Climate policies endanger U.S. national security

by Marlo Lewis on September 16, 2009

The global warming scare campaign goes through phases. Warmists are collectivists, and they buzz like a hive. The overall narrative of doom does not change, but every couple of months or so the hive settles on a different scare to buzz about most loudly.

That’s the best way to get media and public attention, after all. Single out one alleged global warming terror, publicize the heck out of it until ”everybody knows” the “crisis” is “even worse than scientists previously believed,” and then move on to the next scare-of-the-month. The intended effect, as H.L. Mencken put it, “is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Previously featured scares include killer heat waves, malaria epidemics, more powerful hurricanes, catastrophic sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and, my personal favorite, a shutdown of the Gulf Stream leading to a new ice age. Some of these have been scares-of-the-month more than once — a form of recycling, if you will.

You might think that after so many years of hearing about so many ways global warming is going to wreck the planet, the American people would be “clamorous to be led to safety” and demand cap-and-trade as the salvific path to a “clean energy future.”

But no, the American people aren’t buying it — at least not enough to overcome their repugnance to a massive new energy tax, which, many now understand, is what cap-and-trade boils down to.

So proponents of the Waxman-Markey bill need a new scare du jour, and this month it’s “climate change threatens U.S. national security.” Instead of warning, implausibly, that we’re going to fry, drown, blow away, or freeze, the new sales pitch is more sophisticated.

Here’s what they say. Climate change is a “threat multiplier.” It aggravates several problems – poverty, drought, famine, coastal flooding – that already foster instability and conflict. A warming world will be plagued by more frequent and more intense conflicts among and within nations.

A coalition of eco-warriers and defense hawks has formed to push the message. What each side gets out of this strange-bedfellow coalition is obvious. The defense professionals get mission creep — an expansive rationale to justify new DOD and intelligency agency programs, capabilities, and activities, all funded by the taxpayer, from now until 2100 and beyond, regardless of the actual geopolitical and military threats facing the country. Greenies, for their part, gain allies respected by conservatives, who up to now have opposed Kyoto-style “global governance” and greater political meddling in energy markets.

On the free-market energy blog, MasterResources.Org, I have written a two-part essay titled, ”Even the Generals Are Worried! Mission Creep, Climate Change and National Security.” Part 1 shows that the “threat multiplier” argument is hype. Part 2 shows that climate change policy poses greater risks to national security than does climate change itself.

Big Health and Energy Tax Increases for the Middle Class from Obama and Liberal Congressmen

by Hans Bader on September 16, 2009

The middle class is facing big tax increases thanks to Obama and liberal congressional leaders.

Even the trimmed-down version of Obama’s health-care plan recently announced by a ranking Senator contains lots of tax increases for the middle class (see below).

And the costly cap-and-trade energy legislation passed by the House and supported by Obama would lead to big tax increases in the name of fighting global warming, Administration officials privately have conceded, even though they publicly claim otherwise.  “Officials at the Treasury Department think cap-and-trade legislation would cost taxpayers hundreds of billion in taxes, according to internal documents circulated within the agency and provided to The Washington Times” by CEI.  It would also result in “loss of steel, paper, aluminum, chemical, and cement manufacturing jobs,” as jobs migrate overseas to countries which have fewer environmental protections than the U.S. does.

Obama earlier admitted that “under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” As Obama admitted, that cost would be directly passed “on to consumers” — just the way Herbert Hoover’s excise tax increases were in 1932, aggravating the Great Depression. Although the tax’s supporters claim it will cut greenhouse gas emissions, it may perversely increase them and also result in dirtier air, as well as harming forests and water supplies.

Americans for Tax Reform summarizes the tax increases in the trimmed-down version of ObamaCare revealed by its principal drafter, Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana).  Here is a partial list:

· Individual Mandate Tax.  If you don’t sign up for health insurance, you will have to pay a tax in the following range:

Single

Family

100-300% FPL

$750

$1500

300+% FPL

$900

$3800

· Employer Mandate Tax. $400 per employee if health coverage is not offered.  Note: this is a huge incentive to drop coverage, as $400 is much less than the average plan cost of $11,000 for families or $5000 for singles (Source: AHIP)

· Excise Tax on High-Cost Health Plans.  New 35% excise tax on health insurance plans to the extent they exceed $21000 in cost ($8000 single)

· Medicine Cabinet Tax.  Americans would no longer be able to purchase over-the-counter medicines with their FSA, HSA, or HRA

· Eliminate tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D

· Report Employer Health Spending on W-2. This is clearly a setup for the easy individual taxation of employer-provided health insurance down the road.

· Cap Flex-Spending Account (FSA) Contributions at $2000. Currently unlimited.

· Backdoor Death of HSAs. By requiring that all plans (besides the few that are grandfathered) provided first-dollar coverage for most services, there would be no HSA-qualifying plans available from the Massachusetts-like exchanges

CEI Uncovers Shocking Obama Admission: Cap-and-Trade = 15% Income Tax Hike

by William Yeatman on September 16, 2009

Yesterday, I blogged on how CEI’s Chris Horner used the Freedom of Information Act to uncover internal documents from the Obama administration in which Treasury Department officials admit that a cap-and-trade would impose a steep energy tax on American families.

In only 24 hours, the story has gone viral.

Here’s what CBS News is reporting:

The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.

A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration’s estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

This FOIA story has been highlighted by the Drudge Report, Breitbart, The Weekly Standard, and the Politico.

To read the internal Treasury Department documents, click here.

Treasury Department: Cap-and-Trade Is a Huge Energy Tax

by William Yeatman on September 15, 2009

in Blog

CEI’s Chris Horner used the Freedom of Information Act to uncover internal documents from the Obama administration in which Treasury Department officials admit that a cap-and-trade would impose a steep energy tax on American families.

The Treasury Department’s admission contradicts claims by Democratic leadership that a cap-and-trade energy rationing scheme would boost the economy. In fact, a massive new energy tax (Department officials suggest that a cap-and-trade would cost consumers hundreds of billions of dollars) would depress economic growth by increasing utility bills and gasoline prices.

CEI long has warned Americans that policies to fight so-called global warming would harm American consumers and businesses by increasing energy costs. It’s great to see that Obama’s Treasury Department agrees.

To read more about these internal documents, read this Planet Gore blog post by Chris Horner, and this write-up by the Washington Times’s Amanda Carpenter.

Fantasizing about a low-carbon future

by Myron Ebell on September 15, 2009

in Blog

I attended an excellent briefing  today on “Creating a low-carbon future” by Michael Howard of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).  The event  was hosted by the U. S. Energy Association and its executive director, Barry Worthington.   EPRI has done a lot of work on how the electricity sector could meet the greenhouse gas emissions target in the Waxman-Markey energy-rationing bill.  That target is economy-wide emissions 83% below 2005 levels by 2050.

Howard said that EPRI wanted to identify a strategy by which the electric sector could be de-carbonized affordably.  Here’s the background and how EPRI would do it:

The decisions made today and in the next few years will shape electric generation in 2050, so we have to make the right decisions starting now.  Electricity generation accounts for about one-third of the 2005 U. S. total of six billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.  Electric rates in constant dollars have been remarkably flat for the past forty years.

EPRI has identified two paths to meeting the 83% reduction target.  The first is by deploying a full portfolio of energy sources.  A full portfolio would most notably include expanded nuclear power and widespread carbon capture and storage for coal and natural gas.  The second is by deploying a limited portfolio of sources that would exclude nuclear and carbon capture and storage.

What is most apparent in EPRI’s modeling is that the limited portfolio approach would end the use of coal completely by 2030.  Renewables would go up, but the biggest increases would be in the use of natural gas.  The result is that electricity would become very expensive, with rates tripling by 2050 in constant dollars.  In addition, we would be forced to use much less electricity in order to meet the emissions reduction targets.

The full portfolio scenario projects that most of the cuts would be made by building new nuclear power plants and new coal plants that capture and store 90% of the carbon dioxide emissions produced.  Natural gas use would go down considerably.  EPRI projects that electric rates would not quite double by 2050 were the full portfolio approach pursued.  Enforced reductions in use would only be about half as severe under the full portfolio compared to the limited portfolio.

The full portfolio scenario sounds very nice, but it’s fantasy.  It has almost nothing to do with the real world.  What EPRI (understandably) does not include in their models are the increasing political, regulatory, and legal obstacles to building new power plants.  Even if carbon capture and storage technology becomes commercially viable by 2020 (which is highly unlikely), it will take decades to permit and build more than a handful of coal plants that capture the carbon dioxide, the pipelines to transport it, and the underground pockets to store it.   Permitting delays will put pipeline siting and construction years behind schedule.  Lawsuits will be filed claiming that pressurized CO2 is too dangerous to be allowed.   Similarly, a few new nuclear power plants may be built in the next twenty years, but building a lot of new plants will take decades to overcome the permitting obstructions.

These obstacles do not apply only to coal and nuclear plants.  Proposed wind and solar energy projects are being blocked and delayed all around the country.  Bobby Kennedy, jnr., is leading the campaign to block a big wind farm off Cape Cod, where his family own valuable, scenic vacation property.  At the same time, Kennedy has lashed out at local environmental pressure groups at the other end of the country that are trying to block a big solar energy development in the Mojave Desert that he has invested in.  Even if both projects eventually get built, they are being delayed for years.  This is a problem that the environmental pressure groups have helped to create and don’t want to admit exists.  It means that the limited portfolio approach modeled by EPRI is fantasy, too.

One of the problems with relying on EPRI’s or any of the economic models to predict the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is that they assume that political decisions will be made in a rational, orderly way that will allow economic decisions to be made in an efficient way.  The Waxman-Markey energy rationing bill (H. R. 2454) is just the latest disproof of this assumption.  The bill creates a cap-and-trade program to reduce emissions and then adds several hundred other programs to pay off individual special interests.  Nearly all these programs get in the way of the efficient working of cap-and-trade.  They will raise the costs of making mandatory reductions beyond what any model can predict.

The Newest Fake Argument for Cap-and-Trade: National Security

by William Yeatman on September 15, 2009

in Blog

To listen to Democratic Party leadership tell it, one would never know that a cap-and-trade has anything to do with global warming.

For example, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) pitched the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a cap-and-trade energy rationing scheme that narrowly passed in the House, as a “vote for jobs,” rather than as a vote for global warming mitigation. Of course, this is malarkey-government only “creates” green jobs by destroying many more jobs in other, less politically favored economic sectors.

Now Democratic leaders in the Senate are saying that cap-and-trade is all about national security. Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts), in particular, has been pushing the thesis that climate change is going to cause conflict over scarce natural resource, drought-induced famine, and massive population flows. Kerry’s idea is to give political cover to moderate democrats otherwise loath to vote for an energy tax-moderates tend to represent Americans who are concerned with national security, but skeptical of global warming alarmism. By framing climate change as a threat to national security, these moderates might escape the adverse political consequences of voting for a cap-and-trade scheme.

That’s a risky bet for moderates, because Kerry’s national security argument is bogus. To learn why, read this excellent blog post by my colleague Marlo Lewis. Kerry’s claims are also refuted Christopher Monckton at the Science & Public Policy Institute, available here.

The Front Lines in the Global Warming War

by Julie Walsh on September 15, 2009

in Blog, Features

The EPA, supposedly the Environmental Protection Agency, has become the Economy Poisoning Agency. In the name of preventing a global warming apocalypse, President Obama’s EPA is on the verge of declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant and then controlling our entire economy through energy regulations. This would result in huge increases in our energy bills and virtually everything we buy. Yet to do this, of course, EPA had to ignore science. In fact, EPA was found in June to have suppressed a report by one of its own senior analysts that concluded that EPA’s global warming “science” was incomplete and out-of-date. EPA has tried to spin its way out of this fiasco, even proposing to shut down the office in which its whistleblower works!

The EPA’s possible economy-crushing activities have prompted a grass-roots email campaign to pressure EPA into changing course on its pending “Endangerment” proceeding, the rulemaking underlying all EPA global warming proposals. CEI and Freedom Action, a new organization affliliated with CEI, urge concerned citizens to join the fight by writing EPA with an easy form to tell EPA to put their regulatory plans on hold until they clear up this scandal and reveal ALL of the science.

Beer for my Horses

by Iain Murray on September 15, 2009

in Blog

The global-warming industry would probably still be solely owned by assoted cranks and romantics (and the odd vice president) if it weren’t for a bunch of CEOs taking a leaf from Enron’s playbook and attempting to monetize the issue. Playing the bootleggers in a classic bootleggers and baptists alliance, these businessmen have realized that they can get the government to increase their profits by means of “cap and trade” and similar regulatory interventions, at the expense of other businesses and the paying public. Ordinarily, such shenanigans would have the corporate watchdog groups in arms, but by getting the “baptists” of the green movement on their side, they have shielded themselves from public disgust.

This has to stop, and the good folks at Junkscience.com are at the forefront of calling foul. They are releasing a series of “Wanted” posters for six corporate fat cats who want to grow fatter by means of the Waxman-Markey Bill. Junkscience describes the six and their crimes as:

* Exelon CEO John Roe, the “carbon bandit,” who stands to make billions of dollars at taxpayer expense from Waxman-Markey’s free carbon allowances;

* General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, the “carbon schemer,” who would rather profit from lobbying for Waxman-Markey than innovating products that consumers actually want;

* Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, the “carbon betrayer,” who is lobbying for higher energy prices and against his own customers and shareholders;

* Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris, the “carbon extortionist,” who threatens to send American jobs overseas unless Congress pays him off with free carbon allowances;

* Caterpillar CEO James Owens, who can only be considered as “carbon clueless” since he is lobbying against the coal industry, one of his biggest customers; and

* John Deer & Co. Chairman Robert Lane, the “carbon crapshooter,” who seems to be betting that he can wreck the economy and profit simultaneously.

Form that posse and go get ‘em, guys.

How the New Senate Ag Chair (Blanche Lincoln) Changes America’s Energy Policy

by William Yeatman on September 15, 2009

in Blog

Last week Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) became chairman of the Agriculture Committee, after Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), the previous chair, accepted the gavel at the Health, Labor, Education and Pension Committee (vacated by the passing of Ted Kennedy).

Lincoln becomes the first female to chair this powerful committee, and her ascension to the top-spot will have a big impact on the country’s energy policy.

For almost a decade, the Senate Ag Committee has been the primary benefactor of ethanol, a fuel made from corn. Regardless whether the Ag chair was a Republican or a Democrat, the Committee, which is dominated by corn-belt politicians, showered ethanol with subsidies and give-aways-and even a Soviet-style production quota that forces consumers to use it. Government support for ethanol has been great for corn growers (they’ve seen demand increase by almost 50% since 2005), but it’s awful for livestock farmers, who have seen the cost of corn-feed skyrocket. Consumers have also been harmed, as the price of corn derivatives (meat, dairy, soda, etc., etc.,) has increased so sharply that inflation of the cost of food doubled the historical rate in 2008.

With Lincoln taking the gavel of the Ag Committee, however, the ethanol gravy train might be coming to an end. That’s because Lincoln doesn’t represent the corn-belt. To be sure, they grow corn in Arkansas, primarily in the eastern part of the state. But in western Arkansas, farmers raise chickens. In fact, the Natural State is the nation’s #2 producer of broiler chickens. America’s ethanol policy has seriously compromised the chicken industry, so we can expect Lincoln to take a more conservative approach with fuels made out of food.

Lincoln is also likely to affect the climate debate. The Ag Committee has some jurisdiction over climate change legislation, and Lincoln’s vote on cap-and-trade is a priority for her caucus leadership, which is having a tough time finding support for a climate bill among Senate Democrats. But Arkansas politics are decidedly unfavorable to global warming alarmism. Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Arkansas), who represents Little Rock and much of Pulaski County, was the only member of his State’s delegation to vote for the American Clean Energy and Security Act, cap-and-trade legislation that passed through the House of Representatives in late June, and he has been hammered over the airwaves by utilities, agriculture interests, and political opponents ever since. Now, there is considerable speculation that his seat is in jeopardy-all thanks to his vote for a cap-and-trade. No doubt Lincoln has noticed Snyder’s plight.

Is Cap-and-Trade Slipping on Obama’s Wish List?

by William Yeatman on September 14, 2009

in Blog

Rumors surfaced last week that President Barack Obama now considers financial sector reform to be his administration’s #2 priority after healthcare. Previously, climate change was thought to be the next big-ticket item on the President’s agenda.

The tea-leaves seem to indicate that this rumor is true.

For starters, Senator Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) decided to stay on as Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, rather than accept the gavel on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (a post vacated by the passing of Ted Kennedy).

The only plausible explanation for Dodd’s decision to remain the chairman of the Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over financial sector reform, is an expectation by Dodd that Obama will push for increased regulation of Wall Street in the short term. Dodd faces a tough re-election fight in 2010, and taking on Wall Street would put him in a favorable spotlight for the foreseeable future.

And today in New York, President Obama gave a speech on the need for a new regulatory regime to govern Wall Street, thereby lending further credence to the rumor that climate change has dropped as a priority.

Meanwhile, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California), the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee (which has primary jurisdiction over climate change legislation) last week again delayed the introduction of global warming legislation, and Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), the second ranking Democrat in the Senate, told reporters that cap-and-trade might have to wait until 2010.

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