President Obama Endorses More Oil Production—in Brazil

by Myron Ebell on March 25, 2011

in Blog, Features, Politics

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The most astonishing event this week was President Barack Obama endorsement of more oil production—in Brazil.  In a speech to a CEO Business Summit in Brasilia, the President said:

By some estimates, the oil you recently discovered off the shores of Brazil could amount to twice the reserves we have in the United States.  We want to work with you.  We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you’re ready to start selling, 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.  Cancelled and delayed exploration leases on federal lands in the Rocky Mountains; the re-institution of the executive moratorium on offshore exploration in the Atlantic, the Pacific, most Alaskan waters, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico; the deepwater permitting moratorium and the de facto moratorium in the western Gulf.  The result is that domestic oil production is about to start a steep decline.  An article on Red State by Steve Maley summarizes the future effects of the Obama Administration’s war against oil.

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Endangered? “U.S. Death Rate Falls for 10th Straight Year” – CDC

by Marlo Lewis on March 25, 2011

in Blog, Features

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“U.S. Death Rate Falls for 10th Straight Year,” the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced in a recent press release.  The release goes on to note that the “age-adjusted death rate for the U.S. population fell to an all-time low of 741 deaths per 100,000 people in 2009 — 2.3 percent lower than the 2008, according to preliminary 2009 death statistics released today [March 16, 2011] by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.” This news is so good it bears repeating: The U.S. death rate fell for the “10th straight year” and is now at “an all-time low.” [click to continue…]

Iain Murray on Japan’s Nuclear Crisis

by Brian McGraw on March 24, 2011

in Blog, Features

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CEI’s Iain Murray has an op-ed in The Washington Times today explaining what can be learned from the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan.

Here’s an excerpt:

Without this vigorous defense of nuclear, the Obama energy plan will have a massive hole at its core – one that cannot be filled by wind and solar power any more than it can be filled by fairy dust. The obvious answer is for the administration to stop its war on coal, but that is unlikely. The only other plausible choice is natural gas, derived by hydraulic fracturing – a procedure that environmentalists are already trying to ban. If they want to keep their plan going in any workable form, the president and Mr. Chu need to tell Americans unequivocally where their future power is going to come from, and push back against ideological environmentalists who are trying to ban practical sources of energy.

Read the rest here.

EPA Provides the Cash, American Lung Association Hits Upton and the Energy Tax Prevention Act

by Myron Ebell on March 24, 2011

in Blog, Features, Politics

Post image for EPA Provides the Cash, American Lung Association Hits Upton and the Energy Tax Prevention Act

The American Lung Association is right up there with the Union of Concerned Scientists as a leftist activist organization pretending to be a professional association with high-minded objectives.  In fact, the American Lung Association is a bunch of political thugs.  Their latest hit job is putting up billboards in Rep. Fred Upton’s district in Michigan that urge him to “protect our kids’ health. Don’t weaken the Clean Air Act (PDF).” The billboard has a photo of an adolescent girl with a respirator.

The American Lung Association is opposing a bill, the Energy Tax Prevention Act (H. R. 910), that is sponsored by Rep. Upton, the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  Upton’s bill, which is expected to be debated on the House floor in early April, does nothing to weaken the Clean Air Act.  It simply prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Congress never intended the Clean Air Act to be used to enforce global warming policies on the American people.  As my CEI colleague Marlo Lewis recently noted, attempts to add provisions to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 that would allow the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions were defeated in the Senate.  A similar attempt in the House went nowhere.

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Ethanol Industry Continues to Deflect Blame on Food Prices

by Brian McGraw on March 23, 2011

in Blog, Features

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Instead, they blame those darned speculators (are they aware of the important role played by commodity markets?) again. The industry continues to find support in high places:

Speaking to farmers earlier this month, the Obama administration’s agriculture secretary said he found arguments from the like of Nestlé “irritating”. Mr Vilsack said: “The folks advancing this argument either do not understand or do not accept the notion that our farmers are as productive and smart and innovative and creative enough to meet the needs of food and fuel and feed and export.”

Well, the price of corn has almost doubled in the last 6 months. Now, its obviously unfair to blame this entirely on biofuels. Food crops are heavily dependent on a number of other important factors like the price of oil, the weather, crop yields, etc. However, with 35% of U.S. corn being turned into biofuels, it clearly has a major effect on the price, driving it upwards (and driving other commodities higher as well, as farmland becomes more scarce). Globally, U.S. exports provide about 60% of total corn supply.

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Post image for CEI Study Challenges EPA Claim to Deliver $30 in Benefits for Every Dollar of Cost

CEI Study Challenges EPA Claim to Deliver $30 in Benefits for Every Dollar of Cost

by Marlo Lewis on March 23, 2011

in Blog, Features

Do EPA’s Clean Air Act (CAA) rules produce more than $30 in benefits for every dollar of cost? That’s what the agency claims in a report published earlier this month:

Our central benefits estimate exceeds costs by a factor of more than 30 to one, and the high benefits estimate exceeds costs by 90 times. Even the low benefits estimate exceeds costs by about three to one.

Obama administration officials and their allies tout EPA’s benefit-cost estimates as a reason why Congress should allow the agency to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs). EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, for example, cited the 30 to 1 ratio in her Feb. 9, 2011 testimony opposing the Energy Tax Prevention Act, a bill that would strip EPA of its non-congressionally authorized power to dictate national policy on climate change. Jackson suggested that if Congress lets EPA regulate GHGs, net annual CAA benefits will reach $2 trillion by 2020.

EPA’s GHG rules cannot possibly harm the economy, we’re told, because the CAA has a 40-year track record of delivering trillions of dollars in net benefits.

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Van Jones: Fracking is poisoning our water

by Myron Ebell on March 22, 2011

in Blog, Features, Politics

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The New York Times has a story on the front page of its business section headlined, “Natural Gas Now Viewed as Safer Bet.”  Politico’s Morning Energy reports that Van Jones tweeted a response: “At least until the public learns that fracking poisons H2O.”

Van Jones appears to be a serious person.  He is certainly highly respected in the liberal academic and political establishment.  He earned a law degree at Yale University, founded three leftist activist organizations, and wrote a book, the Green Collar Economy.  Time magazine named him a Hero of the Environment.

President Barack Obama appointed Jones in March 2009 to the new position of Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.  Jones resigned in September 2009 after controversies arose about several of his past statements and associations.

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California Judge Halts Implementation of Climate Change Policies

by Brian McGraw on March 22, 2011

in Blog, Features

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Via the Los Angeles Times.

Ironically, the cap-and-trade program has been temporarily halted due to a lawsuit brought forth by other environmental groups, concerned that the CARB did not sufficiently consider alternatives to a C&T program such as a direct carbon tax:

The groups contend that a cap-and-trade program would allow refineries, power plants and other big facilities in poor neighborhoods to avoid cutting emissions of both greenhouse gases and traditional air pollutants.

“This decision is good for low-income communities like Wilmington, Carson and Richmond,” said Bill Gallegos, executive director of Communities for a Better Environment. “It means that oil refineries, which emit enormous amounts of greenhouse gases and contribute to big health problems, cannot simply keep polluting by purchasing pollution credits, or doing out of state projects.”

This logic is odd, as even under a cap-and-trade program, oil refineries won’t simply disappear. It’s possible that they might be required to reduce their own pollution rather than buying permits, but this speaks mainly to the design of the cap-and-trade program. A small carbon tax would likely have the same effect, and if the design of the cap-and-trade program is any hint, it would be difficult to pass a significant carbon tax.

However, given that the program involves distributing initial permits to many companies for free (which, according to Wikipedia, will cover 90% of their emissions), a pure carbon tax would involve less corporatism.

Do recall the CARB press release touting the economic benefits of this program:

The economic analysis compares the recommendations in the draft Scoping Plan to doing nothing and shows that implementing the recommendations will result in:

  • Increased economic production of $27 billion
  • Increased overall gross state product of $4 billion
  • Increased overall personal income by $14 billion
  • Increased per capita income of $200
  • Increased jobs by more than 100,000

and subsequent commentary offered by peer review (many of whom support the program, none of whom buy into the free-lunch aspect):

Professor Robert Stavins, the Director of Harvard’s Environmental Economics Program:

I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the economic analysis is terribly deficient in critical ways and should not be used by the State government or the public for the purpose of assessing the likely costs of CARB’s plans. I say this with some sadness, because I was hopeful that CARB would produce sensible policy proposals analyzed with sound scientific and economic analysis.

 

Energy & Environment News Update

by William Yeatman on March 21, 2011

in Blog

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

U.S. Say Japanese Reactors Are Stable
Tennille Tracy, Wall Street Journal, 21 March 2011

America’s Last Nuclear Hope
William Tucker, Spectator, 21 March 2011

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

Hands off My Head!
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 18 March 2011

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

Post image for EPA’s GHG Power Grab: Baucus’s Revenge, Democracy’s Peril

EPA’s GHG Power Grab: Baucus’s Revenge, Democracy’s Peril

by Marlo Lewis on March 21, 2011

in Blog, Features

Today at Pajamas Media.Com, I discuss the latest stratagem of the greenhouse lobby to protect EPA’s purloined power to dictate national climate and energy policy: Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-Mont.) amendment to the small business reauthorization bill.
 
The Baucus amendment would essentially codify EPA’s Tailoring Rule, which exempts small greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters from Clean Air Act (CAA) permitting requirements.
 
That may seem innocent enough. However, if enacted, the Baucus amendment would also codify the ever-growing ensemble of EPA climate initiatives of which the Tailoring Rule is only a small piece.
 
EPA’s current and probable future climate regulations include GHG/fuel-economy standards for all categories of mobile sources (cars, trucks, marine vessels, aircraft, non-road vehicles and engines) and GHG/energy-efficiency standards for dozens of industrial source categories. 
 
Congress, however, never authorized EPA to determine fuel economy standards for motor vehicles, much less dictate national policy on climate change. The Baucus amendment would put Congress’s legislative stamp of approval on EPA’s end-run around the legislative process.
 
The amendment has almost no chance of passing in the GOP-led House of Representatives. However, it does not need to pass to perpetuate EPA’s shocking power grab. All it has to do is peel off enough votes in the Senate to prevent passage of the Inhofe-Upton Energy Tax Prevention Act. That bill, which is almost certain to pass in the House, would overturn most of EPA’s current GHG regulations and stop the agency permanently from promulgating climate change policies Congress never approved.
 
Whether the Baucus amendment is adopted or just blocks passage of Inhofe-Upton, the U.S. economy will be exposed to the risk that EPA will be litigated into establishing national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for GHGs, and to the risk that EPA will use BACT (“best available control technology”) determinations and NSPS (New Source Performance Standards) to restrict America’s access to affordable, carbon-based energy. [click to continue…]

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