Cooler Heads Digest

In the News

The Coming Anti-Carbon Clampdown
Chris Horner, Energy Tribune, 23 April 2010

Alcoa Loves Green, But Not the Environment
Tim Carney, Washington Examiner, 23 April 2010

A Reality Check on the Neo-Malthusian World
Indur Goklany, MasterResource.org, 23 April 2010

Climate Scientist Sues Paper for Libel on Climategate Coverage
Dave Adam, Guardian, 22 April 2010

Cap-and-Trade = VAT
Chris Horner, Daily Caller, 22 April 2010

Climate Science in Denial
Richard S. Lindzen, Wall Street Journal, 22 April 2010

Two Energy Giants, a Difference in Approach
Institute for Energy Research, 22 April 2010

Why I Am Enlarging My Carbon Footprint
Robin of Berkley, American Thinker, 22 April 2010

A Happy Earth Day
G. Tracey Mehan, American Spectator, 22 April 2010

The Solar Power Scandal in Spain
Chris Horner, Planet Gore, 21 April 2010

Buying Carbon Offsets May Ease Eco-Guilt, But Not Global Warming
Doug Struck, Christian Science Monitor, 20 April 2010

Fannie Mae Owns Patent on Residential “Cap-and-Trade”
Barbara Hollingsworth, Washington Examiner, 20 April 2010

Failure Would Have Many Benefits
Marlo Lewis, National Journal, 19 April 2010

News You Can Use

Tea Partiers Oppose Cap-and-Trade

More than 365,000 respondents voted online to determine the top three planks of the tea-party movement’s political platform. The second most popular of the 21 issues that were up for a vote: “Reject cap and trade: Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures.”

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Kerry-Graham-Lieberman: Payoffs for Everyone, Taxes for You-Know-Who

It appears that Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) are finally going to release a draft outline of their compromise, middle-of-the-road, some-payoff-for-everyone energy-rationing bill on Monday.  Both Kate Sheppard on the Mother Jones web site and Juliet Eilperin on the Washington Post web site report that Senator Kerry shared details of the bill in a Thursday conference call held by the We Can Lead coalition of business leaders who hope to make a buck from energy rationing.

Sheppard and Eilperin both report that the draft bill will pre-empt the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act and also pre-empt States from setting lower emissions targets.  Instead of a gas tax or a “linked fee,” the draft will require oil companies to buy ration coupons to cover the emissions of their products.  Call it whatever you want, it’s still a tax.

It appears that the cap-and-trade scheme for electric utilities is still in the draft, but according to both blogs, it now includes a price collar setting a floor and a ceiling on the cost of ration coupons.  In addition, Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman have adopted the cap-and-dividend idea from the energy-rationing bill introduced by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Me.), S. 2877.  Thus some of the additional costs of electricity will be rebated to consumers.  I’m not sure how this squares with a story by Darren Samuelsohn in Environment and Energy Daily  (and reprinted on the New York Times’s web site here) earlier in the week that the draft would give more free ration coupons to the electric utilities.  Perhaps the free coupons will be distributed in the early years of the scheme and consumers will get their rebates in the later years.

Kerry claimed on the conference call that three major oil companies would support the bill in addition to the Edison Electric Institute.  The three most likely are Shell, BP, and Conoco Phillips.  He also said that they were still working on provisions to allow more offshore oil production.

Among the goodies will be an exemption for agriculture from emissions limits, loan guarantees for twelve new nuclear plants, $10 billion for research and development of carbon capture and storage for coal-fired power plants, “financial incentives” for natural gas and electric vehicles, and a four-year exemption for manufacturing industries.  The bill will also include the anti-energy provisions marked up by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last year.  These include a renewable electricity requirement and new building energy efficiency standards.

As I mentioned last week, the three Senators do not plan to introduce a bill with actual legislative language, but instead will turn their draft over to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).  Reid will try to put together a package that he can bring to the floor and get sixty votes.

Voinovich Enters the Pre-Emption Fight

Senator George Voinovich (R-Ohio) this week circulated a proposal to remove all authority from the executive branch and the States to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under any existing legal authority.  This would include the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Clean Water Act, as well as the Clean Air Act.  As Robin Bravender reported in Climate Wire (which was reprinted by the New York Times here), the proposal would also end all public nuisance lawsuits.

Voinovich could offer it as an amendment to the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman energy-rationing bill or to some other bill on the Senate floor.  If enacted, it would mean that it would be up to Congress (the people’s representatives) to decide whether and how to deal with global warming.

At the same time, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) continues to try to figure out how to get 51 votes for her resolution of disapproval of the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.  One major obstacle remains Senator John Rockefeller’s (D-WV) bill to delay EPA regulations for two years, which is meant to give some of his fellow Democrats an alternative to voting for Murkowski.  One solution might be to offer Rockefeller’s bill, S. 3072, as an amendment to some bill on the Senate floor.  If it fails, then these Senators will not have an excuse for voting against Murkowski’s resolution.  If it passes, then Senators who voted for it will have to explain why they are going to flip and vote no on Murkowski’s resolution.

Across the States

Wisconsin

Major climate legislation was shelved in Wisconsin on Earth Day after both the Assembly and the Senate refused to vote on the measure before the legislative calendar ended. The bill would have mandated that 25% of the state’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2025, and it failed because Wisconsin lawmakers feared the political fallout of adding expensive renewable energy to the state’s electricity portfolio-thereby increasing utility bills.

California

In late 2008, the California Air Resources Board was excoriated by a peer-review panel of economists for publishing a politicized economic analysis that exaggerated the benefits and minimized the costs of AB 32, California’s global warming law. As a result, CARB commissioned a new analysis by a supposedly non-partisan team of economists led by Stanford Professor Larry Goulder. The report was released a month ago, and it largely echoed CARB’s original conclusion that AB 32 will create jobs and is good for the economy. CARB claims that the new report vindicates its old report, but new evidence suggests otherwise. ClimateWire this week reported that Larry Goulder is on the board of directors of a non-profit that is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a political campaign to defeat a ballot initiative that would suspend AB 32. This is a clear conflict of interest, and it demonstrates (again) that CARB manipulates the evidence to support its political agenda.

Around the World

Bonn

The first United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations since the Copenhagen Climate Conference took place in Bonn, Germany, from April 9^th to April 11^th. Negotiators spent most of the meeting coming to an agreement on how many more meetings to convene before the 16^th Conference of the Parties this September in Cancun, Mexico. After many hours of haggling, they agreed to hold two.

Washington, D.C.

In Washington, D.C. this week, representatives from 17 industrialized countries participated in the Major Economies Meeting, U.S.-led negotiations for a climate treaty that. The meeting served primarily to dampen expectations in Cancun this September for a legally binding successor treaty to the failed Kytoto Protocol. U.S. Climate Envoy Todd Stern told reporters, “We don’t want to let expectations far outstrip what can be done” in Cancun.

Cochabamba

The stalled negotiations in Bonn and Washington, D.C. angered the 15,000 participants to the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which is occurring this week in Cochabamba, Bolivia. According to Reuters, Bolivian President Evo Morales kicked off the Conference by noting that, “We are gathered here because the so-called developed countries didn’t meet their obligation of establishing substantial commitments to cutting greenhouse gas emissions in Copenhagen.” Later, an official from the UN was jeered off the stage.

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

Krugman Wrong on Climate Economics
Jim Manzi, National Review Online, 16 April 2010

Krugman Wrong on Climate Science
Robert Murphy, MasterResource.org, 16 April 2010

Climate Change: Always Room for Doubt
Telegraph editorial, 15 April 2010

AB 32 Is a Losing Bet
Margo Thorning, San Jose Mercury News, 14 April 2010

What It Takes To Be a Coal Miner
Iain Murray, In Character, 13 April 2010

Lyin’ for Climate Indoctrination
Paul Chesser, American Spectator, 13 April 2010

EPA Is Choking Freedom
Mark Landsbaum, Orange County Register, 9 April 2010

News You Can Use
Peer Review?

A new report from NoConsensus.org calculates that 21 of 44 chapters in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Nobel-Prize winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cite peer-reviewed sources less than 60% of the time

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Cap-and-Tax Update

It was first reported this week that Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Lieberman (I- Conn.) planned to release a draft of their energy-rationing bill next Tuesday. But today Environment and Energy Daily reports (subscription required) that they will now release it on 26th April.  Why?  Here’s what Darren Samuelsohn reports: “The trio originally hoped to unveil their proposal during the week surrounding the 40th anniversary of Earth Day next Thursday. But Kerry said that was not the message he wanted to get across. ‘This is not Earth Day-related,’ he said. ‘This is a jobs bill. This is an energy independence, national security bill. It’s not wrapped to one week or another.’

I’m not creative enough to make stuff like this up.  What’s more, the Terrific Trio are not going to introduce their draft as a bill and have it referred to a committee.  Instead, they’re going to hand it over to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to see if he can come up with the sixty votes needed to pass some version of it on the Senate floor.

Obama on Graham’s Gas Tax

The Hill reported that the White House claims that the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill does not contain an increase in the gas tax and that it is not being discussed.  That doesn’t quite close the door, however, since Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman are calling the gas tax in their bill a “linked fee.”  Apparently, neither the White House nor the three Senators consider it a gas tax.  But it seems highly unlikely that they can’t get away with it even if they call it a linked fee.  Gas prices have gone up by more than a dollar a gallon since Barack Obama was sworn in as President. His administration is pulling the plug on plans put together by the Bush Administration in 2008 to increase oil and gas production in federal offshore waters and on federal lands.  If gas prices continue to climb, this could be a potent campaign issue in the fall.

Obama Meets with Enviros

President Obama is continuing to push for a comprehensive energy-rationing bill. This week, the White House held a meeting with heads of a number environmental pressure groups in order to urge them to get behind Kerry-Graham-Lieberman.  Some of the environmental pressure groups that aren’t fronts for big business are not going to go along no matter how much Obama pleads.  That’s because they see that Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Graham-Lieberman have very little to do with reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  They are mostly about transferring vast amounts of wealth from consumers to politically-favored big businesses.

Senate Democrats Push a Trade War

Eight Democratic Senators from States that still have some manufacturing wrote a letter to Sens. Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman, stating that a condition of their supporting energy-rationing legislation such as Kerry-Graham-Lieberman is that it include carbon tariffs or something equivalent to protect domestic manufacturers from foreign competitors that can use less expensive energy from fossil fuels to produce their goods.

Climategate Update

Myron Ebell

The University of East Anglia “international panel” released its report on the ClimateGate scientific fraud scandal today.  At eight pages, it’s not even a thorough whitewash.  They don’t even make a minimal effort to rebut the obvious appearance of widespread data manipulation, suppression of dissenting research through improper means, and intentional avoidance of complying with Freedom of Information requests.  However, the report makes one concession, which is quite damning: “We cannot help remarking that it is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians.”  In fact, the handling of the historical temperature data and production of the Hadley/CRU temperature record by Jones et al. and the handling of the paleoclimatological data and fabrication of the hockey stick by Michael Mann et al. was only possible because they hid their data and methods from professional statisticians.  When professional statisticians were able to look at Mann’s methods and data, the result was the Wegman report, which was devastating.

Across the States

Connecticut

The Connecticut General Assembly’s Energy and Technology Committee has passed R.B. 463, which would lower the State’s renewable portfolio standard (a requirement for minimum electricity generation from renewable energy) from 20% by 2020 to 11.5% by 2020. Proponents of the bill argue that renewable energy is too expensive.

California

Los Angeles is teetering on bankruptcy because no one wants to pay for expensive renewable energy, according to the Wall Street Journal. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposed electricity rate hikes of 9% to 28% to finance LA’s renewable energy agenda, but the City Council refused. As a result, the Department of Water and Power, which needs the rate hikes to buy expensive renewable energy, withheld $74 million of the $221 million surplus revenue it was expected to transfer to the city. But without the $74 million, city controller Wendy Greuel warns that LA won’t be able to pay its bills within a month.

Washington

Washington Governor Christine Gregoire (D) boasts of having created more than 99,000 “green jobs,” but a new study from the Washington Policy Center puts the lie to the Governor’s claim. In fact, there was little or no difference in the work done by green employees and the non-green employees for 71,000 of the reported green jobs. So taxpayers are paying around $2,400 per trainee to acquire green job skills no different than skills needed for existing non-green jobs.

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 Looming “Energy Bill” Fight
Chris Horner, Planet Gore, 9 April 2010

The EPA’s Giant Power Grab
Iain Murray, Washington Times, 8 April 2010

God Bless the People of Coal Country
Iain Murray, Investor’s Business Daily, 8 April 2010

EPA’s Adventure in Arithmetic
Donald Hertzmark, MasterResource.org, 8 April 2010

What’s the Next Global Warming?
Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, 6 April 2010

Ethanol Subsidies Drive up Fuel and Food Prices
Washington Times editorial, 5 April 2010

A Super Storm for Global Warming Research
Marco Evers, Olaf Stampf, & Gerald Traufetter, Der Spiegel, 5 April 2010

Cold Weather as Deadly for Birds as It Is for Humans
Robin Mckie, Observer, 4 April 2010

The Deadly Price of the Auto Mileage Mandate
William Yeatman & Sam Kazman, AOL News, 3 April 2010

News You Can Use

USA Today Poll: Environment Ranks Last among Concerns

A new USA Today/Gallup poll ranks the environment at the bottom of seven topics pollsters asked voters about to gauge their priorities. The economy ranked first.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Major Economies Meeting

The Obama Administration will host a meeting of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) in Washington on April 18 and 19 to continue their ongoing climate discussions.  The seventeen nations that belong to the MEF account for over 80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.  The group hasn’t met since COP-15 in Copenhagen in December.

The MEF was originally called the Major Emitters Meeting when it was created by President George W. Bush.  I suppose the Obama Administration renamed it so as to demonstrate that they were pursuing a new course.  But in fact the two are remarkably alike.  This is not the only instance where the Obama Administration seems to be following the path on international climate negotiations laid out by the Bush Administration.  Most notably, the Copenhagen Accord that President Obama personally brokered in December is modeled on what the Bush Administration took to COP-13 in Bali in 2007.  That plan was attacked as too little too late by the delegates in Bali, which caused Bush’s negotiators to give a lot of ground and agree to the Bali Action Plan.  That plan was supposed to culminate at COP-15 with a new international treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol that contained binding targets and timetables.  Instead, Obama retreated to the U. S.’s pre-Bali position.  The establishment media have largely reported that the Copenhagen Accord is at least one small step forward and have praised President Obama for achieving this breakthrough.  That’s not how they reported it two years ago.

EPA Moves To Shut Down Coal Mining in Appalachia

The Obama Administration has not yet stopped all proposed new coal-fired power plants from being permitted, but they have taken a giant step toward stopping all new coal mines in Appalachia. The Environmental Protection Agency last week set new water quality standards for streams in central Appalachia.

The new “guidance” document takes effect immediately and sets limits on the conductivity of water.  How well water carries an electrical charge depends on levels of salt, sulfides, and several other substances. New mining projects will be prohibited if they will cause the levels of these substances in streams to exceed five times the “normal” level.  Some watersheds are already more than five times above what are alleged to be normal levels.

According to a story in Greenwire, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said that there are “no or very few valley fills that are going to meet this standard.”  This means that no or very few surface mining projects in Appalachia will be permitted by EPA.  That would be a huge economic blow to West Virginia, Kentucky, and parts of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, and Tennessee.  But that isn’t all.  Jackson added that the EPA could apply the new standards to block permits for new underground mines as well.  And it seems to me that there would be no reason to stop there.  Any new development that involves significant earth moving could release enough minerals into the water to exceed the standard.

The EPA today announced a comment period on the new standards.  Comments will be accepted until December 10, but the rule goes into effect immediately and will be used to stop all mining projects currently in the permitting process and could be used to cancel Clean Water Act permits that EPA has already issued. The EPA took the unprecedented step last week of ordering the Army Corps of Engineers to cancel a permit for a mine in West Virginia that is already in operation.

CBO Report on Climate Change Spending

The Congressional Budget Office released a study this week of federal funding of climate programs.  From 1998 to 2009, the federal government spent $99 billion.  The stimulus bill-the American Recovery and Re-investment Act of 2009-accounted for $35.7 billion of that.  It seems to me that one of the principal purposes of spending all these billions is to create a scientific-bureaucratic complex to promote the alarmist agenda and thereby secure more funding for itself.

Around the World

U.S. to South Africa: Stay Poor

The United States joined the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Italy in abstaining from a World Bank vote to grant South Africa a $3.5 billion loan to build a 4,500 megawatt coal fired power plant north of Johannesburg. For years, the South African economy has been crippled by blackouts due to a lack of investment in electricity generation, and coal is the cheapest power available, but these countries (the U.S. et. al) objected to the deal’s carbon footprint. Despite the abstentions, the Bank approved the loan, although the victory might prove Pyrrhic for developing nations. In a statement, the U.S. Treasury Department said that, “We expect that the World Bank will not bring forward similar coal projects.” This statement, coming from the Bank’s largest shareholder, suggests the end of cheap financing for cheap electricity in poor countries.

France Pursues Carbon Tariff

French Foreign Minister Jean-Louise Borloo this week told the French Parliament that he would achieve an international regime for carbon tariffs by dealing directly with U.S. President Barack Obama, thereby circumventing the European Commission, which has expressed opposition to the idea. It remains to be seen if Obama will oblige. The American Clean Energy and Security Act, the climate bill passed by the House of Representatives last June, gives the President the authority to impose taxes on the carbon content of imports.

Across the States

Florida

According to the Miami Herald, the Florida House Of Representatives Energy and Utilities Policy Committee will hold a hearing on a proposed bill that would remove a 2008 legislative finding that greenhouse gas emissions promote global warming and another provision to push utility companies to use renewable energy.

Missouri

The Missouri House of Representatives gave final approval Thursday to a HJR 88, a proposed constitutional amendment that would assert the state’s sovereignty over all powers not enumerated and delegated to the federal government. HJR 88 would nullify the Congress’s power to impose a cap-and-trade.

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

Coming Soon: The Auto-Purchase Mandate?
Iain Murray, The Corner, 1 April 2010

EPA Announces Economic Assault
William Yeatman, FoxNews.com, 1 April 2010

Computer Cloud Illusions
Paul Chesser, GlobalWarming.org, 31 March 2010

Exploring for New Supplies of Votes
Ben Lieberman, National Review, 31 March 2010

Will Senators Webb, Warner Stop the Green Police?
William Yeatman, Daily News Record, 31 March 2010

U.S. EPA Goes Unconstitutional
Marlo Lewis, MasterResource.org, 30 March 2010

Change Is Not New
Thomas Sowell, RealClearPolitics.com, 30 March 2010

Arnold’s Global Warming Ardor Is Cooling
Orange County Register editorial, 29 March 2010

News You Can Use

Poll: German Concern about Global Warming Plummets

According to a new poll, just 42 percent of Germans are worried about global warming, down substantially from 62 percent in 2006. The decline is attributed to the Climategate scandal.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Ten Steps Back, One Step Forward

President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced plans to allow a bit of offshore oil and gas exploration.  Maybe.  The Interior Department’s new five-year plan for offshore leasing actually places most of America’s offshore areas under a new presidential moratorium, delays or cancels lease auctions currently in the regulatory pipeline, and thus takes back the progress made in 2008.  When gas prices reached four dollars a gallon in the summer of 2008, the American people were dismayed to discover that the United States possesses potentially vast offshore reserves of oil and natural gas that were off limits as a result of congressional and presidential moratoria.  President Bush revoked his father’s executive order, and tremendous public pressure forced Congress to drop its long-standing moratorium.

President Obama took it all back and now offers the possibility of a little bit of offshore exploration and calls it a compromise.  His purpose is clearly to draw moderate support in the Congress for global warming legislation that will raise energy prices for consumers and industry.  The Republican staff of the House Natural Resources Committee have provided a useful analysis that includes some very revealing maps.  My comments are here.

EPA Issues Fuel Efficiency Regulation

The Obama Administration announced on Thursday the final rules for new fuel economy standards.  By 2016, passenger cars and light trucks (SUVs and pickups) will have to achieve an average of 35.5 miles per gallon.  At 36 mpg, the two-seater Smart Car is one of the few current models that already surpasses the average required.  These new rules are an amalgam of what Congress mandated in the 2007 anti-energy act and new EPA regulations under the Clean Air Act derived from the Endangerment Finding.  As my CEI colleague Marlo Lewis points out in a comprehensive analysis, the new fuel economy rules will trigger a regulatory cascade under the Clean Air Act.  CEI sent out a press release criticizing the new rules from several angles.  Lawsuits are sure to follow.

New Study: EPA Regulations Hurt Poor the Most

The Affordable Power Alliance held a press conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to release a report on the potential economic impacts of the EPA’s Endangerment Finding on low income groups and minorities.  The report shows that higher energy prices will disproportionately harm poorer people.  That’s because they already pay a higher percentage of their incomes on energy than better-off people.  Blacks and Hispanics will also suffer major job losses as the result of higher energy prices. As a result of paying more for energy and job losses, the report predicts that poverty rates for African Americans and Hispanics will increase by 20% and 22% respectively.

Climategate Update

Iain Murray, from OpenMarket.org

The UK’s House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has issued its report into the so-called Climategate scandal.  As might be expected, it’s pretty much a whitewash.  Only one MP dissented from its conclusions.  There seem to me to be some serious errors and omissions in the reports, but I’m not the only one:

• Stephen McIntyre, who debunked the Hockey Stick temperature reconstruction by Climategate-implicated Michael Mann, disputed the Committee’s judgment with respect to the infamous “trick” to “hide the decline.”
• Fred Pearce of New Scientist and the Guardian said that the Committee “avoided examining more complex charges.”
• Bishop Hill asks, “Does the committee really think it’s fine to hide important information from policymakers so long as you report it in the literature?”
• Professor Frank Furedi nicely sums the real lesson from Climategate, “The CRU’s real failing was to dent the authority of the climate-change morality tale, with its idea that, with the end of the world fast approaching, there is an urgent need to monitor people’s behavior and lower their horizons.
• The Cooler Heads Coalition has posted a remarkable criticism by Professor Ross McKitrick on globalwarming.org.

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

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Overrated
Myron Ebell, Standpoint, April 2010

Another Classic Colorado Ballot Initiative
Paul Chesser, Globalwarming.org, 26 March 2010

Cap-and-Trade Loses Standing
John Broder, New York Times, 26 March 2010

Green Meanies
Christopher Orlet, American Spectator, 25 March 2010

James Hansen Finds FOIA Request Too Burdensome
Chris Horner, Men’s News Daily, 2010

Scandal, Nature, Economy Undercut Agenda
Marlo Lewis, National Journal, 24 March 2010

We’re Saving Whales, Why Not Jobs?
State Senator Dave Cogdill, Orange County Register, 24 March 2010

There Is No Global Warming Consensus
Senator James Inhofe, U.S. News and World Report, 23 March 2010

WWF Hopes To Find $60 Billion Growing on Trees
Christopher Booker, Telegraph, 20 March 2010

News You Can Use

California Poll: Global Warming Least Important Issue

A Field Poll was released this week that asked California voters to rate the importance of twelve issues. The economy was first. Global warming was last.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

What’s Next?

With healthcare reform triumphantly enacted, several environmental pressure groups have started the “We Got Next” campaign.  That is, the next item on the agenda to turn America into a Peronist regime should be energy-rationing legislation.  Unfortunately for them, I think many Members of Congress are still having nightmares about the public’s reaction against House passage of the Waxman-Markey bill last 26th June by a 219 to 212 vote.  I mention the vote totals because the Senate healthcare bill passed the House on Sunday by the same 219 to 212 margin.  It should be recalled that the Senate planned to take up Waxman-Markey in July, but instead turned to healthcare legislation after seeing how unpopular cap-and-trade was with voters. 

My guess is that the Senate just isn’t going to get around to global warming until after it considers several other major issues, including new financial regulations, the anemic economy, the continuing mortgage foreclosure crisis, immigration reform, and what to do about the heartbreak of psoriasis.  In other words, not this year.

On the other hand, the three Mouseketeers-Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.)-continue to talk a good game.  The latest news is that they hope to have their middle-of-the-road omnibus energy-rationing bill ready to go by Lenin’s birthday (also celebrated as Earth Day), 22nd April.  They may actually have a bill put together by then.  But the chance of getting it to the Senate floor before the November election is slim.  Graham has already acknowledged that any action likely won’t occur until next year.

Murkowski Resolution

The Senate spent most of the week on the House-passed reconciliation bill, which perfects the healthcare reform bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday.  Congress will be in recess for the next two weeks.  This means that Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has approximately six weeks in which to offer her resolution of disapproval of the EPA’s endangerment finding, S. J. Res. 16, after Congress returns on 12th April.  The Congressional Review Act specifies that such resolutions must be offered within sixty legislative days after the regulation is officially transmitted to Congress.          

Across the States

West Virginia

The Environmental Protection Agency today announced its intention to veto a Clean Water Act permit granted three years ago by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to Arch Coal’s Spruce Mine 1 in West Virginia. It is the first time that the EPA has proposed to veto a permit that had already been issued. The EPA is acting in order to protect an insect species that is not listed as an endangered species. The proposal will be published in the Federal Register, initiating a 60-day public comment period, and the EPA pledged to hold a field hearing in West Virginia.

California

The California Air Resources Board released a study on Wednesday claiming that AB 32, the state’s global warming mitigation law, would increase economic growth and create 10,000 jobs by 2020. Evidently, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) wasn’t convinced. On Thursday, he sent a letter to CARB questioning whether its AB 32 implementation plan is “too abrupt” and thus “posing high short-term costs to capped companies.” This wouldn’t be the first time that CARB released a misleading report-a similarly rosy economic analysis on AB 32 was eviscerated in 2008 by a non-partisan panel of scholars, who concluded that the report was politically motivated.

Around the World

France

Last year President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a carbon tax to fight global warming. But polls indicate that two-thirds of French voters oppose this policy, and this week Sarkozy dropped it. French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said that the government’s new priorities are now “growth, jobs, competitiveness and fighting deficits.”

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

Another Source Admits that NASA Climate Data Is Inferior to Climategate Data
Chris Horner, Planet Gore, 19 March 2010

Obama’s EPA Stifles New Energy Gains
Washington Examiner editorial, 19 March 2010

Global Warming on Trial
Dexter Wright, American Thinker, 19 March 2010

Son of Global Warming
Mike Rosen, Denver Post, 18 March 2010

A Tax by Any Other Name
Marlo Lewis, National Journal, 16 March 2010

Cap-and-Trade Is Like a Zombie in a Bad Horror Movie
William Yeatman, A Line of Sight, 16 March 2010

Be Careful What You Wish for
Iain Murray, GlobalWarming.org, 16 March 2010

Global Warming Scientists vs. Global Whining Scientists
David Schnare, MasterResource.org, 16 March 2010

In Denial
Steven Hayward, Weekly Standard, 15 March 2010

News You Can Use

Global Warming Last in Poll of Environmental Concerns

Gallup’s annual poll of environmental issues shows that global warming is at the bottom of Americans’ concerns.  Of the eight environmental issues listed, global warming finished last.  Only 28% of Americans listed it as a top concern.  This is down from 33% last year and 41% in 2007, which was the peak year.  Respondents could list multiple issues as top concerns.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman Give Big Business Special Interests a Peek at Their Energy-Rationing Bill

According to a highly informative story by Darren Samuelsohn in Greenwire, which was republished on the New York Times’s web site, Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) held a private meeting with big business special interests this week to build support for their ongoing efforts to produce a compromise energy-rationing bill.  They shared an eight-page outline of their draft bill, but collected the copies at the end of the meeting.

Samuelsohn was able to glean a number of details of the outline’s contents by interviewing attendees as they left the meeting.  From what he reports, the current draft looks to me to be as much of an incoherent mess as the Waxman-Markey bill passed by the House last June.  The draft still has a number of unfinished sections, but would require greenhouse gas emission reductions of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 80% below by 2050.  Electric utilities would be regulated beginning in 2012, but other stationary sources would wait until 2016.

The Kerry-Graham-Lieberman draft would reportedly pre-empt greenhouse gas regulations by the EPA and the States.  The cost of ration coupons would be allowed to fluctuate within an initial range of $10 to $30 per ton of carbon dioxide.  This price collar would be adjusted for inflation and would also include an automatic cost escalator.

No word on whether the draft still includes a “carbon fee” on transportation fuels.  Carbon fee is polite terminology for a gas tax.

What the three Senators are cooking up looks to me to be dead on arrival.  The schedule already makes it highly unlikely that the bill will reach the Senate floor before the election in November.  Senator Kerry said that “a full outline of the bill” will be delivered to a group of Senators next week.  In a later story in Climate Wire, Evan Lehman reported that Kerry said that the bill would be completed “next week or over the Easter recess” and then “will be sent to the Congressional Budget Office and U. S. EPA for a review that could take five or six weeks.”

Obama’s Strange Economic Logic

Ian Talley reported in a Wall Street Journal blog this week that “Senior Obama administration officials say the nation’s economic recovery could stall if Congress doesn’t pass a climate bill this year.”  The reason they give is that all the hundreds of billions of dollars that investors are eager to invest in green energy are parked on the sideline until Congress mandates and subsidizes these investments so that they are guaranteed to make a profit.  Of course, people with an understanding of elementary economics could argue that the nation’s economic recovery is already stalling because of policies that discourage investments in lower-cost conventional energy.  A bill that requires reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would do more than stall the nation’s economic recovery-it would send the economy back into recession.  Of course, other government policies are already doing that.

More Companies to Boycott

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers sent a letter to the Senate this week opposing Senator Lisa Murkowski’s resolution to disapprove the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare.  The letter claims that blocking the endangerment finding would undo the deal that the Obama Administration made with California on auto fuel economy standards.  The result, the letter alleges, would be to replace uniform national fuel economy rules with a patchwork of state rules.  As my CEI colleague Marlo Lewis writes in a blog posted here, the whole issue is goofy.  The United Auto Workers announced their opposition to the Murkowski resolution this week as well.  On the other hand, the National Association of Auto Dealers officially supports the resolution.

For boycott purposes, the members of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers are: General Motors, Ford Motor, Toyota, Chrysler, BMW, Mazda, Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Porsche, and Volkswagen.  I think my next car will be a Packard, although I have my eye on a Hispano-Suiza.

Another company to put on the boycott list is Weyerhauser, which joined the U. S. Climate Action Partnership this week.  Weyerhauser hopes to get rich off selling carbon offsets provided by young forests and selling lots of biomass from their timberlands to produce biofuels.  You can see all of US CAP’s corporate and environmental front group members at us-cap.org. 

Update: EPA Endangerment Lawsuits

The federal D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals has consolidated the sixteen lawsuits that seek to overturn the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare into one suit, Coalition for Responsible Regulation, Inc, et al. versus EPA.  The Coalition consists of the Industrial Minerals Association of North America, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Great Northern Project Development, Rosebud Mining, Massey Energy, and Alpha Natural Resources.  All the other original plaintiffs are still part of the suit.

Thursday was the deadline for other interested parties to request to intervene in the case.  Robin Bravender lists the state intervenors in a Greenwire story republished on the New York Times’s web site. 

In addition to the suits filed by Virginia, Alabama, and Texas, fourteen other States have asked to intervene against EPA.  They are Alaska and Michigan in separate filings and Nebraska, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and Governor Haley Barbour on behalf of Mississippi in a joint filing.

Minnesota and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection have asked to intervene on EPA’s side.  This is in addition to the sixteen other States and New York City that asked to intervene in January.  Those States are Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

In related news, the Democratically-controlled Illinois House of Representatives this week voted to ask Congress to delay EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources.  Last week, five House Democrats sent a letter to EPA asking the same thing.  They are Jim Costa and Joe Baca of California, Ciro Rodriguez and Gene Green of Texas, and Harry Teague of New Mexico.

Obama’s Anti-Energy Drilling Policy

The Obama Administration’s war on conventional energy continued this week, as an excellent editorial in the Washington Examiner discusses. The EPA announced that it was going to do a comprehensive study on the potential adverse impacts on water quality and public health of hydraulic fracturing technology.  Hydraulic fracturing has been used for a long time in the oil and gas industry.  Earlier studies, including a 2004 EPA study, have not found significant adverse impacts.  Environmental pressure groups are desperate to limit hydraulic fracturing because of the massive natural gas reserves that have recently become available as a result of advances in the technology.  The United States now has abundant natural gas for at least a couple hundred years-as long as government allows it to be produced.

Last week Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that no new leases for offshore oil production would be auctioned until 2014 at the earliest.  This week Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer (D) sent a letter to Salazar demanding that hundreds of oil and gas leases in the Flathead National Forest be cancelled.  Also this week, the Bureau of Land Management settled a lawsuit brought by environmental pressure by cancelling 61 oil and gas leases in Montana because they had not considered the effects on the global climate that result from oil and gas production.

Across the States

Global Warming Heats Up California Politics

Former E-bay CEO Meg Whitman, the leading GOP candidate for the 2010 California gubernatorial election, has campaigned on a pledge to delay implementation of AB 32, a state law that fights global warming by raising energy prices. For the first time, polls this week indicate that Whitman has surged ahead of likely Democratic candidate, Attorney General Jerry Brown, an avowed environmentalist. Similarly, the Senate’s most ardent environmentalist, Barbara Boxer (D), is running even against her two leading Republican challengers, former Hewlett Packard executive Carly Fiorina and former Congressman Tom Campbell. Fiorina in particular has campaigned against Boxer’s support for a cap-and-trade energy rationing scheme.

Battle over AB 32 Initiative Intensifies

Greenwire reported this week that Levi Strauss and Google are funding the opposition to a California ballot initiative that would suspend AB 32 until the State’s unemployment drops to 5.5% (it currently stands at 12%).

Around the World

COP 16 in Cancun a Failure (4 Months before It Begins)

Government negotiators are already dampening expectations for the 16^th Conference of the Parties to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will occur this December in Cancun, Mexico. Kunihiko Shimada, principal international negotiator at the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, told Bloomberg that a deal this year is “almost impossible.” Jos Delbeke, who spearheads European Union climate policy at the European Commission, ruled out a “comprehensive legal agreement” in 2010.

Alarmist Ads Banned in the U.K.

The Times this week reported that the United Kingdom Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned two government-funded print advertisements that use nursery rhymes to warn people of the dangers of climate change. The ASA ruled that the claims made in the newspaper adverts were not supported by solid science and told the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that they should not be published again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Global Warming Winners
Washington Times editorial, 3 March 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

News You Can Use

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

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

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Big Oil Helps Write Kerry-Graham-Lieberman Bill

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

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

Rockefeller Tries to Undermine Murkowski’s Endangerment Resolution

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

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

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

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

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

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

EPA Tailoring Rule Will Be Relaxed Further

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

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

Climategate Extra

Climategate Reloaded

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

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

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

Climategate Goes to Parliament

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

Across the States

Wyoming Legislature Passes Wind Tax

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

Around the World

It Could Happen Here

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

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

Announcements

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

In the News

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

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

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

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

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

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

World Cools toward Warmists

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

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

News You Can Use

Poll: Alarmism in Decline

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

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

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

EPW Hearing on EPA Budget

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

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

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

Powerful House Members Move To Block Endangerment

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

Around the World

China: “No Intention” of Cutting Emissions

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

Climate Bill Too Expensive Even for Socialists in Hungary

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

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

Announcements

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

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

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

In the News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

News You Can Use

Drill, Baby, Drill

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

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Big Businesses Jump from SS Cap-and-Trade

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

Lots of Lawsuits Challenge Endangerment Finding

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

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

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

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

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

Graham Releases Draft of Energy Bill

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

CEQ Announces that NEPA Will Include Climate Change

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

Across the States

WyomingWind Tax

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

Around the World

Wrong Resignation at Wrong Job

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

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