January 2009

Despite Whitewashing, Obama’s Energy Czar Is Still a Card Carrying Socialist

by William Yeatman on January 8, 2009

Last week we reported that Carol Browner, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for “energy czar,” is a card carrying member of a major socialist organization.

CEI adjunct scholar Steven Milloy broke that story, and today he sent around an update:

“Since my January 2 e-mail about Obama energy/environment czar Carol Browner being an official with Socialist International, everyone will be pleased to note that (in true Stalinist fashion), Browner's name, photo and, bio have been scrubbed from SI's web site.”

Is this whitewashing the kind of change we can expect from the Obama administration? 

Dick Durbin Tries To Convince Obama To Bring Home the Bacon

by William Yeatman on January 8, 2009

Illinois Senator yesterday met with Dr. Stephen Chu, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to head the Department of Energy, to try to win the Obama administration's support for the FutureGen boongoggle.

The FutureGen project was President George W. Bush’s big energy initiative—a $1 billion public-private partnership to build a near-zero emissions coal-fired power plant. 

Initially, Congress was skeptical. In 2005, the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee rejected Bush’s request for FutureGen funding. Members called it a “maybe” program, too risky to merit the investment.

That should have been the end of it. But the prospect of landing a billion dollar government investment mobilized grass roots support for the project in a number of coal-states, including Texas, Illinois and Ohio, the home state to then-Chairman of the Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee David Hobson (R-Ohio). So Congress changed its mind in 2006. 

Pork barrel politics, however, is a poor basis for an investment. By 2007, cost over-runs doubled the project’s estimated price-tag to almost $2 billion. Also, a significant component of the FutureGen investment became increasingly unnecessary as the private sector moved forward with gasification technologies.

Despite these warning signs, seven states continued to vie for FutureGen. Ultimately, Illinois won the right to host the project in December 2007.

Shortly thereafter, the Energy Department pulled the plug on FutureGen. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman wrote that the Department of Energy could not support the project “in good conscience” because of “the likelihood it would fail.”

Illinois politicians were predictably outraged. Disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich blamed Texas, which was also a finalist to host the project. Barack Obama co-signed a letter to the President saying that he had “lost confidence” in Secretary Bodman. Illinois Senator Richard Durbin has blocked President Bush’s political appointments.

A bloated, delay-prone clean-coal power plant might be in the interests of the Prairie State, but it is not in the national interest. Yet FutureGen remains on life support, thanks to the Illinois delegation to Congress, which hopes that a native-son in the White House will put the project back on track.

Will Obama continue to play political football with America’s energy policy? We’ll find out in February when he unveils his proposed budget. 

It’s Cold Out There

by William Yeatman on January 8, 2009

in Blog

If you are going out anytime over the next few months, may I suggest that you wear a hat? You might even buy earmuffs. We are experiencing yet another cold winter. Al Gore may believe in global warming, but I suggest that he have a word with his fellow environmental catastrophists at the UK's Hadley Centre for Climate Predictions. Since the end of 1998 global warming has ceased. In fact, it is getting colder out there. Two thousand eight was possibly the coldest year of this young century. Over the last two years temperatures have dropped by more than 0.5 degrees Celsius — brrrr.

Markey Nets Top Energy Post; Congress Gets More Dangerous

by William Yeatman on January 8, 2009

The Boston Globe today reports that Massachusetts Representative Edward Markey has been selected chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. It’s a powerful post. His subcommittee is the origin of any legislation that deals with energy, and by extension, global warming.

Last year, Rep Markey served as chairman of the Select Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence. That Committee does not have the power to legislate; rather, it was created by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to hold scary hearings on the apocalyptic threat of rising temperatures, so that reporters would write about global warming alarmism. Markey performed this function diligently.

Markey’s boss is California Representative Henry Waxman, who recently wrestled away the Committee chairmanship from Michigan Representative John Dingell. Waxman represents Beverly Hills, and he is as out of touch as his constituents are.

Waxman and Markey make a dangerous combination. They are both global warming alarmists, and they both have the utmost confidence in the ability of government to solve the crisis they propagate. From them we should expect radical, heavily statist energy policies to ward off the supposed threat of climate change.

Electric Cars and Economics 101

by William Yeatman on January 6, 2009

in Blog

The big problem with electric cars isn't technological. It's economic. And one's just as defeating as the other, if the object is to come up with an electric vehicle that's more than just a cute plaything for a handful of over-rich Hollywood celebs.

Who Knew? Global Warming Causes War, Too

by William Yeatman on January 6, 2009

in Blog

This simpleton is literally saying that Global Warming will cause major wars.  By this logic, summertime causes war.  It presupposes that people are unable to think clearly when the temperature goes up from 80 to 82 degrees and, in their fevered states, they will start wars.

WaPost Writer: Climate Change Will Lead to US-Canada War (Defcon Five Alarmism)

by William Yeatman on January 6, 2009

In Sunday’s Washington Post, James R Lee suggests that rising temperatures will lead to a U.S.-Canada conflict over newly exploitable natural resources. That’s a preposterous prediction if there ever was one.  

Rather than fanciful warming scenarios, international security experts like Mr. Lee should concern themselves with the harmful effects of global warming policies.

Expensive energy policies to fight global warming could cost trillions more than the cost of rising temperatures. That would dramatically inhibit global economic growth (see part 2 of Global Warming 101, "The Costs"). Of course, poverty and political instability go hand in hand.

To prevent carbon “leakage” (ie, the outsourcing of energy intensive industry to countries that don’t have expensive carbon rationing policies), many policy makers advocate trade restrictions. But history shows that trade wars are prone to becoming real wars.

In fact, a global warming policy has already led to instability in the developing world. Only a couple years ago, environmentalists promoted ethanol as a “green fuel.” They were wrong. It turns out that ethanol production leads to land use changes that release more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere than is saved by ethanol use.

Worse, ethanol is made from food—corn and soy in the U.S., palm oil and wheat in the European Union. In 2008, ethanol production policies in the developed world contributed to steep inflation in the price of food, which caused urban unrest in developing countries dependent on the international grain market.

Lee needs to take a step back and ask himself what’s worse, the warming or the policy?

EU Faces Energy Crisis as Russia Cuts Gas

by William Yeatman on January 6, 2009

As temperatures dropped below zero across much of Europe, the Russian prime minister instructed the head of Gazprom: "Cut it – starting today."

Sustaining the Unsustainable

by William Yeatman on January 5, 2009

in Blog

How has the scam that humans are causing global warming worked so effectively?  One answer is exploitation of fear, the technique of which was accurately explained in the late Michael Crichton’s book “State of Fear.

Sorry, Climate Change Wouldn’t Hurt Economy

by William Yeatman on January 5, 2009

in Blog

One of the more sober arguments in favor of radical action to combat perceived climate change is that doing nothing would be economically calamitous. That was certainly the conclusion of the controversial Stern Report in the United Kingdom. Economist Nicholas Stern concluded that we should spend 1 percent of the global economy every year to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Now even if you take Stern's numbers as correct—and many think he wildly overestimates the economic risks of doing nothing—he still advocates spending $700 billion a year on the supposed problem. Failure to do so could risk global GDP being up to twenty percent lower than it would be otherwise.

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