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Today's Stories March 21, 2008 Peter Montague Run Your Car on Coal? Maybe Not Saul Landau Monroe's Deadly Doctrine Anis Hamadeh Merkel in the Knesset Madis Senner Will the Feds Underwrite the Stock Market? March 20, 2008 Damien Millet / Eric Toussaint The Triple Failing of the Big Private Banks Mike Whitney Winding Up Bear John Ross What Do We Owe Iraq? Dave Lindorff Paying the Piper: the Bodies and Bills are Piling Up Wajahat Ali Pakistan on Fire Jill Nagle Memo to Sex Workers: Stop Financing Shock Journalism Manuel Garcia, Jr. Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America Dan La Botz Obama's Race Speech Robert Weissman Alternative Power: Shutting Down the API Stella Dallas / Jennifer Matsui Apostasy Now! Mamet, Enter Stage Right Website of the Day The Angry Monk   March 19, 2008 Patrick Cockburn A War of Lies Robert Fisk The Little Men and the Inferno Jeff Taylor Five Years of War in Iraq Ed Ruggero From Pinkville to Iraq: the Dark Anniversary of My Lai Ron Jacobs Who'll Stop the Rain? Christopher Fons Obama Takes the Race Bait Sherwood Ross In Defense of Rev. Wright Cynthia McKinney An Urgent Crisis: Confronting America's Racial Disparities Joshua Frank The Kool-Aid That Kills Robert Weissman Monsanto's Genetic Food Gamble Walter Brasch It's a Welfare State--If You're Rich Yifat Susskind Iraqi Women Resist the Occupation Andrew Wimmer War Demands Its Due Website of the Day Glimpses of Nature   March 18, 2008 David Price The Military "Leveraging" of Cultural Knowledge Paul Craig Roberts The Collapse of American Power Tim Wise Of National Lies and Racial America: Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth Patrick Cockburn One of the Most Disastrous Wars Ever Fought Conn Hallinan Afghanistan, a River Running Backward James T. Phillips Monsters: Past, Present and Wannabe Uri Avnery The Killing in Bethlehem David Macaray Could Wal-Mart Revive the Labor Movement? Marjorie Cohn Beware an Attack on Iran Peter Zinn Obama in New Orleans Dan La Botz The Economic Crisis, Labor and the Left Monica Benderman Where are We Going?   March 17, 2008 Pam Martens The Fed's Wall Street Dilemma Sasan Fayazmanesh The US, Iran and the Policy of Dual Containment Nelson P. Valdés The Imperial Branding of Simon Bolivar and the Cuban Revolution Peter Morici The Corrosive Consequences of the Trade Deficit Wajahat Ali Disrobing the Nine: a Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin on the Supreme Court Since 9/11 Ronnie Cummins Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma Shaun Harkin Saint Patrick's Day in Fortress America Ali Khan No Pardon for Musharraf Robert Jensen Beyond Peace P. Sainath Oh, What a Lovely Waiver! Greg Moses Jeremiah was a Bullhorn Dr. Susan Block Advice for Eliot Spitzer Website of the Day No Cowboys   March 15 / 16, 2008 Patrick Cockburn How to Destroy a Country in Five Years Mike Whitney Bearly Alive: Investment Giant Rushed to ICU by Panicky Fed Chief Ralph Nader Of Laws and Men Robert Pollin It's Still the Economy, Stupid Diane Christian The Poetics of Perversity: From Boccaccio to Spitzer Wajahat Ali Faking the Hood: a Conversation with Ishmael Reed Tom Wright / Therese Saliba Rachel Corrie's Case for Justice Alan Farago Back to Florida: Where Bushtime Began Greg Moses Raiding the Family Room in Texas Michael Hudson A Grand Global Bargain? Martha Rosenberg Why Hillary's Favorite Chicken Company is Eying China John Goekler Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict Uzma Aslam Khan A Letter to Barack Obama: Where's the Change, Barack? Oren Ben-Dor The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon David Underhill Mammon, Morals and the Mobile Tanker Deal Fred Gardner The Education of Eliot Spitzer David Michael Green Why Spitzer Should Have Resigned (and Why He Shouldn't Have) Rev. William E. Alberts Jesus, Entombed in Heaven Gail Dines It's All About the John: Prostitution and Male Power David Yearsley Conducting, Anarchy and the Problem of When to Begin Chris Clarke Walking with Zeke: the Luckiest of Dogs Poets' Basement Anderson, Lodge & Subiet Website of the Day Deviant Art   March 14, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Watching the Dollar Die Don Santina Vichy Democrats: Pelosi and the Politics of Collaboration Patrick Cockburn Iraqi Mother Vows Revenge on US: How She Lost Her Husband and Her Sons Tim Rinne StratCom Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska Robert Fantina In Torture We Trust Saul Landau Letter to the Presidents-in-Waitings David Macaray Common Myths About Labor Unions Franklin Lamb Is the Bush Administration Switching Horses in Lebanon Michael Neumann The One State Illusion: Reply to My Critics March 13, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Republicans and "Free Market" Zealots Bring Disaster to America Mike Whitney Meltdown Looms Larger As Credit Markets Freeze Assaf Kfoury "One-State or Two State?"- Sterile Debate on False Alternatives Andy Worthington Afghan Hero Who Died in Guantánamo: The Background to the Story Adam Federman From Autopia to Autogeddon: Cars Reach the End of the Road March 12, 2008 Dave Lindorff Bringing Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US R.F. Blader The Spitzer Backlash Yonatan Mendel How to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or "Palestine" Jonathan Cook One State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism Bill and Kathy Christison Fallon and Gates -- At Least One Cheer James J. Brittain Was the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders Ron Jacobs "All the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul" March 11, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts How to End the Subprime Crisis Ed O'Loughlin How Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal Ramzy Baroud 'Unwavering Commitment' to Inequality Kathy Christison One State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine China Hand PRC Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran John Joslin Thank You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette Mike Averko Serb Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide Ben Rosenfeld Gavin Newsom's Kneejerk Plan Thierry Paquot High Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block March 10, 2008 Uri Avnery "Kill A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza Col. Dan Smith Scoring the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond R.F. Blader Why "Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its Sheen Michael Neumann The One-State Illusion: More is Less Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman Did the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio? James J. Brittain Anti-Uribe Protests in Colombia and the World Missy Comley Beattie The Passion of John McCain March 8-9, 2008 Weekend Edition JoAnn Wypijewski The Only Way to Fight the Clintons Mike Whitney Sorting Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America Peter Morici Fed and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets Ralph Nader The Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore Jonathan Cook The Meaning of Gaza's Shoah Steve Niva Behind the Israeli Escalation in Gaza Bill and Kathy Christison Crisis over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax Hervé Do Alto and Franck Poupeau Bolivia: Morales is Checked Eric Walberg To Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…? Scott Johnson City of A Thousand Foreclosures Mark Scaramella James Brown's Gate Bill Clinton President Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force Chairman Poet's Basement St. Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson Website of the Weekend Hillary Blackens Barack March 7, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Why Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face Robin Blackburn Question for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the 'Right War'? Saul Landau The Stupid Economy Binoy Kampmark When Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats Chris Floyd Crushing the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire Andy Worthington Spanish Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo Britons Will Potter Before the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word March 6, 2008   March 6, 2008 Vincent Navarro The Next Failure of Health Reform Forrest Hylton High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President Peter Morici Why the Dollar is So Cheap George Ciccariello-Maher Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats John Ross Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars Jacob Hornberger No Standing to Lecture on Justice Paul Watson Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers Dan Bacher Off the Deep End Website of the Day A Katrina Reader Online   March 5, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair A Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader) Joanne Mariner After Guantanamo Fidel Castro The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa Christopher Brauchli The Turkish Invasions Steven Sherman Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left Dave Lindorff Busting Bush & Co. in New England James Murren Bombing Somalia Adam Engel Necropolis Now Website of Day Remember Song   March 4, 2008 Wajahat Ali Mumbo Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed William Blum How Could Hillary Have Known? Bill Quigley The Cleansing of New Orleans Ralph Nader The Prince Harry Solution Patrick Irelan Oil and Health in Venezuela James J. Brittain / R. James Sacouman Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America Norman Solomon The War Election Jacob Hornberger Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the European Parliament Mike Averko Kosovo and the Press Website of the Day Tex-Mex Primary   March 3, 2008 Jennifer Loewenstein Gazan Holocaust Alan Farago American Politics and the Faltering Economy Richard Gott Colombian Deaths in Ecuador Wajahat Ali Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup Poll with John Esposito Paul Craig Roberts The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution Robert Weissman When Multinationals Say Adieu Uri Avnery Good Morning, Hamas Martha Rosenberg When Your Meat is a Downer Eva Liddell Leave the Next Dance for Bill Michael Donnelly Will Ferrell Does Flint Website of the Day Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues   March 1 / 2, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Race Card Paul Craig Roberts The Political Trial of Don Siegelman Kathleen and Bill Christison Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism Nelson P. Valdés Cuba After Fidel Christopher Brauchli Meet Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev: Friend of Bill, George and Dick Ron Jacobs Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge John Ross The New Conquistadores: Spain's Reconquest of Mexico Robert Fantina Posturing Over Patriotism: Obama and Those Lapel Pins Robert Weissman Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy Mohammed Omer Fear in Gaza Remi Kanazi Barack Obama and the Politics of Xenophobia Bob Jackson Why is Yellowstone Destroying Its Bison Herd? Richard Rhames Casual Threats: Loaded with Mercury Franklin Lamb Lebanon Awaits the Arrival of the USS Cole Rannie Amiri Showboat Diplomacy: US Warships Steam Toward Lebanon David Michael Green The Three Faces of Hillary: the Politics of Flim-Flam Conn Hallinan Notes from the Southern Cone Faheem Hussain Prince Harry of Afghanistan and the Meaning of Normalcy Poets' Basement Gibbons, Orloski, Gardner and Ford Website of the Weekend The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Help!     February 29, 2008 Matt Gonzalez The Obama Craze Jonathan Cook Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel Joshua Frank Obama and Israel Anthony DiMaggio The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback of American Law Linn Washington, Jr. Cop Abuse in America Binoy Kampmark Hubris and Nemesis Robert Bryce Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy Use Sonja Karkar Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel Dave Lindorff A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush? Website of the Day Olduvai George   February 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn "Iraq" Falls Apart Fred Gardner The Birth of NAFTA Michael Levitin The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning William S. Lind The Fake State of Kosovo David Macaray A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor Stephen Fleischman Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod? George Wuerthner The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron Laura Carlsen The North American Union Farce Carl Finamore Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off Michael Dickinson The Day I Bombed the House of Commons Website of the Day Plane Stupid   February 27, 2008 David Rosen Playing the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political Dirty Tricks Vijay Prashad Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War Harvey Wasserman Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink? Andy Worthington Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns, Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense Wajahat Ali Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's Military Economy Peter Morici The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal Stephen Philion Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement Michael Donnelly Obama by Unanimous Decision Erica Rosenberg / Janine Blaeloch After the Land Deals: Will There be Any Wilderness Left to Protect? Website of the Day Dress Blues   February 26, 2008 Debbie Nathan Confessions of a Gitmo Guard Alan Dershowitz v. Frank Menetrez On Finkelstein Harvey Wasserman How Ohio Got Nuked Michael Colby Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals Gary Leupp Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade David Orchard The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan Martha Rosenberg The Big HRT Fran Shor The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow Serge Halimi The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan for the French Left Global Balkans Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans: an Interview with Tariq Ali Website of the Day Texistentialism   February 25, 2008 Roger Morris A Death in Damascus Anthony DiMaggio Military Bases, the Media and the Democrats Ralph Nader Why I'm Running Patrick Cockburn Iraq Broils Paul Craig Roberts Kosovo and the Empire Crazies Peter Morici Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms Dave Lindorff General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That Minot Nuke Incident Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film Heather Gray James Orange, Civil Rights Legend Robert Weitzel Accomodating Torture John Halle Kucinich Goes Down Website of the Day Do the Trunk Monkey! February 23 / 4, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain Paul Craig Roberts Obama and Global Trade Wajahat Ali Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon on the 9/11 Commission Ralph Nader Neutering the FDA Jürgen Vsych "What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?" Fidel Castro Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo David Macaray Unions Under Assault Jeremy Scahill The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence David Krieger Stanley Sheinbaum Caging the Cold War Monster Ron Jacobs Building for the Future Michael Garrity The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies Brian McKenna Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down Missy Beattie Over the Hill with John McCain Fred Gardner American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly) Boris Kagarlitsky The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement Mike Ferner Kick That Barrel Dan Bacher On the Trail with the Border Angels Christopher Ketcham Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread Poets' Basement Davies and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Obama Mariachi   February 22, 2008 Mike Whitney The Bonfire of Capital Jason Hribal Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet Liaquat Ali Khan Arresting Musharraf Joshua Frank That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child Dave Lindorff Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for Her! Liliana Segura When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion Robert Fantina Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen? Yifat Susskind The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women Norm Kent Pushing 60 with Pot Website of the Day Bush Gets Down in Liberia February 21, 2008 Saul Landau Fidel Steps Aside Elizabeth Schulte Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed Helen Redmond Health Care as a Human Right Benjamin Dangl Undermining Bolivia Michael Levitin Kosovo's Dilemma Liam Leonard Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle Patrick Irelan Land and Food in Venezuela Linn Cohen-Cole Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto Michael Simmons Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music CounterPunch News Service A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs Website of the Day Cop Abuse in Shreveport             Subscribe Online

March 21, 2008 The Coming of Liquefied Coal Run Your Car on Coal? Maybe Not By PETER MONTAGUE As the price of oil rises, coal company executives smell a huge opportunity: they are planning to ramp up a new global industry to turn coal into liquid fuels (diesel, kerosene and jet fuel), plus basic feedstocks for the chemical industry to make plastics, fertilizers, solvents, pesticides, and more). The coal-to-chemicals industry is already going gangbusters in China. U.S. coal companies like Peabody and Arch plan to combine well-known coal-to-liquids technology and rapidly-evolving coal-to-chemicals technologies with untested methods of capturing carbon dioxide (or CO2, the main global-warming gas), compressing it into a liquid, and injecting it a mile below ground, hoping it will stay there forever. (Burying CO2 is called "carbon capture and storage" or CCS.) If coal executives succeed in convincing the public to pay for all this, low- carbon renewable energy systems and waste-free "green chemistry" will be sidelined for decades to come. The coal industry has nearly-universal support in Congress. During President Bush's 2008 "state of the union address," January 28, one of the few lines that drew enthusiastic applause was, "Let us fund new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions." A few days later the President announced his latest budget, with $648 million in taxpayer subsidies for "clean coal" (the coal industry's name for carbon dioxide burial, or CCS). A few days after that, the government announced it was ending its participation in the nation's first "clean coal" demonstration, the Futuregen project in Mattoon, Illinois. Obviously, Washington is experiencing policy angst over global warming, and "clean coal" lies at the heart of the debate. Both coal-to-liquids and coal-to-chemicals depend entirely on carbon-burial being doable, affordable, and convincingly safe and permanent. Despite political support in Congress, "coal-to-liquid fuels" had its coming our party earlier this year, and it did not go well. Here's the story: In 2006 the Western Governors' Association began a process called "Transportation Fuels for the Future, a Roadmap for the West." They set up Teams to work on fuel efficiency, ethanol, biodiesel, electric propulsion, hydrogen, natural gas, and coal-to-liquids. The Western states hold 59% of the nation's coal reserves, so Western governors (many of whom who need coal money to get re-elected) are hoping to use American coal to provide America's energy, and to get us loose from foreign oil. So far, so good. Most of the West Governors' Teams were polite and well-behaved but the coal-to-liquids (CTL) Team started brawling right from the start. The CTL Team was stacked with coal industry reps (or their stand-ins)[1] who naturally came in with the preconceived idea that Uncle Sam should spend billions subsidizing coal-to-liquids (CTL) in the western states. And that was precisely the conclusion that the Team reached in its final report. But then the mud hit the fan. It got so bad that the representative from Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) quit the task force. Even Princeton University got muddied in the fray. The Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC), a coalition of seven community groups with 9500 members and 45 local chapters, accused Robert H. Williams of the Princeton Environmental Institute of using an "accounting gimmick" to make coal-to-liquids seem environmentally benign compared to the alternatives. For the past five years, Princeton has been funded by the coal, oil and automobile industries to figure out how to bury carbon dioxide in the ground, to help the coal-to-liquids ("synthetic fuels" or "synfuels") industry thrive. When it was all over, a group of 14 national and regional environmental groups[2] wrote a searing letter to the Western Governors demanding that the whole coal-to-liquids study be discarded and re-done. Of course their request was ignored, but it revealed widespread, united opposition to coal-to-liquids among grass-roots groups across the western states. Even some of the big national groups, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Environmental Defense (ED), who often work at cross purposes with grass-roots groups, opposed coal-to-liquids. Oddly, NRDC is a wildly enthusiastic cheerleader for burying CO2 in the ground -- more enthusiastic than even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- yet they strongly oppose turning coal into liquid fuels. Some would call NRDC's stance "nuanced" policy, others might call it schizophrenic. (Recently NRDC's support for CCS appeared to be wavering when George Peridas, one of NRDC's two main CCS cheerleaders, acknowledged that, "There are cheaper ways and cleaner ways and preferable ways to meet energy demands, but I think CCS will ultimately be needed too.") The Denver office of Environmental Defense (ED) chimed in with its own withering assessment of the Western Governors' coal-to-liquids report. Martha Roberts and Vicky Patton of ED wrote, "The CTL [coal- to-liquids] working group's recommendation for considerable federal subsidies to support development of carbon-intensive CTL transportation fuel seriously misses the mark and leads the nation in the wrong direction, veering recklessly distant from climate security." The Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) sent its own blistering critique of the CTL Team's conclusions. They pointed out that the National Academy of sciences in June 2007 said they couldn't be sure that the western states had more then 100 years of coal remaining. Deploying a CTL industry might cut that to 50 years. If access to some known coal reserves were denied by land-owners who didn't want their land strip-mined, available coal could fall below even a 50-year supply. Relying on resources with finite supply, a coal-to-liquids industry isn't sustainable, by definition. They also pointed out that the Coal-to-Liquids Team envisioned a "mature" industry producing 5 million barrels of liquid fuels per day, but such an industry would require, each year, two-and-a-half times as much water as the city of Denver, Colorado. Where would that water come from? For all their political clout, coal and coal-to-liquids advocates did not fare well in the Western Governors' final report, "Transportation Fuels for the Future." The final report pointed out that, ** Even with CCS (CO2 burial), coal-to-liquids will release as much CO2 into the air as petroleum-based fuels do today. Without CCS, coal- based fuels will release twice as much CO2 (per unit of usable energy) as petroleum-based fuels. (Actually, as Environmental Defense pointed out that in its critique of the Western Governors' CTL report, even with complete carbon burial, liquid fuels from coal would still emit 3.7% more CO2, per unit of usable energy, than today's petroleum-based fuels.) ** Coal-to-liquids plants "will require a massive infrastructure build out, including rail transportation, water supply, and treatment facilities, transmission lines, carbon capture facilities, and carbon dioxide pipeline transport to storage sites." (pg. 16) ** And: "A mature CTL industry will use up underground carbon dioxide storage capacity which may compete with the storage capacity needs to dispose of carbon dioxide arising from the use of coal for electricity generation." (pg. 16) ** And "... it is uncertain whether there is sufficient coal for both fuel production and electricity generation." So coal-to-liquids may seem like a workable idea on the face of it (at least in China) but the details seem fraught with problems that will be very difficult to resolve. Not the least of these is the united grass-roots opposition that surfaced during the Western Governors' attempt to promote coal-to- liquids. Even with a major split in the environmental movement over burial of CO2 in the ground, everyone is united in opposition to coal-to-liquid-fuels. This opposition will be difficult to overcome, even for an industry with Congress and all the presidential candidates (except Ron Paul) comfortably in its pocket. Peter Montague is editor of Rachels' Health and and Environment News. Notes. [1] The initial Coal-to-Liquids Team included Paul Bollinger (DOD/Air Force, which aims to develop jet fuel from coal); Graham Parker (Pacific Northwest National Lab, a taxpayer-supported "clean coal" research organization); Greg Schaefer (Arch Coal, 2nd largest U.S. coal company); Dick Shepard and Dave Perkins (Rentech, "clean coal" technology providers); Robert Williams (Princeton Environmental Institute, funded by coal, oil and automobile companies to demonstrate feasibility of, and smooth the way for, "clean coal" and synthetic fuels from coal), and Chuck McGraw, Natural Resources Defense Council (big supporters of "clean coal" [i.e., burying CO2 in the ground, hoping it will stay there forever] but not of coal-to-liquids). Mr. McGraw resigned from the coal-to-liquids Team in September, 2007 "after ascertaining that the report would not adequately represent their organization's viewpoint," as the CTL team's final report stated it ungrammatically. [2] Appalachian Voices; Natural Resources Defense Council; Friends of the Earth; Montana Environmental Information Center; Valley Watch; Western Organization of Resource Councils; Greenpeace; Montana Audubon; Dakota Resource Council; KyotoUSA; Center for Biological Diversity; Climate Protection Campaign; Powder River Basin Resource Council; Sierra Club, Wyoming

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