‘Green News Report’ – September 22, 2011

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY’S VERY SCARY RADIO REPORT: Superbugs are on the rise! And Monsanto is helping!; Extreme drought and climate change affecting power plants in the US!; PLUS: It’s ‘Dirty Air Week’ in the U.S. House, the scariest place of all!!! … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Former Solyndra employees allege mismanagement; Solyndra executives will plead 5th in hearings; US will implement international standards for oil market transparency; BP Oil not degrading on Gulf floor; CERN Study: Are cosmic rays causing global warming? [No.]; $44m settlement in SF Bay oil spill; Interior Dept. confronts growing costs of wild horse control; World Bank: Ditch fossil fuel subsidies to fight climate change; Monsanto wins lawsuit against soybean farmer; Toxic BPA turning up in children’s soup cans; Typhoon Roke spares Fukushima nuclear plant; Russia extends life of aging reactors; Rick Perry’s dirty deals with Big Coal; TX, KS sue EPA over air pollution rule … PLUS: Foreign land grabs in Africa threaten greater poverty …

STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…

• Rise of the Superbugs: GAO Says Big Ag Causing Antibiotic Reistant Superbugs; USDA Says Monsanto Causing Superpests:
• USDA, FDA get an F on livestock antibiotics (Grist)
• Meat Industry Still Denying Antibiotic Resistance (Mother Jones)
• GAO Urges Improved Federal Efforts To Address Antibiotic-Resistance (Huffington Post Green)
• What the USDA Doesn’t Want You To Know About Factory Farms (Mother Jones)
  A USDA researcher delivers a blistering review of antibiotic research—only to see it stepped on from above.
• Filtering the Distortion: What the GAO Report on Antibiotic Resistance Really Says (Livable Future Blog):
  [W]hat the report really tells us is that the FDA and USDA are not doing a good enough job collecting data on the connection between antibiotic use and resistance.
• Attack of the Superweeds (BusinessWeek)
• Superweeds go mainstream (Grist)
• Monsanto fail: GMO crops are losing their pest control powers (Grist)
• Roundup weed killer is showing up in air and water (Grist)
• First came superweeds; now come the superbugs! (Grist, 3/24/2010)
• It’s ‘Dirty Air Week’ in the US House:
• Before Calling Green Jobs “Propaganda,” House Republicans Requested Millions to Create a “Green Collar” Workforce (Climate Progress):
  Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is leading his partys charge against green jobs. The Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and his fellow Republicans call the reality of green jobs a propaganda tool that is part of a political ideology.

  But before taking on his politically advantageous anti-green jobs crusade, Issa sought government funds from the Department of Energy for an advanced battery manufacturing plant, saying it would help create green collar jobs.

• Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) opposes energy loan guarantees—except in Kentucky (Grist)
• House GOP Bill Would Roll Back Basic Air-Pollution Rules (McClatchy)
• Republicans Sought Clean Energy Money For Home States (NY Times):
  On the Senate floor and the television airwaves, Senator Mitch McConnell has lambasted the Obama administration over what he has described as its failed efforts to stimulate new jobs through clean-energy projects backed with billions of dollars in federal loans or other assistance. But Mr. McConnell, of Kentucky, is one of several prominent Republicans who have worked to steer federal money to clean-energy projects in their homes states, Energy Department documents show.
• GOP lawmakers ask Obama to delay mercury regulations (The Hill)
• GOP, Dems spar over bill requiring EPA regulatory review (The Hill)
• Issa: There could be more Solyndras (The Hill)
• House GOP: Where are the ‘green jobs’?: Republicans and Democrats bickered at a Thursday hearing over whether clean energy policies have created jobs.(The Hill)
• House lawmakers argue over definition of ‘green job’ (The Hill)
• EPA delays its greenhouse-gas rules. Not a big deal – or is it? (Washington Post)
• Power plants can comply with green regulations: FERC (Reuters):
  U.S. power plants can comply with new environmental rules without disrupting the supply of electricity if providers and local authorities have time to plan for the changes, energy regulators told congressional Republicans seeking to unwind the rules.
• White House Stiffens Resolve on Environment, Threatens Veto (Talking Points Memo):
  The President’s advisers have made it official and are recommending a strong veto of a House bill that would gut two key anti-pollution rules.
• President Clinton Slams Republican Obstruction on Clean Energy Jobs and Climate Change:
• WATCH: The Clinton Global Initiative 2011 (Clinton Global Initiative LiveStream)
• Bill Clinton: GOP Climate Denial Makes U.S. “Look Like a Joke” (Treehugger)
• Clinton blasts Republicans on climate change denial (The Hill):
  “If you’re an American, the best thing you can do is to make it politically unacceptable for people to engage in denial [of climate change],” Clinton said. “I mean, it makes us – we look like a joke, right? You can’t win the nomination of one of the major parties in the country if you admit that the scientists are right? That disqualifies you from doing it? You could really help us there.”
• More Americans Now Believe World Is Warming (Reuters):
  More Americans than last year believe the world is warming and the change is likely influenced by the Republican presidential debates, a Reuters/Ipsos poll said on Thursday.
• Can green jobs save the day? (Grist)
• Extreme Drought & Climate Change Affecting US Power Plants:
• Third Hottest Summer Globally, Second Warmest for U.S. With Stunning Weather Extremes, Texas Drought Worst in Centuries (Climate Progress)
• New city of Boulder, NOAA study ties climate science to drought, water shortages (Colorado Independent)
• Drought worsens power crisis in Tanzania (Reuters AlertNet)

‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…

• Solyndra Employees: Company Suffered From Mismanagement, Heavy Spending (Washington Post)
• Solyndra Executives to Invoke 5th Amendment Rights (NY Times):
  The top two executives of a solar-energy company that filed for bankruptcy after getting $528 million in loan guarantees from the Obama administration said Tuesday that they will invoke their constitutional rights against compelled self-incrimination when they appear at a Congressional hearing.
• Obama: US will implement international standards for energy transparency (The Hill)
• BP Oil Not Degrading on Gulf Floor: Study (AP):
  Tar balls washed onto Gulf of Mexico beaches by Tropical Storm Lee earlier this month show that oil left over from last year’s BP spill isn’t breaking down as quickly as some scientists thought it would, university researchers said Tuesday.
• Video: Debunking the Deniers: The CERN Study — Are Cosmic Rays Causing Global Warming? (Little Green Footballs):
  This…is for all those right wingers who keep emailing and showing up in LGF comments gloating about a paper from CERN that “totally destroys the myth of global warming”
• $44m Settles Cosco Oil Spill in San Francisco Bay (San Francisco Chronicle):
  The shipping companies responsible for the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill, which polluted San Francisco Bay and killed thousands of birds and fish, have agreed to pay $44.4 million to restore habitat and reimburse the agencies that responded to the disaster, state and federal officials announced Monday.
• Interior Dept’s New Wild Horse Chief Confronts Growing Herds, Costs (Greenwire):
  Joan Guilfoyle, the new head of Interior’s wild horse and burro program, faces a dilemma. The 38,000 animals roaming 34 million western acres are breeding rapidly. If she moves to fast to cull them, she faces the wrath of conservationists; if she moves too slowly, she faces the wrath of ranchers.
• World Bank: Ditch Fossil Fuel Subsidies to Address Climate Change (Guardian UK):
  Leaked World Bank documents propose that rich countries should eliminate the $50 billion a year they give in fossil fuel subsidies, in order to financially help poor countries address climate change.
• Monsanto Wins Lawsuit Against Soybean Farmer (Reuters):
  Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed company, has prevailed in another lawsuit against a U.S. farmer, earning a ruling from a federal appeals court that protects Monsanto’s interests even when its patented seeds are sold in a mix of undifferentiated ‘commodity’
  seeds
• Toxic BPA Turning Up in Children’s Soup Cans: study (AFP):
  Worrying levels of BPA, an industrial chemical with suspected links to cancer, lurk inside canned soups and pasta targeted at American children, the Breast Cancer Fund said Wednesday.
• Typhoon Roke Spares Fukushima Nuclear Plant (AP)
• Russia To Extend Life of Aging Reactors (Wall St. Journal):
  Russia has decided to extend the life of a controversial generation of nuclear reactors like the one that catastrophically exploded at Chernobyl in 1986, the head of Russia’s state-owned nuclear monopoly said.
• Rick Perry’s Dirty Deals with Big Coal: Perry fast-tracked new plants and made Texas even more polluted than it already was. (Mother Jones)
• TX Scientists Take Issue With Perry’s Global Warming Skepticism (San Antonio Express-News)
• Texas, Kansas Sue EPA Over Air Pollution Rule (Reuters)
• Land Grabs in Africa Threaten Greater Poverty (Epoch Times):
  Desperate for foreign investment and the promise of development, African governments are increasingly offering to foreigners what their people rely on most—land. The result of the phenomenon known as “land grabbing” has seen millions of people displaced, unrest, and even bigger poverty.

  This land grab or land rush began in earnest a decade ago, but gained momentum following record high food prices in 2008, combined with increasing hunger, the ongoing financial crisis, and a surge in biofuel demand. It describes investors, governments, or companies, buying or leasing vast tracks of arable land in foreign countries for the purpose of exporting the produce back to their own country, or simply for financial speculation.