No Rubber Stamp for EPA’s Agenda
Phil Kerpen, AFP Blog, 29 March 2011
Japan: Ignoring the Real Threats
Henry Payne, Planet Gore, 29 March 2011
A Green Energy Economy Revisited
Jerry Taylor & Peter Van Doren, Forbes, 29 March 2011
Gallup: Global Warming Least Concern of Least Concern for Voters
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air, 28 March 2011
“Drill, Brazil, Drill,” Obama Says
Conn Carroll, The Foundry, 28 March 2011
Pawlenty and Gingrich on Global Warming
David Weigel, Slate, 22 March 2011
I almost choked on a complimentary pretzel during a recent flight when I read the final page of the April edition of Scientific American, this country’s premier science periodical for mainstream audiences. The page was titled “Clean Tech Rising” and the subtitle read, “China outshines the U.S. as the top investor, while Europe is a close third.” It featured bar graphs indicating what different nations are spending on so-called clean energy, like biofuel, wind, and solar power. The attendant text warned that “The U.S. has been a major player in clean energy technologies, but China is now the leader.” It recommended that, “…stepping up U.S. investment could enhance the country’s competitiveness…”
Now, it might or might not be true that China is spending more than the U.S. on “clean” energy. The ruling Communist government is not known for openness and transparency, so I take “official” investment data with a grain of salt. However, it is unequivocal that the Chinese are building coal power plants at an unprecedented rate. Estimates vary, from 4 new coal plants every week to 1 plant every week. All we know for sure is that coal, and not renewable energy, is powering the Middle Kingdom’s meteoric economic growth. This is why China, which became the world’s number one emitter of greenhouse gases only three years ago, now has a carbon footprint 40 percent bigger than the next largest emitter (the United States).
In an editorial cleverly titled, “Drill, Brazil, Drill says the U.S.“The Washington Post joined in the growing public displeasure over President Obama’s public support for the Brazilian oil industry, which seems to be rising at the expense of administration support for the oil industry in the United States.
As CEI’s Myron Ebell pointed out last week:
This is the same President who has spent the last two years doing everything he can to reduce oil production in the United States. Cancelled and delayed exploration leases on federal lands in the Rocky Mountains; the re-institution of the executive moratorium on offshore exploration in the Atlantic, the Pacific, most Alaskan waters, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico; the deepwater permitting moratorium and the de facto moratorium in the western Gulf. The result is that domestic oil production is about to start a steep decline.
The editorial also mentions the tariff on ethanol. Trade restrictions are bad policy. However, the case for Brazilian ethanol is slightly more complicated than that. If Brazilian ethanol were imported to the U.S., it might displace some ethanol production that is occurring in the U.S. as historically Brazilian ethanol has been cheaper. This would be fine.
Not every State is suffering economically. According to a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Joel Kotkin, unemployment in North Dakota is 3.8 percent (nation-wide, it’s about 9 percent), due primarily to increasing production of oil and gas. And, as noted by Bonner Cohen in a letter to the Journal, North Dakota’s energy boom was made possible primarily because almost all of North Dakota’s rich deposits of oil and natural gas lie beneath privately-owned land. Otherwise, it would have been locked up by the Obama administration.
Senate Looks Ready to Vote on EPA Pre-Emption Amendment
The Senate now appears headed for a floor vote next week on S. 482, which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced on 15th March as an amendment to the Small Business Innovation Research and Technology Transfer Programs Re-Authorization Act, S. 493. S. 482, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, was introduced by Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) and is identical to H. R. 910, which the House plans to vote on as a free-standing bill next month. McConnell’s amendment would block EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions until authorized by Congress.
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) postponed a vote on the amendment last week when it became clear that it might come close to the 60 votes required for passage. First, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) introduced his bill to delay EPA regulations for two years as an amendment. When that seemed to gain little support, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced an amendment that would codify EPA regulations into law but permanently exempt from regulation smaller stationary sources that emit less than 75,000 tons per year.
Endangered? CDC: “U.S. Death Rate Falls for 10th Consecutive Year”
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 25 March 2011
This Is Your Nation’s Economic Policy on Democratic Leadership
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 25 March 2011
Newt’s Changing Colors
Faiz Shakir, Progress Report, 25 March 2011
EPA Provides the Cash, American Lung Association Hits Upton and the Energy Tax Prevention Act
Myron Ebell, GlobalWarming.org, 24 March 2011
How the President Killed My Company
Randy Stilley, Washington Post, 24 March 2011
Whose Clean Energy Standards?
Paul Chesser, American Spectator, 24 March 2011
The Real Problem with High Speed Rail
Michael Rosen, The American, 24 March 2011
Obama’s Greens Turn Yellow
Washington Times editorial, 23 March 2011
Van Jones: Fracking Is Polluting Our Water
Myron Ebell, GlobalWarming.org, 22 March 2011
EPA’s Greenhouse Power Grab
Marlo Lewis, Pajamas Media, 21 March 2011
Google To Fight Global Warming “Ignorance”
Russell Cook, American Thinker, 21 March 2011
Recent Weather Extremes: Global Warming Fingerprint Not
Chip Knappenberger, Master Resource, 21 March 2011
Trains, Greens, and Gasoline: What a Wild Week
Mark Steyn, Investor’s Business Daily, 18 March 2011
North Dakota’s Lesson for America
Not every State is suffering economically. According to a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Joel Kotkin, unemployment in North Dakota is 3.8 percent (nation-wide, it’s about 9 percent), due primarily to increasing production of oil and gas. And, as noted by Bonner Cohen in a letter to the Journal, North Dakota’s energy boom was made possible primarily because almost all of North Dakota’s rich deposits of oil and natural gas lie beneath privately-owned land. Otherwise, it would have been locked up by the Obama administration.
The most astonishing event this week was President Barack Obama endorsement of more oil production—in Brazil. In a speech to a CEO Business Summit in Brasilia, the President said:
By some estimates, the oil you recently discovered off the shores of Brazil could amount to twice the reserves we have in the United States. We want to work with you. We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers. At a time when we’ve been reminded how easily instability in other parts of the world can affect the price of oil, the United States could not be happier with the potential for a new, stable source of energy.
This is the same President who has spent the last two years doing everything he can to reduce oil production in the United States. Cancelled and delayed exploration leases on federal lands in the Rocky Mountains; the re-institution of the executive moratorium on offshore exploration in the Atlantic, the Pacific, most Alaskan waters, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico; the deepwater permitting moratorium and the de facto moratorium in the western Gulf. The result is that domestic oil production is about to start a steep decline. An article on Red State by Steve Maley summarizes the future effects of the Obama Administration’s war against oil.
“U.S. Death Rate Falls for 10th Straight Year,” the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced in a recent press release. The release goes on to note that the “age-adjusted death rate for the U.S. population fell to an all-time low of 741 deaths per 100,000 people in 2009 — 2.3 percent lower than the 2008, according to preliminary 2009 death statistics released today [March 16, 2011] by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.” This news is so good it bears repeating: The U.S. death rate fell for the “10th straight year” and is now at “an all-time low.” [click to continue…]
CEI’s Iain Murray has an op-ed in The Washington Times today explaining what can be learned from the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan.
Here’s an excerpt:
Without this vigorous defense of nuclear, the Obama energy plan will have a massive hole at its core – one that cannot be filled by wind and solar power any more than it can be filled by fairy dust. The obvious answer is for the administration to stop its war on coal, but that is unlikely. The only other plausible choice is natural gas, derived by hydraulic fracturing – a procedure that environmentalists are already trying to ban. If they want to keep their plan going in any workable form, the president and Mr. Chu need to tell Americans unequivocally where their future power is going to come from, and push back against ideological environmentalists who are trying to ban practical sources of energy.
Read the rest here.
The American Lung Association is right up there with the Union of Concerned Scientists as a leftist activist organization pretending to be a professional association with high-minded objectives. In fact, the American Lung Association is a bunch of political thugs. Their latest hit job is putting up billboards in Rep. Fred Upton’s district in Michigan that urge him to “protect our kids’ health. Don’t weaken the Clean Air Act (PDF).” The billboard has a photo of an adolescent girl with a respirator.
The American Lung Association is opposing a bill, the Energy Tax Prevention Act (H. R. 910), that is sponsored by Rep. Upton, the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Upton’s bill, which is expected to be debated on the House floor in early April, does nothing to weaken the Clean Air Act. It simply prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Congress never intended the Clean Air Act to be used to enforce global warming policies on the American people. As my CEI colleague Marlo Lewis recently noted, attempts to add provisions to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 that would allow the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions were defeated in the Senate. A similar attempt in the House went nowhere.
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