A government showdown between the Congress and the President will come to a head this morning at 9 A.M. That’s the deadline set by the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee (of the Energy and Commerce Committee) for the Office of Management and Budget to produce documents relating to the Department of Energy Loan Programs Office’s* issuance of a loan guarantee to Solyndra, Inc. The Subcommittee took the rare step of subpoenaing the executive branch agency on Thursday, July 14, by a party-line vote, 14-8.
Here’s the background. In late 2009, Solyndra, a manufacturer of solar rooftop components, was the recipient of the first loan guarantee issued by the Department of Energy pursuant to the “Section 1705 program” created by the 2009 stimulus. Only months after receiving the $535 million loan guarantee, Solyndra pulled back on a planned public offering after a PricewaterhouseCooper’s audit found that the company’s finances “raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.” In November 2010, the company announced that it would shutter a plant and lay off 170 employees. Last week, Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison made the rounds on Capitol Hill to perform damage control. I suspect that whatever rosy financial numbers he presented were influenced heavily by the billions of dollars in renewable energy subsidies that are still trickling out of the Department of Energy. (So much for the stimulus mantra, “temporary, targeted, and timely,” right?). As such, I wouldn’t trust any data put forth by any renewable energy company until after the stimulus money is (finally) spent.
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2011 U.S. Temperature Update: Alarmism Not
Chip Knappenberger, Master Resource, 25 July 2011
The Great CAFE Stick-up
Henry Payne, Planet Gore, 25 July 2011
Rhetoric on Renewable Energy Does Not Match Reality
Jon Ralston, Las Vegas Sun, 24 July 2011
If IPCC Seal Level Numbers Aren’t Bad Enough, Try Tripling Them
David Kreutzer, The Foundry, 22 July 2011
Inhibiting an Oil and Gas Boom
Paul Chesser, American Spectator, 22 July 2011
The Environmental Protection Agency this week issued a final Guidance document directing Appalachian States and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to account for saline effluent when they issue Clean Water Act permits to surface mining projects, including so-called mountaintop removal mines. The EPA set the regulatory threshold for salinity “pollution” so low that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said that “no or very few [surface mines] are going to meet this standard.” Obviously, this will have a severe negative impact on the Appalachian coal industry. EPA’s justification for the Guidance is to protect a short-lived insect that isn’t an endangered species.
Surface coal mining in Appalachia, which is sanctioned by the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, is loathed by the President’s environmentalist base, but it is essential for the industry’s competitiveness. Since June 2009, the EPA has used precursor documents to the final Guidance to review permitting decisions made by Appalachian States and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. These EPA actions effectively created a “permitorium” on new mountaintop mines. On January 13 2011, the EPA went so far as to veto a Clean Water Act permit that had already been issued to Arch Coal for the Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County, West Virginia. It was the first time the EPA ever used this authority to veto a Clean Water Act permit that had been issued to a surface coal mine.
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One year ago today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) announced that the Senate would drop cap-and-trade negotiations led by Sens. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut), thereby ending any chance that the 111th Congress would enact an energy-rationing bill.
‘BBC’s Biased Climate Science Reporting Isn’t Biased Enough’ Claims Report
James Delingpole, The Telegraph, 21 July 2011
Don’t Drink the CAFE
Henry Payne, Planet Gore, 21 July 2011
The World Is Not Overpopulated
AlexB. Berezow, Real Clear Science, 21 July 2011
Obama’s Anti-Coal Agenda Hurts America
Daniel Kish, US News, 20 July 2011
Gray Lady Finally Finds Proof of Global Warming
Jazz Shaw, Hot Air, 20 July 2011
In a previous post, I bemoaned the fact that hydraulic fracturing, the technological breakthrough in natural gas production also known as “fracking,” has spurred a frenzy of rent-seeking.
By significantly expanding America’s natural gas supply in a short duration, fracking has ushered in a period of low prices. This makes natural gas more competitive relative to other energy sources. As a result, the industry is in a great position to add market share in the electricity sector. Now that $3+ gasoline is the new normal, the natural gas industry also is well-situated to gain a foothold in the transportation fuel sector. The opportunity is there, but major gas producers have been unwilling to rely on their price advantage to better compete. Instead, they’ve been trying to secure political favors. As I noted in the aforementioned blog post,
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Since my last update, 7 more Members of Congress have withdrawn as sponsors of H.R. 1380, the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act (a.k.a., the NAT GAS Act, a.k.a., “The T. Boone Pickens Earmark Bill,” a.k.a., the “Pickens-Your-Pocket Boondoggle Bill”), legislation that was manufactured by billionaire T. Boone Pickens in order to make himself even richer. The bill would subsidize the use of natural gas as a fuel for the transportation sector, in particular for the trucking industry. Pickens is a gas tycoon, and it goes without saying that legislation to increase demand for gas is good for his bottom line.
The “magnificent 7” Members of Congress who deserve credit for having bucked the T. Boone Pickens Billionaire Bailout since my last update:
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The Backyard Science of the New York Times
Denis Boyles, The Corner, 20 July 2011
The New York Times’s Shale Hit Piece
Chris Tucker, Master Resource, 20 July 2011
New EPA Ozone Rules Will Cost Jobs
Sean Hackbarth, Chamber Post, 19 July 2011
Romney’s Meaningless Distinction
Paul Chesser, AmSpecBlog, 19 July 2011
Wind’s Power Outage
Robert Bryce, Forbes, 19 July 2011
Obama Backs Books Bailout
Henry Payne, Planet Gore, 19 July 2011
Big Bulb + Big Green = Big Profit Bulb Bans
John LaPlante, The Michigan View, 18 July 2011
The U.S. Isn’t Running out of Oil
Stephen Eule, Real Clear Energy, 18 July 2011
Carbon Dioxide’s Impact Is Overstated
Mark Landsbaum, Orange County Register, 18 July 2011
Newest Alarmist Meme: We’re Victims!
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 17 July 2011
America is a beacon of capitalism, so it can be jarring to discover one of its largest industries operates under the thumb of the state. As my colleague Iain Murray and I noted in National Review,
The $330 billion industry has been a redoubt of state control for almost 100 years. Early in the 20th century, pro-intervention Progressives concluded that electric companies would consolidate into “natural” monopolies that would exploit consumers. This was a curious conclusion to reach at a time when electric companies were competing vigorously in many cities, but for those who put faith in the regulatory state, theory trumps observation at every turn.
The Progressives’ remedy for this theoretical drift toward natural monopoly, offered without any apparent appreciation of irony, was to establish government-mandated monopolies. States created commissions with the regulatory power to outlaw competition among utilities and set electricity rates for consumers. By the end of the Great Depression, almost all Americans bought their electricity from government-backed monopolies, and they continue to do so to this day, whatever regulation advocates might say about electricity deregulation in the 1990s.
The upshot is that your utility is controlled by your local government, so it is only as good as your local government. With that in mind, Pepco’s status as the “most hated” company in America reflects poorly on politicians in Maryland, the utility’s primary service area.
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