GlobalWarming.org

Last Thursday in Florida, President Barack Obama grossly misrepresented his record on energy policy in a speech delivered at the University of Miami.

The President first bemoaned the effect of rising fuel costs on average Americans, saying that, “high gas prices are like a tax straight out of your paycheck.” His apparent empathy is belied by his support for a cap-and-trade energy rationing scheme, which makes gas more expensive by design.

Then the President disingenuously took credit for rising oil and gas production in America. While it’s true that there has been a recent increase in production, it occurred despite this Administration’s anti-energy policies. As explained by the Institute for Energy Research, “The reality is that oil production on federal lands is falling, while production on private and state lands is rising.” To put it another way, production is increasing where the President doesn’t have the authority to stop it.

After misattributing to himself credit for increasing oil production, President Obama touted his record on pipelines, telling the audience that, “Over the last three years my administration has approved dozens of new pipelines, including from Canada.” He failed to mention his unpopular refusal to approve the Keystone XL, a 1,700 mile, shovel-ready pipeline from Alberta to Texas that would create thousands of construction jobs, stimulate tens of billions of dollars in business spending, and generate billions of dollars in tax revenues.

Finally, the President pitched an “all of the above” energy strategy. The primary problem with this approach, as my colleague Chris Horner has noted, is that it draws no lines to exclude the uneconomic. By embracing “all” energy sources, taxpayers are on the hook for green energy boondoggles that can’t exist without subsidies.

I’m still thinking about this algae thing, having been on the road when the hilarity ensued. As I understand it, we’re talking about algae because those stupid Republicans keep saying we should produce more oil domestically if we want to lower the price, since we have so darned much of it. And the President responded, that’s stupid because it won’t be here tomorrow.

We instead should “invest in” algae (see, “invest in” Solyndra, “invest in” Beacon Power, “invest in Ener1″…need I continue?). Because algae will be here…um…well, don’t be a cynic.

Because the true engine of… fuels for your engine… will always be energy sources like algae (man, I just wish I was in the room when the consultants worried, “how do we avoid him telling people the real answer is properly inflating their tires,” and the response to this brainchild was “YESSSSSS!,” high fives all around!).

Of course, any insider fool knows that this is a big waste of money because the prez has “invested” a lot of our money in Fisker and the Volt. They don’t need no stinkin’ pond scum to get you where you’re going.

Anyway, flash forward using time travel, which, really, like anti-gravity boots and the rest, has never been more promising (technically, you have to admit he’s right), and enter the world when we pull up to the station and say fill ‘er up with algae! (Free packet of Sea Monkeys with each tank!). It’s just around the corner, as competitive wind and solar electricity have been just around the corner since the ’80s…the 1880s.

The price is 425 dollars and 9 10^ths of a cent per gallon. Question for our economist in chief: if we produce more algae, does that bring the price down? Just a window into your thinking.

I sense somehow we’ll be told that we’re really captive to a world algae cartel and that the U.S. is powerless therefore to impact the price. And so stop asking that we produce more. We all know, by now, you can’t produce your way to lower prices.

So that’s stupid. We should instead be investing in…

The recent acquisition of Heartland documents (apparently along with a fraudulent “strategy” document) has created a minor journalist firestorm.  I’ll comment on the particulars of this incident but the broader implication is but one battle in the war to drive the market from the marketplace of ideas.  More on this but first let me summarize the facts as they now appear.

Peter Gleick, a climate scientist, claimed to be a board member and thus requested that Heartland re-forward him the materials sent out for a forthcoming Board meeting.  The staffer did so and Mr. Gleick then emailed “the” documents to interested parties, and they were originally posted on DeSmogBlog. I put the in quotes because it now appears that amongst the purloined documents was also enclosed a “strategy” document that outlined ideas to advance a more balanced understanding of the global warming policy area.  Serious doubts about the authenticity of this strategy document have since been raised. Not surprisingly, the global warming alarmists view this entire imbroglio as “proof” that skeptics are “only doing it for the money!”  I wonder whether they’ve ever done a comparison of salaries in right-of-center and left-of-center NGOs?

Ignored in all this is, however, a larger and even more serious issue – the growing effort to drive the market (and market-friendly voices) from the marketplace of ideas.  The left has found that their statist alliances – trial lawyers and environmentalists, unionists and consumer groups – have been powerful in advancing their agenda.  They’re not eager to see economic liberals do the same.

Note their systematic ideological-cleansing program:  no one with any business links serving on a government policy advisory group; no one with a business background to serving in government; pejorative labeling in academic journals of any business funded research; banning academics funding by business; passing stockholder resolutions against companies assisting pro-market policy allies; providing financial aid to our groups or of even interacting cooperatively with us (e.g. the Heartland crime).

If these efforts succeed, then the only legitimate voices in the policy debates will be crony capitalists and statist intellectuals. A serious threat and one that the Heartland incident should alert us to.