Cooler Heads Digest

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on February 15, 2008

in Cooler Heads Digest

Announcement
International Climate Conference in New York, March 2-4
 
Hundreds of the world’s leading “skeptics” of the theory of man-made global warming will meet in New York City on March 2-4 to present their case and discuss the latest scientific, economic and political research on climate change.
 
For more information, visit the conference web site, by clicking here.
 
In the News
 
John Atkinson, The Register, 14 February 2008
 
Associated Press, 14 February 2008
 
Brendan Keenan, The Independent, 13 February 2008
 
Shai Oster & Ann Davis, Wall Street Journal, 12 February 2008
 
BBCNews, 12 February 2008
 
John Hanna, Associated Press, 12 February 2008
 
Mark Newgent, DC Examiner, 11 February 2008
 
David A Ridenour, Sacramento Bee, 10 February 2008
 
Forbes.com, 9 February 2008
 
Paul Rogers, Mercury News, 9 February 2008
 
Alex Madrigal, Wired.com, 8 February 2008
 
Terrence Corcoron, National Post, 12 February 2008
 
William Yeatman, Spectator.org, 15 January 2008
 
We Can’t Make This Stuff Up…
Global Warming Kills Famous Lake-Monster
 
After 37 years, Robert Rines has stopped trying to nab the Loch Ness Monster. According to the UK Daily Record, Rines belief that global warming killed off the elusive beast compelled him to abandon his life’s quest to find the elusive beast.
 
Inside the Beltway
McCain: ‘Mandatory Caps’ 101
Myron Ebell
 
Senator John McCain (R-Az.), now the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party, said this week in an interview with Darren Samuelsohn of Greenwire that he had shown stronger leadership on global warming than the two leading Democratic Party presidential candidates, Senators Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY). He noted that both Obama and Clinton are now co-sponsors of his climate bill, S. 139, the Climate Stewardship Act. Then he gave a quite extraordinary description of how his bill would work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Greenwire story, McCain said: “It’s not mandatory caps to start with. It’s cap and trade. That’s very different, OK, because that’s a gradual reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions. So please portray it as cap and trade. That’s the way I call it.”
 
McCain is technically accurate in that if the Lieberman-McCain bill were enacted, it would not require mandatory reductions immediately. But it does put a cap on future emissions and that cap is mandatory. It’s what used to be called energy rationing. During the Second World War, the federal government gave people coupons each month which would allow them to buy a certain quantity of gasoline. If you wanted to buy more gas, you had to trade someone else for his coupons. That’s how cap and trade works. We just don’t call them rationing coupons any more.
Around the World
Will Kyoto Bury Coal?
Marlo Lewis
 
You have probably heard that China is building new coal-fired power plants at the rate of one every week to 10 days. In late 2004, The Christian Science Monitor reported that three countries—the United States, China, and India—had plans to build nearly 850 new coal plants, “which would pump up to five times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce.” These new plants would “bury” Kyoto. The Monitor elaborated:
 
"By 2012, the plants in three key countries – China, India, and the United States – are expected to emit as much as an extra 2.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide, according to a Monitor analysis of power-plant construction data. In contrast, Kyoto countries by that year are supposed to have cut their CO2 emissions by some 483 million tons."
 
Well, there’s been a lot of agitation to stop new coal plants from being built in the United States. In some cases, like TXU’s proposal to build 11 new coal-fired power plants in Texas, the anti-coal campainers carried the day.
 
But China and, to a lesser extent, India and other developing countries still dominate the big picture. The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday carried a front-page story on China’s booming demand for coal. China’s electric generating capacity increased 18% just from last July to December, almost all of it fueled by coal.
 
Chinese demand for coal is surging so fast that, for the first time, the country has become a net importer of coal. Also, just as China’s industrialization was a key cause of rising oil prices from 2004 to the present, so China’s electrification is now pushing up world coal prices. Coal mines in the United States and elsewhere are revving up to meet this surging demand.
Energy analysts interviewed in the WSJ article all foresee even greater demand for coal in China and other developing countries in the foreseeable future. Kyoto’s sustainability looks dimmer than ever.
In the Home
Reaping the Wind
Julie Walsh
 
Citizens in Florida are outraged as they discover their power company’s true motivations for windmills and the costs to themselves. About Florida Power and Light’s wind turbine proposal Julie Zahniser writes in her local paper,
 
“This one is about corporate tax avoidance through massive tax subsidies lobbied for by Enron, which was the largest wind developer in the United States before its demise and which pioneered the tax shelter as a commodity. FPL Group paid zero federal income tax in 2002 and 2003 despite more than $2 billion in profits, largely because of the wind projects of its wind subsidiary, FPL Energy, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. But, now it has gotten so bold that it is proposing putting wind turbines where we don’t have sufficient winds to get close to the 30 mph required to reach the turbines’ rated capacity.”
 
When the government chooses “winners and losers” in energy markets, consumers always lose.

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on February 8, 2008

in Cooler Heads Digest

Announcement
International Climate Conference in New York, March 2-4
 
Hundreds of the world’s leading “skeptics” of the theory of man-made global warming will meet in New York City on March 2-4 to present their case and discuss the latest scientific, economic and political research on climate change.
For more information, visit the conference web site, by clicking here.
 
In the News
 
AP, 6 February 2008
 
Terry O’ Neil, National Post, 7 February 2008
 
George Will, Newsweek, 8 February 2008
 
David Gow and Will Woodward, Guardian, 7 February 2008
 
Jackie Cowhig, Reuters, 7 February 2008
 
Terrance Corcoran, Financial Post, 7 February 2008
 
Paul Rogers, InsideBayArea.com, 7 February 2008
 
Dr. Richard Lindzen, Eco-World, February 2008
 
Anjana Pasricha, Voice of America, 7 February 2008
 
John Tierney, New York Times, 6 February 2008
 
AFP, 6 February 2008
 
G. Tracey Mehan, American Spectator, 6 February 2008
 
Pat Michaels, American Spectator, 5 February 2008
 
John Ruwiych, Reuters, 5 February 2008
News You Can Use
It Was a Cold January
 
According to NOAA, the average temperature in January 2008 was 30.5 F. This was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 49th coolest January in 114 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.
Inside the Beltway
Don’t Capitulate on Energy Policy
CEI’s Myron Ebell
 
Now that Senator John McCain (R-Az.) is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and either Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) or Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is going to be the Democratic nominee, I expect there will be a lot of big companies pleading with Congress to pass a cap-and-trade bill this year. Their reasoning is that they should negotiate a cap-and-trade scheme that “they can live with” now rather than be faced with a political climate next year that is more favorable to a cap-and-trade bill with much more onerous targets and timetables.
 
I think this is foolish, and I hope that the opponents of energy rationing and global warming alarmism won’t buy into it. In my view, a “reasonable” cap-and-trade bill this year will only set the stage for a much bigger bill in the next Congress. That is the pattern of major environmental legislation. First, pass a bill that nearly everyone agrees is reasonable and achievable, and then use that agreement as the staging ground to demand much more. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 was preceded by acts of 1966 and 1970. The 7.5 billion gallon ethanol mandate enacted in 2005 was replaced by a 36 billion gallon mandate when Congress overwhelmingly passed and President George W. Bush enthusiastically signed the anti-energy bill in December. That bill also included a significant increase in Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards for new vehicles. But already environmental pressure groups have announced that CAFÉ was just the beginning of their efforts to force automakers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
 
Rather than pre-emptive capitulation, I think the correct strategy is to resist cap-and-trade legislation while the realities of energy rationing sink in. It will be more difficult to enact cap-and-trade in the next Congress, even if the new president and more members of Congress support it, because the high costs are becoming ever more apparent in the European Union. While I think we can win by waiting this one out, there are unfortunately all too many defeatists in the business community who can’t resist the temptation to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Around the World
The Coming EU Energy Crisis
CEI’s Marlo Lewis
 
“If carbon cap-and-trade policies are so bad for the economy, why do so many major corporations, like the members of United States Climate Action Partnership advocate cap-and-trade?”
 
I can’t count how many times I’ve heard that line of chatter—and from people who usually assume anything corporations are for must be bad!
 
There are many reasons some corporations support cap-and-trade, or at least say nice things about it in public. Some companies seek the PR value from looking green.
 
Others believe they must be “at the table” or they’ll be “on the menu.” That is, they want to be in a position to influence the rules of a future cap-and-trade system, but negotiating is difficult if you announce in advance your opposition to whatever is eventually negotiated.
Others, like many Wall Street firms, see carbon trading as an opportunity to collect commissions and fees for managing portfolios and brokering trades in a new commodity market. To a trader, carbon credits and pork belly futures look and taste exactly the same!
But in the case of energy companies, many who support cap-and-trade do so in the expectation that they’ll get a boatload of carbon permits from the government—for free!
Permits represent an artificial, government-created scarcity in the right to produce energy. The right to produce energy is very valuable, especially where government restricts it. The tighter the cap, the more valuable each permit traded under the cap.
Nobody wants to have to buy carbon permits, but lots of companies hope to sell permits, especially if they can get them at no charge.
 
CEI has said for some time that there is nothing like the prospect of having to buy permits in competitive auctions to sour energy companies on cap-and-trade and expose the money-for-nothing greed that impels them to join coalitions like U.S. CAP.
Well, we now have some real-world evidence. The European Commission has put out a proposal that would require all European energy companies to purchase their Kyoto carbon permits through auctions beginning in 2013.
 
This has not only provoked audible corporate whining, it has also put a big chill on the construction of power plants and transmission lines, as reported here and here. According to one report, “investments had slowed in recent years and Europe was now twice as vulnerable to external [energy] shocks as it was in the 1960s.” Really, you mean cap-and-trade reduces energy production and makes society more vulnerable to supply disruptions? Shocking, just shocking!
In the Home
‘Creation Care’ Is Troubling
CEI’s Julie Walsh
 
It’s distressing to see that some of the “Emerging Church” and some Baptists are getting involved with the “Creation Care” movement. From Sierra Club’s website:
 
“In early 2008 the Sierra Club is cosponsoring an eleven-city tour to promote Christian author Brian McLaren's newest book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis and a Revolution of Hope. Focusing on creation care, global justice, and a concern for the poor, this book calls upon its readers to take action in a time of global crisis.
 
Inspired by our shared values of environmental stewardship, global justice and care for our neighbors, the Sierra Club is proud to partner with Sojourners: Faith & Justice Churches, Emergent Village and others, in promoting this message of responsible stewardship”
 
Although the Bible counsels good stewardship of the Earth, this does not trump care for the neediest on the planet. The early church counseled the Apostle Paul, “Remember the poor,” to which he replied, “the very thing I was eager to do.” But cap-and-trade policies, carbon taxes, mandatory efficiency reductions, and the like place the environment over people. And the effects are already being felt around the world.
 
In the article “Rising Food Prices Curb Aid to Global Poor,” the World Food Program director Gregory Barrow said, “We've not been put in a position where we’ve had to shut down a program or reduce the rations, but prices have risen to a point where they're going to have an impact … sooner or later.” And the food riots, such as Indonesia’s response to soybean prices doubling because of an ethanol mandate, have already begun.
 
Energy shortages, often caused by the stone-walling regulations of environmentalists, are now beginning in Africa, which joins Brazil, Cuba, Pakistan, Chile, the Baltic states, Iraq, and Uganda. Faced with energy-rationing resulting from global warming policies, the outlook for the one-quarter of the earth’s population that has no electricity ever getting electricity is bleak.
 
And for Christian groups to join forces in this way to a group such as the Sierra Club, whose stated goals are “to limit human population numbers” and who take actions promoting abortion, seems contradictory to most Christians’ basic tenets.

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on January 31, 2008

in Cooler Heads Digest

Announcement

International Climate Conference in New York, March 2-4

Hundreds of the world's leading "skeptics" of the theory of man-made global warming will meet in New York City on March 2-4 to present their case and discuss the latest scientific, economic and political research on climate change.

For more information, visit the conference web site, by clicking here.

In the News

Coal is the New Gold
Nick Trevathan, Reuters, 31 January 2008

Climate Politics: Who Will Pay? Who Will Profit?
Jeffrey Ball, Wall Street Journal, 30 January 2008

Russia Clears Way for Carbon Profits
Simon Shuster, Reuters, 28 January 2008

The Dangerous Rise of Carbon Fundamentalism
Brad Allenby, GreenBiz, 27 January 2008

Congress Carbon Offset Scam?
David Fahrenthold, Washington Post, 27 January 2008

Where Blackouts Become a Way of Life
Businessday, 28 January 2008

The Polar Bear Express
Wall Street Journal, 28 January 2008

Isn't All This Talk about Apocalypse Getting Boring?
Chris Berg, The Age, 27 January 3008

News You Can Use
Bill Clinton Gets Real about Costs of Climate Policies

California Senator Barbara Boxer continues to cling to the fantasy that curbing greenhouse gas emissions will somehow spur economic growth, but at least former President Bill Clinton is willing to acknowledge the stark economic realities of fighting climate change.

According to ABC news, Clinton yesterday told an audience in Denver, CO, that "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions…"

Inside the Beltway
CEI's Myron Ebell

President George W. Bush did not come out in favor of cap-and-trade legislation in his State of the Union address to Congress on Monday night, nor did he say whether the EPA would find that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health or welfare and therefore must be regulated under the Clean Air Act or whether Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne would decide to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The president did say that the U. S. should, "complete an international agreement that has the potential to slow, stop and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases." He then added that, "This agreement will be effective only if it includes commitments by every major economy and gives none a free ride."

The way I read this is that Bush is relying on China and India to save us from the stupid and colossally expensive policies that would be needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Hiding behind China and India will probably work, but it would be much better for the U. S., as the world's leading developing economy, to lead the developing countries against the policies of economic decline being pushed by the European Union. The Bush Administration should be making the moral case against putting the world on an energy starvation diet.

The Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Dale Hall, testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday on the proposed listing of the polar bear under ESA. The rumors from the Interior Department are that Hall, Secretary Kempthorne, and Under Secretary Lynn Scarlett are pushing for the listing against the scientific evidence presented by FWS field biologists. The ESA requires that a listing be based on the "best available scientific data". Since most of the Arctic's 19 bear populations have been increasing, the data suggests that the bear is not threatened. But computer models suggest that global warming will threaten the bear in the future. To my mind, computer models do not provide the best available scientific data. In fact, their speculative conclusions do not meet the minimal demands of the Federal Data Quality Act.

Although Hall may be pushing for the listing, he made some sensible comments at the hearing. He said that listing under the ESA will do little more to protect the polar bear than is already being done under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. And he said that he didn't think using the ESA was the right regulatory tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So perhaps the decision hasn't yet been made to list the bear. As always, the most sensible remarks at the hearing were made by Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the committee's ranking Republican.

Around the World
CEI's Marlo Lewis

C. Boyden Gray, the U.S. Envoy to the European Union, said Tuesday (Jan. 28) that U.S. and EU adoption of carbon "offset" taxes (aka carbon tariffs) is "inevitable" if China, India, and other developing countries refuse to limit their greenhouse gas emissions.

Gray spoke to European-based reporters in a telephone news conference. As reported by Joe Kirwin of BNA (Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.), Gray said the United States and the EU would "have no choice" but to impose carbon tariffs on products from developing countries to remain competitive in the global economy. To illustrate, he cited the import penalty provisions of S. 2191, the climate bill introduced by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.).

Such talk can only encourage European countries, which are considering a carbon tariff proposal put forward by the European Commission, to restrict trade and impede development in poor countries.

It is unclear whether Mr. Gray was speaking for the Bush Administration or just giving his own opinion. Only two weeks ago (January 17), U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab warned that "attempting to force others to act on climate change through trade saber-rattling carries enormous risks." She characterized measures like Lieberman-Warner as "threats to the global trading system—a system that has delivered prosperity to billions around the world."

The United States—for very good reasons—declined to ratify the Kyoto treaty. U.S. officials can't go around calling for carbon tariffs on products from China and India without building a case for the EU and Japan to slap carbon penalties on U.S.-made goods.

Two things have become painfully obvious. First, Kyoto cannot actually reduce global emissions—much less stabilize atmospheric CO2 levels—unless China, India, and other key developing countries also limit their emissions. Second, the developing country exemption creates strong incentives for energy-intensive industry, jobs, and carbon emissions to migrate from carbon-constrained countries to China, India, and other emerging industrial powerhouses.

In the Home
Bye, Bye Miss American Pie
CEI's Julie Walsh

Sheldon Richman, in his article "Most presidential seekers want energy socialism" makes this comment: "One of the great unnoticed curiosities of the presidential campaign is that even the party that claims devotion to free enterprise is full-out socialist — or, more precisely, fascist — when it comes to energy policy." He continues, 'At a recent ABC forum, these candidates recited a list of things "we must do to end our dependence on foreign oil." "We" means the "we who are forced by government." Not one of the five showed even a glimmer of understanding that a truly free market would be more than up to the task of ensuring steady and plentiful supplies of energy.'

"And good ol' boys were drinking whisky and rye, singing this'll be the day that I die."

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on January 25, 2008

in Cooler Heads Digest

News Highlights
 
Steve Milloy, Fox News, 24 January 2008
 
David Shepardson, Detroit News, 24 January 2008
 
Jonathan Martin, The Politico, 25 january 2008
 
Simon Lauder, ABC News, 24 January 2008
 
Julian Glover, The Guardian, 24 January 2008
 
Alan Caruba, USA Daily, 23 January 2008
 
Ken Kay, Florida Sun-Sentinel, 22 January 2008
 
Leigh Phillips, EUObserver, 21 January 2008
 
This Week in Europe, the EU’s Climate Plan was Unveiled…
 
AFP, 21 January 2008
 
AFP, 23 January 2008
 
Hans-Jürgen Schlamp, Der Spiegel, 22 January 2008
 
Paul Taylor, Reuters, 22 January 2008
 
David Gow, The Guardian, 14 January 2008
 
News You Can Use
Energy Prices Go Through the Roof
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, energy prices in America went up an incredible 18.4 percent in 2007. But don’t look to Congress for relief. In December, 2007, Congress passed an anti-energy bill that will increase energy prices even further.
 
Inside the Beltway
CEI’s Myron Ebell
 
President George W. Bush is scheduled to give his last State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on January 28th. There has been speculation this week that one of the president’s annual, usually nasty, surprises would be to announce that he would sign a cap-and-trade bill if the Congress sent him an acceptable one, perhaps one that just covered electric utilities. It appears that this possibility has been headed off by calls from senior Republican members of Congress, but since cap-and-trade booster Josh Bolten is the president’s chief of staff I won’t say it’s dead until after the president finishes his speech.
 
After having been to hundreds of House and Senate hearings the past two decades, I feel that I am a pretty good judge of the theatrics. In the twelve years of Republican control, there were very few hearings that succeeded in making the intended point well. Indeed, with most hearings I attended chaired by a Republican, I often wasn’t sure what the point was. Things have improved a lot theatrically speaking since the Democrats regained control. But the attempt this week to grill EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson over an open fire at a Senate and Environment and Public Works Committee hearing fell flat. Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and her fellow Democrats wanted to grandstand, but they were just too dull and dreary to scare Johnson or excite the audience. The only exception was Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialist from Vermont, who has some of the spark of Big Bill Haywood, the leader of the Wobblies in the early twentieth century.
 
For the substance of the hearing, see Marlo Lewis’ piece below.
 
The Most Important Story You Haven’t Heard
EPA Averts Resulatory Nightmare 
CEI’s Marlo Lewis
 
On December 19, 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) denied California a waiver, under the Clean Air Act, to set first-ever carbon dioxide (CO2) emission standards for new motor vehicles. On Thursday, January 24, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing on EPA’s denial of the California waiver.
 
Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) pilloried EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson as a betrayer of the Clean Air Act, the Planet, and the Children. Instead, she should thank him for averting an economically- and environmentally-debilitating regulatory morass.
 
If the EPA had granted the waiver, allowing California and other states to adopt CO2 emission standards for new motor vehicles, CO2 would become a pollutant “subject to regulation” under the Clean Air Act’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) program. That, in turn, would compel EPA and its state-level counterparts to regulate CO2 from hundreds of thousands of stationary sources, spawning a red-tape nightmare as detrimental to the environment as to the economy.
 
Attorneys Peter Glaser and John Cline provide an eye-popping analysis of the economic and administrative burdens that would be created by extending the PSD program to CO2 in a November 8, 2007 testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
 
To read more, click here.

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on January 18, 2008

in Cooler Heads Digest

News Highlights
 
David Gow, The Guardian, 14 January 2008
 
Finfacts,15 January 2008
 
Editorial, Washington Examiner, 16 January 2008
 
AFP, 17 January 2008
 
Peggy Hollinger, Andrew Bounds and Sarah Laitner, Financial Times, 15 January 2008
 
Sterling Burnett, Planet Gore, 16 January 2008
 
AFP, 16 January 2008
 
Felicity Berringer, New York Times, 16 January 2008
[note—after public outrage, the State of California dropped the thermostat proposal]
 
Paul Driessen, Conservative Battleline, 16 January 2008
 
David Ljunggren, Reuters, 14 January 2008
 
CEI, 17 January 2008
 
William Yeatman, Denver Post, 11 January 2008
News You Can Use
Survey Shows Eco-Warriors Are Worst Polluters
 
A survey of 25,000 people, by the market research company Target Group Index, found that the most environmentally conscious people are seven per cent more likely than the general population to take flights, and four per cent more likely to own a car. The survey found similar trends in France and the United States .
 
Inside the Beltway
CEI’s Myron Ebell
 
At the big Detroit auto show this week, Representative John Dingell (D-Mich.), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told reporters that he hoped to have a global warming bill ready to go as soon as possible. Of course, he might have meant next year or next month. The real news was that he hinted that he may exclude automobiles from his cap-and-trade bill on the grounds that the auto industry has already been assigned its fair share of the climate burden by the enactment last month of a forty per cent increase in Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards.
 
This makes some sense, but the more logical alternative if a cap-and-trade bill is going to be passed would be to repeal all the specific mandates, subsidies, and limits. They only get in the way of a cap-and-trade scheme working efficiently to find the cheapest ways to lower emissions. Thus as part of Dingell’s bill, he should include repealing CAFÉ, ethanol mandates and subsidies, the new ban on incandescent light bulbs, and a whole lot of other government regulations that are no longer needed once a cap on emissions is in place. The same would be true if Dingell pursues his carbon tax proposal. A tax would make cap-and-trade and all these other regulations unnecessary.
 
Around the World
CEI’s Marlo Lewis
 
“Everybody wants ta get inta de act!” So said Jimmy Durante, the great vaudeville comedian, singer, and actor. How true of global warming policy these days!
 
Proponents of Kyotoism call their planetary salvation nostrums “market-based.” Most want cap-and-trade. Some want carbon taxes. Some, like Al Gore, want both. After all, cap-and-trade is an implicit tax. If big government is your bread and butter, then piling tax upon tax seems like a great idea.
 
So “market-based” is not equivalent to“good,” unless you think higher taxes are good.
But most warming hysterics also want a slew of measures of the command-and-control variety. They want central planning “inta de act.”
 
Congress, for example, recently mandated that 36 billion gallons of the nation’s motor fuel be “renewable” by 2022—a production quota worthy of Uncle Joe Stalin. House leaders also tried to enact a Soviet-style production quota for electricity, popularly known as a “renewable portfolio standard.”
 
Command-and-control climate policy is big in the European Union. Yes, the EU boasts that its emission trading system (ETS) is “market-based.” But it isn’t really, because politicians rather than markets allocate the emissions credits. Unsurprisingly, the ETS so far has failed to reduce emissions while bilking consumers for the benefit of special interests. See this eye-popping report.
 
But Eurocrats are not content to use dubious market mechanisms like the ETS or real ones like motor fuel taxes that push European gasoline prices above $7.00 a gallon. The EU has also adopted a renewable portfolio standard requiring 20 percent of all electricity to come from wind, solar, or hydro-electric sources by 2020.
 
The Brits at least understand that renewable portfolio standards defeat the alleged purpose of an emissions trading program, which is to discover the most cost-effective emission reduction options and motivate investment accordingly. “In a briefing note on EU renewables targets leaked last August,” reports The Parliament.Com, “the UK government said that achieving the 20 per cent renewables target risks causing spiraling energy costs within the emissions trading scheme, also under review in the commission’s energy package.”
 
The UK briefing note warns of substantial economic inefficiency: “The costs of increasing renewable energy technology use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is around three times higher than allowing flexibility in reducing options through emissions trading. This additional cost will be reflected in increasing electricity and other energy prices.”
The anti-energy bill recently enacted by Congress and the President was atrocious. But at least it kept renewable portfolio standards “outa de act.” Whether cooler heads continue to prevail in 2008 remains to be seen. Stay tuned.
 
In the Home
CEI’s Julie Walsh
 
I was having lunch a few months back with a friend who thinks that “maybe there is global warming” because when he was growing up in the ‘70’s it was colder than it is now. And it’s gotten a little warmer ever since then.
 
People tend to think of “normal” as the way it was at some point in their past, most often their childhood. So in the ‘70s, people started worrying about global cooling, partly because many people remember balmier temperatures when they were growing up.
 
The truth is, we don’t live in a climatically-static world. The Earth’s climate is a dynamic system, as these graphs clearly demonstrate.

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on January 10, 2008

in Cooler Heads Digest

News Highlights

 

John Tierney, New York Times, 10 January 2008
 
Steve Hargreaves, CNNmoney, 9 January 2008
 
Louise Story, New York Times, 9 January 2008
 
Ronald Bailey, Reason Online, 8 January 2008
 
Assembly News Release, 7 January 2008
 
Mark Beunderman, Euobserver.com, 7 January 2008
 
Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, 7 January 2008
 
Harriet Johnson, Heartland Institute, 3 January 2008
 
Steve Milloy, Foxnews.com, 3 January 2008
News You Can Use
Alarmism Sells Papers
 
According to the blog Reference Frame, 17 major mainstream media outlets, including the New York Times, USA Today, BBC, and MSNBC, reported, in early 2007, that 2007 would be the warmest on record. In fact, 2007 was the coldest year of our young century.
 
Inside the Beltway
CEI’s Myron Ebell
 
The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced on Monday that it would not meet a January 9th court-ordered deadline to decide whether to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. But a decision could be made in the next month or two.
The biggest booster within the Bush Administration to list the polar bear is Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, with strong support from Interior's number two, Lynn Scarlett. The obstacle is that bear populations are not threatened and in fact have increased dramatically since 1950, partly or even largely as a result of less hunting.
 
The basis for listing the bear comes from computer models that predict that global warming will cause widespread melting of the Arctic sea ice in the summer. Polar bears are strong swimmers, but need some sea ice in order to get to their major food source, seals. The general circulation models used were not designed to have predictive capacity and in fact do not have predictive capacity. However, under the peculiar rules of the Endangered Species Act, these models may have to be deferred to as the best scientific evidence available.
 
If Secretary Kempthorne gets his way, the polar bear listing will become a powerful tool to stop hydrocabon energy use. Every proposal to build something that would increase greenhouse gas emissions that comes before a local zoning or planning commission could be challenged on the grounds that greenhouse gas emissions increase global warming, which in turn threatens the survival of polar bears. If the planning or zoning body went ahead and approved the permit, then it would likely be challenged in federal court.
Past experience suggests that the Endangered Species Act has such unlimited regulatory reach that most federal judges would decide that it requires them to rule against almost any alleged threat to a protected species.
 
This is clearly a train wreck in the making, and it can only be hoped that responsible adults in the administration decide to rely on the real science and therefore to squash Kempthorne's effort.
 
Across the States
CEI
 
According to the Washington Times, Maryland state lawmakers have indicated that a proposal to cap carbon emissions stands to become the most ambitious bill of the General Assembly session.
 
The carbon bill would call for greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 25 percent by 2020 and 90 percent by 2050, and was written by a task force appointed by Gov. Martin O'Malley. Maryland’s proposed emissions reduction target, if enacted, would be the nation's strongest carbon-reduction plan (currently, California has the most stringent plan, which calls for 80% reductions by 2050.)
 
Paul Chesser’s investigative journalism has shown that Maryland’s record-breaking target was created by a task force of laypeople (not scientists) funded by environmental extremists. To read more, click here.
 
Around the World
CEI’s Marlo Lewis
 
The European Commission, the Executive Branch of the European Union responsible for proposing legislation, is “considering proposing a carbon dioxide tariff on imports from states failing to tackle greenhouse gas emissions,” reports Mark Beunderman of Euobserver.
 
Under the draft proposal, the tariff would force EU firms to buy additional emission permits if they import products made in countries lacking mandatory carbon-reduction policies.
That politicians in Kyoto-constrained countries want to tax goods made in non-Kyoto-constrained countries, comes as no surprise. Most of the emissions growth during the 21st century is projected to come from developing countries. The Kyoto Protocol’s ultimate objective—the stabilization of atmospheric CO2 levels—is not even remotely attainable unless China, India, and other developing nations also adopt carbon controls (see p. 7 of this report).
 
Up to now, developing countries have refused to restrict their use of fossil energy, because they fear poverty more than global warming. So sooner or later, the EU must impose trade penalties on developing nations that refuse to cap their emissions, or Kyoto will collapse. Without such trade penalties, energy-intensive production will migrate from the EU to less regulated economies like China and the United States. Europe will lose production, exports, and jobs, yet emissions will be redistributed globally rather than reduced.
 
Only one thing seems certain—if the EU slaps carbon tariffs on Chinese goods, China will challenge the legality of the tariffs before the World Trade Organization.
 
Consumer Corner
CEI’s Julie Walsh
 
From the January 1st issue of Vegetarian Times:
“Benevolent Balms”
You'll do more than pay lip service to saving the planet with your purchase of Lip Action. One dollar of each $3.49 sale of Kiss My Face's Lip Action line of lip balms supports the Alliance for Climate Protection , founded by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Al Gore. With eco-aware names like Berry Warm and Glacial Mint, the SPF 15 balms shield against the blast of UV rays while aloe and cocoa butter help smooth and soothe. kissmyface.com
It looks like the $210 million-dollar-funded agenda is hard up for cash!

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on January 2, 2008

in Cooler Heads Digest

News Highlights

 

Peter Hannaford, Spectator.org, 2 January 2008
 
Cal Thomas, Sun Sentinel, 2 January 2008
 
Orange County Register Editorial, 1 January 2008
 
John Tierney, New York Times, 1 January 2008
 
Les Kinsolving, WorldDailyNet.com, 1 January 2008
 
George Pell, news.com.au, 30 December 2007
 
Terry Easton, Human Events, 27 December 2007
 
Patrick Michaels, Spectator.org, 27 December 2007
 
Shikha Dalmia, NY Post, 26 December 2007
 
Andrew Ferguson, Weekly Standard, 31 December 2007
News You Can Use
Global Warming: Where’s the Beef?
 
The leading surface temperature data sets compiled by the Met Office's Hadley Centre and by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the weather satellite data set compiled by John Christy and Roy Spencer show no increase in the global mean temperature since 1998, even though the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has risen by roughly four per cent.
 
Inside the Beltway
CEI’s Myron Ebell
 
Members of the House and Senate don’t return until the 15th to begin the second session of the 110th Congress. It’s not clear whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will try to pick up any of the pieces they dropped from their big anti-energy package before passing it last month. These include the 15% renewable portfolio standard for electric utilities and the $21 billion in new taxes for oil companies.
 
It’s also not clear whether Reid and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, will try to bring the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act to the floor. Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), Chairman of the relevant subcommittee, have said that the committee will consider their version of a cap-and-trade bill this year. But it’s unclear when or what’s going to be in it in the way of targets and timetables for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
 
Turning to the executive branch, it’s unclear whether the Bush Administration is going to go ahead and find that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and welfare and therefore must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The EPA did decide the day after the President signed the anti-energy bill not to grant California’s request for a waiver so that California and twenty-two other States could begin regulating CO2 emissions from new vehicles. EPA based its decision on the fact that the new CAFÉ standards in the anti-energy bill were a more effective way to achieve what California wants to do. This week California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed suit in federal court to overturn EPA’s denial. It’s not clear which way the court will rule.
 
So that’s what my crystal ball tells me for 2008: unclear.
 
Whopper of the Year: 2007
CEI’s Julie Walsh
 
Among the candidates for the biggest whopper in 2007 must be NASA’s James Hansen with his work of creative genius on Greenland’s and Antarctica’s ice sheets.
 
Though Greenland’s and Antarctica’s ice rest in deep bowls, Hansen declares them inclined planes. Despite ice cores that show little to no movement for the past 400,000 years (including the warm periods), he shamelessly states that these gigantic ice sheets are slip, slidin’ away and the world will be flooded. Of course, Hansen’s ignorance isn’t all that shocking. After all, he studied physics, not geology.
 
According to an actual expert, Cliff Ollier at the School of Earth and Geographical Science at the University of Western Australia, a “collapse” of the ice sheets is “impossible.”

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on December 13, 2007

in Cooler Heads Digest

News Highlights

Inventing the Whirlwind
Patrick Michaels, Spectator, 13 December 2007

Al Gore: Failure in Bali is Fault of US
Gerard Wynn, Reuters, 13 December 2007

EU threatens to Boycott US Climate Meeting
AP, 13 December 2007

Pope Condemns GW Alarmism
Simon Caldwell, Daily Mail, 12 December 2007

Energy Non Economics
Richard W Rahn, Washington Times, 12 December 2007

Do the Rich Owe the Poor Climate Reparations?
Ronald Bailey, Reason, 12 December 2007

Coal Power Potential
Roy Innis, Washington Times, 12 December 2007

Land of Unkept Promises
William Yeatman, Orange County Register, 11 December 2007

A Baby Tax to Save the Planet?
Jen Kelley, The Advertiser, 10 December 2007

Climate Bill Would Devastate American Jobs, Families
Sen James Inhofe, Human Events, 10 December 2007

Senator Kerry: Senate Won’t Pass Climate Bill W/O China
AP, 10 December 2007

News You Can Use
Empty Promises

More than 700 mayors have signed the U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement, which calls for a 7 percent reduction from 1990 GHG levels by 2012. Of these 700 jurisdictions, only 2—Portland and Seattle—have a chance of meeting their commitment.

Inside the Beltway
CEI’s Myron Ebell

The Senate took up the House-passed anti-energy bill late last week, but a vote to invoke cloture and proceed to a final vote failed, 53 to 42. This week Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the Democrats are trying to put together a bill that has as much of the bad stuff in it as possible and still get the 60 votes needed for cloture. They have reportedly taken out the 15 per cent Renewable Portfolio Standard for electric utilities, but are keeping most of the 21 billion dollars of tax increases on domestic oil companies.

Although President Bush supports many of the worst provisions in the bill, including the big mandate for miracle vehicle fuels and the big increase in CAFE standards for vehicles, the administration has been adamantly opposed to the RPS and to the new taxes on oil companies. Thus if the Senate passes Reid's new version of the House bill and the House agrees, then the Democratic leadership is still risking a presidential veto. They would then have to try it again in February.

The White House is starting to be aware that the EPA's imminent proposal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions would be a political nightmare leading to economic paralysis. Although the Supreme Court in deciding Massachusetts v. EPA by a five to four vote last spring ruled that the EPA did have authority to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act, the Act is not designed to regulate a naturally-occurring harmless gas that is the necessary by-product of combusting hydrocarbon fuels and that is mixed uniformly in the atmosphere. If CO2 levels are already too high, then the entire world is a non-attainment area.

The result of EPA proposing that CO2 emissions endanger public health and welfare would be to trigger some of the most onerous regulations in the Clean Air Act. Most small businesses, farmers, apartment buildings, shopping malls, construction companies, road builders, and office buildings would be covered. For example, anyone who wanted to build a new hospital could have to get a permit from the environmental agency in the state where it was going to be built demonstrating that its construction and operation would use nothing but the best available technology to minimize CO2 emissions. This permitting process could require lots of expensive consultants and paperwork and could easily add several years to the time before construction could begin.

The EPA has been assuming that the Court decision requires them to regulate CO2. Up until the last few weeks, the White House apparently accepted what EPA was telling them. That has now changed. They are aware that the Court did not require EPA to regulate CO2, but instead to consider whether CO2 should be regulated under the Clean Air Act. It's late in the day, but President Bush may still get the advice he needs to make the right decision. He has stated clearly and correctly over and over again that the Kyoto Protocol would burden the U. S. economy with unacceptable costs. To then decide to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act would be lunatic. If the next president wants to regulate CO2 emissions, President Bush should not do his dirty work for him.

Around the World
CEI’s Marlo Lewis

“With time running out at the United Nations climate change conference in Bali [the conference ends tomorrow], there's no sign of a deadlock being broken in negotiations over how the world should fight global warming,” reports Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

Representatives from more than 190 countries are negotiating a “Roadmap” document to establish the goals of negotiations over the next two years to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012. The European Union wants the “Bali Roadmap” to call for industrial countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions 25-40% by 2020. The United States, in contrast, opposes the inclusion of any numerical targets in the Roadmap document.

Some environmental groups accuse the United States of trying to derail the climate negotiations. In fact, as U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson has explained many times, the United States thinks it is inappropriate to adopt a “Roadmap” that “prejudges” and “prejudices” the outcome of negotiations over the next two years.

The subtext of Watson’s remarks, I believe, is that it is inappropriate to begin the negotiations with goals and commitments that ignore economic and technological reality.

The typical European response to their own failure to meet unrealistic environmental objectives is to propose even more unrealistic objectives. Bjorn Lomborg, author of Cool It! explained Europe’s lack of realism in a recent interview with Monica Trauzzi of E&E TV:

Monica Trauzzi: But if you have a goal in sight, then you can work towards it.

Bjorn Lomborg: Yes, but the problem is, look at the goals that we've had so far. Before Kyoto in 1992 we actually had the Rio summit, where we said we were going to cut emissions by 2000 to 1990 levels. We overshot that by 12 percent. Then in Kyoto we said, all right, let's make it harder. It didn't work out very well the first time. Let's try to make it harder. So in 1997 we said, all right, we're going to reduce it below 1990 levels by 2010. We're probably going to overshoot that by about 25 percent. It seems likely to me to say we're going to do that again and again, simply because it's very costly. Look at Tony Blair, arguably the primary mover on climate change over the last 10 years; he came into office in 1997 together with the Kyoto Protocol. He said, “Britain is going to cut another 15 percent of its emissions by 2010.” Since then, they've increased 3 percent. So it's very easy to say, but it's actually very hard to do.

Lomborg sensibly concludes that the world will not reduce emissions until reducing emissions is cheap. He therefore argues that governments around the world, instead of negotiating arbitrary emission reduction targets that nobody can afford to meet, invest in R&D to develop technologies that can produce affordable energy without emissions. Come to think of it, that’s very similar to the Bush administration’s approach to global warming.

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on December 7, 2007

in Cooler Heads Digest

Announcement:
 
Watch Neil O Brien Explain Why Cap & Trade Is Failing in Europe.
Three years ago, the European Union implemented an emissions trading scheme that ties in with Kyoto's credit system. Has the scheme provided any emissions reductions for the region? What lessons can the United States learn from the European Union as it tries to create its own domestic climate policy?
 
Click on the link below to watch Neil O'Brien, director of Open Europe, a London-based think tank, explain why he believes the European Union's emissions program has been a total failure. He cautions that the Lieberman-Warner bill could provide similar results and recommends the United States take a different approach to reducing emissions. O'Brien, author of the report, "Europe's Dirty Secret: Why the E.U. Emissions Trading Scheme Isn't Working" also explains why he believes a cap-and-trade program could interfere with technological innovations.
 
News Highlights
 
Kim Chipman, Bloomberg, 7 December 2007
 
Marian Wilkenson, Sydney Morning Herald, 5 December 2007
 
Richard Black, BBC News Website, 7 December 2007
 
AP, 5 December 2007
 
David Freddesso, NRO, 6 December 2007
 
David I Washington, Houston Chronicle, 7 December 2007
 
Zachary Coile, San Francisco Chronicle, 6 December 2007
 
Patrick Goodenough. Crosswalk.com, 5 December 2007
 
Gina Kolata, New York Times, 5 December 2007
 
Marlo Lewis, NRO, 5 December 2007
 
Doug Bandow, Spectator.org, 4 December 2007
News You Can Use
Bali’s Carbon Footprint
Government officials and activists flying to Bali, Indonesia, for the United Nations meeting on climate change will cause as much pollution as 20,000 cars in a year.
 
Inside the Beltway
CEI’s Myron Ebell
 
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted 11 to 8 late on Wednesday to send the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act to the floor. That's probably the last action on S. 2191 for this Congress, but Chairman Barbara Boxer will now arrive at COP-13 in Bali in triumph.
 
The House on Thursday voted for its new version of the anti-energy bill by a 235 to 181 margin. The bill contains some version of nearly all the bad stuff already passed by the Senate or the House.
 
Although it contains provisions to raise gasoline and auto prices supported by President Bush, it also has titles to raise electricity prices and oil company taxes that the president opposes. Thus the Office of Management and Budget sent out a Statement of Administration Policy threatening a veto.
 
The Senate majority leadership is rumored to be trying to get the new House bill to the floor quickly for a vote. It will take sixty votes to invoke cloture and proceed to a final vote. The Senate passed its earlier version of the anti-energy by a 63 to 31 vote, but it did not contain the fifteen per cent renewable portfolio standard for utilities.
 
The RPS would raise electricity prices considerably in southern and mideast States, so has generated significant opposition from Senators from those States. My guess is that the bill cannot get the sixty votes needed for cloture unless the RPS is taken out.
 
“Endangerment” in the Home
CEI’s Julie Walsh
 
We were living in Kansas City when the Ice Storm of 2001 hit, knocking off power to half the city. Many people were without power for weeks. First we tried out our wilderness survival skills, until the novelty wore off and we moved to the higher ground of somewhere with electricity. Many have had similar storm experiences and understand that truly being thrown into an 1800’s power-less lifestyle would not be pleasant.
 
Energy is at the very foundation of our economy and society; yet the EPA is contemplating precipitously defining CO2 as a pollutant, making an endangerment finding, which would turn the Environmental Protection Agency into the gargantuan regulator of our economy’s energy usage.
 
Brian Walsh, Senior Legal Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, thinks that the EPA may be basing its actions on flawed legal premises. “We’re hearing,” Walsh said,” that some inside the EPA are reporting that they are compelled by the Supreme Court’s April 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA to regulate so-called greenhouse gases. If these reports are accurate, they suggest that these EPA officials are misreading that opinion. The Court did not determine that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are in fact endangering health or welfare. In fact, the Court specifically said that it was not deciding that question. Courts often accept plaintiffs’ allegations as true simply to determine whether the plaintiffs have any hope of winning their case if everything they allege is later proven to be true with sufficient evidence. That’s essentially what happened here.”
 
The courts and the EPA really have no business on how our energy use is regulated. If it’s necessary at all to regulate energy, it should be done by our elected representatives in Congress.

Cooler Heads Digest 17 September 2008

by William Yeatman on September 17, 2006

in Cooler Heads Digest


In the News

The Democrats’ Sham Energy Bill
R. Emmitt Tyrrell, American Spectator, 18 September 2008

McCain Should Oppose Senate Energy Gang
Editors, NRO, 18 September 2008

CAFÉ Standard Has Hurt
Sam Kazman, Wall Street Journal, 17 September 2008

Democrats Still Aren’t Serious about Drilling
Rep John Shadegg (R-AZ), Wall Street Journal, 17 September 2008

Henny Penny Goes Carbon Free
Peter Hannaford, American Spectator, 16 September 2008

Flood Insurance Program: Wrongheaded Climate Policy
William Yeatman, Washington Times, 16 September 2008

Obstacles Stunt California Offshore Drilling
Patrice Hill, Washington Times, 15 September 2008

News You Can Use
Energy Bill Exposed
CEI's Marlo Lewis

The Institute for Energy Research (IER) last week posted a devastating exposé of the Pelosi plan. As announced last week, the plan would:

  • Permanently ban access to undersea oil lying within 50 miles of the coast, which is where geologists believe the preponderance of recoverable oil and gas lies. 
  • Continue the ban on energy production in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.
  • Institute permanent bans on energy production off the coasts of California, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts.
  • Institute a new and permanent ban off the coast of Alaska
  • Not allow States that approve new leases beyond 50 miles to share royalties with the federal government, thus stripping any financial incentive for States to stand up to environmental pressure groups, who will continue to agitate against any new oil and gas operations offshore.


Inside the Beltway
CEI's Myron Ebell

While everyone is watching Wall Street’s meltdown, news from Washington seems unimportant and uninteresting. So before turning to what is going on in Washington, a few comments on the Wall Street mess.  First, the U. S. Climate Action Partnership has lost two of its members, Lehman Brothers and AIG (that is, in the latter case, assuming that the federal government will not want to retain membership in a lobbying coalition, which may be wrong).  Lehman Brothers was the most enthusiastic promoter of cap-and-trade on Wall Street.  That’s saying quite a lot because when current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (whose incompetent attempts to manage the crisis are making a disastrous situation much worse—may I remind you again that CEI actively opposed Paulson’s confirmation as Treasury Secretary) was head of Goldman Sachs, he said that the greatest foreign policy mistake in the history of the United States was not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and that cap-and-trade was a golden opportunity for Wall Street to make tons of money. 

One of Lehman Brothers’ managing directors is Theodore Roosevelt the Fourth, the most prominent Republican environmentalist in the country.  Roosevelt serves as chairman of the board of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, as vice chairman of the Wilderness Society, and as a board member of several other environmental pressure groups.  He was chosen to give the keynote address on environmental issues at the 2000 Republican Party Convention in Philadelphia.  And most deliciously, Roosevelt is on the board of the Alliance for Climate Protection, which was founded and is chaired by former Vice President Al Gore and is behind the $300 million “We Can Solve It!” public relations campaign. Gore’s green investment fund, Generation Investment Management, relied on Lehman Brothers for investment advice. Perhaps Lehman Brothers wouldn’t be bankrupt if its managing director had spent more time on company business and less time working for groups that promote the idea that energy rationing policies will be good for the economy. Just a thought.

As part of its effort to be an intellectual leader among investment banks, Lehman Brothers produced a big two-part report last year on the Business of Climate Change, which argued that companies needed to start accounting for the risks of climate change and get on the cap-and-trade bandwagon.  The report’s chief scientific adviser was Dr. James E. Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and recent defender of terrorist activity directed against coal-fired power plants.  Let’s hope he got paid in stock options rather than cash.

Now, for the cheery news (comparatively speaking) from Washington.  The House on Wednesday passed another anti-energy bill by a vote of 236 to 189.  Two-hundred twenty one Democrats and 15 Republicans voted for the bill, while 176 Republicans and 13 Democrats voted against it.  The bill appears to break House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) promise that she would never allow more offshore drilling because she had to save the planet.  It was advertised as an offshore drilling bill.  In reality, it would open some Outer Continental Shelf areas that are at least 50 miles from the coast, but permanently withdraw all areas within 50 miles, including waters surrounding Alaska that are currently not under moratorium.  The U. S. Geological Survey thinks nearly all the economically recoverable oil is within 50 miles of shore, including Alaskan waters.  In other words, open all the areas that have little or no oil, and close all the areas that probably do have lots of oil.  The bill would also cause investment in domestic oil production and refining to decrease by raising taxes on oil companies and use the additional tax revenue to pay off special interests like Boone Pickens and other producers of uncompetitive energy.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said again this week that the Senate will vote on at least four pieces of anti-energy legislation in the next few days, including the House bill and the Gang of 10/then 16/now 20’s plan.  Like the House bill, the Gang’s plan would allow a tiny bit of offshore drilling and spend tens of billions of dollars on subsidizing wind and solar energy and ethanol.  But Reid is fixing it so that no amendments can be offered that would actually increase domestic oil and gas production.  The Senate may pass one or more of these bills, but it is unlikely that the House and Senate will agree on anything to send to the President before leaving town for the campaign.  The only thing they might agree on would be a bill to renew the refundable production tax credits for renewable energy because those enjoy overwhelming support among Republican as well as Democratic members.

House and Democratic leaders are thus trying to provide cover for members facing opponents in the November election who are using the gas price issue against them.  They will now be able to say that they took the tough vote in favor of offshore drilling.  Greenpeace and several other grassroots environmental pressure groups are trying to help this operation by attacking the bill as a sellout to big oil.  This might fool some people into thinking that Democrats in Congress have now caved in to public pressure on the drilling issue.     

Around the World
Great Britain

Evidence is mounting in Britain that the Labor Party’s policy of replacing conventional sources of energy with renewables is leading to a major energy crunch.

Currently, Britain gets three-fourths of its electricity from natural gas, coal, and nuclear power. But domestic production of natural gas in the North Sea has peaked and is declining rapidly, and the Labor Party intends to retire by 2016 coal and nuclear power plants that now generate a third of Britain’s electricity. The plants will be shut down largely to comply with European Union environmental regulations.

To keep the lights on, the Labor Party plans to rely on renewable energy sources, which the government promises will generate 40 % of Britain’s electricity by 2020.

However, a number of recent studies cast doubt on the feasibility of Labor’s 2020 target. In July, the non-partisan Renewable Energy Foundation released a report warning that “a near fatal preoccupation with politically attractive but marginal forms of renewables seems to have caused a blindness towards the weakening of the UK’s power stations.” The report predicted steep increases in energy bills.

Last week, Iain Fells, emeritus professor of energy conversion at the University of Newcastle, issued a report, “A Pragmatic Energy Policy for the UK,” which states that the 2020 renewable energy targets were “demonstrably unattainable.” Prof. Fells warned of massive, disruptive blackouts if Britain continued with its current energy policy. 

Russia

The international struggle to assert sovereignty over oil and gas rich Arctic waters heated up this week after Russian President Dimitri Medvedev suggested that the Federal Security Service (FSS) draw a formal border around Russia’s claimed territory. The Arctic is thought to hold 80 billion barrels of oil and up to 20 percent of the world’s natural gas deposits. Russia, the United States, Norway, Canada, and Denmark have made competing claims. In 2004, Russian President Vladimir Putin created the Arctic Directorate within the FSS (the successor to the KGB) to further Russia’s claim over 460,000 square miles of the mineral-rich territory. Under international law, each country is entitled to control an economic zone within 200 miles of its continental shelf, but the limits of the shelf are disputed.

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