K Street in Brief

ENVIRONMENTALISTS: OH, CANADA!

The United States’s northern neighbor is promoting itself as an answer to this nation’s fuel woes.

Tapping the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, and sending the oil south could significantly lower U.S. dependence on petroleum from far less neighborly places.

{mosads}But environmental groups hate the idea. Liz Barratt-Brown of the Natural Resources Defense Council said producing a barrel of oil from tar sands generates about three times the greenhouse gas emissions that producing a barrel of conventional oil generates.

The United States imports about 1.3 million barrels of oil a day from tar sands, around 5 percent of the total daily consumption.

Worried about global warming, Democrats in Congress added a provision to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 prohibiting the federal government from purchasing unconventional or synthetic fuels whose lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions are higher than conventional fuels. That would include tar sands, which are also referred to as oil sands, and the process by which coal is turned into a transportation fuel.

Now Canadian officials are pushing for a tar sands exemption. Mark Cooper, a spokesman for the Alberta government, disputed the contention that the oil is “dirty.”

The sands are developed in “an environmentally friendly way,” he said.

What’s more, Canada is a “friendly neighbor,” Cooper noted. Limiting imports of tars sands will encourage greater reliance on oil from places that aren’t nearly as nice, he said.

Alberta’s Deputy Premier Ron Stevens is in Washington this week encouraging federal officials to encourage more tar sands development, not less.

Canadians have made some headway in Congress. Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) have introduced measures to repeal the provision in the energy act.  

But NRDC and other groups are unmoved.

“The environmental community views this provision as very important,” Barratt-Brown said.

Jim Snyder

IMPROVING THE IG

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is urging the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee to consider legislation that would ensure the independence of the legal counsel for the Pentagon’s inspector general.

Watchdog groups like the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and the Government Accountability Project (GAP) have championed the need for independent legal advice for inspectors general.

McCaskill has been critical of the Pentagon inspector general’s practice of relying on lawyers who are part of the Defense Department’s Legal Services Agency.

“Not only is such an arrangement unfair to the IG, it creates a dilemma for those lawyers who are forced to ‘serve two masters,’ something which is impossible to do under legal ethical standards,” McCaskill wrote to Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the panel’s chairman, and John McCain (R-Ariz.), the ranking member.

A bill sponsored by McCaskill and Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) unanimously passed in the Senate last week.

The bill includes a provision requiring every inspector general to obtain legal advice from counsel reporting either directly to the inspector general, or to another inspector general.

The Armed Services panel is currently marking up the 2009 defense authorization bill.
 
Roxana Tiron
 

KEEP TRUCKIN'…

… That’s getting harder to do these days thanks to soaring gasoline prices. On Monday, truckers lobbied Congress with their rigs and their horns, blaring a protest over rising fuel costs.

Meanwhile, the American Trucking Association , which did not organize Monday’s protest, is more quietly making its case in Congress and in the administration. ATA has developed a 12-point plan that it says will help alleviate fuel costs.

One idea is to require that speedometer limits be set to 68 miles per hour. The ATA also advocates that a national standard of 65 mph be set. More ambitious components of the plan call on exploring “oil-rich” areas in the United States that are now off-limits.

Gas prices have risen to $3.60 a gallon; the diesel that most trucks use is even higher at $4.14.

According to ATA, it now costs 171 percent more to fill up a typical tractor-trailer than it did five years ago. The trucking industry is on pace to spend $141.5 billion on fuel this year, up from $106 billion in 2006.

“We’re getting into dangerous economic territory here,” ATA spokesman Clayton Boyce said.

ATA, which spent just under $2 million on lobbying last year, is also planning an extensive campaign designed to show its members how to reduce fuel consumption. It plans to unveil that plan next month.

So far, Boyce said ATA has been disappointed by the response its action plan has gotten from both the White House and Congress. 

J.S.
 

 LET THEM IN

 The Senate passed a resolution supported by all three presidential candidates that backs Georgia’s and Ukraine’s memberships in NATO.

Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) were among eight senators who urged NATO’s foreign ministers to give a green light to the countries’ bids for NATO membership.

Joining NATO means significant investments in military equipment and training.

At the April summit in Bucharest, Romania, NATO members voted against admitting Georgia and the Ukraine. Some NATO countries, including Germany, argued that offering membership to Ukraine and Georgia would be provocative to Russia. However, NATO officials said they would review the two countries’ bids at the end of the year.

“[It] is important to make clear that NATO’s door is open and that NATO is prepared to help Georgia, Ukraine and any other countries ready to meet the responsibilities of membership walk through that door,” said Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), another resolution co-sponsor.

R.T.

BROADCASTERS BATTLE FCC 

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is fighting back against a new proposal by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that would require more locally produced programming.

In comments filed with the commission Monday, NAB said the new regulations would place an undo burden on local television and radio broadcasters.

“Instead of achieving the commission’s stated goal of promoting closer contact between broadcasters and their communities, the proposed rule changes will, in many cases, produce the opposite effect, resulting in a broadcasting industry less able to serve the public interest,” says NAB’s filing.

Part of the FCC’s proposal would require broadcasters to provide three hours per week of programming produced locally.

In addition, licensees should establish permanent advisory boards in each station’s community to hear complaints and concerns about their programming.

NAB’s lobbying push comes on the heels of a letter-writing campaign by lawmakers on Capitol Hill expressing concerns over the FCC’s proposals.

According to the trade association’s count, 150 members and senators have now written into the agency.

Kevin Bogardus