The Wall Street Journal has a long piece today about the prospect of using the state to move part of the U.S. transportation fleet from oil to natural gas. It gives prominent voice to the massive public affairs campaign of T. Boone Pickens to add billions to his natural gas fortune as a swansong to a prosperous career.
This campaign takes the form of a bill embraced by ostensible fiscal hawks, causing an uproar from those conservatives who took umbrage at Members abandoning their pledges of fiscal sobriety at the drop of a billionaire’s phone call. This enabled the media to describe the Republicans’ ‘circular firing squad.’ Well played, gentlemen.
The vehicle was not Pickens’ first choice. His first choice was a windmill mandate, transparently pushed by a handful of gas interests, including Chesapeake Energy’s Aubrey McClendon, to put a green hat on their efforts to use the state to displace coal’s market. In this effort, they found natural allies in environmentalist special interests.
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Last night over dinner with a knowledgeable source, I heard the skinny on the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline extension that would double U.S. imports of tar sands oil from western Canada…if the Obama administration allows it.
The 1,700 mile pipeline would link expanding Canadian crude production with America’s first-class refining hub in the Midwest and along the Gulf. It was one of three diplomatic priorities articulated by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper during his February sit-down with President Barack Obama (the other two were Afghanistan and trade policy). That’s why the State Department is behind it.
However, oil production from tar sands is more carbon-intensive than traditional production, so environmentalist groups are staunchly opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline. As a result of the greens’ organized opposition, the Environmental Protection Agency in July, 2010, rebuked the State Department’s draft Environmental Impact Assessment* of the pipeline, stating that it contained “inadequate information.”
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This week Philips Co. showcases its newest success at capturing rents produced by government mandates: it has produced a 17-watt LED bulb that functions as equivalent to a 75-watt incandescent bulb. The catch: they will initially cost around $50.
The announcement contains the usual boilerplate about how in just a few more years these light bulbs will be the cat’s pajamas, and everyone will be buying them. Go get in line. Lynne Kiesling comments:
This week Philips is releasing a mass-market LED light bulb with a physical and lumens-delivering profile to mimic incandescents at a fraction of the energy use. But they’ll still be priced at $40-45, which is a bit steep for customers who are accustomed to cheap, short-lived bulbs, so their market success will require some education and adaptation of expectations. They will also have to overcome the hurdles of the failed expectations of compact fluorescent bulbs, which have not demonstrated the required longevity/price tradeoff to make them economical (in addition to their other shortcomings). I may buy one to test, but I don’t plan on fitting out my whole house in these LEDs any time soon, based on my CFL experience.
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Greenland Flourishes Due to Global Warming
Hans Bader, OpenMarket.org, 16 May 2011
The Great Train Con Part 1, Part 2
Henry Payne, Planet Gore, 16 May 2011
ATI Law Center Asks Court to Dislodge University of Virginia ‘ClimateGate’ and Other Documents That Pertain to Climate Scientist Michael Mann
Paul Chesser, American Tradition Institute, 16 May 2011
End Big Oil Subsidies?
David Harsanyi, NRO, 16 May 2011
Willis on GISS Model E
Steve McIntyre, ClimateAudit.org, 15 May 2011
Gingrich, Romney Remain Defiant on Climate
Chris Horner, Daily Caller, 14 May 2011
The Great Energy Resource Debate Part 1, Part 2
Robert Bradley, MasterResource.org, 13 May 2011
London Independent columnist Johann Hari feels betrayed by British Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to embrace the American-made revolution in natural gas production, known as hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a., ‘fracking’). Recently, he wrote in the Huffington Post,
“When the British Prime Minister David Cameron gazed into the dewy eyes of a husky and promised to lead “the greenest government ever,” what did you think that would involve?… you certainly wouldn’t have expected David Cameron’s latest plan. He has decided to convert us to a new energy source [fracking] that seems, in the US, to have released cancer-causing chemicals and radiation into the water supply…”
“Cancer-causing chemicals” AND “radiation” have been released “into the water supply”….that sounds really scary! Fortunately for this American tap-water enthusiast, Hari is full of it. As I explain here,
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In this era of hyper-partisanship, the mainstream media thinks that bi-partisanship is beautiful…unless both parties agree on an environmental policy, in which case the media invariably recasts the story such that it’s the Green Democrats versus the Dirty Republicans.
On cap-and-trade policy, I’ve noted in a previous post how the media willfully ignores that both parties oppose energy rationing. Instead, you’ll read or hear about the “Republican War on Science,” whenever Congressional climate policy gets rejected by a bipartisan, bicameral vote.
There was another example of this phenomenon last Wednesday. The Energy and Water Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing during which there was unanimous bipartisan agreement that the Environmental Protection Agency had overstepped its bounds on a controversial policy regarding mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.
To me, at least, unanimously bipartisan opposition to a major Presidential policy on an ultra-divisive issue is newsworthy. But there was no mention of it in any of the stories on the hearing that I read. Readers of the stories that I read would have thought that the Democrats and Republicans clashed.
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Environmentalist lobbying outfits run some of the sleaziest political attack ads in the business. Their stuff would make Lee Atwater grin. My colleague Marlo Lewis wrote an excellent, extensive analysis of one such sleazy ad, from the folks at Move On. Another colleague, Chris Horner, caught Greenpeace apparatchiks rummaging through his garbage, no doubt looking for attack fodder.
Interestingly, industry refuses to defend itself from these black arts PR tactics. “Big Oil,” for example, runs silly ads denigrating its core business, like BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” campaign and Chevron’s “I will use less energy” commercials. Then there’s “Big Gas,” which promotes itself by talking about “Dirty Coal.” (Sigh.)
But that’s a separate issue. This post is about how the greens’ sleaze tactics are backfiring in Massachusetts. In that State, the League of Women Voters is running ugly advertisements that essentially equate baby-abuse with Senator Scott Brown’s vote for excellent legislation that would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, there’s nothing new about this zero class, wrongheaded attack analogy. Move On made the same insinuation in a similar, recent advertisement.
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Thomas Jefferson is renowned as a true Renaissance Man. He was a master of letters, music, architecture, biology, government…and mountaintop removal.
I only learned of this fact recently, on a delightful revisit to Monticello, TJ’s famed estate in Albemarle County. Every school kid in Virginia visits Monticello, repeatedly, so I’d been there several times already. As this was the first time I’d gone since I was in school, this was the first time I paid attention to the exhibits. Thus I learned that Mr. Jefferson removed Little Mountain’s little mountaintop in order to accommodate his mansion.
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If you hate success but love long meetings, and even longer plane trips, then the State Department is looking for you: Become a climate diplomat.
As I explain here, here, and here, negotiations for a legally binding, multilateral treaty to address the supposed problem of “global warming” are futile. According to the International Energy Agency, it would cost $45 trillion to de-carbonize global energy production to the liking of global warming alarmists. There is simply no precedent for international burden sharing of this magnitude, short of war, and the threat of winters gradually warming doesn’t galvanize interstate cooperation quite like the threat of, say, the Nazis.
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House Passes Offshore Drilling Bills
The House of Representatives this week and last passed three bills to force the Obama Administration to increase offshore oil and gas production. H. R. 1229 passed by a vote of 263 to 163, with 28 Democrats voting Yes. H. R. 1230 passed last week by 266 to 149, with 33 Democrats in favor. And H. R. 1231 passed the House 243 to 179, with the support of 21 Democrats.
All three bills were sponsored by Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. You can read brief committee summaries of what is in the bills here, here, and here.
Naturally, the White House opposes all three bills. President Obama and his top energy and environmental officials support policies to raise gasoline and electricity prices for consumers.
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