2008

In Kansas, the battle between the Governor and the Republican-controlled legislature over Sunflower Electric's bid to expand its Holcomb Generating Station is likely over, after the Kansas House narrowly sustained the third veto of a bill to allow the plants by Governor Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat. Leaders in the House have indicated that they do not intend to pursue another vote. It is the first denial of a coal power plant permit in the country based on climate change concerns. The Sierra Club hailed the vote, and Sebelius called on lawmakers to “work with me on a new comprehensive energy policy” to serve the entire State.

President George W. Bush spoke about what to do about rising gasoline prices at a press conference on Tuesday.  He said that the Congress was to blame for not passing legislation to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to exploration and production.  As he correctly said: “Members of Congress have been vocal about foreign governments increasing their oil production; yet Congress has been just as vocal in opposition to efforts to expand our production here at home.”

In reply to a question, the President said about increasing domestic energy production: “We can also send a clear signal that we understand supply and demand….”  Then he went on to defend the corn ethanol mandate on the grounds that it was only contributing 15 percent to the increase in food prices.  Apparently, the President could use a little remedial tutorial in supply and demand.  The prices of products like corn, wheat, and soybeans are set in a global market on the margin.  A small decrease in supply (such as diverting enough corn to feed 250 million people for a year to ethanol production, as happened last year) can have a dramatic effect on price.

Luckily, President Bush is a lagging indicator.  As news stories on the catastrophic consequences of the corn ethanol mandate threaten to become an avalanche, the Congress is full of talk about the need to do something.  Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Az.) has introduced the most sweeping bill, but there are many others being drafted.  Even Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the Majority Whip, said this week that they were going to have to look at the mandate.  Durbin represents Illinois, the nation’s number two corn-growing State.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

How "rich" it is that 84 percent of the adult descendants of John D. Rockefeller should pressure ExxonMobil into diversifying its interests into alternative energy. The company has rewarded its investors (the Standard Oil family beneficiaries included) handsomely, but as the Wall Street Journal notes, "The well-to-do Rockefellers have embraced the eco-enthusiasms of the day, and perhaps for some of them this is one way of assuaging any guilt over a multibillion-dollar fortune built on carbon." It was Neva Rockefeller Goodwin at the podium last week who said, "As the oldest continuous shareholders of the Exxon Mobil corporation, we almost define the long-term investors."

Considering all the anti-carbon activities that the Rockefellers have invested in, you'd think they would divest themselves of theoretically unprincipled corporations like ExxonMobil a long time ago. Of course, you'd be wrong, as it's hard to part with the "second-largest quarterly profit in U.S. corporate history."

Yet the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (Vice Chairman: Neva) and Rockefeller Family Fund are pushing their agenda in every way imaginable. I've followed the work of RBF for quite a while as they have provided at least $1.5 million in funding for the Center for Climate Strategies, who advance anti-carbon policies in the states through state-created global warming commissions. The millions of dollars they funnel to other groups with similar goals is staggering.

The back pockets of "big oil," indeed.