Soaring prices of jet fuel are now costing airlines more than the cost of employees, say execs at Jet Blue and other airlines (MSNBC TV). Today’s must-see White House events:
8am PT/11am ET: “Ask the White House,” with Allan Hubbard, Bush’s Asst. for Economic Policy and Director, National Economic Council. Submit Qs now.
9:55am PT/12:55pm ET: President Bush and his economic advisers will hold a press availability.
Will the press ask Bush about the little lady down the road apiece from him who’s protesting the death of her son for oil?
New record high gas and oil prices driven by supply disruption and fears of terrorism overshadowed President Bush’s energy bill-signing yesterday, and hang over his 12:55 pm ET press conference at the Crawford ranch today to tout the growing US economy.
(Also hanging over today’s event: Bush’s treasury secretary telling reporters that the benefits of the latest economic growth are not spreading equally to less educated Americans.) [SUSAN’s NOTE: Just wait until record-high heating oil costs eat away at the poor. Gas prices are already wrecking their budgets.]
We’ll see if the link between terrorism and gas prices [SUSAN’s NOTE: Oh, for christ’s sake, isn’t that a bit old?], newly emphasized for the public after a presidential campaign in which the issue of energy independence didn’t really resonate, comes up today and/or during Bush’s meeting with his national security team on Thursday. (NBC First Read)
BELOW, the Sierra Club’s Carl Pope says, “This Isn’t Democracy — It’s a Mugging”:
From the Sierra Club:
“This Isn’t Democracy — It’s a Mugging.”
Congress waited until the week before its August recess to do its worst damage: passing an energy bill that lavishes billions of dollars in subsidies upon the oil, gas, nuclear, and coal industries — more than even President Bush asked for. It also instructs the Department of the Interior to prepare to lease the entire coastline of the United States for oil and gas drilling. As Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope wrote in his blog: “This isn’t democracy — it’s a mugging.”
Fortunately, drilling the Arctic Refuge was not included, but a critical vote on that issue is coming in September. Because Bush administration allies in Congress snuck projected revenues from Arctic drilling into the $2.5-trillion budget reconciliation bill, the Arctic Refuge may not get a vote on its own merits. This puts some members of Congress in a terrible bind.
For example, Maine’s two senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, consider themselves champions of the Arctic and have voted several times against drilling for oil there. But because the budget bill also includes provisions supporting Maine’s struggling shipbuilding industry, Collins and Snowe could end up tipping the balance in favor of drilling.
But Sierra Club grassroots activists in Maine and all over the country are fighting to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Happy Birthday Alaska Wildlands
Ed WayburnFormer President Jimmy Carter, Sierra Club Honorary President Edgar Wayburn, and about a thousand other conservationists gathered in Anchorage earlier this month to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which protected 100 million acres of wildlands in the nation’s 49th and largest state.
Wayburn, now 98, was arguably the most influential Club leader in securing protection for these Alaskan wildlands. “The campaign for Alaska’s lands reached an important plateau in 1980, but a campaign like this never really ends,” he said. “Wildlands must always be defended against those who would encroach against their ecological integrity.”