Who owns your elected officials?

After watching a community held hostage to international casino investors who also happen to be generous campaign contributors (oops!), the Cape Cod Commission cowing to wealthy Cape residents averse to a view spoiled by wind turbines, Congressman Patrick Kennedy sputtering his opposition, and Massachusetts legislators lining up their opposition to the pending energy bill that's LONG OVERDUE & doesn't go far enough, I am forced to wonder 'Who owns your elected officials?'

Did we, as voters, allow them to be purchased by campaign contributions because we haven't paid enough attention or been active enough to assure a voice at the table?

When increased CAFE standards are discussed, the lobbyists rally, batter proponents because they wield the well-funded stash of campaign funds, and consumers loose vehicle fuel efficiency and much else.

Other states are doing more. Other countries have greater fuel economy. The EU has half the per capita consumption of the US.

How do we correct energy to the policies that we, as voters, consumers and occupants of this planet correct the ownership of our elected officials?

RECORD PRICES, RECORD RIPOFF

Volume XII No. 33 - November 9, 2007
One of the first lessons we learn as kids is that taking something without permission that belongs to somebody else is stealing. Executives at the Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, the second-largest oil and natural-gas producer in the U.S., seem to have never learned this important lesson. Last week, while oil prices were nearing $100 a barrel, the oil services giant won a court decision arguing that it doesn’t have to pay taxpayers for oil and gas it removed from federal waters.
Oil and gas companies lease taxpayer-owned lands and waters from the federal government to drill for oil and gas. In return for this right, they give taxpayers a percentage of the revenue generated from the oil and gas that is extracted. The $7 billion in annual oil royalty payments are the nation’s third largest source of revenue. pdf index

Court Rejects Fuel-Economy Standards NYT

Truck, SUV mileage standards thrown out by U.S. appeals court SFGate
Court rebukes Bush fuel economy plan, tosses light truck standards to take effect next year

SignonSanDiego

Court tells U.S. to rethink fuel standards for many vehicles SacBee

Everyone's talking about energy & oil prices ......

Everyone's talking about energy and oil prices. Some are even doing something about it like the Town of Reading (article & link below).

And the Middleboro Board of Selectmen? Or the G&E? The sound you hear is silence. Why be pro-active or search for solutions when it's not their money? They can just pass the increases along, as the costs for other blunders, like the landfill, have been passed along.

Energy policy seems to be guided by hypocrisy, like Congressman Patrick Kennedy or the short-sighted opposition of wealthy vested interests who don't want their views spoiled.

~ 85 % of Americans live along the coasts. The aggressive implementation of ALL alternative energy sources specifically targeting those areas has significant implications in reducing dependence on imported oil, especially New England.

Previous posts include links for tidal wave action power generation that holds great promise.

Cape Wind estimated that production would provide 75% of the power needed on the Cape. Can we afford to cater to the wealthy because they don't want their view spoiled?

As the energy bill moves forward in the Commonwealth Senate, watch for the vested interests' rhetoric disquised as environmental concern intended to delay or stall ALL projects to the detriment of consumers.

It takes a town 23,000 residents of Reading want to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions created where they live

SANTA CLAUS VISITS THE TOWN OF READING EVERY THANKSGIVING weekend. He ascends a stepladder in the classic New England town square and throws a ceremonial switch that sets oaks and maples aglow with energy-guzzling incandescent bulbs. But last year, officials proudly announced that two maples near Town Hall held strings of efficient light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, for the first time. The LEDs cost more upfront but consume just one-10th the electricity of incandescent bulbs, and they should last 20 holiday seasons.The change seemed to be a no-brainer. After all, the bedroom community 12 miles north of Boston is one of 36 municipalities in Massachusetts (45 total in New England) that have signed on with Cities for Climate Protection, a campaign to help communities tally greenhouse-gas emissions and devise ways to reduce them. With guidance from this campaign - forged by the nonprofit International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, known as ICLEI - municipalities around the world are organizing to fill the void between personal action and national policy aimed at slowing global warming and climate change... CapeCodToday

Across the continent, on the southwestern edge of Cape Cod, researchers can dig three inches below the seabed in marshes and find diesel fuel that looks as if it was deposited just yesterday. It came from a 1969 barge accident that sent 175,000 gallons into the marshes near West Falmouth, Mass... InsideBayArea

Energy bill's turbine amendment stirs storm

The change, if adopted by the Senate next year, would remove a major hurdle to Boston developer Jay Cashman's controversial plan to build up to 120 wind turbines in Buzzards Bay.

SouthCoast

No wonder Congressman Patrick Kennedy says so little about Cape Wind. .....

WJAR political reporter Bill Rappleye asked, "how about a wind farm on Nantucket Shoals?," presumably a reference to Cape Wind, though he got the location wrong. Kennedy - "Ah, well, I mean, I think that, ah, certainly, I'm against the Cape Wind project if you're trying to get to that."Rappleye - "Why?"
Kennedy - "Why? Because I don't want to see a big, huge (spreading arms wide) Nantucket wind turbines in the middle of Horseshoe Shoal." (emphasis added, and throughout).

CapeCodToday

Let's get rid of poisonous fossil fuel power plants and fossil politicians

CapeCodToday

Ambush at Eelgrass Pass
Trampled rights and muddied waters
By Peter Kenney

CCT