Czech President Vaclav Klaus last week gave the inaugural annual lecture at The Global Warming Policy Foundation in London. To watch Klaus’s lecture, titled “The Climate Change Doctrine,” click here. To read a transcript, click here. President Klaus wrote a related oped (“An Anti-Human Ideology“) in the National Post.
2010
A global food crisis is “forecast as prices reach record highs [1].” “Rising food prices and shortages could cause instability in many countries as the cost of staple foods and vegetables reached their highest levels in two years.” “Global wheat and maize prices recently jumped nearly 30% in a few weeks while meat prices are at 20-year highs.” “Meanwhile, the price of tomatoes in Egypt, garlic in China and bread in Pakistan are at near-record levels.”
Drought is one factor in the price spikes. Biofuels and ethanol subsidies and mandates are another major factor. According to the UN, “large-scale land acquisitions by foreign investors for biofuels is squeezing land suitable for agriculture [1].”
Ethanol subsidies have resulted in forests being destroyed [2] in the Third World, and caused famines [3] that have killed [4] countless people in the world’s poorest countries [4].
These subsidies are expanded in the global warming legislation backed by the Obama administration. Its ethanol subsidies will result [5] in “damage to water supplies, soil health and air quality.” The Washington Examiner earlier explained how the global warming bill backed by President Obama would cause deforestation by expanding ethanol subsidies, and thus increase greenhouse gas emissions [6] in the long run. It was larded up with corporate welfare: 85 percent [7] of its carbon allowances were given away to special interests free of charge, thanks to lobbying that turned the bill into an orgy of corporate welfare.
Earlier, Ron Bailey wrote in Reason magazine about the “global food crisis” that has resulted in food riots across the world [8], in countries like Mexico, Pakistan, Indonesia, Yemen, Haiti, and Egypt. The crisis, he notes, is caused by “stupid energy policies” in the form of ethanol “mandates” and subsidies, which result in the world’s breadbaskets producing less food and more ethanol.
In 2008, two prominent environmentalists, Lester Pearson and Jonathan Lewis, published a Washington Post editorial, “Ethanol’s Failed Promise [9],” which explained how ethanol subsidies and mandates are destroying the environment and fueling hunger and violence worldwide [9].
Turning one-fourth of our corn into fuel is affecting global food prices. U.S. food prices are rising at twice the rate of inflation, hitting the pocketbooks of lower-income Americans and people living on fixed incomes. … Deadly food riots have broken out in dozens of nations in the past few months, most recently in Haiti and Egypt. World Bank President Robert Zoellick warns of a global food emergency.
Moreover, they noted,
food-to-fuel mandates are leading to increased environmental damage. First, producing ethanol requires huge amounts of energy – most of which comes from coal. Second, the production process creates a number of hazardous byproducts, and some production facilities are reportedly dumping these in local water sources. Third, food-to-fuel mandates are helping drive up the price of agricultural staples, leading to significant changes in land use with major environmental harm. Here in the United States, farmers are pulling land out of the federal conservation program, threatening fragile habitats. … Most troubling, though, is that the higher food prices caused in large part by food-to-fuel mandates create incentives for global deforestation, including in the Amazon basin. As Time Magazine reported [10] this month, huge swaths of forest are being cleared for agricultural development. The result is devastating: We lose an ecological treasure and critical habitat for endangered species, as well as the world’s largest ‘carbon sink.’ And when the forests are cleared and the land plowed for farming, the carbon that had been sequestered in the plants and soil is released. Princeton scholar Tim Searchinger has modeled this impact and reports [11] in Science magazine that the net impact of the food-to-fuel push will be an increase in global carbon emissions – and thus a catalyst for climate change.
In Human Events, Deroy Murdock explained how rising food prices resulting from ethanol forced Haitians to literally eat dirt [12] (dirt cookies made of vegetable oil, salt, and dirt), caused tortilla riots in Mexico, and fueled violent protests in unstable “powder kegs” like Pakistan and Egypt.
In 2008, finance ministers and central bankers called for end to ethanol subsidies and biofuel mandates [13]. South African finance minister Trevor Manuel called such subsidies “criminal [14].” Earlier, the Indian Finance Minister Chidambaram noted that [14] “in a world where there is hunger and poverty, there is no policy justification for diverting food crops towards bio-fuels. Converting food into fuel is neither good policy for the poor nor for the environment.”
The EPA is now ratcheting up [15] ethanol use, heedless of the fact that ethanol makes gasoline costlier and dirtier [16], increases ozone pollution [17], and increases the death toll from smog [18] and air pollution. Ethanol production also results in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution [19].
TerraChoice, an environmental marketing and consulting firm, released a report recently identifying a troubling trend in the marketplace for “green” products. The green marketplace has exploded in the past few years, with their 2010 report noting a 73% increase in the availability of green products.
The executive summary of the report indicates that over 95% of products identified as green have committed at least one of the “Seven Sins of Greenwashing”. A glass-half-empty approach might report that less than 5% of products labeled “green” pass the test.
From the report, the Seven Sins of Greenwashing:
1. Sin of the Hidden Trade Off
2. Sin of No Proof
3. Sin of Vagueness
4. Sin of Irrelevance
5. Sin of Lesser of Two Evils
6. Sin of Fibbing
7. Sin of Worshipping False Labels
A hastily completed look at consumer preference for green products led me here, which indicates that a majority of consumers claim to prefer green products, but aren’t nearly as willing to cough up the extra dollars for green products.
Buying Green? The report stated that Big Box Stores (Target, Wal-Mart, etc.) are most likely to carry products that live up to their “green” labeling, though even significant improvements from a 95% failure rate aren’t very promising.
Politicians using Q&A sessions to promote talking points and push half-truths is rarely worth looking at, though Grassley’s skillfull balance of promising everything to his constituents is an exception:
5. How would you lower or eliminate the federal budget deficit?
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, a discretionary spending freeze would save $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years. This freeze can be accomplished by reducing wasteful spending while protecting vital programs. Congress should begin with a moratorium on congressional earmarks and continue with a ban on non-essential government travel. Congress should consolidate duplicate programs and terminate programs that fail to achieve intended results as determined by the administration’s Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART).
Talking Point 1 – Convince citizens that you’re serious about the budget woes of the U.S. without discussing any real way to solve it.
4. Do you think global climate change is a threat, and how would you deal with it?
If the United States acts alone to cap carbon dioxide, Americans would pay more for energy and goods, without any measurable impact on the climate. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson testified that unilateral action by the U.S. would provide no real environmental gain. A carbon cap without including the largest emitter, China, and other developing nations, would mean lost jobs for Americans. Any effort to reduce greenhouse gases should be made through an international agreement. The cap-and-trade legislation passed last year by the House of Representatives would increase the cost of energy for homes and businesses, especially in the Midwest.
Talking Point 2 – Increases in energy costs are bad if unmet by other countries (non-committal).
8. Do you support continued subsidies for ethanol? If so, how, if at all, would you change them?
In April, I introduced legislation to extend through 2015 the ethanol blender’s credit, the small ethanol producer tax credit, the cellulosic producer tax credit and the ethanol import tariff. Extension of these policies is the right thing to do because bio-fuels offer an alternative to foreign oil and generate economic activity in the United States. Today, ethanol comprises nearly 10 percent of the U.S. fuel supply. Ethanol produced in the Midwest replaces oil from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Nigeria. Ethanol is good for rural economies, and a recent study found that the failure to extend the blender’s credit and the secondary tariff would result in the loss of 112,000 jobs nationwide and reduce ethanol production by nearly 40 percent. Iowa would lose the most jobs at nearly 30,000. The lapse of the separate tax credit for biodiesel, which expired at the end of 2009, also has cost jobs. Last year, 29,000 clean-energy jobs were lost nationwide and many of the remaining 23,000 jobs have disappeared with the lapse in the credit. We can’t risk a repeat performance with ethanol, where 112,000 jobs are at stake.
Talking Point 3 – Ignoring the several inaccuracies in this last question, talking point 3 involves a reminder to constituents that though he is incredibly serious about reigning in these budget deficits (and not raising energy prices), he isn’t going to cut anything near and dear to Iowa.
A question for you, Senator Grassley: What effect do you think the continued pursuit of the Renewable Fuel Standard will have on the energy prices for Americans? Instead of buying oil from foreign countries will we be spending $65.00 per gallon on fuel?
In 2007, the Spanish government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero passed a law that guaranteed solar power producers a price for power more than 10 times the 2007 average wholesale price paid to conventional energy suppliers. The generous subsidies sparked a rush to solar, and taxpayer costs mounted. Today, the government owes $172 billion to renewable energy investors, but it doesn’t have the means to meet its obligations in the face of rising budget deficits. As a result, more than 50,000 other Spanish solar entrepreneurs face financial disaster.
Green activists and allied rent seekers like to portray themselves as the underdogs against big business in their environmental causes. The battle over Proposition 23 – the California ballot measure to suspend the state’s global warming law until unemployment is under control – is certainly no exception. But they have David and Goliath backwards here; those spending to defeat the measure and keep California cap and tax in place have outgunned supporters of reform by at least 3 to 1.
Compared to the $9 million or so in favor of Prop 23, including most from oil companies, the $28 million to kill this measure has gotten relatively little attention. Only a minor percentage of this amount has come in the form of small contributions from regular Californians – little wonder since it is defending a global warming policy that would drive up fossil fuel costs and kill jobs just as a similar policy has done in Spain. In fact, most of the money has come in the form of six and seven figure contributions from big environmental groups, Hollywood bigshots, and, most disturbingly, opportunists like venture capitalists John Doerr and Vinod Khosla, who hope to secure a guaranteed market selling alternative energy and vehicles far too expensive to compete otherwise.
President Barack Obama is still talking about how his policies are creating a new green energy economy, but he is aiming the message at smaller and smaller audiences. On Thursday night he appeared at a $30,000 a plate fundraiser at the Palo Alto home of Google Vice President Marissa Mayer and her husband, Zachary Bogue, a real estate investor. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the President’s brief remarks: “‘We’re taking on clean energy in ways that we haven’t seen before,’ made the largest investment in clean energy in history, and ‘we’re seeing solar panels and wind turbines’ all across the country, he said.”
The people who can get excited about the President’s vision are restricted to a relatively few wealthy individuals who are becoming wealthier from government subsidies and mandates for such things as solar panels and wind turbines. No doubt, several were in the audience in Palo Alto. The message doesn’t resonate as well with the vast majority being victimized by these redistributionist policies. That’s why the President is spending less time talking to the public and more time talking to big donors to the Democratic Party, who are getting their money’s worth from this Administration.
So, we read that Hollywood, Al Gore’s group, rent-seeking industry and other green groups have been joined by the rest of the usual suspects-Google, Bill Gates-in opposing Proposition 23, a ballot initiative to delay their state’s energy rationing law which will soon take effect. That is, barring voter intervention putting a temporary stay on this economic suicide pact until the state’s economy recovers somewhat.
I should think that’s about all one needs to know about Proposition 23.
Still, all of that money to protect the global warming industry’s gravy train seems to be having an effect among telephone survey respondents. But it remains a close one. And that’s why they suit up and play the game.
The people who will be hurt most by this costly gesture by elites who for the most part will not feel the pinch of California sinking further down the drain, particularly Hispanic voters, support reclaiming voter sovereignty on an issue the political class has proven an inability to responsibly manage.
I suppose this is just fodder for so much more hand-wringing by the Left about the regular voter being too stupid for the elites to stomach. How dare those imbeciles not wildly fall for it! Remember, AB 32 was passed as a global warming law. When it began to dawn on people that now was not the time for foolish gestures, even in California, and since no one actually posits that AB 32 would ‘do something’ to the climate in any detectable way (or even close, accepting all of the alarmists’ assumptions), the party line promptly switched to it being a jobs bill. Yeah, that’s it.
And, now, as the truth is making the rounds that this “world’s first” scheme has in fact proven to be a job-killing bog in many places already, the global warming industry has now done its usual late-hour race to the bottom. One pressure group is blitzing the airwaves with shameful ads saying this is about (of course) childhood respiratory function. Not a word in the ad about global warming. Huh. This comes from the California chapter of a group long having had a difficult relationship with being straight on such matters (including, as Reason’s Joel Schwartz has pointed out on many occasions, about California-specific issues and, as I detailed in Red Hot Lies, about global warming).
Which begs the question, unless they are just torturing the facts and being alarmist (again), why wasn’t that the reason AB 32 was passed to begin with? Instead, it was (risible) state-specific computer-modeled scenarios of doom unless the people allowed the political class to strip them of ever more freedoms. It was the faddish “global warming” pony they sought to ride to the long-held desire to price energy out of the reach of the same average voters whose proliferation and attainment of automobility, vacations and the like the elites just couldn’t tolerate.
You will know them by their deeds, and the global warming industry’s have a pretty miserable record.
Can the Endangered Species Act (ESA) compel America to de-industrialize?
My colleague William Yeatman alludes to this question at the end of his post on yesterday’s Heritage Foundation symposium, “Saving the Polar Bear or Obama’s CO2 Agenda?”
The short answer is yes and no. Yes, because once the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) listed the polar bear as a “threatened species” on the supposition that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are melting the bear’s Arctic habitat, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) logically requires that people stop engaging in CO2-emitting activities. This is worrisome, because CO2 emissions come from energy use, which in turn derives from economic activity. There is hardly any economic activity in the modern world that does not, directly or indirectly, cause or contribute to CO2 emissions. Hence, almost any economic activity can be deemed to threaten the bear and, thus, violate the ESA!
On the other hand, there are political limits to how far eco-activists can push this logic. The American people will not tolerate being regulated back into the dark ages. Al Gore and his allies know this, which is why they continually try to dress up their anti-growth agenda as a “green jobs” program.
But this means that, at a minimum, the ESA is a specter haunting our economic future, its potential for mischief held in check only by the vigilance of citizens and the political calculus of regulatory zealots.
On May 14, 2008, when the FWS listed the polar bear as threatened, then Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne claimed the agency’s action “should not open the door to use the ESA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources.” Why not? Well, Congress never intended for the ESA to be used as a framework for climate policy. It is not designed for that purpose. The same can be said however about the Clean Air Act, yet in Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court, unable to resist the temptation to legislate from the bench, authorized and, indeed pushed EPA to begin regulating greenhouse gases (GHGs). EPA is now busy promulgating GHG regulations and setting climate policy for the Nation.
In short, former Secy. Kempthorne was whistling past the graveyard. From day one, regulating GHGs via the ESA was the objective of the eco-litigation groups who petitioned and sued the FWS into listing the polar bear. How do I know? They said so.
CBD Playbook
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) was the lead group petitioning the FWS and suing the Department of Interior to list the polar bear under the ESA. Along with Greenpeace and Natural Resources Defense Council, CBD filed the petition on “Kyoto Day” — February 16, 2005, the day the Kyoto Protocol went into effect. In the fall 2007 issue of Natural Resources & Environment, CBD’s Senior Attorney (Brendan Cummings) and Climate Program Director (Kassie Siegel) plainly stated their intent to use the ESA to suppress U.S. fossil energy use.
Consider this excerpt:
In the seminal ESA case, Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978), the Supreme Court held that the ESA’s unequivocal mandate that federal agencies “insure” that their actions do not “jeopardize” any species protected by the statute meant that a multimillion dollar dam project already near completion could not proceed because its completion threatened the existence of the snail darter, a small endemic fish of no know economic value. . . . In the nearly three decades since TVA was decided, courts enforcing the ESA have halted such activities as logging to protect threatened owls, commercial fishing and military activities to protect marine mammals, oil and gas development to protect wolves and grizzly bears, pesticide authorizations to protect imperiled salmon, and numerous other habitat-damaging activities that threatened a particular protected species. Whether GHG emissions can be halted to protect polar bears will be a test of the statute’s continuing relevance in the twenty-first century. [Emphasis added]
Ominously, Cummings and Siegel don’t say that the continuing relevance of the ESA depends on its ability to reduce or limit GHG emissions, but to “halt” them.
The authors go on to discuss Sections 7 and 9 of the ESA, and how those provisions can be used to block energy projects and control energy use.
Section 7 directs all federal agencies to consult with the FWS to ensure that “all actions authorized, funded, or carried out by such agencies are ‘not likely to jeopardize the continued existence’ or ‘result in the destruction or adverse modification of habitat’ of any listed species.” This means that “if the project [authorized, funded, or carried out by an agency] is determined to jeopardize a listed species or adversely modify its critical habitat, the statute can trigger modification or cancellation of the project so as to avoid such impacts.”
Quoting from the Code of Federal Regulations, Cummings and Siegel explain that “jeopardize” means “to engage in an action that reasonably would be expected, directly or indirectly, to reduce appreciably the likelihood of both the survival and recovery of a listed species in the wild by reducing the reproduction, numbers or distribution of that species.” Hence, if an action “appreciably” contributes to the GHG emissions believed to cause global warming, “that action could then be found to jeopardize a listed species.”
So which agency actions appreciably contributing to GHG emissions might be controlled or stopped under the ESA? The setting of fuel economy standards and the granting of offshore oil and gas leases are prime candidates, Cummings and Siegel opine, but many others would also come under carbon discipline:
The GHG emissions from numerous other actions present in the approval of new coal-fired power plants, oil shale leasing programs, limestone mines for cement manufacturing, and dozens perhaps hundreds of other projects are individually and cumulatively having an appreciable effect on the atmosphere. These are all agency “actions” as defined by the ESA, which “may affect” listed species, and therefore trigger the consultation requirements of Section 7.
The authors conclude: “There is no reason GHG emissions, which jeopardize polar bears, should be treated any differently than pesticides that harm salmon or logging that harms owls.”
Eventually, the ESA would also impose carbon discipline on the private behavior of firms and individuals. Section 9 of the ESA prohibits “any person,” including private individuals and corporations, from “taking” any endangered or threatened species. “Take” has several meanings, including “harass,” “kill,” and “harm.” “Harm” includes “significant habitat modification or degradation where it . . . injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding, or sheltering.” Polar bears breed, feed, and shelter on ice floes. If GHG emissions are melting the ice, then GHG emissions are “taking” polar bears. To repeat, almost any economic activity by almost any private entity directly or indirectly causes GHG emissions.
Finally, Cummings and Siegel argue, “The ESA requires that a recovery plan for the polar bear be prepared and implemented. There is no hope for recovery, much less survival, of the polar bear absent substantial reductions in GHG emissions. Any legally adequate recovery plan must therefore include mandates to reduce such emissions” (emphasis added).
So there you have it, straight from the source. The objective of listing the polar is to set the predicate for “mandates” to reduce GHG emissions.
What Next?
Under the ESA, a “threatened” species is one that is expected to become “endangered” in the future whereas an “endangered” species is one that currently faces extinction in part or all of its range. Although the ESA prohibits “takings” of both threatened and endangered species, if the species is listed as “threatened,” FWS has the option, under ESA Sec. 4d, “to relax the normal ESA restrictions to reduce conflicts between people and the protections” provided by the Act. On the same day that Secy. Kempthorne listed the polar bear as threatened, he issued a 4d rule that allows both “subsistence” hunting by native Alaskans and “environmentally sound” development of natural resources by oil and gas companies.
In May 2009, Obama Administration Interior Secretary Ken Salazar reaffirmed Kempthorne’s 4d rule, explaining that, “The Endangered Species Act is not the proper tool to deal with a global issue — with global warming,” adding: “We need to move forward with a comprehensive climate change and energy plan we can be proud of.” In addition to preferring “comprehensive” climate legislation à la Waxman-Markey, Team Obama may have wanted to protect EPA’s newly won power to call the shots on climate policy.
As you might expect, the CBD is challenging the 4d rule in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the Department of Interior should have listed the polar bear as “endangered.” Greenwire (subscription required), the online news service, comments: “If they [the polar bears] were reclassified as endangered, the 4(d) rule would no longer have any bearing and environmental groups would have greater leverage to argue that the government should require reduced greenhouse gas emissions in order to protect the bears.”
Several business groups (American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Mining Association, National Manufacturers Association, American Iron and Steel Institute) and the State of Alaska have intervened in support of the 4d rule, arguing that the ESA should not be used to regulate GHGs. They may prevail, but it is entirely possible that, by listing the polar bear as threatened, the Department of Interior has painted itself into a legal corner.
Nonetheless, I see a bright future ahead. Recall that on June 10, all 41 Senate Republicans and six Democrats voted to overturn EPA’s Endangerment Rule, the trigger and precedent for a cascade of GHG regulations under the Clean Air Act. The resolution of disapproval lost by a mere four votes (47-53), and only because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) promised fence-sitters an opportunity to vote on Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s competing legislation to prohibit EPA regulation of GHGs from stationary sources for two years. It is a promise the Honorable Mr. Reid has not yet kept, though there might be a vote in the lame duck.
My point, though, is that the next Congress is expected to include many more members opposed to cap-and-trade and other stealth energy taxes. ESA regulation of GHGs is potentially much more costly than cap-and-trade proposals like Waxman-Markey. So in all likelihood, the next Congress will have even less patience than the current one with climate hysteria-inspired regulatory excess.
In the News
Biofuels or Bust?
Brian McGraw, Detroit News, 22 October 2010
Can the Endangered Species Act Compel America To De-Industrialize?
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 22 October 2010
Eight-Tenths of a Degree? Think of the Grandchildren!
Willis Eschenbach, WattsUpWithThat, 22 October 2010
Shock! Green-Posing Hollywood Hypocrite
Chris Horner, American Spectator, 21 October 2010
Pop Went the Climate Bubble
Steven Milloy, Human Events, 21 October 2010
Chunk It or Chuck It
Marita Noon, GlobalWarming.org, 21 October 2010
Restore the Balance between Energy and Environment
Washington Examiner editorial, 21 October 2010
The All-Electric Car: Think 132 Year Payback
Patrick Barron, MasterResource.org, 19 October 2010
The EPA’s Odd View of Consumer Choice
Patrick Michaels, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 17 October 2010
Renewables Will Add $1400 to Power Bills
Christopher Booker, The Telegraph, 16 October 2010
California Could Feel Spain’s Pain
Gabriel Calzada, Orange County Register, 15 October 2010
Global Warming Propagandist Shot Down
Lawrence Solomon, National Post, 14 October 2010
News You Can Use
Insightful Lecture by Czech President Vaclav Klaus
Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Monday gave the inaugural annual lecture at The Global Warming Policy Foundation in London. To watch Klaus’s lecture, titled “The Climate Change Doctrine,” click here. To read a transcript, click here. President Klaus wrote a related oped (“An Anti-Human Ideology“) in the National Post.
Inside the Beltway
Myron Ebell
Obama Convinces Wealthy Voters
President Barack Obama is still talking about how his policies are creating a new green energy economy, but he is aiming the message at smaller and smaller audiences. On Thursday night he appeared at a $30,000 a plate fundraiser at the Palo Alto home of Google Vice President Marissa Mayer and her husband, Zachary Bogue, a real estate investor. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the President’s brief remarks: “‘We’re taking on clean energy in ways that we haven’t seen before,’ made the largest investment in clean energy in history, and ‘we’re seeing solar panels and wind turbines’ all across the country, he said.”
The people who can get excited about the President’s vision are restricted to a relatively few wealthy individuals who are becoming wealthier from government subsidies and mandates for such things as solar panels and wind turbines. No doubt, several were in the audience in Palo Alto. The message doesn’t resonate as well with the vast majority being victimized by these redistributionist policies. That’s why the President is spending less time talking to the public and more time talking to big donors to the Democratic Party, who are getting their money’s worth from this Administration.
EPA Moves Ahead with Economy-Wrecking Regs
Robin Bravender in Politico reports that the Environmental Protection Agency will propose new rules for greenhouse gas emissions from big trucks and buses next week. According to Dan Becker of the Safe Climate Campaign, EPA is going to require a 20% cut in emissions by 2018. Bravender reports that Becker considers this goal too modest. He favors 35%.
It is not clear how freight trucks are going to be re-engineered to comply. It is clearly already in the interests of truck manufacturers and the freight industry to make trucks as fuel efficient as possible. Perhaps with our new slimmer economy, they can just haul 20% less freight.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson also told reporters this week that the guidance document on what industry must do to comply with the Clean Air Act’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions by stationary sources (such as power plants) will be released shortly. EPA plans to start requiring PSD (Prevention of Significant Deterioration) permits from large emitters on January 1, 2011, so the several-month delay in issuing the guidance document is likely to create a regulatory mess in the new year.
Across the States
Ben Lieberman
Megabucks Behind Effort To Stop Prop 23
Green activists and allied rent seekers like to portray themselves as the underdogs against big business in their environmental causes. The battle over Proposition 23 – the California ballot measure to suspend the state’s global warming law until unemployment is under control – is certainly no exception. But they have David and Goliath backwards here; those spending to defeat the measure and keep California cap and tax in place have outgunned supporters of reform by at least 3 to 1.
Compared to the $9 million or so in favor of Prop 23, including most from oil companies, the $28 million to kill this measure has gotten relatively little attention. Only a minor percentage of this amount has come in the form of small contributions from regular Californians – little wonder since it is defending a global warming policy that would drive up fossil fuel costs and kill jobs just as a similar policy has done in Spain. In fact, most of the money has come in the form of six and seven figure contributions from big environmental groups, Hollywood bigshots, and, most disturbingly, opportunists like venture capitalists John Doerr and Vinod Khosla, who hope to secure a guaranteed market selling alternative energy and vehicles far too expensive to compete otherwise.
Around the World
It Could Happen Here, Part 1
In 2007, the Spanish government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero passed a law that guaranteed solar power producers a price for power more than 10 times the 2007 average wholesale price paid to conventional energy suppliers. The generous subsidies sparked a rush to solar, and taxpayer costs mounted. Today, the government owes $172 billion to renewable energy investors, but it doesn’t have the means to meet its obligations in the face of rising budget deficits. As a result, more than 50,000 other Spanish solar entrepreneurs face financial disaster.
It Could Happen Here, Part 2
Next year Germany’s renewable energy tax will increase to 3.5 cents/kWh. For comparison, that’s more that’s 30% of the average kWh price paid by Americans.
The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.GlobalWarming.org.
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