From the Biloxi Sun-Herald:

OXFORD, Miss. — Attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, who earned his reputation n the 1990s by winning a $206 billion settlement from tobacco companies, was sentenced to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines for trying to bribe a Mississippi district court judge in an insurance case stemming from Hurricane Katrina.

In sentencing Scruggs, Judge Neal D. Biggers Jr. called the crime “reprehensible.” Before sentencing, Scruggs told the judge, “I could not be more ashamed to be where I am today. I realized I was getting mixed up in it and I will go to my grave wondering why. I have disappointed everyone in my life – my wife, family and friends here to support me today. I deeply regret my conduct. It is a scar and a stain on my soul.”

More comments here. And lots of background, including pre-sentencing letters, at the Insurance Coverage Blog.

We’re so used to citing examples of NIMBYism, magical thinking and shortsightedness when writing about energy policy, it’s almost startling to see developments going the right way.

But so they did in Virginia this week:

RICHMOND, Va. – A state board gave final approval to Dominion Virginia Power’s proposed $1.8 billion coal-fired power plant in the far southwestern corner of the state.

The 5-0 decision on Wednesday by the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board includes conditions intended to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and mercury. It also requires Dominion to convert a coal-fired plant in central Virginia to natural gas.

The vote was the last major hurdle to construction of the 585-megawatt Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center in Wise, about 150 miles west of Roanoke. It is scheduled to go on line in 2012.

Dominion Virginia Power issued a statement upon the approval. The plant will have a generating capacity of 585 megawatts, enough to power about 146,000 homes. Wise County officials are pleased.

The Christian Science Monitor notes the various, what seem to us primarily political and PR-motivated restrictions the government put on the plant; Dominion also promised to burn only Virginia-derived coal.

But at least it’s an approval.

Meanwhile, here in D.C.

WASHINGTON (Map, News) – The prospect of having to endure rolling brownouts in addition to the Washington region’s already legendary traffic jams would make even Pollyanna reach for the Prozac. But that could happen in just three years unless state politicians and regulators on both sides of the Potomac approve more transmission lines to handle the Washington region’s ever-increasing thirst for electricity.

Gruess Gott! A remarkable tale brought to you by the good people of Oberpfaffelbachen, Bavaria.

To watch the full documentary and for more on the Rampenfest, please visit here.

CNN explains the BMW connection.

• Manufacturing Groups Say, Keep Going on Doha: From NAM President John Engler, “We need to see real market access in the advanced developing countries that are charging the bulk of world tariffs through a strong tariff-cutting formula, avoiding exempting entire industries from trade liberalization, obtaining strong participation in sectoral tariff liberalization agreements, and seeing significant reduction of non-tariff barriers (NTBs).” Manufacturing associations signing the statement — available here — represent the United States, Canada, the EU, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Australia.

• Dickie Scruggs, Mississippi trial lawyer extraordinaire, to be sentenced today.

• From Reuters: “More than three-quarters of big U.S. employers offer formal health and wellness programs, while more than half have disease management programs amid rising health-care costs.” An NAM survey of employers is cited.

• Mostly Absent from the Headlines: Warranting less attention but still notable among the U.S. Supreme Court decisions this week was this opinion in Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. v. Public Util. Dist. No. 1 of Snohomish Cty. From the San Diego Union Tribune: “Efforts by utility regulators to reopen costly long-term electricity supply contracts struck at the height of the California energy crisis were deflected by the U.S. Supreme Court in a ruling yesterday.”

• Stop Talking Down the Economy: Now the Finns are getting depressed.

The Senate is leaving town today with action still pending on H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act, but a vote planned upon returning after Fourth of July recess. Sen. Dodd (D-CT) says he will propose an amendment to strip out legal immunity for telecom companies. For the explanation of the bill’s provisions, see this floor speech yesterday from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

This AP story covers the procedural maneuvering that slowed the bill’s consideration. The delay allows more invoking of the the Declaration of Independence before the vote.

UPDATE (11:40 a.m.): CQ reports the Senate will take up the bill July 8th. Attorney General Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence McConnell sent a letter to Majority Leader Reid yesterday outlining the Administration’s opposition to various amendments — including removal of immunity — saying they would recommend a veto if the current bill’s provisions are undermined.

H.R. 6251, the winsomely titled Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act, fell far short of the two-thirds margin needed to pass under a suspension of the rules, 223-195. Reuters story here.

The White House issued a tough and clearly worded veto threat earlier today. From the Statement of Administration Policy:

Some have argued that leaseholders are “sitting on” leases rather than producing oil from them. This absurd claim ignores the tremendous incentive for a firm to drill when oil prices exceed $130 per barrel. Firms want to drill where they can most profitably extract oil. A firm that is not drilling in a particular area either cannot find recoverable oil there, or thinks it can find oil that can be extracted at lower cost, or has not yet completed the more than a dozen plans and permits needed to allow drilling. Congress should be allowing firms to find oil where it will produce the least expensive gasoline for the American driver.

George Will looks at immigration policy as it effects the inventive, the educated, the foreign. From “Building a Wall Against Talent“:

As soon as U.S. institutions of higher education have awarded you a PhD, equipping you to add vast value to the economy, get out. Go home. Or to Europe, which is responding to America’s folly with “blue cards” to expedite acceptance of the immigrants America is spurning.

Two-thirds of doctoral candidates in science and engineering in U.S. universities are foreign-born. But only 140,000 employment-based green cards are available annually, and 1 million educated professionals are waiting — often five or more years — for cards. Congress could quickly add a zero to the number available, thereby boosting the U.S. economy and complicating matters for America’s competitors.

An opportunity to note the NAM’s involvement in the Compete America alliance.

NASA climate scientist James Hansen is so publicity hungry that he has to inject more and more outrageousness into the public debate about global warming just to maintain the buzz. Readying himself for a Rep. Ed Markey-arranged gathering, Hansen declared, “CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.” Hansen mentioned ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal CEO specifically.

Vic Svec, senior vice president for Peabody, responded with a few observations in a note to the New York Times. Excerpts:

1. His use of Holocaust analogies is outrageous and demeaning. It cheapens the dialogue and invites ridicule.

2. The suggestion that a dissemination of ideas be criminalized –- coming from a government employee no less –- does hearken back to World War II. It is stunning and should be pounced upon by everyone who advocates free speech, from the ACLU and talk radio complex to yourself.

3. Blaming big oil and big coal for the broad array of opinions about climate change is disingenuous. If he would imprison those who don’t march in lockstep with his views, the jails would be very, very big. It would include thousands of scientists and university professors and the likes of the president of the Czech Republic, a former founder of Greenpeace and the former founder of The Weather Channel.

Svec adds mention of Peabody’s increased efficiency and environmental sensitivity, including the reduction of greenhouse gases.

A catchy slogan like “use it or lose it” is nice and all, but it represents a purely political, non-substantive approach toward U.S. energy needs. H.R. 6251, which would “prohibit the Secretary of the Interior from issuing new Federal oil and gas leases to holders of existing leases who do not diligently develop the lands subject to such existing leases or relinquish such leases,” is expected on the House floor today, CQ reports.

The knowledgeable dismiss it:

An informal caucus of House Democrats from oil-producing states met this week with petroleum geologists from the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service. The meeting convinced them that the bill would do little to compel new drilling on existing leases, said the group’s leader, Texas Democrat Gene Green.

“I think there’s a lot of opposition from Energy Democrats to use it or lose it,” Green said. “You can’t produce on every acre or even every 100 acres. I think those numbers come from people who don’t understand this business.” …[snip]

“I understand what they’re doing, but it’s a little simplistic,” said Tyson Slocum, an energy analyst for the advocacy group Public Citizen. “It looks like a middle-ground, slightly muddled message. Some of these leases are not super-productive. People are upset and desperate with high prices. Democrats are scared of the new polling, and instead of saying, ‘It’s not true, we can’t fix the problem by drilling,’ they’re coming up with their own half-baked drilling plan.”

Indeed, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists is also skeptical, taking for the association an unusual step of getting directly involved in a political/legislative fight. From the Oil and Gas Journal:

US consumers are burdened by high crude oil prices. Conservation and efficiency improvements are necessary responses, but equally important is increasing long-term supply from stable parts of the world, such as our very own federal lands and Outer Continental Shelf,” said American Association of Petroleum Geologists head Willard R. (Will) Green.

“As Congress considers measures to deal with high crude oil prices, I urge caution. Policies that increase exploration costs, decrease the available time to properly evaluate leases, and restrict access to federal lands and the Outer Continental Shelf do not provide the American people with short-term relief from high prices and undermine the goal of increasing stable long-term supplies,” he said in a June 23 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

A good explanation of the realities of leasing and drilling follows.

Andy McCarthy of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, one of the few observers to write consisently about the FISA legislation, surveillance and immunity for the telecoms, says H.R. 6304 will pass with the immunity provisions, but the damage has been done. From The Corner:

A litigation climate has been created in which the telecommunications industry would never again comply with a presidential request for warrantless monitoring. The Obama Left, the ACLU, and the Democrats’ trial lawyer benefactors are bent out of shape because the telecoms will receive retroactive immunity this time, so billions in potential liability will vanish (at great savings for Americans to whom the cost would have been passed along). But ultimately, they’ve succeeded in making it highly, highly unlikely a president will be able to carry out warrantless surveillance in the future.

Actually, the Obama Left isn’t that happy with Sen. Obama on FISA.

Sens. Saxby Chamblis (R-GA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) had very good floor statements yesterday on the FISA modernization legislation (Congressional Record text here), with Hatch especially clarifying the legal and constitutional differences between warrantless searches and unreasonable search and seizure. Hatch also punched holes in the favorite canard opponents, that the bill excuses a vast sweeping, warrantless surveillance of Americans’ phone calls or e-mails. It’s foreign surveillance, Hatch explains. From S6125:

Domestic spying may sound catchy and mysterious, but it is a completely inaccurate, even misleading, way to describe the TSP terrorist surveillance or FISA modernization. Why don’t we describe them as international spying, which is what they really are? Isn’t that a more accurate description? But I imagine international spying wouldn’t raise the same level of fear and distrust in our Government that some on the left try to foster.

UPDATE: (11 a.m.): White House fact sheet on retroactive immunity.