On Friday, America’s credit rating was downgraded from AAA to AA+. For the first time since ratings began, America is, officially, not on top. Only one of the three major rating agencies took this step, and they did it late on Friday. This morning, despite the markets having two days to digest the news, they are saying American debt is unsustainable—we can’t keep spending money we don’t have on things that don’t work.
While there is plenty of negative news addressing the gloom and doom that this could mean, there is a silver lining.
The downgrade tells us that what we’ve been doing isn’t working, and we must change priorities. How we react will determine whether or not the other agencies decide to follow suit—perhaps waiting to see how Congress handles the budget debate.
Here are three things that most of us can agree on: America needs jobs; America needs to make more stuff other countries want; and America needs lower energy prices—and the three are intricately connected. If we could do all of the above, we could see dramatic changes in the economy and salvage the credit rating as Canada did when they received the same warning. Instead, the Obama administration continues driving, pedal to metal, in the opposite direction—not solving the problem and blaming everyone else.
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Last month, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) suspended wildlife biologist Charles Monnett, who is being investigated by the Department of Interior’s (DOI’s) inspector general (IG). Monnett is the lead author of a 2006 study (linking loss of Arctic sea ice to the first documented finding of drowned polar bears. The paper helped galvanize support for DOI’s listing of the bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Al Gore touted the study in An Inconvenient Truth.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) condemned the IG investigation as a “witch hunt” (Greenwire, Aug. 10, 2011, subscription required). Last week, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Greenpeace sent a letter to DOI Secretary Ken Salazar accusing BOEMRE of trying to muzzle scientists whose research may impede the granting of permits to drill for oil and gas in the bear’s Arctic habitat.
The transcript of the IG’s February 23, 2011 interrogation of Monnett shows that the IG “sent agents with no scientific training to ask decidedly unscientific questions about bizarre allegations relating to the polar bear paper,” CBD and Greenpeace contend. I can’t help but agree. What’s going on? [click to continue…]
Global Warming Link to Drowned Polar Bears Melts under Searing Federal Probe
Audrey Hudson, Human Events, 11 August 2011
Obama’s War on Coal
William Yeatman, New York Post, 10 August 2011
Global Warming Is Melting Al Gore’s Brain
H. Leighton Steward, Daily Caller, 10 August 2011
California 33% Green Goal: Form or Substance? Part 1, Part 2
Ulrich Decher, Master Resource, 10 August 2011
Global Warming Gomorrah in Hell: Welcome to Washington!
Patrick Michaels, Forbes, 5 August 2011
Much to the chagrin of the left’s environmental base, Ken Salazar voiced Obama’s support for increased natural resource production in Alaska:
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar came to Anchorage on Monday and said the Obama administration supports more oil drilling in Alaska, potentially including offshore Arctic development.
Salazar joined Alaska Sen. Mark Begich and Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed for a meeting with Alaska business people and said the president’s feeling toward Arctic offshore drilling is “Let’s take a look at what’s up there and see what it is we can develop.”
It came with the standard try-to-please-everyone-speak that Presidents must use, showing concern for the unique challenges faced by drilling in the Artic Ocean. But the bottom line is Obama understands that this is something politically he must move forward with, as this is the low-hanging fruit in terms of sparking economic growth before the 2012 election. The support has come at a time when experts are increasingly discussing a potential “double-dip” recession and a continued stall in employment growth. Resource production is one area where the private sector really has “shovel ready” jobs, as it has added jobs throughout 2010-2011. Examples of specific projects in Alaska are here and here.
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A blustery “bullshitting” Al Gore clip is wending its way through the Internet. On August 4, he was speaking at the Aspen Institute FOCAS seminar in Colorado. The minute plus clip is the most interesting part of an hour-and-half long snooze fest—though he does perk it up when he talks about how climate change has fallen from the front burner of the public psyche. He uses several different fecal terms to describe the various valid theories regarding climate change.
Could the rant be the result of science questioning his profitable propaganda?
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The ethanol compromise did not make it into any debt ceiling negotiations and its future is now looking bleaker than ever before. The Congressional ‘super-committee’ established by the debt ceiling negotiations will have to decide by November 23rd some manner to reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion or face potentially unpopular automatic spending cuts to defense and discretionary spending (though USA Today writes that these “threats” have failed in the past). None of the rumored super-committee members seem to be from regions that would require their support of the ethanol industry
The ‘ethanol compromise’ had legs because it funneled money into the domestic ethanol industry while still maintaining a facade of deficit reduction. It would have collected $2 billion in revenue from the ending of the domestic tax credit as of July 21 and used a small amount less than that to spend on items near and dear to the ethanol industry (mainly ongoing support for cellulosic ethanol and money for the installation of blender pumps at fueling stations), hence their support.
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Debt Deal Warnings for Energy Subsidies
Gary Hunt, Master Resource, 9 August 2011
New York Times vs. Natural Gas Industry
Talia Buford, Politico, 8 August 2011
Green Beatle Gas Guzzler
Henry Payne, The Michigan View, 7 August 2011
A Couple of CRU Stations
Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 1 August 2011
Senate Testimony: The Question of Green Jobs
Kenneth Green, AEI, 26 July 2011
Sen. Inhofe Calls on EPA To Drop Proposed Ozone Rule
Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) on Friday asked the Environmental Protection Agency to drop its plans for a new Clean Air Act ozone rule. Inhofe also sent a letter to the EPA’s Inspector General requesting him to investigate whether the EPA’s Clean Air Science Advisory Committee is improperly constituted and has acted improperly.
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I’m a mild mannered guy. But nothing gets my goat like crony-capitalism. So when I was asked by Freedom Action to man a bull horn at a protest of General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt—America’s #1 rent-seeker—I couldn’t resist.
Here’s the background: On July 11, Mr. Immelt was invited to keynote a luncheon given to the topic of “free enterprise.” Mr. Immelt was an ironic choice, in light of the fact that he has spent his corporate career trying to get government to pass laws that force people to use GE products and, to add insult to injury, also subsidize the production of those products. (To read more about Mr. Immelt’s rent-seeking ways, see here, here, and here.) Of course, having America’s leading crony capitalist speak about free enterprise is beyond the pale. This outrage prompted about 30 free-marketeers, myself included, to demonstrate outside the venue where Mr. Immelt was invited to speak. The video is below. I’m the bald sweaty guy with the bullhorn.
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