Cooler Heads Digest 8 October 2010

by William Yeatman on October 8, 2010

in Cooler Heads Digest

In the News

EPA Climate Doc Held up over Costs
Robin Bravender, Politico, 8 October 2010

Gross Overestimate Fueled California’s Landmark Diesel Law
Wyatt Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 October 2010

The Green behind Big Green
Chris Horner, Planet Gore, 7 October 2010

Green Investment Fund Is a Vested Interest in the Battle over Prop 23
Ann McElhinney, Big Government, 7 October 2010

Sen. Baucus, I Salute You. OK, I Salute You If…
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 7 October 2010

Sen. Bingaman’s Insidious National Renewable Electricity Standard
Glenn Schleede, MasterResource.org, 6 October 2010

Splattergate Filmaker Giddy before Release
Paul Chesser, AmSpecBlog, 6 October 2010

Environmental Endgame
Matt Purple, American Spectator, 5 October 2010

Washington’s New War on the West
Ben Lieberman, OpenMarket.org, 4 October 2010

Schwarzenegger Wrong To Demonize Tesaro, Valero
Greg Goff & Bill Kleese, San Jose Mercury News, 1 October 2010

News You Can Use

It Could Happen Here

Britain’s top energy regulator this week said that it would cost the average household more than $1200 a year to meet the country’s green energy goals, according to the Daily Mail.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

President Peron

In the issue of the Digest published immediately after the election of Barack Obama in November 2008, I wrote that it wasn’t clear to me from the campaign whether he wanted to be Tony Blair or Juan Peron. It’s been clear for some time that Peron is Obama’s model. He has pursued policies on a broad front designed to cause constant economic crises and thereby make people much more willing to depend on government and to take orders from government.

One of these policies is of course cap-and-trade. Since the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997, I have felt that the energy-rationing policies required to achieve the Kyoto targets for reducing emissions were the greatest threat to our prosperity and freedom. But that has not been the case for some time. President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress are pursuing a number of policies that are just as threatening as energy rationing and have enacted a couple of them.

Cap-and-trade is now dead for the foreseeable future, but this does not mean that the Obama Administration has given up on policies that will constrict our energy supplies and raise energy prices, which will make us poorer and drive energy-intensive industries out of the country. They are working mightily to reduce domestic oil production and to block new coal mines and new coal-fired power plants.

The alternative to using the energy sector to foster perpetual economic stagnation would be to use the energy sector to underpin a new era of prosperity.  All we need to do to undertake this radical change of direction is to take President Obama’s advice and follow China’s good example: clear away the regulatory obstacles to energy production, open federal lands and offshore areas to oil exploration, and start building coal-fired power plants.

Across the States

Kentucky, West Virginia

The Louisville Courier-Journal reported this week that the EPA has objected to 11 Clean Water Act permits issued by the state Department of Environmental Protection to surface coal mines in Floyd, Bell, Pike, Knott and Harlan counties. As the Cooler Heads Digest has reported in past issues, the EPA is going after coal production in Appalachia by claiming that Clean Water Act permits issued by state regulators are unacceptable because they insufficiently protect the mayfly, an insect, from saline effluent discharged from surface mines. The mayfly is not an endangered species.

Regarding the same topic, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin (D), the Democratic Party candidate for Senator, this week instructed his Department of Environmental Quality to sue the EPA for allegedly violating the Administrative Procedures Act when it issued guidance documents last April detailing how state regulators in Appalachia can better protect the mayfly from surface coal mines.

Around the World

China Rejects Emissions Controls, Again

At preparatory negotiations in Tianjin, China, for the upcoming 16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the lead Chinese negotiator stated that his country will reject binding greenhouse gas emissions reductions. China, the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases, is building two coal fired power plants every three weeks.

Obama, Take Note: Even the EU Rejects Drilling Moratorium

The European Union, which is often thought to be more sclerotic than the United States and which claims to be committed to stopping global warming, this week voted not to place a moratorium on deepwater oil drilling. They are apparently not yet ready to kick their addiction to oil.

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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