A Dishonorable Honorable

Some years ago I worked with a manager who earned a reputation for lying frequently, although there seemed to be no reason for most of the fabrications. One subordinate observed that his leader even lied when it would have been much easier to tell the truth. Is it possible that some folks have a mysterious built-in compulsion to choose deceit over honesty?

My congressman, Fred Upton, may fit that mold. He has done a good job lately of tossing aside big chunks of his integrity.

In August, Upton said, “I know some of my colleagues have suggested that they will not support (a continuing resolution to fund government) unless the Affordable Care Act is defunded. I think this would be a lousy idea and certainly harm the most vulnerable.”

Early this month, Upton voted to shut down the federal government unless President Obama agreed to stop implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

A few hours after the shutdown went into effect, Upton said, “The Affordable Care Act is not ready for prime time, but shutting down the federal government is not the solution.”

Upton chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He supported the relicensing of the accident-prone Palisades nuclear plant, and has long proclaimed the safety of nuclear plants.  However, this summer when radioactive material leaked into Lake Michigan from Palisades Upton visited the plant and termed the leak “unacceptable.”

Early this year, Upton requested more funding for the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up a large area of chemically polluted soil in the Kalamazoo. But on March 21 he voted to drastically reduce the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency then said it didn’t have enough funds to clean up the Kalamazoo disaster area.

It is customary to refer to Members of Congress as “The Honorable” John or Jane Doe. Upton has demonstrated that he no longer deserves that salutation. If you live in southwest Michigan and are looking for a rascal to turn out, one is close at hand.

Why Aren't We Getting It?

World leaders are meeting once again to haggle over standards to control pollutants that make major contributions to climate change.  The subject can be complex, and there are disagreements among scientists on certain points and between environmental and business advocates on major issues. Political considerations cloud the issues.

That said, it is possible to distill the information, add a measure of common sense, and describe the big picture in an understandable way. The following article, published by Richard Brewer on his web page, is the best concise explanation of the situation I have seen.  Brewer is Professor Emeritus, Department of Biological Sciences, Western Michigan University.

                            * * * * * *

Ozone, Obama, and the Deregulation Doo Dah Parade

 

By Richard Brewer | Published: October 30, 2011

President Obama made two serious mistakes early this fall. First, he told the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw new, stronger, standards for ozone levels in the lower atmosphere that were intended to replace the standards held over from the Bush administration. Ozone (O₃) is an atmospheric pollutant dangerous to human health because it’s highly reactive in lung tissues. It’s involved in various respiratory diseases but evidently also in other sorts of human pathology; for example, it’s believed to contribute to the development of atherosclerosis. But ozone in the lower atmosphere also has many bad effects besides just our own health and life span.  It damages plants, lowering photosynthesis and growth and is implicated in die-offs of forest trees.

Ozone is produced in the lower atmosphere by reactions between nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in the presence of sunlight. The nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds come mostly from power plants, various sorts of factories, automobiles, gasoline vapor, and chemical solvents.

There are interactions between ozone production and temperature and ozone effects and temperature, such that we get more ozone produced and stronger effects when temperatures are high. These are one of many kinds of interactions that may make global warming an even greater calamity than most of the early predictions claimed.

President Obama’s second mistake was his reason for turning down the new, science-based ozone recommendations. He said he wanted to reduce regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty. But tough regulations strictly enforced are what can make capitalism work. The last few years have shown us repeatedly how things go astray when politicians manage to weaken and thwart regulations.  Weakened regulations together with the unwillingness of federal agencies to enforce existing regulations were the main causes of the financial fiasco of 2007-2009 and the recession that came with it.

Michigan has been on the deregulation bandwagon right along. In the DooDah parade of deregulation, it may even have been ahead of the bandwagon.  We had a governor a few years ago whose slogan was “Less enforcement, more compliance.”  Such a proposition if it were sincere would be fatuous, but considering everything, just calling it preposterous or ludicrous will probably have to serve.

President Obama seems to have accepted the argument of the extreme political right that there is a conflict between “the environment” and “the economy.”  For most Americans, the right wing lost on that issue 30 or 40 years ago. Some corporations tell us if the nation doesn’t give them lax environmental rules they’ll take their jobs overseas.  Since such corporations show little national loyalty, some have.

But the balance sheet we need to look at is the overall gain to our nation in terms of clean air and water, healthy citizens, healthy communities, and healthy ecosystems compared with the cost of meeting any given environmental standard. Time after time we’ve seen that the cost of meeting new standards turns out lower than the company’s forecast, that new jobs are created connected with the improved technology needed, and that the overall national cost/benefit ratio is heavily in favor of the tougher standards.

Anyone who’s been paying attention anytime these past 40 years knows that.  Why doesn’t the President?

Oh, It Would Be Sad 




The SS Badger may be steaming toward forced retirement.

               Oh, it was sad. Oh, it was sad. It was sad when the great ship went down . . . .

That ship we once sang the sad song about was, of course, the Titanic. Until fairly recently, the Titanic had no relationship to the SS Badger, except both carried a whole lot of passengers. Now the Badger also may be a doomed vessel.

As a little boy, one thing I penciled onto my bucket list was to cross Lake Michigan aboard a car ferry. I’m not sure why. When I got the idea, I had never seen Lake Michigan. My family didn't own a car. I admired the glamorized image of a car ferry on the covers of writing tablets we used in school. That was all the motivation I can recall. It wasn’t much, but I never lost the yen to make the trip.

Six years ago, I finally crossed that one off my list. We had driven from Utah and stopped to see relatives in Wisconsin on our way to visit our son in Michigan. The stars were right to fulfill my little-boy dream. We drove north to Manitowoc, watched as our car was driven onto the Badger, and settled down in deck chairs for a great adventure on a bright, sunny day. The novelty soon wore off.

The 60-mile trip across the lake to Ludington took a full four hours. Although the Badger includes a maritime museum room, shows movies in another area, and has a good galley crew serving up short-order food, I’m sorry to report the trip is dull. Two things constitute the scenery on a trip across Lake Michigan—water and sky. We saw what appeared to be two other vessels in the distance during the whole trip. It was dull, dull, dull.

Dull or not, the SS Badger has been crossing the lake with few interruptions since 1953. It is the last of 14 car ferries to be based in Ludington. Service from that port began in 1897, mostly to carry railroad cars between Michigan and Wisconsin. The Badger was built to carry railroad cars. It is both big and tough. With a reinforced hull for ice-breaking, she originally crossed the lake all year long. The need to move railroad cars ended in the 1980s, and in 1992 the ship was refitted to exclusively carry autos and passengers. It no longer sailed in winter. Nevertheless, it still makes 490 port calls per year.

The Badger is the last large coal-burning steamship in the United States. That’s the problem. Its boilers consume huge amounts of coal, and disposing of the coal ash waste in Lake Michigan waters caught the attention of environmental groups and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency several years ago. EPA demanded a change to keep the pollutants out of the lake, and Badger owners face a deadline at the end of next year to find a way to dispose of the waste on land or substitute some other power-generating system. If they don’t, the ship’s sailing days will be over.

In somewhat of a reversal of the usual pattern when Great Lakes water quality is at issue, citizens groups are forming to petition EPA to lift the order against the historic ship, or at least extend the deadline. The main group is titled S.O.S. for Save Our Ship. It seems appropriate.

The Geezer is torn. I fully endorse measures to protect or improve water quality in the Great Lakes and elsewhere. But I also love history, and, after all, that steamship is part of a colorful heritage of lake navigation. Both Michigan and Wisconsin have declared the ship to be among their historic treasures.

Despite my good feelings toward the old Badger, we figuratively jumped ship after my one voyage. Since we moved to Michigan, beautiful wife Sandy has made three trips across the lake to visit her Wisconsin relatives. I put her aboard the Lake Express in Muskegon for those journeys. She arrives in Milwaukee in two and one-half hours, not four, although that trip also is 60 miles.

The Express is a twin-hulled catamaran powered by four Detroit Diesel engines. She holds 42 vehicles, far fewer than the Badger, but the Express has plenty of room for passengers and can travel at 40 m.p.h. When I asked Sandy how the first trip went she said, “Dull, but at least it wasn’t dull for four hours.”

While waiting for Sandy in Muskegon after her latest lake journey, I struck up a conversation with a fully mature adult who was waiting to make the trip to Wisconsin. He said, “You know, when I was a college kid I had a chance to work one summer on the SS Badger out of Ludington. I took a different job. Wouldn’t that have been something to remember if I’d have joined the crew when I had the chance?”

Maybe. He could have become a part of history, but he might have spent a pretty dull summer earning the honor.