Source:  AP

NEW YORK – There’s less money this summer for hotel rooms, surfboards and bathing suits. It’s all going into the gas tank.

High prices at the pump are putting a squeeze on the family budget as the traditional summer driving season begins. For every $10 the typical household earns before taxes, almost a full dollar now goes toward gas, a 40 percent bigger bite than normal.

Households spent an average of $369 on gas last month. In April 2009, they spent just $201. Families now spend more filling up than they spend on cars, clothes or recreation. Last year, they spent less on gasoline than each of those things. (more…)

Source:  Aspen Times

ASPEN — Aspen Mountain will reopen for skiing this weekend with a better base depth of snow on Memorial Day than it had on New Year’s Day.

The base depth has hovered around 70 inches at the mountaintop since the Aspen Skiing Co. announced last week it will extend the skiing season. The base was 38 inches on Jan. 1. (more…)

European leaders are negotiating a deal that would lead to unprecedented outside intervention in the Greek economy, including international involvement in tax collection and privatisation of state assets, in exchange for new bail-out loans for Athens. [SPPI note: See book quote below]

People involved in the talks said the package would also include incentives for private holders of Greek debt voluntarily to extend Athens’ repayment schedule, as well as another round of austerity measures. (more…)

Source:  NY Times

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

CATARINA, Tex. — Until last year, the 17-mile stretch of road between this forsaken South Texas village and the county seat of Carrizo Springs was a patchwork of derelict gasoline stations and rusting warehouses.

Now the region is in the hottest new oil play in the country, with giant oil terminals and sprawling RV parks replacing fields of mesquite. More than a dozen companies plan to drill up to 3,000 wells around here in the next 12 months. (more…)

Source: SD Union-Tribune

By Mike Lee and Christopher Cadelago

Fireworks shows need new environmental review

Court ruling could have sweeping impact

What started as a battle over fireworks shows led to a sweeping legal victory Friday for environmentalists that could stymie a wide range of events needing city permits, from the Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon to birthday parties held at parks.

“According to the strictest interpretation of this, jumpy-jumps and everything else would be subject to environmental review if this ruling stands,” said lawyer Robert Howard, who represented the La Jolla Community Fireworks Foundation in the case. “It’s a breathtaking ruling.” (more…)

Source:  email

by Peter Glaser [Troutman Sanders]

Here’s a fun way to start off your Memorial Day weekend (at least for those of us who consider this type of stuff fun).

The Clean Air Act provides that EPA must act, up or down, on a completed PSD permit application within one year.  EPA says that one year does not include appeals to the Environmental Appeals Board (EAB).  But the EAB is a body that EPA established through a delegation from the Administrator to provide an administrative appeal of EPA PSD decisions (and the PSD decisions of the seven states who act as EPA “delegates”).  It was not established under the Clean Air Act.

The Avenal project is a new natural gas combined cycle facility that applied to EPA for a PSD permit.  When EPA didn’t act for almost two years, the developer took EPA to court, arguing that the one year deadline in the statute for EPA to act means one year.  EPA tried to convince the court that one year didn’t include the EAB appeals process, which hadn’t even begun, even though the EAB is part of EPA. (more…)

Source: Watts Up

In a press conference moments ago in Trenton, Gov. Christie announced his support for repealing the state’s cap-and-trade law and withdrawing from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a 10-state regional compact in the Northeast that implements a cap-and-trade energy tax scheme from Maine to Maryland.

“It’s a failure,” Christie said today. “RGGI has not changed behavior and it does not reduce emissions.” (more…)

Source:  Climate Audit

by Steve McIntyre

In 2009, Peter Gleick wrote: “Fear is an effective tool.” A lesson, it seems, that was not lost on Gleick himself, who used the occasion of the recent tornado outbreak to prophesy “accelerating” “death and destruction”. While Gleick’s opportunistic attempt to exploit the tornado event has been criticized (e.g. Pielke here, it seems to me that Gleick’s apocalyptic rhetoric has attracted insufficient attention, especially when measured against his prior editorials on fearmongering.

Gleick categorically asserted that science says that “climate is worsening”:

Violent tornadoes throughout the southeastern U.S. must be a front-page reminder that no matter how successful climate deniers are in confusing the public or delaying action on climate change in Congress or globally, the science is clear: Our climate is worsening. (more…)

Source: Climate Audit

by Steve McIntyre

Yamal FOI Appeal

As I reported a month or so ago, the University of East Anglia refused a request under the Environmental Information Regulations for the regional chronology combining Polar Urals, Yamal and other shorter chronologies, referred to in a Climategate email. Their refusal is here UEA Refusal.

The refusal took place on March 28 and I plan to submit an appeal within 60 days. I’ve uploaded my draft appeal and would welcome any comments in the next 2 hours or so, following which I will send it.

Appeal of UEA Refusal

Correction: Make that increased sales of its GASOLINE-fueled cars.  The $16,500 Chevy Cruze is the leader.

The $41,000 electric Chevy “Volt,” fueled by nuclear and coal power, continues to be a dud with real American buyers.   So, good capitalists all, General Motors is having Obama buy them all. With his stash. (more…)

Source:  Uncoverage

“Arab Spring” in Egypt: Where’s the “Democracy” Here?

The cynically-named “Arab Spring” continues in Egypt with  direct threats to Israel this weekend.

A “new,” second revolution is to be held Friday in the country. It is being staged by younger, more radical members of Muslim Brotherhood.

Read all of this from the Canadian-Israel Committee: “Egypt Opens Border With Gaza – Time to Cancel the Flotilla, Right?”

A new Nazi party is announced for Egypt, the “new democracy!” (more…)

Source:  Labor Union Report

Since President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board announced its prosecution of the Boeing Company last month, there has been much commentary around the topic and its possible effects. Some have stated that the attack on Boeing is an attack on Right-to-Work states (even though it applies to companies in all states), others have correctly stated that the NLRB wants to make unions an ‘equal partner’ in the running of business. Some also add that the NLRB’s actions will create further incentive for businesses to avoid union-heavy blue states as well as raise the possibility of sending more U.S. jobs overseas. What has not been addressed until now is just how the legal theories behind the NLRB’s dangerous prosecution of Boeing, if successful, could apply to companies without unions, as well. (more…)

Source: Red State

by Ed Morrissey

Did Union Bosses Lie To Their Members About Obama’s Gun Control Ambitions?

In 2008, most union bosses had to work hard to convince their union members to vote for Barack Hussein Obama. Despite the fact that the Machinists’ union boss Tom Buffenbarger considered Obama a “thespian” and “Janus, the two-faced Roman god of ancient times,” others union bosses like the SEIU’s Andy Stern were wholly on board the Obama bandwagon early on. Another of Obama’s major supporters was the AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka, who told union members that they were racists if they did not vote for Obama:

There’s not a single, good reason for any worker—especially any union member—to vote against Barack Obama…And, there’s only one really, really bad reason to vote against Barack Obama and that’s because he’s not white.

After Obama’s April 2008 loose-tongue slip about Americans who “cling to guns or religion,” union bosses had to work doubly hard to convince those union members who do, in fact, cling to their guns that Barack Obama wasn’t pro-gun control (despite his record). (more…)