Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 1106

Mariner Energy cited for two violations in past six months, totaling $55,000

[image error] I know that you are shocked, shocked to learn the owner of the offshore oil and gas platform that exploded yesterday in the Gulf of Mexico  had two violations just this year from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's Outer Continental Shelf Civil/Criminal Penalties Program.  This not terribly surprising story is brought to you by TP.  In the AP photo, boats can be seen spraying water on the platform.

The Vermilion Oil Rig 360, owned by Mariner Energy — which was recently purchased by...

Climate Progress is back up

Apologies for the loss of service overnight.  The primary storage system at our Virginia datacenter failed.  CAP's IT folks worked all night with our storage provider, so kudos to them.  Steps will be taken to prevent this from happening again.  Thanks for your patience!

Scientists: The Marine Stewardship Council "is failing to protect the environment and needs radical reform" - Are MSC-certified 'sustainable fisheries' in fact unsustainable?

Small fisheries that use highly selective, low-impact techniques, such as hook-and-line fishing or hand picking, are often sustainable, but make up only a tiny fraction of MSC-certified fisheries.

As part of ClimateProgress's effort to focus attention on the grave threat to ocean life, today's guest blogger is marine-biologist-turned-filmmaker, Randy Olson.

Fisheries economist Jennifer Jacquet and a team of A-list marine biologists today took the Marine Stewardship Council out behind the...

Politico on CA Senate debate: "Fiorina's major stumble came on the issue of Proposition 23."

Poor Carly Fiorina.  To make conservative ideologues happy, she has to abandon science and her previous positions on the key issues of global warming and clean energy (see "The dumbing down of Carly Fiorina" and links below).

But to win election statewide, she has to appeal to the majority of California voters, who understand that clean energy is the key to the state's long-term economic and job growth — and that unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases will devastate California more than...

Media Matters: Right-wing media shamefully try to pin Discovery Channel bomber's actions on Gore - CEI's Chris Horner joins the group shark jump

This bizarre tragedy has exposed the shockingly extreme views of some of the anti-science ideologues, as I discussed yesterday.

Media Matters has a must-read post on the latest example of Gore Derangement Syndrome.  Right-wingers from Fox News to Drudge to WattsUpWithThat have tried to pin this crazy guy's actions on the Nobel Prize-winning former vice president.

Typical is Chris Horner of the Big-Oil-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, who makes that absurd argument … where else but on...

One day before its Gulf oil rig exploded, Mariner Energy said Obama "is trying to break us" with moratorium - Mile-long oil sheen is spreading from burning oil platform, Coast Guard says

UPDATE:  Oops, the rig explosion did cause a spill after all, MSNBC reports.

No, it's not even close to BP redux, but the story is noteworthy — and not just for its irony, as TP makes clear:

The U.S. Coast Guard said this morning that a natural gas and oil drilling platform exploded 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana. A Coast Guard spokesperson said the platform, Vermilion Oil Rig 360, is an oil and gas platform owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy.   The AP reports, "the platform was...

One day before its Gulf oil rig exploded, Mariner Energy said Obama "is trying to break us" with moratorium

No, it's not even close to BP redux, but the story is noteworthy — and not just for its irony, as TP makes clear:

The U.S. Coast Guard said this morning that a natural gas and oil drilling platform exploded 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana. A Coast Guard spokesperson said the platform, Vermilion Oil Rig 360, is an oil and gas platform in 2,500 feet of water and is owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy. It is not currently producing oil or gas. Apache Corp. recently purchased Mariner in a...

Energy and Global Warming News for September 2nd: Banks Grow Wary of Environmental Risks; Japan endures hottest summer on record; Doing more while using less energy

Banks Grow Wary of Environmental Risks

Blasting off mountaintops to reach coal in Appalachia or churning out millions of tons of carbon dioxide to extract oil from sand in Alberta are among environmentalists' biggest industrial irritants. But they are also legal and lucrative.

For a growing number of banks, however, that does not seem to matter.

After years of legal entanglements arising from environmental messes and increased scrutiny of banks that finance the dirtiest industries, several...

Koch-funded organizations launch new "Rally For Jobs" campaign to protect big oil profits

CAP's Joshua Dorner exposes the latest Big Oil effort to dupe the public in this TP cross-post.

As ThinkProgress and others have reported, Koch Industries and its billionaire owners, Charles and David Koch, have played a leading role in the apparently successful effort by polluters to stymie Senate passage of comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation.

Not content to simply stop progress, however, the Koch brothers and various Koch-funded organizations have also been actively trying...

Purported eco-terrorist shot and killed by police

Today, a demented, violent individual held people hostage with a gun and bombs strapped to his body at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, MD.   He was ultimately shot and killed by police.  Thankfully, the hostages were safe.

For Anthony Watts, this bizarre tragedy is an opportunity to launch his most offensive headline to date at WattsUpWithThat:

And the first line of Watts' post is "Well, you filthy readers, see what happens when we don't acquiesce?"  Remember, Watts is a...