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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New Hampshire Senate Republicans have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on energy rationing policy. Two months ago, the State House of Representatives passed HB 519, legislation that would withdraw New Hampshire from a regional energy-rationing scheme known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), by a 246 to 104 vote. At the time, it was widely thought that the Senate would quickly follow suit, as Republicans control the upper chamber. Governor John Lynch (D) promised to veto the bill, but Republicans hold a veto-proof majority in both chambers of the legislature.
Then the environmentalist lobby mobilized and frightened many members of the Senate. The bill was delayed. Last week, the Senate Natural Resources Committee voted against HB 519 companion legislation. This week, the full Senate, where Republicans enjoy a 2 to 1 majority, voted to remain in the RGGI.
Two days ago, the New York Times reported that the French Parliament is “leaning” towards a ban on hydraulic fracturing, the American-made technological revolution in production that has vastly increased the known economically recoverable global reserves of natural gas. According to the article,
French lawmakers opened debate on Tuesday on proposals to ban a method for extracting oil and gas deposits from shale because of environmental concerns, throwing up the first serious stumbling block to firms that want to use the practice.
Looking with alarm at the experience in the United States, where shale gas is booming, even members of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s governing conservative party have come out against the practice, known as hydraulic fracturing, in which water, sand and chemicals are pumped deep underground under high pressure to free scattered pockets of oil and gas from dense rock formations.
The article, while interesting, misses the big picture. For starters, it’s unclear why French lawmakers would look “with alarm” at the U.S. experience. While there is some evidence that poorly built “fracking” rigs could lead to the escape of methane into local groundwater wells, this isn’t as disturbing as it sounds. Methane (ie, natural gas) does not make water poisonous, and there is no evidence that the fluids used in the process, which could be toxic, have leaked into well water. Much more importantly, there is ZERO evidence that the process affects water tables used for utility scale water supply, although environmentalist special interests are quick to try to conflate well-water methane contamination with water table contamination. The upshot is that hydraulic fracturing has been used in this country for fifty years, without harming public health and environment.
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The Great Energy Resource Debate
Robert Bradley, MasterResource.org, 12 May 2011
GM Bailout: Still a Loser
Megan McArdle, The Atlantic, 12 May 2011
Obama’s High Speed Spending on Slow Speed Rail
Mike Brownfield, The Foundry, 12 May 2011
GAO: Yucca Shutdown Was Political
Greg Pollowitz, Planet Gore, 12 May 201
UN Appoints Accomplished Wealth Distributor To Lead Green Jobs Initiative
Chris Horner, Daily Caller, 11 May 2011
Phony “Safety” Fears Cripple U.S. Oil
Investor’s Business Daily editorial, 9 May 2011
The Hijacking of Earth Day
Gilbert Ross, Spectator, 11 May 2011
Representative Steve Pearce (R-New Mexico) yesterday removed his name as a co-sponsor of H. R. 1380, which I have dubbed the T. Boone Pickens Earmark Bill. Rep. Pearce is an outstanding conservative Member of Congress, who is policy oriented and held in high regard by his colleagues, so his defection from the Boonedoggle Bandwagon is an important sign that House conservatives may be starting to rethink their support. Pearce deserves special credit because the oil and gas industry, which would benefit from the Pickens-Your-Pocket Plan, is the largest industry in his southern New Mexico district.
Al Gore, Greenpeace, and the “consensus of scientists” tell us that global warming endangers agriculture and global food security. A study published last week in Science magazine finds global warming has taken significant bites out of potential global corn and wheat production since 1980.
The study also finds, however, that climate change has not adversely affected U.S. corn and wheat production. How so – because of Yankee ingenuity? Not according to the study. The explanation, rather, is that America has been a “notable exception” to climate change. The USA “experienced a slight cooling” during the study period (1980-2008).
This is bizarre. Here we have an alarmist study that finds a “lack of significant climate trends” in the USA for the past 30 years. If true, that makes hash out of all those dire pronouncements by Gore and others that global warming is already contributing to hurricanes, tornadoes, snow storms, forest fires, floods, etc. in the USA. Are the study’s authors aware of this implication? Are the editors of Science? Apparently not.
How do the authors know that climate change is depressing corn and wheat production globally, even if not in the USA? The biggest loss in wheat production, according to the study, is in Russia. Do they adjust Russian crop yields for the Russian economic meltown and financial crisis of the 1990s? As far as I can tell, they don’t. I would not bet the farm on the validity of this study. [click to continue…]
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