In an appearance on E&E TV, retired General Wesley Clark discusses the future of corn ethanol policy. Transcript here. Given that he is a member of Growth Energy, completely objectivity isn’t expected. However, he makes a number of incorrect statements and supports very poor economic analysis.
CLARK: And so we’re behind in cellulosic because we’ve been artificially constrained in the fuels market, first by the EPA blend wall at 10 percent, which meant there was no market for cellulosic. And then secondly then by the lack of infrastructure to be able to actually go out to the service agent and say, hey, I want to try 20 to 30 percent ethanol blend.
Cellulosic ethanol production is “behind” because its not economical, and investors are aware that the current market for cellulosic ethanol relies almost entirely on a government law that clearly isn’t guaranteed given how difficult it is to produce cellulosic ethanol at a price that is even close to something consumers would want.
Clark also complains about the 10% “blend wall” yet doesn’t acknowledge that the majority of ethanol sold is due to an “artificial” government mandate. I’d gladly end the EPA’s ability to determine what American’s can put in their gas tanks just as I’d gladly end the mandate requiring refiners to blend petroleum with ethanol.
[click to continue…]
The stunning victory by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in Canada’s election means the death of cap-and-trade or a carbon tax in Canada. The Conservative Party’s platform firmly opposed both cap-and-trade and carbon taxes. The Liberal Party, which was annihilated in the election, equally strongly supported imposing a cap-and-trade scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Conservatives won a clear majority of 167 seats in the 308-member federal Parliament. They had formed a minority government since 2007. For the first time in Canadian history, the Liberal Party dropped to third place with 34 seats. The hard left New Democratic Party (NDP) wiped out the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec and will become the official opposition with 102 seats. The NDP and the Bloc Quebecois also support cap-and-trade. The Green Party won its first seat in Parliament.
This is another clear sign that public support for cap-and-trade and other energy-rationing policies is waning. Cap-and-trade has been dead in the United States since the Waxman-Markey bill narrowly passed the House of Representatives on June 26, 2009. And in Australia, the Labour Party government is in deep trouble as a result of proposing a carbon tax. The global warming fad appears to be fading fast.
If you’ve been following the global warming debate for any length of time, you know how boringly predictable the “consensus” narrative has become. Global warming is good for bad things — poison ivy, ticks, toxic algae blooms, malaria-carrying mosquitoes — but bad for good things — polar bears, ski resorts, Vermont’s maple sugar industry, and the weather patterns on which agriculture (hence human survival) allegedly depend.
And supposedly, one of the cures for global warming is to “repower” America with zero-carbon energy, especially electricity generated from wind turbines.
But that creates a bit of a conundrum for warmists. If global warming is going to play havoc with the weather, how do we know that the best locations for siting wind farms today will remain optimal (or even marginally productive) in the allegedly topsy turvy greenhouse planet of tomorrow?
Never fear! A new study funded by the National Science Foundation finds that global warming will not significantly change America’s wind patterns over the next 50 years. [click to continue…]
Professor Matthew Nisbet of American University published a report last week that concludes, among much else, that environmental pressure groups spent a lot more money trying to pass cap-and-trade legislation than opponents spent trying to defeat it. The report, “Climate Shift: Clear Vision for the Next Decade of Public Debate,” is part of the Climate Shift Project of American University’s School of Communications.
As someone who has been engaged in the global warming debate for over a decade, the conclusion that the cap-and-traders had more money than their opponents is not at all surprising. In fact, it is obvious and recognized by everyone who has been paying attention.
But rabid attack dog Joe Romm of the hilariously-misnamed Center for American Progress, who got hold of a copy of the report before it was published, naturally attacked it viciously. That’s because Nisbet’s analysis destroys the environmental movement’s carefully-cultivated mythology that they are a bunch of little citizen groups up against mammoth industry special interests led by Big Oil and King Coal.
[click to continue…]
“Storms Kill Over 250 Americans In States Represented By Climate Pollution Deniers,” announces a blog post on ThinkProgress.Org. If the blogger does not actually claim that the southland is being punished for its sins of emission, he apparently sees poetic justice in the devastation, or at least irony:
The congressional delegations of these states — Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky — overwhelmingly voted to reject the science that polluting the climate is dangerous. They are deliberately ignoring the warnings of scientists.
The real irony, though, is that blaming tornadoes on global warming is unscientific. [click to continue…]
High Court Offers Sense in Global Warming Battle
Bob Tippee, Oil & Gas Journal, 2 May 2011
The One “Big” You Can’t Escape
Eric Peters, American Spectator, 2 May 2011
Paul Krugman’s Convenient Lie about Global Warming
Joseph Klein, FavStocks.com, 30 April 2011
The Truth about Green Jobs: A Recruiter’s Perspective
Doug Thorner, Denver Post, 29 April 2011
Fear of Climate Change Falling Precipitously
Joe Wolverton, American Thinker, 29 April 2011
Natural Gas: A Better “Climate” Fuel?
Chip Knappenberger, MasterResource.org, 29 April 2011
Let’s Sunset the Ethanol Subsidy
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, RealClearMarkets.com, 28 April 2011
How Oil Profits Are Good for Americans
Nicolas Loris, The Foundry, 28 April 2011
Professor Cornpone, Inc.
Wall Street Journal editorial, 27 April 2011
The Climate Gospel According to Gore
Larry Bell, Forbes, 26 April 2011
Here is an excellent overview (by Robert Rapier) of taxes and the oil industry. The basic takeaways are that a simpler tax code is much preferable to what we have now, that ending these deductions without reforming the tax code will be damaging, and the oil industry’s profit margins are actually lower than many other industries. The whole thing is worth reading, but below are a few excerpts.
The biggest ‘oil company subsidy’ — amounting to $1.7 billion per year for the oil industry — is a manufacturer’s tax deduction that is explained in Section 199 of the IRS code. This is a tax credit designed to keep manufacturing in the U.S., but it isn’t limited to oil companies. It is a tax credit enjoyed by ethanol companies (have you ever heard anyone call it an ethanol subsidy?), computer companies (we are subsidizing Microsoft and Google!) and foreign companies who operate factories in the U.S.
One never hears of proposals to entirely do away with Section 199. Apparently, since this tax credit was designed as an incentive to keep manufacturing in the U.S., many would feel that eliminating it for all companies would provide less incentive for them to keep their factories in the U.S. Some of the same people apparently don’t believe this reasoning will apply with the oil industry.
[click to continue…]
In the wake of some of the deadliest storms in American history this week in the South, global warming alarmists have shamelessly tried to link the devastation wrought by tornadoes to climate change. According to Grady Dixon, assistant professor of meteorology and climatology at Mississippi State University, such a conclusion would be a “terrible mistake.” He told a leading science website that, “If you look at the past 60 years of data, the number of tornadoes is increasing significantly, but it’s agreed upon by the tornado community that it’s not a real increase. It’s having to do with better (weather tracking) technology, more population, the fact that the population is better educated and more aware. So we’re seeing them more often.” The likelihood of a bad tornado season was predicted on the basis that there is currently a strong La Nina in the Pacific Ocean. It should be remembered that El Ninos bring warmer weather while La Ninas bring cooler weather.
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
CEI.org