As was widely reported, the Senate voted last week on a bill that would terminate the ethanol tax credit and corresponding tariff. While many were excited by the prospect of finally moving towards better energy policy, it seems likely that things will still get worse before they get better. The ethanol industry does not seem worried.
Consider the following: John McCain (R-AZ) offered additional legislation, while the Senate was voting down the tax credit, that would have ended federal subsidies for ethanol fuel pumps at gas stations. This was voted down 41-59:
“It lost because of the influence of the ethanol lobby,” McCain said on Fox News Thursday, alleging ethanol “is probably the greatest rip-off that I’ve seen since P.T. Barnum.
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Socialism is such fun — until the other guy’s money runs out. At that point, even spendaholics may sober up and make tough choices. Irony of ironies, Washington’s fiscal excesses may put the final nail in the coffin of cap-and-trade.
A new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finds that GOP proposals to address the nation’s fiscal crisis, all of which cap federal spending at some percentage of GDP, would make climate legislation — whether cap-and-trade or a carbon tax — “virtually impossible to enact.”
The more severe the spending cap, the more it would “doom efforts to enact comprehensive climate change legislation,” even if the climate bill would not increase the deficit. The report’s authors lament the fact that spending caps would make the political obstacles to climate legislation “almost insurmountable.” It’s music to this non-socialist’s ears. [click to continue…]
Earlier this week at Climate Progress, an energy and environment site run by the liberal Center for American Progress, a blogger made a sensational claim about the growth of the American solar industry. Stephen Lacey wrote,
“With roughly 93,500 direct and indirect jobs, the American solar industry now employs about 9,200 more workers than the U.S. steel production sector, according to 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
However, in making this comparison, the author omitted mention of the fundamental difference between these two sectors: The steel industry exists because people want to buy steel, while the solar industry exists only by the grace of favorable politics. That is, without taxpayer giveaways and Soviet-style production quotas, there would be no solar industry in America. The same is not true for the steel sector.
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Bedbugs are finding their way from more and more hotels into more and more homes. One way to get rid of them is to wash infested bedding and clothes in hot water. Hot means at least 118 degrees F; a warm water wash of only 104 degrees will kill only ten percent of the critters.
An extended bout of high-temperature drying is also recommended.
But with laundry machines and dryers coming under increasingly stringent federal energy efficiency regulations, sufficiently hot wash and dry cycles are becoming a thing of the past. Many new washers have thermostatically controlled mixing valves, which adjust wash water temperatures to levels set by the manufacturer. That high-tech feature isn’t aimed at satisfying market demand, but at meeting either the efficiency regs or the criteria for special manufacturer tax credits (yet another program to boost energy efficiency at all costs).
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Everybody and his brother are reporting yesterday’s cloture vote on Sen. Tom Coburn’s amendment to repeal the ethanol tax credit as a widespread rejection by GOP lawmakers of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, conceived and administered by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). This is spin.
Many in Washington would like nothing better than for Republicans to disown their chief product differentiator, their promise in writing not to raise taxes. That may happen. Raising taxes is what politicians do, especially those who claim we have a deficit problem rather than an overspending problem. But repudiating the Pledge is not what went down in the Senate on Tuesday. [click to continue…]
Some GOP House Members may see no problem in pushing H.R. 1380, the Boonedoggle, Pickens-Your-Pocket Bill, which would hand out tax credits up to $64,000 apiece for the purchase of natural gas vehicles, because, after all, chief beneficiary T. Boone Pickens is a major donor to Republican candidates.
According to Investor’s Business Daily, however, H.R. 1380 would also confer windfall profits on the Left’s patron-in-chief, billionaire George Soros. IBD explains: [click to continue…]
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) boasts that its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards save more fuel than the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards – but denies that GHG standards are fuel economy standards. Huh?
Well, of course, CARB denies it, because the Energy Policy Conservation Act (EPCA) prohibits states from adopting laws or regulations “related to” fuel economy.
But CARB has to trumpet the fuel savings from its GHG standards to attack H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act. H.R. 910, says CARB, would make America more dependent on foreign oil by prohibiting CARB and EPA from adopting tougher GHG standards.
H.R. 910 opponents talk as if policymaking were a game in which the regulatory option with the biggest fuel savings wins. By that criterion, why not just let EPA and CARB impose a de facto 100 mpg CAFE standard and declare America to be “energy independent”?
If Congress thinks NHTSA’s standards don’t go far enough, there is a simple fix. Pass a law! What H.R. 910 opponents want is for EPA and CARB to legislate in lieu of Congress. That is neither lawful nor constitutional. [click to continue…]
By all accounts, President Barack Obama has embraced ‘fracking,’ a.k.a. hydraulic fracturing, the American-made technological breakthrough in natural gas production that has roughly doubled known North American gas reserves in only the last five years. However, the President’s assault on American coal production has been so pervasive that he has given environmentalists the tools to block fracking from being applied to the most promising gas plays, despite his apparent support for the drilling technique. By warring with coal, the President has boxed himself in on gas.
In his 2011 State of the Union Address, the President set a target for America to generate 80% of its electricity by 2035 from “clean” energy sources, including wind, solar, clean coal, and natural gas. Three months later, in March, the White House issued an energy policy strategy, titled “Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future,” in which it was stated that, “we must focus on expanding cleaner sources of electricity, including renewables like wind and solar, as well as clean coal, natural gas, and nuclear power…” In a speech to promote the Blueprint, the President noted, “The potential for natural gas is enormous.”
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Reuters is reporting that the White House has given its seal of approval to the EPA’s proposed label for E15 (85% gasoline, 15% ethanol). The picture above is of an earlier draft label, no actual images are public yet (to my knowledge) of what the final image ended up being. I suspect the label will be quite similar though it will change 2007MY to 2001MY.
Despite cheers from the ethanol industry, its not clear where the path goes from here. The EPA has suggested that E15 could be sold across the country by September, but a number of gasoline stations are in opposition. Here is a letter (.pdf) sent to Lisa Jackson from the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) and the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America (SIGMA), whom together represent roughly 80% of retail fuel sales in the United States. In it they write:
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