Pipeline Regulators Spend More Time With Industry Than Doing Their Job

Between 2007 and 2012, staff from the Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration spent 2,807 days at conferences, meetings and other events sponsored by the oil, gas and pipeline industries, according to the report from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). That’s nearly three times as many as the 970 days the staffers spent responding to spills, explosions and other significant incidents on the pipelines they regulate. PEER drew the figures from agency records received in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

via Pipeline Regulators Spend More Time With Industry Than Oil Spills: Watchdog Report.

Washington State Rep. Ed Orcutt Says Bike Riders Pollute The Environment, Should Be Taxed

Washington state Rep. Ed Orcutt a ranking member of the State Transportation Committee, argues that bicycling is bad for the environment and says bike riders should have to pay a tax to help maintain the state’s roads.You won’t be surprised to learn that he’s a member of The Party That Makes Shit Up.

Washington State Rep. Ed Orcutt Says Bike Riders Pollute The Environment, Should Be Taxed.

How Unleaded Gas Cut Crime And Made Us All Safer

Building on the work of economist Rick Nevin, Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum discusses the relationship between the drop in environmental lead from the reduction in the use of Tetraethyllead in fuel, and the reduction in crime.

I was always suspicious of Rudy Giuliani’s success in reducing crime in cities across the United States. The lead-reduction hypothesis may explain how he did it.

How Unleaded Gas Cut Crime And Made Us All Safer.

Climate change skeptic Muller goes with the science

After years as the darling of climate change deniers, Richard A. Muller, professor of physics at UC Berkeley, MacArthur Fellow and co-founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, has pulled a 180 and come out saying that climate change is real and caused by humans.

Here at Biteme.me, we like science. Currently, we tend to believe in global warming but, if the scientific consensus were to change, we’d get used to it.

Koch-funded climate change skeptic reverses course – latimes.com.

North Carolina to legislate global warming predictions; scientists fume; everyone else snickers

When scientists at a state commission predicted that North Carolina’s sea levels could rise 39 inches by 2100, coastal business and development leaders got House Bill 819 introduced in the state legislature, which would require sea level forecasts to be based on past patterns and would all but outlaw projections based on climate change data.

via North Carolina bill challenges sea level forecast – latimes.com.

The flood that just swallowed your shore house is a hoax

“Global warming deniers can throw around all the ‘incriminating’ emails and scientific data they want, but when a flood tide swallows the Borgata it’ll be a lot harder to ignore the spectre of global climate change. Busloads of seniors floating down the parkway weighed down by rolls of quarters in their giant oversized purses would be bad PR for New Jersey’s top gaming destination. I hope Trump has flood insurance.”

The flood that just swallowed your shore house is a hoax | NJ.com.