Here’s a link to video of a panel on which I recently participated, “Natural Gas: Good, Bad, or Indifferent,” about European and American regulatory regimes for ‘fracking,’ a.k.a. hydraulic fracturing, the technological breakthrough in natural gas production that has roughly doubled known North American gas reserves in only the last five years. I gave the American perspective. My friend Max Falque, from the International Center for Research on Environmental Issues in France, gave the European perspective. The event was put on by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.
Here’s the Atlas promotional statement for the video:
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In a Saturday editorial, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette praised new GM CEO Dan Akerson for his “audacious” support of a gas tax. Wrote the editorial board,
Perhaps because Mr. Akerson comes from outside the sometimes insular Detroit auto culture, he can see more clearly that the domestic industry’s old ways won’t work any longer. One of the cardinal principles of both business and evolution is: Adapt or die.
Two years ago, the nation saved GM. The audacious idea from the company’s new chief might help return the favor.
This is malarkey. Mr. Akerson’s “audacious” effort to “adapt or die” is in fact only the latest toss in a long running game of hot potato between the oil industry and the auto industry. Here’s how it works: The auto industry tries to avoid more stringent federal fuel efficiency standards by pushing for a gas tax, while the oil industry tries to avoid a gas tax by pushing for more stringent federal fuel efficiency standards.
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As was widely reported, the Senate voted last week on a bill that would terminate the ethanol tax credit and corresponding tariff. While many were excited by the prospect of finally moving towards better energy policy, it seems likely that things will still get worse before they get better. The ethanol industry does not seem worried.
Consider the following: John McCain (R-AZ) offered additional legislation, while the Senate was voting down the tax credit, that would have ended federal subsidies for ethanol fuel pumps at gas stations. This was voted down 41-59:
“It lost because of the influence of the ethanol lobby,” McCain said on Fox News Thursday, alleging ethanol “is probably the greatest rip-off that I’ve seen since P.T. Barnum.
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Senate Voted to End Ethanol Subsidy
By a 73-27 vote, the Senate on Thursday voted to end the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC), a 45 cents-per-gallon refundable tax credit given to fuel blenders for incorporating ethanol into the fuel supply. The VEETC is ethanol’s primary federal subsidy, although the industry also benefits from a Soviet-style production quota, enacted in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, that forces Americans to use increasing amounts of ethanol. This year, the law requires the manufacture of almost 13 billion gallons of ethanol.
The anti-VEETC measure was an amendment to S. 782, the Economic Development and Revitalization Act of 2011, a pork-laden bill that has little chance of passage due to Republican opposition. Nonetheless, Thursday’s vote was historic, because it is the first time that the powerful special interests behind ethanol have suffered a major setback in the Congress. Moreover, it’s a strong signal that the VEETC’s days are numbered. The subsidy is set to expire in December, and it looks increasingly likely that the Congress will not renew it. Indeed, lawmakers might repeal it before then.
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Socialism is such fun — until the other guy’s money runs out. At that point, even spendaholics may sober up and make tough choices. Irony of ironies, Washington’s fiscal excesses may put the final nail in the coffin of cap-and-trade.
A new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finds that GOP proposals to address the nation’s fiscal crisis, all of which cap federal spending at some percentage of GDP, would make climate legislation — whether cap-and-trade or a carbon tax — “virtually impossible to enact.”
The more severe the spending cap, the more it would “doom efforts to enact comprehensive climate change legislation,” even if the climate bill would not increase the deficit. The report’s authors lament the fact that spending caps would make the political obstacles to climate legislation “almost insurmountable.” It’s music to this non-socialist’s ears. [click to continue…]
Earlier this week at Climate Progress, an energy and environment site run by the liberal Center for American Progress, a blogger made a sensational claim about the growth of the American solar industry. Stephen Lacey wrote,
“With roughly 93,500 direct and indirect jobs, the American solar industry now employs about 9,200 more workers than the U.S. steel production sector, according to 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
However, in making this comparison, the author omitted mention of the fundamental difference between these two sectors: The steel industry exists because people want to buy steel, while the solar industry exists only by the grace of favorable politics. That is, without taxpayer giveaways and Soviet-style production quotas, there would be no solar industry in America. The same is not true for the steel sector.
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Albuquerque NM—Thursday, June 16, members of the U.S. Senate, by a margin of 73-27, voted to eliminate a tax credit and a tariff that subsidize ethanol production, according to an article in Bloomberg News.
The vote signals a major change in public opinion. It shows that telephone calls to members of Congress can tip the balance in favor of or in opposition to an issue.
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Climategate Part 2?
Oliver Wright, The Independent, 17 June 2011
Bigger Cars Are Safer Cars
Eric Peters, American Spectator, 16 June 2011
Eagle Ford Oil: “Resources Are Not, Resources Become”
Greg Rehmke, Master Resource, 16 June 2011
Global Warming? Try Global Cooling
Lorne Gunter, National Post, 16 June 2011
Gore Praises Romney on Climate Change
Dan Berman, Politico, 15 June 2011
Bedbugs are finding their way from more and more hotels into more and more homes. One way to get rid of them is to wash infested bedding and clothes in hot water. Hot means at least 118 degrees F; a warm water wash of only 104 degrees will kill only ten percent of the critters.
An extended bout of high-temperature drying is also recommended.
But with laundry machines and dryers coming under increasingly stringent federal energy efficiency regulations, sufficiently hot wash and dry cycles are becoming a thing of the past. Many new washers have thermostatically controlled mixing valves, which adjust wash water temperatures to levels set by the manufacturer. That high-tech feature isn’t aimed at satisfying market demand, but at meeting either the efficiency regs or the criteria for special manufacturer tax credits (yet another program to boost energy efficiency at all costs).
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