Who are the True Progressives?

Gary Null and Richard Gale Progressive Radio Network, March 20, 2013 Each day we hear right-wing pundits excoriating president Obama and the Democrats for being progressive. They ridicule progressivism as being socialist, for favoring the redistribution of wealth and resources, for challenging the bank-driven free market agenda, and for advocating stricter regulations on Wall Street and the multinational corporatocracy. They accuse progressives of embracing Big Government and a mindset of entitlement on steroids.

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Disaster in the Making: Grave Warnings Issued That Keystone Pipeline Is Structurally Flawed

A pipeline materials engineer, who worked for TransCanada Pipeline for five years, says some of the nation's major pipeline companies are breaking the rules on pipeline safety and that National Energy Board is not adequately enforcing them.

Evan Vokes, a 46-year-old Calgary-based engineer and former TransCanada employee, has filed complaints with the National Energy Board, the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA is a self-regulating professional group that represents engineers) and the Prime Minister's Office documenting repeated violations of standard safety regulations and codes.

The alleged offences include repeated violations of several sections of the nation's Onshore Pipeline Regulations (OPR-99) on issues as varied as welding inspections, the safety of materials and conflict of interest.

In addition Vokes also charges that engineers do not always make project and scheduling decisions during pipeline construction (a common lament) and that "unskilled practice by professional engineers in a hurry" is a routine problem throughout the multi-billion dollar industry.

National Energy Board investigating

In response to a Tyee inquiry the board replied that it is actively investigating the allegations. “Board Executives met with senior company representatives to describe the allegations and how seriously the board takes them." One company in particular has been asked to report on their internal investigation of allegations of non-compliance.

Added Erin Dotter, the NEB's communication officer: "The NEB investigation into this file is ongoing and we are thoroughly reviewing and assessing the information that has been submitted. It would not be appropriate to discuss this matter further while it is under investigation."

Vokes' concerns, shared to varying degrees by members of Canada's embattled pipeline industry, have already been partly corroborated by U.S. and Canadian regulatory bodies in a series of recent investigations and reports on pipeline spills.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), for example, categorized Enbridge as having a "culture of deviance" on safety matters after it investigated that company's 20,000-barrel bitumen spill on the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. The NTSB accused the company of taking advantage of "weak regulations" and not learning from previous incidents.

Enbridge employees also admitted to NTSB investigators that the largest oil spill in U.S. history was "a wake-up call" that highlighted problems associated with rapid growth including staff shortages "and that type of thing."

As a consequence the US Pipeline Hazardous Material Standards Administration (PHMSA), fined [4] the company last summer a record $3.7-million for a total of 24 violations of pipeline regulations jointly enforced by the both National Energy Board (NEB) and PHMSA.

U.S. regulators also caught Kinder Morgan, another big pipeline player with extensive Canadian properties as well as controversial bitumen expansion plans, violating welding codes and nearly a dozen sections of the US Pipeline Safety Regulations while building the Rocky Express [5] natural gas pipeline between 2007 and 2008. It fined the company $400,000 in 2012.

U.S. regulators aren't alone in finding routine violations of code. A 2009 National Energy Board investigation on the death of an electrician at an Enbridge pump station found violations of construction codes and concluded [6] "the safety culture at Enbridge Kerrobert [pump station] was not adequately developed."

NEB made pipeline safety top priority for 2012

Unlike its U.S. counterparts, which have long records of public transparency, The National Energy Board did not begin posting its safety and environmental actions till the fall of 2011. Since 2008 the Board says it has issued 24 Safety Orders against on pipelines owned by Enbridge, TransCanada and Kinder Morgan. None are available on its website.

But the spotlight on pipeline safety has not just fallen on Enbridge, which is now under regulatory scrutiny for its proposed Northern Gateway project as well as another spill at a Wisconsin pipeline in 2012.

The Canadian Transportation Safety Board, the nation's version of the NTSB, is investigating Houston-based Spectra Energy, which operates 2,900 kilometres of pipeline in British Columbia for two separate 2012 incidents: a sour gas rupture as well as an explosion at a natural gas compressor station that injured two workers just north of Fort St. John, British Columbia.

TransCanada, another big pipeline player and Vokes' former employer, has also been in the headlines. The first phase of TransCanada's controversial Keystone XL pipeline leaked 14 times in just two years and the company has now been ordered by the National Energy Board to investigate Keystone's pumping stations in Canada.

Last year a 50-foot section of TransCanada's brand new Bison gas pipeline also blew up in Wyoming due to mechanical damage caused by the improper laying of pipe in the ground. That accident forced a month-long closure.

Although the National Energy Board officially declared [7] pipeline safety its top priority in 2012, Canada's federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has raised serious issues about the board's accountability and enforcement practices.

Tracing Enbridge's learning curve

The Commissioner reported [8] in 2011 that the NEB often identified problems on its 71,000 kilometres of interprovincial pipeline system, but rarely followed up: "there is little indication that the Board takes steps to ensure that the identified deficiencies are corrected."

In fact many of the problems that Enbridge experienced during the $800-million Michigan debacle, the largest onshore oil spill in U.S. history, were flagged by an NEB inspection audit in 2008 that found multiple problems with the company's program for maintaining pipeline integrity. (Because Enbridge operates lines that are intercontinental, it is jointly regulated by the NEB and US PHMSA.)

Although the NTSB flagged the NEB 2008 inspection audit of Enbridge's Canadian operations as an example of the company's poor learning curve, the audit does not appear to be available on the NEB's website.

The audit found, among many other safety failings, that Enbridge's "assessment process and data for determining the crack and corrosion in-line inspection frequency required improvement to prevent failures from reoccurring."

Canada's Commissioner of the Environment also found that Canada's national pipeline regulator did not properly monitor emergency procedures manuals and failed to communicate deficiencies in a timely manner: "We have concluded that the Board's oversight of companies' emergency procedures manuals is deficient," went the report.

According to the Auditor General The NEB had but a budget of $7 million and a staff of 63 to check on regulatory compliance on some of the world’s longest pipelines in 2011.

Since then the NEB has tried frantically to catch up with rapid pipeline infrastructure growth and a doubling of pipeline incidents or what the board calls [9] "an increased trend in the number and the severity of incidents being reported by NEB-regulated companies."

Engineers have 'duty of care': whistleblower

The board reports that it now has a staff of 80 including 35 qualified engineers to enforce the law and will increase inspections from 100 to 150 a year thanks to additional federal funding of $13-million provided this year. Incredibly, it is only now developing a program to fine pipeline operators for non-compliance of regulations.

In 2009 the NEB took on the responsibility of looking after an additional 24,000 km of pipeline owned by Nova Gas and formerly monitored by Alberta's regulators. It did not increase staff at the time.

Meanwhile the office of pipeline safety of the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), which has fined offenders for years, has issued alerts, held workshops and given presentations on what it calls new construction "challenges" facing pipeline builders across the continent.

PHMSA presentations [10] include graphic illustrations of cracked pipelines and clearly show a rising incidence of problems related to bad welding practices and improper coating of pipelines.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which investigates accidents, also reports [11] worsening pipeline trends too.

Since 2002 this federal agency has recorded a near doubling of pipeline incidents from an average of 95 a year to 161 incidents in 2011. The federal investigator partly blames the combined effects of the rapid pipeline growth, the conversion of oil to gas pipelines, better reporting, and an aging infrastructure. It is also studying other factors.

All pipelines contain flaws as they are not ideal but the codes set a standard for accepatable risk tolerance. But the most recent issue of the magazine Pipeline International highlights [12] many of the issues raised by Vokes such as the importance of pipeline integrity management. Such a process should allow operators to routinely check that their pipeline networks operate in a safe, reliable, sustainable and optimal manner.

But if neglected and unused, even the most expensive and "high tech" systems or tools will fail warns the magazine article. And if these systems are not properly enforced, adds Vokes, low probability events on pipelines can become catastrophic problems and headline makers.

The Tyee took a copy of Voke's assorted documents to an experienced engineer who has worked in the oil patch for 40 years and here's what he said.

"This man knows what he is talking about and knows his codes and jargon and metallurgy. The industry is moving too fast and doesn't have the people and experience to manage its safety systems."

Added the reviewer: "The regulators haven’t caught up with the right standards and we don't have the senior expertise to oversee some of these issues. Vokes is raising significant issues for the industry."

The issues are significant enough that that Alberta, home to 400,000 kilometres of pipeline, has contracted [13] a Calgary engineering firm to do an independent analysis of pipeline safety and integrity after a series of high-profile oil spills this year.

"There is only story here," adds Vokes who is pleased that the NEB is taking his allegation seriously. "It's what the NTSB report called a 'culture of deviance' and a lack of accountability. And that’s the whole thing," says the engineer.

"When you sign onto engineering ethics you have a duty of care to the public before you do to your employer."

In response to recent pipeline incidents the Canadian Energy Pipelines Association (CEPA), a lobby group for the nation's powerful pipeline builders, launched an "Integrity First" campaign last August. An industry press release says that the industry needs "to do more to reduce the frequency and impact of pipeline events."

According to CEPA its members operate and monitor 110,000 kilometres of pipelines or what it calls "energy highways" that carry nearly $60-billion worth of hydrocarbons every year.

Canada's petroleum industry wants to double the nation's oil pipeline capacity from 3 million to 6 million barrels over the next two decades.

Read more.. http://www.alternet.org/environment/disaster-making-grave-warnings-issued-keystone-pipeline-structurally-flawed

David Korten - America’s Deficit Attention Disorder

The political debate in the United States and Europe has focused attention on public financial deficits and how best to resolve them. Tragically, the debate largely ignores the deficits that most endanger our future.

In the United States, as Republican deficit hawks tell the story, “America is broke. We must cut government spending on social programs we cannot afford. And we must lower taxes on Wall Street job creators so they can invest to get the economy growing, create new jobs, increase total tax revenues, and eliminate the deficit.”

Democrats respond, “Yes, we’re pretty broke, but the answer is to raise taxes on Wall Street looters to pay for government spending that primes the economic pump by putting people to work building critical infrastructure and performing essential public services. This puts money in people’s pockets to spend on private sector goods and services and is our best hope to grow the economy.”

Democrats have the better side of the argument, but both sides have it wrong on two key points.

• First, both focus on growing GDP, ignoring the reality that under the regime of Wall Street rule, the benefits of GDP growth over the past several decades have gone almost exclusively to the 1 percent—with dire consequences for democracy and the health of the social and natural capital on which true prosperity depends. 
• Second, both focus on financial deficits, which can be resolved with relative ease if we are truly serious about it; and ignore far more dangerous and difficult-to-resolve social and environmental deficits. I call it a case of deficit attention disorder.

To achieve the ideal of a world that secures health and prosperity for all people for generations to come, we must reframe the public debate about the choices we face as a nation and as a species. We must measure economic performance against the outcomes we really want, give life priority over money, and recognize that money is a means, not an end.

Read more...

http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/david-korten/americas-deficit-attention-disorder 

Action Alert: The Rockaway Pipeline

The Rockaway Lateral is yet another high-pressure, large-diameter gas pipeline, proposed to run across newly restoredwetlands in Jamaica Bay, under Riis Park beach, Floyd Bennett Field, all the way to Avenue U, near the always-crowded Kings Plaza shopping center in Brooklyn. 

All the same problems with fracking and radon that apply to the Spectra pipeline also apply to the Rockaway Lateral––and more: grave risks to delicate wetlands as well as risks from frequent brush fires at Floyd Bennett field. And the safety record of this pipeline builder (Williams Transco) is just as bad as Spectra's. In fact, since 2008, there's been only one month out of the past 45 in which they have not operated under a federal Corrective Action Order. Just this past March, they were fined $50,000 for failures related to corrosion control on pipes running through Staten Island.

Comments Due by Monday, 5pm, June 25, 2012!

Public comments are needed by 5pm June 25th. It's easy to e-comment on the FERC website. Reference Docket No. PF09-8-000. In a rush? Cut and paste from this sample comment.

A New York Strangled by Pipelines?

This pipeline is another piece of the pie in Mayor Bloomberg's plan to convert all of NYC to methane. Lawmakers are buying into the false promise of cleaner skies via boiler conversions, and ignoring the health risks from air pollution, water contamination and radon that come with use of fracked gas. Even uber-liberal Congressional leaders and Senators have been unabashedly supportive of this shale gas takeover.  Did you even HEAR about the Congressional ok for this pipeline? It snuck through Congress in February, and is now up for grabs in the Senate. Watch this clip from "Inside City Hall" for some background. Schumer and Gillibrand have been tough nuts to crack on this issue, but we urge you to communicate your opposition to this plan. We want a New York run on clean energy--wind, water and solar--not on polluting shale gas!

Read More:

http://saneenergyproject.org/events/

Manissa McCleave Maharawal and Zoltán Glück - How students are painting Montreal red

On Wednesday night in Montreal, we shared a long dinner with student organizers, discussing everything from police tactics in Montreal and New York to the necessity of an anti-racist and anti-colonial framework for our movements. Our hosts noticed that, around the time that the nightly 8:30 p.m. march was supposed to begin, we were getting nervous about missing it. They laughed and said, “Don’t worry, it will go on until 2 a.m.” Or at least they normally do.

By midnight, after peacefully and joyfully marching through the city for hours, the police charged our march of about 4,000 people with batons and pepper spray. In a moment the scene became one of chaos and confusion. Many in the crowd turned around and ran, but there were police behind us, too, coming straight at us with their batons out as people were pepper sprayed and thrown to the ground. Eventually, we found our way out of the melée and asked our Canadian comrade what had happened to provoke the police. “Nothing,” she answered. “They just got tired of us.”

We had been lucky. Moments after the police charged us, they surrounded a group of 506 protesters and arrested everyone in what became the largest single mass arrest since the indefinite student strike began here in Quebec 103 days ago.

Read More:

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/05/how-students-are-painting-montreal-red/

Bianca Jagger - Why Tibet Matters

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is in London this week to receive the Templeton Prize in recognition of his outstanding achievements and spiritual wisdom.

Tibet has a long-standing connection to Britain. Prior to the Chinese invasion in 1949-50, Britain was the only country to formally recognize Tibet as an independent nation. British representatives were stationed in Lhasa from 1904 to 1947 to liaise with the Tibetan government. In 1949 the newly-victorious leader of the China Communist Party Mao Zedong announced, over the radio waves, his intention to "liberate" Tibet from this "foreign imperialism."

Over the past 60 years, Tibet has been anything but "liberated" by the Chinese Communist Party.

On the 10th of May I delivered two reports to 10 Downing Street. The reports, by the Society for Threatened People and the International Campaign for Tibet, document the devastating impact of Chinese Communist Party rule in Tibet.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/15-2

Chris McGreal - US should return stolen land to Indian tribes, says United Nations

• A United Nations investigator probing discrimination against Native Americans has called on the US government to return some of the land stolen from Indian tribes as a step toward combatting continuing and systemic racial discrimination.

James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, said no member of the US Congress would meet him as he investigated the part played by the government in the considerable difficulties faced by Indian tribes.

Anaya said that in nearly two weeks of visiting Indian reservations, indigenous communities in Alaska and Hawaii, and Native Americans now living in cities, he encountered people who suffered a history of dispossession of their lands and resources, the breakdown of their societies and "numerous instances of outright brutality, all grounded on racial discrimination".

"It's a racial discrimination that they feel is both systemic and also specific instances of ongoing discrimination that is felt at the individual level," he said.
Anaya said racism extended from the broad relationship between federal or state governments and tribes down to local issues such as education.

Read More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/04/us-stolen-land-indian-tribes-un

Occupy Wall Street May Day Protests Begin With Dancing Cops, Blocked Traffic, Barricades

Gothamist's Christopher Robbins is currently out reporting on the various demonstrations, marches, and direct actions today—for up-to-the-second May Day reportage, follow along with him on Twitter and the #M1NYC hastag. A morning rally at Bryant Park turned into a march through midtown (mostly on the sidewalk) and Times square, with an estimated 350-400 activists converging outside the Chase bank on Sixth Avenue and 50th Street. Here are some updates from the across the field, from Robbins and others:

Read More:

http://gothamist.com/2012/05/01/occupy_wall_street_may_day_protests.php#photo-1

NYC’s First-Ever “Stop Fluoridation Rally” and Press Conference

New York City Council Member Peter F. Vallone,Jr. will hold NYC’s first-ever Stop Fluoridation Rally and Press Conference on May 15th at 11 am on City Hall steps.

Last year, Councilman Vallone drafted legislation (Introduction Number 463) to ban the addition of fluoride chemicals into New York City’s public water supplies. Since then special-interest groups have mounted a major push-back. He needs our support to get this critical legislation passed. 

Vallone says, “This legislation will have an immediate and critical impact – the city will save between 5 and 7 million dollars per year, and our citizens will no longer ingest a toxic chemical every time they take a sip of water, take a shower or wash a piece of fruit.”

City Hall is located in the middle of City Hall Park in Manhattan. Allow enough time to go through security entrances – one entrance to City Hall Park and City Hall is on Broadway and the other is on Park Row.

Bring photo Identification.

Besides Councilman Vallone, other presenters include medical professionals and gifted and talented elementary school students researching fluoridation.

Vallone asks, “Please spread the word, attend and invite friends! It’s important for us to have a strong showing.”

If I get more information, I’ll send it along. Hope to see you there!

A recent article about the rally is here: http://www.licjournal.com/view/full_story/18201494/article-Battle-over-fluoride-returns-?instance=home_news_2nd_left

See you there,

Carol Kopf, Media Director

New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc

and

Fluoride Action Network

Millions of People Across the Sahel Will Be Left Hungry in the Coming Months unless funding shortage is addressed

A huge gap in funding for aid projects aimed at preventing the deepening food crisis in the Sahel is threatening to leave millions of people hungry in the coming months, a coalition of aid agencies has warned today.

Action Against Hunger, Oxfam, Save the Children and World Vision are aiming to provide emergency assistance to nearly 6 million people across the region but say they have so far been able to secure funding for less than a third of this essential work. Nearly US$250 million is needed by all four agencies, but only $52 million has been raised so far.

Action Against Hunger plans to reach 1 million but so far has only managed to raise a third of what it needs. Equally Oxfam has only raised a third of what it needs to reach 1.2 million people. Save the Children which has plans to help 2.5 million people has only managed to raise 15 per cent of its budget and World Vision plans to help 1.1 million people are only 20 per cent funded.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/04/23-2