Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling on carbon dioxide provided some welcome relief to those concerned that the Court might say something, deliberately or otherwise, that would buttress the claims of global warming alarmists. The Court said no such thing. In fact, it seemed to step back from the suggestions in its 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA ruling that the scientific debate over anthropogenic warming had largely been settled. Yesterday’s ruling does mention hurricanes and heat-related deaths and melting ice-caps, but only in characterizing EPA’s view of global warming, not the Court’s. And the Court quickly distances itself from EPA’s views with an interesting footnote:
“For views opposing EPA’s, see, e.g., Dawidoff, The Civil Heretic, N. Y. Times Magazine 32 (March 29, 2009). The Court, we caution, endorses no particular view of the complicated issues related to carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.”
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Today the EPA announced its proposed 2012 Renewable Fuel Standard requirements:
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) established the annual renewable fuel volume targets, which steadily increase to an overall level of 36 billion gallons in 2022. To achieve these volumes, EPA calculates a percentage-based standard for the following year. Based on the standard, each refiner, importer, and non-oxygenate blender of gasoline or diesel determines the minimum volume of renewable fuel that it must ensure is used in its transportation fuel.
The proposed 2012 overall volumes and standards are:
Biomass-based diesel (1.0 billion gallons; 0.91 percent)
Advanced biofuels (2.0 billion gallons; 1.21 percent)
Cellulosic biofuels (3.45 – 12.9 million gallons; 0.002 – 0.010 percent)
Total renewable fuels (15.2 billion gallons; 9.21 percent) [click to continue…]
In mid-April, I testified before a Colorado Senate Committee that was considering whether to approve a Regional Haze State Implementation Plan (“RHSIP”) to improve visibility at National Parks. The purpose of my testimony was to inform Committee Members that the RHSIP before them violated Colorado’s statutory prohibition on pollution controls pursuant to the Clean Air Act that are more stringent than what the federal government requires. That is, I told them that the RHSIP was illegal. I explained to the Senators that correcting the illegal components of the RHSIP would save Colorado ratepayers more than $120 million. (For background on the RHSIP, click here. Video of my testimony is available here.)
The Committee heard an entirely different story from lawyers representing natural gas producers, Xcel Energy, and environmentalist ex-Governor Bill Ritter. These lawyers’ clients were staunch proponents of the RHSIP, because it included a strategy to switch fuels from coal to natural gas for almost 1,000 megawatts of electricity. For the gas and utility sector, billions of dollars were at stake; for ex-Governor Ritter, the fuel switching plan enhanced his national profile among environmentalists. These special interest lawyers refused to address my allegations of illegality (because I was right). Instead, they told the Committee that unless the General Assembly approved the RHSIP immediately and without alteration, the federal government would swoop in and usurp Colorado’s air quality planning authority.
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Court Rejects Judicially Mandated Cap-and-Trade
Ken Klukowski, Washington Examiner, 21 June 2011
The Great Resource Debate
Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, 21 June 2011
With Climate Change, Life Imitates Art
Ken Green, The American, 20 June 2011
The IPCC Declares Greenpeace in Our Time
Christopher Booker, Daily Telegraph, 19 June 2011
Ethanol: Congress Sacrifices a Sacred Cow
Eleanor Clift, Daily Beast, 17 June 2011
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…]
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