April 2011

Post image for Video: Climate of Corruption

On Friday, April 8, in the Longworth House of Representatives office building, the Cooler Heads Coalition hosted Professor Larry Bell, author of “Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power behind  the Global Warming Hoax,” for a Congressional briefing on his new book.

Video of Professor Bell’s excellent presentation is available here.

For a Washington Times review of Climate of Corruption by climate scientist Anthony J. Sadar, click here.

Some Comments about Larry Bell’s book:

“Larry Bell has cut through the heavily funded bad science of global warming advocates, the outrageous claims of politicians and scare threats from extreme environmentalists to explain the truth about Earth’s climate and the man-made and natural forces that change it … [H]e has done an amazing job of sorting it out and putting it in proper perspective.”

—John Coleman, meteorologist and founder of The Weather Channel

“Larry Bell connects the dots between indisputable scientific frauds, carbon regulation and marketing scams, and bogus green energy charades. He makes a convincing case that alarmist climate crisis rhetoric is far more political than scientific.”

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Post image for Senate Committee Passes Energy Efficiency Standards

Today the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee marked up and approved S. 398, a bill that establishes new efficiency standards for a variety of consumer products: air conditioners, refrigerators, freezers, washers, dryers, outdoor drinking water dispensers, dishwashers, and a number of other appliances. You can certainly trust Congress to micromanage the optimal amount of energy used by hundred’s of complex small appliances across different industries.

This bill saw national media coverage earlier this year when Senator Rand Paul ranted about efficiency standards that have effected toilets and will soon effect light bulbs. It’s infuriating that energy bureaucrats can claim that they are in favor of allowing consumers to choose whichever bulb they want, when they are setting bulb efficiency standards that will ban the traditional incandescent bulb. At least be honest about your desire to restrict the choices of consumer and our freedoms.

Politico covered today’s hearing and Paul was unsurprisingly one of the few dissenters. This time Senator Paul offered an amendment that would make the energy efficiency standards voluntary, which failed 16-6 in committee. Here is a short video from Paul’s office covering the hearing.

Consumers should be wary when business gets together and supports these types of standards, though the environmentalists often use this as evidence that only ‘crazies’ oppose such bipartisan, “sensible” legislation. These regulations will increase the cost of these appliances (and the profitability of them), create new competition-crushing barriers to entry, and often bring unexpected consequences (and here). Recall that a number of oil and energy companies supported the Waxman-Markey bill after it went through the Congressional pork factory.

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If Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in the House, or Sens.  Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Harry Reed (D-Nev.) in the Senate, were to introduce legislation authorizing EPA to use the Clean Air Act (CAA) as it sees fit to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs), would the bill have any chance of passing in either chamber of Congress?

No. Aside from a few diehard global warming zealots, hardly any Member of Congress would vote for such a bill. Most lawmakers would run from such legislation even faster than the Senate last year ditched cap-and-trade after its outing as a hidden tax on energy. 

Now consider what that implies. If even today, after nearly two decades of global warming advocacy by the United Nations, eco-pressure groups, ‘progressive’ politicians, left-leaning media, corporate rent-seekers, and celebrity activists, Congress would not pass a bill authorizing EPA to regulate GHGs, then isn’t it patently ridiculous for EPA and its apologists to claim that when Congress enacted the CAA in 1970 — years before global warming was a gleam in Al Gore’s eye — it gave EPA that very power?

These simple questions cut through the fog of sophistry emitted by the likes of Waxman, Markey, and Boxer to defend EPA’s hijacking of legislative power. As I have explained elsewhere in detail (here, herehere, and here), EPA, under the aegis of the Supreme Court’s poorly-reasoned, agenda-driven decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, is using the CAA in ways Congress never intended and never subsequently approved. EPA is defying the separation of powers. It should be stopped. [click to continue…]

♫ Well my dog died just yesterday and left me all alone.
The finance company dropped by today and repossessed my home.
That’s just a drop in the bucket compared to losing you,
And I’m down to seeds and stems again, too.
Got the Down to Seeds and Stems again Blues. ♫

Commander Cody’s lament, poignantly twanged by Telemaster Bill Kirchen, harks back to a bygone era, before medical marijuana and the electrification of indoor victory gardens. Things are different now. Tea leaves are harvested in abundance.

But potheads, or at least those who worry about the “climate crisis,” may still need to sing the blues. A new study by Evan Mills of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory finds that indoor Cannabis production has a very large carbon footprint. If you’re too far gone to read the study, man, then, like, just look at the picture:

Reporter Colin Sullivan summarizes the study, titled “Energy Up in Smoke,” in yesterday’s E&E News (subscription required): [click to continue…]

Routed Greens Retreat

by Marita Noon on April 11, 2011

in Blog, Features

Post image for Routed Greens Retreat

Climate change is real. Climate change is manmade. Manmade climate change has happened within the last twenty-four months.

Leaders in the climate change debate have controlled the message for forty years since the adoption of the Clean Air Act. They have “approached climate change politics with an air of disdain,” according to Fred Krupp, President, Environmental Defense Fund (established in 1967).

Krupp addressed the changing political climate at Fortune Magazine’s Brainstorm Green Conference in early April and admitted that there is a “newfound hostility to climate policy.” He advised the environmental community to be “more humble” and “less arrogant.” He acknowledged the failure of a comprehensive energy and/or cap and trade policy.

Krupp is correct. With the falsification of climate records exposed—known as Climategate, the American people now see climate change as merely hysteria. Polls show they do not view it as a real problem that we need to address now.

At the same conference, Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, agreed. He said, “Cap and trade cannot be sold and must be reinvented,” adding that it was going to be hard to “resurrect cap and trade.”

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Post image for USDA Doubles Down on Ethanol – Blender Pumps

The ethanol industry has found a friend — the US Department of Agriculture. The industry will be less reliant on new legislation to encourage ethanol consumption, thanks to a new USDA announcement that the department will begin funding grants and loan guarantees for gas stations that choose to install new E-85 blender pumps. This was one of the primary legislative goals of the renewable fuels lobbyists.

The funding for the program will be provided by the 2008 farm bill which included funding that can be used to promote renewable energy development. The total fund amounts to $70 million in 2011 and another $70 million in 2012.

From the article:

Most gasoline sold in the U.S. is 10% ethanol, but a growing fleet of flexible-fuel vehicles can run on an 85%-ethanol blend, or E85. However, there are fewer pumps available to dispense it, Mr. Vilsack said.

In the U.S., only about 2,350 fueling stations out of more than 110,000 offer E85 pumps, according to the USDA.

It’s obvious why gasoline retailers are hesitant to install E-85 pumps, adjusting for energy content its not a better deal than gasoline.

When really pressed on why the USDA and the Obama administration continue to support corn based ethanol, they point to using it as helping support the fledgling cellulosic ethanol industry, which seems to always be just 5 years away from commercial viability.

 

 

 

Post image for This Week in the Congress

House Passes EPA Pre-Emption Bill, 255-172

The House of Representatives on Thursday passed H. R. 910th, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, by a vote of 255 to 172.  Nineteen Democrats voted Yes.  No Republicans voted No.  This is a remarkable turnaround from the last Congress, when on 26th June 2009 the House voted 219 to 212 to pass the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.

The Energy Tax Prevention Act, sponsored by Rep. Fred. Upton (R-Mich.), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and thereby put a potentially huge indirect tax on American consumers and businesses.   Coal, oil, and natural gas produce carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, when burned.  Those three fuels provide over 80% of the energy used in America.  Thus regulating carbon dioxide emissions essentially puts the EPA in charge of running the U. S. economy.

Five Republicans who voted for the Waxman-Markey bill in 2009 voted for H. R. 910 yesterday.  They are: Mary Bono Mack of California, Chris Smith, Leonard Lance, and Frank Lobiondo of New Jersey, and Dave Reichert of Washington.

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Post image for Cooler Heads Digest 8 April 2011

In the News

If Al Gore Can Outgrow the Ethanol Fad, Why Can’t Conservatives?
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 7 April 2011

Greens Oppose Biomass in Pacific Northwest
Joel Millman, Wall Street Journal, 7 April 2011

Biofuels Raise Hunger Fears
Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times, 7 April 2011

Obama’s Energy Funny
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 6 April 2011

The Longer the Delay, the More You Pay
Sen. John Barrasso, Politico, 6 April 2011

Government vs. Resourceship
John Bratland, MasterResource.org, 6 April 2011

China Sees Evil of Plastic Bags
Jonah Goldberg, USA Today, 6 April 2011

Obama-Backed Tesla Sues Its Critics
Henry Payne, Planet Gore, 6 April 2011

Should We Feed Hungry People, Even If It’s Bad for the Environment?
Alex Berezow, Forbes, 6 April 2011

UN IPCC: Analyst or Advocate?
Lee Lane, RealClearScience.com, 5 April 2011

GE’s Immelt: Jobs Czar from Hell
Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle, 4 April 2011

New Energy Economy Drubbed in Debate
Vincent Carroll, Denver Post, 2 April 2011

Renewable Energy Standards Are Unconstitutional
Paul Chesser, Washington Times, 1 April 2011

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Post image for House Passes Energy Tax Prevention Act, 255-172

The House of Representatives this afternoon passed H. R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, by a vote of 255 to 172.  Nineteen Democrats voted Yes.  No Republicans voted No.  This is a remarkable turnaround from the last Congress when on 26th June 2009 the House voted 219 to 212 to pass the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.

The Energy Tax Prevention Act, sponsored by Rep. Fred. Upton (R-Mich.), the Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and thereby put a potentially huge indirect tax on American consumers and businesses.   Coal, oil, and natural gas produce carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, when burned.  Those three fuels provide over 80% of the energy used in America.  Thus regulating carbon dioxide emissions essentially puts the EPA in charge of running the U. S. economy.

This is just the first step in stopping the Obama Administration’s attempt to raise energy prices .  The House bill now heads to the Senate, where yesterday an attempt to add the Energy Tax Prevention Act (introduced in the Senate as S. 482 by Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma) as an amendment to another bill was defeated on a 50-50 vote.  Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s amendment would have required 60 votes to be attached to S. 493.  Four Democrats joined 46 Republicans in voting for the amendment–Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.  Senator Susan Collins of Maine was the only Republican to vote No.

The strong House vote in favor of the Energy Tax Prevention Act should build new momentum to pass it in the Senate later this year.  Of course, the White House has already issued a veto threat, which shows that President Obama is not interested in creating new jobs and restoring prosperity to America.  Congress has now rejected cap-and-tax resoundingly, but the President still hopes to achieve through backdoor regulation his goals of skyrocketing electric rates and gasoline prices at the $10 a gallon European level.

Post image for If Al Gore Can Outgrow the Ethanol Fad, Why Can’t Conservatives?

The Senate is expected to vote on S. 520, a bill to repeal the 45 cents per gallon volumetric ethanol excise tax credit (VEETC). The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.). Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.) have also introduced S. 530, which would limit the VEETC to “advanced biofuels,” thus ending the subsidy for conventional corn ethanol. S. 530 would also scale back the 54 cents per gallon ethanol import tariff commensurately with the reduction in the tax credit.

The VEETC adds about $6 billion annually to the federal deficit. Unlike many other tax credits that reduce a household’s or a business’s tax liability, the VEETC is a “refundable” tax credit. That means the VEETC is literally paid for out of the U.S. general fund with checks written by the Treasury Department. The protective tariff, for its part, prevents lower-priced Brazilian ethanol from competing in U.S. markets. It increases the price of motor fuel at the pump.

Now, you would think supporting S. 520 and S. 530 would be a no-brainer for conservative lawmakers. But some are reportedly getting cold feet. To remind them of their duty to put the general interest of consumers and taxpayers ahead of the special interest of King Corn, I offer the following observations. [click to continue…]