Comments Montana Green has made

  • Grist got snookered on Schweitzer

    Wow, Grist sure missed the target on this call.  Brian Schweitzer, Montana's Governor, came into office full of sound and fury about his "New Day" in which corporate lobbyists would no longer call the shots in Montana.  Sounds good, ehh?  But within ONE YEAR of his election, the New Day was gone and we were right back to the corporate exploitation schemes that brought us the Berkeley Pit, the Anaconda Smelter, and the 100-mile long Clark Fork River Superfund site, the largest single site in the U.S.

    Not only does Schweitzer support a mine under the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area, he has singlehandedly crafted the Energy Collar he wants to clamp around Montana's neck.

    Let's see, where to start?  OK, how's about with his phony and failed coal-to-liquids schemes?  Boasting (and he's real good at that) about the thousands of jobs and millions of dollars that would flow to the state from the CTL projects is what Brian is good at.  Ignoring the problems associated with mining another third more coal just for the sequestration energy consumption needs, where the massive amounts of water to turn coal into liquid fuels would come from in this arid area, and the unproven technology of large-scale, long-term carbon sequestration -- well, let's just say Schweitzer simply glosses over those and flails anyone who questions turning Montana into a national energy colony as members of the Flat Earth Society.  And guess what?  So far no a single gallon of coal-to-liquids fuel has been produced in Montana and none in the foreseeable future, either.

    But wait, there's more.  How's this for a "green" scheme?  Schweitzer wants to import 1,000 tons of CO2 and other stack gases a day from a dirty, coal-fired power plant in Canada and bury them under Montana's northern plains where no one has any idea what will happen.  Will the industrial waste gasses displace or permanently pollute the precious groundwater in this arid area? No one knows.  Will they stay in the ground or erupt in a potentially catastrophic leak?  No one knows.  We do know that there are fault lines through the storage area, so any kind of "permanence" is pure speculation.

    Or how about this for Mr. Clean and Green: Under Schweitzer, the state Department of Environmental Quality has issued operating permits for gravel pits with NO ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW despite the potential for widespread groundwater and air pollution, something which was not done even under the 16 years of Republican governors preceding him.

    Or how about wilderness?  In the new Omnibus Wilderness Bill Montana, with 6 million acres of roadless lands, got not ONE acre of new wilderness and Gov Schweitzer uttered not ONE word.  In fact, he has completely ignored the issue of new wilderness in Montana and continues to do so.  Some "green" leadership.

    It should be widely known that Schweitzer uses his bully pulpit to attack any environmentalists who happen to disagree with his wholesale energy development schemes.  The best example is the Montana Environmental Information Center, one of the state's oldest and most effective environmental organizations.  When MEIC challenged Schweitzer, this so-called "green" governor promised that he would have the organization "meeting in a phone booth" in the near future.

    What it boils down to is that Grist blew it on this call.  You got it right that Schweitzer has been "talking up" clean energy, but completely wrong as far as "staring down global warming" goes.  The proof is in the pudding that Schweitzer has served up -- he brags that Montana's production of oil and gas has boomed (that ain't "green" Grist), that we have re-started a coal mine in Roundup (to ship coal to dirty coal-fired power plants in the Mid-West), and his efforts to bring industrial waste gases to bury in Montana.  Most of the "green" energy projects, such as the large Judith Basin wind project, were started before Schweitzer even took office, although he claims the increase in "green energy" as his accomplishment.

    In the meantime, the Montana Legislature is meeting right now and pushing forward a whole host of terrible bills, sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats, that gut the state's primary environmental laws, prevent appeals to state permits, and cut citizens out of the process -- all to help Schweitzer's energy development plans go forward without any interference from we, the people, who live here.

    Time for Grist to look before it leaps -- or at least review your own records on Schweitzer by using your own search engine.  As you'll see, there are plenty of posts contesting Schweitzer's "green-ness" on your website (for at least 3 years!) and Grist should have given those some credence before endorsing this particular Coal Cowboy.  On Read about six couples who turned their eco-love into an eco-venture ... posted 9 months ago 15 Responses

  • Promises, promises

    Just curious about the promises made by the coal industry to shut down two Michigan plants in 2012 and to support 25 by 25 legislation in Wisconsin.  Having been an environmental lobbyist in Montana for more than 20 years, I've seen industry promises on legislation before -- and most of them go the way of a wink and nod and lo and behold, the bill mysteriously dies or is grievously amended despite the industry "support."

    Seriously, how will the Sierra Club hold the utilities to their promise to close down those plants?  Do they have a written contractual agreement with millions in penalties if they don't close them?  Given the current energy mania in the country, why oh why would the Sierra Club expect that, four years from now, they won't be told "we can't close these plants -- it would only drive up energy costs to consumers?"

    Industry promises like these are easy to make and even easier to break due to "changing conditions."

    But I'd be interested to see just how solid and binding these "agreements" are -- as in, do you folks have anything in writing you'd be willing to post?On Two coal plants given go-ahead by green groups after concessions negotiated posted 1 year, 3 months ago 5 Responses

  • Lame Democrats

    Can anyone believe this is the best we can get out of our lame Democratic candidates for president DURING THE PRIMARY!  I mean, the primary is when they're supposed to put forth their most progressive agenda to duke it out for support from Democrats -- not industry.  

    We all know that when the primary is over the winner will sashay to the right, move to the middle, become more "centrist" to pick up the mysterious "swing voters" that can carry the day.

    But not the Democrats -- oh no.  Despite the fact they are following the most disastrous, disliked, and dishonest president in history, are they staking out positions that could possibly save the world for future generations?  No, they are not.  Instead, they are parroting the energy industry mantra of "more coal."  

    Perhaps Hillary and Obama will fly over the wasteland of strip mines in Southeastern Montana on their way here for their joint April 5th appearance in Butte.  If so, it would be good to have each of them tell us exactly how they intend to produce the mythological energy source known as "clean coal."  After 30 years of mining, only 2 percent of Montana's coal mines have been fully reclaimed.  In the meantime, coalbed methane extraction is draining the aquifers, dumping salty water on the land, and dooming sustainable ranches and farms to a bleak future.  Coal, as it happens, is a major water-bearing geological strata here in Montana and when they interrupt it by mining, they disrupt the entire hydrological system.  We know, we're living with it and have been for years.

    When candidates like Hillary and Obama, who are supposed to be so "progressive," start pimping for Peabody, it only reaffirms the stark reality that Congress is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big energy and will swallow the industry rap hook, line and sinker while leaving the rest of us gasping for air. On Clinton and Obama boost coal in West Virginia posted 1 year, 8 months ago 2 Responses

  • Problems, problems

    Montana's Governor Brian Schweitzer glibly outlines the "problems" with solar and wind in an effort to somehow equate them to the very real problem of using antiquated fossil fuels like coal, but that's bogus.  Give us the same subsidies as the coal industry gets and suddenly, no problem with solar or wind.  Our "problem" in many ways is that our governor won a tight election running as a "new day" candidate but then turned around, much to the surprise of many of his supporters, and spent almost his entire first term aggressively pushing coal development under the phony cover of "clean coal."

    There is no clean coal, as Sen. Harry Reid said this week, and everyone knows it.  Not only is there no clean way to use coal, there definitely is no clean way to mine it.  Of Montana's existing coal stripmines, only 2 percent have been fully reclaimed after more than 30 years of operation.  

    Coal's got problems, alright, and far too many of them are the people and corporations that continue to push for its development, ignoring the global warming reality staring us in the face.

    Fossil fuels are for fossil fools.  On Governors are of varying minds when it comes to clean energy posted 1 year, 9 months ago 2 Responses