William Yeatman

Several years ago, Cape Wind Associates proposed the nation’s first offshore windfarm in Nantucket Sound. They sought to build 130 wind turbines several miles off the coast on Horseshoe Shoal. The Sound is an ideal location for offshore wind production. The surrounding land masses and relatively shallow water would protect the installation from storms and make it easier to erect and maintain the 258-foot turbine towers. Upon completion, the wind farm could provide approximately 75-percent of Cape Cod’s electricity, reducing the need to rely on nearby fossil-fuel-fired power plants. As good as it sounds, the project faces strong opposition.

Ever sense you were on to something?   

As noted in this space previously, it had come to my attention that state attorneys general were working behind the scenes with environmentalist pressure groups and trial lawyers on a strategy to replicate the tobacco litigation of the 1990s, which extracted enormous settlements for pressure groups and their programs, as well as paying off the trial lawyers quite handsomely. Internally, as well as on one nationally syndicated radio show, I noted that one result might be that the first round of AGs I requested documents under their freedom of information laws — CA, NY, VT, WA, CT, NY and NJ — might stall while moving up their time table and get things moving sufficiently to deny me records on the grounds that the documents related to ongoing law enforcement matters or pending litigation.I don't want to say that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is predictable, but…  That's right.  After some minor delaying tactics, we have received a letter denying us access to documents on the grounds that the otherwise responsive deliberations were now classified as "compiled for law enforcement purposes" and disclosure would interfere with said proceedings.

That is to say (and, actually, whether it is related to our nosy inquiry, we cannot know) they rushed out letters to 5 energy companies asking about disclosure of “climate change” risk (talk about taking this “science is settled!” ploy a little far), then denied us any documents seeking internal discussion of pursuing tobacco-style "global warming" litigation substituting "big energy" for tobacco and "global warming" for cancer.  I say rushed because they were sloppy.  All docs are now officially claimed as privileged as being related to ongoing law enforcement matters.  This is not the tobacco-style suit we have reason to believe is coming but is sufficient, in the mind of the office of the NY AG, to deny us access to their deliberations.

Meanwhile, readers might be amused to know that bureaucratic reactions to embarrassing exposure seems to know little bounds these days.  NOAA has demanded about $5,000 for them to conduct a Freedom of Information Act search of internal discussion over why to suddenly pull down from the internet the locations of U.S. surface measuring stations after embarrassing photos of their absurd placement (plopped down in Tucson asphalt parking lots, black tar roofs, next to air conditioning exhaust vents [heat source], and even over a Weber grill).

Bias and the instinct for self-preservation both run deep in the belly of the beast and when it comes to certain searches, groups that inarguably qualify for fee waivers must be impeded.  EPA has done this to me before when they didn’t want to reveal something, too, though a subsequent FOIA seeking past history of fee waivers granted did help clarify their thought process.

Corn farmer Jim Handsaker has found a slew of ways to ride the heartland boom in biofuels that is reshaping the economy of rural Iowa.

The prolongation of the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of carbon emissions, which expires in 2012, will be ineffective, the head of the Russian hydrometeorology service said.

The Bush administration has brought together most of the world's largest polluters for talks on confronting global climate change. VOA White House Correspondent Scott Stearns has the story.

We’ve been hearing a lot about Ronald Reagan from the Republican presidential field of late, but there is little trace of him in the position papers issued by the various campaigns thus far. Take energy. Whereas candidate Reagan proposed to solve the energy crisis of the 1970s by abolishing the Department of Energy, deregulating the energy sector, and letting free markets rip, candidates Giuliani, Romney, McCain, and the rest propose to solve today’s energy crisis with elaborate national energy plans, lavish subsidies for favored fuels and industries, mandatory renewable-energy consumption orders, and government dictates to manufacturers regarding how energy-related goods and services are made.

Energy bills are a dime a dozen in Washington and many state capitals. They are the multipurpose solution reputedly solving every energy problem; they do everything from raising taxes for oil and gas companies, to subsidizing ethanol and plug-in hybrids, to threatening oil company executives with prison for “price gouging,” to promoting wind power (except, of course, when it might spoil Ted Kennedy’s sailing). Every gasoline price spike yields a cascade of proposed legislation and an outcry from politicians.

Later this week, President Bush hosts a summit of the world’s major economies on energy and climate change. The purpose is to hammer out some type of agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. The summit will take place after a United Nations conference on the same subject.

The European Union pressed world leaders this week to follow its lead in fighting climate change, but a battle looms at home over how to share the burden of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.