I’m contributing to a lawsuit, filed by the American Tradition Institute, against Colorado, alleging that the State’s green energy production quota, known as a Renewable Electricity Standard, is an unlawful violation of the Congress’s authority to regulate interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Read all about it here.
Defund the EPA’s Enablers
Steven Milloy, Washington Times, 1 April 2011
Is the Public Clamoring for More EPA Regulation?
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 31 March 2011
EPA’s Benefit-Cost Estimates (30 free lunches for the price of 1?)
Garrett Vaughn, MasterResource.org, 31 March 2011
When Will Media Report That Corporate Cash is Behind Green Activism?
Paul Chesser, National Legal and Policy Center, 31 March 2011
Obama’s “Energy Security” Pivot
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 30 March 2011
Halt Cap-and-Trade End Run
Dan Shaul & Phil Kerpen, Columbia Daily Tribune, 29 March 2011
A Green Energy Economy Revisited
Jerry Taylor & Peter Van Doren, Forbes, 29 March 2011
Gallup: Global Warming Least Concern of Least Concern for Voters
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air, 28 March 2011
“Drill, Brazil, Drill,” Obama Says
Conn Carroll, The Foundry, 28 March 2011
Yesterday, Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein posted about the President’s pitch for a so-called “Clean Energy Standard.” I don’t recommend his explanation; for a much more accurate description of the CES, check out this blog, by my colleague Marlo Lewis.
In this post, I intend only to rebut Klein’s mistaken claim that Congressional opposition to cap-and-trade is partisan. In fact, opposition to energy rationing schemes is one of the very few issues that enjoys support on both sides of the aisle in the Congress.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the President’s energy speech yesterday. I get the goal: Reduce oil imports 30 percent in a decade. But what I don’t get, at all, is the plan to achieve that goal. The President’s “Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future” doesn’t make any sense.
Consider, for example, his “Blueprint” for oil. It’s all over the place.
In the beginning of the speech, the President mocked the idea of “drill, baby, drill.” He said,
“We’ve been down this road before. Remember, it was just three years ago that gas prices topped $4 a gallon…It hit a lot of people pretty hard. But it was at the height of the political season, so you had a lot of slogans and gimmicks and outraged politicians waving three point plans for two dollar gas—you remember ‘drill, baby, drill?’—when none of it would really do anything to solve the problem. Imagine that in Washington.”
So, the President believes that “drill, baby, drill” would not “do anything to solve the problem.” Yet only moments later, he seemed to change his mind. He told the audience,
“Meeting this new goal of cutting our oil dependence depends largely on two things: finding and producing more oil at home, and reducing our dependence on oil with cleaner alternative fuels and greater efficiency.”
So, the President believes that “meeting this new goal…depends largely on…finding more oil at home.” But “finding more oil” necessarily requires more drilling. How is this different from “drill, baby, drill,” which the President only moments before had denigrated?
According to the World Health Organization, more than half the world’s population uses dung, crop matter, and coal to cook and heat inside their homes. Full disclosure: I’ve lived in a dung-powered home. From 2004 to 2006, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kyrgyz Republic. The family with whom I lived was poor even by Kyrgyz standards, and sheep poop was a primary fuel. The furnace ventilation system was inefficient, to say the least, and smoke would get everywhere. Such smoke kills 1.6 million people every year. Every 20 seconds, another poor person dies of indoor air pollution.
Thankfully, there’s a solution to this killer problem: coal fired power plants. By building a centralized coal power plant, it is possible to take energy production out of the home, and thereby save lives. Allow me to repeat: Coal power saves lives in the developing world. Of course, there are many other benefits to affordable and reliable energy; foremost among them is economic growth.
The World Bank was established in 1945 to fight poverty. Accordingly, the institution long has financed new coal fired power plants in developing countries, for the life-saving and prosperity-creating reasons I cite above.
No Rubber Stamp for EPA’s Agenda
Phil Kerpen, AFP Blog, 29 March 2011
Japan: Ignoring the Real Threats
Henry Payne, Planet Gore, 29 March 2011
A Green Energy Economy Revisited
Jerry Taylor & Peter Van Doren, Forbes, 29 March 2011
Gallup: Global Warming Least Concern of Least Concern for Voters
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air, 28 March 2011
“Drill, Brazil, Drill,” Obama Says
Conn Carroll, The Foundry, 28 March 2011
Pawlenty and Gingrich on Global Warming
David Weigel, Slate, 22 March 2011
I almost choked on a complimentary pretzel during a recent flight when I read the final page of the April edition of Scientific American, this country’s premier science periodical for mainstream audiences. The page was titled “Clean Tech Rising” and the subtitle read, “China outshines the U.S. as the top investor, while Europe is a close third.” It featured bar graphs indicating what different nations are spending on so-called clean energy, like biofuel, wind, and solar power. The attendant text warned that “The U.S. has been a major player in clean energy technologies, but China is now the leader.” It recommended that, “…stepping up U.S. investment could enhance the country’s competitiveness…”
Now, it might or might not be true that China is spending more than the U.S. on “clean” energy. The ruling Communist government is not known for openness and transparency, so I take “official” investment data with a grain of salt. However, it is unequivocal that the Chinese are building coal power plants at an unprecedented rate. Estimates vary, from 4 new coal plants every week to 1 plant every week. All we know for sure is that coal, and not renewable energy, is powering the Middle Kingdom’s meteoric economic growth. This is why China, which became the world’s number one emitter of greenhouse gases only three years ago, now has a carbon footprint 40 percent bigger than the next largest emitter (the United States).
Not every State is suffering economically. According to a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Joel Kotkin, unemployment in North Dakota is 3.8 percent (nation-wide, it’s about 9 percent), due primarily to increasing production of oil and gas. And, as noted by Bonner Cohen in a letter to the Journal, North Dakota’s energy boom was made possible primarily because almost all of North Dakota’s rich deposits of oil and natural gas lie beneath privately-owned land. Otherwise, it would have been locked up by the Obama administration.
Endangered? CDC: “U.S. Death Rate Falls for 10th Consecutive Year”
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 25 March 2011
This Is Your Nation’s Economic Policy on Democratic Leadership
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 25 March 2011
Newt’s Changing Colors
Faiz Shakir, Progress Report, 25 March 2011
EPA Provides the Cash, American Lung Association Hits Upton and the Energy Tax Prevention Act
Myron Ebell, GlobalWarming.org, 24 March 2011
How the President Killed My Company
Randy Stilley, Washington Post, 24 March 2011
Whose Clean Energy Standards?
Paul Chesser, American Spectator, 24 March 2011
The Real Problem with High Speed Rail
Michael Rosen, The American, 24 March 2011
Obama’s Greens Turn Yellow
Washington Times editorial, 23 March 2011
Van Jones: Fracking Is Polluting Our Water
Myron Ebell, GlobalWarming.org, 22 March 2011
EPA’s Greenhouse Power Grab
Marlo Lewis, Pajamas Media, 21 March 2011
Google To Fight Global Warming “Ignorance”
Russell Cook, American Thinker, 21 March 2011
Recent Weather Extremes: Global Warming Fingerprint Not
Chip Knappenberger, Master Resource, 21 March 2011
Trains, Greens, and Gasoline: What a Wild Week
Mark Steyn, Investor’s Business Daily, 18 March 2011
North Dakota’s Lesson for America
Not every State is suffering economically. According to a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Joel Kotkin, unemployment in North Dakota is 3.8 percent (nation-wide, it’s about 9 percent), due primarily to increasing production of oil and gas. And, as noted by Bonner Cohen in a letter to the Journal, North Dakota’s energy boom was made possible primarily because almost all of North Dakota’s rich deposits of oil and natural gas lie beneath privately-owned land. Otherwise, it would have been locked up by the Obama administration.
EPA’s Greenhouse Power Grab
Marlo Lewis, Pajamas Media, 21 March 2011
U.S. Say Japanese Reactors Are Stable
Tennille Tracy, Wall Street Journal, 21 March 2011
America’s Last Nuclear Hope
William Tucker, Spectator, 21 March 2011
Recent Weather Extreme: Global Warming Fingerprint Not
Chip Knappenberger, Master Resource, 21 March 2011
Hands off My Head!
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 18 March 2011
Trains, Greens, and Gasoline: What a Wild Week
Mark Steyn, Investor’s Business Daily, 18 March 2011
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