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Sex, Drugs and Oil: bureaucrats gone wild

There's a lot of news this week, with Hurricane Ike threatening the Houston area and non-stop Sarah Palin coverage, but this is not be missed.

Several reports given to Congress Wednesday documented an incredible tale of bureaucrats gone wild that's been going on within a Department of Interior agency that collects royalties on oil and gas production.

The New York Times had a pretty powerful story on it. Here's an excerpt:

The report says that eight officials in the royalty program accepted gifts from energy companies whose value exceeded limits set by ethics rules — including golf, ski and paintball outings; meals and drinks; and tickets to a Toby Keith concert, a Houston Texans football game and a Colorado Rockies baseball game.

The investigation also concluded that several of the officials “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”

And some more:

The report also detailed cozy relationships between energy companies and other officials in the royalty-in-kind program office. Some 19 officials — a third of the staff — took gifts from oil and gas executives, some with “prodigious frequency,” it said.

On one occasion in 2002, the report said, two of the officials who marketed taxpayers’ oil got so drunk at a daytime golfing event sponsored by Shell that they could not drive to their hotels and were put up in Shell-provided lodging. Two female employees “engaged in brief sexual relationships with industry contacts,” the reports’ cover memo said, adding that “sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms’ length.”

It's quite an astonishing report. One part especially stood out to me. This line from the New York Times story:

One of the reports says that the officials viewed themselves as exempt from those limits, indulging themselves in the expense-account-fueled world of oil and gas executives.

Made me wonder, is this how oil company executives behave?

We've got our fair share of them here. Can anyone provide us with some insight?

Senate sludge meeting abruptly canceled

A U.S. Senate Committee briefing on the safety and science of land applying sewage sludge this morning was canceled at the last minute.

Staff for the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, chaired by our own Sen. Barbara Boxer, said the hearing was called off after the committee learned late last night of a legal issue one of the witnesses is involved in related to sludge. Staff said the meeting was called off to ensure the focus of the hearing was the U.S. EPA's sludge spreading program and not a particular legal case.

The cancellation comes after another last-minute switch earlier this week when committee Democrats downgraded a planned hearing on the issue to a briefing. The focus of the briefing was to be the science and safety issues related to EPA's sludge program.

EPA had declined to participate, however.

Committee staff said a briefing or hearing will be rescheduled for next year.

High-speed rail: will you vote for it?

Looks like the state's proposed bullet train -- which voters will weigh in on this November -- is aiming to be pollution-free. I'll copy the press release I just received below.

But it brings me to a different question: will you vote to approve funding for the bullet train?

Proposition 1A will appear on the Nov. 4 ballot seeking voter approval for $10 billion in bond sales to start construction of the rail system, which would eventually zip from San Francisco to San Diego in about 4 hours. Oh, and there would be a stop in Bakersfield.

(Bakersfield to LA would take under and hour, and Bakersfield to San Francisco would be about 2 hours.)

The California High-Speed Rail Authority estimates it would cost about $40 to $45 billion to build the project over 20 years, with construction starting as soon as 2011. Additional funding would come from the federal government and public/private partnerships.

Today's press release:

California High-Speed Rail Authority Determines Train System Is Capable of Pollution-Free Operation
Zero Emissions Called Well Within Capabilities

San Diego, CA–A leading energy specialist has reported to the California High-Speed Rail Authority that the state's proposed high-speed train system can run with zero greenhouse gas emissions. The zero emissions strategy report was presented by Navigant Consulting Inc, a leading consultant on the energy, electric power and natural gas industries at the Authority's most recent board meeting held in San Diego. At the meeting, the Board adopted a renewable energy/zero emissions strategy for the high-speed train project.

Researchers noted that the train system is expected to use 3,380 Gigawatt hours a year of energy to transport 94 million passengers by 2030. According to their findings, generating this amount of energy from renewable sources is “well within the capabilities of the state.” This amount represents one percent of the state’s electrical load, or about three and a half days worth of electricity consumed throughout the state.

“Integrating renewable energy into the high-speed train project would be neither cost- nor resource- prohibitive and would be well in line with the more sustainable future that California is trying to ensure for itself. The benefits in this regard are clear and, with several avenues to ‘green’ the train, the CHSRA could achieve the goal of low-cost, efficient and clean travel," according to the Navigant report.

“We’ve always known that electric high-speed trains represent a tremendous opportunity to meet greenhouse gas reduction goals by removing cars from the road and by slowing demand for additional air travel,” said Judge Quentin L. Kopp, Chairman of the High-Speed Rail Authority. “But today, we welcome the news that this train is even greener, in that it can be powered with none of the emissions that cause global warming.”

For more information about the zero emissions strategy, please visit www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov
(“The Use of Renewable Energy Sources to Provide Power to California High-Speed Rail.”)

Tell your sludge story

A group calling for an end to the land application of sewage sludge is collecting stories from people who have been affected by the practice in their community.

Their stories will be submitted to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which had planned to hold a hearing Thursday to look into the safety of land applying sludge. As of today, it's unclear if the hearing will still take place.

"We want the committee to hear stories directly from people who are being adversely impacted by land application," said Laura Orlando, a Boston University public health professor and member of the ReSource Institute for Low Entropy Systems, a non-profit based in Boston that works on sanitation and water quality issues.

"We want them to hear from people out there who live near this, who smell these trucks, and who've tried to stop this practice. We want to get the story out there that people around the country are suffering from this practice of disposing sewage sludge on land."

The group wants Congress to declare an immediate moratorium on land application of sludge. They say new science on sludge shows that land application is not the safe practice that federal regulators say it is.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has promoted land application of sludge as the best disposal option for leftover sewage waste since it banned dumping the material into oceans three decades ago.

The Senate committee's investigation into sewage sludge was called for by Sen. Barbara Boxer, among others, earlier this year following several news stories that raised questions about the safety of the land application.

In February, a federal judge ordered the Agriculture Department to compensate a Georgia farmer whose land and animals had been poisoned by free sludge form a local wastewater treatment plant. In his ruling, the judge in the case raised questions about the reliability of data used by federal environmental officials to endorse the practice of land applying sludge, calling it "unreliable, incomplete, and in some cases, fudged."

In April, the Associated Press reported on a government-funded study that spread sludge in the backyard of some low-income homes in Baltimore to test whether it was effective in protecting children from lead-poisoning in the soil. While questions existed about the safety of human exposure to sludge, the participants in the study were never informed of those risks, the AP reported.

As of Monday morning it was unclear if the hearing will still take place. The committee has not posted the hearing on its Web site. Orlando said the sludge industry has been pressuring some committee members not to go forward with hearing.

So far, my calls to the committee's office and to Boxer's office have not been returned.

I'll keep you updated on what I hear.

Public workshops on Big West expansion

Just wanted to mention that the Kern County Planning Department has scheduled three public workshops on the environmental impact report for the Big West of California refinery. The first is tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. at Discovery Elementary School, 7500 Vaquero Ave. The other two meetings are also 6 to 8 p.m. on:

Tuesday, Sept. 9 at Caroline Harris Elementary School, 4110 Garnsey Lane
Tuesday Sept. 16 at Columbia Elementary School, 703 Mondavi Way

The workshops are intended to get feedback from the community on the expansion, though I imagine many people attending will simply want to ask questions, considering that the environmental report was thousands of pages long.

If you've followed news about the expansion, you know there's been great community interest in this project primarily because Big West's original plans called for the use of large quantities of a new toxic chemical.

The revised environmental report released a couple months ago was significant in that it it contained an alternative way to build the expansion without using the chemical. This alternative was also described as the "environmentally superior" project, because it would create less air pollution, greenhouse gases and odor than the company's initial project.

It will be interesting to see what happens at these meetings. It's been hard to gage public response to the alternative presented in the environmental report so far.

Anyone planning to go?

Who uses Amtrak?

Does anyone every take the Amtrak train from Bakersfield? If so, where to?

Amtrak says ridership on its San Joaquin route (which runs from Bakersfield to Stockton, then onto either Oakland or Sacramento) is up 32 percent this July over the previous year.

But from what I can tell, the options for Amtrak travel out of Bakersfield are pretty limited. You can basically go up the valley on the San Joaquin route. But if you want to get anywhere else, you're looking at spending some time on a bus. There's no train service from Bakersfield to Los Angeles or Las Vegas; it's bus only.

Taking Amtrak to Monterey means four hours on the train then another four hours on two separate buses. San Luis Obispo and Yosemite aren't much better.

To get to San Francisco, you take the train to Emeryville (6 hours), and then catch a bus into San Francisco (40 minutes).

Total travel time: 6 hours 40 minutes

Roundtrip ticket cost: about $120

Clearly this is better than the $383 being charged for United Airline flights from Meadows Field to San Francisco. But driving seems to be the best option for many of these destinations.

I just drove to San Francisco in my Ford Focus a couple weeks ago. It took about 4.5 hours each way and cost me about $85 in gas.

Maybe commuters use Amtrak to go to Fresno? Anyone know who these elusive train riders are and where they're going?

Olympic venues and sustainability

What happens to Olympic venues like the stunning Bird's Nest and sleek Water Cube when the Olympics end?

There's a couple interesting articles surfacing on this issue that highlight the disrepair, neglect and sad ending that's come to some of the buildings from previous Olympics, and how that's not expected to happen in China.

Slate reports that some of the buildings from the 2004 Athens Games are now occupied by squatters while others a sucking up millions in public funds for costly maintenance. It lists the conversion of a building built for the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid to a prison as one of the worst examples of reuse.

China, however, is being hailed for its plans to continue using most of the 33 newly constructed or renovated venues around Beijing, according to this AFP report. The story goes on to note that usability and sustainability of buildings are now key requirements in the Olympic host city bidding process.

Then there's this Yahoo! Sports article that elaborates more on the situation in Athens, where reporter Martin Rogers explains that "The Olympics are now almost a dirty word in Athens, most regularly used by politicians who use the issue of decay as a powerful campaigning point."

As for Beijing, he says, "there is a legacy of pride, and a spectacular standard of responsible spending for future hosts to uphold."

Could you buy nothing new for a month? A year?

Think you could go a month without out buying anything new -- no new clothes, shoes, books, etc.?

How about a year? How about forever?

I've been reading recently about several movements out there aimed at reducing personal consumption as a way to lessen one's environmental footprint, save money and simplify life.

By now, you've likely heard of the The Compact, an idea that took root in San Francisco about two years ago in which participants vow to buy nothing new for a year. The rules advocate buying used and borrowing needed items and using locally-owned businesses for services such as plumbing, car repairs and house cleaning.
"Nothing but necessities" was a challenge posed to MSN Money readers in February to stop spending for a month. "The point wasn't just to save money. It was also a way of examining our relationship with money," wrote MSN columnist and personal finance author Liz Pulliam Weston, who came up with the challenge. The experiment had no rules on what was considered essential and not, but most readers found their biggest non-essential spending areas were eating out and new clothes.
Voluntary Simplicity, also called Simple Living, is a more longterm approach that advocates a "less is more" lifestyle. The basic idea is to determine "what is important, or 'enough,' for you, and discarding the rest," according to the SimpleLivingNetwork. A main tenant is to break the cycle of needing money to buy more things that bring little personal satisfaction or enrichment.

I have not given any of these a shot myself but I did have an experience recently that left me pondering my consumption habits. While browsing through a local consignment shop, I came across stunning dress that fit perfectly and cost just $30. Just months before I went through a frustrating process while shopping for a dress for an event I had to attend. Everything was either way over-priced or so cheaply made it didn't even seem worth buying. As I left the consignment shop that day, I felt great. I hadn't overspent, I was able to "reuse" something and I had a great new dress.

I'm curious to know if there's any local Compactors out there or people who have also been wrestling with their own consumption habits? Any tips, ideas, thoughts?

Move over monster trucks, smart car has arrived

I saw my first 'smart car' while on vacation with my family in Germany in 2000. My brother and I still laugh at the picture we took of my 6-foot-4 dad hovering over the little thing with a "what the heck" grimace on his face.

(By the way, that's not dad in the picture. That's Rick Masters, a local smart car owner.)

Now, smart cars are here. The European-made, micro-car debuted in the United States this year and already I've seen three in Bakersfield. After following one owner to her home to (she actually was quite nice about being followed but declined my interview request), we managed to track down another one for our story today. (I have to say, too, as small as these cars are, I had trouble in my Ford Focus trying to keep up with that lady.)

The car is certainly cute -- you can't deny that -- the price is decent and the gas mileage is pretty good. But some say the two-seater's practicality may not win out here. For the same price (about $12,000 to $13,000), you can get a Kia Rio or Toyota Yaris with more space and nearly the same gas mileage.

If you're in the market for a new, fuel-efficient vehicle, would buy a smart car?

New option in refinery expansion

Controversy over the Big West refinery expansion has focused on one thing in recent weeks: which toxic chemical would be safest, modified HF or sulfuric acid.

But a revised environmental report out Friday contained a bit of a surprise.

How about neither?

The 3,000 page report examines a wide range of impacts on everything from wildlife to odors and traffic. But in a section called "alternatives" it also describes a process that would allow Big West to boost its diesel and gasoline output while allaying community concerns about hazardous chemicals.

The alternative appears to be a sound compromise that would allow the expansion to move forward while assuring the surrounding community there will be no new dangers from toxic chemicals.

Big West wasn't available to comment on the alternative Friday but said they will discuss it Monday.

You can read the section on alternatives by downloading the Refinery Alternatives PDF on this page. Scroll down a bit and it's on the left beneath the 'PDFs' heading.

Anyone think this option will get some traction? Or do you expect the issue to remain polarized between sulfuric acid and modified hydrofluoric acid?