Myron Ebell

Bill Introduced To Block EU from Forcing U.S. Airlines into Cap-and-Trade Scheme

Representative John L. Mica, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has introduced a bill with strong bipartisan support that would prohibit U. S. airlines from taking part in the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme.  The bill is an attempt to block the European Union from their latest attempt to extend their cap-and-trade scheme beyond the EU.

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House Votes To Block the Light Bulb Ban

The House on Friday passed the Energy and Water Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2012.  Included was an amendment adopted on a voice vote that would block the ban on standard incandescent light bulbs that is currently scheduled to start going into effect on January 1, 2012.  The amendment was offered by Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Tex.).

On Tuesday, the House failed to pass a stand-alone bill sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), H. R. 2417, that would repeal the ban permanently.  The vote on the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act was 233 to 193, but failed because it was brought to the floor under a special, expedited procedure that requires a two-thirds majority.  Ten Republicans voted No, but more surprisingly only five Democrats voted Yes.  Democratic support for repealing the light bulb ban collapsed when Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and then the White House cracked the whip.

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House Moves To Block EPA Greenhouse Gas Regulations

The House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee marked up its funding bill for Fiscal Year 2012 on Thursday.  Under Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), the subcommittee voted to cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by 18 percent.

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The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday released draft Clean Air Act permits for Shell’s planned oil exploration in federal offshore waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, which are parts of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska.  The draft permits are subject to public comment and will undoubtedly be litigated by environmental pressure groups.

Shell has been trying for more than four years to drill in 10-year lease tracts for which it paid the federal government more than $2 billion.  Shell has also invested well over $1 billion in building the infrastructure that offshore exploratory drilling requires.  If oil is discovered, then Shell would make huge further investments to begin production and connect the fields to the Trans Alaska Pipeline.  Shell would pay a royalty to the federal treasury for every barrel produced.

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced on Thursday that the federal government would release 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to counteract supply disruptions in the global oil market.  In addition, the other member nations of the International Energy Agency would release another thirty million barrels.

Thirty million barrels is the largest single release in the history of the SPR, but is insignificant compared to total global daily consumption of roughly 80 million barrels.  The Washington Post noted in an editorial on Friday that the crisis the Obama Administration is trying to deal with is that “President Obama’s re-election prospects will be harmed if national discontent over high gasoline prices continues.  The oil release could be seen as a way for the president to take credit for gas prices that are falling anyway….”

Rory Cooper at the Heritage Foundation’s Foundry discusses what a stupid idea this is and how it fits in with all of President Obama’s other phony, counter-productive energy policies.  Instead of tapping the SPR, why doesn’t the President announce that the federal government is opening federal lands and offshore areas to new oil and gas exploration?  That would increase global oil production and lower gasoline prices now and over the long term.  The reason is because President Obama and his Administration favor much higher gas prices.  The SPR release simply helps delay implementation of his policies until after the 2012 election.

The ironically-named Center for American Progress posted a blog by Daniel Weiss and Stewart Boss this week that argues that conservative groups are opposing the T. Boone Pickens Earmark bill (H. R. 1380) that would provide subsidies to Big Natural Gas on the grounds that subsidies distort the market, while at the same time the same groups are defending subsidies to Big Oil.  For the record, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, for which I work, opposes all subsidies and mandates.  These include subsidies to oil companies.  The claim that groups like CEI support tax subsidies for oil companies is based on the ridiculous re-definition by the left of standard business deductions taken by all companies as tax subsidies when taken by oil companies.

Weiss’s lengthy blog is predictably inane.  But it is obtuse even by the standards of the Center for American Progress.  Big Oil and Big Natural Gas are one and the same.  BP America is the largest producer of natural gas in the United States.  Exxon Mobil owns the world’s largest privately-owned reserves of natural gas.  Thus, by supporting multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies for natural gas, the Center for American Progress have convicted themselves of being in the pocket of the oil and gas industry.  They are almost certainly being paid off by T. Boone Pickens to flack for the Pickens-Your-Pockets Plan.