The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers has started running radio ads complaining about the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to raise Corporate Average Fuel Economy (or CAFE) standards for cars and light trucks to 56.2 miles per gallon by 2025. According to the Detroit Free Press, the sixty-second ads “feature an ominous voice warning ‘after tough times, today’s auto industry is on the road to economic recovery,’ but that fuel economy rules ‘threatens that progress’ –leading to less choice, higher prices, job losses, and an ‘electric vehicle mandate.’
This is the first sign that the auto industry is finally waking up to the reality that their cozy 2007 deal on CAFE isn’t such a good deal after all. CAFE standards are scheduled to increase to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.
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One year ago today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) announced that the Senate would drop cap-and-trade negotiations led by Sens. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut), thereby ending any chance that the 111th Congress would enact an energy-rationing bill.
This time its former Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) writing in The Hill’s Congressional Blog:
But what people often forget is that the ethanol industry has been suggesting reform for more than a year. We recognized that the industry has changed, and that the policy must change as well.
The blender’s tax credit has been instrumental in developing the ethanol industry, but the most important challenge our nation faces today in securing our energy independence is not the continuation of this incentive, but access to a fair and open marketplace.
We have suggested a pathway that will not only create that market access but continue to provide the necessary incentives for developing the next generation of biofuels – cellulosic ethanol – to help our nation meet our stated goals of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel by 2022.
Consumer choice at the pump is the most critical component of this plan to help us achieve this goal. Today there are about nine million Flex Fuel Vehicles in this country and the owners of these vehicles have a choice of fuel blends when they pull up to a Flex Fuel pump: E30, E50 or more. But unfortunately, there are fewer than 300 Flex Fuel pumps in the entire nation. Even as domestic automakers commit to making half their fleet Flex Fuel, the lack of pumps to serve this fleet means that most Flex Fuel Vehicles have never run on anything but gasoline.
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Yesterday’s UK Guardian reports that a “special meeting” of the United Nations (UN) Security Council is “due to consider whether to expand its mission to keep the peace in an era of climate change.”
This was inevitable. With the Cold War many years behind us, and only a few important regional wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya) going on, the Security Council needs some kind of permanent, global crisis to justify its existence. Mission Creep thy name is Climate Change. [click to continue…]
‘BBC’s Biased Climate Science Reporting Isn’t Biased Enough’ Claims Report
James Delingpole, The Telegraph, 21 July 2011
Don’t Drink the CAFE
Henry Payne, Planet Gore, 21 July 2011
The World Is Not Overpopulated
AlexB. Berezow, Real Clear Science, 21 July 2011
Obama’s Anti-Coal Agenda Hurts America
Daniel Kish, US News, 20 July 2011
Gray Lady Finally Finds Proof of Global Warming
Jazz Shaw, Hot Air, 20 July 2011
In a previous post, I bemoaned the fact that hydraulic fracturing, the technological breakthrough in natural gas production also known as “fracking,” has spurred a frenzy of rent-seeking.
By significantly expanding America’s natural gas supply in a short duration, fracking has ushered in a period of low prices. This makes natural gas more competitive relative to other energy sources. As a result, the industry is in a great position to add market share in the electricity sector. Now that $3+ gasoline is the new normal, the natural gas industry also is well-situated to gain a foothold in the transportation fuel sector. The opportunity is there, but major gas producers have been unwilling to rely on their price advantage to better compete. Instead, they’ve been trying to secure political favors. As I noted in the aforementioned blog post,
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From Bobby McCormick at PERC:
Starting in January, the common incandescent light bulb becomes illegal, well maybe, in most of the United States. (Some recalcitrant states, SC and TX to name two, seem hell bent on reminding the federal government of the long forgotten 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but wasn’t that fight settled a long time ago?) Advocates of this law say that it encourages the use of more energy efficient lighting sources such as CFL and LED lights. It has been noted that a large fraction of the energy consumed by an incandescent light bulb goes to create heat and not light, and that the newer, high tech devices produce an equal amount of light using less energy.
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Since my last update, 7 more Members of Congress have withdrawn as sponsors of H.R. 1380, the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act (a.k.a., the NAT GAS Act, a.k.a., “The T. Boone Pickens Earmark Bill,” a.k.a., the “Pickens-Your-Pocket Boondoggle Bill”), legislation that was manufactured by billionaire T. Boone Pickens in order to make himself even richer. The bill would subsidize the use of natural gas as a fuel for the transportation sector, in particular for the trucking industry. Pickens is a gas tycoon, and it goes without saying that legislation to increase demand for gas is good for his bottom line.
The “magnificent 7” Members of Congress who deserve credit for having bucked the T. Boone Pickens Billionaire Bailout since my last update:
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The Backyard Science of the New York Times
Denis Boyles, The Corner, 20 July 2011
The New York Times’s Shale Hit Piece
Chris Tucker, Master Resource, 20 July 2011
New EPA Ozone Rules Will Cost Jobs
Sean Hackbarth, Chamber Post, 19 July 2011
Romney’s Meaningless Distinction
Paul Chesser, AmSpecBlog, 19 July 2011
Wind’s Power Outage
Robert Bryce, Forbes, 19 July 2011
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