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LibertyWeek 102: The Future of the Gulf

Richard Morrison — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:18:01 +0000

Richard Morrison and Marc Scribner welcome guest co-host Alex Nowrasteh to Episode 102 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We take a special look at the prognosis for the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the BP oil spill (segment begins approximately 8:20 in).

Regarding the Gulf, What Is Obama Thinking?

William Yeatman — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:15:38 +0000

Here’s something I didn’t expect: Quite a few “green” journalists on the energy policy beat have concluded that President Barack Obama’s moratorium on new drilling in the Gulf is seriously flawed. To be sure, the LA Times editorial board has come out in favor of an extended drilling ban, but among reporters who have spent time in Louisiana, there’s an acknowledgment that the moratorium is hurting livelihoods.

I was recently in Dallas, and there I had the opportunity to speak with a broadcast news journalist who had been reporting from the Gulf. He said the people of Louisiana hate BP, but they really hate the moratorium, and they are vocal about it. This is the same sense you get from the aforementioned liberal coverage. Evidently, it’s tough to be on location, and not come away with a sense that the moratorium is unjust.

With local reaction so strong, I wonder what’s going through Obama’s head. He’s been given two opportunities to back down-federal judges have nixed the moratorium twice. Yet the President plows ahead. The Interior Department is trying to re craft the drilling ban to pass legal muster.

He lost Louisiana by a wide margin, so maybe he doesn’t care. Perhaps this is part of a master plan to get a critical mass of oil rigs out of the Gulf, and force a demand response turn to a fuel efficient Ford Fiestas and GM Volts. That’s wacky, and mildly tongue in cheek, but still…

LibertyWeek 101: The IPCC’s Bunker Mentality

Richard Morrison — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:43:54 +0000

Richard Morrison and Marc Scribner welcome back long-lost co-host Michelle Minton to Episode 101 of the LibertyWeek podcast. Among other issues, we discuss the IPCC’s latest attempt to muzzle its own advisory scientists (segment begins approximately 10 minutes in).

Blowout Prevention Act — or Oil Production Prevention Act?

Marlo Lewis — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:42:02 +0000

That’s the question I address today on the free-market energy blog, MasterResource.Org. This morning, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Environment is holding a hearing on the Blowout Prevention Act. The bill text says that the federal government “shall not” issue a permit for an offshore oil well unless the applicant can “demonstrate” that he has the “capacity to promptly stop a blowout in the event the blowout preventer and other well control measures fail.” However, as the ongoing disaster in the Gulf makes painfully clear, once “the blowout preventer and other well control measures fail,” there is no way to “promptly stop” oil from spilling into the ocean. At that point, physics (two fluids coming into contact) takes over. In short, the Act sets a standard that no oil company can meet. As written, the bill would effectively prohibit all future offshore drilling. Logically, moreover, it implies that all existing permits to drill should be revoked. Two points should be kept in mind. First, although oil spills are bad, oil is good. Without oil, there would be no modern commerce and no mechanized agriculture. Life for most people would be nasty, poor, brutish, and short. Many of us would not even be alive. Second, banning offshore drilling would increase consumers’ pain at the pump, destroy tens of thousands of high-paying jobs, cripple the economy of the gulf states, and make the United States more dependent on OPEC oil.

Green Stimulus Fails To Be “Timely, Targeted, and Temporary”

William Yeatman — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:11:27 +0000

Back in February 2009, when everyone thought a deep depression was imminent, Keynesian economists and their political boosters demanded big government spending. According to their calculations, a “timely, targeted, and temporary” infusion of taxpayer money would defibrillate our moribund economy, the growth of which would make the trillion-dollar price tag seem like small potatoes. It was elementary!

So the White House pushed, and the Congress passed, a gigantic trillion-dollar stimulus, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It was, however, anything but “targeted.” Instead, it was a grab bag of special interest handouts.

About $90 billion of those taxpayer funded giveaways went to “green” energy, which is about as trendy a cause as there is right now. Today, on the thirtieth of June, almost a year and half after the stimulus passed, the Department of Energy has awarded a scant 15% of its “green” energy stimulus funds. So much for “timely.”

Despite the fact that so little of the stimulus has yet been spent, House leadership already wants more. This week, powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Michigan Representative Sandy Levin (D) is pushing a bill that would extend Stimulus green energy tax incentives, to the tune of $20 billion. So it seems that “temporary” was also a sham.

A new low for science and the NAS — the “Black List”

Fran Smith — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:02:26 +0000

In what has to be one of the most disgraceful examples of political, unscientific attacks, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a report, “Expert credibility in climate change,” alleging to show that climate change “deniers” have less impressive credentials and haven’t published as much as those promoting anthropogenic climate change. With the billions in research money given to climate change advocates over the past 15 years, and the recent ClimateGate email disclosures about shutting skeptics out of key scientific journals, it’s no wonder there is a discrepancy. But, of course, neither of those issues is mentioned. The article was researched and/or written by a biology professor, an engineer, a foundation executive, and the infamous Stephen H. Schneider, known for his advocacy of catastrophic global warming and his endorsement of duplicity and hyperbole in pushing the climate change agenda:

“. . . we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” (Discover magazine pp. 45-48, Oct. 1989)

What might be the purpose of this exercise? One gets a clue in the conclusion of the article - that media coverage is contributing to public misunderstanding by giving an undeserved platform to climate skeptics:

“This extensive analysis of the mainstream versus skeptical/contrarian researchers suggests a strong role for considering expert credibility in the relative weight of and attention to these groups of researchers in future discussions in media, policy, and public forums regarding anthropogenic climate change.”

Dr. Roy Spencer has a good article discussing what’s now known among skeptics as the “Black List.” The Examiner’s Thomas Fuller writes an open letter to Schneider deploring the article:

Is this science you are proud of? Does damaging the reputation of some scientists by mistakenly (or vindictively) including them on a blacklist serve science well? Does establishing a climate of fear that will dissuade scientists from expressing their true opinion?

Sen. Inhofe demolishes energy independence rationale for cap-and-trade

Marlo Lewis — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:13:06 +0000

Sen. James Inhofe’s daily Environment & Public Works Press Blog is a source I check early and often. The posts, which are more like essays than press releases, are incisive, rigorous, and witty. In today’s post, Sen. Inhofe explains, by the numbers, why the claim that cap-and-trade will help us get “beyond petroleum” is horse feathers. Cap-and-trade will significantly increase our pain at the pump, yet will hardly make a dent in U.S. dependence on petroleum and oil imports. In EPA’s analysis, the Kerry-Lieberman bill would raise gasoline prices to $5.00 a gallon in 2050 yet would leave U.S. petroleum consumption about where it is today. EPA’s analysis last year of the Waxman-Markey bill came to much the same conclusion, observing that it “creates little incentive for the introduction of low-GHG [greenhouse gas] automotive technology.” Similarly, the Energy Information Administration estimated that Waxman-Markey would reduce U.S. petroleum consumption in 2030 a mere 5% relative to the baseline projection. And, as Sen. Inhofe notes, there is no provision in either bill to refund the extra bucks consumers would have to shell out at the pump.

New Federal Interference With Oil-Spill Clean-Up: Feds Stop Louisiana From Dredging Needed to Create Protective Sand Berms

Hans Bader — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:09:15 +0000

A TV station in New Orleans reports that “the federal government is shutting down the dredging that was being done to create protective sand berms in the Gulf of Mexico.” Louisiana planned to create the sand berms to prevent the massive BP oil spill from polluting its coastline. Earlier, a federal judge blocked Obama’s drilling ban on offshore drilling, citing deception by Obama administration officials. The ban applied mostly to oil companies with radically better safety records than BP. (BP’s executives gave lots of money to Obama and lobbied for his legislation.) Obama delayed the clean-up of the Gulf of Mexico by blocking foreign crews from operating sophisticated clean-up vessels. The Jones Act bans foreign vessels and crews from working in U.S. waters, but it gives the President the authority to completely waive that ban if he wishes. Obama refused to lift the ban, even though American shippers who generally support the ban said they wouldn’t object to lifting it to fight the spill. As a result of the ban, the U.S. rejected a lot of foreign aid from counties with expertise in fighting oil spills, and accepted only a small amount of foreign equipment to fight the spill. The federal government has routinely been a thorn in the side of Louisiana as it seeks to fight the huge oil spill. It recently used red tape to force Louisiana to stop using 16 barges that were cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico by sucking thousands of gallons of oil out of Louisiana’s oil-soaked waters. Earlier, four oil skimmers needed to clean the Gulf were blocked by EPA officials. The oil spill has been called “Obama’s Katrina,” but Gulf Coast resident Paul Rubin says this is unfair to George Bush, who was not nearly as incompetent as Obama has been in dealing with the spill at BP’s Deepwater Horizon. In the Wall Street Journal, Rubin notes that the oil spill occurred in federal waters and thus was a federal responsibility, while Hurricane Katrina occurred mostly on state land and thus was largely a state, not federal, responsibility, enabling incompetent local officials in cities like New Orleans to “interfere” with federal relief efforts:

In many respects, the Deepwater Horizon disaster and Katrina are mirror images of each other. The harm from Katrina was on state land—mainly Louisiana, but also Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. As a result, President George W. Bush and the federal government were limited in what they could do. For example, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wanted to take command of disaster relief on the day before landfall, but Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco refused. Federal response was hindered because the law gave first authority to state and local authorities. State and local efforts—particularly in New Orleans, and Louisiana more broadly—interfered with what actions the federal government could actually take. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was late in ordering an evacuation and did not allow the use of school buses for evacuation, which could have saved hundreds of lives. President Bush had no power to change that decision. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is on federal offshore territory. The federal government has primary responsibility for handling the situation, while state and local governments remain limited in what they can do. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly changed its mind regarding the chemical dispersants that Louisiana is allowed to use. . . .As opposed to Katrina, state and local attempts to address the oil spill have been hindered by an ineffectual and chaotic federal response.

Obama is now using the BP oil spill to push a corporate-welfare-filled global-warming bill crafted partly by BP’s lobbyists. Obama’s global warming legislation expands ethanol subsidies, which cause famine, starvation, and food riots in poor countries by shrinking the food supply, and also result in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution. Subsidies for biofuels like ethanol are a big source of corporate welfare: “BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels . . . that cannot break even without government support.” The $800 billion stimulus package is using taxpayer subsidies to replace U.S. jobs with foreign green jobs. It is also destroying jobs in America’s export sector.

Senators, President Will Meet Today To Decide on Cap-and-Trade (For Real This Time?) (Update: Not For Real This Time)

William Yeatman — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:03:21 +0000

There’s only a month left on the Senate calendar, and elections are looming, so many Senators are wary of an issue as divisive and nuanced as is cap-and-trade energy rationing. As a result, there’s been a lot of procrastinating.

Two weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid convened a meeting of Senate Committee chairs in order to figure out how to proceed with climate legislation. They agreed to punt, by having a meeting of the entire Senate the following week.

A week ago, all Democratic Senators met, and they listened to three of their colleagues pitch variations of climate/energy legislation, as well as a pep talk from Sen. Barbara Boxer (my favorite environmentalist Senator). But the pleas fell on deaf ears, and the DNP Caucus session ended inconclusively.

Following that failure, President Obama requested yet another meeting of Senate energy/climate principles and moderates from both parties. The discussion will take place today, and the guest list includes Sens. John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Richard Lugar, Judd Gregg, Susan Collins, Sherrod Brown and Lisa Murkowski, according to a survey of offices by Energy & Environment Daily.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, and elections are nearing. The punditry seems to be in consensus that the prognosis for cap-and-trade is dire, although there has been some discussion about a sinister back door strategy, by which the Senate would pass bare-bones energy bill, sans an energy tax, and then leadership would insert a cap-and-trade into the bill that is reconciled with the American Energy and Security Act, the climate legislation that the House passed last June. Evidently, proponents of this strategy are banking on the reconciliation conference to take place during the lame duck session after upcoming elections, a time when some Members of Congress would have nothing to lose, because they would have already lost.

**Update: 8:20 A.M. E&E Daily’s lede story this morning reports that President Obama has postponed the climate meeting, due to the ongoing imbroglio over the Afghan general who put his foot in his mouth. Fortunately, there’s not much further down the road the majority can kick this can, before the clock runs out on the legislative calendar.

Judge Blocks Gulf Drilling Ban, Citing Deception by Obama Administration; Obama Continues to Delay Gulf Clean-Up

Hans Bader — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:25:33 +0000

A federal judge has just blocked the Obama administration from imposing a blanket ban on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Judge Martin Feldman cited blatantly false claims by the Obama administration in its report imposing the ban, and violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, which protects against arbitrary government actions. Earlier, Obama had delayed a clean-up of the Gulf of Mexico by Louisiana and foreign countries, by imposing unnecessary red tape. “Judge Feldman hones in on blatant lies incorporated into the Deepwater report by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. His head should roll:

In the Executive Summary to the Report, the Secretary [Salazar] recommends “a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled . . .” Much to the government’s discomfort and this Court’s uneasiness, the Summary also states that “the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts”. . .the experts themselves, pointedly observe, this statement was misleading. The experts charge it was a “misrepresentation.” It was factually incorrect. . . five of the National Academy experts and three of the other experts have publicly stated that they “do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium” on floating drilling.”

The government recently used red tape to force Louisiana to stop using 16 barges that were cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico by sucking thousands of gallons of oil out of Louisiana’s oil-soaked waters. Earlier, four oil skimmers needed to clean the Gulf were blocked by EPA officials. Obama also delayed the clean-up of the Gulf of Mexico by blocking foreign crews from operating sophisticated clean-up vessels. The Jones Act bans foreign vessels and crews from working in U.S. waters, but it gives the President the authority to completely waive that ban if he wishes. Obama refused to lift the ban, even though American shippers who generally support the ban said they wouldn’t object to lifting it to fight the spill. As a result of the ban, the U.S. has rejected a lot of foreign aid from counties with expertise in fighting oil spills, and accepted only a small amount of foreign equipment to fight the spill. Even Democrats are now criticizing the Obama administration for refusing to waive the ban to allow America’s allies to clean up the oil spill:

Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) said it was unacceptable that her state couldn’t utilize foreign vessels for skimming. She held up pictures of skimmers available in Mexico and Norway that could help. ‘We are in emergency mode and we need skimmers,’ Brown said. “We need the big ones. I understand they’re available in other countries, including Mexico and Norway. What is the process for the state to utilize these vessels from other countries? … We’re talking about protecting Florida’s coast.’ . . .Deputy Maritime Administrator David Matsuda confirmed there has been one Jones Act waiver request for a foreign deck barge to operate within three miles of the U.S. coast. That request was denied . . . .Of course, the Obama administration could eliminate the bureaucratic delay entirely by simply following the precedent set by the Bush administration, which waived the Jones Act in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 to transport oil and gasoline throughout the Gulf region. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has the legal authority to suspend the law.

“The BP clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico is hampered by the Jones Act. This is a piece of 1920s protectionist legislation, that requires all vessels working in U.S. waters to be American-built, and American-crewed. So” the U.S. Coast Guard ”can’t accept, and therefore don’t ask for, the assistance of high-tech European vessels specifically designed for the task in hand.” The law itself permits the president to waive these requirements, and such waivers were “granted, promptly, by the Bush administration,” in the aftermath of hurricanes and other emergencies. But Obama refused to do so after the spill, notes David Warren in the Ottawa Citizen. Instead, Obama rejected a Dutch offer to help clean up the spill, noted Voice of America News: “The Obama administration declined the Dutch offer partly because of the Jones Act, which restricts foreign ships from certain activities in U.S. waters. During the Hurricane Katrina crisis five years ago, the Bush administration waived the Jones Act in order to facilitate some foreign assistance, but such a waiver was not given in this case.” “After the Obama administration refused help from the Netherlands, Geert Visser, the consul general for the Netherlands in Houston, told Loren Steffy: ‘Let’s forget about politics; let’s get it done.’” But for Obama, politics always comes first: “The explanation of Obama’s reluctance to seek this remedy is his cozy relationship with labor unions. . . ‘The unions see it [not waiving the act] as … protecting jobs. They hate when the Jones Act gets waived.’” (The Obama administration belatedly accepted some foreign equipment for use in fighting the spill, although it still blocked ships with foreign crews from working in U.S. waters. As Voice of America notes, although ”the Netherlands offered help in April,” such as providing ”sophisticated” oil “skimmers and dredging devices,” the Obama administration blocked their crews from working in U.S. waters, and as a result, this crucial ”operation was delayed until U.S. crews could be trained” in June. “The Dutch also offered assistance with building sand berms (barriers) along the coast of Louisiana to protect sensitive marshlands, but that offer was also rejected, even though Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal had been requesting such protective barriers.”) In April 2009, the Obama administration granted BP, a big supporter of Obama, a waiver of environmental regulations. But after the oil spill, it blocked Louisiana from protecting its coastline against the oil spill by delaying rather than expediting regulatory approval of essential protective measures. It has also chosen not to use what has been described as “the most effective method” of fighting the spill, a method successfully used in other oil spills. Democratic strategist James Carville called Obama’s handling of the oil spill “lackadaisical” and “unbelievable” in its “stupidity.” Obama is now using BP’s oil spill to push the global-warming legislation that BP had lobbied for. Obama’s global-warming legislation expands ethanol subsidies, which cause famine, starvation, and food riots in poor countries by shrinking the food supply. Ethanol makes gasoline costlier and dirtier, increases ozone pollution, and increases the death toll from smog and air pollution. Ethanol production also results in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution. Subsidies for biofuels like ethanol are a big source of corporate welfare: “BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels . . . that cannot break even without government support.”