Are House Republicans Going Green?

by Myron Ebell on May 27, 2013

in Blog, Features

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National Journal published an article in their 18th May issue titled, “The GOP Energy Tent Is Slowly Getting Bigger.”  Reporter Coral Davenport, who is a reliable promoter of environmentalist views, writes a puff piece on House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) efforts to add a green tinge to the House Republicans’ wardrobe.

In the last Congress, McCarthy, who is number three in the Republican leadership, started the House Energy Action Team (HEAT) in order to develop messaging points for the 2012 election.  Now, he is trying to broaden HEAT’s messaging to include support for subsidies for renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.  That is no surprise: McCarthy is not a movement conservative, but he does have the country’s largest concentration of wind farms in his Bakersfield-area district.  McCarthy has received many major campaign contributions from the wind industry.

Davenport’s story includes a long quote praising McCarthy’s green turn: “‘I think it’s smart,’ Republican strategist John Feehery said of McCarthy’s new tactics. Republicans’ aggressive campaigning against Obama’s clean-energy agenda was ‘an overreaction,’ Feehery said. ‘It made us seem like enemies of the environment. The idea that government has absolutely no role, that the climate is absolutely not changing—it’s not smart,’ he said. ‘It’s also not smart if you’re talking about all the farmers in red states that make money off windmills. A lot of the base is there.’  Davenport does not mention that Feehery is a top lobbyist at Quinn Gillespie, who represents clients in the renewable energy industry and started a front group to lobby for the wind production tax credit and other subsidies called the Red State Renewables Alliance.

Reid Delays Vote on McCarthy Nomination till July

by Myron Ebell on May 26, 2013

in Blog

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said last week that confirmation votes on several of President Obama’s nominees for top positions, including Gina McCarthy for EPA Administrator, would be delayed until July.  Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters that he wasn’t sure that McCarthy and Labor Secretary nominee Thomas Perez had the sixty votes necessary to invoke cloture and proceed to a final vote.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Senator Durbin also speculated that, “Unless we start seeing a more co-operative atmosphere around here … there’s going to continue to be speculation about changing the rules.”  This refers to the so-called “nuclear option”—changing Senate rules so that confirmation votes cannot be blocked by a 41-vote minority.

Heritage Action for America has joined eleven other non-profit groups officially opposed to McCarthy’s confirmation.

Boxer and Whitehouse Blame Republicans for Oklahoma Tornado

by Myron Ebell on May 25, 2013

in Blog

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Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) were quick to use the giant tornado that obliterated Moore, Oklahoma to chastise Republican members of Congress for failing to get on board the global warming bandwagon.  Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) noted that he has seen a lot of tornadoes during his lifetime in Oklahoma and called the attempt to make tawdry political points out of the Moore tragedy “outrageous” and “immoral.”

For the record, the Digest noted two weeks ago that tornado activity in the past twelve months had been the lowest in 60 years.  If the tornado that hit Moore can be attributed to global warming, then so too must the low level of activity across the U. S. in the past year.  Anthony Watts compiles the facts here, while James Delingpole tees off on Boxer in his Telegraph blog.

Q. What Do Rich States Have in Common?

by Anthony Ward on May 25, 2013

in Blog

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A. Cheap electricity.

The American Legislative Exchange Council this week released the latest version of its “Rich States, Poor States” report, which compares the economic performance of the fifty States.  It finds that eight of the top ten States for economic growth are controlled by Republican elected officials, while eight of the ten bottom States are controlled by Democrats.  Not co-incidentally, electricity costs are lower in the States with the strongest growth.  Nine of the top ten States have lower electric rates that the average of the bottom ten.

CBO Kinda Likes Carbon Tax

by Myron Ebell on May 25, 2013

in Blog, Features

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The Congressional Budget Office this week released a study on the “Effects of a Carbon Tax on the Economy and the Environment.”  CBO admits that a carbon tax would raise the costs of producing goods and services and raise consumer prices.  On the other hand, some of the negative effects could be offset by using the revenues generated to lower the federal deficit and to lower marginal rates of other damaging taxes, such as corporate and individual income taxes.

In terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the best the CBO can come up with is this: “Given the inherent uncertainty of predicting the effects of climate change, and the possibility that it could trigger catastrophic effects, lawmakers might view a carbon tax as a reflection of society’s willingness to pay to reduce the risk of potentially very expensive damage in the future.”

Professor Robert Murphy commented on the CBO study for the Institute for Energy Research here, and Dr. David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation posted his comment here.

Another contribution to the carbon tax debate from earlier in the month has just come to my attention.  On 2nd May, fifty-four trade groups sent a letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee explaining why they are opposed to a carbon tax.  Attached to their letter is a study produced by NERA Consulting earlier this year for the National Association of Manufacturers that details the negative economic effects of a carbon tax.

True Cost of Climate Change Mitigation Policies

by William Yeatman on May 25, 2013

in Blog

A team of independent filmmakers is raising funds through crowd funding to produce a short film depicting the irrational basis for climate change mitigation policies. “50 to 1” will show that “it is 50 times more expensive to try and stop global warming than it is to adapt to it as (and if) it happens.” To learn more, click here, where you can also donate to the project.

No Fine If Wind Farm Kills Endangered Condors — Fish and Wildlife Service

by Marlo Lewis on May 17, 2013

in Blog, Features

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Should industrial wind facilities have to pay a $100,000 fine — as oil and gas companies do — if they kill an endangered species? Many environmental activists think so. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) does not.

In a reversal of its official opinion, the FWS recently announced “it will not penalize the operator of a Southern California wind operator if its turbines kill or injure one California condor,” reports environmental journalist Chris Clarke in ReWire.

With fewer than 250 birds in the wild, the condor is one of the world’s most critically endangered animals, and industrial wind is encroaching on the bird’s range in the Tehachapi Mountains. From the article:

FWS biologist Ray Bransfield told ReWire that FWS has completed its Biological Opinion (BiOp) on condors for Google and Citicorp’s Alta East project, which would be built and operated by wind developer Terra-Gen. Occupying 2,592 acres, mostly on public lands, near the intersection of state routes 14 and 58 in Kern County, Alta East would generate a maximum of 318 megawatts of electrical power with 106 wind turbines, each with 190-foot-long blades.

FWS’s BiOp for Alta East includes an “incidental take statement” that in effect allows one “lethal take” of a California condor. “Incidental take” of a protected species is a term of art covering any kind of injury, harassment or disturbance, or even habitat damage that a project causes inadvertently. “Lethal take” is when the species in question dies.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has yet to approve the project. If it does, and a single condor is killed during the 30-year operating life of the facility, the FWS would have to undertake a “formal review” of the project’s impact on condors. Recent history suggests this safeguard is unlikely to be worth much, Clarke argues:

Endangered species advocates were hoping for a “jeopardy” finding when solar developer BrightSource started finding hundreds more federally threatened desert tortoises on the site of its Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System than were forecast in that project’s BiOp. The original BiOp and take permit allowed BrightSource to kill, harm, harass, or disturb no more than 40 tortoises. Once it was clear there were a lot more tortoises than that onsite, BLM estimated as many as 2,862 tortoises (including eggs) could be harmed by the project. Despite the 70-fold increase in potential “takes,” FWS merely required a few changes to the project’s tortoise relocation plan and issued a revised BiOp that allowed construction to proceed.

The Alta East project may “take” many more than one condor in 30 years. Condors, notes Clarke, “fly slowly, their 9-foot wingspans making them somewhat slow to maneuver. They tend to soar while watching the ground, searching for activity of other scavengers. This habit makes them vulnerable to injury from blade tips approaching from above, often at speeds exceeding 150 miles per hour.”

In addition, condors are “intensely social animals.” Where one goes to feed on carrion, others quickly assemble in “huge flocks,” as Clarke shows in photos taken just minutes apart.  [click to continue…]

Gina McCarthy’s Responses to Sen. Vitter’s Questions Part II: Fuel Economy*

by Marlo Lewis on May 15, 2013

in Blog, Features

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Gina McCarthy — President Obama’s nominee to succeed Lisa Jackson as EPA Administrator — is often described as “straight shooter” and “honest broker.” Is that reputation deserved?

Last week, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) released a 123 page document containing McCarthy’s responses to hundreds of questions on a wide range of issues. Part 1 of this series examined McCarthy’s responses to Vitter’s questions about the agency’s regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources. The key points were:

  1. McCarthy and the Air Office over which she presides gave Congress and the electric power sector false assurances that the EPA would not require utilities planning to build new coal-fired power plants to “fuel switch” and build natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants instead.
  2. Such misinformation undercut the credibility of critics who warned that the EPA, if left to its own devices, would use greenhouse gas regulation to prohibit the construction of new coal electric generation.
  3. The EPA’s dissembling on fuel switching may have swayed votes against measures sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in 2010 and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) in 2011 to reclaim Congress’s authority to determine climate policy.

Agencies are not supposed to provide false or misleading information to influence how Members of Congress vote. Banning new coal generation — the inexorable effect of the EPA’s ‘Carbon Pollution’ Rule — is a policy Congress would reject if proposed as legislation.

Part 1 concluded that confirming McCarthy as Administrator would reward the EPA’s duplicitous pursuit of an agenda Congress has not authorized. Breaking news of the EPA’s grossly unequal treatment of groups seeking information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) — based on whether the groups support or oppose a bigger, more intrusive EPA — leaves no doubt that this out-of-control agency deserves a kick in the butt, not a pat on the back.

Even the Society of Environmental Journalists — hardly a hotbed of libertarians, conservative Republicans, or fossil-fuel industry lobbyists — recently complained that the Obama administration “has been anything but transparent in its dealings with reporters seeking information, interviews and clarification” on environmental, health, and public lands issues, and that, “The EPA is one of the most closed, opaque agencies to the press.”

Today’s post examines McCarthy’s responses to Vitter’s questions about the administration’s motor vehicle mandates. As in Part 1, I begin with an overview of the issues and political back story. For more detailed analyses, see the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee report, A Dismissal of Safety, Choice, and Cost: The Obama Administration’s New Auto Regulations, and my article, EPA Regulation of Fuel Economy: Congressional Intent or Climate Coup? [click to continue…]

EPA Demonstrates IRS-like Bias on FOIA Requests

by Anthony Ward on May 15, 2013

in Blog

Executive branch overreach involving deliberate attempts to silence critics of the administration has become a pressing issue. Several revelations have come to light this week threatening to further cloud the Obama Administration’s claim of being “the most transparent administration in history.”  With the IRS facing allegations of deliberately targeting conservative groups, and the Department of Justice facing intense scrutiny for secretly monitoring the Associate Press, the executive branch is finding itself under siege from an onslaught of scandals. Now, something new can be added to the pile. According to CEI Senior Fellow Chris Horner, EPA has, in a sign of political bias, denied FOIA Fee Request Waivers requested by conservative groups.

Horner has discovered a clear pattern of bias against conservatives at EPA. While left-wing organizations almost always receive Fee Request waivers, conservative groups have had no such fortune.

According to a CEI press release:

In a review of letters granting or denying fee waivers granted at the “initial determination” stage from January 2012 to this Spring, Horner found green groups, such as the National Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and EarthJustice, had their fees waived in 75 out of 82 cases. Meanwhile, EPA effectively or expressly denied Horner’s request for fee waivers in 14 of 15 FOIA requests over this same time.

The administration’s actions are, perhaps, best described in a quote from Horner in the Washington Examiner. “This is as clear an example of disparate treatment as the IRS’ hurdles selectively imposed upon groups with names ominously reflecting an interest in, say, a less intrusive or biased federal government.”

Below, I’ve posted EPA’s response to the FOIA. (N.B., there were some formatting issues, which rendered pages 2 and 3 inverted.)

 

EPA Responsive Records FY 2013 by Competitive Enterprise Institute

[click to continue…]

WSJ Op-Ed Explains Benefits of CO2

by Anthony Ward on May 14, 2013

in Blog, Features

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Harrison Schmitt and William Happer wrote an excellent op-ed last week in the Wall Street Journal titled, “In Defense of Carbon Dioxide.” In the op-ed, Schmitt and Happer build a solid case for the benefits, as opposed to costs, occurring from an increase in the much maligned carbon dioxide.  Schmitt, who is an Adjunct Professor of Engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison, has a distinguished reputation as an Apollo 17 astronaut and was formerly a US Senator from New Mexico. Happer is a Professor of Physics at Princeton University and was also the former director of the office of energy research at the Deparment of Energy.

According to Schmitt and Happer, rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have not led to the dramatic temperature increases some models have anticipated. In fact, the increase in carbon dioxide has been beneficial. Schmitt and Happer explain:

The current levels of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, approaching 400 parts per million, are low by the standards of geological and plant evolutionary history. Levels were 3,000 ppm, or more, until the Paleogene period (beginning about 65 million years ago). For most plants, and for the animals and humans that use them, more carbon dioxide, far from being a “pollutant” in need of reduction, would be a benefit. This is already widely recognized by operators of commercial greenhouses, who artificially increase the carbon dioxide levels to 1,000 ppm or more to improve the growth and quality of their plants.

Despite the strong argument both authors have made, several climate change alarmists have excoriated Schmitt and Happer.  In attempt to discredit the op-ed, these alarmists have resorted to using hackneyed arguments and insults to reaffirm their opposition to what they see as a flawed and misleading op-ed.  Gavin Schmidt called the op-ed, “idiotic”, and Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy, in a reference to the discredited “Hockey Stick Graph” claims the op-ed ignores the graph’s depiction of rising temperatures.

Contrary to the claims of these detractors, Schmitt and Happer’s op-ed is well-supported. According to numerous peer-reviewed studies, increases in carbon dioxide will lead to a “greening of the planet” as plants absorb the carbon dioxide allowing them to flourish well-beyond their current state.

Therefore, as Schmitt and Happer so ably demonstrate, it is imprudent for policymakers to continue to classify CO2 under the category of harmful “pollutants”.  By implementing such policies, we are being steered towards a disastrous outcome for our economic future.

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