The transcript is linked above.  He’s quite a thinker, IMO.

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PS: I don’t understand how corporations can “extend their powers” as a result of the Supreme Court ruling you mention.

Craig: It’s fairly simple. Let’s take an example. Chevron made $24 billion profit last year.  Now I’m not saying that they will do this, but as of January, 2010, they can spend as much of that as they want influencing our elections, ensuring the victory of a candidate who supports them, who will make things difficult for renewable energy and electric transportation while continuing or expanding favors for oil, which currently include:

• Construction bonds at low interest rates or tax-free
• Research-and-development programs at low or no cost
• Assuming the legal risks of exploration and development in a company’s stead
• Below-cost loans with lenient repayment conditions
• Income tax breaks, featuring obscure provisions in tax laws designed to receive little congressional oversight when they expire
• Sales tax breaks – taxes on petroleum products are lower than average sales tax rates for other goods
• Giving money to international financial institutions (the U.S. has given tens of billions of dollars to the World Bank and U.S. Export-Import Bank to encourage oil production internationally)
• The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve
• Construction and protection of the nation’s highway system
• Relaxing the amount of royalties to be paid – apparently, we get about 40% of revenues from oil on public land vs. 60% – 65% in most other countries
• Not forcing the industry to deal with the “externalities” – healthcare costs, long-term environmental damage, etc. — costs that are becoming increasingly clear and subject to quantification

I just picked an oil company because I happen to know more about energy than I do about healthcare, food, etc. Each industry has its own horror story to tell.　

PS: Craig, I get it, I think.  So the more money you have as an individual or corporation, the more power you have. Maybe this is capitalism.

Craig: Actually, it would be more correct to call it “feudalism.” This is what we had 900 years ago, before the Magna Carta, the rule of law, the Age of Reason, the Enlightment with the American and French Revolutions, the Bill of Rights, the abolition of slavery, woman suffrage, civil rights, the end of apartheid, and the hundreds of other pieces of progress we’ve made in fits and starts towards a more civil society. I don’t think we want to go make to the days of “might makes right.”

There is a reason we refer to this period of history as the “Dark Ages.”  It wasn’t a picnic. And, sadly, we’re about a micron away from heading back in that direction.

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“… The government we have is the government we deserve. Though you are correct per se from your point of view, I disagree with both counts to some extent. First, the Supreme Court’s job is to interpret the legality of laws written by Congress, etc.. It is now up to Congress to right the wrong of 100 plus years of corporate personhood. Now that an impotent attempt at campaign finance has been shot down, Congress should look deeper into who the constitution is written to protect: individuals from bullies/mobs. They won’t, though, as long as we keep giving more money to corporations every day than we keep for ourselves (savings) or give to the constitutional power (taxes).”

You always amaze me.  You’re 100% right that Congress could do something about this, but won’t — and for the exact reasons you’ve named.  That is why this is such a terrible conundrum — and the reason that I blog; without a grassroots effort to call attention to our broken poltical processes, we’re doomed.  

Dan continues:

Second: The dependence of renewable energy’s future upon federal government intervention shows that renewable energy proponents are not much different than the corporate power proponents: both are trying to make profits through coercion of the government Gun.

“We will be ready for renewable energy when people stop using so much nonrenewable energy. Not before. Until then, local control of rights-of-way is the only way to counteract corporate control of rights-of-way because the corporations own the federal government. When you advocate for federal decisions over local decisions, you are advocating for the biggest corporation to decide your future. You might as well just go to Little Rock and ask Wal-Mart to start selling power grids.”

Here I’m not so sure. 

First, I’m not asking Congress to help renewables — only to level the playing field.  Remove the subsidies, force everyone to pay the full price of the power they’re producing and consuming, and see what happens.  We’ll have renewable energy in about 10 minutes.  Btw, you often mention that you’d like to see less consumption of power overall; this action will achieve that goal in a big way.

Secondly, I point out a matter of political philosophy.  Though I felt different about this as a younger man, I’m currently convinced that we need to impute some moral goodness to government — and make sure that goodness happens.  Without it, we’re really dead — worse than dead, actually; we have a dystopia along the lines of 1984 or Brave New World.  But you’re certainly right in what you said above: we get the government we deserve.

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Later in the week, the justices dealt another punch to the gut to the forces of progress.  This came with the decision that rendered the federal government impotent against state and local decisions regarding rights of way — for things like power lines.

Many of us are — or were — hoping for long-distance transmission of electrical power.  This would have made feasible the development of forms of renewable energy that are prevalent in certain areas of the country, e.g., solar thermal in the southwestern desert, wind energy in the plains, and geothermal in the mountains.  As of this week, however, such things will require the buy-in of dozens of state and local bureaucracies.

It hasn’t been a good week of news from high court.

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