William Yeatman

Two weeks ago, the New York Times warned that humankind faces “extinction” unless the international community reached a diplomatic breakthrough at the 20th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Lima Peru. Despite these dire stakes, the Lima climate confab wrapped up this weekend  with yet another empty agreement—thereby dooming human civilization, if the Grey Lady is to be believed—and not a single Sunday network news talk show gave any airtime to COP-20. Indeed, nary a single powerhouse roundtable even mentioned climate change. Thus, it would seem that networks give as little priority to climate change as do American voters. This is why opposition to climate change mitigation policies is healthily bipartisan in the U.S. Congress.

Moving on to stories that actually made the news, the highlight of this Sunday’s (invaluable) Platts Energy Week with Bill Loveless was an informative and wide-ranging interview with Platts Senior Editor Brian Scheid regarding new North Dakota regulations for the volatility (i.e., combustibility) of oil produced and transported in the State.

Finally, I’ll conclude by posting Youtube video (after the break) of Greenpeace activists damaging the Nazca lines, a cultural landmark in Peru, in an effort to promote green energy at COP-20. As reported by the New York Times, you can hear “their shoes crunching over the dry ground.” That is, you can hear them desecrating the site, which was designated a World Heritage monument by UNESCO. Peruvian authorities are outraged by the stunt, but the activists skipped town to avoid prosecution, according to the Times. [click to continue…]

According to CNBC, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew today told an audience in New York that low oil prices are “like a tax cut to the economy” and that increased U.S. oil and gas production is a “great success story.”

However, only a few hours after Treasury Secretary Lew praised low oil prices, Secretary of State John Kerry championed an altogether different viewpoint in an address to the 20^th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Lima, Peru. I don’t yet have a transcript of his speech, but per the Twitterverse:

John Kerry is finding any number of ways to say that lower cost oil has high costs. #cop20 #climate #UNFCCC

— Ben Geman (@Ben_Geman) Decemb

and

John Kerry on the hidden costs of cheap power of coal & oil: “It’s not cheaper.” #cop20

— Lisa Friedman (@LFFriedman) December 11, 2014

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With the 1935 Federal Power Act, Congress sought to establish a “bright line” between federal and state jurisdiction over the electricity market. Generally, federal regulators (at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) have authority over the interstate transmission and sale of electricity, while States retain exclusive jurisdiction over the regulation of generation and also retail electric sales. See Federal Power Commission v. Southern California Edison Co., 376 U.S. 2015 (1964) at 215-216.

Of course, the electric industry has changed a great deal in the 80 years since Congress passed the Federal Power Act. Of particular note, FERC over the last 2 decades has sought to facilitate more robust interstate electricity markets. As a result of this and related dynamics, the “bright line” between state and federal jurisdiction has dimmed, such that it’s far less clear where lie the boundaries between these two co-sovereigns.

In a very smart segment during last Sunday’s Platts Energy Week with Bill Loveless, posted immediately below, Platts’s Bobby McMahon reports on a series of court cases that have the potential to dramatically clarify the limits of state and federal oversight of the electricity industry. After the break, I explain the matter further.

My colleague Myron Ebell’s third dispatch from COP-20 in Lima, Peru, is not only up over at the Daily Caller, it’s front and center on Drudge Report. Click here and here for his first two Lima reports. After the break, I’ve excerpted the third.

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Every Friday afternoon for seven years, we’ve sent out an electronic newsletter on the latest energy and environment happenings, known as the Cooler Heads Digest. Click here and here to read copies of the most recent issues. If you enjoy Globalwarming.org, then you’ll love the Cooler Heads Digest. Even if you hate Globalwarming.org and everything we stand for, then you should still sign up, in order to keep tabs on us. Either way, it’s free and easy: All you have to do is input your name and email address into the box titled “Cooler Heads Digest” at the top right corner of this website, directly below the “search” function.

Upon noticing that it was raining this morning, I checked The Weather Channel’s website. Lo and behold, there’s a banner ad atop the TWC’s front page, reading: “The dark secret behind low oil and gas prices.” And at the bottom left of the page, there’s a thumbnail, which reads, “The Dark Side to Your Cheap Gas.”

I’ve reposted a screenshot of the website, so you can see for yourself:

Of course I clicked through, and the result was remarkable. It’s a TWC story titled, “Boom: North America’s Explosive Oil-by-Rail Problem.” It features a video, whose opening image—a derailed oil train—is frozen across much of the screen. Because The Weather Channel evidently knows no subtlety, this video with its arresting still representation is only the foreground to an enormous, screen-wide background composed of a looping GIF depicting an oil train aflame at night. Tucked away at the very bottom of the page—you have to scroll down past yellow titles and pictures of derailed/burning trains for some time—there’s a breathless investigative report matching the attendant imagery in tone.

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