Offshore wind farms have the potential to create jobs in struggling states like Michigan, but uncertainty in the permitting process continues to slow projects down.(Photo courtesy of the US DOE)
It’s been nine years since developers first proposed a wind farm off Cape Cod. You can now find offshore wind proposals in just about any state with a coastline. But these are still just proposals. Dustin Dwyer has a look at what needs to change before the U.S. can tap into its offshore wind potential:
Transcript
It’s been nine years since developers first proposed a wind farm off Cape Cod. You can now find offshore wind proposals in just about any state with a coastline. But these are still just proposals. Dustin Dwyer has a look at what needs to change before the U.S. can tap into its offshore wind potential.
One of the newest plans for offshore wind in the U.S. is in Michigan, a state that’s desperate for the kind of jobs that an offshore wind project could create.
But local landowners don’t want to have to look at the turbines – it’s the same problem Cape Wind confronted nine years ago. And the process for getting offshore wind projects approved remains murky.
Steve Warner is CEO of Scandia Wind, which is proposing the Michigan project. He says the response from state government so far has been confusing.
“In the absence of understanding the process and what it entails, people want to hesitate and we understand that.”
There is an effort underway in Michigan to clarify the permitting process for offshore wind. But as that effort drags in many states and at the federal level, developers are left waiting.
A volunteer cuts insulation for a home in Alaska. Under a proposed federal program, homeowners could get rebates for making their home more energy efficient. (Photo by Ben Brennan courtesy of FEMA)
President Barack Obama is pushing for a new federal program that would create a Cash-for-Clunkers like rebate for people who make energy-saving home repairs. The Environment Report’s Orlando Montoya covered the President’s announcement:
Transcript
President Barack Obama is pushing for a new federal program that would create a Cash-for-Clunkers like rebate for people who make energy-saving home repairs. Orlando Montoya covered the President’s announcement.
The program would be called HomeStar. In it, homeowners would be eligible for up to $3,000 in rebates if they hire someone to seal up their attic, install new windows or make other repairs to cut down on home energy use.
The President made his announcement at a community college in Savannah, Georgia. In the audience were contractors that he said could do some of the energy-efficient work.
“These are companies ready to take on new customers. They’re workers eager to do new installations and renovations, factories ready to produce new building supplies. All we got to do is create the incentives to make it happen.”
Administration officials say, the program could cost six-billion-dollars. Mr. Obama wants the HomeStar program included in a bill jobs bill being drafted by Congress.
Health professionals often work to reduce their patients salt intake to reduce high blood pressure. Should the government get involved too? (Photo by James Gathany for the US CDC)
New research shows that Americans’ health
would benefit dramatically if we ate less
salt. But some people say it’s not the
salt in the saltshaker that’s the
problem. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
New research shows that Americans health would benefit dramatically if we ate less salt. But some people say it’s not the salt in the saltshaker that’s the problem. Julie Grant reports:
Darryl Bosshardt comes from a salt family. His grandfather started mining salt on their farm in central Utah. When Bosshardt hears about a new study that shows 100-thousand American lives could be saved each year if everyone reduced their salt intake by just a half teaspoon – he cringes.
He says salt is being given a bad name.
“And the challenge is, how we define salt.”
Most of the salt today all looks the same – perfectly pour-able, uniform bright white grains. It’s pure sodium and chloride, but Bosshardt, whose family owns the Real Salt Company, says it’s not the same as naturally occurring sea salt.
“Sea water occurs with many trace minerals. Over 50 to 60 trace minerals. It doesn’t occur, the salt in sea water doesn’t occur, as pure sodium and chloride.”
Bosshardt says those trace minerals help the body to process sodium, but most salt today looks perfect because the trace minerals have been taken out. He says when our bodies lack the minerals needed to process sodium; it raises blood pressure, which can lead to heart problems.
There are some books by holistic doctors that make these kinds of claims,but there’s not much science to prove this.
Most doctors today say salt is salt; sodium chloride. Our bodies need it, but not as much as much as most Americans are eating.
Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo is a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California in San Francisco. She’s lead author of that new study on salt – the one that finds Americans could reduce deaths from heart disease by 100-thousand just by slightly reducing salt consumption:
“I don’t think we’re saying salt is bad and one of these other types of salt would be good. I think the newer types of salt that are on the market might have a lower sodium content for the taste that they have and so that would certainly be potentially beneficial.”
But Bibbins-Domingo says most Americans only get 6-percent of their sodium from their own saltshakers. The rest comes from processed foods and restaurants. So buying expensive sea salts with those trace minerals isn’t going to make much difference to most people. She says the problem is that salt is ubiquitous – people don’t even realize they’re eating it:
“If you start out with a healthy bowl of cereal with some milk, you’ve already consumed quite a bit of salt right there. If you have that healthy turkey sandwich or tuna sandwich, you have a bit of salt right there. If you have the marinara sauce with the pasta, you have salt there. So you realize that there are so many different ways, without you choosing items that we might clearly associate with a high sodium content, that there are a lot of places that we’re all consuming salt.”
Bibbins-Domingo supports efforts like the one in New York City. There Mayor Michael Bloomburg is urging food manufacturers to reduce the salt in their foods by 25% over the next five years.
Mark Kurlansky thinks it’s a terrible idea. He wrote a book called “Salt.” When laws curb smoking – that’s one thing. But salt is something different:
“You have to deal with the fact that people like salt. There isn’t the moral imperative of cigarettes because there isn’t a problem of second hand salt. If you don’t want to eat salt and the guy at the next table wants to eat it, it’s not going to affect you. It becomes an issue of government messing around with individual choice.”
But most people don’t realize they’re making that choice – there’s just so much salt in all the foods they buy. Other countries, such Finland and England, have worked with food manufacturers to lower salt content. In the UK, they cut sodium in foods by 10-percent. And researchers say the public didn’t even notice. They’re still studying to see if it’s actually improved health.
Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says the health savings of reducing salt are comparable to cutting the number of smokers in half. (Photo by Paul Goyette)
If you read nutrition labels on food packages, you might be surprised by how much sodium there is in a lot of foods.
Some researchers say all that salt is causing a plethora of health problems – and they want the government to force food manufacturers to lower the salt content. Julie Grant reports.
Transcript
If you read nutrition labels on food packages, you might be surprised by how much sodium there is in a lot of foods.
Some researchers say all that salt is causing a plethora of health problems – and they want the government to force food manufacturers to lower the salt content. Julie Grant reports.
When Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo sees patients with high blood pressure, she advises them to cut back the on the salt.
She says they often return to the office – happy to announce that they’ve cut out fast food and processed snacks.
“AND THEN I ASK THEM TO TELL ME WHAT THEY’RE EATING AND I AM AWAYS BLOWN AWAY WHEN THEY COME BACK WITH THESE NICE HEALTHY VEGETABLE SOUPS THAT ARE CHOCKED FULL OF SALT. AND SO ALL THE THINGS THAT THEY DON’T REALIZE ARE HIGH IN SALT ARE ACTUALLY STILL THERE IN THEIR DIET.”
Bibbins Domingo is associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California in San Francisco. She’s also lead author of a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers at Stanford and Columbia University Medical Centers co-authored the study.
They did a computer simulation – to see what would happen if every American reduced their salt intake by a half teaspoon a day. That’s 3 grams.
“WHAT WE FOUND THAT IS IF WE WERE ABLE TO REDUCE SALT IN THE U-S DIET BY 3 GRAMS PER DAY, WE WOULD ANTICIPATE 100-THOUSAND FEWER DEATHS EACH YEAR, 100-THOUSAND FEWER HEART ATTACKS, AND MORE THAN 100-THOUSAND FEWER CASES OF NEW HEART DISEASE.”
Bibbins-Domingo says the health savings of reducing salt are comparable to cutting the number of smokers in half.
But not everybody puts that much stock in the new study.
Michael Alderman is a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He says the government shouldn’t act so quickly based on this new study:
“WELL, IT’S INTERESTING THAT IT’S CALLED A STUDY, WHICH I THINK SORT OF SUGGESTS THAT THERE ARE REAL OUTCOMES AND REAL PEOPLE THAT WERE STUDIED. IN FACT, OF COURSE, WHAT IT IS A SIMULATION, A MATHEMATICAL MODELING.”
Alderman says there are lots of different findings when it comes to sodium consumption. And some show reducing salt intake could have actually have negative health effects:
“WE KNOW THAT REDUCING SODIUM INTAKE, BY AN AMOUNT SUFFICIENT TO REDUCE BLOOD PRESSURE, ALSO INCREASES SYMPATHETIC NERVE ACTIVITY, IT INCREASES RESISTANCE TO INSULIN…”
If we already ate low salt diets, the researchers in this latest salt study say those concerns might be valid. But Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says salt consumption in the U.S. is higher than is recommended, and it’s on the rise.
But she says there are high levels of salt in so many foods, it’s hard to avoid. Cereal. Bread. Lunch meat. Pasta Sauce.
And she says consumers can’t really reduce salt consumption without some changes by food manufacturers.
“RIGHT NOW THERE ARE NO CHOICES THAT ARE REALLY AVAILABLE THAT MIGHT BE LOWER IN SALT. I THINK THAT’S WHERE THE EFFORTS WITH THE FOOD MANUFACTURERS ARE ABOUT REALLY MAKING A RANGE OF CHOICES SO WE CAN EAT LOWER SALT, WHICH IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE RIGHT NOW.”
Some governments are responding. New York City has already started urging food manufacturers and restaurant chains to lower the salt in their foods by 25-percent over the next five years. Bibbins-Domingo says California is considering salt limits in foods the state buys for schools, prisons and other public institutions.
She also wants the Food and Drug Administration to require food makers to alert consumers when foods are high in salt.
In the meantime, Bibbins-Domingo advises her patients to look at food labels – and really look at the sodium content – so they know what they’re getting.
It was thought that putting insulation in older homes was one way to help jump start the economy. (photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy)
The Recovery Act called for a multi-billion dollar home weatherization program. It was thought that putting insulation in older homes was the ultimate “shovel ready” project to help jump start the economy. But as Mark Brush reports, so far, it just hasn’t worked out:
Transcript
The Recovery Act called for a multi-billion dollar home weatherization program. It was thought that putting insulation in older homes was the ultimate “shovel ready” project to help jump start the economy. But as Mark Brush reports, so far, it just hasn’t worked out:
The Department of Energy’s Inspector General found the data alarming.
Of the ten states receiving the most money for home weatherization – eight of them weren’t even at two percent of their goal.
One reason for the hold-up is bureaucracy. There’s a law that says if you get federal money – you have to pay workers a “prevailing wage” or a fair wage. And there was confusion over how much to pay people.
Don Skaggs is with Ohio’s Office of Community Services. He says most states waited until the issue was resolved – but Ohio didn’t wait:
“So we decided to go ahead and do production. And then once we understood what the requirements were, we would go back and retroactively adjust those wages for those staff, which is what we did.”
So Ohio’s on track – but most states are not. The Department of Energy said it’s working on these problems – and expects things to ramp up soon.
High speed trains may be sprouting up across the country in light of the recent initiative. (Photo courtesy of Black Leon)
The U.S. government is spending billions of dollars to improve the nation’s railroads and passenger train service. But those billions will be just the beginning of the cost of updating rail service. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The U.S. government is spending billions of dollars to improve the nation’s railroads and passenger train service. But those billions will be just the beginning of the cost of updating rail service. Lester Graham reports:
New investments in higher-speed rail are making passenger rail supporters almost giddy. Eight billion dollars from the Recovery Act is seed money for new high-speed routes in California and Florida and improvements for existing routes in other regions.
At a recent National Press Club panel discussion, Amtrak’s Joseph McHugh said Amtrak is not getting any of that money… but it’ll improve the freight railroads on which Amtrak operates its trains.
McHugh: And that means higher speeds, reduced trip time, additional frequencies, improved facilities, and a higher level of reliability for our services all around the country.
Beyond that first eight-billion dollars, the Department of Transportation’s so-called TIGER grants mean a few billion dollars more for further upgrades railroads and depots that tie into commuter rail, light rail and other mass transit.
Supporters of rail are expecting big things from the investments.
But others see spending billions upon billions of dollars on passenger rail as wasted money. They don’t see the utopia of transportation in better, faster trains. Many online comments from readers of stories on higher-speed rail indicate they don’t want the government to subsidize rail projects. They see it as stealing from necessary highway and bridge improvements. Others are more political, saying the government is trying to imitate the high-speed rail of Europe when –they feel– Americans are more independent and prefer cars.
So the debate sometimes devolves into — car versus train. Or individuality versus socialism.
Susan Zielinksi heads up the Universtiy of Michigan’s SMART transit project. She says that’s the wrong way to view it.
Zielinski:I think we get ourselves stuck in the polarization and this isn’t about getting rid of cars.
She says better passenger rail and tying it in to better mass transit gives more people more choices. She notes not everyone has access to a reliable car.
Environmentalists add… the train is just more environmentally friendly. Howard Lerner is with the Environmental Law and Policy Center.
Lerner: On a per-passenger-mile basis, rail is about three times as efficient as travel by car in terms of fuel efficiency, six times as efficient as travel by air. So, there are pretty substantial pollution reduction benefits, both in terms of greenhouse gasses and other pollutants when it comes to traveling by rail.
But the investment of billions of dollars during the Obama administration is generally considered just the down payment on the cost of bringing U.S. passenger rail service into the 21st century. Just a couple of years ago the Bush administration tried to zero-out the Amtrak budget. A future president might do the same.
Susan Zielinksi at the University of Michigan believes the improvements in rail service we’ll see in just the next several years will prove this investment is worth it.
Zielinski: Congress is not going to be able to go backwards on this. This is going to usher in a whole new set of industry opportunities, of economic development in communities, of new opportunities for jobs.
But even people who like the idea of improved passenger rail service say if this doesn’t result in the trains arriving on time… doesn’t fix the problem of having no transportation once they arrive at the depot… doesn’t spiff up the drab Amtrak train cars… and keep train ticket prices reasonable… it’ll be hard not to keep piling into the car or cramming themselves into an airline seat.
Vermont Yankee Corp. is one of the oldest nuclear power plants in the country. (Photo courtesy of Vermont Yankee Corp.)
One of the country’s oldest nuclear power plants is setting its operating life shorter than expected. Shawn Allee reports:
Transcript
One of the country’s oldest nuclear power plants might have its operating life cut shorter than expected.
Shawn Allee reports:
The federal government has been leaning toward letting the Vermont Yankee reactor renew its license in 2012 for another 20 years.
But Vermont’s state legislature says has voted to shut it down – no matter what the federal government says.
One reason is the plant’s been leaking radioactive water.
State senator Peter Shumlin says plant owners said that couldn’t happen.
SHUMLIN: What’s worse? A company that won’t tell you the truth or a company that’s operating their aging nuclear power plant next to the Connecticut River and doesn’t know they have pipes with radioactive water running through them that are leaking and they don’t know because they didn’t know the pipes existed … neither is very comforting.
The federal government says the leaks have not been a health threat.
The closure of Vermont Yankee would be a setback for the nuclear power industry.
It’s trying to extend the operating life of reactors across the country, since its far cheaper to run old reactors than to build new ones.
Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the EPA. (Photo courtesy of the US EPA)
The Environmental Protection
Agency’s position on greenhouse
gases is being challenged in
court. The EPA says it needs
to regulate gases, such as carbon
dioxide, to protect human health
and welfare. Mark Brush reports
several trade associations want
to stop the EPA:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency’s position on greenhouse gases is being challenged in court. The EPA says it needs to regulate gases such as carbon dioxide to protect human health and welfare. Mark Brush reports… several trade associations want to stop the EPA:
The legal challenges are coming from several groups including the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, and the National Association of Home Builders. There are some groups that question the science behind the EPA’s decision to regulate greenhouse gases. But others are staying away from that controversial position.
Lisa Chai is with the National Association of Home Builders.
“We definitely are not taking a stance on the science. Our concern is that the Clean Air Act and existing statutes should not be used to regulate greenhouse gases because they are just not suited for them.”
Chai says her group worries that EPA regulations would trigger an expensive permitting process for multi-unit and even some single family homes. The EPA says it intends to only regulate the biggest sources of greenhouse gases – things such as large power plants, industries, and refineries.
Lisa Jackson is the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
(Photo courtesy of the US EPA)
The Environmental Protection
Agency officially found global
warming gasses such as carbon
dioxide are a threat to human
health. Mark Brush reports
three states are challenging
that finding:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection
Agency officially found global
warming gasses such as carbon
dioxide are a threat to human
health. Mark Brush reports
three states are challenging
that finding:
The EPA says it has a duty to regulate greenhouse gasses to protect us from global warming.
The state of Texas, Virginia, and Alabama have filed legal challenges to try to stop the EPA. They say the coming regulations will be bad for the economy. And they call into question the science that EPA based its decision on.
Here’s the Texas attorney general – Greg Abbott:
“The information on which the EPA relies can neither confirm nor deny that there has been global warming, or that temperatures have risen.”
The EPA says it’s evaluated all the science available for the last ten years, and that the evidence is quote “compelling” that climate change is real – and that it’s a threat to human health and welfare.
Those three states challenging the EPA’s decision to regulate greenhouse gases are countered by sixteen other states supporting the EPA’s decision.
Oliver Houck is a Professor of Law at Tulane University in New Orleans.
(Photo by Paula Birch, Courtesy of Tulane University)
Every once in a while, we
hear politicians using a
term that everybody thinks
they understand, but people
define differently. Lester
Graham talked with an expert
about one such term heard
a lot these days:
Transcript
Every once in a while, we
hear politicians using a
term that everybody thinks
they understand, but people
define differently. Lester
Graham talked with an expert
about one such term heard
a lot these days:
Lester Graham: I got to thinking about that when I heard Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma call for “sound science” at a recent subcommittee hearing, and then moments later senator David Vitter repeated that call for “sound Science.”
Vitter: “I think the answer is exactly what senator Inhofe and others have been saying—“sound science” complete focus on, complete reliance, on sound science above all else.”
Graham: So sound science, I think most of us think that means well researched, unbiased, verifiable, science. Joining us now, is Oliver Houck, he is a professor of law at Tulane University. So professor, what’s that term—sound science—mean to members of congress?
Oliver Houck: It means whatever they want it to mean. The first thing you have to understand is sound science is not a scientific term at all. It has no scientific definition. It’s like saying sound congressman or sound senator. It’s in the eye of the beholder. In the legal world, everyone knows what sound science is—it’s the science that supports your client’s position, and bad science is the science that’s on the other side. So, in the real world, it’s a very cynical term, and it’s very cynically used. That isn’t to say there isn’t junk science, but in the political world, this is a political term. Frank Lutz, the republican strategist in the early 2000’s sent a very well-known memorandum out to all republican congressman and senators saying that the coming issue was climate change, and the world consensus that this was urgent and something had to be done was overwhelming and irresistible. The only loophole—the only point of attack would be to attack the science. And so they did, with great success.
Graham: Has this term ‘Sound Science’ always been attached to this political baggage?
Houck: Yes it has, but it’s come in different forms, and it’s not always been purely environmental. The term was actually invented by Phillip Morris, and the tobacco institute back in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s when the tobacco wars were going on and the industry was denying any addictive effects and any carcinogenic effects. And so Phillip Morris had the audacity in 1992 to set up something called the “advancement of sound science committee” and that was, of course, its lobby to pick apart scientists whose findings were otherwise. While of course Phillip Morris buried all findings of the same effects, and burying that ultimately lead to civil suits and brought it down—but only a peg. This has always been the blast back—if you can stop this thing at the beach by discrediting the science, you don’t have to deal with any regulatory or any other requirements. So-
Graham: So calling for sound science is a delay tactic.
Houck: oh, clearly so, clearly so. And they know it, and they know it.
Graham: Oliver Houck is a professor of environmental law at Tulane University in New Orleans, and author of the book Taking Back Eden: Eight Environmental Cases that Changed the World. Thanks very much.
Offshore wind farms have the potential to create jobs in struggling states like Michigan, but uncertainty in the permitting process continues to slow projects down.(Photo courtesy of the US DOE)
