Think Progress

ENVIRONMENT -- UNITED STATES IS NOT THE SAUDI ARABIA OF COAL: The popular characterization of the United States as the "Saudi Arabia of the world when it comes to coal" is "widely overconfident," according to The Wall Street Journal. The estimate by the Energy Information Administration that the U.S. has a 240-year supply of coal was established in 1974, but is now exceedingly outdated. In a study completed last year by the U.S. Geological Society (USGS) of Gillette, WY -- an area of the country that supplies one-third of the nation's coal -- less then 6 percent of the coal in the biggest beds can be mined profitably. Brenda Pierce, the head of the USGS team that conducted the survey says, "We really can't say we're the Saudi Arabia of coal anymore." "Peak coal" theorists also warn that the current level of production may prove unsustainable and creates a false sense of security. The characterization of the U.S. as the Saudi Arabia of coal is not new. During the oil crises of the 1970s, politicians used domestic coal as an alternative for oil controlled by OPEC. As the AP reported on July 31, 1979, President Jimmy Carter said, "America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, blessed with enormous reserves. ... I would rather burn one ton of Kentucky coal than see our nation become dependent by burning another barrel of OPEC oil." The same slogan lives on today. The Wonk Room's Brad Johnson notes that "the industry-promoted metaphor" has been adopted by Republican and Democratic politicians alike to justify a continued dependence on this dirty and dangerous fuel, instead of true energy reform. "We are the Saudi Arabia of coal," President Obama said last year on the campaign trail. Steve Forbes, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), and Sen. John Tester (D-MT) are among the many conservatives who are guilty of utilizing the slogan. Johnson adds, "It's troubling that politicians find the comparison to Saudi Arabia -- a dictatorial monarchy that is a breeding ground for religious extremism -- so appealing. However, there may be a more apt comparison: Saudi Arabia has done the least to tackle the problem of global warming, with the United States close behind."

According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll, most people don't know who speaks for the Republican Party. A 52 percent majority of those surveyed couldn't come up with a name when asked to specify "the main person" who speaks for Republicans today. The top response was radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh (13 percent).

The remote Pacific island nation of Palau said yesterday that "it has agreed to a U.S. request to temporarily resettle up to 17 Chinese Muslims" now being held at Guantanamo Bay. Palau's President Johnson Toribiong said the Obama administration "made the request last week and that his country was 'honored and proud' to resettle the detainees from China's Uighur minority as a humanitarian gesture."

State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds won Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial election yesterday, capturing approximately 50 percent of the vote. Terry McAuliffe came in second with 26 percent, followed by Brian Moran with 24 percent. Deeds will now face off against Republican nominee Bob McDonnell in the general election.

"Forty percent of low-income Americans do not have health insurance," says a report released yesterday by the Department of Health and Human Services. "Approximately one-third of the uninsured have a chronic disease and they are six times less likely to receive health-care services than those with insurance," the report found. Read the full findings here.

The family of the late Dr. George Tiller "announced Tuesday that [they] will not reopen his Kansas clinic, eliminating one of the few medical practices in the country that performed abortions late in pregnancies."

Despite claims by critics that the TARP plan would be a money loser, when 10 banks returned $68 billion of the money yesterday, President Obama said the government had realized a small profit. According to McClatchy, "in addition to returning the $68 billion, the 10 banks paid the government $1.8 billion in dividends on the preferred shares of stock the government owned."

The Obama administration is scrapping its plan to cap salaries at firms receiving government bailout money, "leaving them subject to congressionally imposed limits on bonuses." Instead, the administration is planning to appoint a "pay czar" to monitor the firms receiving the most government aid.

The Department of Homeland Security announced yesterday that it is "temporarily freezing a policy of deporting widows and widowers of U.S. citizens." Under the Bush administration's immigration crackdown, "immigrants who had been married for less than two years or whose green-card process hadn't been completed when their spouses died" would have faced deportation.

After reviewing Congressional Budget Office reports going back almost a decade, the New York Times has found "two basic truths about the enormous deficits that the federal government will run in the coming years." First, that President Obama "is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying," and second, that Obama "does not have a realistic plan for eliminating the deficit."

And finally: Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is still making her way around Capitol Hill, despite her fractured ankle, though senators are trying to make her meetings as comfortable as possible. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) had "a bag of ice and a pillow on hand" when she arrived, and quipped, "I hope you all note that some Republicans are empathetic, too." Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) both signed her cast, and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) presented the Yankees fan with a "snapshot...of himself posing outside the old Yankee Stadium."