Ensuring our energy policy doesn’t compromise our water supply

In 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (pdf) into law. This comprehensive law does everything from providing new subsidies and incentives for renewable energy production (like wind, solar, biomass, wave & tidal, and geothermal) and tax breaks for energy conservation improvements on homes to providing incentives for increased drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and exempting oil and gas producers from certain requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act. It even extended Daylight Savings Time by a week. There’s a fine summary of this 551 page bill HERE.

One of the components of the Energy Policy Act was Section 979 which compelled Energy Secretary to study the interaction and interplay of water-related issues and energy-related issues. The intent was to ensure that we fully understand how our country’s energy policy impacts our water resources.

The study is eight years late and there’s a petition to sign to move it forward. Details are after the jump.

Vote YES! on Michigan Proposal 3

Enbridge Energy, the company that owns the pipeline that spilled over a million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River has donated $10,000 to Clean Affordable Renewable Energy (CARE) for Michigan, the deceptively-named group fighting Proposal 3 which would require 25% of Michigan’s energy be from renewable sources by 2025. Clean Water Action is decrying this donation and demanding they spend their money cleaning up the environment catastrophe they are responsible for.

Meanwhile, President Bill Clinton has endorsed a YES vote on Prop 3. Details of both after the jump.

Follow the money

Changing energy policy in our country is very, very difficult. There are many things that make it so hard but the main impediment is the staggering amount of money that Big Oil companies and utility companies spend to fight any change from the status quo.

Nowhere is this more true at the moment than the fight against Proposal 3 – a ballot proposal to increase Michigan’s use of renewable energy to 25% by 2025. When you vote on November 6th, you should turn the ballot over to vote in the nonpartisan section and VOTE YES ON PROPOSAL 3.

All the details after the jump.

You wanna schplain that one to us, Mitt?

Mitt Romney made an astonishing promise today: he told a crowd of coal miners that he will have the USA energy independent from sources outside North America by 2021.

It’s particularly astonishing given that he is against subsidizing renewable energy sources.

So, how is he going to get us off foreign energy sources? That’s a fine question and one that Romney hasn’t really answered.

This, of course, surprises exactly nobody.

Much more after the jump.

The Obama administration is announcing this week that they are making an historic investment in biofuels by purchasing 450,000 gallons of drop-in biofuel made from waste cooking oil and from an algae-based system. The fuel is called “drop in” because it can be blended with the traditional fuels used now with no need for equipment modifications. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus […]

In the flurry of activity of the 111th Congress lame duck session, a nice piece of progressive legislation passed with little notice or fanfare. But it’s a BFD for renewable energy. As part of the tax cut deal negotiated by President Obama with the Republicans, a key section of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Section 1603, was extended. […]