The British Conservative Party seems intent on fulfilling Prime Minister David Cameron’s promise to be the “greenest government ever.” This week, the coalition government announced it would cut emissions 50 percent, averaged over the years 2023-2027, by 2025. The government conceded that the policy would cost British homes about $700 a year, or 1 percent of Britain’s GDP, which is almost certainly a lowball. There is, however, an escape clause: The targets are binding only if the rest of the European Union commits to the same emissions cuts. Even if the EU were to adopt similar targets, it would not be terribly surprising if a future government suspended or rescinded this ultra-expensive “Green Deal,” as recent polling suggests that only a quarter of Britons believe that the risks of climate change are greater than the benefits.
The Senate held votes this week on competing Democratic and Republican oil bills. The Democratic bill, S. 940, which would raise taxes on big oil companies, was defeated on a vote of 52 to 48. The Republican bill, S. 953, which would force the Obama Administration to increase offshore oil leasing, was defeated on a vote of 42 to 57. Under Senate rules, sixty votes were required to pass either measure.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had this to say about those who voted against the bill to raise taxes on the five largest oil companies: “They would rather cut college scholarships, slash cancer research, and end Medicare than take away taxpayer-funded giveaways to oil companies that are raking in billions of dollars in profits.” Three Democrats (Senators Mark Begich of Alaska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Ben Nelson of Nebraska) voted against the oil tax hike, while the two Republican Senators from Maine (Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins) voted for it. And Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) had this to say about the Republican offshore bill: “The solution to skyrocketing gas prices is simple: increase supply.” The establishment media regularly try to portray Senator Reid as a statesman and Senator Inhofe as a conservative ideologue. These contrasting quotes allow readers to judge for themselves.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Action Fund commissioned a poll from a Democratic pollster finding that voters in Rep. Fred Upton’s district disapprove of the GOP congressman’s efforts to overturn EPA’s climate change regulations. Hold the presses! Man bites dog! I mean, what are the odds that a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling and commissioned by NRDC would reach that conclusion?
Actually, what’s surprising is that Greenwire (May 19, 2011, subscription required) would bother covering the NRDC poll as if it were news. [click to continue…]
Green groups in Wisconsin are attacking a bill that would allow utilities and electric cooperatives to comply with the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) by importing hydroelectricity from Manitoba, Canada, today’s Climatewire reports. The bill (SB 81) passed in the state Senate earlier this week.
Talk about dumb and dumber. Wisconsin’s RPS mandates that 10% of the state’s power come from renewable sources by 2015. A soviet-style production quota, an RPS props up electricity sources — such as wind and solar power — that can’t compete on the basis of cost and quality. As economic policy, an RPS is about as cheesy as it gets.
But as long as a state is going to have an RPS, why not at least allow electric service providers to obtain renewable electricity at the lowest price and the highest quality? That is the objective of SB 81. [click to continue…]
This issue has yet to really make a splash in the United States outside of California (which I’ll discuss below), but the European Green Police are leading the way with their next war on humanity: prohibiting ships from using bunker fuel.
Bunker fuel, also known as navy special fuel, is the bottom-of-the-barrel (literally), high-viscosity fuel used by large cruise ships, container ships, and tankers that is just slightly less viscous than the bitumen (asphalt) used to pave roads. Environmentalists hate bunker fuel because sulfur dioxide (SOx) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions are considerably more intense than those of the more refined and lighter gasoline and diesel.
While it is true that this makes bunker fuel “dirtier” than the fuel you put in your car, it is used because ships use large enough engines that are designed to handle bunker fuel and it is far cheaper due to limited demand (nearly nonexistent outside of the maritime industry).
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America is in the midst of a budget crisis, yet the Environmental Protection Agency found $25,000 to help a radical green group break the law. According to the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Gordon,
“…the agency awarded the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization [LVEJO] a $25,000 environmental justice grant, which was to be directed to ‘…work[ing] in coalition with their partners to implement 3 areas of Climate Change Mitigation…’ The first ‘area’ is to ‘…conduct a grassroots Clean Power Campaign in the Chicago Region to address coal power plant emissions’…After getting the grant, a half dozen activists from LVEJO and other groups were arrested after climbing the fence to a coal-fired power plant and unfurling a banner that read: ‘Close Chicago’s Toxic Coal Plant.'”
Read the entire excellent post here.
Our Dangerous Dependence on Foreign Olive Oil
Matthew Yglesias, Think Progress, 19 May 2011
Sound, Fury, and the Policy of Climate Change
Patrick Michaels, Forbes, 19 May 2011
Phony Fears on ‘Fracking’
Michael Benjamin, New York Post, 19 May 2011
Are Oil Futures Markets Being Manipulated?
Jerry Taylor & Peter Van Doren, Forbes, 19 May 2011
Island Nations Uses Climate Aid To Build Floating Resort
Chris Horner, Daily Caller, 19 May 2011
The Myth of Green Energy Security
Bjorn Lomborg, Project Syndicate, 17 May 2011
1. Ethanol Mandates: In an effort to further “energy independence,”* major agricultural producing countries have enacted Soviet-style production quotas for ethanol, a motor fuel distilled from food.
This year, about a third of the U.S. corn crop will be used to manufacture 13 billion gallons of ethanol. By law, that will increase to 15 billion gallons every year after 2015. The European Union mandates that ethanol distilled primarily from palm oil and wheat, constitute an increasing percentage of the fuel supply, ultimately 10% by 2020.
Global ethanol production is a new and tremendous source of demand for food that has had a significant impact on the price of grains and oilseeds. According to a report commissioned by the World Bank, global demand for fuels made from food accounted for nearly 70% of the historic price spike in wheat, rice, corn, and soy during the summer 2008.
2. Rainforest Protections: Burning rainforests is an important link in the global food supply chain. In Brazil, farmers are clearing the Amazon rainforests to meet rapidly growing global demand for soybeans. In Indonesia, they slash rainforests to harvest palm oil seeds for export to Europe.
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The Wall Street Journal today reported on a statement by the International Energy Agency’s governing board, calling on oil producing countries to increase their output to “help avoid the negative global economic consequences which a further sharp market tightening [i.e., higher oil prices] could cause.”
Here’s the full IEA statement:
The IEA Governing Board, at its regular quarterly meeting on 18-19 May, examined oil market developments and their impact on the global economy. Despite a near-10% correction since 5 May, oil prices remain at elevated levels driven by market fundamentals, geopolitical uncertainty and future expectations. The IEA Governing Board expressed serious concern that there are growing signs that the rise in oil prices since September is affecting the economic recovery by widening global imbalances, reducing household and business income, and placing upward pressure on inflation and interest rates. As global demand for oil increases seasonally from May to August, there is a clear, urgent need for additional supplies on a more competitive basis to be made available to refiners to prevent a further tightening of the market.
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