Cooler Heads Digest 20 March 2009

Announcement

• Click here to see Global Warming Apocalypse? No!, a Congressional staff and media briefing by Lord Christopher Monckton, Chief Policy Advisor, Science and Public Policy Institute.

• The Heartland Institute has posted videos of the keynote speeches from the second International Conference on Climate Change.

In the News

Obama Budget Will Bring Back $4 Gas
Andrew Moylan, DC Examiner, 20 March 2009

Cap-and-Trade Promises Disaster
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Washington Times, 20 March 2009

Clean Coal Won’t Be Dirt Cheap
Jeffrey Ball, Wall Street Journal, 20 March 2009

How Can Greens Make Themselves Less White?
Naomi Riley, Wall Street Journal, 19 March 2009

Human Sacrifices to Global Warming God
Jay Ambrose, The Daily Sentinel, 19 March 2009

Cap-and-Trade’s Economic Impact
William Yeatman, Council on Foreign Relations, 19 March 2009

Global Warming Ranks Last in Public Concern
Thomas Cheplick, Environment and Climate News, 19 March 2009

CO2 Regulation under the Clean Air Act: Legislative Thuggery
Marlo Lewis, MasterResource.org, 19 March 2009

Exposing Cap-and-Trade Energy Rationing in Obama’s Budget
Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Senate Floor Speech, 18 March 2009

Climate Hype: Let the Backlash Begin
Iain Murray, DC Examiner Opinion Zone, 17 March 2009

White House Admits Cap-and-Trade Costs Triple Its First Estimate
Phil Kerpen, FoxNews.com, 17 March 2009

Elitist Enviros Hurt Blue Collar Americans
Joel Kotkin, Forbes, 17 March 2009

UK Halts Green Investments
Ashley Seager, Guardian, 16 March 2009

News You Can Use

Attention Congress:

For the first time in Gallup’s 25-year history of asking Americans about the trade-off between environmental protection and economic growth, a majority of Americans say economic growth should be given the priority, even if the environment suffers to some extent, according to Gallup’s Frank Newport.

Inside the Beltway

CEI’s Myron Ebell

The True Cost of Cap-Trade-Trade Energy Rationing

Tom LoBianco reported in the Washington Times this week that a top White House official estimates that President Barack Obama’s plan to create a cap-and-trade scheme to ration energy would raise two to three times the estimate in the President’s budget of $646 billion in its first eight years. Jason Furman, the deputy director of the National Economic Council, let the cat out of the bag at a private briefing for Senate staffers last month.

Even in these days of trillion fatigue, nearly two trillion dollars still seems like quite a lot of money. I wonder what the Congress and the Administration will do with all that money? Oh, that’s right, they’re going to give it back to “us.” Well, some of us, anyway.  Somehow, I think it’s going to be hard to convince most people that they will be among the lucky us who get their money back.

A Real Stimulus Package

Senator David Vitter (R-La.) and Representative Rob Bishop (R-Utah) last week introduced the No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009. The bill is numbered S. 570 in the Senate and H. R. 1431 in the House. The bill is really much better than no cost. It would create hundreds of billions of dollars of economic activity and hundreds of thousands of jobs while providing a steady revenue stream into the federal treasury.

The Vitter-Bishop bill would open federal offshore areas and the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration and expedite the procedures for environmental review and preparing leases for competitive auction. The lease sales would produce at a minimum a few billions of dollars. Once production started, royalty payments would start flowing to the Treasury.

The No Cost Stimulus Act would also streamline the permitting of new nuclear plants, encourage leasing on federal lands for oil shale production, limit reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act to 270 days so that NEPA cannot be used to delay projects indefinitely, and prevent the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and prohibit using the Endangered Species Act to regulate emissions. The bill has already attracted a number of co-sponsors in both the House and the Senate. It’s so good that it has no chance of going anywhere as long as the Democrats control the Congress.

Around the World

Energy Chief Threatens Trade War

Fran Smith

Just as the World Bank released a report on increased trade protectionism in the world, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu came out in favor of using carbon tariffs as a “weapon” against countries that aren’t taking steps to reduce their carbon emissions and as a way to protect U.S. manufacturers.

He seemed not to notice that the day before China’s top climate change official Li Gao had warned that carbon tariffs imposed on developing countries would be a “disaster” and perhaps start a trade war. Chu also doesn’t seem to remember that the European Union likes the idea of carbon tariffs against such countries as-gasp-the U.S.

Read more about the dangers of a carbon tariff: Click here for commentary from CEI’s Marlo Lewis, on how a cap-and-trade scheme is inherently protectionist.