In the Pipeline: 5/13/13

If you support construction of Keystone XL, you are racist (on top of all the other names you’ve already been called). Politico (5/10/13) reports: “As business leaders, philanthropists and supporters of your 2008 and 2012 campaigns, we write to urge you to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and to do everything in your power to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels and to clean energy sources,” reads the missive that 150 donors sent to Obama on Thursday… They note Obama’s admiration for Lincoln, writing that “he made one of the most important decisions of his presidency and for our nation when he decided that he would fight for the 13th Amendment to end slavery even if it took every ounce of his political capital.”

Start your week off with a dose of sanity. Bangor Daily News (5/9/13) reports: “Gov. Paul LePage wants to strip from state law goals for increasing the state’s wind energy capacity over the next two decades.”

Hey! We’re famous (again). Maybe the House will join in the fun. Rep Stockman (5/10/13) reports: “‘For almost two years, Gina McCarthy has failed to live up to promises to provide Congress with the basic data that underlies this administration’s billion dollar Clean Air Act regulations. The public has been denied the opportunity to review the science that underpins alleged benefits from these regulations. Utilizing secret science is no way to develop credible regulations. I commend my Senate colleagues for drawing this critical line in the sand.’… A recent poll by the Institute for Energy Research indicates that the American people agree with making data public and stand for transparent science; 90 percent of people agree that studies and data used to make federal government decisions should be made public and 91 percent think studies and data funded by taxpayers should be made public.”

“Bureaucratic inefficiency”. That’s what they are going to lead with? Even Senator Hatch knows that dog can’t possibly hunt. NYTimes (5/11/13) reports: “But Ms. Lerner said the examinations of the Tea Party groups were not a response to such pressure. She portrayed it more as a bureaucratic mix-up. Between 2010 and 2012, applications for 501(c)(4) tax exemptions nearly doubled, to more than 2,400. As the agency has done in the past, it centralized the processing of the surge at its Cincinnati office, where about 300 were flagged for further examination.”

The fact that the only person representing the “bad guys” in this piece is our friend Tim tells you all you need to know. We like Coral, but this piece is pure advocacy. National Journal should rethink their approach on this beat. National Journal (5/9/13) reports: “Soon after his experience in South Carolina, Emanuel changed his lifelong Republican Party registration to independent. “The idea that you could look a huge amount of evidence straight in the face and, for purely ideological reasons, deny it, is anathema to me,” he says… Emanuel predicts that many more voters like him, people who think of themselves as conservative or independent but are turned off by what they see as a willful denial of science and facts, will also abandon the GOP, unless the party comes to an honest reckoning about global warming.”

California was destroyed by its culture of fairy tales long ago, but at certain point you’d have to believe that people would not be enthralled by the next remake of Robin Hood when they’re out of work and can’t afford dinner and a movie. Los Angeles Times (5/5/13) reports: “These Zero Emission Vehicle credits could put as much as $250 million in Tesla’s coffers this year, according to one Wall Street analyst, and they are a key reason the 10-year-old automaker has survived this long. Tesla gets to sell the credits to other automakers that need them to satisfy tough California regulations.”

Prince Harry is going to get a beating for this, but we love those unscripted moments of honesty. Retraction in 5…4…3… The Telegraph (5/11/13) reports: “Susan Reilly, chief executive officer of Renewable Energy Systems Americas, said after speaking to the prince that she had to reassure Harry about the benefits of wind turbines – just as she’d done with his father… She said: ‘Prince Harry said he was worried about their visual impact, I told him that I had met his father some years ago and when we discussed wind farms he shared his concerns.’”