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Obama fights mercury pollution

From the Chicago Tribune:

One of the nation's largest stockpiles of toxic mercury will remain locked up instead of oozing into the world market.

After mulling a potential sale for several months, the U.S. Department of Energy confirmed Tuesday that it will keep nearly 1,300 tons of mercury in storage, increasing pressure on private companies to follow the same policy.

The Tribune reported in November that federal officials were considering selling off the Energy Department's surplus, prompted in part by legislation introduced by U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) that would ban American exports of the silvery metal.

Once used to process material for hydrogen bombs, the government's mercury has been in storage since alternative methods were developed in the early 1960s.

Some of it has been sold over the years. But as scientists have become more aware of the dangers of mercury exposure, government officials and corporate executives have increasingly faced pressure to keep it out of the environment.

Most of the mercury sold today is funneled to loosely regulated industries in developing countries, where it can end up being released into the atmosphere and contaminating lakes and rivers around the world.

"This should concern all of us, especially parents," Obama said in response to the Energy Department's announcement.

"There are affordable and available alternatives to mercury," Obama said. "We just need to take the steps necessary to keep it from being shipped around the world where we lose track of it, because ultimately it will make its way back to the United States in the food that we eat and put our kids at risk."

Mercury pollution that falls into waterways becomes more dangerous as it moves up the food chain from small aquatic organisms to fish to people. The metal can build up in the body, causing developmental problems in children and neurological damage in adults.

Proposed Texas coal plants would destroy our environment, but Obama is fighting for a better solution

We've all heard about how Gov. Perry and the big coal plant companies are trying to ram 11 new dirty coal plants through the political process.  Given the Republicans' complete control of Texas government, the outlook isn't good.

But Sen. Obama has stepped in to try to create national legislation capping global warming gases that would force the coal companies to make serious changes in their plans.  Obama's legislation might be the only solution we can realisitcally hope for in our deeply red home state of Texas.

From the Statesman:

A bipartisan Senate bill introduced Friday would place mandatory caps on global-warming gases and could threaten utility companies across the country that own coal-fired power plants.

The Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007 would cap greenhouse-gas emissions of the electric power, industrial, transportation and commercial sectors at 2004 levels by 2012 and reduce them to one-third that level by 2050.

Similar bills, introduced by Sens. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and John McCain, R-Ariz., in 2003 and 2005 failed to pass.

But the new measure, co-sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has provisions that improve its chances of passing in the new Democratic-controlled Congress.

The White House has opposed caps on carbon emissions, saying they are too costly and deter economic growth.           

The bill aims to soften the financial blow to companies by allowing them to borrow, save and trade emissions credits with other companies to stay under the cap.

But it would also create a serious problem for utility companies that own coal-fired power plants, which produce more than half of the country's electricity but also one-third of its carbon dioxide emissions — the main cause of global warming.

Plans by Dallas-based TXU Corp. to build 11 coal-fired power plants in Texas by 2010 have sparked one of the biggest environmental battles in the state's history.

If the bill introduced Friday passes in its current form, it "will significantly affect the outlook for old-coal technology," said Jason Grumet, executive director of the bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy.