Why Is HuffPo Pimping Ethanol?

by William Yeatman on February 18, 2009

Yesterday’s edition of the Internet news juggernaut, The Huffington Post, ran an ethanol love song written by Bob Dinneen, who is identified in his HuffPo biography as “the ethanol industry’s lead lobbyist before the Congress and Administration.”

Given that Mr. Dinneen is a professional shill, there’s no need to repeat his self-serving argument. Whatever is his case for ethanol, the bottom line is his bottom line.  But it is worth saying a few things about the reality of ethanol.

Ethanol is touted as a solution to America’s dependence on foreign oil.  It is true that ethanol—an alcohol distilled from corn—can be used to run cars.  “Can,” however, does not mean “should.”  Indeed, ethanol is a bad idea both economically and environmentally.

For starters, ethanol is twice as expensive as gasoline, so filling your car with ethanol raises your fuel bill. Also, by turning corn, which is usually used food, into fuel, demand for food increases.  So, increased ethanol use raises your food bill too. Finally, ethanol is awful for the environment—it results in increased corn cultivation, which leads to greater nitrogen runoff, which causes massive, oxygen-depleted “dead zones” in our streams, lakes, rivers and oceans.

Yet Americans are forced to buy ethanol thanks to laws written by the ultra-powerful corn and agribusiness lobbies.  Ethanol makes corn growers and ethanol producers rich, so they have spent millions lobbying legislators to pass (1) generous taxpayer subsidies for ethanol production, and (2) a Soviet-style production quota that forces Americans to use a certain percentage of ethanol in the nation’s fuel supply (last year, Americans were forced to buy 9 billion gallons of corn fuel).

So why is the Huffington Post pimping the ethanol boondoggle when so many others have stopped supporting these corrupt programs?

King corn and its agribusiness allies could never convince Americans to buy ethanol; instead, they convinced Congress to force ethanol on consumers. The industry’s existence is a powerful testament to lobbyists’ ability to rig the rules of the game to enrich their clients at the expense of everyday Americans—a tacit endorsement from the Huffington Post can only help the ethanol lobby continue to do so.

Huff Po is generally a well-done publication, so why run a pitch by a guy who is trying to get rich by screwing the consumer? Since when are greedy lobbyists palatable to the left?

Quotes of the Day

by William Yeatman on February 18, 2009

in Blog

Taken from CCNet, a scholarly electronic network edited by Benny Peiser. Every day Peiser sends out the latest news on the science, economics and politics of global warming. To subscribe, and I recommend that you do, send an e-mail to listserver@ljmu.ac.uk (“subscribe cambridge-conference”).

Like Coleridge’s ancient mariner, the nation is becalmed, a painted ship on a painted ocean and we have gone back a century, hewing the same coal that first put Britain on the fast track to the Industrial Revolution. The reason why we are still stuffing black lumps of carbon into furnaces is simple: it makes economic sense and the financial markets are shouting this message louder than ever before.

–Carl Mortished, The Times, 18 February 2009

Italian police on Tuesday arrested mobsters, businessmen and local politicians who allegedly used corrupt practices and bribes to gain control of a project to build wind farms in Sicily. Police in Trapani said the local Mafia bribed city officials in nearby Mazara del Vallo so the town would invest in wind farms to produce energy.

—Associated Press, 17 February 2009

THE collapse in the international price of carbon is threatening the Federal Government’s ability to pay for compensation packages in the emissions trading scheme without drawing on the budget. Compensation for households, trade-exposed industries and high-polluting coal-fired electricity generators was expected to be drawn from auctioning carbon credits, which the Government estimated would initially generate $12 billion a year. But the assumed price of carbon – $25 a tonne – is now under threat because the Government’s proposal allows polluting businesses to offset an unlimited proportion of emissions by buying international credits.

–Tom Arup, The Age, 18 February 2009

AUSTRALIA’S second-biggest steelmaker says the Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme is likely to cause job losses and force new investments offshore. “We understand the Government’s intentions, but the practical effect of the scheme as it stands is that we will bear a cost not borne by our competitors,” he said. “We would be the only steelmakers in the world to have these costs and that would put us at a material disadvantage.”

–Lenore Taylor, The Australian, 18 February 2009

As more and more discoveries are made about global warming, scientists and political organisations have been clamouring for stronger and more immediate actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Amid this rising call for action, there has been surprisingly little attention given to recent work suggesting that future peak carbon dioxide levels may have been overestimated by a factor of four to five.

–Thomas Crowley, The Guardian, 17 February 2009

Industry Proponents of Cap-and-Trade Want To Rip You Off

by William Yeatman on February 18, 2009

in Blog

For years, CEI has been warning that industrial suppliers and users of energy only support cap-and-trade climate policies because they think they can manipulate these schemes to their benefit and to their competitors’ detriment. CEI President Fred Smith persuasively made this argument before the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works in February, 2007. Last Tuesday, I made a similar argument on a panel debating government subsidies for green jobs.

Thankfully, it seems the message is finally catching on. To wit, read today’s great column by Tom Borelli, in the DC Examiner. Here’s a taste:

“Failing companies such as AIG, General Electric and General Motors, already propped up with tax dollars, have partnered with radical environmentalists in a scheme their CEOs believe will allow them to profit on fears about global warming.

Corporate members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of over 30 businesses and environmental groups urging federal regulation to combat global warming, hope to make money through a government-mandated reduction in greenhouse.

Emissions such as carbon dioxide would be capped, and companies using more emissions than allotted by the government must purchase credits from other businesses.

USCAP and its cap-and-trade agenda were the focus of a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on January 15 – the committee’s first since the more radical Rep.Henry Waxman, D-CA, ousted longtime chairman, Rep. John Dingell, D-MI.

Companies hope to profit from selling their excess emissions credits to businesses with high carbon dioxide emissions, such as coal-based utilities.  Companies burdened with purchasing these credits will then pass the added costs to consumers.”

Drill, Baby, Drill! (To Save the Environment)

by William Yeatman on February 17, 2009

in Blog

When is it OK for an oil slick to coat a pristine beach?

When it’s a “natural occurrence,” of course!

My boss stayed at a hotel in Santa Barbara, and on the bed stand of his room, a pamphlet read:

“Tar found along local beaches is the result of natural seeps in the ocean that leak oil and natural gas into the Santa Barbara Channel. Like the La Brea tar pits on land, natural cracks and faults caused by ancient earthquakes allow oil and gas to escape from the ocean floor. The seepage then floats to the surface where some evaporates, some degrades and the rest thickens into floating balls of sticky tar. Tides, currents and winds can wash the tar onshore.”

That’s not all!

To hammer home the naturalness of the oil slick that coats the hotel’s beachfront, the pamphlet further noted that, “The Chumash Native Americans put tar seepage to work 5,000 years ago. Besides waterproofing baskets and bowls, they used a mixture of tar and pine to seal their canoes.”

So Captain Hazelwood did the Eskimos a service by providing them with plenty of sealant, right?

That was a cheap joke, but there is an actual policy point here.

If you can’t distinguish between a “natural” oil slick and an anthropogenic oil slick, and you think that all oil slicks are bad, then you’d want to do something about it. Well, it so happens that there is an easy fix for these “natural” oil slicks: drilling. By removing the oil, it can’t seep out and coat beautiful beaches.

So let’s drill, baby, drill! (for nature, that is)

Refreshing Candor

by Chris Horner on February 17, 2009

Well, this candor is refreshing, and just in time for the pre-Copenhagen prep meeting, rushed forward from June to March thanks to there being a new sheriff in USA Town whom the world is just sure will fall for it this time around.

Here‘s what India (China, Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia, and 155 countries which will continue to be exempt from Kyoto II) has in store for us thanks to this new leadership in Washington.

If you’ve read Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed, this doesn’t come as a surprise. If you haven’t, it is time you did.

Those Europeans Say the Darnedest Things

by Chris Horner on February 17, 2009

Re-posted from archives; “Those Europeans Say the Darnedest Things” originally appeared 28 September, 2007

Today’s Washington Post story was replete with pompous and absurd proclamations – the pompous being the Danish Environment Minister claiming that she and her ilk “are getting a bit impatient, not on our own behalf but on behalf of the planet.” The condemnations of the US included “unusually blunt language” about how the rest of the world are waiting for the US to act, and that it is the US resistance to adopting a particular approach to addressing emissions that jeopardizes the climate. Not China, India, Mexico and 155 countries representing the vast majority of emissions seeing theirs skyrocket; certainly not the EU.

Although that specific assertion begs the question, no mention was made of actual emissions (sidebar: this story was written by Juliet Eilperin, who has this beat and is by no means new to the story. Putting aside that the administration has only once uttered something that can be called a robust comparison of US and EU performance, it remains baffling that she and her peers can continue writing as if what it is now well understood were never in fact revealed.)

givne that the European Environment Agency may play rhetorical games but it makes no secret of the fact that Europe is not lowering but increasing their emissions, which are up since Kyoto was agreed not down, this struck me as possibly clever groundwork-laying for that which ultimately must publicly come to pass: Europe explaining away the gaping chasm between global warming “world leader!” rhetoric and actual emissions performance. We would’ve cut them but we’re waiting on the US to do something. Don’t laugh, that wouldn’t be all that aberrant for Brussels, Berlin or Paris.

Regardless, yesterday’s vulgar display prompted me to tally the comparative, real emission increases in US and EU, given I have heard the counter “well, in percentage terms, but…” when I point out that EU emissions are increasing faster than the US’s under any modern baseline (that is, since Kyoto was agreed and the EU commenced its breast-beating).

We know that the US CO2 emissions are going up at a much slower rate than the EU-15 (“Europe” per Kyoto). We know that, as a result of the EU-15’s obvious failure to reduce emissions, even Cf. 1990 (with the gift that that baseline was to them, for reasons of unrelated UK and DE political decisions), the EU-likes to redefine Europe. They do this to boast on the EU-25 doing this or that — usually, being on target to meet its [sic] Kyoto promise…there not being an EU-25 Kyoto promise, but one collective promise for the EU-15 and 10 different other individual promises, plus 2 countries that are exempt from Kyoto. They do this now as a way to ride the economic collapse of Eastern Europe, reclaiming the hoped-for benefits of the 1990 baseline that slipped away for the more developed EU countries.

However, having a higher percentage increase for even an economy smaller than the US’s (EU-15) means that one might actually produce a larger real emission increase as great or greater than the US. One cost of redefining one’s self as is convenient is that it allows others to do so, possibly guaranteeing that a larger real emission increase is the case.

It turns out that a quick review indicates that real EU-25 CO2 emissions have increased more than the US since, say, 2000, by a third as much (133.1%) in fact. If my numbers are right, that means +177.7 MMT for the EU-25 in 2005 Cf. 2000, as compared to the US’s +133.5 MMT 2005 over 2000, per the Energy Information Administration numbers (I have only just done this and do not know how it holds for older baselines, e.g., 1997 being the only potentially relevant year).

And oh, dear, even without the EU-10, the EU-15, “Old Europe” – a smaller economy than the US’s – increased emissions by 161.67 MMT to the US’s 133.5 over the same period; that is our climate hectors have increased real emissions more than the US’s, in real terms, by 21%.

So there is no need to rely on the “in percentage terms” qualifier when noting that Europe’s emissions have risen faster than the US’s (as Kyoto defines Europe). Instead, it appears that Europe’s emissions (as Kyoto defines Europe, and certainly as Europe defines Europe, including for these purposes) have not only increased much faster than the US’s but also that the EU has increased CO2 emissions much more than the US.

It seems the only thing standing between Europe and a reality check is a White House calling them on their bluster.

Alarmist: Science Doesn’t Matter

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on February 16, 2009

in Blog

As unusual as it has been for global warming alarmists to debate skeptics, I have found it even more rare to find a mainstream news outlet — anywhere — to cover the issue surrounding states’ global warming commissions and the Center for Climate Strategies. Well, after traveling all the way to Anchorage a few weeks ago, I finally found a local TV station who was interested in hearing about it: ABC’s affiliate, which broadcasts throughout Alaska.

It turned out that I was there (when the station did a report about my concerns) on the day before the Alaska Climate Change Sub-Cabinet, as it’s called up there, was to meet. So after hearing what I had to say, reporter Bob Mallory checked out the meeting to see what CCS and panel members had to say. From his report, where he said a carbon tax was under consideration:

Mallory: As far as scientific debate as to whether global warming is occurring, that’s something that won’t be happening in these meetings.

CCS facilitator Gloria Flora: I think when you look at Gov. Palin’s executive order, and (Alaska Dept. of Environmental Conservation) Commissioner (Larry) Hartig has made it very clear, that we’re not here to debate who did what when, where are these emissions coming from…we know that there is far more carbon and CO2 in the atmosphere.

In a further on-air discussion with anchor Ty Hardt, Mallory explains how the state’s contract with CCS (as is the case in every state) forbids any discussion or debate about the science of global warming. And in the written version of the report for the station’s Web site, Flora makes this amazing statement:

ABC Alaska News asked Flora, what if the science behind climate change is wrong? Her response: “So what? We’ve saved money. We’ve saved resources. We’ve improved our health. We’ve improved the environment. So, if we’re wrong, hallelujah! You know, we just did a lot of really good things.”

To give you a flavor of the Grape Nuts that CCS is hiring to run their state climate commission meetings, YouTube has a short clip of Flora in full-alarmism.

Christy/Schlesinger Debate, Part II

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on February 16, 2009

in Blog

I had intended to return to this point when I originally posted about this debate last week, but time got away from me. Thankfully, my colleague Roy Cordato brought it up today:

During the question and answer session of last week’s William Schlesinger/John Christy global warming debate, (alarmist) Schlesinger was asked how many members of United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were actual climate scientists. It is well known that many, if not most, of its members are not scientists at all. Its president, for example, is an economist. This question came after Schlesinger had cited the IPCC as an authority for his position. His answer was quite telling. First he broadened it to include not just climate scientists but also those who have had “some dealing with the climate.” His complete answer was that he thought, “something on the order of 20 percent have had some dealing with climate.” In other words, even IPCC worshiper Schlesinger now acknowledges that 80 percent of the IPCC membership had absolutely no dealing with the climate as part of their academic studies.

This shatters so much of the alarmists’ claim, as they almost always appeal to the IPCC as their ultimate authority. Slain.

NADA report proves California waiver would create regulatory patchwork

by Marlo Lewis on February 13, 2009

in Blog

A front-burner issue facing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson is whether to grant a waiver under the Clean Air Act allowing the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to implement first-ever greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for new motor vehicles. Thirteen other states are poised to adopt the CARB program if Jackson grants the waiver. In all, about 40% of the U.S. auto market would come under the CARB rules.

Jackson’s predecessor, Stephen Johnson, rejected CARB’s application  in December 2007.  His reasons, published in the Federal Register in March 2008, may be summarized as follows. EPA’s historic practice has been to grant CARB waiver requests to address air pollution threats arising from circumstances specific to California–its topography, regional meteorology, and number of vehicles. In contrast, global climate change is, well, global. Conditions associated with global climate change in California are not sufficiently different from those in other states to justify a separate emissions program.

This argument, which is tantamount to saying that EPA won’t allow CARB to combat global warming because global warming is bad for people everywhere, predictably elicited scorn from California politicians and environmental groups.

“Patchwork Proven,” a new report by the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), presents two compelling arguments against granting the waiver that Johnson should have made.

First, granting the waiver would violate the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), which prohibits states from adopting laws or regulations “related to fuel economy.” Yes, I’m well aware that in Central Valley Chrysler-Jeep, Inc. v. Goldstone (2006), the U.S. District Court for Eastern California held that EPCA does not preempt CARB from establishing GHG standards for new motor vehicles. However, the Court’s reasoning was spurious, and Johnson should not have given it a free pass.

The CARB emissions program is essentially fuel economy regulation by another name. CO2 comprises 97% of the GHG emissions from motor vehicles. Since there is no commercial technology for capturing or filtering out motor vehicle CO2 emissions, the chief way to decrease CO2-equivalent grams per mile (that’s how the CARB GHG standards are calibrated) is to decrease fuel consumption per mile, i.e., increase fuel economy.

As “Patchwork Proven” points out, the relationship between fuel economy and tailpipe CO2 emissions is so close that EPA tests compliance with federal fuel economy standards by measuring vehicular CO2 emissions. The bottom line: “Absent a significant increase in new vehicle fleet fuel economy, it is impossible to comply with CARB’s regulation.” So the CARB emissions program is substantially “related to fuel economy.” As such, it is prohibited by EPCA.

Alas, in this day and age of judicial activism and global warming hysteria, we should not expect Jackson to pay heed to the spirit of EPCA.  However, she and other Obama Administration officials should be worried about havoc that the waiver would wreak on the distressed U.S. auto industry.

CARB and its allies repeatedly deny that granting the waiver would create a regulatory “patchwork,” with automakers required to comply in different ways in different states. According to them, there would be at most two programs: the federal program and the California program.  A dual system of regulating air pollution from vehicles has been in place since the start of the Clean Air Act. Vehicles built to federal standards are “federal cars” and vehicles built to CARB standards are “California cars.” Automakers have had no trouble building  cars that meet two different emission standards. Promulgating GHG emission standards would merely update a system that has worked well for decades, CARB contends.

The fundamental flaw in this argument is that CO2 is not like the air-quality damaging pollutants subject to existing EPA and CARB emission standards.  For smog-forming pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, both EPA and CARB specify how many grams per mile individual vehicles may emit. That’s not how CARB regulation of GHG emissions would work. There would not be two types of vehicles, “California” and “federal.” Rather, the CARB standards specify the CO2-equivalent grams per mile that each automaker must attain on average for the fleet it delivers for sale. In other words, the CARB program implicitly specifies fleet-average fuel economy.

This is a radical departure from previous EPA and CARB emission standards, and it inexorably produces a regulatory patchwork.

Here’s why. Consumer preferences and the corresponding mix of vehicles delivered for sale differ from state to state. For example, in 2007, the Dodge Ram (with a fuel economy rating of 18.7 mpg) accounted for 20.66% of all Chrysler vehicles sold in California, but only 9.46% of all Chrysler vehicles sold in Rhode Island, and 8.43% in New Jersey. In contrast, the Jeep Grand Cherokee (with a fuel economy rating of 20.2 mpg), accounted for only 5.23% of Chrysler vehicles sold in California but 11.23% of Chrysler vehicles sold in Rhode Island, and 16.26% in New Jersey.

The number and percentage of vehicle models an auto company “delivers for sale” differ from state to state.  For any auto fleet, no two states are likely to have the same average fuel economy or CO2-equivalent grams per mile.

Thus, to comply with the CARB standards, automakers would have to adjust the “mix” of vehicles offered for sale in each state adopting those standards. In each such state, an automaker would have to “deliver for sale” enough vehicles with CO2-equivalent per mile (fuel economy) ratings above the CARB standard to offset vehicles delivered for sale with ratings below. The “mix-shuffling” required for compliance  in State A would likely be different from that required for compliance in State B, C, and so on.

Note that the CARB program would create a vehicle-rationing patchwork even if there were no competing federal fuel economy standards. As the NADA report puts it, “If CARB’s regulation were to take effect in all 50 states, the resulting 50-state patchwork would require automakers to manage 50 unique state fleets and to individually meet CARB’s standard 50 different ways.”

Since the current mix in each state is determined by consumer preference, the adjusted mix would clash with consumer preference. The most likely compliance strategy would involve “rationing larger vehicles, discounting smaller models for quick sale, or other pricing strategies that distort the market,” the NADA report warns. Is that any way to rescue the auto industry?

Adding insult to injury, it’s not even clear that the CARB standards would achieve any significant reduction in emissions. CARB claims that adoption of its standards by 13 states would eliminate 59% more CO2 emissions in 2020 than would compliance with federal fuel economy rules. But companies forced to “deliver for sale” smaller, lighter, more fuel-economical vehicles in the CARB states would be allowed, under the federal fuel economy program, to sell more large, heavy, gas-guzzling vehicles in non-CARB states.

Moreover,  if CARB rules restrict the supply and increase the cost of gas-guzzlers “delivered for sale” in California, for example, Californians would still be free to buy lower-priced gas guzzlers in Nevada and bring them back home. Emissions in California might go down somewhat, but auto sales, jobs, and tax revenues might go down even faster.

California politicians and environmental lobbyists talk about the CARB emissions program as if it were the greatest thing since sliced bread. Lisa Jackson would be well advised to read “Patchwork Proven” before deciding on CARB’s waiver request.

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on February 13, 2009

in Cooler Heads Digest

Announcements

More than 70 of the world’s elite scientists specializing in climate issues will confront the subject of global warming at the Heartland Institute’s second International Conference on Climate Change in New York City, March 8-10, 2009. They will be joined by economists, legal experts, private-sector business people, state and federal legislators and officials, policy analysts, media, and students. To learn more, click here.

In the News

Travesty-Rep. Inslee’s Behavior at Committee Hearing
Marlo Lewis, Globalwarming.org, 12 February 2009

The Collapse of Climate Policy
Roger Pielke Jr., Prometheus, 7 February 2009

Obama’s Extreme team on Energy
Ben Lieberman, FoxNews.com, 6 February 2009

Video: Heartland Institute Exposes Fear Mongering
Heartland Institute, 5 February 2009

Carbon Collapse Threatens Green Dreams
Sarah Arnott, The Independent, 9 February 2009

Climate Change Paradox: New Wind Power Doesn’t Reduce Emissions
Anselm Walderman, De Spiegal, 10 February 2009

Energy Secretary Floats a Carbon Tax
AFP, 12 February 2009

News You Can Use

Expensive Ethanol

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy jointly have launched a new website that allows viewers to compare the annual cost of fueling vehicles with E-85 (a blend including 85% ethanol) and regular unleaded gasoline. According to their calculations, it is almost 120% more expensive to fill a vehicle with E-85 than with gas. Click here to read commentary by CEI’s Marlo Lewis on the new site. Thanks to Dan Kish of the Institute for Energy Research for calling it to our attention.

Inside the Beltway

Senate Confirmation Hearing for Chronic Kook

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee held a hearing on Thursday, 12th February, on the nominations of Dr. Jane Lubchenco to be Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and of Dr. John P. Holdren to be White House Science Adviser and Director of the Office and Science and Technology Policy.  Lubchenco was careful not to say anything.  It looked as if Holdren’s eagerness to say something was frustrated by his knowing that he’d been advised by his handlers not to say anything.  The only interesting exchange during questions came when Senator David Vitter (R-La.) asked Holdren about some of the outrageous statements he has made over the years.  Holdren has been preaching imminent environmental doom and the need for population control and de-development of the industrialized countries for decades.  A few years ago he predicted that one billion people could die from global warming by 2020.  Vitter put him on the spot and peeled away just enough of Holdren’s mask to catch a glimpse of the kook underneath.  The Chairman and Ranking Republican of the committee, Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) are trying to send both nominations to the floor quickly for confirmation by voice vote.  Let’s hope that Sen. Vitter’s efforts will cause some Senators to consider Holdren’s nomination a little more carefully.

Green Pork in Stimulus

The House and the Senate are likely to vote on the conference report for the so-called stimulus package in the next day or two.  The bill wastes $790 billion of taxpayer money in an astounding number of ways.  The “green” spending provisions reportedly survived pretty well in the House-Senate negotiations.  It will take some time to add up all the potential “green” spending and tax credits.

Boxer Sets Timetable for Energy Rationing

I forgot to mention in last week’s issue that Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Marin County, Calif.), Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, held a press conference on 3rd February to discuss her plans for a cap-and trade bill this year.  She said that the new bill would be less complicated than the Lieberman-Warner bill that crashed on the Senate floor last June and listed six principles that would guide writing the new bill.  The only item worth noting is Boxer’s discussion of the schedule.  She said that she was determined to vote a bill out of committee before the annual UN global warming meeting in Copenhagen in December.  That’s when the parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change are supposed to wrap up their negotiations on an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012.

It was only a few months ago that the Democratic leadership said they would have a cap-and-trade bill on President Obama’s desk to sign before Copenhagen.  Now, Boxer is committed to having a bill out of committee before Copenhagen, while her House counterpart, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills, Calif.), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has promised to have a bill out of his committee by Memorial Day.  But it looks increasingly likely that neither the House nor the Senate will consider and vote on a cap-and-trade bill on the floor this year.  And 2010 is an election year, when floor time becomes scarce and Members shy away from having to take votes on controversial issues.  Although these same Democratic leaders complained in the early years of this decade that the Republican majority was stalling on global warming legislation and that the time for talk was long past, the prospects for enacting energy-rationing legislation by a Democratic majority nonetheless continue to fade into the future.

Around the World

UK: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

According to a story this week in the Independent, Sammy Wilson, Northern Ireland’s Environment minister, banned an advertising campaign urging people to help tackle climate change by turning off their television sets because he does not believe humans are the main cause of global warming.

An airline industry journal this week reported that Adair Turner, chairman of the independent Committee on Climate Change that advises UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, proposed limiting UK citizens to just a few vacation trips abroad by air per year in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party in Britain, spent almost $5,000 to install a D400 Stealthgen wind turbine on the roof of his London home in order to appear environmentally sensitive. After planners noticed it was in the wrong spot, Cameron took the turbine down, but it never went back up, most likely because it was an unsightly waste of money: Experts estimated that Cameron’s turbine would take 40 to 70 years to pay its way. B&Q, the manufacturer of the turbine, has announced that it will stop selling the D400.

Study: Renewables Remain Uncompetitive in EU even with Energy Rationing Policies

A new study by Chappin and Dijkema from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands questions the common assumption that raising the cost of inexpensive coal-fired power will cause a shift to renewable sources. By modeling the future reductions forced by the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme, they conclude:

“A long-term portfolio shift towards less-CO2 intensive power generation is observed. However, the effect of CET (CO2 Emissions Trading) is relatively small and materializes late. The absolute emissions from power generation rise under most scenarios. This corresponds to the dominant character of current capacity expansion planned in the Netherlands (50%) and in Germany (68%), where companies have announced many new coal-based power plants. Coal is the most CO2 intensive option available and it seems surprising that even after the introduction of CET these capacity expansion plans indicate a preference for coal. Apparently in power generation the economic effect of CO2 emission-trading is not sufficient to outweigh the economic incentives to choose for coal.”

Across the States

California

The Los Angeles Times reported this week on an independent analysis asserting that the city government has not “appropriately analyzed or communicated” the fact that the city’s plan to generate 35% of its electricity with renewables by 2020 would have a “significant impact” on energy prices. The office of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) disputed the analysis. The Mayor continues to claim that using greater amounts of expensive alternative energy will benefit the economy.

Maryland

Maryland Governor Martin O’ Malley (D) held a press conference this week to promote S. 278, the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act of 2009, which directs a state agency to develop a strategy to reduce Maryland’s greenhouse gas emissions 25% below 2006 levels by 2020, while at the same time ensuring “no loss of manufacturing jobs; a net increase in jobs and a net economic benefit…and no adverse impact on the reliability and affordability of electricity and fuel supplies.” Of course, that’s impossible, but by the time that Maryland citizens have to pay more for energy to meet O’ Malley’s contradictory agenda, the Governor will be safely out of office.

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