2010

Crucial offers to help clean up BP’s oil spill “have come from Belgian, Dutch, and Norwegian firms that . . . possess some of the world’s most advanced oil skimming ships.” But the Obama administration wouldn’t accept the help, because doing so would require it to do something past presidents have routinely done: waive rules imposed by the Jones Act, a law backed by unions.

“The BP clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico is hampered by the Jones Act. This is a piece of 1920s protectionist legislation, that requires all vessels working in U.S. waters to be American-built, and American-crewed. So . . . the U.S. Coast Guard . . . can’t accept, and therefore don’t ask for, the assistance of high-tech European vessels specifically designed for the task in hand.”

The law itself permits the president to waive these requirements, and such waivers were “granted, promptly, by the Bush administration,” in the aftermath of hurricanes and other emergencies. But Obama has refused to do so, notes David Warren in the Ottawa Citizen. Instead, Obama rejected a Dutch offer to help clean up the spill, noted Voice of America News:

“The Obama administration declined the Dutch offer partly because of the Jones Act, which restricts foreign ships from certain activities in U.S. waters.  During the Hurricane Katrina crisis five years ago, the Bush administration waived the Jones Act in order to facilitate some foreign assistance, but such a waiver was not given in this case.”

“After the Obama administration refused help from the Netherlands, Geert Visser, the consul general for the Netherlands in Houston, told Loren Steffy: ‘Let’s forget about politics; let’s get it done.’” But for Obama, politics always comes first: “The explanation of Obama’s reluctance to seek this remedy is his cozy relationship with labor unions. . . ‘The unions see it [not waiving the act] as … protecting jobs. They hate when the Jones Act gets waived.’”

Ironically, even the staunchest supporters of the Jones Act are now distancing themselves from refusals to accept foreign help, saying they have “not and will not stand in the way of the use of these well-established waiver procedures to address this crisis.” Obama is being more intransigently pro-union than the unions themselves.

One can only hope Obama will change his mind now, given that “each day our European allies are prevented from helping us speed up the clean up is another day that Gulf fishing and tourism jobs die.”

(The Obama administration has belatedly accepted some foreign equipment for use in fighting the spill, although it still blocks ships with foreign crews. As Voice of America notes, although “the Netherlands offered help in April,” such as providing “sophisticated” oil “skimmers and dredging devices,” the Obama administration blocked their crews from working in U.S. waters, and as a result, this crucial “operation was delayed until U.S. crews could be trained” in June. “The Dutch also offered assistance with building sand berms (barriers) along the coast of Louisiana to protect sensitive marshlands, but that offer was also rejected, even though Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal had been requesting such protective barriers.”)

In April 2009, the Obama administration granted BP, a big supporter of Obama, a waiver of environmental regulations.  But after the oil spill, it blocked Louisiana from protecting its coastline against the oil spill by delaying rather than expediting regulatory approval of essential protective measures.  It has also chosen not to use what has been described as “the most effective method” of fighting the spill, a method successfully used in other oil spills.  Democratic strategist James Carville called Obama’s handling of the oil spill “lackadaisical” and “unbelievable” in its “stupidity.”

Obama is now using BP’s oil spill to push the global-warming legislation that BP had lobbied for.  Obama’s global warming legislation expands ethanol subsidies, which cause famine, starvation, and food riots in poor countries by shrinking the food supply.  Ethanol makes gasoline costlier and dirtier, increases ozone pollution, and increases the death toll from smog and air pollution.   Ethanol production also results in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution. Subsidies for biofuels like ethanol are a big source of corporate welfare: “BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels . . . that cannot break even without government support.”

The $800 billion stimulus package is also using taxpayer subsidies to replace U.S. jobs with foreign green jobs. And its regulations destroy jobs in America’s export sector.

Last Thursday, by a vote of 53-47, the Senate rejected S.J.Res.26, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval to overturn EPA’s endangerment rule.

Although Sen. Murkowski fell four votes short of achieving a legislative victory, she nonetheless won an important political victory. 

During the past four-plus months, despite vicious attacks by eco-pressure groups and preemptive cringing by the subsidy dependent auto industry, Sen. Murkowksi worked patiently, calmly, and indefatigably to clarify the real issues, which are: (1) “The sweeping powers being pursued by EPA are the worst possible option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions”; (2) “politically accountable members of the House and Senate, not unelected bureaucrats, must develop our nation’s energy and climate policies”; and (3) ”those policies must be able to pass on their own merits, instead of serving as a defense against ill-considered regulations.”

All 41 Republican Senators and six Democrats voted to stop EPA from ‘enacting’ controversial global warming policies through the regulatory back door. This means Democratic leaders have become the Party of Endangerment — the party taking ownership of the regulatory consequences of EPA’s endangerment rule; hence the party taking responsibility for the economic fallout.

By denying President Obama bipartisan cover for greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act, Sen. Murkowski has made EPA’s endangerment rule a political liability for Democrats and a political asset for Republicans in an election year.

That should increase the pressure on moderate Dems and Republicans alike to distance themselves from Democratic leaders and eschew cap-and-trade, which, like EPA’s regulations, would increase consumer energy prices, killing jobs and growth.

Sen. Murkowski’s opening and closing statements in the floor debate clearly and cogently explain how the endangerment rule imperils our economy and representative democracy. Below are some noteworthy excerpts.

Excerpts from Sen. Murkowski’s Opening Statement

The sweeping powers being pursued by the EPA are the worst possible option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. . . .It would amount to an unprecedented power grab, ceding Congress’ responsibilities to unelected bureaucrats, and move an important debate from our open halls to behind an agency’s closed doors.

* * *

The only similarity I see between the spill in the Gulf of Mexico and EPA’s regulations is that both are unmitigated disasters — one happening now, the other waiting in the wings if Congress fails to adopt this resolution.

* * *

No one is more aware of this uncomfortable fact [that EPA’s regulatory net would expand by orders of magnitude] than the EPA itself. That’s why the agency has attempted to dramatically increase the thresholds for greenhouse gases in its so-called tailoring rule. Unhappy with the plain language of the Clean Air Act, the agency plans to lift its limits up to 1,000 times higher than Congress directed. It’s deeply disturbing that EPA did not accept that the Act is simply not structured for this task, and instead attempted to make it so by ignoring the plain language and unilaterally amending it.

* * *

I encourage my colleagues to think about the logic behind the tailoring rule. The EPA is asking us to accept that while greenhouse gases are not in the Clean Air Act, Congress clearly intended them to be regulated under it. At the same time, we’re expected to believe that while explicit regulatory thresholds are in the Act, Congress meant for EPA to ignore them.

* * *

To this day, the agency still has not provided anything close to a full projection of the economic impacts that its economy-wide climate regulations will have. There are two potential reasons why: the EPA either has no cost estimates, or knows they are too astronomical to calculate and release.

* * *

The problem is that BACT [best available control technology] remains completely undefined at this point. It could mean efficiency improvements, expensive add-on technologies, or even fuel-switching requirements. Over time, the EPA would have little choice but to impose all of those requirements and more, regardless of the consequences.

* * *

Again, it’s hard not to find this both surreal and deeply alarming. We need to be growing our economy, not paralyzing it.

* * *

This brings me to my final point: politically accountable members of the House and Senate, not unelected bureaucrats, must develop our nation’s energy and climate policies. And those policies must be able to pass on their own merits, instead of serving as a defense against ill-considered regulations.

* * *

Nor is it [S.J.Res.26] about fuel efficiency — the Department of Transportation is and has been in charge for 35 years, and we don’t need another agency and another standard thrown into the mix to do the same job . . . .The EPA does not need to take over this process, and it should not be allowed to do so under a law that was never intended to regulate fuel economy.

* * *

Bringing climate science, the oil spill, and fuel economy into this debate are attempts at misdirection — “green herrings” intended to convince members to oppose our resolution. But this debate has nothing to do with those topics. . . .It’s about maintaining the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches, as our founding fathers intended, and rejecting an unprecedented overreach by the EPA into the affairs of Congress.

Excerpts from Sen. Murkowski’s Closing Statement

Most cynical are the efforts to link our resolution to the oil spill. That serves only to cheapen the horrible and ongoing tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico and distract from the reasons why 41 Senators sponsored this resolution. Here’s the real question: why is the EPA attempting to impose economy-wide regulations — regulations that will not help clean up or prevent future accidents — instead of focusing its resources on the spill?

* * *

We’ve heard that our resolution is anti-science. Some of our supporters agree with it [EPA’s endangerment analysis], and some do not. The reality is that the science is what it is, and it is beyond the power of Congress to change. But this is an issue of the best way, and the most appropriate body, to respond to the conclusions being reached by members of the scientific community.

* * *

Threatening to disrupt our nation’s economy until we pass a bill by the slimmest of margins, regardless of its merits, won’t be much of an accomplishment. Nor is that approach worthy of the institutions and people we serve. It isn’t appropriate for a challenge of this magnitude. No policy that results from it will achieve our common goals or stand the test of time.

* * *

Today is the day for the Senate to take the threat of EPA climate regulations off the table once and fall all. . . .By passing our bipartisan resolution of disapproval resolution, we can return the debate over climate policy to its rightful home, here in Congress, where duly-elected representatives can represent the best interests of their constituents.

Here are headlines from two stories about the same peer-reviewed study.

Reuters: “Melting mountains put millions at risk in Asia: study”

Nature: “Global warming’s impact on Asia’s rivers overblown”

I’ll go with Nature on this one.

The key sentence in the letter is this, “‘Denialist’ is an ad hominem argument, the meaning of which is defined entirely by the user, intended to discredit the accused without evidence.”

The “anti-denialism” campaign is, to use a word I rarely employ, a literal conspiracy–albeit something of an open one in that it’s openly pushed by Chris Mooney. (Inset.) The purpose is two-fold.

1) Brand those with the “wrong” scientific views not just as “kooks” or “nuts” but as literally pathological. This from a recent article in The New Scientist:

Instigators of denialist movements have more serious psychological problems than most of their followers. ‘They display all the features of paranoid personality disorder [according to one quoted “expert”]‘ “including anger, intolerance of criticism, and what psychiatrists call a grandiose sense of their own importance.” The “expert” goes on to say, “Ultimately, their denialism is a mental health problem. That is why these movements all have the same features, especially the underlying conspiracy theory.

2) Lump those whose ideas you wish to defame with people who truly are whacko. Thus there’s no difference between not accepting the party line on global warming and believing vaccines cause autism or HIV doesn’t cause AIDS.

It is truly insidious and we’re going to be hearing a lot more from these people.

It is a measure of the weakness of the case against Sen. Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval (S.J.Res.26) that opponents keep trying to change the subject.

They want to pretend that a vote for S.J.Res.26 is a vote for Big Oil in general and for BP’s oil spill and all the associated ecological and economic damage in particular.

To say it again, if they really think oil is so bad that America should pay any price, bear any burden, and endure any sacrifice to get “beyond petroleum,” then they should follow the Constitution and try to assemble legislative majorities capable of enacting their agenda.

They know they can’t, so they want EPA — an administrative agency — to enact their agenda for them. That this makes a mockery out of our constitutional system of separated powers and democratic accountability doesn’t seem to bother them one whit.

The vote on S.J.Res. 26 is not “about oil.” The endangerment rule, which the Murkowski resolution would overturn, would not create a single tool or authority that could have averted the BP oil spill. It would not tighten a single petroleum industry safety standard or improve a single emergency response program. It would not create a single incentive that might have made BP more diligent in implementing safety standards.

The only way greenhouse gas regulations could stop oil spills is by making deep water drilling unprofitable. That, however, would make America more dependent on IMPORTED oil (duh!). Is that want opponents of S.J.Res.26 want?

They’ll say, no, their goal is to ”set America free” from dependence on petroleum as such. But that is not possible at reasonable cost, which is why despite decades of anti-petroleum agitation, fuel economy standards, and government support for alternative technologies and fuels, U.S. petroleum consumption and imports continue to increase.

At most, EPA’s greenhouse gas emission standards can only decrease the rate at which U.S. petroleum consumption increases. More accurately, EPA’s standards would only complicate and reduce the efficiency of the fuel economy program Congress created and amended via the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act and 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. As the National Automobile Dealers Association explains in a letter in support of S.J.Res.26, overturning the endangerment rule would help restore a more efficient approach: “a single national fuel economy standard, with rules set by Congress.”

Finally, the notion that oil is bad and hence that government can’t do too much to restrict petroleum production is benighted. Members of Congress who espouse this view either deliberately mislead the public or are ignorant of oil’s historic and continuing massive contribution to the improvement of human health and welfare.

A recent post on a blog called The Intellectual Activist eloquently explains the common sense of the matter. I reproduce it below.

TIA Daily • June 4, 2010
FEATURE ARTICLE
Oil Is Good
by Jack Wakeland
I appreciated the pro-industrialism in last Friday’s edition of TIA Daily:

I also think that we need to return to a more old-fashioned attitude toward industrial accidents. Today, they are considered utterly unacceptable catastrophes for one reason: a large segment of the culture does not accept that it is legitimate for heavy industry to exist at all and has a particular animus toward industries that generate power—including oil and coal. So they exploit every accident to promote their pre-existing agenda of shutting down all oil exploration. But if we accept that the Industrial Revolution is a good thing—that it has roughly doubled the average lifespan and vastly increased our quality of life—then we accept that the oil industry has to exist and that occasional accidents are just part of the cost of living.

With continuous 24-hour headline news coverage of this supposedly “unprecedented” disaster—in fact, it was preceded by the 10-month-long, 140 million-gallon Ixtoc 1 blowout off the gulf coast of Mexico in 1979—Rob Tracinski and Sarah Palin are among a tiny minority of American commentators who have voiced the opinion that industrial development is essential for civilization. Unfortunately Sarah Palin and almost all conservatives agree 100% with conservationism—the pre-New-Left version of environmentalism. They say that energy development as a “dirty” business—a necessary evil—that produces “dirty” messes. But we must endure the ugly mess if we are to enjoy the benefits of living a civilized existence.

Of all of the hundreds of commentaries written about the BP oil spill, I can’t recall one single editorial that endorses oil drilling as good.

It is good for oil company stock holders. Good for industrial producers. Good for automobile and truck drivers. Good for people who travel by ship, railroad, or aircraft. Good for people who don’t want to be limited to living out their whole lives without ever traveling farther than 100 miles from the village in which they were born.

Oil is good for people who buy products that are shipped to them from out of town. Good for producers who buy parts and supplies that are shipped in from out of town. Good for the specialization of industrial production that is made possible by mass shipment of parts and materials. Good for the geometrical growth of world-wide industrial productivity made possible by the specialization of production and trade.

Oil is good for farmers who use machines to plant and reap and store and dry and ship and process all of the food we eat. Good for farmers who use fertilizer and other agri-chemicals made from oil to boost the productivity of the land. Good for anyone who doesn’t enjoy enduring bouts of malnutrition and starvation—and the occasional famine.

Oil is good for people who don’t want to endure freezing indoor temperatures in the winter. Good for all producers and end users of lubricants, paints, plastics and other petro-chemical-based products. (Half of the volume of a barrel of crude oil ends up going to make fertilizers and plastics.)

Oil is good for powering all of the ships, trucks, aircraft, helicopters, communications equipment and base electrical systems, and all of the fighting vehicles that the US military use for our national defense. (Ask yourself why it was that when the US Army Air Force decided to destroy the entire nation of Germany in 1944—why was it that they bombed the oil refineries? Why was it that they bombed all modes of transportation to limit shipment between factories of unfinished industrial products?)

Oil drilling isn’t a “dirty” business. It isn’t a necessary evil. It is good. It is a life-giving good. It is an unqualified good.

The problems of an occasional industrial accident in which fewer than a dozen men are killed fades to nothing in comparison with the great comfort and prosperity and scope of life—including the operation of the mechanized agriculture and industrial production upon which the bare survival of the vast majority of the 6.5 billion human beings currently living on this earth depends.

Senator Kerry just said during the debate on SJRes 26, the “Murkowski resolution” to disapprove EPA’s rule relating to greenhouse gas regulation that the USA pays President Ahmadinejad of Iran $100m a day for oil.

This is absolutely, unequivocally false.  Iran is subject to sanctions that specifically target the Iranian oil industry.  This is from the Energy Information Administration’s website:

As per the Iran Transactions Regulations, administered by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), U.S. persons may not directly or indirectly trade, finance, or facilitate any goods, services or technology going to or from Iran, including goods, services or technology that would benefit the Iranian oil industry. U.S. persons are also prohibited from entering into or approving any contract that includes the supervision, management or financing of the development of petroleum resources located in Iran. See OFAC’s Iran Transactions Regulations page for more information.

Add another one to the list of patently false objections to the resolution.