Regulating “pro-lifers” and the Brand

The Environmental Evangelical Network (EEN) a green evangelical “pro-life” group that supports EPA rules limiting harmful mercury is catching the wrath of fellow “pro-lifers”. The EEN favors specific restrictions on emissions from power plants because they will protect the health of the unborn. The EEN critics maintain that to portray safeguards against environmental hazards as “pro-life” is to “obscure the meaning of the term.”

While the EEN’ers still deny that human activity is driving global warming the group has urged support for regulatory restrictions by sponsoring TV, radio ads and billboards. A spokesman spells out their view this way: “We believe protecting the unborn from mercury poisoning is a consistent pro-life position,” Mercury exposure can cause mental retardation, cerebral palsy, deafness and blindness in infants. Low doses may result in developmental delays affecting walking, talking, attention span and learning disabilities.

However the EEN’s broader views and actions spell trouble for them from 30 other religious “pro-lifers” and conservative anti-EPA legislators including, The Family Research Council and Sen. James Inhofe. It appears these critics see a threat to the “pro-life” brand name. Says Inhofe about the EEN’s position: “To claim that EPA’s devastating, job-killing regime is somehow ‘pro-life’ is absurd.”

This is trouble junction in terms of controling of the issue when a brand boundary gets blurred and is no longer focused as they wish it to be. And worse still for Sen. Inhofe is the intersecting issue with his longtime pet villain, the “job-killing” EPA. Imagine the EPA protecting life?

Entergy’s lines in the sand

The battle front is shifting slightly for Vermont Yankee power plant as it escalates toward a crunch point; a financial decision on refueling. Making it clear that Entergy will not glow quietly into the night Vermont Yankee Entergy CEO J. Wayne Leonard stated this week in an AP report he felt pushed into a corner by the State of Vermont. “…and there's a point where there's a line in the sand and we've got to make a decision whether we're pushed any further or not." Leonard also maintained the NRC had final say on the plant’s future. The re-licensing issue may be headed to the courts and we should hope the Vermont Attorney General can be as aggressive with Entergy in court as he has proved with sugared drinks. In more than a year that VY has been leaking radioactive tritium and leaching it into the Connecticut River no legal action was initiated by Vermont’s AG.

A little help from friends nationally. Just prior to Entergy CEO’s line- in-the-sand statement pressure was being brought to bear in Congress about the NRC’s speed in nuclear plant re-licensing. Representative Fred Upton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee claims the NRC’s actions show indifference to the economic realities challenging its applicants and is pressuring the NRC to explain their nuclear plant license renewal procedures. Mirroring this,a energy trade publication reports two Republican Senators are raising pointed questions about the NRC’s speed in nuclear plant re-licensing. Senators James Inhofe, from Oklahoma and David “diaper me” Vitter, of Louisiana(home of Entergy VY’s owner) have written to NRC chairman Gregory Jazcko.
The Senators claim that "the commission has incentivized opponents to intervene solely because the NRC will delay the conduct of these adjudications and relicensing processes." Entergy Vermont Yankee and Entergy owned Pilgrim power plants both up for relicening where not mentioned specifically but understood to be the subject of this.

They [Inhofe and Vitter] asked him to explain how it determines whether opposition to a nuclear power plant license renewal application is deemed to be "local" and the agency decides on a"threshold of 'minimal' opposition" to a license renewal

Vermont Springtime Heat Record Broken for Second Day!

Burlington Vermont

Saturday, the temperature recorded at Burlington International Airport was 79 degrees, six degrees higher than the previous record for April 3 that was set in 1981.
Montpelier had a temperature of 83, breaking its 1981 record by 12 degrees. St. Johnsbury had heated up to 80 degrees, five degrees above its 1981 record.

Senators DeMint, Inhofe any comments?


The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere "behaves" over relatively long periods of time.

This past winter climate skeptics seized on the blizzard in Washington ,snowmaggedon,as proof that global warming was a hoax .A hoax promoted by the global warming industry to use George Will’s term . The fact that it was cold outside and Washington had a blizzard proves there is no global Warming.
Climate skeptic Sen. James Inhofe even built himself an igloo and cleverly placed a sign a top reading Al Gore’s new home. Not to be outdone Senator Jim DeMint found himself twittering “It’s going to keep snowing in D.C. until Al Gore cries ‘uncle.'"


So I wondered what the National Republican climate brain-trust would make of the weather as I sat here in Vermont yesterday with the record breaking Springtime 80 degree temps.
Someone should call Republican Senators Inhofe and DeMint; they’d know what’s up with the weather around here.