William Yeatman

In the News

The New York Times Strikes Back
Myron Ebell, Fox Forum, 5 March 2010

Bullies Waxman & Markey Promote “Endangerment” of Economy, Democracy
Marlo Lewis, BigGovernment.com, 5 March 2010

Carbon Caps through the Backdoor
Kimberley Strassel, Wall Street Journal, 5 March 2010

Joe Romm, Where Art Thou?
Michael Lynch, MasterResource.org, 5 March 2010

Green Jobs Fantasy
Iain Murray, National Review Online, 4 March 2010

Democratic Senators Move To Stop Wind Subsidies in Stimulus
Dan Eggen, Washington Post, 4 March 2010

“Anti-Lobbyist” Obama Administration Recruits “Green” Lobbyists To Sell Subsidies
Chris Horner, Pajamas Media, 3 March 2010

The Mainstream Media’s New Favorite Republican
Myron Ebell, Pajamas Media, 3 March 2010

Gore Still Hot on His Doomsday Rhetoric
Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, 3 March 2010

Media Fails Public on Climate Coverage
Walter Russell Mead, American Interest, 3 March 2010

Global Warming Winners
Washington Times editorial, 3 March 2010

Bring Back the Robber Barons
Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal, 3 March 2010

Al Gore Returns!
Myron Ebell, Fox Forum, 2 March 2010

Climategate: This Time It’s NASA
Iain Murray & Roger Abbott, Spectator, 2 March 2010

Virginia AG Cuccinelli Takes on EPA
William Yeatman, Free Lance-Star, 2 March 2010

Gore’s Latest Global Warming Whopper
Alan Reynolds, New York Post, 2 March 2010

Climate Errors More than Incidental
Christopher Booker, Telegraph, 28 February 2010

News You Can Use

Harvard Study: Obama’s Climate Plan = $7 Gas

According to a report from Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, gas prices would have to increase to $7 a gallon to meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Big Oil Helps Write Kerry-Graham-Lieberman Bill

The efforts of Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) to produce a “bi-partisan, compromise” energy-rationing bill received a questionable boost this week when it was reported that three big oil companies are working with the Senators on a “carbon fee” for transportation fuels.  “Carbon fee” is a euphemism for gas tax.  The three companies are Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, and BP America.  The tax would somehow be rebated to consumers.

Also this week, Harvard University released a study that concludes that reaching President Barack Obama’s target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will require gas prices as high as seven dollars a gallon.

Rockefeller Tries to Undermine Murkowski’s Endangerment Resolution

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has been maneuvering to find a way to delay EPA regulation of greenhouse gases using the Clean Air Act and thereby forestall Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) attempt to block EPA permanently.  Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act would prohibit EPA from making its finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare.

First, Rockefeller and seven other coal-state Democrats sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson expressing their concerns about the harmful economic effects of moving too quickly to regulate emissions and asked her eight questions about EPA’s plans.  At a Senate hearing this week, Jackson gave some ground.  More about that in the item below.

This week Rockefeller introduced a bill to delay implementation of EPA’s regulations for two years.

A companion bill was introduced in the House by Representatives Nick Jo Rahall (D-WV), Alan Mollahan (D-WV), and Rick Boucher (D-Va.).

Co-sponsoring this bill could give some Democrats enough cover that they could now vote against Murkowski’s resolution.  My guess up until two weeks ago was that Murkowski’s resolution would pass the Senate with more than 51 votes.  After Rockefeller’s maneuver, I think it no longer has the votes to pass.  But a lot of things can happen before the Senate votes on Murkowski, so this is far from over.

In the House, Rep. Ike Skelton’s (D-Mo.) resolution of disapproval, H.J. Res. 76, now has 24 co-sponsors. Another resolution of disapproval was introduced by Re. Joe Barton (R-Tex.). H.J. Res 77 has 95 co-sponsors.

EPA Tailoring Rule Will Be Relaxed Further

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told a Senate hearing this week that EPA would move more slowly to regulate stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions than originally planned.  Under the proposed “tailoring” rule, sources that emit more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year would be regulated first.  Under the revised plan, sources under 75,000 tons won’t be regulated for at least the first two years.  The schedule to start regulating smaller emitters will also be extended for several years.

The Clean Air Act requires that entities emitting more than 250 tons of a listed criteria pollutant must be regulated.  EPA’s plan to start regulating much larger sources first would seem to have no basis in the law.  It remains to be seen whether it will be challenged in court.

Climategate Extra

Climategate Reloaded

Prominent climate scientists affiliated with the U.S. National Academies of Science have been planning a public campaign to paper over the damaged reputation of global warming alarmism, according to recently disclosed e-mail messages.  Their scheme would involve officials at the National Academies and other professional associations producing studies to endorse the researchers’ pre-existing assumptions and create confusion about the revelations of the rapidly expanding “Climategate” scandal.

The e-mails were first reported in a front-page story by Stephen Dinan in the Washington Times today. The Competitive Enterprise Institute has independently obtained copies of the e-mails and has posted them at GlobalWarming.org.

To learn more, and to see the emails, click here.

Climategate Goes to Parliament

Phil Jones, the scientist at the center of the Climategate scandal, testified before the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons on allegations that he concealed scientific evidence. Jones, who was described by one British columnist as having been “terror stricken” before Parliament, admitted that he sent some “awful emails.” The Institute of Physics, a scientific body composed of more than 30,000 physicists in the U. K., submitted written testimony stating that Jones’s emails contain “prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law.”

Across the States

Wyoming Legislature Passes Wind Tax

The Wyoming House and Senate have passed the nation’s first tax on wind energy and sent the bill to Governor Dave Freudenthal.  The Democratic Governor proposed the new tax to the Republican-dominated legislature last month and so is almost certain to sign the bill into law. Amusingly, Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, complained about the proposed tax on the grounds that it would discourage wind power production:  “It is very disturbing to hear that one of the great States for resources wants to tax the industry and discourage the development of jobs in their State.”  She did not mention that Wyoming already taxes oil, natural gas, and coal production, which is why it doesn’t levy a personal income tax.  Nor did she mention that wind power receives huge subsidies from federal taxpayers. It will be interesting to watch how quickly other States follow Wyoming’s example.

Around the World

It Could Happen Here

The European Union already operates a cap-and-trade scheme and a renewable energy mandate, both of which are designed to raise the price of energy, but apparently EU officials don’t believe that energy is expensive enough. According to the Telegraph, Algirdas Semeta, the new European commissioner for taxation, is planning a “minimum rate of tax on carbon” across the whole EU as a “priority.”

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary check out the Coalition’s website, www.globalwarming.org.

Announcements

The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) this week released a paper by Dr. Edward Long, “Contiguous U. S. Temperature Trends Using NCDC Raw and Adjusted Data for One-Per-State Rural/Urban,” examining the surface temperature data adjustments by U.S. Government-funded scientists.

In the News

U.S. Climate Data Compromised
Joseph Abrams, FoxNews.com, 26 February 2010

British Blogger Finds Errors in Met Temperature Record
Paola Totaro, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 February 2010

Easy, Cheap Green Energy? Just the Reverse!
Kenneth Green, MasterResource.org, 26 February 2010

Push to Oversimplify on Climate Panel
Jeffrey Ball & Keith Johnson, Wall Street Journal, 26 February 2010

Climate Change Data Will Face Independent Scrutiny
Nicholas Kralev, Washington Times, 25 February 2010

Al Gore’s 9 Lies
Investor’s Business Daily editorial, 24 February 2010

World Cools toward Warmists

Paul Chesser, Washington Times, 24 February 2010
Climate Change and Open ScienceWall Street Journal editorial, 23 February 2010

Move-On Is Way-off on Landrieu
William Yeatman, Alexandria Town Talk, 20 February 2010

News You Can Use

Poll: Alarmism in Decline

The Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University released a poll this week showing that the percentage of Americans “alarmed” by climate change has decreased from 18% to 10% from 2008 to 2010, while the percentage of Americans “dismissive” of climate change has increased from 7% to 16%.

As incredible as it may sound, Science Daily reports that Maxwell Boykoff, a professor at the University of Colorado, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science that the growing skepticism is due to the mainstream media’s use of “non-credible” sources on climate change stories. Mr. Boykoff might be right, albeit unwittingly. The more Americans hear from nonscientist alarmists like Al Gore, the more skeptical they become.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

EPW Hearing on EPA Budget

There were several appropriations hearings on Capitol Hill this week. Most notable was EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s appearance before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) began his opening statement by releasing a report prepared by the committee’s minority staff on the Climategate scientific fraud scandal. It’s an outstanding report, which I highly recommend; but before you download it, be warned that it’s over eighty pages and the summary is thirty. The report makes an overwhelming argument that the scientific case for alarmism is based largely on hokum. In particular, the broader revelations in the scandal seriously undermine the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s assessment reports. They are clearly documents manipulated for political ends (which is what we’ve been pointing out for years).

Senator Inhofe and other committee Republicans asked Jackson repeatedly about the reliance of the EPA on the IPCC reports for making the finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. Her answers were inadequate and, to my mind, misleading.

Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist from Vermont (who caucuses with the Democrats), was his usual charming and buffoonish self. He said that people who were still in denial about global warming reminded him of all the people in the 1930s who refused to see the threat posed by Hitler and the Nazis. He didn’t mention that Nazi is short for National Socialist Party or that the people who were most deeply in denial were communists, socialists, and other Soviet sympathizers on the left after the Hitler-Stalin Pact. That treaty allowed Hitler to turn all his attention to the Western front and to defeating Britain.

Powerful House Members Move To Block Endangerment

Representatives Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), and Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) introduced a resolution of disapproval of the EPA’s endangerment finding on 25th February.  H. J. Res. 76 is significant because Skelton is Chairman of the Armed Services Committee and Peterson is Chairman of the Agriculture Committee and are thus in the House Democratic leadership.  Senator Lisa Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval, S. J. Res 16, is still awaiting a vote on the Senate floor.  Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) cannot prevent a vote on it, and it requires only a simple majority to pass.  In the House, resolutions brought under the Congressional Review Act are not privileged and therefore Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) can block a floor vote.

Around the World

China: “No Intention” of Cutting Emissions

Su Wei, China’s chief negotiator for international climate change policy, told the China Daily this week that China “could not, and should not” set a target for greenhouse gas emissions reductions. China is the world’s number one emitter.

Climate Bill Too Expensive Even for Socialists in Hungary

The ruling Socialist Party in Hungary this week decided to shelve major climate legislation requiring greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 80% by 2050. According to Euractiv, the Hungarian Parliament’s economics committee chair, socialist György Podolák, told reporters that the bill was killed because it would weaken Hungarian industries, encourage plants to relocate outside the country and increase unemployment.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary check out the Coalition’s website, www.globalwarming.org.

Announcements

Tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. EST, CEI’s Myron Ebell and Christopher Horner address the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on “Saving Freedom from the Hoax of Global Warming.”  Also featured on the panel are Steve Milloy of JunkScience.com and Ann McElhinney, producer of the documentary, Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria.  Watch it live on Townhall.com/cpac.

CEI this week released the first ever music video in the skeptic rock genre. Watch “How I Wasn’t Gored into Submission,” by Marlo Lewis.

The Heritage Foundation will host Bruce Allen, co-founder of SOS California, who will speak on “How Offshore Oil & Gas Production Benefits the Economy and the Environment,” on February 24^th from noon-1:30 PM. To learn more and RSVP, click here.

In the News

The Sound of Alarm
Richard Lindzen, Boston Herald, 19 February 2010

Rep. Boucher Struggles To Quell Voter Anger over Cap-and-Trade Vote
Amy Gardner, Washington Post, 18 February 2010

Senator Inhofe Responds to Tom Friedman
EPW Minority Press Blog, 18 February 2010

DOD Ignores Climate Policy Risks
Marlo Lewis, National Journal, 18 February 2010

Trump Tells Gore: You’re Fired!
FoxNews.com, 17 February 2010

The Disappearing Science of Global Warming
Peter Ferrara, American Spectator, 17 February 2010

The Continuing Climate Meltdown
Wall Street Journal editorial, 16 February 2010

IPCC’s Missteps
Juliet Eilperin & David Fahrenthold, Washington Post, 15 February 2010

It’s Not a Dirty Air Act
William Yeatman, Fargo Forum, 14 February 2010

Boulder Struggles with Green Dream
Stephanie Simon, Wall Street Journal, 13 February 2010

What To Say to a Global Warming Alarmist
Mark Landsbaum, Orange County Register, 12 February 2020

News You Can Use

Drill, Baby, Drill

E&E Greenwire (subscription required) reported this week that U.S. gross domestic product would lose $2.36 trillion and American consumers would pay an additional $2.35 trillion for energy if oil and gas on federal lands remain under moratoria through 2030, according to a study recently released by the National Association of Utility Regulatory Commissioners. Click here to read the report.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Big Businesses Jump from SS Cap-and-Trade

The big news this week was the withdrawal from the U. S. Climate Action Partnership by BP America, Conoco Phillips, and Caterpillar.  I have written blogs for Fox Forum and Pajamas Media on the significance of these defections from the principal big business coalition lobbying effort for cap-and-trade. Tim Carney has also written a column for the Washington Examiner that analyzes the motives of major corporations seeking to raise energy prices and diminish economic growth by enacting cap-and-trade.

Lots of Lawsuits Challenge Endangerment Finding

I promised last week to list the lawsuits filed by the deadline Tuesday that challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare and therefore must be regulated using the Clean Air Act.  Luckily for me, Robin Bravender of Greenwire wrote an article doing my work for me.  The New York Times picked it up and posted it on their web site here.  Sixteen separate lawsuits were filed, according to Bravender.  Most of the suits have more than one plaintiff.  For example, the suit filed by my group, CEI, also includes the Science and Environmental Policy Project and Freedom Works.  A number of industry groupings have filed suits, as have three States-Texas, Alabama, and Virginia.

The federal DC Circuit Court of Appeals will now consider the cases.  According to CEI counsel Sam Kazman, the Justice Department may move to have them all dismissed on the grounds that the endangerment finding doesn’t actually regulate anything.  If the court agrees, then the plaintiffs will re-file them when the first regulations-the “tailoring” rule and the new vehicle fuel efficiency standards become final in March.  The court will role all the suits into one case, but may allow a number of briefs to be filed by the various plaintiffs.  On the other side, sixteen States and New York City have asked to be allowed to intervene on EPA’s side.

CEI, Fred Singer of the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change, and Kenneth Haapala of the Science and Environmental Policy Project filed a petition with EPA on 12th February to reconsider the endangerment finding, but new revelations in the Climategate scientific fraud scandal over the weekend caused them to amend their petition with new materials on Tuesday.Obama Announces Nuclear Subsidies

President Barack Obama went to a union job-training center in Prince George’s County, Maryland this week to announce that the administration had approved an $8 billion loan guarantee to the Southern Company to build two new nuclear power plants in Georgia.  The guarantee depends on Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval of construction and operating permits for the two plants.

The loan guarantee was made under authority of the 2005 omnibus energy act, which is intended to jump-start a new generation of nuclear power plants in the U. S.  President Obama said that the federal guarantee was necessary so that the U. S. would not fall behind other countries in the race to develop energy sources that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Over fifty new nuclear plants are being built in other countries.  John Broder of the New York Times reported that Obama’s support for nuclear is one of the reasons that environmental pressure groups are losing their enthusiasm for him.

Graham Releases Draft of Energy Bill

Now that cap-and-trade is dead in Congress, various piecemeal energy-rationing proposals are moving to the front burner.  Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is circulating a draft bill that would require utilities to produce an increasing percentage of their electricity from renewable sources.  New nuclear plants and coal-fired power plants equipped with carbon capture and storage would qualify as well as wind, solar, and biomass.

CEQ Announces that NEPA Will Include Climate Change

The White House Council on Environmental Quality this week proposed that federal agencies should consider greenhouse gas emissions and the impacts of possible global warming when preparing Environmental Impact Statements and Reviews required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

Across the States

WyomingWind Tax

This week the Wyoming House Revenue Committee passed H.B. 101, the nation’s first proposed excise tax on wind power. H.B. 101 runs counter to the efforts federal government and most states, which offer generous taxpayer subsidies to “green” energy sources like wind power, but Governor Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, told the Casper Star-Tribune that wind power producers “are not entitled to a free ride.”

Around the World

Wrong Resignation at Wrong Job

Yvo de Boer, the head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, announced this week that he will step down in July. It is widely perceived that the resignation was prompted by the UNFCCC’s failure to achieve a legally-binding international energy rationing scheme at the Copenhagen Climate Conference, and while that may be true, one wonders if this was the right resignation at the right job. After all, it has been revealed in the last month that the UNFCCC’s sister body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, used shoddy science to produce its supposedly definitive assessment reports on global warming (see: Himalayan-gate, Amazon-gate, North Africa-gate). In light of these egregious errors, shouldn’t IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri also resign?

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary check out the Coalition’s website, www.globalwarming.org.

In the News

Blizzards Warm-up Climate Debate
Casey Curlin, Washington Times, 12 February 2010

Harvard Hometown Plans Draconian Climate Regime
Joshua Miller, FoxNews, 12 February 2010

Climategate Panel Needs an Overhaul
Benny Peiser & David Whitehouse, GWPF, 12 February 2010

IPCC’s Errors Were Deliberate?
Richard North, EU Referendum, 12 February 2010

The Carbon-Trading Shell Game
Mark Shapiro, Harpers, February 2010

Why the EPA Is Wrong about Recent Warming
Chip Knappenberger, MasterResource.org, 11 February 2010

A Blizzard of Hype
Patrick Michaels, Planet Gore, 11 February 2010

Shoddy Climate Research
Detroit News editorial, 10 February 2010

The Global Warming Thrill Ride Comes to an End
National Review editorial, 10 February 2010

New York Times Swings, Misses, on IPCC Story
Walter Russell Mead, American Interest, 9 February 2010

Australia’s Wild Camels Escape Carbon Executioner
Ean Higgins, The Australian, 8 February 2010

Credibility Is Melting
Mark Steyn, Macleans, 7 February 2010

BBC Poll: Climate Skepticism “On the Rise”
BBC News, 7 February 2010

More IPCC Errors
Richard Gray & Ben Leach, Telegraph, 6 February 2010

News You Can Use

Snow in All 50 States

According to Patrick March, a University of Oklahoma student who is working to document this uncharacteristically snowy winter, Florida is the only state in America (including Hawaii!) without snow on the ground, but two to four inches of snow is forecasted today for some parts of the Sunshine State.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Ad Attacks Launched against Murkowski’s Endangerment Resolution

The struggle is heating up on several fronts over Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) resolution to disapprove the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare and therefore must be regulated using the Clean Air Act.  MoveOn.org is running television and radio ads against the three Democratic co-sponsors of Murkowski’s resolution in Arkansas, Nebraska, and Louisiana.  They are the most dishonest ads I can remember.  My CEI colleague Marlo Lewis analyzes them here.

A number of other groups are starting to run ads opposing what they are calling the Dirty Air Act.  Friends of the Earth and the National Wildlife Federation have already run broadcast ads in Alaska attacking Murkowski. A coalition of environmental and faith-based environmental pressure groups have announced radio ads targeting eight Senators.  Friends of the Earth and CREDO Action are putting up a billboard in Arkansas that accuses Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) of trying to gut the Clean Air Act.   Repower America-Al Gore’s group-is running ads in Maine, Indiana, Missouri, and Arkansas that call on Senators to stay committed to green jobs and energy-rationing legislation.

Senator Murkowski, the ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, launched a broad attack on the Obama Administration’s energy and global warming budget requests in a speech Thursday on the Senate floor.  She noted that President Obama’s expressed desire to compromise on these issues was not reflected his the FY 2011 budget submitted this week.  For example, President Obama mentioned his support for new nuclear reactors and for more domestic offshore oil and gas production in his State of the Union address.  Yet, his budget cancels the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility and withdraws from mineral entry one million acres of public land in Arizona with high uranium ore potential.  On global warming policy, Murkowski said that it was inconsistent for the President to continue to support cap-and-trade legislation, while taking the issue away from Congress by asking for $56 million to begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act.

Endangerment Deadline

February 16 is the deadline for filing legal responses to the EPA’s endangerment finding.  I’ll try to have a review of the various petitions for administrative reconsideration or judicial review next week.

Inhofe’s Igloo
Senator James Inhofe’s (R-Okla.) daughter and her family couldn’t fly home as scheduled this week because the airports were closed by Washington’s big blizzard.  So they spent some of their time building an igloo big enough for four people on a street near the U. S. Capitol.  Then they put up a sign on it that says, “Al Gore’s new home,” and another sign across the street that says, “Honk if you love global warming.”  Senator Inhofe was amused and posted a blog about it. The nasty and moronic teevee personality Keith Olbermann was not amused and named Senator Inhofe’s four grandchildren and his daughter and son-in-law to his list of the “worst people in the world.” Senator Inhofe responded in his unfailingly good-humored and gentlemanly manner on Fox News.

But it wasn’t all fun and games for Senator Inhofe during this week’s blizzard.  He also gave a powerful speech on the Senate floor Thursday on the failings of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Across the States

Arizona

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) last week issued an executive order that terminates the State’s participation in the Western Climate Initiative, a cap-and-trade energy rationing scheme being planned by 6 (formerly 7) western states and 4 Canadian provinces. According to the text of the executive order, Arizona will pull out of the WCI in order to avoid economic harm.

Utah

By a 56-17 vote, the Utah House passed H.J.R. 12, the Climate Change Joint Resolution, which questions the science behind global warming alarmism and demands that the Environmental Protection Agency abandon plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The vote was galvanized by the growing Climategate scandal, as well as the EPA’s expected decision this March to impose costly carbon controls under the Clean Air Act. CEI’s Marlo Lewis explains the EPA’s power grab here.

Also this week in the Utah House, the Committee on Public Utilities and Technology approved H.J.R. 21, a resolution calling on Governor Gary Herbert to remove Utah from the Western Climate Initiative. The resolution next will be considered by the full House.

California

There are conflicting accounts of a California ballot initiative that would suspend implementation of the State’s global warming law, AB 32, until unemployment decreases to 5.5% (it currently hovers at about 12%). Last Saturday, the Los Angeles Times reported that the leading proponent of the ballot initiative, Assemblyman Dan Logue (R) had $600,000 in the bank for gathering the requisite number of signatures needed to get the initiative before the voters. That report was quickly contradicted by a story from ClimateWire, which questioned the existence of the $600,000, and also claimed that the anti-AB 32 ballot initiative was foundering.

Around the World

Pachauri Watch

The Daily Telegraph reported this week that Rajendra K. Pachauri, head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, flew almost 500,000 miles between January 2007 and July 2008. The greenhouse gas emissions engendered by Pachauri’s jet-setting ways are equivalent to those produced by all activities of14 average Britons in the same time span.

UN Forms Finance Panel

The Guardian reported today that the United Nations has formed an Advisory Group on Climate Change Finance to design a mechanism for raising $100 billion annually by 2020, in order to pay for greenhouse gas emissions reductions in developing countries. The panel will be chaired by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and will include “heads of state, high-ranking government ministers, central bank administrators, and public finance and development experts,” although a list is not yet available.

In the News

Barton, Walden Ask EPA to Explain Reliance on Dubious Reports
House Energy and Commerce Committee Press Release, 4 February 2020

Putting the Ass in Assassin
Chris Horner, Planet Gore, 4 February 2010

Gov’t Report: UK Faces Power Outages
David Strahan, Telegraph, 4 February 2010

The Left Can Also Disown Cap-and-Trade
Robert Bradley, Jr., MasterResource.org, 3 February 2010

Hackers Steal Millions in Carbon Credits
Kim Zetter, Wired, 3 February 2010

The Global Warming Guerrillas
Matt Ridley, The Spectator, 3 February 2010

How Climate Change Fanatics Corrupted Science
Michael Barone, Washington Examiner, 3 February 2010

UK’s Power Bill Arrives
Ed Crooks, Financial Times, 3 February 2010

Negative Energy
Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones, 2 February 2010

Climategate Reveals Flaws in Peer Review
Fred Pearce, Guardian, 2 February 2010

How the CRU Manipulated Data
Fred Pearce, Guardian, 1 February 2010

Global Warming Alarmism Is Dead
Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest, 1 February 2010

Climategate Requires Resignations
George Monbiot, Guardian, 1 February 2010

Alarmists Don’t Have the Courage of Their Convictions
Kimberley Jo Simac, Pajamas Media, 30 January 2010

No More Global Warming Lawsuits
Laurence Tribe, Washington Legal Foundation, 30 January 2010

The Collapse of Alarmism
Philip Stott, The Clamour of the Times, 30 January 2010

News You Can Use

The Headline Says It All

UK Daily Express: “No One Believes Us, Admit Global Warming Scientists”

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Al Gore: MIA?

Global warming alarmism is on its heels: COP-15 in Copenhagen was a flop, cap-and-trade legislation is dead in Congress, the Climategate scientific fraud scandal continues to grow, the chairman of the IPCC is more deranged than ever, an initiative is being launched in California to suspend AB 32, and public support for energy-rationing legislation continues to sink.  These would seem to be desperate times for the forces of darkness.  The only thing that might save the day is heroic action.

So where has Al Gore gone?  Why isn’t he leading the charge to save the day?  Gore was in Copenhagen in December for COP-15, but cancelled his sold-out public speech.  Since then, he has been silent.  Internet news searches turn up an appearance this week at Apple Computer’s unveiling of its iPad, but nothing global warming-related.

My CEI colleague Chris Horner thinks Al Gore has disappeared from the public debate because his business partners in crime have finally realized that he is a liability that threatens their green investments and have therefore told him to shut up.  I agree that Gore’s leadership of the forces of darkness is a great gift to our side (and have written about it in my December profile of Gore), so it’s a plausible explanation.  What I don’t believe is that Gore would agree to follow that advice.

An alternative explanation is that Gore doesn’t want to have to defend the junk science he has been pedaling for years now that the imprimatur of the IPCC, the Climatic Research Unit, or NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies is no longer seen as a guarantee of quality.  Another is that he’s lying low while preparing the counter-attack.  I suppose we’ll find out soon enough where Al has gone and what he’s doing, but for now it’s a mystery.

Into the leadership vacuum created by Gore’s absence has stepped Osama bin Laden, even though he has also disappeared from public view.  Bin Laden has long supported the Kyoto Protocol and blamed the United States for not signing it in his occasional audio and video tapes, but last week he stepped up his campaign to solve global warming by de-industrializing (and perhaps vaporizing) the United States.  As we reported in last week’s Digest, the EPA is already working to implement bin Laden’s vision of a pastoral America.  The mastermind of Al Qaeda’s terrorist war may turn out to be a better leader of the forces of darkness than Gore.  Unlike Gore, bin Laden practices what he preaches.  He has adopted a low carbon lifestyle, has given up air travel, reportedly lives in a cave, and has taken to heart Gore’s admonition in Earth in the Balance (1992) that what is needed to save the world is a “wrenching transformation of society.”

EPA’s Budget to Regulate is Up in the Air

The Obama Administration sent its proposed budget to Congress this week.  Amid stupendous proposed increases in federal spending is a relatively modest additional $56 million for the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.  If the Senate passes S. J. Res. 36, Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) resolution to disapprove EPA’s endangerment finding, then I don’t think the Senate is going to go along with this request.  It is more likely that a serious effort will be made in the Appropriations Committee or on the floor by Senator John Thune (R-SD) to prohibit EPA from spending any funds to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

For those who would like to tell their Senators that they support (or oppose) Murkowski’s disapproval resolution, Freedom Action is providing a convenient web page to compose and send e-mails.  It takes a minute or two to fill out the form and click send.

House Democrats Getting Cold Feet

On the House side, Democrats worried about being re-elected are jumping ship.  Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) has introduced a bill (H. R. 4396) very similar to Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s bill (H. R. 391) to strip EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act.  Representatives Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), and Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) have introduced another bill that would do the same thing and provide some more government benefits for ethanol.  Skelton and Peterson voted for the Waxman-Markey energy-rationing bill (H. R. 2454) last June and have been taking it in the neck from their constituents ever since.  Their bill is attempts to make amends for their mistake.  It is significant that Skelton and Peterson are in the House Democratic leadership.  Skelton is Chairman of the Armed Services Committee.  Peterson is Chairman of the Agriculture Committee and negotiated all sorts of special breaks for agriculture in the Waxman-Markey bill.

Across the States

California

Supporters of a California ballot initiative that would suspend implementation of AB 32, the State’s 2006 global warming law, wanted to label it the “California Jobs Initiative,” but according to the California constitution, naming initiatives is the responsibility of the Attorney General. Incumbent AG Jerry Brown has long been an environmental alarmist, so it’s unsurprising that he changed the suggested title of the initiative. What is surprising is the length to which Brown went to impose his environmentalist interpretation. According to the Los Angeles Times, Brown named the initiative, “Suspends air pollution control laws requiring major polluters to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.” In fact, the initiative would bar the implementation of the Act, which is designed to make energy more expensive, until unemployment goes down to 5.5% (it currently stands at 11%). Cheaper energy, of course, is conducive to greater employment, so the original title was more accurate.

Around the World

Pachauri Unhinged

Rajendra K. Pachauri, the head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has had a tough winter. In late December, Richard North and Christopher Booker reported in the Telegraph on questionable investments made by Pachauri that seem to give him a financial stake in global warming alarmism. Then, in January, Pachauri was forced to acknowledge that the IPCC grossly overestimated the extent of Himalayan glacier melt. Other glaring errors and instances of shoddy science by the IPCC have since come to light, putting Pachauri further on the defensive. Even Greenpeace is now calling for him to step down.

It seems that all the bad press has unhinged the IPCC chief. In a bizarre interview with the Financial Times this week, Pachauri refused to resign and blamed his troubles on “well orchestrated” attack by unnamed perpetrators, “people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder.” He added, “I hope that they apply it to their faces every day.”

Climategate Update

As a result of Penn State University’s decision this week to start a formal investigation into allegations that PSU professor Michael Mann committed scientific misconduct, Representative Darrel Issa (R- California) has called on the Obama administration to freeze more than $500,000 of stimulus money earmarked to Mann for climate research. The PSU investigation of Mann was instigated by his involvement in the growing Climategate scandal. After a preliminary inquiry, PSU cleared Mann of 3 of 4 initial allegations of scientific malpractice, although Canadian climate analyst and blogger Steve McIntyre believes that the PSU preliminary investigation was a whitewash. McIntyre should know-in 2003, he debunked Michael Mann’s fraudulent “hockey stick” temperature record.

MoveOn Is Way-off

Julie Walsh, Freedom Action

MoveOn has launched an ad campaign against the three Democratic senators-Blanche  Lincoln (Ark.), Mary Landrieu (La.), and Ben Nelson (Neb.)-who are supporting the Resolution of Disapproval of EPA’s endangerment finding. In fact, MoveOn is running the most blatantly false television ad I’ve ever seen.

Where is Joe Wilson when you need him? Showing pictures of women in labor and babies smoking cigarettes, this ad now running in Nebraska, Louisiana and Arkansas implies that support for this Resolution will negate the Clean Air Act and cause all of us to breathe polluted air. “You lie!” Simply put, this Resolution will only keep EPA from controlling carbon dioxide producing energy in the name of a supposed coming catastrophe from “global warming.”

For those who disagree with this ad and would like to write their senators to support the Resolution of Disapproval of EPA you can click here.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary check out the Coalition’s website, www.globalwarming.org.

In the News

Obama’s Energy Muddle
Marlo Lewis, National Journal, 29 January 2010

The Scientific “Consensus”
Chip Knappenberger, MasterResource.org, 29 January 2010

Mandated Carbon Cuts Won’t Work
Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street Journal, 29 January 2010

Insecurity and Change Commission
Wall Street Journal editorial, 29 January 2010

The Real Climate Confusion
Iain Murray, National Review Online, 28 January 2010

EPA Should Ground Carbon Regs for Good
Washington Examiner editorial, 28 January 2010

IPCC Newest Headache: Amazongate
Gene Koprowski, Fox News, 28 January 2010

EPA at Center of Coal Controversy
David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post, 27 January 2010

Floating Islands
Willis Eischenbach, WattsUpWithThat.com, 27 January 2010

Discredited IPCC Report Reveals Media Malpractice
Paul Chesser, GlobalWarming.org, 26 January 2010

James Hansen: Would You Buy a Used Temperature Data Set from This Man?
James Delingpole, Daily Telegraph, 22 January 2010

Why We Need Innovation, Not Insulation
Bill Gates, Huffington Post, 22 January 2010

News You Can Use

Pew Poll Ranks Global Warming Last

A new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds that the American public ranks global warming last among twenty “domestic priorities.”

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

SEC’s Demand for Climate Disclosures Might Backfire

The Securities and Exchange Commission this week voted 3 to 2 to issue guidance that will require companies to disclose to investors the effects that climate change and climate change policies could have on the company’s performance.  As Joel Kirkland reported in Climate Wire (reprinted on the New York Times web site), “The SEC public disclosure guidance on climate-related risks is seen as a major victory by an army of environmental groups and institutional investors that have pressed the issue since 2007.”

Well, maybe, but Tom Borelli pointed out in a National Center for Public Policy Research press release that the new rules will actually work against the promoters of energy-rationing policies.  “Fully disclosing the business risk of cap-and-trade will embarrass many CEOs who are lobbying for emissions regulations. Shareholders will discover that these CEOs are pursuing legislation that will negatively impact their company.”  We will discover, I think, that many CEOs have joined the U. S. Climate Action Partnership and other business coalitions that support cap-and-trade without doing adequate or indeed any analysis of what the effects of enacting such legislation could have on their companies’ profits.  This violates their legal fiduciary duties to their shareholders.

Obama to Democrats: Jump off the Cliff

It’s been a busy week on global warming and energy-rationing policy for President Barack Obama and his Administration.  In his State of the Union address to Congress on Wednesday night, the President re-iterated his support for cap-and-trade legislation.  Here is the transcript: “And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America. (Applause.)  I am grateful to the House for passing such a bill last year. (Applause.)  And this year I’m eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate. (Applause.)  I know there have been questions about whether we can afford such changes in a tough economy.  I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.  But here’s the thing — even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy-efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future — because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation. (Applause.)”

President Obama has thus fallen back on the argument first enunciated by then-Senator Timothy Wirth (D-Colo.) in 1988: even if global warming isn’t a problem, it will make us do the right thing.  I’m pretty sure that there are a lot of Democrats in the House and Senate who wish that the President would stop beating his head against this particular political wall.  Cap-and-trade is dead because it is a huge political liability going into November’s congressional elections.  Many who voted for the Waxman-Markey bill in the House last June now regret it and would not vote for it again.  Several Democrats who voted for it have decided to retire.

U.S. Makes Carbon Pledge To Comply with Copenhagen Accord

Todd Stern, the Administration’s top climate negotiator, on Thursday announced that the U. S.’s pledge under the Copenhagen Accord to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. This was the number that was unofficially announced before the fifteenth Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen in December, so it’s no surprise.  What is slightly surprising is that Stern said that it’s conditional on Congress passing legislation and therefore could be subject to change.  According to a list compiled by the U. S. Climate Action Network, 15 countries have now (as if Friday, 3 PM EST) submitted their pledges to the Copenhagen Accord and 14 more have announced that they are likely to do so.  The 29 countries account for more than 72% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Obama Orders Feds To Curb Carbon Footprint

President Obama this week also ordered the federal government to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 28% below current levels by 2020.  This order follows from Executive Order 13514, which the President signed last fall and which requires federal departments and agencies to set targets for cutting emissions.  He has now set their target for them.  The most practical way to meet this goal would be to shut down large parts of the federal government.  Let’s hope President Obama seizes this opportunity and achieves the most drastic downsizing of government in history.  The Administration claims that these emissions reductions will save from $8 to 11 billion dollars in energy costs, but the Institute for Energy points out the costs of achieving the reductions are not included and probably outweigh the savings. Ironically, according to a 2008 GAO report, the Environmental Protection Agency had the poorest record among federal departments and agencies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Across the States

Even Green Energy Isn’t Good Enough for Greens

A Maryland developer has agreed not to build 24 turbines and will abandon 31 proposed sites at a West Virginia wind farm, settling a lawsuit by environmental groups worried about potential harm to the endangered Indiana bat, according to a report from ABC News. In related news, California Senator Dianne Feinstein is pushing for federal legislation to block one million acres of the Mojave Desert from solar power development, so as to protect the endangered desert tortoise.

Around the World

The EPA Is Working on Bin-Laden’s Climate Solution

The AP reported this week that terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden has released a new audio tape claiming that global warming must be stopped by bringing “the wheels of the American economy” to a halt. To learn more about how the Environmental Protection Agency is doing everything in its power to implement Bin Laden’s climate policy recommendation, click here.

Climategate Update

The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has ruled that the University of East Anglia violated the Freedom of Information Act by withholding raw data requested by Stephen McIntyre, the Canadian statistician and businessman who earlier exposed Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” fraud.  The ruling results from a complaint filed by David Holland, a retired engineer in England. The ICO also announced that they could not prosecute Professor Phil Jones, then-director of the university’s Climatic Research unit, and others implicated in the Climategate scandal because of a flaw in the statute, which they will now recommend be corrected by Parliament.  However, others have suggested that the ICO is misinformed and that the six month statute of limitations does not begin when the violation occurs, but when it is discovered.

As an official British government enquiry into Climategate continues, the House of Commons announced this week that its science and technology committee will undertake their own investigation of the scandal.  Roger Helmer, Member of the European Parliament for the UK, has already submitted his ideas for the enquiry.  Finally, John Beddington, the British government’s chief science adviser, criticized the CRU in an interview with the Times of London this week, defended skepticism as an essential part of scientific enquiry, and advised climate scientists to be more honest about the uncertainties involved in their research.