Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) introduced the Healthy Communities Act of 2005 on November 17, 2005. The bill is cosponsored by Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY). The bill establishes an advisory committee, calls for an environmental health report card, establishes health action zones that qualify for grants, calls for environmental health research, and calls for environmental health workforce development. AAEA supports the bill.
Forty percent of abortions in the U.S. are by black women. There are roughly 1.3 million abortions in the U.S. each year. Environmental justice is the equal protection of everybody with respect to environmental issues. There are disproportionately larger numbers of abortions by black women, so it is an environmental justice issue to the extent that black fetuses are not being equally protected. But environmental justice usually speaks to racial disparities in the siting of toxic waste facilities and proximity to sources of pollution.
Alaska Senator Stevens Should Unite With the Congressional Black Caucus 
WE KNOW THERE ARE MANY GREAT BLACK FAMILIES, MALES & FEMALES OUT THERE. THIS ARTICLE IS NOT ADDRESSING THOSE SITUATIONS.
AAEA is the first group to call for draining Lake Pontchartrain to protect New Orleans. It should only be drained during the hurricane season. The lake, estuary and wetlands can remain the same during the rest of the year. This will also accelerate rebuilding the 9th Ward and other Eastern sections of New Orleans that are being targeted last for redevelopment. It will justify rebuilding by protecting that section of the city from storm surge flooding by the lake during hurricane season.
Former President Bill Clinton committed to something at the Kyoto Protocol Climate Change Convention in Montreal, Canada that he never committed to during his eight year term: supporting the Kyoto Protocol. But Clinton being Clinton didn't just stop there. He essentially recommended the Bush administration technology solution as a compromise to attract the U.S. to support the protocol. We also noticed that mainstream media covering the event portrayed Clinton as a Kyoto Protocol supporter when they know better.
Allen Burks, N. McDonald & Derry Bigby at Control Room 
People identify the monster with the name Frankenstein although the monster never had a name. A similar disconnect is happening with cloning and stem cell research. No one wants to use cloning to make a child to harvest its organs, but many want a possible cure for diabetes and spinal cord injuries. What to do? Dr. Frankenstein wouldn't care. It would be full steam ahead and anything goes. Ethicists and Christians know there is a sacred component to human life that should not be tampered with by mere mortals.
Although Americans are buying fewer GM vehicles, the hourly wages, bloated executive compensation packages, health and retirement benefits are running the company right out of business. A global economy will not allow a capitalist company to pay for its workers retirement and health care. Is this news that communism and socialism do not work in a capitalist system? Did the executives at GM go to business school? Regardless, American companies from airlines to auto are ditching these entitlement programs. Would you rather have a company that provides a job and pays or no company at all? We choose the former.
The Tavis Smiley Foundation and the ExxonMobil Foundation are currently running their second annual Talented TENth High School Tour, which is designed to help minority students develop greater interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The program consists of Mr. Smiley speaking at high schools in Washington, DC, Hampton, VA, St. Louis, MO, Los Angeles, Calif, Chicago, Ill, and Jackson, Miss. Kudos to Mr. Smiley. AAEA promotes a similar program to increase African American participation in the environmental movement.
If you are 1) a vegetarian, 2) believe we evolved from animals and 3) think animals should have all of the same rights as humans, you should stop reading this now. We love animals at AAEA, but with all due respect to PETA and ASPCA, our grocery stores are full of chickens, cows and pigs. There has to be a correlation between them being the weirdest looking and stupidest acting animals and their position in the meat section of Safeway and Giant. Society does not treat dogs and cats this way. Of course, they act civilized and look good. Do you have a pet chicken in your house?
The Senate Finance Committee has reported out a bill that would reduce recent tax cuts and increase excise taxes on oil company profits. Senators are also threatening to eliminate expensing for exploration and development costs. The full Senate will take up the measure soon. Hopefully Congress will leave big oil alone so they can continue to provide the U.S. with excellent service and reasonable prices. Let those boys drill and leave the politics inside the Beltway. Surely, they will use their recent record profits to reinvest in needed infrastructure. And profit is not a bad thing in America.
The Yellowstone Grizzly Bear is being taken off of the Endangered Species Act list. Currently listed as 'threatened' instead of the more serious 'endangered,' the recovery of this big brown animal is a great victory for one of our nation's most important environmental laws. The Bald Eagle has recovered and should be delisted too. Eagles are everywhere these days, including the suburbs.
LaShawn Barber, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter basically ignore environmental issues. At least Ms. Barber links us on her Corner. Ms. Malkin has not responded to our requests for a link. And we have not contacted Ms. Coulter, but she seems uninterested in environmental issues too. Maybe they think the issue is left. Maybe they have conceded the issue to the Democratic Party and the partisan mainstream environmental movement. Maybe they just don't care about Mother Nature. Ladies, where is the love for planet Earth?
We, like the Governator, opposed the re-regulation of California electricity service via Proposition 80 because utility deregulation can work if structured properly and allowed to work the way it was intended. Proposition 80 failed in the special election but would have:Supporters believed the measure would prevent a repeat of the energy crisis of 2000-01 by removing retail competition from the state's system for generating and selling electricity. Opponents believed the initiative would create uncertainty in the state's electricity market and stall investment in badly needed power plants.
Although Windows is probably the greatest invention of the 20th Century, Bill Gates and his wife are not leveraging American resources to the maximum extent practicable in fighting malaria in Africa. They should be fast tracking the use of state-of-the-art, Environmental Protection Agency approved insecticides and should not rule out funding the extensive use of DDT in all African countries experiencing deaths from malaria.
Americans are such hypocrites when it comes to energy, particularly oil. Look on every car lot and you will see energy efficient cars--plenty of them. But most Americans want the BIG car, just like the BIG house or the BIG boat. So everytime you drive your BIG vehicle to the gas station you are joining big oil's celebration. And they deserve it for all of the years of low gas prices they have given you. Americans are just selfish to want low gasoline prices all of the time. And they have the nerve to call the oil companies greedy when they mazimize profits for even one quarter. Do you know how much it costs to build and operate an offshore oil platform? What about refining it and getting it to you by pipeline and truck? Where is the love for BIG oil? ExxonMobil, Shell and BP are simply practicing that old fashioned American tradition called 'maximizing profits.' Isn't capitalism great? And if you don't like it then buy a hybrid, stop driving or get rid of your car. But for heaven's sake stop complaining.
Lt. Gov. Michael Steele announced his candidacy in the heart of Prince George's County, the richest majority Black county in the country and the poorest county in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area. Steele rose to political fame when Congressman Robert Ehrlich ran for governor of Maryland and chose him as his running mate and Lt. Governor. That team beat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in the 2002 governor's race and set the stage for Steele's senate run. The October 25, 2005 announcement was not a surprise and AAEA president Norris McDonald attended the event. (Photo with Steele in background and with Governor Ehrlich)
EPA is proposing to revise the emissions test for existing electric generating units (EGUs) that compares the maximum hourly emissions achievable at a unit during the past 5 years to the maximum hourly emissions achievable at that unit after the change to determine whether an emissions increase would occur. Under the current law, established under CAA regulations in 1977, a plant must put in new controls if a modification increases its annual emissions; the new rules would require such controls only if the hourly emissions increase.
When Ronald Dellums was a member of Congress, he always had a top rated environmental voting record. Lobbyists found him to be approachable and willing to listen in hallway encounters. He also became chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee. Finally, former Congressman Dellums, although tough as nails, is one of the nicest people you will ever meet.
It appears that traditional environmental groups are promoting wetlands and barrier island restoration over assisting poor people in the Mississippi River Delta and other Gulf Coast areas. Admittedly, wetlands and barrier islands protect coastal communities by acting as buffers against hurricane storm surges, but they are clearly impotent against category 4 and 5 hurricanes. Hardened infrastructure, from homes and levees to commercial and industrial buildings, will receive most of hundreds of billions of dollars in construction restoration funding. The Army Corps of Engineers will probably spend billions on wetlands and barrier island restoration too, but the poor should be the priority with restoration resources.
The vote on the gasoline energy bill was a raucous affair with victory and defeat swinging back and forth along partisan lines. Members were shouting at the Speaker and using procedural inquiries to complain about time abuse and to make additional points.
House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (left) is promoting the Gasoline for America's Security (GAS) Act and House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo is promoting the National Energy Supply Diversification and Disruption Prevention Act.
The most notorious environmentalists in history were the German Nazis. Hitler loved nature and despised non-German humanity. Hitler was both a strict vegetarian and animal lover. Hitler and his Nazis maintained their commitment to racial purity as an ecological ideal that justified the war. The mixture of anti-humanist and natural purity dogmas also provided a rationale and incentive for the Third Reich's most heinous crimes.
Although we oppose the bill, we understand the motivation behind it. Traditional environmental groups have sometimes misused the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to stop good projects. House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA) just got payback by getting the House to pass the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA) by a vote of 229-193 on Sept 29, 2005. His victory will be short lived though because it will die in the Senate.
According to recent published reports, the delay in building and improving levees could be due, in part, to the opposition of traditional environmental groups to dams, levees, and anything that would interfere with the natural flow of the Mississippi River. Levees hold the same status for traditional environmental groups as roads in forests — an artificial barrier to nature. The Army Corps of Engineers was planning to upgrade the levees after Hurricane Betsy in 1965 to prevent a future catastrophic failure. The environmental group's position possibly contributed to an unintended consequence, but the so-called pro flora and fauna position led to a very serious result for humans, flora and fauna. And there are many other areas where such consequences can occur. Lawsuits by environmental groups probably muddied the flood protection waters.
Although most whites do not like to acknowledge, discuss, visit or live in the black part of town, there is one in virtually every city in the U.S. New Orleans was a city that was 67% black until September 2005. It was a majority black city and now it is gone. Scattered throughout the U.S. Imagine all of the blacks in Washington, DC - gone. Or Prince George's County, Maryland blacks (the richest majority black county in the U.S.) - gone. Imagine no Compton or Harlem. Black New Orleans is now a toxic wasteland that will probably not be habitable for years.
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco's refusal to authorize the federal government to take control delayed the response of the federal government in providing food, water and security to poor stranded blacks in and at the Superdome and at the Convention Center in New Orleans in the first days after the Hurricane Katrina crisis. President Bush was being generous when he acknowledged that the initial response and results were 'unacceptable.' Any anger, blame and ultimate responsibility for the early inadequate response should be placed at the feet of Gov Blanco.
Pundits and other environmental critics say that gas prices are high because environmental regulations have prevented a new oil refinery from being built in the U.S. in 30 years. Critics also believe that increased use of oil in China and other countries is leading to limited supplies, which is contributing to high prices. Are you ready to get used to $3.00 per gallon gasoline? Drilling is also limited in the U.S. (Much of Alaska, federal lands and offshore are off limits) The Booker Rising Blog features one perspective:
Should the Congressional Black Caucus offer an amendment to the budget bill containing the ANWR drilling provision that would call for turning over the proposed drilling lands to blacks as a reparation for slavery?
