A major disagreement erupted this week in the British government over future onshore windmill installations.  The number two minister in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, John Hayes, MP, declared that “enough is enough,” and that no more wind farms needed to be built in the United Kingdom.  Hayes complained that wind turbines had been “peppered across the country” without regard for public opinion.

Hayes’s boss, Energy Minister Ed Davey, MP, quickly and angrily responded that Hayes’s views are not shared by the Cabinet and that there is no formal change in government policy towards renewable energy.

Davey is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, which is the junior partner in the Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government.  Hayes, a member of the Conservative Party, clearly speaks for the majority of MPs in his party.

In response to a question by Ed Miliband, MP, leader of the Labour Party opposition, Prime Minister David Cameron insisted that government policy had not changed, thereby apparently backing Davey.  But then Cameron said that it was time for a debate about future policy on onshore wind installations.

Official British government policy aims for 13 gigawatts of wind capacity by 2020. Current capacity is 7.3 gigawatts, with hundreds of wind turbines currently under construction.

News You Can Use
Hedge Fund Wins Big Bet against Solar
In a quarterly newsletter, the hedge fund Greenlight Capital, Inc. announced that it has closed its short position in First Solar, “one of the most profitable shorts in the history” of its funds. Stock prices for First Solar, which received a $1.4 billion stimulus loan from the same program that propped up Solyndra, plummeted primarily because Germany rolled back solar power subsidies.

Inside the Beltway
Myron Ebell

Obama Punts on Keystone (again)
President Barack Obama on Wednesday, 18th January, announced that he would not approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries in the Gulf States.  A provision in the payroll tax cut extension legislation required the President to make a decision before 21st February based on the national interest.  The President’s statement used the deadline to blame Congress for his decision:

“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people.”

The New York Times was almost alone among major papers in supporting the President’s decision.  The Washington Post noted that the President’s own Council on Jobs and Competitiveness had reported the day before that the United States needed to be building more energy infrastructure, including pipelines.  Post columnist Robert Samuelson wrote that Obama’s decision was an “act of national insanity.”

The reactions from a number of private sector labor union leaders were also highly negative.  On the other hand, environmental pressure groups were ecstatic.  The leader of the opposition to Keystone, Bill McKibben, said that the President had made “the brave call” and had proved wrong the criticism that he was too conciliatory.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was one of many House and Senate Republicans who vowed that “this is not the end of the fight.” It is quite possible that the House will include a provision in the second payroll tax cut extension bill that must be enacted before the end of February that would take the decision out of the President’s hands and direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency to permit the 1700-mile pipeline.

That is what I urged the House to do in a CEI press release.  My comment in the press release on the President’s decision was as follows: “President Barack Obama’s decision to block construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline should make clear to all Americans that when he says over and over again that ‘we can’t wait’ to create jobs and economic growth, it is merely hypocritical political posturing.  Contrary to his phony rhetoric, President Obama’s real goals are to reduce energy supplies, raise energy prices for American consumers, and destroy jobs.” Another CEI reaction came from my colleague William Yeatman in this televised debate.

Across the States
William Yeatman

Oregon’s Solyndras
Taxpayers in Oregon are on the hook for almost $20 million in bad loans issued by the state Energy Department’s green bank, according to an investigation by the Oregonian. The Small Scale Energy Loan Program started in 1980, primarily to finance relatively minor conservation projects. However, over the last few years, the program shifted to speculative green energy projects, including $18 million to a Clatskanie ethanol plant that quickly went bankrupt and $12.1 million to a Linn County solar company crippled by plunging global prices. Program officers made the program even riskier by allowing borrowers to use other state subsidies for green energy as collateral.

Around the World
Brian McGraw

E.U. Ignores U.S. Complaints on Airline Climate Tax
This week the European Union responded to a letter sent by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the end of 2011 regarding E.U.’s new policy of forcing international airlines to participate in a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gas emissions. In the letter, Secretary of State Clinton urged the E.U. to exclude international airlines from the program, or else.

Not backing down, the E.U.’s response was effectively: “Or else what?” They did offer to remove the measures if the U.S. came up with a similar domestic cap-and-trade scheme for airline emissions or figured out a path towards global carbon trading for the airline industry. Both of these, obviously, would be non-starters in the current political climate even if they found support in the Obama Administration.

The late 2011 decision by the European Court of Justice cannot be appealed, so increased international pressure or retaliatory measures are the next options. International pressure is currently being applied by the U.S., China, India, and Russia. The United States is currently considering retaliatory measures, with the likely outcome being a similar surcharge placed on E.U. airlines that arrive or depart from U.S. airports.

In 2011, the House of Representatives passed a bill forbidding U.S. airlines from participating in the E.U.’s program. Despite support from the Obama Administration, it is unclear if the legislation  will pass the Senate in 2012.

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

On Grid Solar: An Industry in Plight
David Bergeron, Master Resource, 6 January 2012

A Honda Civic Lesson
Eric Peters, American Spectator, 6 January 2012

Federal Judge Blocks Enforcement of California Low Carbon Fuel Standard
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 5 January 2012

Ethanol Subsidies Are Gone, But Not Forgotten
Daniel Kish, U.S. News and World Report, 5 January 2012

Send in the Clown
Henry Payne, The Michigan View, 5 January 2012

The Climate Change Message Is Not Being Heard; Here’s How to Change Tack
Sunny Hundal, Guardian, 5 January 2012

Range Fuels: Another Failed Loan Guarantee
Dan Chapman, Atlanta Journal Constitution, 4 January 2012

Could Climate Change Create Deadly, Mutant Sharks Which Kill Us All?
James Delingpole, Telegraph, 3 January 2012

Antarctic Temperature Trends
World Climate Report, 3 January 2012

On Energy Policy, Reasons To Cheer
George Will, Washington Post, 1 January 2012

News You Can Use

Bad News for Electric Cars

Jackie Moreau

Last week, we reported that electric vehicles receive subsidies of up to $250,000 per car. Recent news suggests this money is poorly spent.

• General Motors is calling back about 8,000 Chevy Volts sold in the U.S in the past 2 years after three Volt batteries caught fire, occurring between 7 days and 3 weeks after crash tests were done by federal regulators.   Government subsidies for the Volt: $3 billion

• Fisker Automotive is recalling 239 Karma hybrid cars to fix a malfunction in the vehicle’s high-voltage battery, whose battery provider (A123) is contracted to build GM’s future all-electric Chevrolet Spark minicar. Fisker received a $500 million loan guarantee from the same Department of Energy office responsible for the Solyndra debacle.

• A Nissan Leaf was reported to have needed 4 stops to recharge over the course of a 180-mile drive due to its unanticipated rapid drop in charge.  Government loan for the Leaf: 1.4 billion.

Inside the Beltway

Ethanol Lobby’s Absurd Spin

Myron Ebell

Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, published an op-ed in the Hill this week in which he claims that the ethanol industry is so public spirited that they have voluntarily given up their tax subsidy of 45 cents per gallon.

Dinneen writes: “Without any opposition from the biofuels sector, the tax credit for ethanol blenders (the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit – VEETC) expired on January 1.  In fact, American ethanol may well be the first industry in history that willingly gave up a tax incentive.”

That sounds admirable, but Dinneen fails to mention that the ethanol industry and corn growers still benefit from a colossal federal mandate enacted in 2007 by the Democratic-controlled Congress and signed by Republican President George W. Bush.  In 2012, the mandate will require Americans to buy roughly 12 billion gallons of corn ethanol blended into gasoline.

The ethanol mandate raises transportation fuel prices, and as an added bonus it also raises food prices.  How patriotic!

Unsurprisingly, Republican voters in Iowa, the top corn-producing State, chose two corn-friendly candidates in their presidential caucuses this week.  Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum finished in a dead heat.  According to the Des Moines Register, the Iowa Corn Growers Association gave Romney a B grade and Santorum an A minus in their rating of the candidates.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich got the top grade from the Iowa Corn Growers, but finished fourth.  The two lowest-rated candidates, Texas Governor Rick Perry and Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), finished fifth and sixth in the caucuses.  Perry’s energy plan can be found here.  Perry proposes to eliminate energy subsidies and mandates and let the free market work.

The Register article describes Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-Tex.) position on tax subsidies incorrectly: “…Paul, a libertarian who opposes government subsidies of any kind, finished third….”  In fact, Paul supports a wide variety of tax subsidies on the grounds that they allow private individuals and companies to keep money that would otherwise go to the federal government.  The fact that tax subsidies are designed to benefit some well-connected people at the expense of others, who are not so politically influential, does not bother Paul.  For example, Paul is a co-sponsor of the NAT GAS Act (H. R. 1835), which would give billionaire T. Boone Pickens billions of more dollars in tax subsidies.

Across the States

Texas Wins Stay of Cross State Air Pollution Rule

William Yeatman

The federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals this week granted Texas’s request for a stay of EPA’s implementation of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). In September, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed suit against EPA over the rule, alleging that EPA violated federal administrative procedure law by failing to allow Texas to evaluate and comment on the regulation. In the proposed CSAPR, Texas was found to be in compliance with the regulation’s particulate matter emissions limits. Without notice, in the final rule, EPA imposed the harshest particulate matter emissions limits for Texas. The technology required by EPA’s final CSAPR requires three years to install, but EPA gave the State only 6 months to do so. Recently, the non-partisan operator of Texas’s power grid warned that the CSAPR could lead to blackouts. The regulation was slated to go into effect January 1, but the D.C. District Court delayed its implementation until it could determine the merits of Texas’s case.

Around the World

Climate Trade War Brewing

Brian McGraw

The arrival of the new year marks the beginning of forced participation in the European Union’s cap-and-trade scheme for international airlines that arrive or depart from E.U. airports. A lawsuit brought by U.S. and Canadian-based airlines was dismissed late last month by an E.U. court. As a result, United-Continental, Delta and U.S. Airways have added a surcharge for passengers headed towards countries in the European Union.

China and India have signaled that they are considering retaliatory measures and are unlikely to comply with the program. Somewhat surprisingly, the Obama Administration has angered environmentalists by going to bat for the airlines on this issue, perhaps to support unionized workers in the airline or related industries. The latest announcement from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that the U.S. would take “appropriate action” if the E.U. doesn’t back down, and requested information from European airlines on revenues and carbon allowances, perhaps signaling that a retaliatory tax is in the works.

As the Wall Street Journal wrote: “The EU admits the scheme will raise ticket prices and dampen consumer demand, which may be the point: to make carbon-spewing international travel accessible to fewer people.”

In the News

Obamacar for the 1 Percent
Henry Payne, Planet Gore, 30 December 2011

Should We Fear the Methane Time Bomb?
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 29 December 2011

Bring on 2012!
Robert Bradley, Master Resource, 29 December 2011

Why “Beyond Petroleum” Gave up on Solar
Paul Chesser, National Legal and Policy Center, 28 December 2011

Don’t Miss the Energy “Technolution”
Kirk Spano, Market Watch, 28 December 2011

The Circular Logic of Energy Independence
Jonathan Thompson, High Country News, 27 December 2011

Dingell’s Volt Goof
Dan Calabrese, The Michigan View, 26 December 2011

News You Can Use

Chevy Volt Subsidy up to $250,000 Per Car

Marlo Lewis

James Hohman of Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy estimates that state and federal incentives for GM’s plug-in hybrid vehicle, the Chevy Volt, total $3 billion. That works out to between $50,000 and $250,000 in taxpayer support for each of 6,000 Volts sold so far, “depending on how many of the subsidy milestones are realized.”

Inside the Beltway

EPA Issues Utility MACT

On December 23, EPA promulgated a final Mercury and Air Toxics rule, also known as the Utility MACT. The regulation has an annual price tag anywhere from $10 billion (EPA’s estimate) to $100 billion (industry’s estimate), making it one of the most expensive regulations ever. Its justification is to protect pregnant, subsistence fisherwomen who consume more than 300 pounds of self-or family-caught fish annually. In light of this ridiculous rationale, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s decision to announce the    rule at a children’s hospital was shameless.

For more on the Utility MACT, see: How Paul Krugman Botched His Mercury Commentary by the Institute for Energy Research; and Environmental Hocus Pocus, by Heritage Foundation’s David Kreutzer

Ethanol Subsidies Expire; Mandate Continues

This week the EPA finalized the 2012 biofuel volume mandates under the Renewable Fuel Standard, as established by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The controversial cellulosic “mandate” is currently set at 8.65 million gallons, down from an initial “requirement” of 500 million gallons as set by the EISA. In previous years, the EPA has held cellulosic requirements at levels greater than zero gallons, despite it being commercially unavailable. As a result, refiners have been required to purchase cellulosic “credits” from the EPA in lieu of purchasing the (nonexistent) cellulosic ethanol. Refiners expect to spend roughly $8 million complying with this bogus program in 2012 unless cellulosic ethanol finally materializes.

In related ethanol news, this week also marks the end of the ethanol tax credit (VEETC) and the corresponding tariff on ethanol imports. As the Wall Street Journal noted today: “Congress created ethanol subsidies in 1978, expanded them in a 1980 bill, and then rinsed and repeated in 1982, 1984, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1998, 2004, 2005 and 2007.” The more damaging mandate, the Renewable Fuel Standard, remains in effect.

The RFS will require oil refiners to blend 15.2 billion gallons of biofuels into our fuel supply this year, and will increase to 36 billion gallons by 2022. How this will be possible remains to be seen, as consumers have shown little interest in purchasing vehicles that run primarily on ethanol, and there are a number of difficulties in requiring that non-modified cars run on gasoline containing much more than 10-15 percent ethanol.

Across the States

California

This week in California, a federal district court invalidated the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, a requirement that upstream producers of transportation fuel (i.e., refineries and distributors) reduce the carbon intensity of gasoline sold in the state. Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger imposed the LCFS in 2007, by executive order. The regulation accounts for 10% of greenhouse gas emissions reductions California is relying on to achieve the climate change goals of the state’s 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, which Schwarzenegger championed.

Judge Lawrence O’Neill determined that the LCFS violated the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, because it effectively regulated interstate commerce to the detriment of some states. The plaintiffs were farmers and ethanol groups, who stood to lose market-share to Brazilian ethanol producers due to the fact that Brazil’s sugar-cane ethanol is less carbon intensive than American corn ethanol.  Judge O’Neil allowed for the State to immediately appeal to the 9th federal Circuit Court of Appeals.

In the News

Climategate Bombshell
Maxim Lott, Fox News, 16 December 2011

Scientific Communication: Preach or Engage?
Chip Knappenberger, Master Resource, 16 December 2011

Keystone Blue Collar Blues
Lawrence Kudlow, Real Clear Politics, 16 December 2011

Obama’s Justice Department Joins Britain’s Climategate Leaker Manhunt
Chris Horner, Washington Examiner, 15 December 2011

Nipping Jobs in the Bud
Brian McGraw, American Spectator, 15 December 2011

Time to Tell the Green Energy Industry to Grow Up
Jackie Moreau, GlobalWarming.org, 15 December 2011

Obama’s Transparency War Targets Climate Skeptics
David Bier, Open Market, 15 December 2011

Obama’s Regulatory Burden
Rep. Fred Upton, National Review, 15 December 2011

EPA’s Bogus Wyoming Fracking Report
Robert Bryce, New York Post, 14 December 2011

Big Picture Items
World Climate Report, 14 December 2011

New You Can Use

Another Alarmist Myth Debunked

According to an IPS interview with Richard Armstrong, a geographer at Colorado University’s National Snow and Ice Centre and the lead author of the first comprehensive study of the glaciers of High Asia, 96 percent of the water that flows down the mountains of Nepal into nine local river basins comes from snow and rain, and only 4 percent from summer glacier melt. Of that 4 percent, says Armstrong, only a minuscule proportion comes from the melting away of the end points of the glaciers due to global warming. The study debunks a long-held talking point of global warming alarmists, that climate change could incite a resource war between India and Pakistan by melting away Himalayan glaciers.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Congress Agrees to Repeal Light Bulb Ban

House Republican leaders and Senate Democratic leaders finally agreed Thursday night on the conference report for the omnibus appropriations bill to fund the federal government for the rest of the 2012 fiscal year. The Congress is expected to send the bill to President Obama for his signature before midnight Friday, thereby averting a government shutdown.

There were a number of riders in the Interior and EPA appropriations bill passed by the House. Nearly all of the EPA riders were taken out by the House-Senate conference committee. The omnibus bill does cut EPA funding by $240 million below the FY 2011 level.

One Department of Energy rider that did survive will block implementation of the ban enacted in 2007 on standard incandescent light bulbs. That ban was scheduled to begin taking effect on January 1, 2012, when it would have become illegal to sell 100 watt bulbs. The rider only delays the ban from taking effect until the fiscal year ends on October 1, 2012. However, once adopted, most riders are routinely extended in succeeding appropriations bills. To take the rider out in future years, supporters of taking away consumer choice on light bulbs will have to mount a major effort.

Keystone XL Update

As of mid-day Friday, the House and Senate are still wrangling over the bill to extend the payroll tax cut for another year. A major stumbling block are two energy-related provisions included in the bill, H. R. 3630, that the House passed earlier this week by a 234 to 193 vote. The first would require the president to make a decision within sixty days on the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline project. The second would block the EPA’s Boiler MACT rule from going into effect.

President Obama and the White House have stated several times that including these two provisions in the payroll tax cut extension bill is unacceptable, but it’s not clear whether a veto threat has been made. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has refused to allow the Senate to consider the House-passed bill because of the Keystone and Boiler MACT provisions.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on Friday that the Keystone language was going to be in any payroll tax cut extension bill passed by the House. Boehner did not make an exception for a two-month extension. Thus if the Senate sends any bill minus Keystone back to the House this weekend, then the House Republican leadership seems determined to call the House back into session next week and re-attach the Keystone provision and send the bill back to the Senate. The House would then recess for the rest of the year.

Boehner’s strategy seems to me to put President Obama and Senate Democrats in a very difficult political position. If the Senate doesn’t accept the Keystone provision or if President Obama vetoes it, then Social Security taxes will return to their usual level in the new year. The president and Senate Democrats will then have to defend raising taxes on the grounds that that was the only way to stop the $7 billion Keystone project that will create thousands of construction and manufacturing jobs and increase supplies of Canadian oil.

Across the States

California Extends, Increases Failed Auto Targets

Marlo Lewis

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) this week proposed to amend its Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV), so that plug-in hybrids, battery-electric vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles would account for 15.4% of all new cars sold in California by 2025 and nearly 100% by 2040. By 2050, 87% of all vehicles on the road will be ZEVs, CARB estimates.

Back in 1990, California adopted a law requiring specified percentages of all new cars sold in the state to be ZEVs: 2% by 1998, 5% by 2001, and 10% by 2003. Due to the vehicles’ high cost and their limited range between recharging, the consumer response to electric cars was underwhelming. CARB had to relax the quota several times, scaling back the 2003 goal from 10% percent to 2%.

Wacky Green Group Insists Fracking is a Human Rights Issue

Jackie Moreau

Earthworks has commissioned a report in the interest of anti-fracking New Yorkers entitled, “A Human Rights Assessment of Hydraulic Fracturing for Natural Gas,” which concludes that the “environmental damage” created by process of hydraulic fracturing poses “a new threat to human rights.” This claim is grounded in a recent United Nations Resolution that states “environmental damage can have negative implications, both direct and indirect, for the effective enjoyment of human rights.” Believe it or not, the report goes further, accusing fracking of violating the Nuremberg Code on the basis of human experimentation without informed consent. So apparently, under the green code of ethics, gas extraction is comparative to the immorality of human testing.

EPA Imposes Visibility Plan on Oklahoma  

William Yeatman

On Thursday, EPA finalized a federal plan for Oklahoma to improve visibility. In February, Oklahoma submitted plan that would require fuel switching from coal to natural gas at six power plants by 2022, but EPA rejected this approach in March, and proposed a federal plan that would require almost $2 billion in emissions controls, in addition to fuel switching. Although the Clean Air Act clearly gives states primacy over EPA in decision-making for visibility improvement, Oklahoma is one of three states subject to a federal plan. In August, EPA imposed a plan on New Mexico that cost $740 million more than the state’s plan. In September, EPA proposed a federal plan for North Dakota. All three states are challenging EPA in federal court.

Around the World

Brian McGraw

Historic Agreement to Meet Again Soon Reached at COP-17 in Durban

Following up on our summary of the negotiations at COP-17 in Durban, negotiators worked through the weekend to salvage some sort of framework for future negotiations. You can read the final text of the two-page agreement here. The outcomes: the current Kyoto Protocol set to expire at the end of 2012 has been extended until 2017. They have also agreed that the $100 billion in annual climate “aid” will be overseen by the United Nations, though no progress was made in coming up with the money for the fund.

Finally, countries have agreed that by 2015 they will have developed a “protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force” for carbon dioxide emissions that will be adopted by 2020. However, this language was a step-down from previous language which would have made a globally binding treaty more likely, and some believe that no real agreement has been reached, and that future negotiations will continue to go nowhere, unless China, India, and other developing countries decide to pursue domestic emissions reductions.

Canada Announces Formal Kyoto Exit

As was expected, Canada announced this week that it would formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. Formal withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol requires one year’s notice, which explains the announcement prior to the end of 2011. This will dissolve Canadian commitments to the Kyoto Protocol at the end of 2012, in spite of the recent push at Durban to temporarily extend Kyoto.

Contra Christina Figueres—the secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—who claimed that Canada still has a legal obligation to reduce their emissions, there is no real penalty for withdrawing from Kyoto. Had Canada remained part of the Kyoto Protocol, they would likely have been held financially responsible for the purchase of billions of dollars of carbon “credits” as Canadian emissions are almost 30 percent higher than allowed by Kyoto.

In the News

If Al Gore Can Outgrow the Ethanol Fad, Why Can’t Conservatives?
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 7 April 2011

Greens Oppose Biomass in Pacific Northwest
Joel Millman, Wall Street Journal, 7 April 2011

Biofuels Raise Hunger Fears
Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times, 7 April 2011

Obama’s Energy Funny
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 6 April 2011

The Longer the Delay, the More You Pay
Sen. John Barrasso, Politico, 6 April 2011

Government vs. Resourceship
John Bratland, MasterResource.org, 6 April 2011

China Sees Evil of Plastic Bags
Jonah Goldberg, USA Today, 6 April 2011

Obama-Backed Tesla Sues Its Critics
Henry Payne, Planet Gore, 6 April 2011

Should We Feed Hungry People, Even If It’s Bad for the Environment?
Alex Berezow, Forbes, 6 April 2011

UN IPCC: Analyst or Advocate?
Lee Lane, RealClearScience.com, 5 April 2011

GE’s Immelt: Jobs Czar from Hell
Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle, 4 April 2011

New Energy Economy Drubbed in Debate
Vincent Carroll, Denver Post, 2 April 2011

Renewable Energy Standards Are Unconstitutional
Paul Chesser, Washington Times, 1 April 2011

News You Can Use

Sea Level Rise: Not Alarming

According to World Climate Report, the rate of sea level rise during the most recent 10-yr period is 2.32 mm/yr (or about 9 inches per century). This is not much above the 20th century average rate of 1.8mm/yr (7 inches per century), and well below what the IPCC projects (~15 inches).

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

House Passes EPA Pre-Emption Bill, 255-172

The House of Representatives on Thursday passed H. R. 910th, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, by a vote of 255 to 172.  Nineteen Democrats voted Yes.  No Republicans voted No.  This is a remarkable turnaround from the last Congress, when on 26th June 2009 the House voted 219 to 212 to pass the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.

The Energy Tax Prevention Act, sponsored by Rep. Fred. Upton (R-Mich.), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and thereby put a potentially huge indirect tax on American consumers and businesses.   Coal, oil, and natural gas produce carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, when burned.  Those three fuels provide over 80% of the energy used in America.  Thus regulating carbon dioxide emissions essentially puts the EPA in charge of running the U. S. economy.

Five Republicans who voted for the Waxman-Markey bill in 2009 voted for H. R. 910 yesterday.  They are: Mary Bono Mack of California, Chris Smith, Leonard Lance, and Frank Lobiondo of New Jersey, and Dave Reichert of Washington.

The nineteen Democrats who voted for the Upton bill are: Terri Sewell of Alabama, Mike Ross of Arkansas, Jim Costa of California, John Barrow and Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Jerry Costello of Illinois, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Leonard Boswell of Iowa, Ben Chandler of Kentucky, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Tim Holden, Mark Critz, and Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jim Matheson of Utah, and Nick Joe Rahall of West Virginia.

A Congressional district map of the vote published by the New York Times shows that support for EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions is largely confined to the Northeast and the West Coast.  This is not surprising.  California, New York, and the New England States already have high electric rates, partly because of state energy-rationing policies, and have driven most energy-intensive manufacturing industries out of their States already.

I wasn’t able to watch all the debate Wednesday on the House floor on C-Span—one reason was that the Senate was debating the McConnell amendment at the same time—but what I saw confirmed that nearly all the arguments being raised by Democrats against blocking Clean Air Act greenhouse gas regulations are irrelevant, silly, dishonest, or ill-informed.  Take for example, Rep. Jay Inslee’s typically buffoonish speech: “We should oppose this dirty air act because it would suggest that we are a nation in a deep and dangerous sleep, dozing in the face of disastrous pollution, slumbering while our children are riddled with asthma.” Ah, yes, childhood asthma—the last refuge of the global warming alarmists.  As recent research has shown, one of the reasons that asthma rates are going up in the U. S. seems to be that modern urban and suburban middle class homes don’t expose young children to enough dirt and germs.  Inslee and all the others who peddle the asthma scare, such as the truly scurrilous American Lung Association, might also consider that asthma attacks are much more frequent in cold than in hot weather.

Senate Defeats McConnell Amendment, 50-50

The Senate on Wednesday defeated an attempt by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to add the Energy Tax Prevention Act (introduced in the Senate by Senator James M. Inhofe as S. 482) to another bill, S. 493.  Senator McConnell’s amendment was defeated on a 50-50 vote.  It would have required 60 votes to attach it to S. 493.

Four Democrats joined 46 Republicans in voting for the amendment–Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.  Senator Susan Collins of Maine was the only Republican to vote No.  Collins’s vote is puzzling in that last year she voted for the resolution of disapproval brought under the Congressional Review Act that would have cancelled the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare.  The Endangerment Finding is the basis of using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Like the House debate, the opponents of the Energy Tax Prevention Act in the Senate were a sad lot.  Particularly embarrassing was Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee: she thought it was a telling argument that the Clean Air Act had passed the Senate in 1970 by a vote of 73 to 0 and the House by 375 to 1 and had been signed into law by President Richard Nixon.  (Rep. Glenn Cunningham of Nebraska was the one No vote, by the way.)  Boxer’s point actually favors the opponents of using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.  The fact that the Clean Air Act enjoyed such overwhelming support in 1970 is because it was aimed at reducing air pollution and had nothing to do with global warming policies designed to ration energy.

The strong House vote of 255 to 172 in favor of the Energy Tax Prevention Act should build new momentum to pass it in the Senate later this year.  Of course, the White House has already issued a veto threat, which shows that President Obama is not interested in creating new jobs and restoring prosperity to America.  Congress has now rejected cap-and-tax resoundingly, but the President still hopes to achieve through backdoor regulation his goals of skyrocketing electric rates and gasoline prices at the $10 a gallon European level.

Across the States

Colorado

On Monday, the American Tradition Institute filed a lawsuit against Colorado in federal district court, alleging that the State’s green energy production quota, known as a Renewable Electricity Standard, is an unlawful violation of the Congress’s authority to regulate interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. To read more about the case, click here.

Around the World

Brian McGraw

Compounding Error

Representatives from the European Union and Governor Jerry Brown of California met recently to discuss the possibility of integrating the planned California cap-and-trade system with a similar scheme launched by the European Union in 2005. According to EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, “Each country might want some special ways of doing it, but of course it’s also practical that whatever we do in each different region can be linked, so that in the end we sort of have this vision of having a global price on carbon.” Unfortunately for Hedegaard, the California plan hit a roadblock last month when environmentalists successfully sued to delay it until the California Air Resources Board considers more environmentally-stringent alternatives to a cap-and-trade scheme.

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

Defund the EPA’s Enablers
Steven Milloy, Washington Times, 1 April 2011

Is the Public Clamoring for More EPA Regulation?
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 31 March 2011

EPA’s Benefit-Cost Estimates (30 free lunches for the price of 1?)
Garrett Vaughn, MasterResource.org, 31 March 2011

When Will Media Report That Corporate Cash is Behind Green Activism?
Paul Chesser, National Legal and Policy Center, 31 March 2011

Obama’s “Energy Security” Pivot
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 30 March 2011

Halt Cap-and-Trade End Run
Dan Shaul & Phil Kerpen, Columbia Daily Tribune, 29 March 2011

A Green Energy Economy Revisited
Jerry Taylor & Peter Van Doren, Forbes, 29 March 2011

Gallup: Global Warming Least Concern of Least Concern for Voters
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air, 28 March 2011

“Drill, Brazil, Drill,” Obama Says
Conn Carroll, The Foundry, 28 March 2011

News You Can Use

Marlo Lewis

Good News on Sea Level Rise

Drs. Sherwood, Craig, and Keith Idso,  at the Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, have posted an editorial at CO2science.org on sea-level rise that reviews a new study based on global tide gauge data. The study, Houston and Dean (2011), finds that the rate of sea-level rise over the past 80 years has not accelerated and, in fact, has slightly decelerated.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

House Ready To Pass Upton Bill Next Week

The House has scheduled H. R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, for floor debate and passage on Wednesday, 6th April.  This could still slip given the wrangling that is going on between the House and the Senate over the Continuing  Resolution to fund the federal government for the rest of FY 2011 after the current CR runs out on 8th April.

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton’s (R-Mich.) bill will pass easily with over 250 votes.  That most likely includes all 241 Republicans and 12 to 20 Democrats.

The Rules Committee has not yet met to decide which amendments will be in order.  Conservative Republicans in the Republican Study Committee are considering offering several amendments to strengthen the bill.

H. R. 910 as marked up by the Energy and Commerce Committee prohibits the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but does not prohibit the Administration from using other existing statutes to regulate emissions.  Nor does it ban common law nuisance lawsuits against emitters of greenhouse gases, such as power plants, manufacturers, railroads, airlines, and cement producers.

Thus one obvious amendment would be to ban common law nuisance suits.  The Supreme Court is currently considering such a case.  It may find that such suits may proceed, but even if it does not it could do so for the wrong reason—namely, that the EPA is regulating emissions and has thereby pre-empted common law.

Democrats led by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) will undoubtedly offer some of the same silly, irrelevant grandstanding amendments that they offered in committee.  Waxman was reported this week as expressing confidence that the bill has no chance in the Senate.

That was certainly true of his Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill in the last Congress.  One significant difference is that Waxman-Markey barely passed the House, 219-212.  The Upton-Whitfield bill will pass by a much wider margin.

Moreover, cap-and-trade was swimming against strong public opposition, while blocking EPA’s attempt to achieve cap-and-trade through the regulatory backdoor is swimming with public opinion.  That’s why, for example, Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is still undecided about voting for the McConnell amendment (which is identical to the Senate version of H. R. 910) in the Senate.  She doesn’t want to vote for it, but she’d like to be re-elected in 2012.

Will the Senate Ever Vote on the McConnell Amendment?

The Senate spent another week without voting on Senator Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) amendment to block EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions or either of the two Democratic alternatives.  It is quite possible that there will be votes next week.  It is also quite possible that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will work out a deal with McConnell to dispose of many of the amendments to the underlying bill without votes and proceed to passage of the Small Business Innovation Research Re-Authorization Act.  Or Reid may keep stalling.

McConnell originally introduced his amendment (#183 if you’re keeping track) to S. 493 on 15th March.  It is identical to Senator James M. Inhofe’s (R-Okla.) Energy Tax Prevention Act, S. 482, which is identical to the House bill of the same name, H. R. 910.

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) introduced an amendment to try to provide cover for fellow Democrats and thereby siphon support from McConnell’s amendment.  Rockefeller would delay EPA regulations for two years.

That hasn’t gained much support, so Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced another amendment that would codify EPA regulation of major emitters, but permanently exempt minor emitters, such as small businesses, farms, and ranches.  The American Farm Bureau Federation’s strong opposition has discredited the case for Baucus’s amendment.

The wrangling has gone on for so long that a third Democratic amendment, combining some of the worst aspects of the two other Democratic amendments, was introduced this week by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.).  Her amendment has fallen flat, too.

Should the Senate vote on the McConnell amendment, it looks to have the support of all 47 Republicans and three Democrats—Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.  That makes 50.  Because of the Senate rules on non-germane amendments, passage requires 60 votes.

That’s not going to happen, but I think it’s important that they get at least 51 votes.  That would demonstrate majority support and would give Reid problems in trying to keep it from being introduced as a germane amendment to other bills.  There appears to be only a couple more possible Democratic votes in favor—Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.  Both are up for re-election in 2012.

Obama’s Energy Speech: Deeply Confused

Faced with rising gas prices (which tend to correlate inversely quite closely with presidential approval ratings), President Barack Obama on Wednesday gave a major speech at Georgetown University on energy policy. Obama set one major goal—to lower oil imports by one third by 2025.

As my CEI colleague William Yeatman notes in a post on www.GlobalWarming.org and Doug Powers on Michelle Malkin’s web site here, the President may have a goal, but his plan for getting there makes little sense.  He proposes three steps to reducing oil imports: first, produce more oil domestically.  Obama claims that that has been the policy of his administration, but that is clearly untrue.

If the President really wants to produce more oil, he would have endorsed the three bills introduced on Tuesday by Rep. Doc Hastings, Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.  But in fact, the purpose of those three bills is to undo the Interior Department’s decisions to lock up federal offshore areas from oil exploration and force Interior to raise offshore oil production by three million barrels a day within fifteen years.  Three million barrels a day would just about achieve the President’s goal of cutting our oil imports of 11 million barrels a day (in 2008) by one third.

But President Obama claimed that producing more oil couldn’t be a long-term way to reduce oil imports because we consume 25% of the world’s oil, but have only 2% of the world’s proven reserves.  This is a ridiculous canard.  The reason the United States has only 2% of the world’s proven reserves is because the federal government has prohibited oil exploration in most of our offshore areas around the continental U. S. and around Alaska and in areas of high potential on land, most notably the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

More fundamentally, proven reserves is a misleading statistic, which is why President Obama and environment pressure groups like to use it.  As Jeffrey Hubbard points out on the Institute for Energy Research blog (and thanks to Dan Simmons of IER for calling this to my attention), “In 1980 the U.S. had oil reserves of 29.81 billion barrels. From 1980 through 2009, we produced 75.36 billion barrels of oil. In other words, we produced 250 percent of our proved reserves over the last 30 years.”

The second step is to move to alternatives to oil.  The President seems unaware that the alternative fuels mandated and subsidized by the federal government are all more expensive than oil.

And the third step is to mandate reductions in energy use through methods such as Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards.  Obama promised that he would soon be proposing new higher CAFE standards on top of the new higher CAFE standards enacted by Congress in 2007.  The number that has been floated by the Administration is 62 miles per gallon by 2025.  That would be the average vehicle.

Around the World

Brian McGraw

Australia

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard suffered a major setback last week over her proposal to vote as early as June on legislation that will tax and limit carbon emissions. A significant state election loss in New South Wales last week left Australia’s Labor Party with only about a quarter of the 93 elected state officials and a historically low popularity among voters. On the election, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott commented: “’The message that is coming loud and clear from the struggling families of NSW is that the carbon tax is toxic.” Along with a recent report finding the new climate proposals will cost the average Australian family $863 per year (~$890 U.S.), the chance of passing a carbon tax in Australia is looking less likely.

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

Endangered? CDC: “U.S. Death Rate Falls for 10th Consecutive Year”
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 25 March 2011

This Is Your Nation’s Economic Policy on Democratic Leadership
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 25 March 2011

Newt’s Changing Colors
Faiz Shakir, Progress Report, 25 March 2011

EPA Provides the Cash, American Lung Association Hits Upton and the Energy Tax Prevention Act
Myron Ebell, GlobalWarming.org, 24 March 2011

How the President Killed My Company
Randy Stilley, Washington Post, 24 March 2011

Whose Clean Energy Standards?
Paul Chesser, American Spectator, 24 March 2011

The Real Problem with High Speed Rail
Michael Rosen, The American, 24 March 2011

Obama’s Greens Turn Yellow
Washington Times editorial, 23 March 2011

Van Jones: Fracking Is Polluting Our Water
Myron Ebell, GlobalWarming.org, 22 March 2011

EPA’s Greenhouse Power Grab
Marlo Lewis, Pajamas Media, 21 March 2011

Google To Fight Global Warming “Ignorance”
Russell Cook, American Thinker, 21 March 2011

Recent Weather Extremes: Global Warming Fingerprint Not
Chip Knappenberger, Master Resource, 21 March 2011

Trains, Greens, and Gasoline: What a Wild Week
Mark Steyn, Investor’s Business Daily, 18 March 2011

News You Can Use

North Dakota’s Lesson for America

Not every State is suffering economically.  According to a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Joel Kotkin,  unemployment in North Dakota is 3.8 percent (nation-wide, it’s about 9 percent), due primarily to increasing production of oil and gas. And, as noted by Bonner Cohen in a letter to the Journal, North Dakota’s energy boom was made possible primarily because almost all of North Dakota’s rich deposits of oil and natural gas lie beneath privately-owned land. Otherwise, it would have been locked up by the Obama administration.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

President Obama Endorses More Oil Production—in Brazil

The most astonishing event this week was President Barack Obama’s endorsement of more oil production—in Brazil.  In a speech to a CEO Business Summit in Brasilia, the President said of the recently discovered oil and gas deposits off Brazil’s eastern coast:

“We want to be one of your best customers.  At a time when we’ve been reminded how easily instability in other parts of the world can affect the price of oil, the United States could not be happier with the potential for a new, stable source of energy.”

This is the same President who has spent the last two years doing everything he can to reduce oil production in the United States. I’m all for more oil production in Brazil, but what’s good for Brazil would also be good for the United States.

Click here to read the entire post.

Senate Looks Ready to Vote on EPA Pre-Emption Amendment

The Senate now appears headed for a floor vote next week on S. 482, which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced on 15th March as an amendment to the Small Business Innovation Research and Technology Transfer Programs Re-Authorization Act, S. 493.  S. 482, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, was introduced by Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) and is identical to H. R. 910, which the House plans to vote on as a free-standing bill next month.  McConnell’s amendment would block EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions until authorized by Congress.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) postponed a vote on the amendment last week when it became clear that it might come close to the 60 votes required for passage.  First, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) introduced his bill to delay EPA regulations for two years as an amendment.  When that seemed to gain little support, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced an amendment that would codify EPA regulations into law but permanently exempt from regulation smaller stationary sources that emit less than 75,000 tons per year.

The idea behind the Baucus amendment is that it peels off opposition from small businesses, farmers, and ranchers.  The American Farm Bureau Federation sent a strong letter to the Senate supporting Inhofe’s bill and McConnell’s amendment and opposing Baucus’s amendment.  The Farm Bureau points out that farmers and ranchers will still have to pay more for energy and fertilizer even if they are not directly regulated.

It looks like Reid is now thinking about having votes on all three amendments.  McConnell appears to have more than 50 votes for his amendment, but not the 60 required for passage, since the amendment is not germane to the bill and is thus subject to a point of order.  On the other hand, Reid may succeed in getting nearly all the Democrats to vote for the Baucus amendment.  So it could end up with close to 50 votes as well.

House Vote on EPA Pre-Emption Bill Put Off until Early April

The House of Representatives has tentatively scheduled floor debate on H. R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, for the week of 4th April.  Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton’s (R-Mich.) bill would block EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions until authorized by Congress to do so.  I think that the schedule could easily slip so that the bill doesn’t come to the floor until the week of 11th April, but the House’s Republican majority leadership still seems committed to getting final passage before leaving for the Holy Week and Easter recess, which begins on the 18th.

Environmental pressure groups are running radio and television ads in some districts, most notably in Chairman Upton’s district.  I discuss the American Lung Association’s shameless billboards in a post on GlobalWarming.org here.

Two former EPA Administrators in Republican administrations, William D. Ruckelshaus and Christie Todd Whitman, published an embarrassingly inane and self-serving op-ed in the Washington Post today, headlined “Undoing 40 years of green gains?”  Ruckelshaus and Whitman write, “Today the agency Richard Nixon created … is under siege.”  They have that backwards.  Americans are under siege by EPA.

Across the States

California

A California Superior Court ruling this week is likely to delay the start of the State’s cap-and-trade energy-rationing scheme. The lawsuit, which was brought by environmental groups, alleged that the California Air Resources Board violated the Environmental Quality Act because it failed to consider other, more environmentally stringent climate policies than cap-and-trade. As a result of the ruling, CARB will have to consider other options, which is likely to push back the starting date of California’s energy-rationing scheme, which was supposed to start on January 1 2012.

The lawsuit is further evidence that it is impossible to placate environmental special interests. For them, even energy rationing is insufficient to fight the supposed problem of global warming. This litigation is similar to environmentalist opposition to solar power, due to the fact that it might harm a tortoise, or opposition to hydropower, because it might hurt fish. In fact, there is only one policy that would win over the environmentalist community: deindustrialization.

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

The Truth about Obama and Nuclear Power
Chris Horner, Big Government, 18 March 2011

How Washington Ruined Your Washing Machine
Sam Kazman, Wall Street Journal, 17 March 2011

Advice for Mr. Obama on Energy
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, RealClearMarkets.com, 17 March 2011

Chevy Volt: the Car from Atlas Shrugged Motors
Patrick Michaels, Forbes.com, 17 March 2011

Putting Chernobyl in Perspective
Josh Gilder, RealClearScience.com, 17 March 2011

EPA’s Utility MACT Proposal: Negative Economics for What?
Scott Segal, MasterResource.org, 17 March 2011

Global Warming Alarmism Continues To Backfire
James Taylor, Forbes.com, 16 March 2011

New Light on Hide the Decline
Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 15 March 2011

Two States Bail out of Global Warming Lawsuit
Russell Cook, American Thinker, 15 March 2011

Pawlenty’s Flip-Flop on Energy & Environment
Don Shelby, Minnesota Post, 15 March 2011

Risk-Free Energy? Surely, You Must Be Joking
Alex B. Berezow, RealClearScience.com, 15 March 2011

Waxman, Markey, Inslee Put Greenhouse Agenda Ahead of Constitutional Principle
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 14 March 2011

Engines Beware! Gas with 15% Ethanol Is Coming
Shane McGlaun, Daily Tech, 14 March 2011

Green Injustice
Niger Innis, Washington Examiner, 14 March 2011

News You Can Use

Wind Turbines: A National Security Threat

According to the Industrial Wind Action Group, wind farms degrade performance of 39 percent of radar stations operated by the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

EPA Pre-Emption Bill Heads to House Floor

The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday marked up and passed H. R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, by a 34 to 19 vote.  All 31 Republicans on the committee supported Chairman Fred Upton’s (R-Mich.) bill.  They were joined by three Democrats—Representatives John Barrow (D-Ga.), Jim Matheson (D-Utah), and Mike Ross (D-Ark.).

The mark-up started on Monday afternoon with opening statements from members of the committee and then lasted most of Tuesday.  A number of amendments offered by Democrats were variations on the theme that the Congress accepts that global warming science is settled and that it’s a crisis.  All these amendments were defeated easily, but, as my CEI colleague Marlo Lewis points out, Republican supporters of the bill for the most part didn’t defend the bill very well against the Democrats’ attacks.

What the proponents should argue, but did not in committee mark-up, is that H. R. 910 is not about the science or what we should do about potential global warming.  The bill simply says that the EPA cannot use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions until the Congress authorizes it to do so.  Chairman Upton’s bill is designed to re-assert congressional authority to make laws (which the Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to do) and rein in an out-of-control executive branch.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said that passing the Upton bill is a priority.  It is now expected that the bill could be debated on the House floor as soon as the week of 27th March.  On 26th June 2009, the House Democratic leadership railroaded the mammoth Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill through the House in a single day of debate with only one Republican amendment allowed to be offered.  The Republican leadership under Boehner is doing things differently, so there will probably be several days of debate with numerous amendments considered.  The bill should pass easily, with almost unanimous Republican and significant Democratic support.

Senator McConnell’s Surprise

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) surprised everyone on Tuesday by going to the Senate floor and offering the EPA pre-emption bill sponsored by Senator James M. Inhofe, S. 482, as an amendment to S. 493, the Small Business Innovation Research and Technology Transfer Programs Re-Authorization Act.  Inhofe’s bill is identical to H. R. 910, which the House Energy and Commerce Committee marked up this week.  The Energy Tax Prevention Act (S. 482/H. R. 910) would block EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions until authorized to do so by Congress.

House Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) initially indicated that there would be a vote on McConnell’s amendment later on Tuesday.  And Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) initially indicated that he would not offer his bill to delay EPA regulations for two years as a counter-amendment.  Rockefeller’s bill is intended to provide cover for Democrats, so is trotted out whenever it looks like the Senate might pass a permanent pre-emption.

But as votes were counted behind the scenes, the Democratic leadership realized that McConnell’s amendment might pass.  Rockefeller then introduced his amendment, and votes were delayed until Wednesday.  On Wednesday, it became clear that Rockefeller’s ploy was not gaining much support, so Reid then had Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduce an amendment that would codify EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions by major sources, but exempt sources emitting less than 75,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide or its equivalent.  That would cut out small businesses, farms, and ranches from direct regulation, although they would still have to pay the higher energy prices resulting from EPA’s regulations.

Votes on all three amendments were then postponed until Thursday, and on Thursday they were postponed again until the week of 27th March when the Senate returns from a week-long recess.  At this point, everything is to be decided.  The Senate may vote on McConnell’s amendment when it returns, or Reid may postpone it again, or Reid and McConnell may work out a larger deal on how to proceed on all the amendments that have been offered to the underlying bill.

EPA Marches on

While the Congress is moving to block EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, EPA’s campaign against affordable electricity marches on by a different route.  On Wednesday, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson released a proposed rule for reducing mercury, lead, arsenic, chromium, and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants.

Once finally implemented, electric utilities will have four years to comply.  Total mercury emissions from power plants should decline by 91%.  Estimates of compliance costs vary widely.  The EPA’s own estimate is at the low end of predictions at $10 billion per year, but EPA claims that the health and economic benefits will be $140 billion a year.  The latter figure is ludicrous.

The effect of the rule will be to force utilities to put expensive control equipment on many coal-fired power plants and to close many other coal plants and invest in new gas turbines to replace them.  This will raise electric rates for consumers, who will thus have less money to spend on other things, including health care.  It will also raise rates for manufacturers and thereby reduce industrial production and put people out of jobs.  The negative economic and health effects of these consequences are not estimated or considered by EPA.

Across the States

New York

In an interview this week with the Albany Times Union, New York’s state geologist, Dr. Taury Smith, a self-described liberal Democrat, called the state’s natural gas deposits “a huge gift.” Over the last decade, the natural gas industry has been revolutionized by the rapid development of a drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing. In that time, economically recoverable reserves in the U.S. roughly doubled. New York could be among the biggest beneficiaries, as it sits upon huge deposits of gas that are now recoverable. Environmentalists, however, oppose hydraulic fracturing because they oppose all fossil fuels, and they have waged a misinformation campaign against the practice. They allege, without evidence, that it threatens to contaminate water supplies. On the basis of these unsubstantiated claims, environmentalists frightened New York lawmakers into enacting a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. Dr. Smith dismisses the environmentalists’ allegations as being “exaggerated,” and “the worst spin.”

Around the World

Canada

The State Department this week ordered a supplemental environmental impact analysis of the 1,600 mile Keystone Pipeline, which, if built, would transport more than 500,000 barrels a day of Canadian tar sands oil to Gulf-region refineries. The supplemental review is not required by law and would delay the proposed project. The State Department ordered the additional study to placate environmentalists, who have opposed the project vehemently, due in large part to the fact that Canadian tar sand oil has a higher carbon footprint than conventional oil. At the behest of these special interests, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson has publicly questioned the project. This has put the EPA at odds with the State Department, which supports the pipeline.

According to the American Petroleum Institute, construction and operation of the Keystone Pipeline would create 360,000 jobs. In January, a study commissioned by the Department of Energy found that the pipeline would “essentially eliminate” imports of oil from the Middle East within two decades.

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

Science’s Role Is To Inform, Not Dictate Policy
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 11 March 2011

The Drumming of an Army
Clive James, Standpoint, March 2011

Australia’s Carbon Warning for Obama
Tom Switzer, Wall Street Journal, 11 March 2011

55 Positive Externalities: Hail to Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment!
Chip Knappenberger, MasterResource.org, 10 March 2011

Does Obama Want Higher Gas Prices?
Vincent Carroll, Denver Post, 9 March 2011

A Modest Proposal To Fix Global Warming
Jeb Babbin, American Spectator, 8 March 2011

Wind Energy’s Overblown Prospects
Larry Bell, Forbes, 8 March 2011

The Silent Killer of the American Economy
Marita Noon, Energy Tribune, 8 March 2011

The Wages of Green Spin
Chris Horner, Daily Caller, 7 March 2011

The High Cost of Renewables
Paul Chesser, Santa Fe New Mexican, 7 March 2011

News You Can Use
Oil in the Obama Era: 67% More Expensive

According to a recent analysis by the Heritage Foundation, oil prices have increased 67 percent since President Barack Obama took office.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

H.R. 910 Clears the First Hurdle, More Action Next Week

The House of Representatives took the first step on Thursday toward reclaiming its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.  The Energy and Power (yes, that really is its name) Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee marked up and passed H. R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which is sponsored by Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.).  H. R. 910 would pre-empt EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act unless and until explicitly authorized to do so by Congress.

Actually, there was no marking up.  The Democrats opposed to the bill offered no amendments, and the bill was passed on a voice vote.  The full Committee has scheduled a mark-up of the bill next Monday and Tuesday. That means H. R. 910 could come to the House floor by early April.  There is no doubt that it will pass the House by a wide margin.  The only question is how many Democrats will end up voting for it.  My guess is that quite a few Democrats are worried about getting re-elected and will therefore vote for it.

The subcommittee meeting was one long whine by minority Democrats.  Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), the ranking Democrat on the full committee and chief sponsor of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill that failed in the last Congress, said that H. R. 910 would codify science denial.  Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) chimed in that he was worried the Republicans would try to repeal the law of gravity.  Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) instead thought that Republicans were trying to repeal the first law of thermodynamics and cause children all over the world to get asthma.

Preventing asthma is now the principal reason brought forward by the global warming alarmists in Congress to cripple the U. S. economy with energy-rationing regulations.  Here is what I learned from a ninety-second internet search: “The majority of people with asthma notice that cold, dry air causes more symptoms than mild-temperature or hot, humid air.” Of course, some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists have recently found that global warming is causing a lot of cold weather.

Inslee always plays the obnoxious buffoon, but he was outdone at the subcommittee meeting by Rep. Michael Doyle (D-Penna.).  Doyle claimed that EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions would not send any jobs overseas because existing manufacturing plants would not have to apply for permits under the rules already proposed.  Only new or expanded plants have to apply for permits.  Thus only new jobs are being destroyed by EPA regulations, and no one in an existing job has anything to worry about.  I know this sounds unbelievably stupid, but this is an accurate summary of the point Doyle was making.  As the committee counsel tried to explain to Doyle, even that point is true only until EPA finishes implementing emissions rules for existing facilities.

Senate Committee Takes up Light Bulb Ban

Firuze Demir

The Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee on Thursday held a hearing on S. 398, a bill to set higher energy efficiency standards for a wide variety of products, and on S. 395, the Better Use of Light Bulbs (or BULB) Act, a bill introduced by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) to repeal the ban on standard incandescent light bulbs.  Sen. Rand Paul made an impassioned contribution to the debate, arguing that restricting consumer choice, so that bureaucrats choose which toilets and light bulbs people can buy, is simply insulting.  Howard Brandston, a leading lighting designer, testified in favor of the BULB Act.  Brandston told Freedom Action, which has launched a grassroots petition drive to repeal the ban: “In my travels through 60 countries working on almost 3000 lighting projects, most knowledgeable people I know do not like Compact Fluorescent Lamps and are stockpiling a lifetime supply of incandescent lamps to protect the habitability of their homes.”

Across the States

Minnesota

In 2007, then-Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (R) championed and ultimately signed the Next Generation Act, which effectively imposed a moratorium on coal-fired power plants in the State. Evidently, the legislature is having second thoughts about a future without coal, because this week both the House and the Senate moved legislation that would overturn the coal ban. By a 15 to 6 vote, the House Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Policy and Finance committee passed H.F. 72, “A bill for an act relating to energy; removing ban on increased carbon dioxide emissions by utilities.” The Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities, and Telecommunications passed a companion bill, by a 9 to 3 vote.

West Virginia

On Tuesday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a section 404 Clean Water Act permit to a Massey Coal subsidiary for the Reylas Surface Mine in Logan County, West Virginia. The permit was originally issued in 2007, but it became ensnared in the Obama Administration’s war on Appalachian coal (click here or here for more information on that subject). In 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency recommended against granting the permit, so there is a good chance that the EPA will veto this permit. In January, the EPA exercised this authority for the first time in the history of the Clean Water Act in order to veto the Spruce No. 1 mine, which is also in Logan County. Notably, the EPA objects to these mines because they allegedly harm an insect that isn’t an endangered species. But before the EPA could act, environmentalist lawyers won an injunction in a West Virginia federal court.

Across the World

Brian McGraw

Greenland

Warming seas in Greenland have opened a vast portion of previously inaccessible areas for oil and natural gas exploration. Previously frozen land will also be mined for lead, zinc, and gold. Greenland’s oil minister, Ove Karl Berthelsen, heralded this as a ticket out of poverty for many and an opportunity for their economy to become less reliant on Denmark.

Germany

In Germany, biofuel skepticism is causing problems at the pump. Fuel stresses have been reported as Germans have been refusing to buy 10% ethanol blends instead opting for standard fuel (which contains up to 5% ethanol). It is reported that over 4 million vehicles in Germany aren’t designed to run on E10. Now refiners are struggling to produce a fuel consumers don’t want while they risk facing heavy fines for failing to meet strict mandates.

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