Rachel Carson, Mass Murderer?
The creation of an anti-environmental myth

By Aaron Swartz
From Extra!
2007

Sometimes you find mass murderers in the most unlikely places. Take Rachel Carson. She was, by all accounts, a mild-mannered writer for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—hardly a sociopath’s breeding ground. And yet, according to many in the media, Carson has more blood on her hands than Hitler.

The problems started in the 1940s, when Carson left the Service to begin writing full-time. In 1962, she published a series of articles in the New Yorker, resulting in the book Silent Spring—widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. The book discussed how pesticides and pollutants moved up the food chain, threatening the ecosystems for many animals, especially birds. Without them, it warned, we might face the title’s silent spring.

Farmers used vast quantities of DDT to protect their crops against insects—80 million pounds were sprayed in 1959 alone—but from there it quickly climbed up the food chain. Bald eagles, eating fish that had concentrated DDT in their tissues, headed toward extinction. Humans, likewise accumulating DDT in our systems, appeared to get cancer as a result. Mothers passed the chemical on to their children through breast milk. Silent Spring drew attention to these concerns and, in 1972, the resulting movement succeeded in getting DDT banned in the U.S.—a ban that later spread to other nations.

And that, according to Carson’s critics, is where the trouble started. DDT had been sprayed heavily on houses in developing countries to protect against malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Without it, malaria rates in developing countries skyrocketed. Over 1 million people die from it each year.

To the critics, the solution seems simple: Forget Carson’s emotional arguments about dead birds and start spraying DDT again so we can save human lives.

Worse than Hitler?
“What the World Needs Now Is DDT” asserted the headline of a lengthy feature in the New York Times Magazine (4/11/04). “No one concerned about the environmental damage of DDT set out to kill African children,” reporter Tina Rosenberg generously allowed. Nonethe-less, “Silent Spring is now killing African children because of its persistence in the public mind.”

It’s a common theme—echoed by two more articles in the Times by the same author (3/29/06, 10/5/06), and by Times columnists Nicholas Kristof (3/12/05) and John Tierney (6/05/07). The same refrain appears in a Washington Post op-ed by columnist Sebastian Mallaby, gleefully headlined “Look Who’s Ignoring Science Now” (10/09/05). And again in the Baltimore Sun (“Ms. Carson’s views [came] at a cost of many thousands of lives worldwide”—5/27/07), New York Sun (“millions of Africans died . . . thanks to Rachel Carson’s junk science classic”—4/21/06), the Hill (“millions die on the altar of politically correct ideologies”—11/02/05), San Francisco Examiner (“Carson was wrong, and millions of people continue to pay the price”—5/28/07) and Wall Street Journal (“environmental controls were more important than the lives of human beings”—2/21/07).

Even novelists have gotten in on the game. “Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler, Ted,” explains a character in Michael Crichton’s 2004 bestseller, State of Fear (p. 487). “[DDT] was so safe you could eat it.” That fictional comment not only inspired a column on the same theme in Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald (6/18/05), it led Senator James Inhofe (R-Ok.) to invite Crichton and Dr. Donald R. Roberts, a longtime pro-DDT activist, to testify before the Senate Committee on Environ-ment and Public Works.

But other attacks only seem like fiction. A web page on junkscience.com features a live Malaria Death Clock next to a photo of Rachel Carson, holding her responsible for more deaths than malaria has caused in total. (“DDT allows [Africans to] climb out of the poverty/subsistence hole in which ‘caring greens’ apparently wish to keep them trapped,” it helpfully explains.) And a new website from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, RachelWasWrong.org, features photos of deceased African children along the side of every page.

Developing resistance
At one level, these articles send a comforting message to the developed world: Saving African children is easy. We don’t need to build large aid programs or fund major health initiatives, let alone develop Third-World infrastructure or think about larger issues of fairness. No, to save African lives from malaria, we just need to put our wallets away and work to stop the evil environmentalists. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy.

For one thing, there is no global DDT ban. DDT is indeed banned in the U.S., but malaria isn’t exactly a pressing issue here. If it ever were, the ban contains an exception for matters of public health. Meanwhile, it’s perfectly legal—and indeed, used—in many other countries: 10 out of the 17 African nations that currently conduct indoor spraying use DDT (New York Times, 9/16/06).

DDT use has decreased enormously, but not because of a ban. The real reason is simple, although not one conservatives are particularly fond of: evolution. Mosquito populations rapidly develop resistance to DDT, creating enzymes to detoxify it, modifying their nervous systems to avoid its effects, and avoiding areas where DDT is sprayed — and recent research finds that that resistance continues to spread even after DDT spraying has stopped, lowering the effectiveness not only of DDT but also other pesticides (Current Biology, 8/9/05).

“No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored,” Carson wrote in Silent Spring. “The question that has now urgently presented itself is whether it is either wise or responsible to attack the problem by methods that are rapidly making it worse. . . . Resistance to insecticides by mosquitoes . . . has surged upwards at an astounding rate.”

Unfortunately, her words were ignored. Africa didn’t cut back on pesticides because, through a system called the “Industry Cooperative Program,” the pesticide companies themselves got to participate in the United Nations agency that provided advice on pest control. Not surprisingly, it continued to recommend significant pesticide usage.

When Silent Spring came out in 1962, it seemed as if this strategy was working. To take the most extreme case, Sri Lanka counted only 17 cases of malaria in 1963. But by 1969, things had once again gotten out of hand: 537,700 cases were counted. Naturally, the rise had many causes: Political and financial pressure led to cutbacks on spraying, stockpiles of supplies had been used up, low rainfall and high temperatures encouraged mosquitoes, a backlog of diagnostic tests to detect malaria was processed and testing standards became more stringent. But even with renewed effort, the problem did not go away.

Records uncovered by entomologist Andrew Spielman hint at why (Mosquito, p. 177). For years, Sri Lanka had run test programs to verify DDT’s effectiveness at killing mosquitoes. But halfway through the program, their standards were dramatically lowered. “Though the reason was not recorded,” Spielman writes, “it was obvious that some mosquitoes were developing resistance and the change was made to justify continued spraying.”

But further spraying led only to further resistance, and the problem became much harder to control. DDT use was scaled back and other pesticides were introduced—more cautiously this time—but the epidemic was never again brought under control, with the deadly legacy that continues to this day.
Instead of apologizing, the chemical companies went on the attack. They funded front groups and think tanks to claim the epidemic started because countries “stopped” using their products. In their version of the story, environmentalists forced Africans to stop using DDT, causing the increase in malaria. “It’s like a hit-and-run driver who, instead of admitting responsibility for the accident, frames the person who tried to prevent the accident,” complains Tim Lambert, whose weblog, Deltoid, tracks the DDT myth and other scientific misinformation in the media.

Front and center
Perhaps the most vocal group spreading this story is Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM). Founded in 2000 by Roger Bate, an economist at various right-wing think tanks, AFM has run a major PR campaign to push the pro-DDT story, publishing scores of op-eds and appearing in dozens of articles each year. Bate and his partner Richard Tren even published a book laying out their alternate history of DDT: When Politics Kills: Malaria and the DDT Story.

A funding pitch uncovered by blogger Eli Rabbett shows Bate’s thinking when he first started the project. “The environmental movement has been successful in most of its campaigns as it has been ‘politically correct,’” he explained (Tobacco Archives, 09/98). What the anti-environmental movement needs is something with “the correct blend of political correctness ( . . . oppressed blacks) and arguments (eco-imperialism [is] undermining their future).” That something, Bate proposed, was DDT.

In an interview, Bate said that his motivation had changed after years of working on the issue of malaria. “I think my position has mellowed, perhaps with age,” he told Extra!. “[I have] gone from being probably historically anti-environmental to being very much pro–combating malaria now.” He pointed to the work he’d done making sure money to fight malaria was spent properly, including a study he co-authored in the respected medical journal the Lancet (7/15/06) on dishonest accounting at the World Bank. He insisted that he wasn’t simply pro-DDT, but instead was willing to support whatever the evidence showed worked. And he flatly denied that AFM had ever received money from tobacco, pharmaceutical or chemical companies.

Still, AFM has very much followed the plan Bate laid out in his original funding pitch to corporations: First, create “the intellectual arguments to make our case,” then “disseminate these arguments to people in [developing countries]” who can make convincing spokespeople, and then “promote these arguments . . . in the West.” The penultimate page gives another hint that stopping malaria isn’t the primary goal: “Is the DDT problem still relevant?” is listed as an “intellectual issue to be resolved”—once they got funding. (When asked for comment on this, Bate became upset and changed the subject.)

Bate continues to insist that resistance isn’t much of an issue, because its primary effect is to keep mosquitoes away from DDT-covered areas altogether. Instead he claims “resistance was a useful device by which it was easy to pull the plug” on an anti-malaria campaign that was failing because of administrative incompetence. “You’re not likely to see an aid agency [admit this],” he said when asked for evidence. “I’m not sure what you want me to say. If you read enough of the literature, you get that strong impression.” But few experts aside from those affiliated with AFM seem to have gotten the same impression.

DDT’s dangers
These myths can have serious consequences. For one thing, despite what is claimed by the right, DDT itself is quite harmful. Studies have suggested that prenatal exposure to DDT leads to significant decreases in mental and physical functioning among young children, with the problems becoming more severe when the exposure is more serious (American Journal of Epidemiology, 9/12/06; Pediatrics, 7/1/06), while the EPA classifies it as a probable human carcinogen.

For another, resistance is deadly. Not only has DDT’s overuse made it ineffective, but, as noted, it has led mosquitoes to evolve “cross-resistance”: resistance not only to DDT but also to other insecticides, including those with less dangerous environmental effects.

And perhaps most importantly, the pro-DDT line is a vast distraction. There are numerous other techniques for dealing with malaria: alternative insecticides, bed nets and a combination of drugs called artemisinin-based combination therapy, or ACT. ACT actually kills the malaria parasite fast, allowing the patient a quick recovery, and has a success rate of 95 percent (World Health Organization, 2001). Rollouts of ACT in other countries have slashed malaria rates by 80 to 97 percent (Washington Monthly, 7/06).

But such techniques require money and wealthy nations are hesitant to give it, especially when they think they can just avoid the whole problem by unbanning DDT. “DDT has become a fetish,” says Allan Schapira, a former senior member of the malaria team at the World Health Organization (Washington Monthly, 7/06). “You have people advocating DDT as if it’s the only insecticide that works against malaria, as if DDT would solve all problems, which is obviously absolutely unrealistic.”

As a result, senators and their staff insist that DDT is all that’s necessary. And the new director of WHO’s malaria program, Arata Kochi, kicked off his tenure by telling the malaria team that they were “stupid” and issuing an announcement that “forcefully endorsed wider use of the insecticide DDT” while a representative of the Bush administration stood by his side. Half his staff resigned in response (New York Times, 9/16/06).

There are genuine issues with current malaria control programs: incompetent administration, misuse of funds, outdated techniques, a lack of funding and concern. And, much to their credit, many on the right have drawn attention to these problems. Africa Fighting Malaria has frequently called for more effective monitoring, and conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Ok.) has used his influence to fight corruption in anti-malaria programs.

But the same Tom Coburn recently held up a bill honoring the 100th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s birth on the grounds that “millions of people . . . died because governments bought into Carson’s junk science claims about DDT” (Raw Story, 5/22/07). Even AFM’s Bate was quoted as finding this a bit too much, pointing out that Carson died in 1964, just two years after Silent Spring was published (Washington Post, 5/23/07). But apparently getting a few digs in at the environmental movement is just too hard for conservatives to resist.



B’nai Brith Uses Human Rights Complaint to Squelch Critcism of Israel

By Sid Shniad

From Canadian Dimension Magazine
2007

Harry Abrams, B.C. representative for B’nai Brith, has filed a human-rights complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against Peace, Earth and Justice, alleging that the

Victoria-based website, its editors, manager and director “contrive to promote ongoing hatred affecting persons identifiable as Jews and/or as citizens of Israel.”

On the basis of the complaint, the website’s publisher has removed eighteen articles allegedly containing anti-Semitic material pending the outcome of an inquiry.

According to Abrams, a Victoria businessman, the complaint was filed because the website ran articles putting forth, “The idea that Israel has no right to exist or that Israel is an apartheid state.” He says other Canadian websites are being examined for possible complaints before the commission. “We have to show that Canadian law extends to the Internet as well as the conventional printed word,” he explains.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission says it is required to address any complaint alleging a violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Articles on the website, www.pej.org, discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and last summer’s war in Lebanon. Some question Israel’s right to exist — as a Jewish state. Others compare Israeli treatment of Palestinians with the Nazi persecution of Jews. One article, entitled “We Should Nuke Israel,” spoofs a column that ran in the Toronto Star, which argued for a tactical strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The director of the legal department of B’nai Brith Canada, which is a party to Abrams’ complaint, said the articles “are virulently anti-Israel to the point that they meet the criteria of crossing the line of legitimate criticism of the state straight into anti-Semitism.”

PEJ News, which has been going since 1996, provides articles and on-line discussions of peace, environment and justice issues written by its own and other writers. The site claims a monthly readership of 500,000.

Until January, 2007, Chris Cook was the site’s senior editor. At that time, he left to set up www.pacificfreepress.com, where he is managing editor. Cook is outraged at the role played by the mainstream media in dealing with Israel and Palestine.

“The situation in Palestine worsens by the hour,” he says, “while the corporate and state media in Canada do nothing. In fact, they do less than nothing. If they were to refrain from coverage, at least Canadians wouldn’t be subject to the distortion

of facts and outright lies fed to the hotel-based journalists in Jerusalem by the Israel Defense Forces and relayed verbatim into their homes,” Cook insists.

He is outraged by what has happened in Victoria. “B’nai Brith, through their representative Harry Abrams, has smeared me and those responsible for running www.pej.org, charging that our attempts to inform both Canada and the broader world of the reality of the situation facing Palestinian and Lebanese civilians at the hands of the Israeli regime are tantamount to anti-Semitism. In a tactic that has worked for them before, they are conflating criticism of the State of Israel with the proliferation of racist material — something that is legally actionable in Canada. Clearly their goal is to stifle honest debate.”

In Cook’s view, “the most insidious aspect to this stratagem is the claim made by B’nai Brith and other, similar organizations to speak on behalf of all Canadian Jews when it comes to the subject of Israel. I know this to be patently false. There is a growing chorus among Jews in Canada and abroad against both the policies of the state of Israel, and the neocons and Zionists who would cast themselves in the role of official Jewish spokespersons.”

The Canadian Jewish Congress recently refused membership to the dissident Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians, a coalition of Canadian Jews who are critical of the policies of the Israeli government toward the Palestinians, and who support the demand to end the occupation. This move, together with the filing of this suit by B’nai Brith, indicate that Canada’s Zionist organizations are circling the wagons in unquestioning support of Israel.

As the crisis in the region deepens, it is becoming increasingly important for progressives in Canada to raise their voices in defiance of attempts to suppress freedom of speech — and on behalf of a just settlement that addresses the issues of occupation, the discrimination experienced by Palestinian citizens of Israel, resettlement of Palestinian refugees who were displaced from their homes, and compensation for those who are unwilling or unable to relocate.

Samples from the 18 Offending Articles
Kurt Nimmo, “Sacking Livingstone: The Mayor, the Reporter, the Nazi Concentration Camp Guard, and the Board of Deputies of British Jews,” February 28, 2006
Nimmo does not hold back in attacking Zionism. He writes, “Nothing will be allowed to stand in the way of the Holocaust Orthodoxy, in effect an immensely profitable shake down operation for Israel … and the Zionist master plan to decimate Muslim society and culture.”

James Petras, “Condemnation’s Necessity,” December 25, 2006
Petras writes, “Jewish agencies … see defense of Israel as their number-one goal, trumping all other items on the agenda.” He acknowledges, “Many Jewish writers, including those who are somewhat critical of Israel, have raised pointed questions about our critique of the Zionist power configuration in the United States and what they wrongly claim are our singular harsh critique of the state of Israel.”

Virginia Tilley, “Apartheid Israel,” December 6, 2006“The Palestinians’ original sin — the ‘failing’ has consigned them collectively to expulsion, dispossession, exile, and a cruel and humiliating occupation — is … that they are not Jewish.”

Virginia Tilley, “Boycott Now!”, August 5, 2006
Tilley points to “specific crimes: Israel’s continual attacks on Palestinian civilians; its casual disdain for the Palestinian civilian lives ‘accidentally’ destroyed in its assassinations and bombings; its deliberate ruin of the Palestinians’ economic and social conditions; its continuing annexation and dismemberment of Palestinian land; its torture of prisoners; its contempt for UN resolutions and international law; and especially, its refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland.” She adds, “[O]pen official racism and its attendant viol- ence casts Israel into the ranks of pariah states.”

Kathleen Christison, “Atrocities in the Promised Land,” July 17, 2006
“A nation that mandates the primacy of one ethnicity or religion over all others will eventually become psychologically dysfunctional. Narcissistically obsessed with its own image, it must strive to maintain its racial superiority at all costs and will inevitably come to view any resistance to this imagined superiority as an existential threat.”

Chris Hedges, “Worse than Apartheid,” December 23, 2006
Hedges reports, “Israel has rounded up hundreds of Palestinians, destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, including its electrical power system and key roads and bridges, carried out huge land confiscations, demolished homes and plunged families into a crisis that has caused widespread poverty and malnutrition.” Hedges, however, is no ideologue of the elected Palestinian party Hamas, calling its politics “repugnant.” He asks, though, how Israeli terrorism can “curb suicide attacks and foster peace? Do [Israeli Jews] not see that the rest of the Middle East watches the slaughter in horror and rage?”.



Plastic Into Hope — and Art

From Eco-Art.com

Diners at the food court in Montreal's Eaton Centre can't miss the message to please recycle their plastic water bottles – there's a five-story sculpture made of them rising above their heads.

The mall has had a vision of reducing landfill-bound waste for some time, working with tenants for two years by recycling paper and cardboard used in its 175 stores and restaurants. For the 500,000 shoppers who visit the mall each week, there are reusable lunch sacks and separate containers for waste, glass, paper and metal in the food court, and they can drop off used cellphones and batteries at the information booth.

But research shows Quebecers recycle less than 9 percent of the plastic water bottles bought in the province. When Eaton Centre marketing director Zeina Barghout was looking for creative ways to increase recycling efforts, the idea of a visual reminder that was too huge to ignore was born. Why not collect all the water bottles discarded in the mall and transform them into a work of art right there in the food court, where it might make people think about where they were tossing their trash?

The materials were not hard to find: Since the beginning of July, 10 recycled plastic receptacles shaped like water drops have been placed around the shopping center. They carry the message of the project: "Drop by drop, transforming plastic into hope," and by the first week in October, had collected more than 25,000 bottles. Local artist-sculptor Phil Allard has transformed the trash into a translucent, snakelike sculpture that reaches up toward the domed atrium 160 feet above the food court.

"All of my work is based on recycling and recovery," Allard told the Montreal Gazette. "It's a question of using useless things to show people they don't need them in their lives. It's one thing to protest, another to create." To create the sculpture, Allard tied the bottles together with fishing line, then wrapped them in transparent plastic chicken wire, and attached more bottles to the wire. He's removed the labels from the bottles on the outside of the wire to let the sunlight from the atrium shine through.

Plans for the finished sculpture call for four 25 meter-long sections filled with up to 70,000 bottles. By the beginning of October, two sections were in place, and the third under construction. Barghout told Eco-Artware.com that visitors will find "a surprise at the top" of the completed work. The sculpture is place from Oct. 24 through mid-November — when the Christmas decorations go up, according to Barghout. Then all those plastic bottles are destined to be recycled. The mall’s efforts to raise awareness of plastic and other kinds of recycling will be ongoing.

U.N.: Tasers Are A Form Of Torture

From CBS News
2007

A United Nations committee said Friday that use of Taser weapons can be a form of torture, in violation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

Use of the electronic stun devices by police has been marked with a sudden rise in deaths - including four men in the United States and two in Canada within the last week. Canadian authorities are taking a second look at them, and in the United States, there is a wave of demands to ban them.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture referred Friday to the use of TaserX26 weapons which Portuguese police has acquired. An expert had testified to the committee that use of the weapons had "proven risks of harm or death."

"The use of TaserX26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and that in certain cases it could also cause death, as shown by several reliable studies and by certain cases that had happened after practical use," the committee said in a statement.

"Well, it means that it's a very serious thing," Amnesty International USA Executive Director Larry Cox told CBS Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen. "These are people that have seen torture around the world, all kinds of torture. So they don't use the word lightly."

Tasers have become increasingly controversial in the United States, particularly after several notorious cases where their use by police to disable suspects was questioned as being excessive. Especially disturbing is the fact that six adults died after being tased by police in the span of a week.

Last Sunday, in Frederick, Md., a sheriff's deputy trying to break up a late-night brawl tased 20-year-old Jarrel Grey. He died on the spot.

"I want to know what he did that was so bad," the victim's mother, Tanya James, said. "Did the deputy think that their life was in danger? Did he have a weapon?" The death came just weeks after Frederick police used a Taser to subdue a high school student.

Black leaders held a rally Tuesday calling for the department to ban Tasers, at least until there is a clear policy on how they are used. The NAACP says it appears the sheriff's office is using Tasers routinely, rather than as a weapon of last resort.

Also this week, in Jacksonville, Fla., in two separate cases two men died after being stunned. One suspect, who fled a car crash and tried to break into a nearby home, struggled with a policeman, prompting the officer to tase him three times. The man continued to fight, and tried to bite the officer, while he was being tased. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Another man died Tuesday after a Jacksonville officer pulled over his car. When the officer approached it, the man took off running. When the officer caught up with him, during a struggle, authorities say the officer used his Taser to subdue the suspect. After being placed in the back of the police car the suspect became unresponsive. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Last Sunday, in New Mexico, 20-year-old Jesse Saenz died after Raton police used a Taser to subdue him. Police say Saenz was struggling and fighting with them as they attempted to take him into custody. Saenz died after being transported to a county jail.

In Nova Scotia, a 45-year-old man who was jailed on assault charges jumped a counter and ran for the door as he was being booked. He died yesterday, about 30 hours after being shocked.

And in Vancouver, where Royal Candian Mounted Police have been criticized for their use of a Taser against an irate airline passenger at Vancouver Airport last month, 36-year-old Robert Knipstrom died in a hospital four days after police used a Taser, pepper spray and batons to subdue him.

Police earlier said Knipstrom was agitated, aggressive and combative with officers. The cause of death has yet to be determined. More than a dozen people have died in Canada after being hit by Tasers in the last four years.

The reported incidents this week did not have cameras documenting the use of the Tasers, but in British Columbia, a tourist's video camera recorded the death of a man tased twice while in custody at the Vancouver Airport last month.

That horrifying video shows Robert Dziekanski, a Polish man who spoke no English, become increasingly agitated. He was shocked twice, and then died. The stun guns were denounced at memorial rallies in Vancouver and Toronto for Dziekanski.

Among the 1,000 people at the Vancouver rally was Paul Pritchard, who shot the video of the confrontation at the city airport.

The crowd gave a hero's welcome to Pritchard, who said he "saw the life drain out of a man's face" and heard "blood-curdling screams."

A rally in front of the Ontario legislature in Toronto drew several hundred people, including Bob Rae, a Liberal candidate in the next federal election. Rae said the events leading up to Dziekanski's death must "never, ever be allowed to happen again."

The prominent - and sensational - reports of deaths following the use of Tasers has increased attention to their legitimacy, and prompted a bold defense by their manufacturer.

Taser International, based in Scottsdale, Az., released a statement following the Vancouver Airport incident saying no deaths have ever been definitively connected to what the company describes as: "the low-energy electrical discharge of the Taser." That's 50,000 volts.

"The video of the incident at the Vancouver airport indicates that the subject was continuing to fight well after the TASER application," Taser International said. "This continuing struggle could not be possible if the subject died as a result of the Taser device electrical current causing cardiac arrest. [Dziekanski's] continuing struggle is proof that the Taser device was not the cause of his death.

"Specifically in Canada, while previous incidents were widely reported in the media as 'Taser deaths,' the role of the Taser device has been cleared in every case to date," Taser said.

While the medical questions about causes of death are not resolved, Cox said this is precisely why more study is needed. "Nobody really knows exactly why these people are dying, we only know that people are dying after they're tasered," he said. "It's nearly 300 people who have died in the United States - they're tasered, and then they die.

"It may be because they have a heart condition. It may be because they're on drugs. It may be because of some other factor that we don't know about. The important thing is, they are dying after they are tasered. That cannot be denied, no matter how you spin the language." The devices are used by about 12,000 police departments, often in chaotic situations.

Retired police officer Paul Mazzei told Chen, "Minus the Taser, they would have to use an impact weapon like a baton, possibly pepper spray or in some extreme cases of violent behavior they might even have to use deadly force to control that individual."

In fact, in New Mexico earlier this month, the parents of a suicidal woman who was shot to death by Bernalillo County deputies two years ago are suing, contending that the police should have used Tasers instead of firearms. Brittany Wayne was killed in her bedroom 23 seconds after police arrived.

And in Utah, a patrol car's dashboard camera caught an officer tasing a driver who refused to sign a speeding ticket. The officer is now under investigation, accused of being too quick on the draw.

Amid a growing outcry, civil rights groups are urging police to put down their Tasers until more research is done. "The danger of Tasers is that they seem safe, they seem easy and therefore I think it's natural that police will be inclined to use them much more quickly than they would ever use a gun," Cox told Chen.

"Most of the cases we've looked at, there's been no weapon involved at all [on the part of the suspect], let alone a deadly weapon," Cox said. "So these are not situations where necessarily the police officer sees a threat."

In the Utah highway arrest, the unarmed motorist talks back to the officer and walks away before being stunned. "The penalty for resisting arrest should not be death," Cox said.

Ottawa to Axe Soldiers' Cost-Of-Living Bonus

By Peter Harris
From Edmonton Journal
2007


The federal government is about to stop its practice of giving extra money to Canadian soldiers posted to some of the country's most expensive cities.

Since June 2000, almost half of Canada's soldiers have been receiving a bump in their monthly salary - dubbed the post living differential - for living and working in cities with a high cost of living.

However, Global National reported Thursday night that the Tory government will put a halt to the payments for soldiers in places like Toronto and Ottawa.

More than 28,000 Canadian soldiers living in major urban centres currently qualify for the cost-of-living allowance. In Toronto, soldiers would lose more than $1,200 a month, according to figures from 2004.

It would be $572 in Vancouver, $464 in Victoria, $190 in Ottawa, and more than $200 in Halifax. The amount is calculated based on average local mortgage or rent payments, grocery bills and utility costs. Opposition defence critics questioned the cuts.

"There does remain a huge cost differential, cost of living differential, depending on what part of the country you live in," said NDP_defence critic Dawn Black. "I think that has to be acknowledged."

"It might have an impact on their morale," added Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre.

"It has to be done in fairness and (to) make sure no one feels second-class."




Harper Alone on Climate Change at Commonwealth Summit

From CBC News
2007

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is facing heavy political pressure to agree to binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions as Commonwealth summit delegates in Uganda attempt to form a strong, united front in the fight against climate change.

Other than Australia, whose leader is not at the summit, Canada is the only member of the 53-nation grouping that has not fallen in line with the wording in a climate change resolution calling for binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

The three-day conference is trying to reach a consensus before December's United Nations meeting in Bali, Indonesia, where more than 190 nations will discuss the future of the Kyoto protocol.

"One of the biggest challenges we all face [is] climate change," Malta's Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said Friday in a speech in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. "The challenge of climate change not only requires a united front, but an unprecedented level of co-operation and firm action."

But the small island nation's drive for environmental unity faces challenges from Canada's Conservative government, which does not support binding reductions.

Harper lone opponent of binding targets
In Kampala, Harper stands alone in opposition to the binding targets, as his Australian counterpart, John Howard, is not attending the meetings. Instead, Howard is at home preparing for his country's federal election.

Other than the small island nations such as Malta, which fear rising sea levels could bring mass flooding, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also stated his commitment to reducing greenhouse gases.

Diplomats have reportedly suggested Brown will attempt to persuade Harper to sign on to the agreement. Unless the other leaders are able to win over Canada with the idea of binding targets, the nations will likely emerge from meetings with a slightly watered-down statement.

Before the climate change talks topped the agenda on Friday, the Commonwealth's suspension of Pakistan overshadowed the summit.

On Thursday, a committee of foreign ministers, including Canada's Junior Foreign Minister Helena Guergis, agreed to suspend Pakistan over President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's failure to lift a state of emergency and restore civilian rule.

The Commonwealth leaders agreed on Friday to endorse the suspension decision, made by a nine-nation Ministerial Action Group.




Confirmed:
Deforestation Plays Critical Climate Change Role

From Science Daily

New research confirms that avoiding deforestation can play a key role in reducing future greenhouse gas concentrations. Scientists report in the journal Science that tropical deforestation releases 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon each year into the atmosphere.

Dr Pep Canadell, from the Global Carbon Project and CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, says in the journal Science that tropical deforestation releases 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon each year into the atmosphere.

“Deforestation in the tropics accounts for nearly 20 per cent of carbon emissions due to human activities,” Dr Canadell says. “This will release an estimated 87 to 130 billion tonnes of carbon by 2100, which is greater than the amount of carbon that would be released by 13 years of global fossil fuel combustion. So maintaining forests as carbon sinks will make a significant contribution to stabilising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.”

“The new body of information shows considerable value in preserving tropical forests such as those in the Amazon and Indonesia as carbon sinks, that they do not release the carbon back into the atmosphere as has been suggested.”

Dr Canadell says. “However, it also demonstrates the need to avoid higher levels of global warming, which could slow the ability of forests to accumulate carbon.”

In the first study of its kind, Dr Canadell joined an international team of experts from the US, UK, Brazil and France to compare data from 11 climate-carbon computer models. The results show that tropical forests continue to accumulate carbon through to the end of the century, although they may become less efficient at higher temperatures.

“The new body of information shows considerable value in preserving tropical forests such as those in the Amazon and Indonesia as carbon sinks, that they do not release the carbon back into the atmosphere as has been suggested,” Dr Canadell says. “However, it also demonstrates the need to avoid higher levels of global warming, which could slow the ability of forests to accumulate carbon.”

He says that while tropical deforestation will continue, slowing the amount of clearing will make significant impacts. “If by 2050 we slow deforestation by 50 per cent from current levels, with the aim of stopping deforestation when we have 50 per cent of the world’s tropical forests remaining, this would save the emission of 50 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. This 50/50/50 option would avoid the release of the equivalent of six years of global fossil fuel emissions.”

Reducing deforestation is just one of a portfolio of mitigation options needed to reduce concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. “Globally, we need a range of actions to reduce the build up of carbon in the atmosphere,” Dr Canadell says. “This study ensures we have a sound scientific basis behind the consideration of deforestation reduction.”

Study: Veterans Make Up 1 In 4 Homeless

From CBS News
2007

Lonnie Bowen Jr. was once a social worker, but for 17 years the Vietnam war veteran has slept on the streets off and on as he's battled substance abuse and mental health problems.

“It's been a hard struggle,” said Bowen, 62, as he rolled a cigarette outside a homeless processing center in downtown Philadelphia, where he planned to seek help for his drug and alcohol problem, as he has before.

Every night, hundreds of thousands of veterans like Bowen are without a home. Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday by the Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education nonprofit. And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.

The Veterans Affairs Department has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education nonprofit, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. Data from 2005 estimated that 194,254 homeless people out of 744,313 on any given night were veterans.

In comparison, the VA says that 20 years ago, the estimated number of veterans who were homeless on any given night was 250,000. Some advocates say such an early presence of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at shelters does not bode well for the future. It took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless. Advocates worry that intense and repeated deployments leave newer veterans particularly vulnerable.

“We're going to be having a tsunami of them eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous,” said Daniel Tooth, director of veterans affairs for Lancaster County, Pa.

While services for homeless veterans have improved in the past 20 years, advocates say more financial resources still are needed. With the spotlight on the plight of Iraq veterans, they hope more will be done to prevent homelessness and provide affordable housing to the younger veterans while there's a window of opportunity.

“When the Vietnam War ended, that was part of the problem. The war was over, it was off TV, nobody wanted to hear about it,” said John Keaveney, a Vietnam veteran and a founder of New Directions in Los Angeles, which gives veterans help with substance abuse, job training and shelter.

“I think they'll be forgotten,” Keaveney said of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. “People get tired of it. It's not glitzy that these are young, honorable, patriotic Americans. They'll just be veterans, and that happens after every war.”

Keaveney said it's difficult for his group to persuade some homeless Iraq veterans to stay for treatment and help because they don't relate to the older veterans. Those who stayed have had success - one is now a stock broker and another is applying to be a police officer, he said.

“They see guys that are their father's age and they don't understand, they don't know, that in a couple of years they'll be looking like them,” he said.

After being discharged from the military, Jason Kelley, 23, of Tomahawk, Wis., who served in Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard, took a bus to Los Angeles looking for better job prospects and a new life.

Kelley said he couldn't find a job because he didn't have an apartment, and he couldn't get an apartment because he didn't have a job. He stayed in a $300-a-week motel until his money ran out, then moved into a shelter run by the group U.S. VETS in Inglewood, Calif. He's since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, he said.

“The only training I have is infantry training and there's not really a need for that in the civilian world,” Kelley said in a phone interview. He has enrolled in college and hopes to move out of the shelter soon.

The Iraq vets seeking help with homelessness are more likely to be women, less likely to have substance abuse problems, but more likely to have mental illness - mostly related to post-traumatic stress, said Pete Dougherty, director of homeless veterans programs at the VA.

Overall, 45 percent of participants in the VA's homeless programs have a diagnosable mental illness and more than three out of four have a substance abuse problem, while 35 percent have both, Dougherty said.

Historically, a number of fighters in U.S. wars have become homeless. In the post-Civil War era, homeless veterans sang old Army songs to dramatize their need for work and became known as “tramps,” which had meant to march into war, said Todd DePastino, a historian at Penn State University's Beaver campus who wrote a book on the history of homelessness.

After World War I, thousands of veterans -- many of them homeless -- camped in the nation's capital seeking bonus money. Their camps were destroyed by the government, creating a public relations disaster for President Herbert Hoover.

The end of the Vietnam War coincided with a time of economic restructuring, and many of the people who fought in Vietnam were also those most affected by the loss of manufacturing jobs, DePastino said.

Their entrance to the streets was traumatic and, as they aged, their problems became more chronic, recalled Sister Mary Scullion, who has worked with the homeless for 30 years and co-founded of the group Project H.O.M.E. in Philadelphia.

“It takes more to address the needs because they are multiple needs that have been unattended,” Scullion said. “Life on the street is brutal and I know many, many homeless veterans who have died from Vietnam.”

The VA started targeting homelessness in 1987, 12 years after the fall of Saigon. Today, the VA has, either on its own or through partnerships, more than 15,000 residential rehabilitative, transitional and permanent beds for homeless veterans nationwide. It spends about $265 million annually on homeless-specific programs and about $1.5 billion for all health care costs for homeless veterans.

Because of such programs and because two years of free medical care is being offered to all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, Dougherty said they hope many veterans from recent wars who are in need can be identified early.

“Clearly, I don't think that's going to totally solve the problem, but I also don't think we're simply going to wait for 10 years until they show up,” Dougherty said. “We're out there now trying to get everybody we can to get those kinds of services today, so we avoid this kind of problem in the future.”

In all of 2006, the Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that 495,400 veterans were homeless at some point during the year.

The group recommends that 5,000 housing units be created per year for the next five years dedicated to the chronically homeless that would provide permanent housing linked to veterans' support systems. It also recommends funding an additional 20,000 housing vouchers exclusively for homeless veterans, and creating a program that helps bridge the gap between income and rent. Following those recommendations would cost billions of dollars, but there is some movement in Congress to increase the amount of money dedicated to homeless veterans programs.

On the same day Bowen stood outside the processing center in Philadelphia, case managers from Project H.O.M.E. and the VA picked up William Joyce, 60, a homeless Vietnam veteran in a wheelchair who said he'd been sleeping at a bus terminal.

“You're an honorable veteran. You're going to get some services,” outreach worker Mark Salvatore told Joyce. “You need to be connected. You don't need to be out here on the streets.”


U.S Veterans 'High Suicide Risk'

From BBC News

U.S war veterans are twice as likely to kill themselves as ordinary civilians, a study following 320,890 men found. Researchers compared data between non-veterans and those who had served at some point between 1917 and 1994.

Men who were white, better educated and older than the other men appeared to be at higher risk, as did those with a physical or emotional disability.

Researchers say the findings emphasise the need for mental health care for those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The research, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, included men who had served in World War II, the Vietnam war, the Korean War and the Gulf war.

'Inadequate screening'
It said the rate of suicide among men who had taken military service was 2.13 times higher than those who had never served in the armed forces.

War veterans were also twice as likely to use a firearm to kill themselves, it said.

Disabled veterans, or those who had experienced emotional or psychological trauma during their service were identified as the highest risk group. Interestingly, overweight veterans were less likely to have killed themselves than those of normal weight, the study found.

Although the research did not include data from men returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, authors said the findings had strong implications for them.

Lead researcher Mark Kaplan, of Portland State University in Oregon, said doctors should "scrutinise veterans for signs of suicidal behaviour or thoughts and, if needed, they should intervene to make sure these patients do not have access to firearms".

He said in general "there is inadequate mental health screening, and many of the doctors outside the VA (Veterans Affairs) system are not trained to deal with these sorts of problems and don't have the time to treat them".

Building ‘The World’s Most Flexible Workforce:
The Harper Government’s 'Double-Doubling’ of the Foreign Worker Program

By Karl Flecker
From Briarpatch Magazine
2007

Since coming to power, the Harper Conservatives have moved aggressively to expand Canada’s Foreign Worker Program, making it increasingly easy for employers to import workers from abroad. In this first segment of our special report on Canada’s invisible workforce, Karl Flecker investigates the impact on workplace rights in Canada, and how the labour movement is responding.

“’Help Wanted’ signs are everywhere. When it starts to affect our ability to go to Tim Hortons and get a double-double, it ceases to be a laughing matter.”
—Monte Solberg, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development

Though they are still largely invisible on the political scene, their impact on the Canadian labour market has been pronounced. They are guest workers, sometimes called temporary workers or migrant workers, or assigned the more alien and marginalizing label foreign workers—which is how the federal government officially refers to them.

In 2006, there were 171,844 temporary foreign workers living in Canada—a 122 per cent increase over a decade ago—and there’s every indication that the program will continue to grow. As the Canadian workforce ages and birth rates decline, this new cohort of economic migrants is fast becoming a potent source of wealth, and their labour is increasingly propping up our standard of living.

In the 2007 budget, the Conservative government declared its intention “to create the best educated, most skilled, and most flexible workforce in the world” (emphasis added). Migrant workers are the keystone of their efforts to create this “flexible” workforce. But who stands to benefit from this policy, and who will pay the price?

Workers on demand
The Foreign Worker Program has a number of components, including the Live-in Caregiver Program, the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, a pilot project for occupations requiring lower levels of formal training, and oil sands construction projects in Alberta.

In all cases the Foreign Worker Program enables Canadian employers to import workers from other countries when employers claim there is a labour shortage within Canada to fill their jobs.

Since coming to power in early 2006, the Harper government has made significant changes to the program, making it much easier for employers to access workers from abroad. Early in the Conservatives’ tenure, then Immigration Minister Monte Solberg made it clear that if employers needed labour in particular regions of the country, he was happy to accommodate them by fast-tracking the Foreign Worker Program. This past November, Solberg quipped, “It doesn’t matter whether you’re in Camrose or Calgary, Edson or Edmonton, ‘Help Wanted’ signs are everywhere. When it starts to affect our ability to go to Tim Hortons and get a double-double, it ceases to be a laughing matter.”

Under the Conservatives, many changes have been made to the Foreign Worker Program and virtually all are focused on serving employers’ demand for migrant workers as quickly as possible. For example, the Conservatives have established lists of occupations and sectors that qualify for fast tracking permits to import migrant labour, created a step-by-step guide in “employer-friendly language” on how to hire a foreign worker, and assigned government staff “to assist employers seeking to hire foreign workers in cases where a labour market opinion is not required.” The 2007 budget provided for an additional $50.5 million over two years to “reduce processing delays and more effectively respond to regional labour and skill shortages.”

Under the recent changes, employers no longer have to advertise for Canadian workers for a minimum of six weeks—now they need only advertise for seven days before seeking a permit to hire workers from abroad.

Other “administrative efficiencies” include opening new offices in B.C. and Alberta to assist employers in fast-tracking their applications for temporary workers.

Though reliance on guest workers is a growing phenomenon across the country, the effects of these changes have been particularly pronounced in turbocharged Alberta. During the fiscal year ending March 31, 2007, approximately 31,000 applications for temporary foreign workers were processed in the province—with an additional 9,000 outstanding—compared to a total of 12,000 during the previous year. Significantly, the number of temporary workers has now, for the first time ever, eclipsed the number of permanent immigrants who gained entry into the province.

Abuse and misuse of guest workers
What has not been a priority for the government, however, is to build into the Foreign Worker Program effective compliance, monitoring and enforcement mechanisms that will ensure that Canadian employers respect the rights of the guest workers they invite into the country, as well as the rights of any Canadian workers they may displace.

Even before this program was enhanced to favour employers’ needs, human rights groups, the labour movement, immigrant settlement agencies, community-based migrant worker advocates, and faith groups had been pointing out flaws in the program. These groups have been witness to how guest workers are fleeced by unscrupulous labour brokers who charge exorbitant “processing fees” in exchange for work permits; how workers are misled with false promises about wages and working conditions; how they are exploited, intimidated and threatened with deportation by some employers unless they accept terms akin to indentured servitude; how they are faced with social isolation and separation from their families and communities; and, additionally, how they are sometimes exposed to sickening doses of racism and discrimination from the communities in which they work.

The incidents are both grave and numerous. For example, in September 2006, Park Place Seniors Living Ltd. laid off some 70 long-serving unionized care aides in Kelowna, B.C. who were earning a wage of just over $20 per hour. The private seniors’ care facility then hired a private labour contractor, AdvoCare, to provide care services for the 149 residents of the facility. AdvoCare posted the positions at $14 to $15 per hour, and when the former employees refused to accept the reduced wage rate, AdvoCare cited a “labour shortage” in its application to hire migrant workers under the government’s Foreign Worker Program. In addition to reduced wages, AdvoCare offered a significantly reduced benefits package, eliminating sick leave, long-term disability, paid vacation and pension benefits previously held by the care aides.

Despite this labour injustice, the government granted the contractor the permits they requested. According to the government’s own criteria for the management of the Foreign Worker Program, if a labour dispute is ongoing or imminent, the granting body must consider this factor and could refuse the application on those grounds. That the presence of a labour dispute is merely a factor to be considered and not cause for automatic rejection of the application is a perfect illustration of whose interests are truly represented through these programs.

Subsequently, in late November 2006, as the union representing the dismissed workers, the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU/NUPGE), was in the process of applying for union certification for the new care aides at the Kelowna seniors’ facility, AdvoCare submitted a second application to hire yet more migrant workers. Until the union wrote a detailed letter to the government department responsible for the program, neither federal nor regional Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC) departments had consulted with the union about AdvoCare’s permit applications. This neglect was yet another contravention of the program’s criteria.

In another case, the B.C. & Yukon Territory Building & Construction Trades Council (BCYT-BCTC) recently discovered that the centuries-old racist practice of using exploited workers from overseas to build major infrastructure projects like Canada’s transcontinental railline was being repeated today.

A Canadian-Italian consortium involving SNC Lavalin corporation and an Italian company called SELI Tecnologie is collaborating in the construction of twin tunnels for a rapid-transit line in downtown Vancouver known as the RAV line. The consortium had brought in temporary construction workers from Costa Rica, Columbia and Peru. Patrick Johnson, a union member of the Operating Engineers Local 115, struck up a conversation with some of the workers and learned they were working 11 hours a day, six days a week on the RAV line project and that for most, their hourly wage was less than $5 per hour with no overtime bonus. If Canadian unionized workers had been hired, the prevailing wage range would have been between $25 and $30 an hour plus overtime.

Johnson passed on what he learned from the temporary construction workers to the BCTC, which sent its researcher, Joe Barrett, to learn more about the migrant workers’ situation. Subsequently, the BCTC organized a press conference to expose the exploitative and racist scandal.

When the story went public, “all hell broke loose,” says Barrett. “The workers were told [by the company] not to talk to reporters. Then they were handed contracts in English only, and told to sign them immediately. It was intimidating.”

BCTC has helped organize these workers to receive a just wage for their labour, and they have succeeded in getting the B.C. Employment Standards Branch to investigate the wage issues. They have also demanded a full public inquiry into the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

Hazardous workplaces
Participants in the Foreign Worker Program face not only economic exploitation, but also a heightened risk of injury or death. In northern Alberta in late April of this year, 27-year-old Chinese scaffolder Liuhongliang and 33-year-old electrical engineer Ge Genbao were both killed when the roof of the massive oil container they were working on collapsed. Four others were injured. They had been working for a Chinese company contracted by Canadian Natural Resources for work on its Horizon tar sands project. The company plans to bring 500 more migrant workers in on the program. A second tank collapsed on May 12, leading the Alberta Federation of Labour to call for the immediate shutdown of the work site.

Questions persist about why these two workers died and a dozen others were injured. Were there adequate workplace safeguards in place? Were workplace hazards made clear and fully understood? Officials from the province’s occupational health and safety department are conducting their own investigation.

Meanwhile, on the day after the second tank’s collapse, a young Thai agricultural worker died in Chatham, Ontario, at the home where he and other migrant agricultural workers resided. He was the second Thai worker to die in the house this year. Community members wonder if both these deaths might be related to exposure to biocides used in the agricultural industry.

Recognizing that workers protected by citizenship rights are less easily exploited or intimidated, Local 1118 negotiated collective agreement language and memorandums of understanding that support migrant workers who want to apply for permanent resident status.

What role for the labour movement?
As the Foreign Worker Program has grown, so too have complaints from workers. In 2007, in an effort to provide these workers with an advocate, the Alberta Federation of Labour initiated a project to address their issues. Under the Advocate Project, the AFL hired a lawyer to assist this group of vulnerable workers with free legal support to address their many grievances. The persistent failure of the federal and provincial governments to put in place effective compliance, monitoring and enforcement mechanisms left the field wide open for such a service.

The AFL initially intended the program to be a part-time support service for a one-year period. Shortly after the Advocate Project began, however, the lawyer began receiving over 50 calls a week from desperate migrant workers looking for assistance, and has been taking on more than 10 new cases each week.

Individual unions have also stepped up to challenge the numerous policy flaws of the government programs, such as the inequitable path to citizenship rights or the absence of language training and community integration.

United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1118, for instance, represents 4,000 workers at a hog plant in Red Deer, Alberta. Olymel, the company that operates the plant, is Canada’s largest pork and poultry processor, with plants in Québec and Ontario, as well as Red Deer.

In early 2007, Olymel demanded significant wage concessions from their workers in Québec. When the workers rejected the concession plans, which would have cost each worker about $12,000 per year in lost wages and benefits, Olymel dumped over 500 workers. Jobs were relocated from other plants to the Red Deer plant, which has received permits to bring in some 400 guest workers from the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, the Philippines and the Ukraine.

When the union was informed that Olymel would be bringing in temporary workers, Albert Johnson, president of the union local, responded by saying, “before that could happen certain conditions would have to be put in place.” Recognizing that workers protected by citizenship rights are less easily exploited or intimidated, Local 1118 negotiated collective agreement language and memorandums of understanding that support migrant workers who want to apply for permanent-resident status. When the first 240 migrant workers arrived, the UFCW was able to get 190 registered into the Alberta Provincial Nominee Program. Today about 75 have already received their citizenship papers.

In addition, the union negotiated with Olymel to fund a workplace training and community integration program. This innovative project has created six new paid trainer positions, which have been filled by workers from the shop floor. The trainers provide ESL and workplace safety training for the migrant workers, and are tasked with helping to integrate the guest workers into the workplace and the community. Their job begins with picking up the migrant workers at the airport, helping settle them into their accommodation, and providing workplace and community integration training.

The workers’ camaraderie and banter on the workplace floor is an invaluable support that helps the migrant workers improve their ESL skills. Gains they make in language learning are included in their citizenship assessment process.

Using the collective agreement process in this way has helped to bring union members and migrant workers together in a unique solidarity project, which ironically began when workers in Québec paid a price by losing their jobs for refusing massive wage and benefit concessions in Olymel’s plants in Québec.

The Migrant Justice Network
Canada’s rapidly expanding Foreign Worker Program is having a dramatic impact on workplaces and communities across the country. What was once a small program with pockets of migrant agricultural workers and live-in caregivers has now spread to the health-care, transportation, service, hospitality, construction and tourism sectors.

Because there is so much potential for exploitation and abuse of the program, labour, faith groups, (im)migrant rights groups, and immigration and settlement agencies have begun joining together in an alliance to address this new terrain. Collectively dubbed the Migrant Justice Network, these interests have come together to share their experiences and advocate for equitable workplace rules and a welcoming community ethos that protects the rights of all workers, despite the government’s efforts to advance a policy framework that is ripe for abuse.

Karl Flecker is the national director of the anti-racism and human rights department of the Canadian Labour Congress.




Senator: U.S. Has Become Haven For War Criminals

By Renee Schoof
From Information Clearing House

More than 1,000 people from 85 countries who are accused of such crimes as rape, killings, torture and genocide are living in the United States, according to Department of Homeland Security figures.

America has become a haven for the world's war criminals because it lacks the laws needed to prosecute them, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said Wednesday. There's been only one U.S. indictment of someone suspected of a serious human-rights abuse. Durbin said torture was the only serious human-rights violation that was a crime under American law when committed outside the United States by a non-American national.

"This is unacceptable. Our laws must change and our determination to end this shameful situation must become a priority," Durbin, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, said at a hearing of the subcommittee Wednesday. He's trying to get more information about specific cases.

One is that of Juan Romagoza Arce, the director of a clinic that provides free care for the poor in Washington. In 1980, Romagoza was a young doctor caring for the poor in El Salvador during the early period of his country's civil war when the military seized him and tortured him for 22 days. An estimated 75,000 people died in the 12-year war.

Romagoza told Durbin that he was given electric shocks until he lost consciousness, then kicked and burned with cigarettes until he came to. He also told of being sodomized, nearly asphyxiated in a hood containing calcium oxide — which can cause severe shortness of breath when inhaled — and subjected to waterboarding, including being hung by his feet with his head immersed in water until he nearly drowned.

Romagoza and two other torture victims brought a civil suit in U.S. federal court in West Palm Beach, Fla., against two Salvadoran generals who moved to Florida in 1989: Jose Guillermo Garcia, who was the minister of defense, and Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, who was the director general of the Salvadoran National Guard.

In 2002, a jury found them liable for the torture of the three, and a judgment of $54.6 million was entered against them and upheld on appeal. Romagoza said he didn't expect to see any of the money. He testified that he'd received many threatening phone calls and letters at the time of the trial but that he'd overcome his fears and testified.

"I felt like I was in the prow of a boat and that there were many people rowing behind that were moving me into this moment," he told Durbin's panel. "I felt that if I looked back at them I'd weep, because I'd see them again, wounded, tortured, raped, naked, torn and bleeding. So I didn't look back, but I felt their support, their strength and their energy."

He said he and others were angry and frustrated that the two men "live in the same country where we have found refuge from their persecution."

Durbin said he'd send a letter asking the U.S. attorney in South Florida what was being done in the case. "If he says he doesn't have authority, we should change the law. If he has the authority and is not using it, we should change the U.S. attorney," Durbin said.

Durbin and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., have introduced legislation that would authorize the government to prosecute anyone found in the U.S. who's guilty of genocide, human trafficking or recruiting child soldiers.

David Scheffer is a Northwestern University law professor who was the ambassador at large for war-crimes issues during the Clinton administration. He testified that after the experience of war-crimes tribunals after World War II and international tribunals prosecuting many atrocities over the past 15 years, "one would be forgiven to assume that surely in the United States the law is now well established to enable U.S. courts — criminal and military — to investigate and prosecute the full range of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. . . .

"That, however, is not the case."

Canada, Bring Home Omar Khadr
Young Guantanamo prisoner needs Ottawa rescue, says US military lawyer.

By Jared Ferrie
From TheTyee.ca
2007

A Canadian imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay since he was 15 years old won't see justice unless Ottawa brings him home, Omar Khadr's American military lawyer said yesterday.

Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler urged Canadians to write to their MPs about Khadr, now 20, who is facing trial in a "rigged system" that contravenes international law.

"If the rights of this particular Canadian citizen are going to be protected, it's going to be because the Canadian public and the Canadian government do something to protect them," said Kuebler, speaking at a luncheon in Vancouver hosted by the Canadian Institute for International Affairs.

If Ottawa doesn't intervene, Khadr might never be released, he added.

What makes a soldier?
Khadr is accused of throwing a grenade that killed U.S. Special Forces Sgt. Christopher Speer during a July 2002 battle in Khost, Afghanistan. Khadr was critically shot and sent, along with others captured during and after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, to the American military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The killing of one soldier by another in battle is not ordinarily considered a war crime, but the U.S. subsequently designated detainees "unlawful enemy combatants" -- a term that theoretically strips them of rights laid out in the Geneva Convention. The term "is not found in Department of Defense manuals before 2004," noted Kuebler.

He said the Military Commissions Act, which Congress approved last year, was constructed on an ad hoc basis in order to convict people using evidence derived from torture and coercion. For one thing, the commissions don't consider non-uniformed combatants soldiers -- despite the fact that U.S. Special Forces and their allies in Afghanistan weren't wearing uniforms when they overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

Another quirk of the system is that it does not apply to American citizens, hundreds of whom have been convicted of terrorism-related offences in federal courts, according to Kuebler.

"As a matter of U.S. law today, a Canadian is worth less than an American in the matter of due process," he added.

Different passport, different treatment
Khadr is now the only Westerner left at Guantanamo. In May, David Hicks returned to Australia, after spending five years at Guantanamo, to serve the remainder of his sentence. He was the first person convicted under the Military Commissions Act and is due for release next year.

Kuebler said the Australian government only went to bat for Hicks after public outcry over the fairness of the trial, as well as living conditions at Guantanamo.

The British government successfully demanded repatriation of a number of citizens, and has also requested the return of five U.K. residents. Kuwait has managed to repatriate five of its citizens.

In contrast, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and former foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay have expressed confidence in the U.S. government's ability to provide a fair trial.

Canada has not only refused to lobby for Khadr's repatriation; Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) agents have interrogated him while in American custody.

"Their first action upon learning Omar was in detention in Guantanamo was to go down and take advantage of that," said Kuebler.

In 2005, CSIS defended its tactics, explaining it had an obligation to help protect national security by questioning Khadr, whose family members have admitted to having links with al-Qaida.

Child soldier or terrorist?
Omar Khadr's father, Ahmad Khadr, was allegedly a senior al-Qaida operative who began indoctrinating his son at age 10.

While the senior Khadr was killed by Pakistani soldiers in 2003, he could have been subject to prosecution for war crimes, according to Kuebler, who pointed out that international law does not lay blame on child soldiers.

"It lies with the adult person who put that child in combat."

Canada has been a leading advocate for the rights of children, said Kuebler, calling Ottawa's policy toward Khadr "inconsistent."

As a contrast, he pointed to the case of Ishmael Beah, who recently documented his experience as a child soldier in Sierra Leone in a best-selling book.

Beah admits to killing more people than he can count and describes incidents that would constitute war crimes if committed by an adult, including shooting prisoners. At 15, Beah began his rehabilitation process and has been lauded for conquering his horrific past.

Khadr still spends 23 hours a day confined to a cell where the lights are never turned off and cardboard covers the windows, Kuebler pointed out.

Do Canadians care?
Canadians are split on the question of what to do with Omar Khadr, as polling results released in June by Angus Reid reveal:

Forty-six per cent agreed that Khadr should be treated as a child soldier, while 36 per cent disagreed.

Forty-one per cent said Canada should actively intervene to secure his release, while 40 per cent disagreed.

Fifty-one per cent said Khadr should face justice in Afghanistan.

Ambivalence to Khadr's fate may have something to do with statements of public support for terrorism made by members of his family. For example, in March 2004, Omar Khadr's mother, Maha, and his sister, Zaynab, expressed sympathy for al-Qaida and suicide bombers during a CBC interview. Still, Kuebler has said he is surprised that the Canadian government has made no effort to repatriate one of its citizens.

The Angus Reid poll may provide a clue to Ottawa's reasoning: Conservative voters were most likely to say that Canada should not attempt to repatriate Khadr, while Liberal and NDP voters said exactly the opposite.




Omar Khadr's Lawyer: On a Mission

By Jesse Ferreras
From TheTyee.ca
2007

Omar Khadr's lawyer can be forgiven for seeming a little dejected.

Over the course of two months, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, a judge advocate general (JAG) representing the young Canadian accused of terrorism, has delivered dozens of talks at institutions throughout the world on behalf of his client. The result has been positive reviews for his work, but little political action to help him out.

One of the most recent news reports about Khadr's case has Kuebler calling the decision to allow his trial to proceed at Guantanamo Bay an "Alice in Wonderland" scenario.

Khadr has been a prisoner at the notorious U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since the age of 15 on charges that he killed a U.S. Special Forces soldier during a 2002 raid in Afghanistan. Kuebler is the lead lawyer in a group of four that includes two Canadians and two counsels from the U.S. Office of Military Commissions. He is also the third American lawyer assigned to represent him after his client fired two American lawyers in May.

Now 21 years old, Khadr is scheduled to have his case reopened tomorrow, Nov. 8, in what his lawyer has called a "kangaroo court," a military judicial process that Kuebler has been working hard to expose as a sham in talks at institutions such as Oxford, McGill, and the University of British Columbia.

Confounded by Canada
When asked whether he would be interested in being the subject of a story, Kuebler laughed and said, "If you want to waste the ink."

His talk at UBC filled the Meekison Arts Student Space, a common area reserved as meeting space for UBC's biggest faculty. He wore the uniform of a navy officer, a testament to an oath he has taken to defend the United States against its enemies, but his position at Khadr's side put him in the role of "devil's advocate," so to speak.

He is, after all, defending someone widely believed to have killed a fellow member of the U.S. military.

There's no doubt that Kuebler takes his oath very seriously, but UBC was one stop on a speaking tour to show his lack of confidence in the judicial process that his client is about to face.

Kuebler is confounded that Canada, a country that prides itself on defence of human rights, is allowing one of its nationals to face a tribunal created by the Military Commissions Act.

The act was passed by the U.S. Congress in 2006 with the intention that detainees be provided a "fair trial in accordance with the applicable laws of war." Procedures were adopted that would allow special tribunals to try "unlawful enemy combatants" for violating the law of war.

Kuebler doesn't buy that. "The administration [has] come up with a novel theory of the law of war to justify the jurisdictional basis for these trials," he told his UBC audience. "The ultimate purpose was to have a system in which the president and other executive branch officials had virtually unfettered discretion to design rules."

Torture and Coercion
Kuebler argued in his talk that Khadr is facing an unfair process that, among other things, accepts hearsay as evidence and deems almost anyone fighting back against American forces a war criminal.

This is allowed through a provision in the act that determines that anyone under the banner of "unlawful enemy combatancy" who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" is guilty of a war crime if they are not wearing a uniform or insignia to show who you were.

But one of the biggest flaws he points to is that military commission cases at Guantanamo are built on confessions obtained through torture and coercion.

"They do not employ the same safeguards to ensure that that evidence is reliable, probative, that it's voluntary," he said. "It became necessary to create a system in which we can essentially launder that information and convict people based on something other than reliable evidence."

"That, in a nutshell, is why we have military commissions."

'Lawyers help people'

Lt. Cmdr. Kuebler's father, a corporate lawyer, instilled a drive in his son to be a lawyer at a young age.

"I'd ask him, what do lawyers do? And he'd say, 'lawyers help people,'" he said. "It's a way to help people and it's a way to use my talents to help people in need."

Kuebler has been a lawyer in various offices since graduating with a Juris Doctor from the University of San Diego, cum laude, in 1996. As a student he took part in the National Moot Court Team, a competition that allows second- and third-year students a chance to hone their chops in a mock court setting.

He helped lead his team to participation in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, an annual contest that pits university teams against each other to argue cases as if before the International Court of Justice.

He also served as an editor of the San Diego Law Review, the school's journal of legal scholarship. "If you manage to defraud your way to good grades in law school they put you on a law review," he remarked sarcastically.

After joining the Office of Military Commissions in 2005, the Pentagon assigned him to Khadr's case. He is his third American lawyer after Khadr fired two American lawyers last May, and he admits he has had a hard time earning his trust.

"A number of months passed after I had been assigned to the case before he would even meet with me," he said. "Omar probably began from the position that anybody would in his position, being distrustful of a U.S. military officer."

Kuebler added that subsequent meetings have been more cordial, but said that he feels like he's talking to a teenager.

Standing Ovation
In defending Khadr, Kuebler joins a recent tradition of U.S. military lawyers who have gone abroad to their clients' countries to muster support.

His story has a parallel in that of Major Michael Mori, a Marine defence lawyer who in 2006 lobbied the Australian people on behalf of David Hicks, an Australian held at Guantanamo on charges of providing material support to terrorism.

Mori's efforts involved various talks throughout Australia that addressed flaws in the military commissions. He became a sensation when he addressed a rally of a reported 2,000 people in Adelaide.

What followed was a march to the office of the Australian foreign minister, in which it was reported that Mori carried a petition signed by 50,000 people with the demand that Hicks be repatriated.

His efforts were ultimately successful and helped lead to Hicks's release from Guantanamo. Mori was called a "hero" and a "role model," according to reports.

Kuebler's efforts, meanwhile, are more modest. He has chosen simply to educate people rather than circulate a petition. An August 2007 speech to the Canadian Bar Association resulted in a standing ovation and was followed by a letter from the Association's president to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, asking for Khadr to be brought back to Canada.

Retired Judge Advocate General Scott Silliman, now a professor of law at Duke University, praises Kuebler's efforts.

"Here is a navy Lt. Cmdr. who is defending an alleged terrorist against an individual, the president of the United States, who is also his commander-in-chief," he said. "I am fiercely proud of individuals like Kuebler and his colleagues."

Risking his career?
But the success of such lawyers hasn't come without scrutiny. While defending Hicks abroad, Major Mori was accused of showing contempt for a government official, an important tenet of the military's ethical code.

It hasn't been ruled out that Kuebler could face similar scrutiny. "In the future, [he] may suffer some personal consequences for representing his client zealously," said Mike Berrigan, deputy chief defense counsel at the Office of Military Commissions.

"Every attorney in the military faces that. Some military attorneys refuse to be defence counsel for that reason; they think it will hurt their careers."

But Kuebler is careful to distance himself from speculation he's a dissenter. "I don't consider myself a whistleblower," he said. "I'm just doing my job as Omar Khadr's lawyer.... I don't have a hard time saying these things."

Urging Canadian Action
For his efforts, Kuebler has seen little fruit towards getting his client a fair trial. In late September he met with Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, who later announced that Canada should demand Khadr's return, but only if the United States does not guarantee him a fair trial.

Liberal MP Omar Alghabra, who was also at the meeting, was impressed by Kuebler's demeanour but was careful to specify that his party's position was that Khadr should be tried on American soil and only be brought back to Canada if that would not happen.

Beyond that, his client has not become much of an issue in Canada. The media have not discussed him very deeply and few seem to lose sleep over the fact that an accused terrorist will face so controversial a judicial process tomorrow.

Kuebler says he won't give up until his client sees what he hopes will be actual justice, and that he can't do it without help from Canadians.

"I would urge you as Canadian citizens to not wait or assume that the United States governments, or the United States courts, are going to fix the problems that I've identified," he told his UBC audience.

"I believe firmly that if the rights of this young Canadian citizen are going to be protected, it's going to be because Canada acts to protect them."

Bush's World War Three

By Michel Chossudovsky
From Global Research
2007

"We got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously...." (George W. Bush, 17 October 2007)

"I believe that. I believe that [the revolt of passengers on the hijacked flight 93 on September 11, 2001] was the first counter-attack to World War III." (George W. Bush, May 6, 2006)

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous... Having said that, all options are on the table." George W. Bush, February 2005)

We are not living in a sound and rational World, where far-reaching decisions by the US President are based on an understanding of their likely consequences.

A World War III is no longer a hypothetical scenario. During the Cold War, the concept of "mutual assured destruction" (MAD) was put forth. An understanding of the devastating consequences of nuclear war largely contributed to avoiding the outbreak of war between the US and the Soviet Union.

Today, in the post-Cold war era, no such understanding prevails. The specter of a nuclear holocaust, which haunted the world for half a century has been relegated to the status of "collateral damage".

US foreign policy under the Neocons is based on a diabolical and criminal agenda. The "war on terrorism" is a lie; Iran does not constitute a threat to global security as confirmed by a recent IAEA report. Iran does not constitute a threat to Israel.

The US president is a liar, who believes his own lies. While Iran's non existent nukes are said to constitute a lethal and deadly threat, so-called tactical nuclear weapons "Made in America" are described in Pentagon documents as "harmless to the surrounding civilian population".

In a bitter irony, those who decide on the use of nuclear weapons believe their own propaganda. A preemptive nuclear attack on Iran is upheld as a bona fide humanitarian undertaking which contributes to global security.

And now the US Head of State, who has a limited understanding of geopolitics, let alone geography, is hinting that if Iran does not give up its nonexistent nuclear weapons program, we might be reluctantly forced into in a World War III situation. Bush has insinuated that as Commander in Chief, he could decide to launch a war on Iran, which would result in World War III.

"Dr. Strangelove rides again." In an utterly twisted logic, World War III is presented by the US President as a means to preventing collateral damage.

The war would be triggered by Iran, who has refused to abide by the "reasonable demands" of "the international community". Realities are twisted and turned upside down. Iran is being accused of wanting to start World War III.

Media Blackout
World public opinion has its eyes riveted on the cataclysm of "global warming". World War III on the other hand is not front page news. We are talking about the loss of tens of thousands of lives: the consequences of the US military agenda which includes the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in a very concrete way threatens the future of humanity.

At present US and coalition forces including NATO and Israel are in an advanced state of readiness to launch an attack on Iran. Leaders of the coalition fully understand that such an action will result in a World War III scenario. Escalation scenarios have already been envisaged and analyzed by the Pentagon. US sponsored war games have even foreseen the possible intervention of Russia and China.

World War III has been on the lips of NeoCon architects of US foreign policy from the outset of the Bush regime. It is contained in a document published in September 2000 by the Project of the New American Century (PNAC),

The PNAC's declared objectives imply a "long war", a global war without borders::

"defend the American homeland;

fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;

perform the "constabulary" duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions;

transform U.S. forces to exploit the "revolution in military affairs;"

Former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney had commissioned the PNAC blueprint prior to the 2000 presidential elections. The PNAC outlines a roadmap of conquest.

The pre-emptive nuclear doctrine contained in the Nuclear Posture Review is supported by the Republican Party and Washington’s conservative think-tanks

George W. Bush is an instrument of powerful economic interests. A preemptive war on Iran has widespread support by the US Congress, it is also supported by America's European partners and allies. Leading Republicans have expressed their support for a preemptive World War III scenario. In a 2006 interview at the height of the Israeli bombing of Lebanon (July 16, 2007), former Republican leader of the House Newt Gingrich candidly acknowledged:

"We’re in the early stages of what I would describe as the third World War and, frankly, our bureaucracy’s not responding fast enough and we don’t have the right attitude. And this is the 58th year of the war to destroy Israel and, frankly, the Israelis have every right to insist that every single missile leave south Lebanon, and the United States ought to be helping the Lebanese government have the strength to eliminate Hezbollah as a military force — not as a political force in the parliament — but as a military force in south Lebanon.

The Bush Administration has adopted a first strike "pre-emptive" nuclear policy, which has now received congressional approval. Nuclear weapons are no longer a weapon of last resort as during the Cold War era.

In a classified Pentagon document (Nuclear Posture Review) presented to the US Senate in early 2002, the Bush Administration established so-called "contingency plans" for an offensive "first strike use" of nuclear weapons, not only against the "axis of evil" (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and North Korea), but also against Russia and China.


Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international bestseller America’s "War on Terrorism" Global Research, 2005. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization.




Oil Industry Subsidies for Dummies

By Dallas Kachan
From Cleantech.com
2007

Wonder how big oil got big? Here's an insider's look at fossil fuel subsidies, how they've worked until recently, and what greentech industries might expect in America soon if the newly-Democratic U.S. Congress gets its way.

On news this week that the newly-elected U.S. Democratic congress is considering playing Robin Hood, and taking at least some money previously allocated for oil and gas and reallocating it to renewable energy, we thought it'd be useful to look into fossil fuel subsidies and how they work.

First - how much money are we talking about? Figuring out exactly, or even roughly, how much oil companies receive in subsidy turns out to be a complicated challenge.

Greenpeace believes Europeans spend about $10 billion or so (USD equivalent) annually to subsidize fossil fuels. By contrast, it thinks the American oil and gas industry might receive anywhere between $15 billion and $35 billion a year in subsidies from taxpayers.

Why such a large margin of error? The exact number is slippery and hard to quantify, given the myriad of programs that can be broadly characterized as subsidies when it comes to fossil fuels. For instance, the U.S. governments has generally propped the industry up with:

Construction bonds at low interest rates or tax-free

Research-and-development programs at low or no cost

Assuming the legal risks of exploration and development in a company's stead
Below-cost loans with lenient repayment conditions

Income tax breaks, especially featuring obscure provisions in tax laws designed to receive little congressional oversight when they expire

Sales tax breaks - taxes on petroleum products are lower than average sales tax rates for other goods

Giving money to international financial institutions (the U.S. has given tens of billions of dollars to the World Bank and U.S. Export-Import Bank to encourage oil production internationally, according to Friends of the Earth)

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Construction and protection of the nation's highway system

Allowing the industry to pollute - what would oil cost if the industry had to pay to protect its shipments, and clean up its spills? If the environmental impact of burning petroleum were considered a cost? Or if it were held responsible for the particulate matter in people's lungs, in liability similar to that being asserted in the tobacco industry?

Relaxing the amount of royalties to be paid
While it's easy to get bent out of shape that the petroleum industry "probably has larger tax incentives relative to its size than any other industry in the country", according to Donald Lubick, the U.S. Department of Treasury's former Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, remember that subsidies are important across all sectors of the energy industry. Even yours (I'll bet you work in cleantech/greentech!) For instance, nuclear power wouldn't be viable without subsidies - most governments pay between 60 and 90 percent of the cost of construction of new plants. Solar wouldn't be what it's become without significant German, Californian, U.S. federal and other incentives. Ethanol and biodiesel in the U.S. enjoy large subsidies (details, if interested, here), but let's resist getting into the rat-hole of agricultural industry subsidies.

Subsidies, per se, aren't a bad thing. How does the oil industry defend its substantial incentives?

Energy security - The fossil fuel industry has, rightfully, long pointed to the strategic nature of a company's oil and gas supply. Theirs is an industry that can't afford to go away, they argue.

Environmental compliance - Far from being big beneficiaries, some oil companies claim they are net victims. They point to gasoline taxes and environmental regulations, such as fuel-efficiency standards for new vehicles.

Bolsters domestic production - Supporters of drilling incentives say they make sense for a country that wants to reduce its dependence on foreign oil and whose biggest untapped reserves are in water just offshore, albeit thousands of feet deep.

Defense requirements - Some have suggested that the demands of defending Middle Eastern oil fields added (pre-Iraq war that is) between $10 billion and $20 billion a year in subsidies to the true cost of oil.

Which begs the question - even if America greatly reduced its imports of oil, would it necessarily reduce its military activity in the Gulf region?

It's not really that much money - A few years ago, Ronald Sutherland, an energy economist affiliated with the Cato Institute, a think-tank in Washington, used statistics from the Department of Energy to argue that oil actually gets rather little at the end of the day. All told, after subtracting this and allowing for that, he suggested oil receives less than a billion dollars in subsidies, in all.

Critics of oil subsidies in America, however, maintain that:

Subsidies don't increase domestic production - A few weeks ago, a U.S. Interior Department report obtained by the New York Times suggested that the billions of dollars American oil companies stand to benefit from as incentives for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (royalties they wouldn't otherwise have to pay the government) wouldn't add appreciably to any increase in production. Says an analyst who worked on the report, "if they took that money, they could buy a whole lot more oil with it on the open market."

The U.S. gives far too much away - Industry analysts who compare oil policies around the world say the United States is much more generous to oil companies than most other countries, demanding a smaller share of revenues than others that let private companies drill on public lands and in public waters. In the U.S., the government’s take - royalties as well as corporate taxes - works out to be about 40 percent of revenue from oil and gas produced on federal property, according to Van Meurs Associates, an industry consulting firm that compares the taxes of all oil-producing countries. By contrast, according to Van Meurs, the worldwide average government take is about 60 to 65 percent. The United States has even increased some of its incentives in recent years, while dozens of other countries demanded a bigger share of their oil producers' revenue. This is the low hanging fruit Democratic lawmakers are eying.

In 2004, the then-Republican Congress passed a manufacturing tax cut that critics said gave unnecessary incentives to the oil industry. Democratic leaders this week said they want this rolled back, and want to capture lost royalties from companies drilling in the gulf coast. They're also considering rolling back the Energy Policy Act of 2005, according to the Washington Post, an act supported by many Democrats.

While the Democratic U.S. Congress says it wants to change the historic ratio of the flow of subsidies for fossil fuels vs. that of renewables, don't expect government floodgates to open immediately for greentech/cleantech companies.

There's no clear consensus even among Democrats as to how the new funds should be used. Some lawmakers want public hearings to figure out how the money should be divided. It will likely be set aside in the short term while the government determines how to put it to use.

One thing is certain, however. While the fat lady, as they say, hasn't quite sung - and likely isn't even practicing scales, yet - this week marked the first steps on a long road to reshaping American petroleum policy. And, at the same time, potentially infusing renewable greentech energy sectors with a vigor that would have been only a dream a year ago.

Dallas Kachan is publisher and acting editor of Inside Greentech. The closest thing he ever got to a subsidy was a sandwich shop in Iowa.



Back To Main Menu