Cooler Heads Digest 1 April 2010

by William Yeatman on April 1, 2010

in Cooler Heads Digest

In the News

Coming Soon: The Auto-Purchase Mandate?
Iain Murray, The Corner, 1 April 2010

EPA Announces Economic Assault
William Yeatman, FoxNews.com, 1 April 2010

Computer Cloud Illusions
Paul Chesser, GlobalWarming.org, 31 March 2010

Exploring for New Supplies of Votes
Ben Lieberman, National Review, 31 March 2010

Will Senators Webb, Warner Stop the Green Police?
William Yeatman, Daily News Record, 31 March 2010

U.S. EPA Goes Unconstitutional
Marlo Lewis, MasterResource.org, 30 March 2010

Change Is Not New
Thomas Sowell, RealClearPolitics.com, 30 March 2010

Arnold’s Global Warming Ardor Is Cooling
Orange County Register editorial, 29 March 2010

News You Can Use

Poll: German Concern about Global Warming Plummets

According to a new poll, just 42 percent of Germans are worried about global warming, down substantially from 62 percent in 2006. The decline is attributed to the Climategate scandal.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Ten Steps Back, One Step Forward

President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced plans to allow a bit of offshore oil and gas exploration.  Maybe.  The Interior Department’s new five-year plan for offshore leasing actually places most of America’s offshore areas under a new presidential moratorium, delays or cancels lease auctions currently in the regulatory pipeline, and thus takes back the progress made in 2008.  When gas prices reached four dollars a gallon in the summer of 2008, the American people were dismayed to discover that the United States possesses potentially vast offshore reserves of oil and natural gas that were off limits as a result of congressional and presidential moratoria.  President Bush revoked his father’s executive order, and tremendous public pressure forced Congress to drop its long-standing moratorium.

President Obama took it all back and now offers the possibility of a little bit of offshore exploration and calls it a compromise.  His purpose is clearly to draw moderate support in the Congress for global warming legislation that will raise energy prices for consumers and industry.  The Republican staff of the House Natural Resources Committee have provided a useful analysis that includes some very revealing maps.  My comments are here.

EPA Issues Fuel Efficiency Regulation

The Obama Administration announced on Thursday the final rules for new fuel economy standards.  By 2016, passenger cars and light trucks (SUVs and pickups) will have to achieve an average of 35.5 miles per gallon.  At 36 mpg, the two-seater Smart Car is one of the few current models that already surpasses the average required.  These new rules are an amalgam of what Congress mandated in the 2007 anti-energy act and new EPA regulations under the Clean Air Act derived from the Endangerment Finding.  As my CEI colleague Marlo Lewis points out in a comprehensive analysis, the new fuel economy rules will trigger a regulatory cascade under the Clean Air Act.  CEI sent out a press release criticizing the new rules from several angles.  Lawsuits are sure to follow.

New Study: EPA Regulations Hurt Poor the Most

The Affordable Power Alliance held a press conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to release a report on the potential economic impacts of the EPA’s Endangerment Finding on low income groups and minorities.  The report shows that higher energy prices will disproportionately harm poorer people.  That’s because they already pay a higher percentage of their incomes on energy than better-off people.  Blacks and Hispanics will also suffer major job losses as the result of higher energy prices. As a result of paying more for energy and job losses, the report predicts that poverty rates for African Americans and Hispanics will increase by 20% and 22% respectively.

Climategate Update

Iain Murray, from OpenMarket.org

The UK’s House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has issued its report into the so-called Climategate scandal.  As might be expected, it’s pretty much a whitewash.  Only one MP dissented from its conclusions.  There seem to me to be some serious errors and omissions in the reports, but I’m not the only one:

  • Stephen McIntyre, who debunked the Hockey Stick temperature reconstruction by Climategate-implicated Michael Mann, disputed the Committee’s judgment with respect to the infamous “trick” to “hide the decline.”
  • Fred Pearce of New Scientist and the Guardian said that the Committee “avoided examining more complex charges.”
  • Bishop Hill asks, “Does the committee really think it’s fine to hide important information from policymakers so long as you report it in the literature?”
  • Professor Frank Furedi nicely sums the real lesson from Climategate, “The CRU’s real failing was to dent the authority of the climate-change morality tale, with its idea that, with the end of the world fast approaching, there is an urgent need to monitor people’s behavior and lower their horizons.
  • The Cooler Heads Coalition has posted a remarkable criticism by Professor Ross McKitrick on globalwarming.org.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary check out the Coalition’s website, www.globalwarming.org.

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