Here is CEI’s press release, and my colleague Chris Horner’s post is here.

Andrew Revkin’s story in tomorrow’s New York Times has already been posted on the Times’s web site.  Here is one interesting tidbit from Revkin’s story:

In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing climate patterns over the last two millennia, Phil Jones, a longtime climate researcher at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, said he had used a “trick” employed by another scientist, Michael Mann, to “hide a decline” in temperatures.

‘Dr. Mann, a professor at Pennsylvania State, confirmed in an interview that the e-mail was real. He said the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often use the word “trick” to refer to a good way to solve a problem, “and not something secret.” “It sounds incriminating, but when you look at what you’re talking about, there’s nothing there,” Dr. Mann said.

Yes, that’s right, everyone knows that “trick” is used as a technical term in many professions.  For example, in prostitution “trick” means….

But even a glance at their article shows how little substance there is to any of these promises. No new nuclear power plants will be built unless there is somewhere to store the waste. Here’s what Kerry and Graham say about that: “We must also do more to encourage serious investment in research and development to find solutions to our nuclear waste problem.” In other words, not finish the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada that the federal government has already spent billions on, but which Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and President Obama oppose. Carbon capture and storage technology is more than a decade away from being commercially available. Even if it works and is affordable, environmental pressure groups will sue to block permits for the pipelines and underground storage sites necessary to transport and store the pressurized carbon dioxide. Here’s what Kerry and Graham say: “…we need to provide new financial incentives for companies to develop carbon capture and sequestration technology. ” Not a word about limiting lawsuits that would block projects.

Kerry and Graham support a border tax to protect American jobs from products produced in countries that don’t commit to reducing their emissions. That is an admission that energy prices are going to go up and so are the prices of goods and services that are produced with or use energy. Consumers will be poorer as a result and hence will be able to afford fewer goods and services. Bye-bye manufacturing jobs. They also claim that their as-yet-to-be-written bill will reduce our imports of foreign oil. That’s plausible, but not exactly correct. As our economy declines, we will need less oil. But it will reduce U. S. and Canadian production first because the production costs are much higher here than in Saudi Arabia.

Highlights:

The bill gives away over three-quarters of the rationing coupons, auctioning off just 18 percent until 2020. CBO estimates in the first ten years, the bill would bring in revenues of $845.6 billion, but increase federal spending by $821.2 billion—a $24.4 billion net gain over ten years.

CBO estimates that the cost of mandates in the bill would well exceed the annual threshold established in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act for intergovernmental and private-sector mandates. One of these mandates is requirement for States’ to establish greenhouse gas registries plus about $1 billion annually for public entities to comply with the greenhouse gas program.

The program would start with 4,627 million metric tons of CO2-equivalent (MT-CO2e) coupons in 2012 and over the next four years grow to 5,482 million MT-CO2e. Then they would decline by 100 to 150 million MT-CO2e per year to 2,035 million MT-CO2e in 2050, about 14 percent of projected emissions from business-as-usual projections.

The amount of coupons auctioned actually drops from 29.6% in 2012 and 2013 to 17.5% through 2019, while the free allocations (i.e,windfall profits) increase to 82.5%.

The new carbon market would exceed $60 billion by 2012.

The banking of coupons in the bill increases allowance prices by 13 percent by 2019.

CBO estimates that covered entities would use 230 million domestic offsets (230 MT-CO2e) in 2012 and 300 million in 2020, plus 190 million international offsets in 2012 and 425 million in 2020.

CBO expects that some regions of the country—particularly the southeast—would probably not generate sufficient RECs to satisfy the federal standard, and therefore, would choose to make compliance payments.

CBO estimates $8.2 billion in federal agencies’ administrative costs from 2010 to 2019.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act is an awful piece of legislation designed to tax energy. In order to win over Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee, Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), a co-author of the bill, had to buy them off by promising to redistribute the proceeds of the energy tax-which the Obama administration says will cost as much as $2 trillion through 2020-to industries in their districts.

The only highlight from day one was the opening statement of Rep. John Barrow (D-Georgia), which seemed to indicate that he will oppose this expensive energy bill. He becomes the first Democrat on the Committee to do so. Hopefully, he is not the last. Reps. Eliot Engel (D-New York) and Charlie Melancon (D-Lousiana) seemed to hedge. They are likely holding out for more booty from Waxman.

Today, the Republicans on the Committee, led by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), plan on introducing 450 amendments to the bill. Democrats will offer far fewer amendments.

As I write, Rep. John Dingell (D-Michigan) is proposing an amendment to create a clean energy bank, despite the fact that the Department of Energy already administers a $40 billion clean energy bank. That bank, however, isn’t good enough for Dingell because it doesn’t transfer enough taxpayer money to auto companies in his district.

This bill should not be improved; it should be defeated.

Here are some of the key provisions in the new Waxman-Markey compromise energy-rationing bill:

Targets and timetables:

• 2005 greenhouse gas emissions baseline

• -17% by 2020

• -42% by 2030

• -83% by 2050

Free ration coupons:

• 35% to local electric distribution companies, phasing out in 10-15 years

• 15% to energy-intensive industries that compete with imports (steel, cement, paper, etc.), phasing out by 2% per year (as I understand it that would be 13% in year 2, 11% in year 3, etc.)

• 1% to 5% to oil refineries

• Remaining coupons would be auctioned.

Sharing the booty:

• Some revenues raised from auctioning the ration coupons would be dedicated to helping the auto industry and renewable energy.

Renewable requirements for electric utilities:

• 20% total renewables and efficiency gains

• 15% renewables by 2020

• 5% efficiency improvements by 2020

• With a 3% swing.  For example, 12% renewable plus 8% efficiency gains = 20%.

Threatening a trade war:

The President would be granted authority to levy carbon tariffs beginning in 2025.

Here’s What You Need To Know about the Waxman-Markey Bill

1. It’s a tax.

2. It’s an indirect, hidden, sneaky tax, but it’s a tax.

3. It’s a tax on energy that will raise prices on energy and all goods and services that are produced with or use energy.

4. It’s a tax that will fall more heavily on poorer people because poorer people spend a higher percentage of their incomes on energy than do wealthier people.

5. It’s not a one-time or steady tax, but a tax that will cause energy prices to increase every year.

6. It’s a tax that will destroy jobs in energy-intensive industries, which are concentrated in the States that use coal for electricity.

7. It’s a tax that will raise energy prices more in States that depend on coal for electricity.

8. It’s a tax that will create perpetual economic stagnation.

This is not the first lame brained green car scheme to go awry. A year ago, Bloomberg reported on a federal program to buy flex-fueled cars that can run on E-85, a fuel blend containing 85% ethanol. E-85 supposedly is less carbon-intensive than gasoline, so the program was meant to reduce greenhouse gases. However, there was one big problem: Federal employees found it more convenient to use gasoline than E-85, which isn’t availible in most fueling stations. As most flex-fueled cars are gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles, the program actually resulted in increased gasoline usage and higher greenhouse gas emissions. Whoops!

In an interview accompanying the story, Navajo President Joe Shirley, Jr., responded to a question about whether he was concerned about all the greenhouse gas emissions that these plants would produce by saying:

“That's a resource that was put there by the Creator for us to use. … To have the Creator bring that about, and then to say, 'Hey, we don't want that,' I don't think that's right. We need to develop it.”

While many of the nation's major utilities advocate energy-rationing policies, such as cap-and-trade, that would price coal out of the market and thereby lead to rapid increases in electricity prices for consumers and manufacturers and probably to chronic regional blackouts, it's great to see the Navajos stepping forward to help supply the energy that America needs.

That's the background for trying to enact energy-rationing programs that can only work if they raise energy prices considerably.  Perhaps Al Gore needs to raise more than the $300 million goal of his We can Solve It advertising campaign, which is designed to convince people that they agree with him that global warming is our most serious problem and demands immediate and radical action (such as replacing all the coal-fired power plants that supply half of America's electricity within ten years).  Although Mr. Gore has insisted that the American people already agree with him on global warming, this poll demonstrates that his mass media advertising campaign is going to be an uphill climb. 

Our friends at the Institute for Liberty and The Chilling Effect have cobbled together some “conservative” estimates of how much carbon will be emitted at next week’s swearin’ (in) of the green new president. They came up with a total of 575 million pounds of CO2 as the likely figure.

Will anyone of eco-conscience decide not to go now based on their principles?