PEER Sues BSEE Over Non-response on FOIA Seeking Arctic Drilling Testing Safety Records

Arctic Challenger, headed out for systems testing near Bellingham, earlier in December

The activist watchdog organization, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), filed suit today in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, against the Federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).  The suit, brought under the Freedom of Information Act, seeks to force BSEE to “disclose records wrongfully withheld in failing to respond within the statutory deadline to Plaintiff’s five FOIA requests.”

PEER, along with other parties, has been trying to unravel what happened in September, in Puget Sound, when testing of the containment dome apparatus Shell hoped to deploy in the Arctic later that month failed catastrophically. Although BSEE responded in November to an FOIA request from Seattle’s KUOW Radio, they have not responded to any of the similar requests from PEER.  Here’s an extract the environmental NGO’s press release on the suit:

The federal agency overseeing offshore oil and gas operations slated for this spring in Arctic waters lacks basic assurances that disastrous spills and other accidents will be prevented or effectively contained, according to a lawsuit filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At issue are the safeguards required to protect against such known hazards as sea ice, subsurface ice scour and blowouts, as well as specifications for well design and well integrity control.

A relatively new agency called the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), within the Interior Department, has jurisdiction over offshore drilling operations in federal waters, including the Arctic Outer Continental Shelf. The agency, however, has not been able to respond to series of requests posed by PEER under the Freedom of Information Act asking for records detailing how BSEE will approach issues ranging from sea ice to spill containment.

“We have yet to see any evidence supporting the claim that Interior has upgraded the lax enforcement enabling the BP Gulf spill. In fact, what few records we have been able to pry loose suggest just the opposite,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, whose organization today filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “This material on operational safety should be on the world-wide web, not locked away in a proprietary safe.”

What little information BSSE has disclosed raises more doubts about its independence from industry. In September, following an earlier PEER lawsuit, the agency was forced to concede that it had done only partial and cursory testing with no independent analysis of the results for the capping system to prevent a repeat of the large, lengthy Gulf of Mexico blowout in the sensitive Arctic waters.

Firedoglake has been covering the strange odyssey of the Arctic Challenger, the old barge Shell is converting to one of the main features of its impending Arctic offshore drilling program.  PEER will keep us updated on progress of its five previous FOIA actions, and of this lawsuit.

Meanwhile, yesterday, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced his department’s plan for petroleum development of the region of northwest Alaska known as NPR-A, an area about the size of the state of Maine:

The Interior Department’s plan for managing a vast petroleum reserve on Alaska’s North Slope calls for a roughly 50-50 split between conservation and oil development plus accommodation for a pipeline that could carry offshore Arctic Ocean oil to the trans-Alaska pipeline.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday announced that the plan will allow for development of nearly 12 million acres within the 23 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an area roughly the size of Indiana.

Salazar said in his announcement that the plan will guide the transition from leasing and exploration to responsible production and transport of the reserve’s oil and gas.

One feature of the plan Salazar introduced is that it appears it will tie in directly to the infrastructure Shell will need to develop to market the oil it intends to produce from its impending offshore production wells.  However, Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski is concerned that Salazar’s plan doesn’t give energy giants like Shell some sort of blank slate:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she remained concerned that the plan sets up hurdles for pipelines carrying oil drilled offshore in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas to the trans-Alaska pipeline. Salazar should make it clear, she said, that future environmental review of potential pipeline routes will not prohibit their construction or make them prohibitively costly.

In regard to the PEER lawsuit, it isn’t at all clear why BSEE responded to KUOW‘s FOIA, yet seems to have ignored PEER’s five similar requests.

In regard to Salazar’s December 19th announcement, though Sen. Murkowski was critical of the safeguards Interior seems to have put in place in the plan, Alaska’s other U.S. senator, Mark Begich, was less critical:

U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said more than 200 exploration wells have been drilled in the NPR-A since the 1940s and the U.S. Geological Survey estimates reserves at 900 million barrels of technically recoverable oil and 53 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Begich said in a press release that he was pleased that the plan included provisions to transport oil through the reserve but that the Interior Department has not cleared restrictions on petroleum development in the eastern portion.

From my perspective, it seems the Obama administration is bound to support Shell’s endeavors, along with those of other energy companies, in northwestern Alaska, and off its Arctic shores, far more than has any previous administration.

Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder - Songs on the Death of Children

One of Austrian composer Gustav Mahler's most poignant creations is his song cycle based on poems of Friedrich Rückert,  Kindertotenlieder.  The five songs are set for mezzo-soprano or baritone voice and orchestra.  Written between 1901 and 1904, they represent the essence of Mahler's fascination with innocence vs. fate, with sorrowful longings interspersed with outbursts of anguish.

There are a number of notable performances on Youtube and elsewhere on the web, but these resonant renditions by Matthias Goerne, with the Gustav Mahler Yugenorchester, directed by Jonathan Nott, at the 2009 BBC Proms concerts, contain English subtitles.

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

NOAA Arctic Report Card for 2012

Judy Cried Today. A Lot

She cried in her car, when she heard of the shootings in an elementary school.  Thinking of all those kids.  She cried at home, when she told me about it.  She cried when she heard the president's condolences.  She cried when we drove into the Anchorage airport from Wasilla.

Thirty years teaching in elementary classrooms in Whittier, Palmer and Wasilla.  Two years mentoring student teachers in Kenai, Soldotna, Anchorage and the Valley.  Three and a half years mentoring first and second-year teachers in eleven Alaska Villages from Tatitlik on Prince William Sound to St. Marys on the lower Yukon.

I touched her warmly, and she brushed me off. "It only makes it worse," she sobbed.

There must be 100,000 grade school teachers around the country as saddened as my wife.

I hope this never happens again.

Thank You, Andrew Halcro! - Dairygate Bust Begins

Andrew Halcro and wife, among others, at a party I hosted on the day Sarah Palin resigned as Alaska's governor.  The party was held in Halcro's honor, as he was Palin's first blogger critic of substance.  The people are laughing with Bob Poe, who is telling a Palin story.

On November 19th, Andrew Halcro wrote:

The Palin era dairy bailout seemed like such a bad idea back in 2007. Bailing out an industry that couldn't stand on it's own two feet. Appointing unqualified cronies to key positions and then allowing them to give away state agriculture loans without guarantees or proper collatteral. But today, rumors are abound that the FBI has come knocking. 

Several of my long time confidential sources stated last week that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is knee deep in trying to unwind some of the financial activity surrounding the use of federal government grants awarded to the Matanuska Creamery. 

"Something is going on with an FBI investigation regarding the federal grant funds.  The FBI has been contacting folks about checks they were given with cash back," read an email I received from one long time dairy source. 

"It appears the FBI Investigation is focused on one of the major shareholders," a follow up email read from yet another agriculture insider. 

In a phone interview with andrewhalcro.com, Anchorage FBI Special Agent Eric Gonzalez refused to admit or deny that the Bureau was investigating the Mataunuska Creamery. Saying it was agency's policy not to publicly comment, Gonzalez offered nothing by way of confirmation. 

But given the number of unconnected individuals who have been reportedly approached by the FBI concerning possible kickbacks from Creamery disbursements, law enforcement's attention appears leveled at the way the fledgling Creamery put their initial grants to use. 

While this normally might be surprising, after five years of following this bizarre dairy debacle, not even the FBI's shadow phases me.

Halcro's article goes on to give a thorough chronicle of the history of "Dairygate."

Today, Jill Burke at the Alaska Dispatch writes:

Kyle Beus, co-founder and co-owner of Valley Dairy, which does business as Matanuska Creamery, is facing accusations he steered money meant for the dairy operation into his own hands. A six-count indictment filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage charges Beus with wire fraud and false statements used to obtain grant disbursements from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

He's accused of pocketing at least $120,000 for his own "personal and discretionary use unrelated to the construction and management of the dairy processing facility," but details enumerated in the indictment suggest the amount may be tens of thousands of dollars higher. 

Ice cream and cheese products manufactured by Beus's operation are always a popular draw at farmers markets in Anchorage during the summer. 

The government alleges Beus abused his status and relationships with several interrelated companies to facilitate the fraud scheme. Simplified, as a dairy manager with the authority to oversee disbursement of federal grants, prosecutors say Beus used grant-awards and contracted companies as a conduit by which to draw and request cash that was never applied toward the dairy's operations. In some cases, none of the money went toward the dairy's operations. In others, some, but not all of the money drawn was properly used. 

In the indictment, Beus is accused of carrying out the scheme by sending false or inflated invoices in support of his funding requests.

The Dispatch article notes in conclusion, "Prosecutors say the investigation is ongoing."

Commenters at that article are speculating whether or not this investigation will roll up one or the other of the Palins - Sarah or Todd.  Jesse Griffin, writing on this at The Immoral Minority, observes:

Palin is the one that helped orchestrate the sale of Mat Maid to Beus, even though he had defaulted on a previous loan and was under investigation. Essentially Palin's prints are all over this thing, and I have a hard time imagining how she will walk away unscathed.

That may well be.

Griffin's commenters, who seem to be salivating over this development,  imagine Palin in pink handcuffs, etc.

Will Dennis Zaki's fabled "iceberg" turn end up being made out of ice cream?

Which Cliff is Real - The Fiscal Cliff or the Climate Cliff

Raise your hand if you think Obama will pay enough attention to the real cliff - the Climate Cliff. I thought not. Let's hope we're wrong. Time is running out.

O Little, Walled Town of Bethlehem - the War on XMas Part Two

You can order the cards here.  The money goes to support Palestinian rights.

Here is the message on the card's back:

Towering walls and militarized fences now encircle Bethlehem, turning the 4,000-year-old city into a virtual prison for its Palestinian Christian and Muslim citizens. Bethlehem has only three gates to the outside world, all tightly controlled by Israeli occupation forces.

Israel has confiscated almost all the agricultural land in the area for illegal settlements, making it impossible for many Palestinian farmers to continue tending their land. Outside the town, the fields where shepherds once watched their flocks are being filled by Israeli housing blocs and roads barred to the descendants of those shepherds.

“It is unconscionable that Bethlehem should be allowed to die slowly from strangulation,” says South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Bethlehem’s residents increasingly are fleeing Israel’s confining walls, and soon the city, home to the oldest Christian community in the world, will have little left of its Christian history but the cold stones of empty churches.

Though most Americans don’t know it, we are directly involved in Israel’s strangulation of Bethlehem. Fortune Magazine and other analysts consistently rank the Israel lobby as one of the most effective special interests in Washington; Americans give Israel over $8 million per day. In its just over 60 years of existence, Israel has received more US tax money than any other nation.

As we seek peace and joy for the world, it is time to reconsider an expenditure that perpetuates injustice, tragic violence, and conflict. Please help.

The First World Musician of Note, Pandit Ravi Shankar Passes

Composer, scholar, teacher and worldwide performer, Pandit Ravi Shankar passed away Tuesday at the Scripps Hospital, in La Jolla, near San Diego, California.  He had been admitted on December 6th with breathing difficulties.  Shankar was 92.

Perhaps more than any other artist of the 20th century, his performances around the world gained global acceptance for Hindustani music.  His collaborations with non-Indian musicians, spanning over half a century, made him an early crossover figure.  Shankar was one of the first musicians of the foremost rank whose role in emerging post World War II culture not only created what became known as “world music,” it helped make that label a powerful one.

Shankar first became a celebrity in the late 1960s, when Beatle George Harrison studied Hindustani music with the master in London, Kashmir and India.  Harrison had earlier used a sitar, retuned to typical Western tuning, in his song, Norwegian Wood.  After studying with Shankar, Harrison wroteWithin You, Without You, for the Sgt. Pepper album.

Though the master’s collaboration with Harrison was his most famous, he worked with many of the world’s finest musicians:

[Shankar] became a de facto tutor for Westerners fascinated by India’s musical traditions.

He gave lessons to Coltrane, who named his son Ravi in Shankar’s honor, and became close friends with Menuhin, recording the acclaimed “West Meets East” album with him. He also collaborated with flutist Jean Pierre Rampal, composer Philip Glass and conductors Andre Previn and Zubin Mehta.

“Any player on any instrument with any ears would be deeply moved by Ravi Shankar. If you love music, it would be impossible not to be,” singer David Crosby, whose band The Byrds was inspired by Shankar’s music, said in the book “The Dawn of Indian Music in the West: Bhairavi.”

A man with a long, complex love life, he fathered both Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar, winners of almost a score of Grammies.

He inspired one of the first mega-benefit concerts in modern music history, the August, 1971 Concerts for Bangla Desh.  Here is a shortened version of the opening set of the concert, which later also featured Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Billy Preston, the band Badfinger.  In this segment, the musicians are Ravi Shankar on sitar, Ali Akbhar Khan on Sarod, Kamala Chakravarty on tamboura, and Alla Rakha on tablas:

At the time of the concerts for Bagladesh, I was the music director of a Seattle radio station, KRAB FM, that played more music from around the world than any other in the United States, and studying sitar with Dr. Robert Jangaard, who had been taught by Ali Akbar Khan, at the latter’s school in San Rafael, California.  On the air, we not only played chamber works of north Indian music that of Khan and Shankar so fully exemplified, we had a large collection of the latter’s music from his many film scores.

It was through doing research on Shankar’s film music that I first came into contact with the name ofPhilip Glass, who had yet to become discovered, let alone famous.  Glass, in a 1972 interview forKRAB radio conducted by Michael Wiater with the minimalist composer, stated that his work with Shankar on a film score while studying in Paris in 1966 changed his life in a profound way.  Wikipediarelates the transformation:

Glass worked in winter 1965 and spring 1966 as a music director and composer on a film score (Chappaqua, Conrad Rooks, 1966) with Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha, which added another important influence on Glass’s musical thinking. His distinctive style arose from his work with Shankar and Rakha and their perception of rhythm in Indian music as being entirely additive. He renounced all his compositions in a moderately modern style resembling Milhaud’s, Aaron Copland‘s, and Samuel Barber‘s, and began writing pieces based on repetitive structures of Indian music and a sense of time influenced by Samuel Beckett.

In my view, Shankar’s impact on Glass, who has so deeply influenced other musicians, far exceeds his effect on George Harrison or the Beatles.

Here are Shankar and Glass collaborating on the 1990 work, Ragas in Minor Scale:

The list of musicians with whom Shankar collaborated is too long to list here, but his readiness to meet music on Western terms while holding dear his own longstanding Indian cultural values is one of the great developments of 20th century music.  It can probably said that, like Philip Glass, exposure to Shankar’s art changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of musicians, millions of people around this planet over the course of the past 60 years.

And his inspiration lives on directly, as well as indirectly.  Here are his two daughters, Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones, performing together:

I was able to see Ravi Shankar perform three times over the decades – in San Francisco in the late 1960s, in Vancouver, BC, in the early 1970s, and in Anchorage, joined by Anoushka, in the late 1990s.  Although selling my sitar in 1973 helped get me the money to move to Alaska, his art influenced me back then to not write music again until I had found ways to tell stories people could remember through their melodies, and to avoid the intellectual and academic bullshit my art had been headed toward before encountering Shankar’s profound message.

Thank you, Pandit!

Here is a recent performance of the late master, celebrating India Day in Great Britain, in 2009.  He is joined by daughter Anoushka:

Roadmap to Apartheid Wins Anchorage International Film Festival First Prize

Kelly Walters, who got me to go watch this fine documentary at the AIFF, just posted the announcement on the film's prize on facebook.

"Educate and think for yourself! An encore presentation. Will be shown at 6:30pm at the Alaska Experience Theatre!"

Here's the extended trailer.

Bill McKibben on Preparing for the Worst

from Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish.