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National News – RI Future http://www.rifuture.org Progressive News, Opinion, and Analysis Sat, 29 Oct 2016 16:03:26 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.25 TD Bank targeted by protesters for DAPL support http://www.rifuture.org/td-bank-targeted-by-protesters-for-dapl-support/ http://www.rifuture.org/td-bank-targeted-by-protesters-for-dapl-support/#respond Thu, 27 Oct 2016 15:26:44 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=68910 2016-10-26-td-bank-05The FANG Collective staged a demonstration outside TD Bank Wednesday to protest the company’s support of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which is even now being blocked by First Nation protesters from many different tribes. TD Bank is one of many lending institutions financing the pipeline.

2016-10-26-td-bank-02This protest follows an action last week in which two protesters locked themselves down in the bank’s lobby and had to be removed by police. Wednesday’s action, which was publicly announced on Facebook, drew a Providence Police detail, but the entire affair was very low key, and no arrests were made.

2016-10-26-td-bank-01Protesters handed out flyers and held signs. One woman, Amy, after hearing from protester Sally Mendzela about the bank’s involvement with DAPL, told me that though she had come to open an account with the bank, she was not. Mendzela said that the woman was the second person to be dissuaded from doing business with TD Bank since she arrived.

Meanwhile, tensions remain high between the “water protecters” and DAPL developer Energy Transfer Partners. Tribes are invoking their treaty rights even as the developer threatens arrests and even violence. As reported by Mary Annette Pember, “the Morton County Sheriff’s Department backed by North Dakota Governor Jack Dalyrmple continued to ratchet up displays of military-style police force.”

The video below, published by Jennifer Minor on October 25, shows police using pepper spray before arresting protesters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=066h12rmcDQ

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Boycott Wendy’s protest in Providence http://www.rifuture.org/boycott-wendys-2/ http://www.rifuture.org/boycott-wendys-2/#respond Sun, 23 Oct 2016 00:06:30 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=68785 2016-10-21-wendys-ciw-06Nearly three dozen people marched and chanted outside Wendy’s on Charles St in Providence Friday afternoon to call attention to the boycott of the food chain called by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a group that has fought for farmworker’s rights and fair treatment for two decades. Wendy’s remains the largest fast food chain that refuses to ethically source their produce from CIW supported growers. Rather than supporting the efforts of the CIW, Wendy’s began purchasing its produce from Mexico, where workers “continue to confront wage theft, sexual harassment, child labor and even slavery.”

CIW member Julia de la Cruz lead the protest, assisted by members of the Brown University Student Labor Alliance, the AFSC, Fuerza Laboral and the Fair Food Alliance.

When a coalition of five protesters approached the restaurant to deliver a message to the manager, they were loudly asked to leave the property, and did. The protest lasted 90 minutes and garnered the support and interest of many passersby.

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Boycott Wendy’s to help end abuse of farmworkers http://www.rifuture.org/boycott-wendys/ http://www.rifuture.org/boycott-wendys/#respond Fri, 21 Oct 2016 18:02:50 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=68763 Julia de la Cruz (CIW)
Julia de la Cruz (CIW)

Julia de la Cruz, of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), came to Providence for two days to “amplify the farm worker-led national boycott of Wendy’s” as part of a regional, “Behind the Braids” tour that seeks to reveal the true face of Wendy’s. de la Cruz talked about the history of the CIW in combating horrific working conditions, including wage theft, violence and sexual harassment and abuse. de la Cruz spoke in a calm voice, translated by Patricia Cipollitti of the Alliance for Fair Food (AFF).

CIW rose out from a group of farmworkers, primarily of Mexican, Guatemalan, Haitian and Central American descent from Immokalee, FL who sought better wages and worker conditions. Picking tomatoes in the 90 to 100 degree fields of Florida, without clean water, shade from the brutal sun or decent toilets made work an exercise that lacked dignity. The workers were subjected to the casual cruelty and violence of supervisors, many who thought little of striking a worker in their charge. Wage theft and sexual abuse were rampant, and there was no one to report these crimes to.

The workers began to organize to defend their rights, change the conditions of work and demand not only fair wages but respect and dignity. They used work stoppages, strikes, hunger strikes, marches and protests to make their point and force concessions from the growers. But little by little, said de la Cruz, the CIW came to realize that their conditions were not imposed on them by the growers. It was the corporations that forced the growers to cut wages and profit from virtual (or actual) slave conditions.

2016-10-21-coalition-of-immokalee-workers-05In order to fund their ideas, the CIW asked corporation to pay an extra one cent per pound of produce purchased. This money would allow the workers to push for higher wages and establish a code of conduct that contained zero tolerance for the worst abuses. This allowed workers to demand respect, and in fact they mandated that the worker’s voices be heard during the implementation of these changes.

Taco Bell was the first restaurant chain CIW targeted. It took years, 2001-2005, to win. but it was a major victory. by 2010 CIW had roped in 9 major corporations into what they now called the Fair Food Program. Ninety percent of Florida’s tomato growers signed on. Corporations now agree to purchase tomatoes only from these growers.

Now these workers have clean water, shade from the sun, actual bathrooms instead of being forced to do their “business” in the crop fields. There is a 24 hour hotline, administrated by a third party, to report abuses. The hotline has operators fluent in Spanish, Creole and English.

2016-10-21-coalition-of-immokalee-workers-02Today 14 corporations are signed on, but CIW is looking to expand this program of Worker Driven Social Responsibility. They have expanded beyond Florida and into other states such as Georgia and North and South Carolina. They have expanded beyond tomatoes and into other crops such as strawberries and bell peppers. They want more corporations to sign on.

Hence the boycott of Wendy’s. Rather than support the efforts of the CIW, Wendy’s began purchasing its produce from Mexico, where workers “continue to confront wage theft, sexual harassment, child labor and even slavery. (In the early days of the CIW they ran an anti-slavery campaign in Florida that freed over 1500 workers and jailed almost a dozen people for the crime of slavery.) Recently, Wendy’s has “published an empty Code of Conduct for its suppliers that lacks the two most essential elements of the Fair Food Program: worker participation and verifiable enforcement mechanisms for standards.”

So we consumers need to ask ourselves: Are we willing to boycott Wendy’s to prevent the rape, exploitation and slavery of people who simply wish to live and work with dignity and respect?

If so, consider coming out to Wendy’s on 391 Charles St this Friday afternoon at 4pm and add your voice to the chorus of people calling on Wendy’s to ethically source their produce and support the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Below you can listen to Julia de la Cruz’s complete talk, first translated into English by Patricia Cipollitti and then in Spanish only.

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New Hampshire joins Mass. in rejecting pipeline tariff http://www.rifuture.org/nh-rejects-pipeline-tariff/ http://www.rifuture.org/nh-rejects-pipeline-tariff/#respond Wed, 12 Oct 2016 13:34:09 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=68543 Margaret Curran
RIPUC Chair Margaret Curran

National Grid’s proposed pipeline tariff, now under an indefinite stay per the Public Utilities Commission here in Rhode Island, was rejected in New Hampshire last week. The controversial and complicated plan, which would make electricity ratepayers in New England financially responsible for the creation and profitability of a new fracked gas pipeline, involves multiple companies working together across multiple states. Here’s a description from the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission:

Herbert DeSimone III
RIPUC Boardmember Herbert DeSimone III

Eversource is a public utility headquartered in Manchester, operating under the laws of the State of New Hampshire as an electric distribution company (EDC). Algonquin is an owner-operator of an interstate gas pipeline located in New England. Algonquin is owned by a parent company, Spectra Energy Corp (Spectra), a publicly-traded corporation headquartered in Houston, Texas. Algonquin has partnered with Eversource’s corporate parent, Eversource Energy, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut, and with National Grid, the parent company of EDC subsidiaries in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, to develop the Access Northeast pipeline. In general terms, Eversource Energy’s EDC subsidiaries in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire and National Grid’s EDC subsidiaries in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, are each individually seeking regulatory approval of gas capacity on the Access Northeast pipeline.”

When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled against National Grid’s pipeline tariff in Massachusetts, the Conservation Law Foundation brought a motion to dismiss the proposal here in Rhode Island. Instead, the PUC issued an indefinite stay in the proceedings, with the caveat that National Grid file a progress report on January 13, 2017.

Last week the New Hampshire PUC ruled against their state’s involvement in the plan, writing,

“The proposal before us would have Eversource purchase long-term gas pipeline capacity to be used by gas-fired electric generators, and include the net costs of its purchases and sales in its electric distribution rates. That proposal, however, goes against the overriding principle of restructuring, which is to harness the power of competitive markets to reduce costs to consumers by separating unregulated generation from fully regulated distribution. It would allow Eversource to reenter the generation market for an extended period, placing the risk of that decision on its customers. We cannot approve such an arrangement under existing laws. Accordingly, we dismiss Eversource’s petition.

“We acknowledge that the increased dependence on natural gas-fueled generation plants within the region and the constraints on gas capacity during peak periods of demand have resulted in electric price volatility. Eversource’s proposal is an interesting one, with the potential to reduce that volatility; but it is an approach that, in practice, would violate New Hampshire law following the restructuring of the electric industry. If the General Court believes EDCs should be allowed to make long-term commitments to purchase gas capacity and include the costs in distribution rates, the statutes can be amended to permit such activities.”

The Maine Public Utilities commission has voted in favor of the pipeline tariff.

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Killingly power plant battle impacts Rhode Island http://www.rifuture.org/killingly-power-plant-battle/ http://www.rifuture.org/killingly-power-plant-battle/#respond Tue, 11 Oct 2016 13:42:39 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=68511 2016-10-10 Killingly 023As large as Invenergy‘s $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant would be if it were to be actually built in the pristine wilderness of Burrillville, the project is but a small part of a colossal, three-state fracked gas infrastructure project that has been in development for years in the northwest corner of the Rhode Island and beyond. Eight power plants currently litter a 31 mile expanse of pipeline, from Killingly, Connecticut, through Rhode Island, to Medway, Massachusetts. If built, Burrillville would be power plant number nine and Killingly is the proposed site of power plant number ten.

Smaller than the power plant proposed for neighboring Burrillville, the “Killingly Energy Center” is slated to produce 550 MW of unneeded energy. It will produced nearly 2 million tons of emissions per year, adding to the emissions of the Lake Road Generating Facility, an 840 MW power plant already located in Killingly. Emissions, of course, know no political boundaries, so large parts of Rhode Island will be subjected to this increase in pollutants.

2016-10-10 Killingly 017The Killingly power plant is to be built in a residential neighborhood within a mile of 460 Killingly housing units. At least five schools and day cares, over 5,000 students, are within three miles of the proposed plant. Wyndham County, where Killingly is located, has asthma rates 18 percent higher than the rest of Connecticut.

To power the plant, a pipeline connection to the main AIM pipeline will be built, crossing the Quinebaug River, Wyndham Land Trust, the Airline Trail, Pomfret Audubon Society and Bafflin Sanctuary. Each area a precious resource.

Like Burrillville, the proposed power plant needs water. There is a concern that the aquifers will be strained and that residents will suffer a lack of water given that the power plant needs 90,000 gallons a day when burning fracked gas and as much as 400,000 gallons a day when burning diesel oil. Also, like Burrillville, there are safety and and noise issues to consider when a plant like this is built in a residential area.

2016-10-10 Killingly 022The Town of Killingly is categorized as a distressed community. Like other areas where these types of facilities are targeted, there are environmental justice issues to be considered. Very often the facilities are like these are aimed at low income communities that lack the financial means to either fight the power plant or resist the financial carrots dangled by the company building the plant.

NTE Energy, the prospective builder, has never completed a power plant. Formed in 2009 as a private equity funded company, there is a worry that the company will build the plant and sell it off for a quick profit. Currently the company has six power plants in development, two of which are under construction. The company has no experience in operating or maintaining a power plant.

Also, like in Rhode Island, the residents most impacted by the siting of a power plant in their community have no say in whether or not the plant will be built. The Connecticut Siting Council, the equivalent of Rhode Island’s Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB) makes the final decision regarding the power plant in Killingly. The Siting Council has already determined that Connecticut has an excess of electricity generation into 2020, yet is still considering the power plant in Killingly.

Opposition to the power plant has begun in Killingly. The group is called Not Another Power Plant, and I found that they were very knowledgeable about the situation in Burrillville. I went there Monday afternoon to talk with residents who were holding signs and a press conference to get the word out. Below I speak to Connecticut State Senator Mae Flexer and Connecticut State Representative Danny Rovero about their opposition.

On Thursday October 20th beginning at 3:30 pm there will be a public field review of the proposed NTE/KEC site on Lake Road, Dayville. This will be an opportunity to see the area where NTE hopes to build the power plant. Afterwards there will be a Public Hearing with the Connecticut Siting Council at 6:30 pm at the Killingly High School Auditorium. Public comment will be heard at this meeting.

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The failure, and abiding danger, of Trump http://www.rifuture.org/failure-abiding-danger-trump/ http://www.rifuture.org/failure-abiding-danger-trump/#respond Mon, 10 Oct 2016 14:37:14 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=68404 Michael D. Kennedy is a Professor of Sociology and International and Public Affairs at Brown University:

Donald_Trump_August_19,_2015_(cropped)The candidacy of Donald J. Trump for President of the United States finds daily a new road to Hell, and threatens to drag the nation, and the world, down with it.

I wrote what follows before I watched the debate on October 9. Nothing in that disgusting spectacle changes my sense. I will, however, offer some concluding remarks about how the debate shapes my interpretation of the cultural political landscape in which this spectacle took place.

Trump is in a tailspin.

An Open Letter from Some Angry Women spelled out the list of affronts from Trump’s lips that have defined his campaign. His disgusting 2005 quotation led a number of Republicans to withdraw their endorsement, at last.  Republicans are right to worry about the effects of a Presidential Election day debacle for their down ballot contests, and now they scramble to save their own, personal, electoral futures. But more is going down in flames than a few Senate chances.

The defining GOP alliance of evangelicals and free market advocates was already on shaky ground given that Trump is neither devout nor a believer in regulation by market.  He believes in strong men being able to rewrite the rules of bankruptcy in order to make a buck and stiff the schmuck. Of course we all know, too, that the famous have the right to assault women according to the Trump holy scriptures.

While limiting reproductive health and rights for women has been a hallmark of many evangelical dispositions, celebrating the assault of their mothers, wives, and daughters has finally trumped the pragmatism motivated by their Supreme Court anxieties. If coherence of principles remains a conservative Christian priority, Evangelist Russell Moore’s op-ed last month will get many more readers as Trump’s lewd barbarism becomes ever more difficult to overlook.

Of course Trump’s destruction of the defining GOP alliance was preceded by the wreckage of its fantasized one.

Trump ruined the hopes of a new broader GOP alliance with his celebration of a wall that Mexico would pay for, but that was only the first of many “strong man” celebrations he would offer. His association with former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani, one of his surviving spokespersons, has moved Trump to continue celebrating the disastrous policies of “stop and frisk”.  A smarter proto-fascist would have tried to build his authoritarianism on a broader base, but Trump’s ideology is just too deeply steeped in racism to be electorally triumphant. As one exceptionally well connected progressive friend predicted, Hillary Rodham Clinton should beat Trump in a landslide. The skeptic at that dinner table predicted HRC victory too, but worried about its certainty.

We ought worry, for our nation knows the risk of the October Surprise.

Trump’s tailspin risks us all

Those who leaked Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street only revealed what Bernie Sanders and everyone who embraced his commitment to ending Wall Street influence know: those speeches must have been “damned good” for Madame Secretary to have been paid so well for them. This is of course not really news, for we all know that you don’t earn your keep by offending your hosts. However, it does give those opposed to a Clinton victory the chance to redirect her possible supporters to the Green Party or to the Libertarians. Trump’s campaign is very happy about this release, of course, for those who vote for Stein, or stay home, implicitly keep Trump’s hopes alive. Putin is among his greatest supporters.

I am no cold warrior, but neither am I naïve about Putin’s Russia. I have spent my academic career analyzing Soviet-type societies and then the transformations of post-communist countries.  While we ought be focused on how Putin’s regime has redrawn European state boundaries by invading Ukraine (contrary to Trump’s understanding, reflecting something more than his careless language ) and by committing war crimes in Syria, we need be much more cautious about how Putin’s skillful manipulation of democratic public opinion within his adversaries’ nations leads to state breakdown.

Putin, and Trump, have celebrated Brexit – not because they care for globalization’s dispossessed, but because railing against global elites creates room for their brands of militarism and fascism to gain ground.  Putin does not stop there, of course – his aim is, ultimately, to weaken both the European Union and NATO, the latter of which Trump has found “obsolete” We ought, therefore, be wary of how Putin will try to maneuver Trump into the White House with his regime’s considerable capacities in information warfare.

In the end, however, I agree with my optimistic friend. Should Clinton manage to mobilize those who justifiably fear a Trump regime’s ruin of US international standing and its promised assault on our existing standards of rights for women, people of color, and others (including the dispossessed white folks who celebrate his promise of a return to greatness), we should see a rout of Trump and those who continue to support him. But that won’t be the end of Trump.

I don’t mean a new season of The Apprentice.  Trump has given license to those who, in the name of opposing political correctness, feel free to demean and harm, in speech and in practice, those they consider inferior. He has encouraged his supporters to think that, should he lose, he was robbed of the victory by illegal means. As a former Pennsylvanian myself, I can readily read his racist surmise when he tells his supporters to observe the polls in certain places.

When Trump loses, do you think his supporters will retreat to their private resentments for the erosion of white privilege in America?

The Morning After

I wrote the preceding on the morning before the debate, and now the morning after.

I found Michelle Goldberg’s account of the debate most HRC sympathetic – while the Secretary could not quite hold onto Michelle Obama’s high road all the time, she did pull us back toward rational democratic deliberation despite the menacing hulk looming behind her, despite Trump’s threat to imprison her should he be elected.

Those who declare Trump’s victory in debate can do so only because he has so effectively diminished not only our expectations of what a GOP candidate ought bring.  He has helped mobilize the flames of ressentiment so effectively that it overwhelms any politics of respect, whether toward his opponent or toward his Muslim American interlocutor, or towards “the African Americans and the Hispanics”.  He advocates a new sense of justice with the rule of law and constitutional integrity as potential casualties. Trump consolidated his base in the debate and in the preceding press conference with such bravado and bullying that he won’t be eclipsed. Those who seek to save the Republican Party will have to go to battle, and not wait for his never-to-come resignation.

Barring some extraordinary October surprise, Trump has not only failed in his campaign, but has destroyed the Republican Party in the process. But he remains dangerous. In fact, without the moderating force of the GOP mainstream, he becomes even more threatening. Trump has fertilized with his lies, grandstanding, and celebrity surmises, with his BS, a measure of white supremacy, bald patriarchy and proto-fascism on American soil I would have never anticipated.  Those who embrace that vision will not be quieted with an electoral victory by Hillary Rodham Clinton. I fear, by contrast, they will be incensed.

This last month of campaigning is not just about who wins the White House. It’s about whether the culture of this contest paves the road to Hell or gives us a chance to reroute toward the Promised Land. I pray for the latter, but the sociologist in me fears the former.


Michael D. Kennedy, Professor of Sociology and International and Public Affairs, Brown University

homepages:

http://www.brown.edu/academics/sociology/michael-kennedy

http://watson.brown.edu/people/faculty/kennedy

https://brown.academia.edu/MichaelKennedy

@Prof_Kennedy on twitter

Now Available! Globalizing Knowledge: Intellectuals, Universities and Publics in Transformation.  Stanford University Press  http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=24607

Address: Box 1916 Maxcy Hall Brown University 108 George Street Providence, RI 02912 Fax: (401) 863-3213

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Sixty percent of Catholic voters say that abortion can be a moral choice http://www.rifuture.org/catholic-voters-abortion/ http://www.rifuture.org/catholic-voters-abortion/#respond Thu, 06 Oct 2016 19:51:08 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=68387 Kaine-PenceCatholics for Choice has released a new poll that “the story of what Catholic opinions might mean at the voting booth come November 8.” According to the polling data, 46 percent of Catholic voters support Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and 40 percent support Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Key findings include:

  • Latinos, Catholic women and Catholic millennials show the largest support for Clinton over Trump.
  • Sixty percent of Catholic voters say that the views of the Catholic hierarchy are not important to them when they are deciding who to vote for in the presidential election.
  • Six in ten Catholic voters do not feel an obligation to vote the way the bishops recommend.
  • Sixty percent of Catholic voters say that abortion can be a moral choice.
  • Seventy-two percent believe that abortion should be available to pregnant women who have contracted the Zika virus.
  • Seventy percent of Catholics do not think that companies should be allowed to use the owner’s religious beliefs as a reason to deny services to a customer or employee.

Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice said, “The Catholic vote is like a jump ball in basketball—every election it comes into play and both parties try to claim it as their own. As it represents 25 percent of the electorate, considerable effort goes into trying to determine which team will grab it. However, as this new poll shows what we’ve always known: Catholics are concerned with social justice and compassion and do not vote with the bishops, no matter how much the bishops try to project their own beliefs onto this section of the electorate.”

The poll was conducted before the vice presidential debate between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence, where the two squared off on religious liberty and abortion, but in a statement released after the debate Catholics for Choice said, “Catholics act according to their own conscience and they do not stand with the Catholic hierarchy on abortion, access to healthcare or the rise of religious refusals backed by the bishops, and similarly do not think they nor Catholic politicians have an obligation to vote according to the Bishops. In fact, Senator Tim Kaine said it was not the role of a public servant to mandate their faith through government, and on fundamental issues of morality, like abortion, we should let women make those decisions.”

Rhode Island is routinely said to be the most Catholic of the United States.

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While championing renewables, Raimondo dog whistles fossil fuels http://www.rifuture.org/raimondo-dog-whistles-fracking/ http://www.rifuture.org/raimondo-dog-whistles-fracking/#respond Thu, 06 Oct 2016 17:36:59 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=68382 Newport Solar
Gina Raimondo

“At breakfast this morning my nine year old, out of the blue, said, ‘Mom, what are you doing about climate change?’” said Governor Gina Raimondo at a press event in the offices of Newport Solar on Monday, “What a perfect day to ask the question! So I told him all about this and he was proud of me that we were on that.”

Newport Solar in North Kingstown is where Raimondo chose to kick off National Energy Awareness Month with her new Office of Energy Resources (OER) commissioner Carol Grant. Newport Solar is a Rhode Island leader in solar installation, and its successful efforts should be lauded.

“Our clean energy sector in Rhode Island has created a slew of new opportunities for education and jobs, and that will continue as we move forward in building the clean energy industry,” said Raimondo at the event.

Commissioner Grant spoke about Rhode Island’s high ranking in the State Energy Efficiency Scorecard. The American Council on Energy‐Efficient Economy (ACEEE) recently ranked Rhode Island fourth in the country for best energy efficiency programs and policies. “We want to educate Rhode Islanders on the many benefits of the state’s energy efficiency and renewable energy programs,” said Grant, “and we look forward to further developing a future of clean, affordable, reliable and diversified energy.” [italics mine]

Also at the event was Michael Ryan, Vice President of Government Affairs at National Grid, encouraging Rhode Islanders to save energy.

Energy in Rhode Island needs to be “affordable, reliable, and clean” said Raimondo, “It’s got to be all three, and it can be all three.”

Later, Raimondo’s three criteria had mysteriously become four, or more. “So I’m going to continue to lead and push, as your governor, towards more clean, affordable, and reliable and diversified energy sources… to lead the nation in more and more sources of clean, renewable, affordable, sustainable energy.”

Towards the end of the presser, National Grid’s Michael Ryan, ironically standing in front of a large Newport Solar banner emblazoned with the tagline, “Think outside the grid,” mis-repeated Raimondo, saying that the energy must be “efficient, affordable and reliable.

“Those are key with National Grid.”

In the video below you can watch the complete press event. Solar, wind and efficiency were lauded but fracked gas, the third leg of Raimondo’s energy policy, and a key driver of National Grid’s business, was never mentioned except via subtle dog whistles.

These dog whistles are words like reliable, diversified and efficient. These are the words anti-environmentalists use when they want to scare us into accepting fracked gas as a bridge fuel, like when Rush Limbaugh said, “Solar panels are not sustainable, Millennials. May sound good, yes. ‘Clean, renewable energy.’ But what do you do when the sun’s down at night? What do you do when the clouds obscure the sun? We’re not there yet.”

Limbaugh admits that solar panels are clean and renewable. But he’s doubting their reliability and sustainability.

This is how a politician like Raimondo can appease companies like National Grid, which are actively working to expand Rhode Island’s dependence on fossil fuels, while publicly talking only about the work she’s doing on energy that’s actually clean and renewable.

On April 13 Raimondo appeared at a solar farm in East Providence to announce the results of the 2016 Rhode Island Clean Energy Jobs Report released by the Rhode Island OER and the Executive Office of Commerce. At this event Marion Gold, who publicly supported the power plant planned for Burrillville, was still the OER commissioner.

“The clean energy economy is supporting nearly 14,000 jobs,” said Raimondo, “a forty percent increase from last year. That is amazing.”

The press release for this event noted that this job growth was likely the result of the “maturation of the solar industry, start up activity in smart grid technologies, and the progress made on the construction of the Block Island Wind Farm.”

There was no mention at this event of fracked gas, Burrillville, Invenergy, Spectra pipelines, or National Grid’s expansion of LNG at Fields Point, until reporters asked the governor about it directly, at which point Raimondo somewhat reluctantly admitted that she does in fact support Invenergy’s $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant planned for Burrillville.

In Raimondo’s capacity as vice chair of the Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition she was proud to “support the foresight of my colleagues to broaden the Coalition’s focus and include solar energy development as a policy priority. Wind and solar provide complementary benefits to the U.S. electric grid and will help diversify the country’s energy mix. The need for states to take a broader view of renewable power is clear.”

Again, no mention of her support for fracked gas.

Newport SolarRaimondo has consistently touted her support for renewables like wind and solar, only occasionally voicing her support for fracking. Raimondo never holds a press release in front of a fracked gas pipeline or compressor station. She holds them at wind turbines and solar farms, giving the appearance of a strong leader on the environment.

But National Grid and Invenergy need to know she’s on board with their plans, so she signals her support during the press conference with careful phrasing.

And if the governor’s phrasing is off message, National Grid’s Michael Ryan will misquote her. “Clean” energy is out, “reliable” energy is in. In other words, “Let them eat fracked gas.”

Raimondo’s choice of location for her press conferences demonstrates that if she is not embarrassed by her support of fracked gas, she at least is beginning to recognize how history will ultimately judge her support.

As Bill McKibben said in a recent message to Rhode Island, “Five to ten years ago we thought the transition was going to be from coal, to natural gas as some sort of bridge fuel, onto renewables and now, sadly, we realize we can’t do that in good faith, because natural gas… turns out to be a dead end, not a bridge to the future but a kind of rickety pier built out into the lake of hydrocarbons.”

Fracked gas was well known to be a bad idea when Raimondo stood with Invenergy’s CEO Michael Polsky and tried to sell the idea to Rhode Island. Raimondo’s support for Invenergy’s power plant was a massive political blunder with consequences not only for her political career, but for the future of Rhode Island and the world.

A future, and a world, her children will be living in.

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In message to Rhode Island, Bill McKibben praises and undercuts Sheldon Whitehouse on climate change http://www.rifuture.org/mckibben-whitehouse-gerritt/ http://www.rifuture.org/mckibben-whitehouse-gerritt/#respond Wed, 05 Oct 2016 15:35:47 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=68361 McKibben
Bill McKibben

“Five to ten years ago we thought the transition was going to be from coal, to natural gas as some sort of bridge fuel, onto renewables,” said 350.org’s Bill McKibben in a message to Rhode Island, “and now, sadly, we realize we can’t do that in good faith, because natural gas turns out not to work that way, as a bridge fuel.”

McKibben, a leading voice on the dangers of climate change, was speaking in a video message to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s annual Rhode Island Energy & Environmental Leaders Day” conference at the Rhode Island Convention Center last Friday.

McKibben started his eight minute message with praise for Whitehouse, calling him an “indefatigable leader,” along with Senator Bernie Sanders, around climate change issues. McKibben called Whitehouse’s Friday dialogues on the Senate floor against climate change and ExxonMobile “relentless” and “remarkable.”

“There are moments when I hope that his last name turns out to be a key to his and our future, but that’s for another day,” said McKibben.

But McKibben was also relentless in his condemnation of natural gas.

Natural gas, said McKibben, “turns out to be a dead end, not a bridge to the future but a kind of rickety pier built out into the lake of hydrocarbons. So we’ve got to make the transition to renewables now, and fast.

“We have to forget about bridges and make that leap.”

Earlier that day, during a question and answer session, Senator Whitehouse once again declined to speak out against the natural gas infrastructure projects currently threatening Rhode Island’s ability to meet carbon and greenhouse gas reduction goals. Greg Gerritt, of ProsperityforRI.com, confronted Whitehouse, saying that the “resistance,” those engaged in front line battles against fossil fuel infrastructure, was ultimately going to have a greater effect than the carbon tax that Whitehouse champions.

“People are saying no more fossil fuel pipelines, no more power plants, no more compressor stations, and they’re putting their bodies out there,” said Gerritt, “I want us to think about how the dark money plays out in a place like Rhode Island where you can talk about climate change, but you can’t actually stop anything.

“The politicians are all saying, ‘even though we know that if we build this we can’t ever meet our carbon goal, we still want to build a power plant.’ And I want to know what are we going to do so that on the ground, here in our own communities, that this power of the fossil fuel industry gets stopped.”

Whitehouse countered that his job in the Senate “is to try to solve this in a place where it will have the most powerful effect that it can, across the board. I will never win this fight, from where I sit, plant by plant. I just won’t, can’t. Too many of them, too much going on, and frankly there are hundreds of others that are being built while some are being protested, there are hundreds of other pipelines being used while one is being protested.

“It’s not effective, to, in my view, uh, it makes a difference, it sends a message, I don’t undercut what people are doing. I think what we did with Keystone helped send a big message, but my job, I think, is two things:

“One, fix that problem of the huge subsidy [for fossil fuel companies] because $700 billion a year or $200 billion a year sends such a powerful message through the entire economy,

“The second is, I see Meg Curran here, the chairman (sic) of the Public Utilities Commission, and we’re working with them, we’re working with FERC, we’re working with the ISO, we’re working with NEPOOL group, to try to make sure that the rules for these siting things, get adjusted. because the rules for these siting plans leave out the enormous cost of carbon.

“So for me, it’s these federal ground rules, to make them responsive to clean energy, to get them to reward the cleanness of clean energy, and to make fossil fuel pay its cost… that’s where I’m focused.”

However, if we are to heed McKibben’s video message, then Whitehouse’s focus seems like a small step, not the leap that McKibben says we need.

“The good news,” said McKibben, “is the distance we have to  leap is shorter than we thought because the engineers have done such a good job with renewable technology. During the last ten years the price of solar panels dropped eighty percent. There’s not an economic statistic on our planet more important than that.

“What it means is that we now have a chance, an outside chance, of getting ahead of the physics of climate change. It would require a serious mobilization and a huge effort.”

McKibben has written about what such a mobilization would look like in the New Republic that is worth a read.

“I think we’re going to need real, powerful leadership in order to help us, as FDR helped us once upon a time to take those steps in the right direction.

“The question is not, ‘Are we going to do this?’ Everyone knows that 75 years from now we’ll power our planet with sun and wind,” said McKibben, “The question is ‘Are we going to do it in time to be able to slow down climate change?’ … It may be the most important question that humans have ever faced.

“I wrote the first book about it all back in 1989. The cheerful title of that book was The End of Nature. I fear that not much has happened since to make me want to change the title.

“We’re in a very deep hole,” said McKibben, “and the first rule of holes is to stop digging for coal, for oil or gas and start instead to take advantage of all that green power coming from above from the sun and the wind that we’ve been wasting for so long.”

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CLF files first-in-nation lawsuit over ExxonMobil climate cover-up http://www.rifuture.org/clf-files-first-in-nation-lawsuit-over-exxonmobil-climate-cover-up/ http://www.rifuture.org/clf-files-first-in-nation-lawsuit-over-exxonmobil-climate-cover-up/#respond Thu, 29 Sep 2016 16:00:55 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=68296 clf conservation law foundationConservation Law Foundation (CLF) filed a lawsuit today against ExxonMobil for its endangerment of communities along the Mystic River – the first lawsuit of its kind in the nation since revelations last year about the corporation’s decades-long campaign to discredit climate science. Today’s filing comes several months after CLF submitted a formal letter of intent to sue ExxonMobil, a development that was announced at a press conference in May. The suit focuses on Exxon’s violations of both the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), laws designed to protect the health and safety of waterfront communities in the face of climate change.

“For more than three decades, ExxonMobil has devoted its resources to deceiving the public about climate science while using its knowledge about climate change to advance its business operations,” said CLF president Bradley Campbell. “Communities were put in danger and remain in danger, all to cut costs for one of the most profitable corporations in the world. It’s time to make Exxon answer for decades of false statements to the public and to regulators and ensure that its Everett facility meets its legal obligation to protect thousands of people and the Boston Harbor estuary from toxic water pollution.”

In March of this year, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey joined a coalition of 17 attorneys general seeking to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for campaigns to deceive customers, shareholders, and the public about climate risk. While CLF is the first organization officially to file a civil lawsuit against ExxonMobil for this deceit, many other legal actions are likely to follow.

Damali Vidot, Chelsea City Councilor-At-Large, commented, “As a mom and a representative of my community, I feel I have a responsibility to protect my kids and those I serve against the impacts of pollution in our water. I’m standing with CLF today because I believe Exxon must be held accountable for its actions.”

CLF’s trial team for the case will include nationally renowned attorney Allan Kanner of the Louisiana-based Kanner & Whiteley, whose firm has represented states and other plaintiffs in landmark cases against major oil companies, including claims arising from BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill.

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