BartBlog

Excerpt:
Dear Rep. Brown-Waite,

Early last month, I wrote your office regarding my concern with rising gasoline prices. I received your response in an email letter today and I have a few comments.

I strongly disagree that increasing domestic off shore production of oil and natural gas, eliminating the tariff on ethanol and building more refineries are viable solutions to reducing gasoline prices. I will not vote for any representative that advocates that. I believe the solution is to reduce consumption and demand, not increase production. In other words, the real solution is a long-term strategy, not quick short-term fixes like the ones that you advocate in your response.

Firstly, according to the figures that you cite in your letter, of the estimated 88 billion barrels located off shore, 74 billion are already available to oil companies for exploration and production, leaving 14 billion that would be available by opening the ANWR and the rest of the Gulf of Mexico. At the current rate of U.S. consumption, an additional 14 billion barrels of oil amounts to a supply that would last about 667 days – less than 2 years.

Secondly, an analysis performed by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the independent statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy, found in a report published in 2007 that opening up the outer continental shelf in the Pacific, Atlantic and eastern Gulf regions would result in production no sooner than 2017, and would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil production before 2030. In other words, more off shore drilling is not even a viable short-term solution.

Thirdly, the price of oil and gasoline is determined by the international market. Increasing domestic production does not mean that oil tapped domestically by multi-national corporations will go directly into American gasoline production, even with increased refining capacity. It will be traded as a commodity on the world market, and like with any other commodity, the price will be manipulated by speculators in such a way as to maximize profit for investors.

Fourthly, of the 74 billion barrels that your letter claims are already available for exploration and drilling, the oil companies have elected to not pursue production of the vast majority of that oil. That is because it is not economically viable (aka. profitable) to do so, even at today’s high prices. Nationally, only about a quarter of federal leased lands are being tapped for crude or natural gas.

Recovering oil from domestic shale deposits is also a costly process, and is not profitable unless oil prices remain high. In other words, actually tapping all of that oil is more likely to keep prices high than to reduce them. Increasing refining capacity will not have any effect unless the oil companies increase production, and corporations will not do so if it is not profitable to do so.

Fifthly, reducing the tariff on ethanol, and ethanol production in general is not a viable solution to high gasoline prices. Increased use of ethanol fuel will drive up the price of corn and other foods used to produce ethanol on the global market. Higher priced corn and sugar means not only higher food prices, but also higher priced ethanol. That would more than compensate for elimination of the tariff on ethanol. The only way that ethanol can reduce the price of gasoline when blended is if it costs less than gasoline. Even if ethanol would reduce the price of gasoline (and that is debatable at best), lower gasoline prices will not benefit Americans if we have to pay higher prices for food.

Lastly, the risks involved in off shore drilling have been clearly demonstrated by the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read more, see the text of Brown-Waite’s letter, and get links here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d12-Open-letter-to-Rep-Ginny-BrownWaite-and-any-other-advocate-of-more-off-shore-drilling

And one more thing, get a Mike Malloy podcast here: http://www.mikemalloy.com/ (I already have one).

That photo of Stephanie Miller on the main page today was taken by me on the same day I met Malloy for the first time. He said Bart’s a “true patriot” and so is Malloy. Please do what you can and support both of them, or all you’ll have left on the air is Rush, Beck and Hannity.

Excerpt:
Remember the movie Deck the Halls, in which Danny DeVito went nuts and wanted his Christmas lights seen from space? Well, BP just one-upped him, because the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico can be seen from space.

A May 4, 2010 photo on NASA’s web site taken from the international space station clearly shows the magnitude of the oil slick in the Gulf …and if you live near the coast in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana it’s headed your way.

BP, the corporation responsible for cleaning up the mess, failed to cap the oil leak that is gushing from a hole they drilled almost one mile below the surface of the ocean. So far, estimates of the amount of oil released into the Gulf of Mexico range from 210,000 to 2.5 million gallons per day since April 20th. That means there could be as much as 50 million gallons of crude oil floating on the waters in the Gulf today, although our friendly corporate media will tell you it’s only about 4.2 million gallons. Keep in mind that it takes only one quart of oil to poison 250,000 gallans of seawater for all marine life.

According to the Independent UK, the oil spill may be five times worse than previously thought. Ian MacDonald, a biological oceanographer at Florida State University, said he believed, after studying NASA data, that about one million gallons a day were leeching into the sea, and that the volume discharged may have already exceeded the 11 million gallons of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, widely regarded as the world’s worst ecological disaster. Mr MacDonald said there was, as of Friday, possibly as much as 6,178 square miles of oil-covered water in the Gulf.

Wayne Madsen, writing for Global Research, claims that “the Obama administration…conspired with BP to fudge the extent of the oil leak, according to our federal and state sources.”

Guillaume Decamme, writing for Agence France-Presse, states that Admiral Thad Allen, head of the US Coast Guard, suggested BP is considering what he called a “junk shot” to plug the main leak.

They’re actually going to take a bunch of debris, shredded up tires, golf balls and things like that and under very high pressure shoot it into the preventer itself and see if they can clog it up and stop the leak, said Allen, who is leading the US government’s response, on CBS’s Face the Nation.

Great! With all the marvels of modern technology at hand, it’s come down to golf balls and shredded tires to save the ecosystem in the Gulf. I don’t know how that sounds to you, but to me that sounds like we are…nevermind, you fill in the blank.

Get links here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d10-Gulf-oil-slick-can-be-seen-from-space

Excerpt:

Sifting through the information, trying to make sense out of what is happening with the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico can be confusing. Trying to write an article about that is like trying to mix a cocktail with cognitive dissonance, misdirected anger, a little Chinaco Anejo, lime and bovine excrement.

So, I’m going to take the weekend off and just post a few articles you can read and sort out for yourself.

The first is from Greg Palast. He claims BP has failed to put safeguards and containment equipment in place in the past and will do that again. Read more here. Having been a fraud investigator looking into the Exxon Valdez spill, he probably knows what he’s talking about.

The second is from our beloved mainstream media, the AP. Apparently the containment box failed to cap the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Here’s a nice quote, “I wouldn’t say it’s failed yet,” BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said of the containment box. “What I would say is what we attempted to do … didn’t work.” Ummm, if it didn’t work, how is that not a failure? Read more here.

The third is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Apparently only 4.5 percent of the Gulf of Mexico is closed for fishing. Read more here. No biggie, shrimp has a better texture when coated with oil.

The fourth is from the Attorney General in Alabama. Apparently BP was offering $5000 to any Gulf coast fisherman that agrees not to sue them. While their livelihood and source of income, dating back in some cases to the 1800′s, is now cut off indefinitely, five grand will settle it, huh? Not so says AG Troy King. Read more here.

Meanwhile, tar balls are washing up on the beaches of Alabama. Read more here.

Oil rig workers are coerced into signing waivers.

The Houston Business Journal finally admits oil has washed ashore in Louisiana.

With confirmed sightings of oil across a 50-mile chain of islands that line Louisiana’s Southwestern coast, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) has ordered the affected area closed to public entry.

And the capitalist hagiography has little room for saints.

Lastly, the final question always is, “what can we DO about this?” The truth is not much, but some people are getting together and trying to do something: It’s called the Zeitgeist movement. Check it out. There is a video here that tells it like it is:

You can sort through it and come to your own conclusion. I have to BBQ some shrimp and enjoy them while I can still afford them. I promise better coverage on this disaster tomorrow.

Read more and check out the Zeitgeist video here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d9-Oil-slick-update

Get some kind bud and some time, because it will blow you mind…

Author’s note: I am sure a lot you have been following this. Even if you have, you may not have seen the flyover video in the article that is on my Examiner page. It is a birds-eye view of the size and scope of this slick and is truly frightening.

Excerpt:
How large is the oil slick approaching the shores of Gulf states? When will it wash up on the pristine beaches of the Florida panhandle? Is it large enough to hitch a ride on the Loop Current and travel around the Florida peninsula? Anyone following reports in the media should be uncertain, because the reports are unclear and sometimes contradictory.

Consider, for example, this chart from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (it is too large to post in this article). It tracks the movement of the oil slick from May 1 through May 6. The position and size of the oil slick in the chart on May 1 clearly does not match the NASA satellite photo taken the same day. The oil slick in the NOAA chart is much farther east and farther out to sea than the satellite image shows.

Further reports tend to add to the uncertainty, rather than clearing it up. The Houston Business Journal reported yesterday that “oil has washed ashore on the barrier islands near Louisiana for the first time.” The AFP reported the same.

Other reports have stated that oil washed ashore in Louisiana as early as April 30th, with AP photos clearly showing that.

So what are we to believe? How large is this oil slick and when will it wash up on the beaches of the Gulf states?

There is another uncertainty regarding the size of the oil slick and the amount of oil that is gushing into the Gulf. The Telegraph UK reported yesterday that “the well is currently spewing 5,000 barrels a day, or about 210,000 gallons, but that figure could reach 60,000 barrels a day, equivalent to 2.5 million gallons a day, if efforts to stop the leaks fail.” The figure was given in a briefing by executives from BP and Transocean, which owned the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig, to the Congress House Energy and Commerce Committee. The window between 210,000 and 2.5 million gallons of oil per day is a very large discrepancy.

Dr. Ian MacDonald at Florida State University produced a spill-size estimate based on aerial overflights taken on April 28. The bottom line: on April 28 there was a total of 8.9 million gallons floating on the surface of the Gulf. Based on his flow charts, that means the leak surpassed the quantity of oil that the Exxon Valdez spilled on May 1, and there are about 18.8 million gallons of oil floating on the Gulf of Mexico today. Keep in mind that it takes only one quart of oil to poison 250,000 gallons of seawater for all marine life.

The truth is, no one knows how much oil has already leaked into the Gulf, and no one knows how much will before the well is capped or a relief well is drilled to stop the flow. Stopping the flow of oil into the Gulf may take up to three months, and the results of efforts to cap the leak yesterday are not yet certain.

Alabama Governor Bob Riley said favorable weather conditions meant the response effort would have a few more days to try to reduce the slick and mitigate its impact on the shore. He said: “If we can get three or four days I think we’re going to be in pretty good shape.” US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry said: “We do have the gift of time. It’s a gift of a little bit of time.”

According to oceanographers, marine biologists and ecologists, time has already run out for much of marine life in the Gulf. Not only will shallow water animals be poisoned by the oil slick, but also hail-sized droplets of oil that coagulate like tarballs will fall to the bottom of the sea. They will be consumed by smaller organisms and passed up the food chain, resulting in death throughout the entire Gulf ecosystem.

While this giant oil slick has not yet washed up on the beaches of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, it is not a question of if, but when. And the devasting effect on marine life is even more of a certainty, but no one will really know how bad it is until it hits the shores.

Read more, get links and view a flyover of the oil slick here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d7-Contradictory-reports-about-size-and-movement-of-oil-slick-leave-FL-residents-uncertain

Hi Maria,

If you are looking for the truth, you have come to the right web site. Bart is correct, the email that you wrote in about is total hog snot. As a rule, never trust an anonymous email because they are written that way so the author cannot get sued if they are caught lying.

That immigration email has been circulating in various forms since January 2008, supposedly written by “a teacher” in various states, including Florida, California and Oregon.

You can view information about the email here: http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/is_a_letter_from_an_anonymous_teacher.html

And here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/pellgrant.asp

The pieces at the above links contain links to more information about CARIBE, WAIT and other things mentioned in the email. FactCheck.org and Snopes.com are great fact-checking resources for those chain emails and just about anything else.

Now that you’ll be armed and dangerous with facts and the truth, give the right-wingers hell at the water cooler!

Greg
Orlando Independent Examiner

Just an aside question, are there any parts of Florida that aren’t “red”?

Authors note: This is yet another fine example of the so-called “liberal media” myth and the death of real journalism in the U.S. Apparently the culture that brought us Steno Jude is still actively at work.

Excerpt:
The New York Times, also known as the “paper of record,” omits a key fact in a recent article about the Gulf oil disaster by failing to let readers know that the so-called “experts” downplaying the oil disaster are bought and paid for by the oil industry.

Few media outlets in America have yet covered the fact that a $500K device may have prevented the catastrophic oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, but that is not the story here. The story is that corporate media is killing journalism in America.

Brad Friedman, writing on The BRAD BLOG, has once again exposed a lie of omission by “The Grey Lady.”

Downplaying concerns that the Gulf oil leak could lead to an ecological disaster, the New York Times cites the Gulf of Mexico Foundation as an expert source. The “paper of record”, however, fails to mention that this so-called “conservation group” is financed by the offshore drilling industry.

Friedman’s work speaks for itself. He has been on the New York Times for years, like a fly on washed up marine animals. This is not the first time Friedman has exposed the Times for lies of omission.

According to Friedman:

John M. Broder and Tom Zeller Jr. of The New York Times are kind enough today to offer a front page “News Analysis” which works very hard to offer “balance” on the Gulf oil rig gusher by downplaying concerns of an unprecedented ecological disaster noting “the Deepwater Horizon blowout is not unprecedented, nor is it yet among the worst oil accidents in history.”

They even offer a scientific “expert” to help support that thesis:

What they don’t do, however, is let readers know that Dokken’s “conservation group,” the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, is actually sponsored in large part by the offshore oil drilling industry!

And according to Marian Wang writing at ProPublica yesterday:

At least half of the 19 members of [the Gulf of Mexico's Foundation's] board of directors have direct ties to the offshore drilling industry.
Seven other board members are currently employed at oil companies, or at companies that provide products and services “primarily” to the offshore oil and gas industry. Those companies include Shell, Conoco Phillips, LLOG Exploration Company, Devon Energy, Anadarko Petroleum Company and Oceaneering International.

The Gulf of Mexico Foundation’s president is a retired senior vice president of Rowan Companies Inc., an offshore drilling contractor.

The Times’ article on the Gulf oil leak is a good example that no media outlet should be trusted to provide unbiased, truthful information. Readers must question everything, from every source, no matter what sort of reputation the publication may have.

Read more and get links here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d5-New-York-Times-coverage-of-Gulf-oil-leak-omits-key-fact

A preface here, to any readers on my mailing list who find this article on the bartblog before my Examiner page: I apologize for the email exchange yesterday with that right-wing douche bag, Ashford Schwall. He will no longer be a part of the mailing list, since his mama apparently failed to teach him manners or email etiquette and he pissed off half the people on my list. He’d be a good candidate for monkey mail since he’s sending out right-wing propaganda by a known disinformationist, Sorcha Faal. Feel free to send him an email at: aschwall@comcast.net.

In fact, let the monkey have it! He thinks the oil rig explosion was caused by a torpedo attack by North Korea.

Anyway, this is strictly a report…no commentary.

Excerpt:
Imagine a pipe five feet wide spewing crude oil like a fire hose at a rate of over 200,000 gallons per day from what could be the planets’ largest, high-pressure oil and gas reserve. Now consider that It only takes one quart of motor oil to make 250,000 gallons of ocean water toxic to wildlife. Are you starting to get the magnitude of this?

Even at 200,000 gallons per day, the spill may eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident as the worst US oil disaster in history in a matter of weeks. But a growing number of experts warned that the situation may already be much worse.

A confidential government report by the NOAA, however, makes clear the Coast Guard now fears the well could become an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf. An animated graphic of the spread of the oil slick can be viewed here. (Hit the examiner link for all the links in this).

Paul Noel, a software engineer currently working for the U.S. Army at Redstone Arsenal, AL, who has expertise in the oil and gas industry, writes in Pure Energy Systems News:

I…think that the situation is getting further and further out of hand. The nature of the crude had changed, indicating that the spill was collapsing the rock structures. If it is collapsing the rock structures, the least that can be said is that the rock is fragmenting and blowing up the tube with the oil. With that going on you have a high pressure abrasive sand blaster working on the kinks in the pipe eroding it causing the very real risk of increasing the leaks.

More than that is the very real risk of causing the casing to become unstable and literally blowing it up the well bringing the hole to totally open condition. Another risk arises because according to reports the crew was cementing the exterior of the casing when this happens. As a result, the well, if this was not properly completed, could begin to blow outside the casing. Another possible scenario is a sea floor collapse. If that happens Katie bar the door.

The deposit is one I have known about since 1988. The deposit is very big. The central pressure in the deposit is 165 to 170 thousand PSI. It contains so much hydrocarbon that you simply cannot imagine it.

The oil industry has knowledge of the deposit more than they admit. The deposit is 100 miles off shore. They are drilling into the edge of the deposit to leak it down gently to be able to produce from the deposit. The deposit is so large that while I have never heard exact numbers it was described to me to be either the largest or the second largest oil deposit ever found. It is mostly a natural gas deposit. The natural gas that could be released is really way beyond the oil in quantity. It is like 10,000 times the oil in the deposit.

It is this deposit that has me reminding people of what the Shell geologist told me about the deposit. This was the quote, “Energy shortage…, Hell! We are afraid of running out of air to burn.” The deposit is very large. It covers an area off shore something like 25,000 square miles. Natural Gas and Oil is leaking out of the deposit as far inland as Central Alabama and way over into Florida and even over to Louisiana almost as far as Texas. This is a really massive deposit. Punching holes in the deposit is a really scary event as we are now seeing.

Crews continue to lay boom in what increasingly feels like a futile effort to slow down the spill, with all ideas to contain the flow failing so far.

“I’ve been in Pensacola and I am very, very concerned about this filth in the Gulf of Mexico,” Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said at a fundraiser for his U.S. Senate campaign Sunday night. “It’s not a spill, it’s a flow. Envision sort of an underground volcano of oil and it keeps spewing over 200,000 gallons every single day, if not more.”

Read more (and get links to info. and graphics) here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d4-Oil-slick-triples-in-size-in-three-days-landfall-in-FL-imminent

see more Political Pictures

A special note to regular bartcop readers: My thanks go out to Mike Malloy for having Mike Papatonio on his show on Friday. I would not have heard about “the story behind the story” had it not been for that. If you do not get Malloy’s show (9-12pm EST) in your area, get a podcast subscription…it’s as good as bartcop radio!

Excerpt:
Yes, that’s correct…a device that costs one half million dollars may have prevented what is on track to become the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The device is called an acoustic trigger (aka. acoustic switch, actuator). It is a remote-controlled device deployed off oil rigs that sends acoustic impulses through the water, triggering an underwater valve or explosives to shut down the well even if the rig is catastrophically damaged or abandoned.

All offshore rigs have one main switch to shut off the flow of oil by closing a valve located on the ocean floor. There is also supposed to be a backup called a “dead man,” that will shut down the well in the event of a catastrophe on the rig.

Apparently neither of these devices worked on the Deepwater Horizon rig operated by British Petroleum (BP). The crew members who would have been closest to the shutoff switch are among those missing and presumed dead. If the rig was equipped with an acoustic trigger, it would have been a last resort option and could have been activated from a remote location.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Norway and Brazil require these devices in all offshore drilling operations. While they are not required with rigs offshore the U.K., BP elects to deploy them there. BP chose not to equip oil rigs off the coast of the U.S. with acoustic triggers because U.S. regulations enacted in 2003 do not require companies to do so.

A Pensacola attorney, Mike Papantonio, whose firm filed a class-action lawsuit three days ago against BP on behalf of Gulf fishermen had this to say on MSNBC’s The Ed show:

BP didn’t want to spend the money for a system – a fail safe system, used all over the world…[that could have prevented this]. We’re talking about a company that makes forty billion a year that wouldn’t invest five hundred thousand dollars…It is the most unreported part of this story

Now that you’ve lost a $560,000 oil rig, are spending $6 million a day in cleanup efforts, have lost billions in the drop of your stock on the NYSE, have infuriated the citizens of four gulf coast states…how’s that business model working out for you, BP?

Read more here (including video of interview with Papantonio): http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d2-500K-device-may-have-prevented-oil-spill

The right wing blogosphere is alight like a burning oil rig in the gulf with the Beckian cap and trade scandal, soon to be tied in with the Limbot’s theory that the oil spill in the gulf was a result of a terrorist attack, staged or allowed to happen. The alleged motive is a socialist redistribution of wealth planned years ago in Kenya by Mao Hussein Obama. I wrote this just to piss off the right-wingers…

Excerpt:
Forget that what will be the largest oil spill in U.S. history will foul the coastlines of four states, including the nicest beaches in Florida on the panhandle. Never mind a record-breaking defense budget, two ongoing wars, a continuation of torture and illegal detention policies. Arming ICBMs with conventional warheads that could trigger a nuclear war if launched – no problem. Even possible criminal charges against Goldman Sachs, and an economy that is not rebounding for working-class Americans is no match for the… “cap and trade scandal.”

According to ace investigative journalist Glenn Beck and the populist heroes that work behind the scenes at Fox News, the American people are about to fall prey to a government called “Crime, Inc.” that will systematically redistribute wealth through a cap and trade tax.

The latest census bureau data from 2007 shows that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans hold 42.7% of the financial wealth in the nation and the next 19 percent hold 50.3%, leaving the bottom 80 percent of Americans holding a mere 7% of financial wealth in the nation. So, even though millionaires like Glenn Beck may have the most to lose and most Americans may gain from such a diabolical scheme (if that were true), he must be looking out for the common good like other Fox News hosts do on a daily basis.

According to Brian Frederick writing for Media Matters, this is how Glenn Beck claims it will go down:

Cap and trade is really just a “scam” and “redistribution of wealth.” In order to perpetrate this scam, the Joyce Foundation, an environmental organization whose board used to include Barack Obama and Valerie Jarrett, steered grants toward developing the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Investors in the CCX included Al Gore, Fannie and Freddie and some Goldman Sachs partners.

Meanwhile, “really bad dude” Franklin Raines, former chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae, helped secure a technological patent for what Beck never really explains, but it has to do with the cap-and-trade exchange system. Raines serves on the board of the Enterprise Community Partners, so according to Beck, he asked Enterprise to ask the Joyce Foundation for cash for a new group: the Emerald Cities Collaborative (“Green-Fair-Democratic”).

And of course, since it’s the Emerald Cities, Beck says, there must be a “wizard.” The wizard? Joel Rogers, a professor who heads the Center on Wisconsin Strategy. He’s directly shaping President Obama’s thinking.

So there you have it. The grandest of Beckian conspiracy theories. One University of Wisconsin (my alma mater, by the way) professor and activist is the “wizard” behind an elaborate system to redistribute wealth, and there are multiple organizations and corporations in on it, including the Obamian People’s Army of Chicago economics. Apparently Mao Tse-Tung was disguised as Milton Friedman all those years at the University of Chicago.

Conservative bloggers, arm chair pundits, and the faithful followers of Glenn Beck are screaming for more mainstream media coverage of this horrendous atrocity and are baffled as to why the corporate media will not pay attention to this breaking story.

Perhaps that’s because there are bigger stories orchestrated by the powers that be to distract the media from this scandal. Next thing we know, there will be a staged terrorist attack on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico to put forth this radical agenda. (Oh, that’s right, Rush Limbaugh already is on that one). Perhaps because big media (excluding, of course, Fox News) is part of a grand conspiracy by the liberal elite, progressives, environmentalists, bankers, energy companies, and the Kenyan Obama administration to rob middle America of all their remaining wealth. Perhaps because one needs a tinfoil hat to truly understand the connection between Michael Ayers, Michael Moore and cupcakes.

Or…perhaps because there is absolutely no basis in fact for the allegations.

Read (lots) more here: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d1-Cap-and-trade-scandal-facts