Energy blogger Robert Rapier has an excellent post about the naive hatred shown towards the fossil fuel industry by what he calls Democrats. I’m not completely convinced that its a position held by all of those on the left (rather than environmentalists, a subset of the left) but the knee-jerk anti energy sentiments tend to aggregate more on that side of the isle. Read the whole thing, especially his thoughts on clueless celebrity activism. He quotes an environmentalist who struggled to come to this realization:
There was virtually nothing in my office—my body included—that wasn’t there because of fossil fuels… I had understood this intellectually before—that the energy landscape encompasses not just our endless acres of oil fields, coal mines, gas stations, and highways…. What I hadn’t fully managed to grasp was the intimate and invisible omnipresence of fossil fuels in my own life…. I also realized that this thing I thought was a four-letter word (oil) was actually the source of many creature comforts I use and love—and many survival tools I need. It seemed almost miraculous. Never had I so fully grasped the immense versatility of fossil fuels on a personal level and their greater relevance in the economy at large.
Comfort, check. Survival, check. And this is a common phenomena by many who engage in similar types of activism against fossil fuels. The individuals who have worked to make our lives, while often getting rich in the process, are reviled by a good portion of the population. A prime example is the newest assault on the Koch brothers by Henry Waxman (D-Calif.): [click to continue…]
California Superior Court judge Ernest Goldsmith ruled on Friday that the state’s Air Resources Board (ARB) must halt “any futher rulemaking and implementation of cap-and-trade” until the agency examines alternatives policies to meet the greenhouse gas-reduction targets established by Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act. ARB must also, pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), complete a review of the environmental impacts of its preferred regulatory strategy before adopting it.
Note: The ruling does not challenge AB 32 itself, and petitioners in the case are greenies who think ARB’s plan to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions doesn’t go far enough. Nonetheless, this is a setback to California politicians and cap-and-taxers throughout the land. ARB has 15 months to provide the requisite analyses. ARB says it will appeal the decision. Rots of ruck! [click to continue…]
I just finished watching the Sunday morning political talkies, and the second biggest ad buy of the day was in support of H.R. 1380, the NAT GAS Act, legislation that was produced by billionaire T. Boone Pickens to benefit the natural gas industry. T. Boone Pickens is a major player in the natural gas industry, so he basically made H.R. 1380 to make himself richer. That’s why this blog has referred to H.R. 1380 variously as the “Pickens Your Pocket Boondoggle Bill,” and the “T. Boone Pickens Earmark Plan.”
The advertisements I saw left me troubled. They indicated that T. Boone Pickens is less tone deaf, and therefore potentially more successful, than the last time he tried to get the Congress to enact legislation that he wrote to further enrich himself.
That was the 2008 “Pickens Plan,” and it was even bigger rip-off than H.R. 1380. The “Pickens Plan” was a simple four-step strategy: (1) subsidize wind produced by T. Boone; (2) subsidize transmission towers to deliver T. Boone’s wind power to cities; (3) force Americans to buy wind power produced by T. Boone; (4) force American motorists to fill their cars with T. Boone’s “leftover” natural gas, the stuff that was displaced by T. Boone’s wind power.
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The 2012 presidential election is starting to bend some of the Obama Administration’s environmental and energy policies. I have noted previously that the White House realizes that gas prices are a huge threat to President Barack Obama’s re-election. Consequently, the President is trying to shift the blame to oil companies and speculators while at the same time talking up what his Administration is doing to increase domestic oil production. The reality, of course, is that the Obama Administration has moved across the board to decrease oil production in federal lands and offshore areas.
Another sign of the Administration’s focus on the President’s re-election is that the Environmental Protection Agency has suddenly started paying attention to the concerns of industry. The timetables for new regulations of coal ash disposal and of surface coal mining in Appalachia have been extended. EPA announced last week that it was reconsidering, but not delaying, some parts of its new Clean Air Act rule for cement plants. This week EPA suspended indefinitely a similar rule for industrial boilers that it had promulgated in February. EPA said that it will conduct more analyses and re-open the public comment period for the boiler rule.
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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.
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