William Yeatman

Wind Energy Lobby Kindly Proves My Point

by William Yeatman on December 8, 2010

in Blog

Two weeks ago, my colleague Chris Horner and I coauthored an oped about the renewable energy industry’s dependence on taxpayer subsidies. To make our point, we listed a number of examples of renewable energy executives warning that massive layoffs were imminent, unless the Congress passed or renewed green energy giveaways.

-Biomass Power Association President Robert Cleaves (February 2010): “Thousands of jobs in the biomass power industry could be lost if Congress fails to extend the production tax credit.”

-American Wind Energy Association CEO Denise Bode (July 2010): “Manufacturing facilities will go idle and lay off workers if Congress doesn’t act now” to impose a federal mandate for electricity produced by AWEA members.

-Solar Energy Industry Association President Rhone Resch (September 2008): “Unless Congress promptly returns to complete their unfinished business, the solar industry will suffer with the loss of 39,000 jobs.”

-Renewable Fuels Association CEO Bob Dinneen (November 2010): “Allowing the tax incentive to expire would risk jobs in a very important domestic energy sector and across rural America.”

Currently, the Congress is deliberating whether or not to extend a particularly generous subsidy that was established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a.k.a. the stimulus. It’s called the Treasury Department section 1603 tax credit, and it allows renewable energy projects to receive up to 30% of their capital costs up front. The Congress created this subsidy because the 2008/2009 financial crisis rendered ineffective the production tax credit, which had been the renewable energy industry’s primary means of remaining economically viable. The production tax credit was based on corporations having profits and therefore a tax liability. The financial crisis, of course, wiped out corporate profits. So the Congress included the section 1603 program in the stimulus. Now, the renewable energy industry wants to keep both subsidies alive. When it comes to government goodies, the more the merrier.

In this context, the American Wind Energy Association yesterday issued a press release that lends further credence to the point made by Chris and me in our oped. Consider,

TENS OF THOUSANDS OF LAYOFFS IN AMERICAN WIND ENERGY SEEN AT STAKE IN TAX EXTENDER PACKAGE

In the process of preparing year-end numbers on the industry, the American Wind Energy Association reports that tens of thousands of Americans could lose their jobs or not get called back from layoffs without the 1603 investment tax credit for renewable energy that hangs in the balance as Congress and the White House work to settle a tax package.

“We have people being laid off right now, and we expect to see more without fast action on the tax extenders now being negotiated,” said Denise Bode, CEO of AWEA. “The 1603 tax credit extension would help bring them back as soon as possible.” According to the trade group’s research, there are over 15,000 jobs in the manufacturing pipeline alone. “We are risking those jobs by not sending a clear signal that America remains open for business in wind energy,” Bode said.

The 1603 tax investment credit saved 55,000 jobs in wind energy, as estimated by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Overall employment has reached 85,000 in the American wind industry, as installed capacity has grown 40 percent in each of the past two years. Wind now generates 20 percent of the electricity in Iowa; and on Oct. 28, high winds pushed wind power to 25 percent of the electrical generation in Texas.

As Chris and I conclude,

Of course, it is only natural for aid-dependent industries to warn that they would suffer without the continuation of aid. Employing this circular logic, taxpayer funded renewable power has remained the “energy of the future” for decades. But American taxpayers simply cannot afford to subsidize industries that are forever-nascent.

Alarmists Try To Have It Both Ways

by William Yeatman on December 6, 2010

in Blog

In 2000, Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, told the UK Independent that snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event” within a few years due to global warming.

This week, as an unseasonal snow blanketed Northern Europe and caused more than 60 fatalities, University of College London Professor Mark Maslin told the UK Telegraph that the snow was likely due to global warming.

New York Assembly Passes Symbolic Drilling Ban

by William Yeatman on December 3, 2010

in Blog

The New York State Assembly this week voted 93 – 43 to temporarily ban a natural gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing. The moratorium lasts until May, 2011, but state regulators weren’t expected to start issuing drilling permits until summer, so the legislation is largely symbolic. New York State is home to huge natural gas deposits that only recently become economically recoverable, thanks to the emergence of hydraulic fracturing technology, which is also known as “fracking.” Environmentalists oppose the practice on the grounds that it could affect groundwater supplies, although there is no credible evidence to support these claims.

Cooler Heads Digest 3 December 2010

by William Yeatman on December 3, 2010

in Blog, Cooler Heads Digest

In the News

Regulations Are Strangling Investment
Myron Ebell, Politico Arena, 3 December 2010

Ethanol’s Policy Privileges: Headed for History’s Dustbin
Marlo Lewis, Pajamas Media, 3 December 2010

Alternative Energy and the Academy at Lagado
Iain Murray, American Spectator, 3 December 2010

Video: Taxpayer Funded Environmentalism
Taxpayers’ Alliance, 3 December 2010

A Real Stimulus
Ben Lieberman, Washington Examiner, 1 December 2010

The EPA’s End-Run around Congress
Larry Bell, Forbes.com, 1 December 2010

Germany’s Offshore Wind: Wasted Resources
Edgar Gaertner, MasterResource.org, 1 December 2010

Puffing up the Renewabubble
Chris Horner, Planet Gore, 29 November 2010

Global Warming Nuisance Lawsuits Are Based on a Fatal Flaw
Russell Cook, Big Government, 27 November 2010

Al Gore’s Ethanol Epiphany
Wall Street Journal editorial, 27 November 2010

News You Can Use

Alarmists Try To Have It Both Ways

In 2000, Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, told the UK Independent that snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event” within a few years due to global warming.

This week, as an unseasonal snow blanketed Northern Europe and caused more than 60 fatalities, University of College London Professor Mark Maslin told the UK Telegraph that the snow was likely due to global warming.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Obama’s Offshore Flip-Flop

The Department of the Interior this week announced that its 2012-17 five-year plan for leasing tracts for offshore oil and gas exploration would place the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf coasts off limits. In addition, Interior announced that the go-slow policy for Alaska offshore leasing would continue.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar used BP’s Gulf oil leak as justification for reversing the policy that President Obama announced in March.  Here is what CEI said in its press release responding to Interior’s announcement: “Obama Offshore Oil Moratorium Breaks Promise, Hurts Economy, Kills Jobs.” Tom Pyle of the Institute for Energy Research made similar comments.  Even Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was critical.

House Republicans Vote Next Week on Committee Chairman

The House Republican Steering Committee this week interviewed candidates for Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and for Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee.  Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) remains the frontrunner for Energy and Commerce, but conservative opposition has been building from a number of directions. The Committee is scheduled to vote next Tuesday on these and all the other committee chairmanships.

The fact is that Upton is to the left of the vast majority of the Republican Conference on a wide range of issues.  He is sounding very conservative in public and making lots of promises, but it doesn’t square with his record.  For example, Upton has voted for the 2007 anti-energy bill, against offshore drilling, for higher CAFÉ standards, for the ethanol mandate, and he led the effort to ban incandescent light bulbs. The other candidates are Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), who is the current ranking Republican and former Chairman of the committee, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), and Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.).  My own view is that Barton, Stearns, and Shimkus are all good choices and far preferable to Upton.

There are two candidates for Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee.  Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Tex.) is the frontrunner.  He is being challenged by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (D-Calif.).  Hall, a former Democratic Member and currently the ranking Republican on the committee, is widely respected and liked.  He is also very able and highly qualified to chair Science and Technology.  The reason why the Steering Committee may pass him over is his age-87.  Rep. Rohrabacher is also highly qualified and would bring a lot more energy and aggressiveness to the job.

The proposal by Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) to take jurisdiction over energy issues from the Energy and Commerce Committee and place it in an expanded Energy and Natural Resources Committee is still in play.  The Steering Committee may consider it after it votes on the committee chairmanships.  Hastings is the only candidate for Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

EPA Turns 40

The Environmental Protection Agency has been celebrating its fortieth anniversary this week with a number of events.  EPA was created by executive order by President Richard M. Nixon on December 2, 1970.  EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson used the occasion to argue for the agency’s continuing relevance. My CEI colleague Chris Horner responds to Jackson’s astonishing claim that EPA has created 1.5 million jobs here. And Amanda Carey in the Daily Caller finds much less reason than Jackson to celebrate.

Across the States

New York Assembly Passes Symbolic Drilling Ban

The New York State Assembly this week voted 93 – 43 to temporarily ban a natural gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing. The moratorium lasts until May, 2011, but state regulators weren’t expected to start issuing drilling permits until summer, so the legislation is largely symbolic. New York State is home to huge natural gas deposits that only recently become economically recoverable, thanks to the emergence of hydraulic fracturing technology, which is also known as “fracking.” Environmentalists oppose the practice on the grounds that it could affect groundwater supplies, although there is no credible evidence to support these claims.

Around the World

COP-16 in Cancun: Japan Bucks Kyoto

The Japanese delegation to the 16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Cancun, Mexico, yesterday said that under no circumstances would the country support an extension of the Kyoto Protocol past 2012. Already, expectations were low for the COP-16 negotiations, as evidenced by the minimal presence of dignitaries and media. Japan’s announcement diminishes expectations in Cancun even further.

It Could Happen Here

Germany has the most generous solar subsidy program in the world. In a November note to investors, Merrill Lynch estimated that the average German household pays $260 a year for solar subsidies. Solar power accounts for 1% of German electricity production.

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

IPCC Official: Climate Policy Is about Wealth Redistribution, Not Environment

by William Yeatman on November 22, 2010

in Blog

German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer gave an eye-opening interview to Neue Zürcher Zeitung (translated here), in which he said that “one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy….This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.” Mr. Edenhofer was appointed as joint chair of Working Group 3 at the Twenty-Ninth Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Texas Battles Back

by William Yeatman on November 22, 2010

in Blog

The Washington Examiner last week ran an excellent three part series by Kathleen Hartnett White and Mario Loyola, of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, on a burgeoning conflict between the EPA and the State of Texas.

Part 1: EPA Is Offended by Texas’s Successful Permitting Rules
Part 2: Putting a Lid on Texas’s Economic Growth
Part 3: Doing the Environmentalists’ Dirty Work

Cooler Heads Digest 19 November 2010

by William Yeatman on November 19, 2010

in Blog, Cooler Heads Digest

In the News

The Ecological Monster Who Said…Peep
Ben Lieberman, Washington Times, 19 November 2010

America’s First Carbon Market Closes Shop
Christopher Horner & William Yeatman, Sacramento Bee, 19 November 2010

G20 Adviser Says U.S. Will Face Trade Boycott over Climate
Ben Webster, The Times, 19 November 2010

Global Warming: How To Approach the Science
Richard Lindzen, Testimony before the Committee on Science and Technology, 17 November 2010

Global Warming: How To Approach the Science
Patrick Michaels, Testimony before the Committee on Science and Technology, 17 November 2010

Cap-and-Trade Is Dead, But Kyotoism Is Alive and Well at the EPA
Marlo Lewis, Washington Examiner, 15 November 2010

Colorado Plan Tied to Phantom Carbon Tax
William Yeatman & Amy Oliver Cooke, Pueblo Chieftain, 14 November 2010

The Climate Change Scare Is Dying
Christopher Booker, Telegraph, 14 November 2010

Big Green Leader Wants GOP To Forget Popular Will…Or Else
Mark Tapscott, Washington Examiner, 9 November 2010

News You Can Use

Climategate’s First Anniversary

Today is the first anniversary of the Climategate scandal. Here’s a round-up of analyses and commentary:

One Year Ago Today, Anthony Watts, WattsUpWithThat
Climategate: One Year and 60 House Seats Later, Marc Sheppard, American Thinker
How the Climategate Weasels Wiggle Away, James Delingpole, Telegraph
What Does Climategate Say about Science?, Terence Kealey, The Global Warming Policy Foundation

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Lame Duck Session a Big Success So Far

The first week of Congress’s lame duck session has been a big success.  They haven’t done anything.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pulled a scheduled vote to invoke cloture and proceed to S. 3815, the “Promoting Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles Act of 2010,” because he did not have the 60 votes required.

S. 3815 is known around town as the Boone Pickens Payoff Bill.  Pickens told Bloomberg News this week that he thought there was a better than 50-50 chance that the bill would be enacted, so we can’t celebrate yet.

The bill would provide $4.5 billion in subsidies for natural gas vehicles and $3.5 billion in subsidies for electric vehicles plus $2 billion in loans to manufacturers of natural gas vehicles.  The subsidies to purchasers would range from $8,000 to $64,000.  The larger payments would be for purchasers of heavy trucks that run on natural gas.

But the Lame Ducks Will Be Back after Thanksgiving

Congress will be in recess next week for Thanksgiving and will return on November 29th.  There are enough big must-do items that it still seems unlikely to me that the Senate will be able to take up Pickens’s bill or the Renewable Electricity Standard (or RES) bill, S. 3813.  The RES bill is sponsored by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), the Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and retiring Senator Sam Brownback (R-Ks.), who has just been elected Governor of Kansas.  It now has 31 co-sponsors, including three other Republicans.

The RES bill would raise electric rates in those States that haven’t yet followed the failed California model of raising rates to impoverish consumers and drive out energy-intensive industries.  My guess is that it will be blocked in the Senate by Republican and Democratic Senators from those States in the Mideast and Southeast that still depend on low-cost coal and therefore still have manufacturing.  On the other hand, there is an incentive for Senators from States that have already enacted their own renewable requirements to support a national standard in order to lower the competitiveness of the States that have not adopted renewable requirements.

Who Will Be Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee?

There are now four active candidates running to be the next Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee: former Chairman and current Ranking Republican Joe Barton (R-Tex.), Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), and Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.).  The House Republican Steering Committee will vote-probably in early December-and then their recommendation will be voted on by the entire Republican Conference.

It’s hard to predict these insider contests because personal relationships play a big role.  Here are a few comments.  Barton has served two years as Chairman and the last four as Ranking Republican.  House Republican rules are ambiguous, but it seems that Barton requires a waiver of the six-year rule in order to be eligible.  Another obstacle is the new Speaker, current Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).  Barton made the mistake of running against Boehner for Minority Leader after the House Republicans lost their majority in the 2006 elections.

Upton is one of the more liberal Republican House Members, but is nonetheless the front runner for the job.   His voting record has been compiled here.  A number of his environmental and energy votes are at odds with the vast majority of his Republican colleagues.  For example, he was the main sponsor of the ban on incandescent light bulbs, voted for the 2007 anti-energy bill, voted against offshore drilling, voted against a major reform of the Endangered Species Act, and voted for the California Desert bill, which locked up millions of acres.  But Upton is running a hard and highly visible public campaign and is promising to be a good conservative.

Stearns has a very conservative voting record.  He is also saying some of the right things, as for example in this column by Kim Strassel in the Wall Street Journal.  On the other hand, the rap on Stearns is that he has not done much heavy lifting on the committee.

My guess is that Shimkus is the most likely to have a shot at defeating Upton.  Shimkus, like Barton and Stearns, opposes global warming alarmism and supports more domestic production of coal, oil, and natural gas.  He has said publicly that he is a candidate, but is running a behind-the-scenes campaign.

Another possible candidate for Energy and Commerce Chairman is Rep. Greg Walden (R-Oreg.).  He took a leave of absence from the committee, so that a party-switcher could keep his seat on the committee as a Republican.  Walden is currently serving as Chairman of the Republican transition team that is preparing for transfer of majority control of the House in January to the Republicans.  That suggests that the House Republican leadership holds him in high regard.

On the Democratic side, outgoing Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) faces no opposition to become Ranking Democrat on the committee in the 112th Congress.  Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the other chief sponsor of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, has apparently cleared the field and will be elected Ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee.

The Natural Resources Committee’s ranking Republican, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), who is unopposed to be Chairman when the Republicans take control of the House in January, proposed this week to take the Energy and Commerce Committee’s jurisdiction over energy issues and combine it with his committee into a new Energy and Natural Resources Committee.  I have publicly supported Hastings’s proposal in my role as director of Freedom Action. It’s a long shot that the House Republican leadership or Conference will go along, but at the least Hastings is sending a shot across the bows of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which regularly encroaches on the jurisdiction of his committee.

Across the States

Texas Fights Back

The Washington Examiner this week ran an excellent three part series by Kathleen Hartnett White and Mario Loyola, of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, on a burgeoning conflict between the EPA and the State of Texas.

Part 1: EPA Is Offended by Texas’s Successful Permitting Rules
Part 2: Putting a Lid on Texas’s Economic Growth
Part 3: Doing the Environmentalists’ Dirty Work

Around the World

IPCC Official: Climate Policy Is about Wealth Redistribution, Not Environment

German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer gave an eye-opening interview to Neue Zürcher Zeitung (translated here), in which he said that “one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy….This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.” Mr. Edenhofer was appointed as joint chair of Working Group 3 at the Twenty-Ninth Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Geneva, Switzerland.

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

Cooler Heads Digest 12 November 2010

by William Yeatman on November 12, 2010

in Blog, Cooler Heads Digest

In the News

Green Jobs Hucksterism and the G-20
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 12 November 2010

A Bad Week for Alarmists
Anthony Watts, WattsUpWithThat, 12 November 2010

How the EPA Could Destroy 7.3 Million Jobs
William F. Shugart, Washington Examiner, 12 November 2010

GE Buys Volts; Taxpayers Pick up the Tab
Henry Payne, Planet Gore, 12 November 2010

Global Warming Is Good for Rainforests
Lewis Page, The Register, 12 November 2010

Global Warming, Global Taxes
Thomas P. Kilgannon, American Spectator, 12 November 2010

EPA’s New Guidance: Does It Endanger Coal?
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 11 November 2010

High Speed Train Wreck
Iain Murray & Marc Scribner, Lexington Herald Leader, 11 November 2010

Retire the Stealth Tax on Carbon
Vincent Carroll, Denver Post, 10 November 2010

California’s AB 32 Is Still on the Hot Seat
Tom Tanton, MasterResource.org, 10 November 2010

Carbon Trading Grounds to a Halt in the U.S.
FoxNews.com, 9 November 2010

How an Enviro Advocacy Group Propped up Global Warming in the Media
Russell Cook, Big Journalism, 2 November 2010

Energy and Climate Wars
Bryan Weynand, American Thinker, 2 October 2010

News You Can Use

Ben Lieberman

Voters Want to Save Planet from Attempts To Save Planet

It is worth noting that the two biggest environmental scares of recent memory-global warming and the BP oil spill-both failed to sway voters on November 2.  Quite the contrary, it was the ill-advised attempts to address them that sparked voter anger.  The Waxman-Markey bill worried the electorate more than global warming itself (and quite rightly so), and contributed to the loss of more than two dozen of its supporters in the House of Representatives.

Similarly, the BP oil spill had virtually no adverse impact on pro-drilling politicians. If anything, it was Obama’s overreaction to the spill in the form of the drilling moratorium that proved highly unpopular in Louisiana and other impacted States. The moratorium didn’t cost any Congressional seats there only because both Democrats and Republicans strongly denounced it.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

EPA Releases Vague Guidance on Greenhouse Gas Regs

The Environmental Protection Agency this week released a Guidance Document on the Best Available Control Technology (BACT) that will be required in order to permit new projects under the Clean Air Act’s regulation of stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions.  The regulations are scheduled to begin on January 2nd, 2011, so EPA has put off to the last minute informing regulated entities what they will have to do to receive a permit.  The short answer is that the EPA doesn’t know what to require in the way of BACT beyond advocating increased energy efficiency and so is granting extraordinary leeway to state environmental agencies (that consider and make the initial decisions on permit applications) to make up the rules as they go along.  This means that one state environmental agency may require something extremely expensive and complicated to limit greenhouse gas emissions while another may require something cheap and easy.  It should be fun, especially for the environmental pressure groups who are no doubt already planning how to litigate every permit application filed.  My CEI colleague Marlo Lewis explains some of the details here, but it will take awhile to decipher all of EPA’s little tricks and traps.

Browner Must Go

Dan Berman reported in Politico on Wednesday that: “The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.  In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report.”  This is the most outrageous example yet of the Obama Administration’s improper manipulation of science to support its agenda.  I responded in a CEI press release by calling for the firing of President Obama’s Climate Czar, Carol Browner. Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and two of his colleagues on the committee, John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and David Vitter (R-La.), have requested that the committee hold a hearing on the Inspector General’s report.

Across the States

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie “Skeptical” on AGW

The Philadelphia Inquirer this week reported on a town hall meeting during which New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) responded to a question about the science of global warming by saying that, “I’m skeptical.” That’s great to hear, but it would be even better if the Governor pulled New Jersey out of the cap-and-trade for northeastern states known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Around the World

EU: Efficiency Goals Will Cost $1.4 Trillion through 2020

Environmentalists claim that energy efficiency is the ideal energy policy because it saves money and reduces the need for new energy generation. According to Greenpeace International, “energy efficiency is highly profitable.” The evidence suggests otherwise. This week, European Commission presented its energy efficiency strategy for the coming decade, calling for taxpayer investment of almost $1.4 trillion through 2020.

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.

What Is the President Thinking When It Comes to Fracking?

by William Yeatman on November 8, 2010

in Blog

There has been a technological revolution in the natural gas industry over the last decade. In that time, a drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” has become economically viable, thereby allowing for the exploitation of huge natural gas reserves that had been too expensive to recover. As a result, America’s natural gas supply has roughly doubled.

In his post-election address last Wednesday, President Barack Obama indicated support for the fracking revolution. His administration’s record, however, is decidedly mixed on the issue.

On the one hand, the State Department is a big proponent of the technology, which it sees as a long term deterrent for Russia. As I’ve noted elsewhere, environmentalist policies in some European countries-but especially Germany-have rendered them increasingly reliant on Russian natural gas, even as Russia has proven willing to use its energy resources as a geopolitical bargaining chip. By exporting the fracking revolution to continental Europe, the State Department hopes to weaken Russia’s influence.

Moreover, Obama’s EPA has kept away from regulating fracking, although it easily could. Indeed, with the Clean Water Act precedent set by the its assault on mountain top removal mining, the EPA could shut down whatever industry it wants to in all of Appalachia, which is home to the largest and most promising natural gas resources made available by fracking-the Marcelus Shale in Pennsylvania and New York.

On the other hand, different agencies within the Obama administration are cracking down on fracking. The Bureau for Land Management (within the Department of the Interior), for example, refuses to grant leases to drill natural gas along the Rocky Mountains. Under a new Interior Department instruction memo for implementing the 1987 Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Act, the BLM can (and is) withholding scores of millions of dollars of leases, pending completion of National Environmental Protection Act litigation. Contemporaneously, the Council of Environmental Quality is making NEPA challenges even easier.

So what to make of these conflicting signals? At first I thought that Obama saw himself as a visionary problem solver, and that his vision was to address supposed global warming by embracing gas at the expense of coal. Now, I’m not so sure. It looks like he’s being jerked around by people who know better how the executive branch works.

Cooler Heads Digest 5 November 2010

by William Yeatman on November 5, 2010

in Blog, Cooler Heads Digest

In the News

Cap-and-Trade Is Political Kryptonite
Myron Ebell, Politico Energy Arena, 5 November 2010

EPA Regs for Rigs
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 5 November 2010

The Wilderness Obsession
Roger Scruton, American Spectator, 5 November 2010

What the Elections Mean for the Greens
Chris Horner, Planet Gore, 4 November 2010

Environmental Toxins
Iain Murray, The Corner, 4 November 2010

High Speed Trains Are a Waste of Money
Robert Samuelson, Washington Post, 1 November 2010

Green Hiring Scandal at the DOE
Eugene Samuel Reich, Nature, 1 November 2010

News You Can Use

Cap-and-Trade Kills Careers in Congress

Thirty-one House Democrats who voted for H.R. 2545, the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, were defeated in the elections. The Senate did take a vote on cap-and-trade.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

On Cap-and-Trade: They Lost, We Won

“Greens Desperate to Avoid Blame” was the headline on Darren Samuelsohn and Robin Bravender’s story in Politico on Wednesday. Environmental pressure groups moved quickly to spin the election results as having nothing to do with them.  In particular, they claimed that passage in the House of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill did not cause Democrats to lose.  On the contrary, the reality is that Waxman-Markey did contribute to the defeat of a number of Democrats, as I argue in Politico’s Energy Arena.

More significant is the fact that the new Republican majority in the House is largely skeptical of the claim that global warming is a potential crisis and is close to unanimously opposed to cap-and-trade and other energy-rationing measures.  Not only is cap-and-trade dead, but there is a good chance that the House next year will move legislation to block or delay the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The question is, can such a measure pass the Democratic-controlled Senate?  There is certainly a majority in the Senate for blocking EPA, but sixty votes will be needed.  My guess is that there will be more than sixty votes.  As EPA regulations start to bite next year, Senators will start to hear complaints from their constituents.  And a number of Democratic Senators are up for re-election in 2012 and will want to avoid the fate of so many of their colleagues this year.

President Obama Reacts

President Barack Obama left on Friday for a ten-day trip to Asia beginning in India.  Before he left, he held a press conference on the election results and gave an interview to Sixty Minutes, which has been released by CBS ahead of its broadcast on Sunday night.  In reply to two questions at his press conference, the President spoke at length about alternatives to cap-and-trade.  He said, “Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way.  It was a means, not an end.  And I’m going to be looking for other means to address this problem.”

The President said that there were several areas where he might be able to find common ground with the Republicans in Congress.  These included natural gas, nuclear power, and electric vehicles.  He also said that, “The EPA is under a court order that says greenhouse gases are a pollutant that fall under their jurisdiction.”  This is a misunderstanding, but he then also seemed to express some openness to congressional intervention in EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions: “And I think EPA wants help from the legislature on this.  I don’t think that the desire is to somehow be protective of their powers here.”

The Dream Team Returns

Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) survived a tough election challenge and so is expected to be back in the 112th Congress as Majority Leader.  What is much more surprising is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) announced today that she would run for Minority Leader in the 112th Congress.

Across the States

California

Proposition 23, a California ballot initiative to suspend AB 32, the State’s global warming law, until unemployment decreases to 5.5 %, was defeated on Tuesday by a 61% to 29% vote. Opponents of Prop 23, primarily venture capitalists with a financial stake in green energy mandates, spent more than $30 million to persuade Californians to vote against it. As a result of Proposition 23’s defeat, Governor-elect Jerry Brown will have unlimited power to regulate California’s economy in the name of climate change mitigation. In his previous job as California Attorney General, Brown interpreted AB 32 broadly. Indeed, he used the legislation to sue California counties for failing to address global warming in their transportation plans adequately. Expect more of the same.

New Mexico

Opposition to cap-and-trade featured prominently in the winning campaigns of both New Mexico Governor-elect Susana Martinez (R) and Congressman-elect Steve Pearce (R). Yet, on the very day that New Mexico voters indicated their displeasure with energy-rationing climate policies, outgoing Governor Bill Richardson’s (D) administration committed the state to a regional cap-and-trade program. It remains to be seen whether Richardson can entrench the ruling so that it could withstand a likely challenge from incoming Governor Martinez.

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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