The collapse last week of the Lieberman-Warner bill, the enviro-Left’s attempt to bribe Senators to impose energy rationing on the nation, shows that we are now left with only two energy-policy choices: We can adopt fudging issues as a policy, which will achieve nothing, hurt many, and satisfy no one; or we can pursue a free-market policy that will anger green activists and alarmists but actually do some good. Chances are that fudge is on the menu.
The recent spike in oil prices and unemployment is dramatically changing this presidential campaign — virtually overnight. The near $20 jump in oil to $140 a barrel, the unexpected half-point increase in the jobless rate to 5.5 percent (the biggest monthly increase in twenty years), and the resulting 400-point plunge in stocks has created a new campaign issue right before our eyes.
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
Last Monday I wrote about a new Web video (and was remiss in crediting a hat tip to Capital Research’s James Dellinger) produced by Sea Studios Foundation/Sea Studios Inc. that, more or less, was a propaganda piece for the work of the Center for Climate Strategies. The production, “Ahead of the Curve: States Lead on Climate Change,” purports to show how governors are “leading the way” in the effort to thwart predicted devastation from global warming. These state efforts are almost always controlled by CCS, which is chiefly funded by the alarmist Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the foundation that also paid to have Sea Studios make this film.
As promised last week, here select segments and quotes from the promo piece (italicized) with my (often sarcastic) commentary interspersed:
INTRO: (Daunting background music) Over an image of parched, cracked soil, we read: “30 of the world’s 75 biggest greenhouse gas emitters are U.S. states. Now, many are looking to change that.”
So how are we identifying greenhouse gas emitters? By population? Land mass? Territorial borders? Genius – find the most arbitrary, undefined measurement and lay a guilt trip on Americans based on apples-to-oranges. So who are the other 45? India? China? Ontario, Canada? Fairfax County? Los Angeles? Way to deceive by fraudulent comparisons.
Minn. (Republican) Gov. Tim Pawlenty (pictured): “It’s a win, win, win, win, win proposition, if we do it right.”
Fla. (Republican) Gov. Charlie Crist: “You know if you aim low, you get low. If you aim high, you might hit it.”
Ariz. (Democrat) Gov. Janet Napolitano: “We actually grow our economy through making these changes.”
“These changes” are many of the same ideas in economy-wrecking Lieberman-Warner. Did these people take economics in college? Delusional.
Terry Tamminen, New America Foundation: “By the end of 2007, more than 27 U.S. states will have taken comprehensive climate action, setting aggressive targets for reducing greenhouse gases, having a comprehensive and credible plan to achieve those targets, and then putting those into law.”
Aggressive targets such as eliminating affordable coal-fired power generation and $8-per-gallon gasoline. Equivalent naked aggression can cause riots and wars in other countries. Will it here?
Tom Peterson, Center for Climate Strategies: “It takes time (about a year or so), it takes expertise (Tom Peterson’s!), but every one of the states that has gone through a deliberative public policy development process (controlled by Tom Peterson and CCS) has found a way forward that resolves the vast majority of conflicts (What conflicts? Members chosen for state climate policy panels are required to “support the process” and not debate global warming science) and creates tremendous economic opportunity (like increasing regulations, raising energy taxes and costs, and destroying jobs).”
Peterson continued: “Unfortunately there’s a disconnect between what’s happening in the states and what’s happening in Washington.”
Tell them how you really feel about the Bush administration, Tom!
Peterson: “All across the country people recognize the urgency, they recognize their responsibility, and they really believe that there’s a way forward. They’ve been finding that way forward, and that story needs to be made more clear to our national policymakers.”
What people? The ones who are ticked off every time the fill up their gas tanks while you want prices to continue moving upward? Or the ones who are paying more and more at the grocery store while CCS continues to push biofuels? Oh yes, you mean the ones who overwhelmingly in polls say they do not want to pay a penny more for a gallon of gasoline to address global warming. Those people have got our attention – why haven’t they got yours?
Title scene: What does lightning striking skyscrapers have to do with global warming? And for that matter, why the emphasis on billowing clouds from smokestacks when we are talking about an invisible gas?
Pawlenty: “I don’t think many people would disagree with the fact that what we’re doing is unsustainable, environmentally, economically, and from a national security standpoint. But we have a chance to try to make a difference and to do good.”
“When we say things like we want to have 25 percent of our energy from renewable sources by the year 2025, that’s a goal or a strategy, but you also have to make sure those goals are realized, and that’s what we’re working on as we speak.”
Yes, set a goal without regard to feasibility, effect on climate, or cost – damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.
Jan Callison, Mayor of Minnetonka: “We’re looking at the whole range of options…how many miles people drive, the fuel they use, and can we make cars more efficient?”
We turn our lonely eyes to you, oh auto-efficiency experts…
Callison: “Once we’ve identified something that should be studied – it might be the speed limit should be 65 instead of 70 – then we go to the consultant, and they calculate the savings in greenhouse gases over 15, 20, 30 years…whatever it is, and we add up those numbers, and we say oh, you know, we’re close to this target, or uh-oh, we’re really a long ways away. These strategies aren’t enough. We have to add something else.”
You’re really winning over the common folk – higher gas prices, higher electric bills, raising auto insurance rates, and now lowering the speed limit…that went over so well in the 70s!
Pawlenty: “States can be laboratories for our ideas, and that’s a role that we’re excited to play.”
The rats aren’t so excited.
Pawlenty: “The beauty of state action is we’re smaller than the federal government, and we tend to be at least somewhat less partisan than the Congress is, so we can be a little more nimble. And the public, they’re kind of ready to go, at least 70 or 80 percent of the public is, and in politics that’s a good number. (Images of windmills) And so that’s wonderful, there’s a lot of excitement and a lot of energy.”
Does he ever leave the office? Does he live in a bubble? Do his people let him read his critics?
Mike Malinoff, Annapolis Dept. of Neighborhood and Environmental Programs: “If we don’t do something, the state (Maryland) I love is going to be lost.”
Better to save the state than its people I guess!
Karen O’Regan, Office of Environmental Programs, Phoenix: “And the miracle about this (Arizona) effort is that we ended up with 49 recommendations and out of those 49 recommendations, 45 of them were unanimous.”
A miracle replicated in roughly two dozen other states where CCS pushed their agenda, in which approximately 50 recommendations were pre-paid for by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and rubberstamped by gubernatorial yes-men. Indeed a miracle.
Peterson: “Bottom line, this group of people found a way to cut pollution and save cash in a really big way.”
Napolitano: “Over the course of the next five to ten years, we think that adopting these climate change recommendations will be a net at least $5.5 billion into the Arizona economy.”
Great! Tell me how to save cash myself with $8-per-gallon gas and $5-per-gallon milk too! I’m all ears!
Peterson: “The states have demonstrated that they have the power of innovation and consensus building to really find the things that work the best back home.”
Thanks to CCS telling them what those 50 things are!
Napolitano: “People want change, and they want this thinking not just of this generation, but generations to come.”
I submit that they want change like more coal-fired power plants to lower electricity costs, more drilling for oil and natural gas on our own lands and coasts to meet demand and reduce dependency on foreigners, and more freedom to live our lives in places where we want. The failure of Lieberman-Warner last week suggests that’s the case. That states are “ahead of the curve” by advocating economy-killing measures shows that these governors, and CCS, are more out of touch than the U.S. Senate.
Numerous media outlets today are reporting a what is for some reason an unsettling reality that Europe must face up to: the U.S. is no more likely to jump into the EU’s beloved Kyoto mess under President Obama or McCain than they did under George W. Bush.
As AFP reports, “‘Obama and McCain have made clearly more positive noises on climate change,’ an EU official said. ‘I think that's a misconception frankly,’ US Special Envoy for EU Affairs C. Boyden Gray told AFP. ‘If you read what Obama has said about China's need to be engaged (in a global deal) and that what McCain says is identical to what the president is saying, (then) I don't think that's going to change.’”
Maybe it’s time to recall that it didn’t change when switching from Clinton-Gore to Bush, either.
Al Gore has dined out for seven years on the phony complaint, enabled by the media, that U.S. climate/Kyoto policy experienced a wrenching transformation upon Bush’s inauguration.
As I reminded Mr. Gore when he repeated this spin at the Wednesday meeting of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy in January 2006 – just before telling us that, you know, there was another man who saw a gathering storm, last century, when others didn’t see the threat (ugh) – the U.S. policy has remained constant since July 2005. Then, a unanimous Senate voted 95-0 to not engage in such a deal “unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period,” expressly citing China, Mexico, India, Brazil, and South Korea).
On March 17, 2001, Condoleeza Rice was dispatched to inform EU ambassadors that the Bush administration was going to continue the Clinton-Gore administration policy of not seeking ratification of the signed pact. Unfortunately, that isn’t how they phrased it and, while I am a firm believer in being quite clear and direct with one’s rhetoric, here I admit that a little more polish would have helped. Imagine a world where that was the message, as opposed to the (truthful…still) line about it being for all intents and purposes a dead letter, which made it easy for the press to suddenly claim Bush scrapped the deal.
U.S. policy didn’t change under George W. Bush, only the rhetoric did: Clinton-Gore swore philsophical fealty to Kyoto but also expressly vowed to not push for ratification until China, India et al came on board. Bush expressed no love for the treaty but had the same position. He never unsigned it, withdrew from it (impossible) or walked away from the table (the latter was done only once, by Clinton-Gore, in The Hague in November 2000).
It is now fairly clear if not yet certain that U.S. policy would not change under Obama or McCain. Yet even a sudden, unprecedented vow to press on with at best some cosmetic promise by China, India et al. would never pass muster in the Senate. Which is where the issue rests today, as it has since the U.S. signed Kyoto on November 12, 1998.
US President George W Bush will ask the European Union to make a global deal on climate change dependent on the inclusion of rapidly developing nations such as India and China when he meets top EU officials in Slovenia, a US diplomat said Monday. "We do hope that there can be progress on getting the advanced emerging economies to commit to reductions (of CO2 levels) – not at the same level of Europe or the United States, but some," said C Boyden Gray, the US envoy to the European bloc, ahead of Tuesday's EU-US summit.
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) looked ridiculous last week when she insisted the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act would cause “no increase in gas prices.”
She is chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over climate change, so there is no excuse for her not knowing that the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act was designed to make gas more expensive.
Under the Lieberman-Warner “cap and trade” scheme, industrial users and suppliers of energy would have to buy the right to emit greenhouse gases from an annual government-run auction, whereas now these emissions are free.
But businesses would not simply absorb higher input costs; instead, they would pass along the burden to consumers. That’s why, in a report released last April, the Congressional Budget Office says that “most of the cost of meeting a cap on CO2 emissions would be borne by consumers, who would face persistently higher prices for products such as electricity and gasoline.”
Here’s a few estimates of how high the price of gas would go under the Lieberman-Warner energy rationing plan, as compiled by the minority staff on the Senate EPW Committee:
Gas prices will rise under this bill. Whether it’s an additional $1.40 as predicted by EPA or $5.16 as predicted by SAIC, Americans would pay more for gas under Lieberman-Warner.
I missed this when it was first published, but it turns out that fat people cause global warming! Reports Reuters:
Obesity contributes to global warming, too.
Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.
This adds to food shortages and higher energy prices, the school’s researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in the journal Lancet on Friday.
“We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility,” Edwards said in a telephone interview. “Obesity is a key part of the big picture.”
I concede my own responsibility. Since having a knee replaced (using up enormous amounts of energy and creating a huge carbon footprint in the process!), I’ve gained a lot of weight. So I guess I’d better contribute to one of Al Gore’s enterprises to assuage my guilt. And everyone else who’s put on some extra weight as they’ve gotten older should follow suit!
Maybe we need a government “cap and trade” program for pounds. We each get a permit for the average body weight, and have to buy more permits if we go over. Thin people could sell permission to put on some extra fat. Whaddya’ think?
Tim Carney continues to expose the rent-seeking motives behind a lot of environmental regulation, in this case cap and trade legislation. As he notes, the story hasn’t changed much from the days of Enron’s enthusiastic support for the Kyoto Protocol.
Today, well-connected firms are lobbying for Lieberman and Warner’s Enron bill, which is the same environmentally dubious corporate boondoggle Enron had hoped Kyoto would spur.
General Electric has created a new business called GHG Services, which plans to pick up Enron’s CO2-dealing business, including winning free allowances through lobbying efforts.
Alcoa, similar to Enron’s coal gambit, makes much of its aluminum offshore, and so its energy-intensive manufacturing will be untouched by the Enron bill, while its lighter end-products (such as car frames) will be worth more.
Lieberman’s No. 1 donor, United Technologies, stands to profit handsomely from this bill’s research and development subsidies.
The early business coalition for cap-and-trade has become divided recently on the Enron Bill as it currently stands, and so it probably won’t become law until next year. But it’s all a bit sad — if this same bill had become law just seven years ago, the country and every family that pays utility bills, buys groceries and drives might be poorer, but those Enron shareholders would be much better off.
For more on the sordid story of Enron and Kyoto, see the chapter on the Enron scandal in Tim’s book, The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money.
Here is a good theme to hammer home: the 2003 vote was 43-55, and if you take post vote statements, final passage on the Boxer bill would have been 44-56. That is after billions of dollars and an award winning movie.
Their cash-to-success ratio is worse than the Rudy 08 campaign.
Yes, 44 votes in favor of the bill, according to a tally of rhetorical turf staked out by The 100. And even that figure is suspect given that it includes some among the sixteen senators who couldn't quite find their way to the floor in order to wed themselves to a vote on cap-and-trade.
As former Idaho Sen. Steve Symms used to say, when it comes to environmental issues in the world's greatest deliberative body, "Profiles in Courage" would be, at best, of pamphlet length.
So we have now reaffirmed the obvious lack of desire to be associated with any specifics of the agenda disingenuously keened over in the Senate as addressing the greatest threat to mankind. This took on its two most cynical forms on Friday, of a) voting to move the bill forward, giving the patina of support, which was revoked by nine of the 48 "yea" voters in a letter to Sen. Harry Reid stating that in fact they don't and wouldn't support the measure (talk about trying to have it both ways), and b) the aforementioned sixteen senators, including the two presumptive nominees for the presidency, deciding they had other things more important to do than vote on something for which they, too, loudly tout their (purely rhetorical) support.
In the face of actions belying proclaimed support it sure seems to me that Sen. McConnell and the gang should offer up Lieberman-Warner as often as possible in the next few months, to kill the bill dead by revealing the emptiness of the claims to majority support, etc. This would ensure it does not reemerge any time in the near future.
And the future is now. Beginning today Sen. Reid plans to bring his energy (tax) bill to the floor this week, and I can think of no better place to start this campaign. Further, Reid has declared that — now that global warming is out of the way, chuckle — he is going to spend the remaining days as previewing for voters what the majority would do if only they had larger numbers.
It is pretty clear that reviving Lieberman-Warner's rationing scheme is on that list, once its champions figure out how to further disguise its obvious pain. So, Republicans and others opposed to Lieberman-Warner energy rationing, why not help the majority out in their effort to show people what is on the menu next year, by offering that bill as an amendment to anything and everything you can? As I write today in Human Events, it is time to win.
For months, Democrats and the environmental lobby promoted last week's Senate global-warming debate as a political watershed. It was going to be the historic turning point in U.S. climate change policy. In the event, their bill collapsed in a little more than three days.
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