I’ve written a number of posts, opeds, and a study about the Environmental Protection Agency’s outrageous assault on surface coal mining in Appalachia. Simply put, the EPA is destroying an industry that employs 15,000 miners, on behalf a short-lived insect. In order to placate the President’s environmentalist base, the EPA is trading jobs for bugs.
Last Tuesday, the Obama administration launched its latest assault against Appalachian surface coal mining. This one comes from the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and it is best described as ‘jobs for minnows.’
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In a sharply worded letter (August 11, 2011) to White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) contends that “the new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) and EPA vehicle greenhouse gas (GHG) standards announced by President Obama and select automobile manufacturers on July 29, 2011, were negotiated in secret, outside the scope of law, and could generate significant negative impacts for consumers.”
Issa is also concerned “that the government’s ownership interest in General Motors and Chrysler at the time these negotiations were conducted creates a troublesome conflict-of-interest.”
Accordingly, Issa is launching “an investigation into the activities of the Administration leading up to the agreement for new CAFE standards for model years (MY) 2017-2025.”
I won’t try to summarize Issa’s 8-page letter, which among other things developes a detailed case that the 54.5 mpg fuel-economy deal will adversely affect vehicle prices, consumer choice, vehicle safety, and, hence, automotive sales and auto industry jobs. This post will only discuss the legal issues that Issa spotlights. My concern here — as in numerous previous columns — is with bureaucratic ‘lawmaking’: the trashing of the separation of powers and democratic accountability in the illusory pursuit of climate stability and energy independence. [click to continue…]
History tells us that listing a critter as an endangered species does little for the species and can do a great deal of harm to the local economies—the spotted owl and the delta smelt are two oft-cited cases. But there is not a big body of evidence showing how the listing decisions were made. It was just assumed that the species plight warranted protection. But that was before the listing proposal for the dunes sagebrush lizard threatened a large segment of U.S. domestic oil production and the economies of Southeastern New Mexico and West Texas. Rallies in opposition to the listing have drawn hundreds of irate citizens, hearings on the matter have had overflow crowds, and the public register has pages and pages of public comment. Both ABC and Fox News have done stories on the lizard.
Acting on the outrage of his constituents and using his law enforcement background, New Mexico State Representative Dennis Kintigh gathered a group of independent scientists—several from area universities—who have spent the last several months reviewing the science underlying the listing. Their report was released in a public meeting on Monday, August 15, in Artesia, New Mexico, in a roundtable format with the scientists available for questions.
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Liberals Standing Athwart History, Yelling “Stop!”
Washington Examiner editorial, 15 August 2011
Gouging, Free Markets, and the Psychology of Fuel Prices
Paul Schwennesen, Master Resource, 15 August 2011
Pawlenty out: More Climate Pandering than “ObamaneyCare” Duck
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 14 August 2011
Don’t Believe the EPA: The PNM Rip-off
William Yeatman, Albuquerque Journal, 12 August 2011
The Party’s over for Big Wind
Robert Bryce, Huffington Post, 12 August 2011
On Friday, America’s credit rating was downgraded from AAA to AA+. For the first time since ratings began, America is, officially, not on top. Only one of the three major rating agencies took this step, and they did it late on Friday. This morning, despite the markets having two days to digest the news, they are saying American debt is unsustainable—we can’t keep spending money we don’t have on things that don’t work.
While there is plenty of negative news addressing the gloom and doom that this could mean, there is a silver lining.
The downgrade tells us that what we’ve been doing isn’t working, and we must change priorities. How we react will determine whether or not the other agencies decide to follow suit—perhaps waiting to see how Congress handles the budget debate.
Here are three things that most of us can agree on: America needs jobs; America needs to make more stuff other countries want; and America needs lower energy prices—and the three are intricately connected. If we could do all of the above, we could see dramatic changes in the economy and salvage the credit rating as Canada did when they received the same warning. Instead, the Obama administration continues driving, pedal to metal, in the opposite direction—not solving the problem and blaming everyone else.
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Last month, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) suspended wildlife biologist Charles Monnett, who is being investigated by the Department of Interior’s (DOI’s) inspector general (IG). Monnett is the lead author of a 2006 study (linking loss of Arctic sea ice to the first documented finding of drowned polar bears. The paper helped galvanize support for DOI’s listing of the bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Al Gore touted the study in An Inconvenient Truth.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) condemned the IG investigation as a “witch hunt” (Greenwire, Aug. 10, 2011, subscription required). Last week, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Greenpeace sent a letter to DOI Secretary Ken Salazar accusing BOEMRE of trying to muzzle scientists whose research may impede the granting of permits to drill for oil and gas in the bear’s Arctic habitat.
The transcript of the IG’s February 23, 2011 interrogation of Monnett shows that the IG “sent agents with no scientific training to ask decidedly unscientific questions about bizarre allegations relating to the polar bear paper,” CBD and Greenpeace contend. I can’t help but agree. What’s going on? [click to continue…]
Global Warming Link to Drowned Polar Bears Melts under Searing Federal Probe
Audrey Hudson, Human Events, 11 August 2011
Obama’s War on Coal
William Yeatman, New York Post, 10 August 2011
Global Warming Is Melting Al Gore’s Brain
H. Leighton Steward, Daily Caller, 10 August 2011
California 33% Green Goal: Form or Substance? Part 1, Part 2
Ulrich Decher, Master Resource, 10 August 2011
Global Warming Gomorrah in Hell: Welcome to Washington!
Patrick Michaels, Forbes, 5 August 2011
Much to the chagrin of the left’s environmental base, Ken Salazar voiced Obama’s support for increased natural resource production in Alaska:
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar came to Anchorage on Monday and said the Obama administration supports more oil drilling in Alaska, potentially including offshore Arctic development.
Salazar joined Alaska Sen. Mark Begich and Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed for a meeting with Alaska business people and said the president’s feeling toward Arctic offshore drilling is “Let’s take a look at what’s up there and see what it is we can develop.”
It came with the standard try-to-please-everyone-speak that Presidents must use, showing concern for the unique challenges faced by drilling in the Artic Ocean. But the bottom line is Obama understands that this is something politically he must move forward with, as this is the low-hanging fruit in terms of sparking economic growth before the 2012 election. The support has come at a time when experts are increasingly discussing a potential “double-dip” recession and a continued stall in employment growth. Resource production is one area where the private sector really has “shovel ready” jobs, as it has added jobs throughout 2010-2011. Examples of specific projects in Alaska are here and here.
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A blustery “bullshitting” Al Gore clip is wending its way through the Internet. On August 4, he was speaking at the Aspen Institute FOCAS seminar in Colorado. The minute plus clip is the most interesting part of an hour-and-half long snooze fest—though he does perk it up when he talks about how climate change has fallen from the front burner of the public psyche. He uses several different fecal terms to describe the various valid theories regarding climate change.
Could the rant be the result of science questioning his profitable propaganda?
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