Advance snip of Mitt's speech: "President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans..."

[ProSense]

* The advance excerpts to Mitt Romney’s speech are now available right here. One key nugget:

President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. MY promise...is to help you and your family.

This suggests the speech will play heavily on the idea that you should feel okay about voting Obama out of office because he failed to meet expectations that he himself inflated. You don’t need a glorious world historical transformative moment; you need the concrete change I can deliver.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/happy-hour-open-thread/2012/08/30/03998ca8-f2e4-11e1-adc6-87dfa8eff430_blog.html

Mitt, thanks for the opportunity to showcase you and your party's pathetic attitude toward the environment and workers and President Obama's policies.

Frances Beinecke’s Blog

Obama Administration Maps the Way toward Better Oceans Management

Many Americans are familiar with the pleasures of swimming, fishing, and beachcombing along our ocean waters. But few people know how much the oceans contribute to our national economy. In 2009, ocean-related tourism and recreation alone generated more than 1.8 million jobs. In fact, oceans contribute more to our nation’s economic output than the entire U.S. farm sector.

I had the privilege of serving on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. My experience talking with fishermen, tourist business operators, and coastal residents brought home for me just how much Americans depend upon healthy ocean waters.

Yet for decades, America lacked a comprehensive system for managing our ocean riches and protecting the jobs that healthy oceans create. People who depend upon the sea had to navigate over 100 different laws and policies, managers had a hard time balancing competing interests, and state and local leaders had few opportunities to create long-term plans for marine ecosystems

The Obama Administration is helping change that. On Thursday it released a draft implementation plan for America’s first-ever National Ocean Policy. The draft plan is a blueprint of what we need to do in order to help address some of the biggest challenges facing ocean life – from ocean acidification to threatened water quality to habitat degradation. This plan will help us achieve the National Ocean Policy’s goal to protect and restore our ocean resources.

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http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/fbeinecke/obama_administration_maps_the.html

Sarah Chasis’s Blog

New Report Shows Obstructionist Politics Harming Ocean Management

This week in our nation’s capital, ocean leaders, advocates and businesses, along with ocean champions in Congress, are taking a closer look at the future of our oceans, as part of Capitol Hill Oceans Week. Thanks to a report released today by the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, identifying some of our oceans’ greatest challenges might be easier than expected for our representatives. To see much of what’s harming the health of our ocean resources, coastal economies, and communities, some leaders in Congress simply need to look in the mirror.

Back in 2010, President Obama announced the creation of the National Ocean Policy (NOP), a landmark effort to safeguard our oceans and coasts, and the jobs and communities that depend on them. For the first time ever, the 20 federal agencies that govern our oceans are now working together, rather than in conflict, to manage our marine resources and activities. This common-sense principle has such clear rewards that it was recommended by two separate bipartisan commissions during George W. Bush’s presidency.

The latest report from the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative (JOCI) shows how far we’ve come in just two years under the National Ocean Policy. After decades of uncoordinated ocean management, federal agencies are now communicating more efficiently and effectively under the National Ocean Council. By coordinating more closely with states, tribes, and local governments, federal agencies are working to cut waste while preserving resources important to local economies that depend on fishing, tourism, and clean energy development.

And at the regional level, under the National Ocean Policy, multi-state partnerships are facilitating greater engagement among stakeholders, fostering ocean science and research, and using improved tools like regional ocean planning to map out a sustainable future for our oceans.

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http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/schasis/new_report_shows_obstructionis.html

Senator Grassley calls Romney's wind policy "stupid" "I felt it was just like a knife in my back
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021141934

Staff struggles to prevent wind from blowing down prop as Romney unveils plan abandoning wind power
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021192830

Miners Say They Were Forced To Attend Romney Campaign Event Without Pay: ‘We Knew What Would Happen’
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/28/759131/miners-say-they-were-forced-to-attend-romney-campaign-event-without-pay-we-knew-what-would-happen/

War On Coal? EPA Regulations Boost Coal Employment To 15-Year High

By Travis Waldron

The Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration has increased efforts to regulate the coal industry, using tougher environmental standards under the Clean Water Act to rein in destructive coal practices like mountaintop removal. That has sparked outrage from Republicans across the country and Democrats in coal states like Kentucky and West Virginia, where industry leaders and pro-coal politicians have decried Obama and the EPA’s supposed “war on coal.”

But even as America deals with high unemployment and a sluggish economic recovery, coal employment this year rose to its highest level since 1996, according to data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration. In 2011, there were more than 90,000 coal jobs, and the 59,059 Appalachian coal jobs are the most since 1997. According to the same data, the spike in employment correlates to the EPA’s crackdown on destructive mountaintop removal policies, the Charleston Gazette reports:

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http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/11/23/375388/war-on-coal-epa-regulations-boost-coal-employment-to-15-year-high/

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1. Kick! n/t