, in particular the “Keep it in the Ground” campaign led by the Guardian.

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Posted in: Alaska, Alternative Energy, Alternative Fuels, Arctic, Ben van Beurden,Chukchi Sea, Climate Change, Environment, Oil, Oil Spill, Pollution, Reuters, Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Tagged: Alaska · Arctic Ocean · Ben van Beurden · Chukchi Sea · Environment · Oil ·Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell

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Woman chains herself to anchor of Shell support ship in Bellingham

Woman chains herself to anchor of Shell support ship in Bellingham

May 23rd, 2015 

by John Donovan. 

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MAY 22, 2015, BY Q13 FOX NEWS STAFF

Woman chains herself to anchor of Shell support ship in Bellingham

A woman has chained herself to an anchor of a Shell support ship in Bellingham Bay, Bellingham police say. She can be seen at left.

BELLINGHAM — A woman has chained herself to the Arctic Challenger, a support ship for Shell Oil’s drill rig, in Bellingham Bay, the Bellingham Police Department confirmed Friday night.

She has been identified as Chiara Rose, a Western Washington University student.

“We have spoken with the ship, the Port and the female and will not be taking action to remove her,” a police spokesman said. “The ship is not leaving for several days and we will not risk resources or the female.”

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Posted in: Alaska, Arctic, Chukchi Sea, Environment, Greenpeace, Oil Spill, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Shell, United States.
Tagged: Alaska · Arctic Ocean · Chukchi Sea · Litigation · Oil · Royal Dutch Shell Plc ·Shell

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SATURDAY, MAY 23, 2015 11:00 AM PDT

7 ways Bernie Sanders could transform America

He may not capture the Democratic nomination, but the Vermont senator still has a chance to reshape the party VIDEO

TOPICS: VIDEO, THE DAILY DOT, BERNIE SANDERS, GERMANY, DENMARK, SWEDEN, HILLARY CLINTON,WALL STREET, BUSINESS NEWS, POLITICS NEWS

Bernie Sanders (Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster)

This article originally appeared on The Daily Dot.

Say what you will about the presidential candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), but if nothing else, it has certainly introduced some interesting ideas into America’s political debate. Considering that the most recent polls show Hillary Clinton with a nearly five-to-one lead over her nearest rival, this can only be viewed as a positive thing.

As Reddit‘s favorite politician, Bernie Sanders has enormous influence on our political discourse, and his recent policies have been making huge headlines on the Internet. Here are seven ways in which our national discussion on a wide range of issues could be transformed by the Sanders campaign.

1) Guaranteeing free college

In a press conference on Monday, Sanders advocated that the government fund tuition at four-year public colleges and universities through a so-called Robin Hood tax on Wall Street, one that would set a 50 cent tax on every $100 of stock trades on stock sales, as well as lesser amounts on other financial transactions.

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While Sanders’ critics are expected to denounce the plan as socialistic, the Vermont Senator is quick to point out that similar proposals are already in effect and successful elsewhere. “Countries like Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and many more are providing free or inexpensive higher education for their young people,” Sanders points out. “They understand how important it is to be investing in their youth. We should be doing the same.”

Although Obama promised free community college for students who qualify, Bernie Sanders’ proposed policy shows that with America’s burgeoning debt crisis, we need to go even further.

2) Addressing income inequality

In an interview with the Associated Press confirming his presidential run, Sanders cited America’s growing income inequality as one of the chief motivators behind his campaign, a well-timed stance given the recent #FightFor15 on Twitter.

“What we have seen is that while the average person is working longer hours for lower wages, we have seen a huge increase in income and wealth inequality, which is now reaching obscene levels,” Sanders argued. “This is a rigged economy, which works for the rich and the powerful, and is not working for ordinary Americans.”

Sanders has proposed a number of reforms to solve this problem, from legislation that would close corporate tax loopholes to raising the minimum wage above $7.25 an hour, a rate Sanders describes as a “starvation wage.” For the working poor, getting by continues to be a daily struggle, and Sanders is fighting to change that.

3) Regulating Wall Street

If you think Sanders’ free college plan has Wall Street concerned, you can only imagine how they feel about Sanders’ proposed bill for breaking up banks that are considered “too big to fail.” In fact, polls show 58 percent of likely voters agreewith his basic argument that “if an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist,” indicating that merely denouncing Sanders as a radical won’t necessarily work for this measure.

What’s more, banking lobbyists are concerned that anti-bank sentiment within the Democratic grassroots could push Clinton to the left on this issue. “The prospects of it becoming law are nil,” reported one banking lobbyist to the Hill. “But we care about whether this impacts Hillary and whether she’ll try to pander to the far left.”

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But for the millions who continue to be affected by the 2008 crash and the effects of the American banking bubble on our Great Recession, it’s not just about pushing Hillary to the left. It’s about pushing America forward.

4) Legalizing marijuana

Although Sanders told Time magazine that he doesn’t consider marijuana legalization to be “one of the major issues facing this country,” his sympathies on the subject are pretty clear.

“If you are a Wall Street executive who engaged in reckless and illegal behavior which helped crash the economy leading to massive unemployment and human suffering, your bank may have to pay a fine but nothing happens to you,” heexplained in an AMA session on Reddit. “If you’re a kid smoking marijuana or snorting cocaine, you may end up in jail for years.”

He also supports increased use of medical marijuana and takes pride in the fact that no one was arrested for marijuana possession or use when he was mayor of Burlington, Vt. Given the negative impact of three decades of the War on Drugs on incarcerating urban residents at disproportionate rates, particularly black men, this is a policy that is long overdue.

Although Hillary has vowed to fight the prison-industrial complex, Sanders shows he’s already ready to take the first steps.

5) Fighting free trade

There is another issue in which Bernie Sanders may push Clinton to the left: free trade.

Although hardly a trending topic, Sanders is a longstanding opponent of international trade agreements like NAFTA that he believes work against the interests of average American laborers. His current target is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is being pushed by the Obama administration despite the fact that its provisions have not been made public.

“It is incomprehensible to me that the leaders of major corporate interests who stand to gain enormous financial benefits from this agreement are actively involved in the writing of the TPP,” Sanders wrote in a letter to the Obama White House, “while, at the same time, the elected officials of this country, representing the American people, have little or no knowledge as to what is in it.”

6) Confronting climate change

Sanders’ has made no secret of his contempt for global warming deniers. To embarrass anti-science Republicans, he introduced a “sense of Congress” resolution in January that simply acknowledged man-made climate change was real and needed to be addressed. By voting in favor of the measure, Congress would do little more than place itself  “in agreement with the opinion of virtually the entire worldwide scientific community.”

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Although the amendment was tabled by a mostly party-line vote of 56-42, Sanders’ reputation as an unwavering advocate of pro-environmental policies when dealing with climate change hasn’t gone unnoticed. Climate Hawks Vote, a super PAC dedicated to addressing global warming, ranked Sanders as the number-one climate leader in the Senate.

7) Criticizing Israel

If elected in 2016, Sanders would be America’s first Jewish president, and that makes his willingness to criticize Israel all the more significant. During a town hall event last year, Sanders got into a shouting match with constituents who were angered by his statement that Israel “overreacted” in its military campaign against Hamas and was “terribly, terribly wrong” for bombing UN facilities.

His stance on Israel could hardly be described as blindly pro-Palestinian, however. In the same town hall meeting, he acknowledged that Israel was in a tricky situation because Hamas was firing rockets from populated areas, but he has no love for Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, distinguishing himself as the first Senator to openly refuse to attend Netanyahu’s speech to Congress.

Regardless of whether one agrees with Sanders’ views on these issues, the odds are still far greater than not that he won’t receive the Democratic nomination next year. In addition to being on the far left in his own party, Sanders is a septuagenarian from a minority background who hails from one of America’s smallest states.

At the same time, he is still giving voice to a series of positions that deserve a more prominent place in our political debate. When all is said and done, this can only be a good thing.

Matthew Rozsa is a Ph.D. student in history at Lehigh University as well as a political columnist. His editorials have been published in “The Morning Call,” “The Express-Times,” “The Newark Star-Ledger,” “The Baltimore Sun,” and various college newspapers and blogs. He actively encourages people to reach out to him at matt.rozsa@gmail.com

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