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The State of the Union speech? Yeesh. The energy and climate stuff was disingenuous and dumb.

“The State of the Union is strong,” President Obama proclaimed. How so? Among other things, “we are as free from the grip of foreign oil as we’ve been in almost 30 years.” Domestic production is “booming” and today “America is number one in oil and gas.” Obama implied his policies had something to do with those achievements. Ridiculous.

The fracking revolution took place almost entirely on state and private lands, over which federal agencies exercise scant control.

Tax a thing, and you get less of it. Rather than encourage oil and gas production, each year Obama sent Congress a budget proposal calling for tax hikes on the oil and gas sector. The President’s FY 2015 budget, for example, proposed to increase oil industry taxes by $44.838 billion. It also advocated repeal of LIFO (last-in, first-out) accounting rules — a policy change that would cost oil companies and other U.S. firms $82.708 billion.

The Obama administration’s signature oil policy was its moratorium and informal “permitorium” on offshore oil production following the April 2010 BP Macondo well explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. API estimated the moratorium depressed oil industry capital and operating expenditures by $18.3 billion during 2010-2012 and would cost the U.S. economy $28 billion in lost investment over the next several years. The official and de-facto moratoria cut Gulf of Mexico production by 77 million barrels in FY 2011 (13%) and 47 million barrels in FY 2012 (9%), according to the Institute for Energy Research.

Then there’s the President’s proposal to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40-45% below 2012 levels by 2025. If there ever was a ‘solution’ in search of a problem, this is it. As Cato Institute scientists Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger point out, methane emissions from the sector fell by more than 10% since 2008, chiefly for economic reasons. Methane is a form of natural gas, so frackers have a financial incentive to plug leaks and capture fugitive emissions. 

Moreover, far from being ‘worse than we thought,’ atmospheric methane concentrations are increasing more slowly than previously predicted. Indeed, the IPCC has lowered its methane concentration prediction three times since 1990. Yet even the lower bound of its most recent (2007) prediction overshoots observations. The chart below is from the leaked second order draft of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5):

Using EPA’s own policy model, Michaels and Knappenberger calculate that the administration’s proposed methane cuts “will avert a whopping 0.002°C of global warming by century’s end.” Even if fracking-related methane emissions endangered public health and welfare (they don’t), Obama’s policy is all cost for no benefit.

Okay, on to the dumb stuff. Obama declared that “no challenge — no challenge — poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.” Time for a restatement of the obvious. [click to continue…]

Reports Greenwire’s Robin Bravender ($),

First lady Michelle Obama will host a sea-level rise researcher at the State of the Union address tomorrow, a signal that climate change will be a major component of the president’s speech.

Nicole Hernandez Hammer, a sea-level expert in southeast Florida, was one of nearly two dozen guests announced today by the White House. The first lady typically invites guests to the event who embody the themes the president plans to highlight in his speech.

If history serves as a guide, President Obama would sound garbled were he to address climate change in tonight’s State of the Union address. [click to continue…]

Recently, I’ve made a practice of cataloging mistakes and other oddities at Grist, a website which fancies itself a source of “independent green journalism.” In this fact-checking vein, I’d like to bring your attention to a post published on Grist two days ago, whose inaccuracies are remarkable even by the site’s standards. [click to continue…]

In Tuesday’s Federal Register, EPA proposed to modify its federal implementation plan for Arizona, pursuant to the Clean Air Act’s regional haze program. The occasion affords us the opportunity to remind readers that the Obama Administration has executed more Clean Air Act regulatory takeovers of state programs than ten times the sum of the previous three administrations.

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As discussed a few weeks ago on this blog, a recent study in Nature Climate Change concludes that global warming “is already slowing yield gains at a majority of wheat-growing locations,” and forecasts absolute reductions in yields (tons per hectare) under +2ºC and +4ºC warming scenarios. I noted that despite the overall warming trend of the past half century and more, global average wheat yield increased every decade and during the past five years.

Specifically, compared to the preceding decade, average yield increased by 33% in the 1970s, 27% in the 1980s, 20% in the 1990s, 9% in the 2000s, and 10% during 2010-2014. Average yield was 149% higher in 2010-2014 than in the 1960s (my calculation based on USDA data).

Another relevant source I should have consulted is the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. An FAO analysis published in November forecast that world cereal production in 2014 would “surpass the record in 2013.” Two record-breaking years in a row. Clearly, we’re on the eve of destruction!

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• In a recent post, I lamented the fact that the auto industry is basing its investment decisions on government mandates rather than consumer preference. We find more evidence of the same in today’s Financial Times. In a story ($) on GM’s new electric car, the Chevy Bolt, Sarah Gordon reports:

GM’s investment in the market also raises questions about why U.S. carmakers continue to devote substantial shares of their product development budgets to a vehicle class that accounts for a tiny share of sales…The reality for GM and other carmakers is that, as they face strict new fuel economy standards that provide incentives for the development of electric vehicles, they have little choice but to produce them.

• And yet, in contrast to the bullet point above, consumers continue to prefer gas guzzlers, especially during the recent period of ultra-forgiving gas prices. Indeed, President Obama last week admonished Americans to not buy fuel inefficient cars and trucks, despite sub $2 gas in much of the country. Evidently, they’re ignoring him. [click to continue…]

This is part 3 of a 3 part series on EPA’s announcement last week that it will propose a model federal implementation for the Clean Power Plan. For Part 1, “Context of EPA’s Bombshell Announcement That It Will propose a Model FIP for the Clean Power Plan,” click here. For Part 2, “Why EPA Is Proposing a Clean Power Plan Model FIP (Because Otherwise It Can’t Impose Highway Sanctions),” click here.

In the first two parts of this series, I explained why EPA last week announced it would propose a model federal implementation plan (“FIP”) for the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s marquee climate initiative. In a nutshell, the agency’s motive is to increase its bargaining leverage vis a vis States that don’t want to cooperate on the regulation. To be precise, the model FIP would enhance the constitutionality of financial penalties that the agency could impose on a recalcitrant State, in order to compel compliance, during a two-year window after EPA disapproved that state’s plan. Read all about it here and here.

In this post, I want to explore what this model FIP could look like. [click to continue…]

At 8 AM this morning, the Obama administration unveiled its multi-pronged strategy to control methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. The plan will involve proposals from the Interior Department, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Energy, and the EPA. This post focuses on what EPA intends to do.

It is being widely reported that EPA’s regulatory mandate will be limited to new and modified sectors within the oil and gas industry, pursuant to Clean Air Act §111b (“new source performance standards”). This is seen as a major loss for environmental special interests, which had pushed for the regulation of existing sectors in the oil and gas industry, pursuant to Clean Air Act §111d (“existing source performance standards”). THIS MEDIA NARRATIVE IS INNACURATE!

In fact, EPA snuck in a de facto nation-wide regulation of methane from the oil and gas sector. Here’s how: A press release from the White House lists as the second administration action to mitigate methane emissions the following: [click to continue…]