An argument could be made that the greatest beneficiary of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf has been Massey Energy's CEO Don Blankenship. Until the Gulf Gusher took over the front pages, the serious heat, in both media and Congress, had been on Blankenship and the coal mine explosion which took the lives of 29 miners at Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. Remember that?

Well, the investigation has very quietly --- and largely behind closed doors, to the chagrin of family members of the victims --- proceeded into that fossil fuel-related disaster, even as Blankenship must be thanking the Oily Gods for taking him momentarily out of the spotlight. So let's put him back in it, shall we?

Given that the mafia-like strongman tactics seen in remarkable video tape revealing Blankenship roughing up an ABC News reporter in 2008 --- which we've only just now seen (it's posted in full below) --- could as well be a scene straight out of Goodfellas or The Sopranos, the news today from the Charleston Gazette seems par for the course.

Ken Ward Jr. is reporting at the paper's "Coal Tattoo" blog today that the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has reportedly told victim's family members that a page is mysteriously missing from the "fireboss book" at Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate bill finally drops in the Senate --- but can it pass?; UK eyes offshore energy development as well (but goes for wind, not oil!) ... PLUS: Blame Game Round Robin as the BP "Oilpocalypse" continues on record pace and hopes hang on a "top hat"... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': Oil Spill Hinders Space Shuttle Fuel Tank Delivery; Will ban on Gulf fishing help out fish?; Solar can provide 22 percent world's power by 2050: IEA; Venezuela Offshore Rig Sinks; Exxon CEO Whines About Push To Cut Big Oil’s Subsidies; Bisphenol A's 'twin' may have more potent hormone effects; N.M. Salt Beds Could Become Nation's Nuclear Dump ... PLUS: For Summer Sentinels, a Firefly Count ...

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

One item we weren't able to cover in today's Green News Report, but which should be noted here, comes from today's Washington Post...

So that means, as Think Progress notes, so far the clean up costs for BP have amounted to a little less than four days of profits for them. "At $93 million a day in profits, BP makes $350 million in about 3.8 days."

It seems that recklessness for the fossil fuel industry remains a very safe business model for the time being.

In 1990, following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, federal legislation was passed to make oil companies responsible for the cost of clean up from such disasters, and liable for up to (a paltry) $75 million in damages. While Congress is currently considering legislation to raise that cap from $75 million to $10 billion, there remains a question of whether or not such legislation would be retroactive to cover damages from the Gulf oil disaster or not.

If it does, as "the largest oil producer in the Gulf of Mexico," and one of "the world's five largest companies," according to WaPo, BP ought to be able to handle it.

Not that they ultimately will have to.

As both WaPo and TP remind us, thanks to a recent decision by the Bush Supreme Court, the "punitive damages against Exxon for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil-tanker spill were originally set at $5 billion in 1994 but were reduced on appeal. The company agreed last year to pay less than $1 billion, including interest."

It's good to be king a corporate "person".

CORRECTION: Currently proposed federal legislation would raise the cap on damages to $10 billion, not $5 billion as we originally wrote above. The article has been edited to correct that error. By the way, even at $10 billion, says Daphne Wysham at Huffington Post today, the damage to property and to the fishing and tourism industries, as well as others, could eventually far exceed even that much. As Wysham notes in concurrence with the above: "Crime pays for BP."

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Another string of deadly tornadoes hits the Plains; Another deadly coal mine explosion; Another toxic toy recall ... PLUS: The Blame Game begins on Capitol Hill as oil industry executives blame each other, and BP runs out of ideas ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': LA Times: Climate change is the true crisis; Ash cloud closes Spanish airports; Romaine lettuce recall expands; China issues strict rules to meet emissions targets; Univ. of Va. "exploring options" on Cuccinelli climate change subpoena; Climate scientists decry 'political assaults'; Report: Climate change could render much of world uninhabitable ...PLUS: Earth may be too hot for humans by 2300: study...

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

Two quickie items from Public Citizen's latest DontGetRolled.org "e-newsletter about the movement to curb corporate influence in politics and restore our democracy," as brought to my attention by Ernie Canning today...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this short ad from Friends of the Earth says it all about the obscenity that is the Republican slogan, "Drill baby, drill!" The ad was released almost contemporaneously to Sarah Palin's insistence on "drill here, drill now" despite knowledge of the devastation unfolding in the Gulf states as a result of the BP disaster...

I wonder if that one is "too confusing" for Fox "News"?

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The latest on the BP oil disaster in the Gulf - one leak contained, another dome in position; Other things happening that aren't in the Gulf (solar panels on paper, anyone?) ... PLUS: Playing politics with disaster in the Gulf (who could have foreseen it?!) ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': Saudi-funded Fox News rejects ad by veterans group arguing against Middle East oil dependence; Obama EPA delays coal ash regulations; Factory farms take federal money but refuse to disclose pollution; EPA staffers say they were forced to ignore science; More bad news: Another mining death in W.Va. ...PLUS: Cancer panel: 'Grievous harm' posed by unchecked chemicals in U.S. ...

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

Hilarious. Fox "News" refuses to run the following :30 second ad --- which MSNBC and CNN have already been running without problem --- from VoteVets.org, on the grounds that it's "too confusing", according to Ben Smith at Politico:

"Too confusing"? The only thing too confusing about it for Fox "News" viewers, perhaps, is that it may not sync up with their spoon-fed Republican/Fossil Fuel Industry political propaganda programming. The ad might just blow their circuits or something.

Why anybody still refers to that network without putting quotes around the word "News," as we have been doing here for years, is beyond us. And oh yeah, why does Fox "News" hate both the troops and free speech?!

John M. Broder and Tom Zeller Jr. of The New York Times are kind enough today to offer a front page "News Analysis" which works very hard to offer "balance" on the Gulf oil rig gusher by downplaying concerns of an unprecedented ecological disaster noting "the Deepwater Horizon blowout is not unprecedented, nor is it yet among the worst oil accidents in history."

They even offer a scientific "expert" to help support that thesis:

What they don't do, however, is let readers know that Dokken's "conservation group," the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, is actually sponsored in large part by the offshore oil drilling industry!

Moreover, when asked for comment about the failure to disclose that rather important piece of information, the Times' Zeller is offering what has now become an all-too-familiar-for-the-"Paper-of-Record" rationalization to explain it all away...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink --- in Boston and Nashville; MORE deadly storms kill 29 across the South ... PLUS: Slow-motion ecological and economic disaster in the Gulf goes from bad to worse, and where are the calls for clean energy legislation?! ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': Clorox says it owns the 'Daisy'; VA Attorney General targets climate scientist; Massey Energy CEO got $2 mil. bonus for 'safety' even as mines amassed record violations; PG&E tactics called 'deceptive' in Prop 16 battle; Senator will filibuster climate bill over drilling; Ireland's airspace closed due to Iceland's still-erupting volcano ... PLUS: Corporate Media's Role in Environmental Denialism ...

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

In a May 3 New York Times editorial, "Drilling, Disaster, Denial," Paul Krugman points to a Gallup poll which found: "Americans are now less worried about a series of environmental problems than at any time in the past 20 years" --- a finding mirrored by surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center which revealed that the percentage of Americans who believe "there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades," had dropped from 71% in April 2008 to 57% in September/October 2009.

After pointing to the catastrophic events --- the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill and the fire atop a polluted Cuyahoga River --- which gave rise to the first Earth Day in 1970, the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency, Krugman suggested that the success alleviating "visible pollution" that was involved in these "photogenic crises" led to reduction in public concern for the less visible impact "of pollution that's invisible, and whose effects unfold over decades rather than days" --- an invisibility which opened the way for hard-right, denialist, anti-environmental propagandists like Rush Limbaugh to succeed.

While there is empirical data supporting Krugman's suggestion of an adverse impact of anti-environmental propaganda, often funded by the likes of Exxon-Mobil and others in or connected to the fossil fuel industry, Krugman's analysis falls short because he fails to examine the role of the mainstream corporate media, especially television, in fostering the invisibility he decries...

After hearing the lazy corporate media meme over the last several days asking whether the BP oil spill catastrophe was "Obama's Katrina," it was nice to see the meme properly re-aligned last night on Twitter by @OTOOLEFAN who announced: "This oil spill is Sarah Palin's Katrina."

Apparently he wasn't the first, however, to do so, as the ubiquitous @Shoq gave credit to @yrustupid's first invocation.

And with those attributions out of the way, I'll take the opportunity to note that after two long weeks on the road and often off the grid (when I wasn't doing Russian TV from NV or guest hosting for Malloy from San Fran) for largely unrelated work, I'm finally back in the 'hood today with much to get caught up on this week. Thanks for your patience during my mostly-absence over the last coupla weeks and (possibly) in the coming days as I get caught up. My thanks to both The BRAD BLOG's Ernie Canning and Brilliant at Breakfast's Jill C. for filling occasional gaps as they were able to find time while I was gone!

Feel free to use the comment section on this item to let me know about anything you think I may have missed over last week or two but still need to know about!

[Now UPDATED with audio archives of tonight's show.]

I'm happy to jump in again to guest host the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show tonight, this time LIVE from San Francisco's Green960 (6p-9p PT)!

Please join me by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in!

Our LIVE chat room will be up and operating here during the show as usual, so jump into the conversation there as well! (We''ll open it a few minutes before airtime, see down below.)

So far scheduled for tonight...

• DAVID ROBERTS, environmental reporter from Grist.org on the oil spill in the Gulf, Obama's "brilliantly" timed plans for more off-shore drilling and Lindsey Graham's climate and clean energy legislation hissy fit and "flustercluck".
• PETER B. COLLINS, our old friend, the great progressive radio talk show host returns to the broadcast airwaves for an hour to join us in studio to discuss his whereabouts, mainstream corporate media failure, this year's elections, and anything else you may wish to ask him about!
• PLUS: Please stop calling them "conservatives"! My rants, your calls at 877-99-MALLOY (877-996-2556), your tweets to @TheBradBlog, and lots of other stuff sure to come up along the way...

Malloy's show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates around the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream via our host tonight at GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show. Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE & AUDIO ARCHIVES: Well that went fast! Hope you'll find the same thing. Audio archives of the show, and of tonight's chat room all follow below...

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The 'GNR' is also now available on your cell phone via Stitcher Radio's mobile app!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: More on Lindsey Graham's climate legislation hissy fit; A rapper's astute analysis of the climate bill ... PLUS: As the Gulf's oil rig spill spreads, setting the ocean on fire --- not kidding! ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': Protected Reef Offers Model for Conservation; Food manufacturers fight ban on BPA in food safety bill; EPA issues new climate report on U.S. impacts; EPA: Atlantic seaboard will be swallowed by rising seas; Offshore power plant harvests both Wind and Waves; Energy crisis in Pakistan hurts everyday citizens; Locust plague prompts fears for crops ... PLUS: Your Killer Blue Jeans: Denim manufacturing is poisoning China's famed Pearl River ...

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport

The 'GNR' is also now available on your cell phone via Stitcher Radio's mobile app!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Remembering lives lost to coal; South hit by tornadoes and oil spills ... PLUS: Lindsey Graham's bizarre Senatorial hissy fit and how it could well scuttle comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': Swappable car batteries debut in Tokyo taxis; Scientists uncover deep ocean current near Antarctica; Report: new nuclear reactor less safe than America's current fleet; Report questions viability of Carbon Capture and Storage; Which parts of the Atlantic seaboard will be swallowed by rising seas?; Toxic soil found in LA neighborhood ... PLUS: Fact Check: Buying carbon offsets may ease eco-guilt but not global warming ...

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...