Thanks to the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, motorists are subject to a Soviet-style production quota for biofuels. Every year, Americans must purchase greater volumes of biofuels–motor fuels distilled from corn, soy, and plant matter–until 2022, when the production quota tops out at 36 billion gallons. Fifteen billion gallons of that figure would come from corn ethanol. Most of the rest must come from cellulosic ethanol, a fuel that doesn’t yet exist. (That’s right, the U.S. Congress passed, and President George W. Bush signed, a bill that requires the production of 16 billion gallons of an imaginary fuel). For biodiesel, the Energy Independence and Security Act requires the production of 500 million gallons in 2009, 650 million gallons in 2010, 800 million gallons in 2011, and 1 billion gallons this year. Thereafter, the biodiesel mandate remains at 1 billion gallons, although EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has the discretion to increase the quota.
Last year, EPA proposed to use its authority to increase the biodiesel mandate in 2013 to 1.28 billion gallons—a 28% increase over the statutory minimum. In December, however, EPA postponed the announcement of the 2013 production quota for biodiesel, and the Agency left open the possibility that it would keep the biodiesel mandate at 1 billion gallons. Naturally, EPA’s reticence outraged the biodiesel industry. According to Energy & Environment GreenWire (subscription required),
“There’s no question that the production capacity is there. The biodiesel industry can do it, and there’s no question that the 1.28 can be met,” said Ben Evans, director of federal communications at the National Biodiesel Board. “It’s really surprising to us that there would be this hesitation and the potential for moving it back to a billion. To us, it would really be a devastating blow.”
Of course, the effect would be “devastating” because the biodiesel industry simply cannot compete on an open fuel market. Don’t take my word for it! Even biodiesel producers are willing to concede that their product is inferior. From the same GreenWire article:
[click to continue…]
In a previous post here, I noted the major problems with House GOP leadership’s proposal to link revenue from expanded domestic energy production with the Highway Trust Fund in their surface transportation reauthorization legislation. Since then, the three major portions have cleared their respective committees: House Natural Resources approved the drilling proposals, Transportation and Infrastructure passed the primary highway bill, and the revenue link was cleared by Ways and Means. A vote by the full House is expected sometime next week.
Observers expect the bill to fail, not only because there is very little for Democrats to like, but also because principled fiscal conservatives — from our “user-pays” coalition to Heritage Action to Club for Growth to RedState — have all slammed the legislation as a Big Government wolf wrapped in pro-market, pro-growth sheep’s clothing. This proposed bill would continue to federally fund highways at unsustainable levels and fails to address how states are to begin reconstructing their portions of the Interstate system. For instance, it explicitly bans states from tolling existing Interstate segments even for the purpose of reconstruction. Reconstruction to current highway construction guidelines by definition increases capacity, yet the tolling section author(s) apparently didn’t find this additional capacity enhancing enough to justify allowing states to implement an intelligent financing mechanism that can actually pay for the needed investment.
[click to continue…]
Fresh off a nod from President Obama’s State of the Union speech, T. Boone Pickens has again began to circle the country touting the alleged benefits of providing subsidies for the transportation sector to convert more vehicles to natural gas power. Today, he writes in The Chicago Tribune:
If you are going to transform American energy to address the national security and economic risks associated with our OPEC oil dependence, there is only one solution: move our natural gas reserves into transportation, with an emphasis on the heavy-duty truck and fleet-vehicle markets.
Free-market advocates argue that’s bad public policy. They fail to understand that OPEC is far from a free market. They’ll tell you we shouldn’t pick winners and losers in the transportation fuel segments. I say it’s time to pick America over OPEC. Let’s go with anything American. I’m fine with the battery, but remember, it won’t move an 18-wheeler.
Imagine the impact natural gas could have in solving our energy problem. Targeting heavy-duty trucks and fleet vehicles — about 8.5 million in all — could cut our OPEC oil dependence in half in 10 years or less.
Fortunately, while we wait for Washington policymakers to lead, the move to replace more expensive, dirtier OPEC oil, diesel or gasoline with cheaper, cleaner domestic natural gas is gaining private-sector support. At an event in Chicago last week, two leaders in the natural gas vehicle industry — Navistar and Clean Energy Fuels — announced a plan to aggressively develop a comprehensive system to build natural-gas truck engines and provide the infrastructure to fuel them.
Over-the-road trucks tend to run the same routes on the same schedule. Drivers stop in the same places to rest, eat and refuel. Putting natural-gas refueling stations along the major travel routes is a relatively minor logistical issue. Building natural-gas engines for those trucks will be a major job creator.
The fact that OPEC isn’t a “free market” does not allow one to conclude that the U.S. should further distort markets without further argumentation, which Pickens does not provide, deciding to go the “national security” route that so many arguments deviate towards when they run out of good points.
[click to continue…]
Mega Star Brad Pitt made a guest appearance on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show this past Wednesday where he made a point to condemn the traditional gas-guzzler with an analogy of his new Academy Award-nominated Moneyball.
Brad explains: “It (Moneyball) was the story of this small market team that found the game unfair, they could not compete. They couldn’t buy the talent and if they developed the talent it was poached by the rich team, so what are they going to do to level the playing field? And these guys started questioning 150 years of baseball knowledge and they started with the question, ‘Just because we’ve been doing it this way for so long, does that mean it’s right?’ I equate it to the automobile, like if we invented the automobile today, would we invent a car, would we say, ‘I know! We’ll run it on a finite fossil fuel. We’ll export a half a trillion dollars of our GDP. We’ll spend hundreds of billions of dollars on our military to protect that interest, and it will pollute the environment!’ You know, it just doesn’t make sense!”
I give Brad two thumbs, way down, for this elitist tripe. What celebrities seem to miss is that historically, the introduction of the fossil-fueled automobile has been one of the greatest emancipators, leveling the playing field by lifting many out of poverty through the access of affordable mobility. In The Best-Laid Plans, Randal O’Toole writes:
[click to continue…]
I and several of my CEI colleagues were looking forward to an informal debate late Friday afternoon on energy policy sponsored by McKinsey and Company, the global consulting firm. As part of their “Drinks and Debate” series, McKinsey’s Washington, DC office invited David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation and Joe Romm of the Center for American Progress’s Climate Progress blog to make some remarks and then take questions from an audience of around 40 people representing all shades of the political spectrum. It sounded like a lot of fun because Romm often seems enraged and slightly deranged in his frequent blog posts, but unfortunately Romm cancelled at the last minute. Our host explained that Romm had pulled out without giving a reason and that his side of the debate would be represented by a bottle of Corona Light. It was still fun: David Kreutzer gave an engaging and stimulating presentation, as he always does, and the bottle of Corona Light proved to be more rational and less misleading than Romm.
Today and tomorrow, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will mark up H.R. 3548, the “North American Energy Access Act,” Rep. Lee Terry’s (R-Neb.) bill to nullify President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) will offer an amendment that would bar U.S. refiners from exporting any petroleum products made from Keystone crude.
Waxman and Markey know full well the GOP majority will reject the amendment. But that’s the point. By forcing Republicans to vote no, they hope to “expose” Keystone as an “export pipeline” and a “scam” that won’t provide any consumer or energy security benefit.
Today at Master Resource.Org (here), I explain why the Waxman-Markey amendment deserves raspberries.
To be sure, I’m a staunch defender of wealth creators, and I begrudge no one for his or her riches…as long as he or she doesn’t say silly things like “The focus on profit has caused significant negative, unintended consequences.”
I have two problems with Sir Richard Branson’s commentary. First, it’s wrong. Profits incent wealth creation, which, in turn, improves the environment, because wealthier societies are friendlier to the environment. More importantly, wealthier societies are healthier societies.
Second, having a billionaire say that profits are secondary—after he earned his money—is akin to Sir Branson raising the drawbridge immediately after gaining entry into the castle, while the peasant throngs stand on the other side of the moat.
Bryan Walsh in Time Magazine broke the big story this week that the Sierra Club received over $25 million from the natural gas industry to serve as a corporate shill for the natural gas industry’s attacks on the coal industry. Walsh wrote: “TIME has learned that between 2007 and 2010 the Sierra Club accepted over $25 million in donations from the gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy—one of the biggest gas drilling companies in the U.S. and a firm heavily involved in fracking—to help fund the Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. Though the group ended its relationship with Chesapeake in 2010—and the Club says it turned its back on an additional $30 million in promised donations—the news raises concerns about influence industry may have had on the Sierra Club’s independence and its support of natural gas in the past.”
McClendon and Chesapeake Energy several years ago funded a multi-million dollar advertising campaign against the coal industry called “Face it, coal is filthy.” Two months ago, it was revealed that McClendon and Chesapeake had given as much as $100 million to the American Lung Association, one of the most reprehensible of the environmental pressure groups, to fund the ALA’s “Fighting for air” disinformation campaign.
House Natural Resources Committee Votes To Open ANWR and OCS to Oil Production
The House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday, 1st February, passed three bills to increase oil production on federal lands and offshore areas. The House Republican leadership plans to include the three bills as provisions in the five-year, $260-billion highway bill that was passed by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee after a grueling seventeen-hour mark-up that ended at 3 AM on Friday, 3rd February.
H. R. 3407, which passed the committee on a 29 to 13 vote, would open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) on Alaska’s North Slope to oil exploration. Three Democrats voted for the bill: Representatives Dan Boren (D-Okla.), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), and Pedro Pierluisi (D-Puerto Rico). No one knows how much oil there may be below ANWR’s coastal plain, but the U. S. Geological Survey estimates recoverable reserves of 11 billion barrels. That is probably a very conservative estimate.
[click to continue…]
Alternate title: “Sierra Club Acknowledges Role as Corporate Front Group, Industry Shill, Hired Gun for Natural Gas Industry.” From Time:
Now the biggest and oldest environmental group in the U.S. finds itself caught on the horns of that dilemma. TIME has learned that between 2007 and 2010 the Sierra Club accepted over $25 million in donations from the gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy—one of the biggest gas drilling companies in the U.S. and a firm heavily involved in fracking—to help fund the Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. Though the group ended its relationship with Chesapeake in 2010—and the Club says it turned its back on an additional $30 million in promised donations—the news raises concerns about influence industry may have had on the Sierra Club’s independence and its support of natural gas in the past. It’s also sure to anger ordinary members who’ve been uneasy about the Club’s relationship with corporations. “The chapter groups and volunteers depend on the Club to have their back as they fight pollution from any industry, and we need to be unrestrained in our advocacy,” Michael Brune, the Sierra Club’s executive director since 2010, told me. “The first rule of advocacy of is that you shouldn’t take money from industries and companies you’re trying to change.”
Of course I’m kidding. The Sierra Club holds their respective opinions on energy and environmental policies, and then goes out and seeks funding for donors, some who may have their own corporate interests at heart. In this case Chesapeake Energy gave the Sierra Club millions of dollars to attack the coal industry, and the new head of the Sierra Club decided to end that relationship because the Sierra Club and their members don’t particularly like natural gas either, especially when its hydraulically fractured from the ground.
[click to continue…]
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
CEI.org