Probably Not the "Hottest Year"

The off-shore drilling moratorium, the proposed cap & trade taxes, (or shall we say the energy penalty for being American?), and the continued, unsubstantiated claims of man-made global warming...we Americans need to know the truth about what all this will cost each and every one of us every day.

With more than 14 million Americans unemployed today, can you imagine what $7 per gallon gas will do to the economy?

We're not lucky enough to travel on Air Force One (or Two for a luxury vacation in Spain), or chopper six miles on Marine One to speak about how the economy continues to crash...we just pay for those flights. That's in addition to filling our own gas tanks to get to work if we HAVE a job. You get the drift.

If you had any questions about the existence of global warming, and whether it's YOUR fault, take a look at THIS...

It’s a Desperate Time for the Global Warming Campaigners
James Hansen of NASA, an ardent believer in man-made warming, announced recently that “The 12-month running mean global temperature in the Goddard Space Institute analysis has reached a new record in 2010 . . . NASA, June 3, 2010. The main factor is our estimated temperature change for the Arctic region.” The GISS figures show that recent temperatures in the Arctic have been up to four degrees C warmer than the long-term mean.

Should we be alarmed? Probably not very.

My esteemed colleague Art Horn, at the Energy Tribune blog, has blown the whistle on Hansen and GISS. He points out that GISS has no thermometers in the Arctic! It has hardly any thermometers that are even near the Arctic Circle. GISS estimates its arctic temperatures from land-based thermometers that supposedly each represent the temperatures over 1200 square kilometers. That’s a pretty heroic assumption.

Meanwhile, the Danish Meteorological Institute is publishing sea-surface temperatures from the Arctic showing a cooling trend in the Arctic oceans during melt season since about 1993. Clearly, we have no accurate measure of the real temperatures and trends in the Arctic at this moment. Probably that’s not very important. The Russians say that the Arctic has its own 70-year climate cycle. The files of the New York Times, in fact, are filled with stories from the 1920s and 1930s, clearly showing that the Arctic was as warm then as now.

But this is the moment when proposed energy taxes would start to scuttle 85 percent of the energy which powers the modern world and its lifestyles. Global climate alarmists, Hansen among them, are playing a desperate and short-sighted game of “pass the energy taxes.”

President Obama says energy taxes are a high priority—perhaps high enough to ramp up his “health care reform” strategy. In a lame-duck Congressional session, after the November elections, Congress persons who had already lost their seats, would vote to saddle America with energy taxes that would triple our electric bills and, according to a Harvard study, drive gas prices to $7 per gallon.

The energy taxes are intended to make fossil fuels expensive! The idea is to deliberately drive fossil fuel prices high enough to force us to stop using them. Then we’re supposed to depend on costly and erratic solar and wind power. (Biomass can never produce much energy: biofuel crops would take too much land, and we can’t make ethanol out of cellulose sources.)

The man-made global warming believers have invested 20 years in their campaign to convince us of CO2-driven climate calamity. To their chagrin, the earth’s temperatures started to trend downward in 2007.

The sunspot index, which has a much stronger correlation with our thermometer record than CO2 (79% versus 22%) started predicting the cooling in 2000. The sun is still in a long cold-predicting minimum.

In 2008, NASA itself told us that Pacific had shifted into its cooling mode. The history of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation indicates a 30-year cooling phase, the opposite of the 1976–1998 warming trend.

They’re panicked about losing the whole ball game. They feel they must get an energy tax on the books before the earth has a chance to resume the recent-and-predicted cooling trend. They imagine that if the law gets on the books, a restart of the cooling wouldn’t push the next Congress to repeal the energy tax!

They might even be right, though it seems a stretch given the American people’s already-massive Obama-debt and the demonstrated history that tax cuts grow the economy and tax increases strangle it.

It’s a desperate time, not for the earth, but for the global warming campaigners.

DENNIS T. AVERY is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421 or email to cgfi@hughes.net.

What is the Murkowski Resolution?

Through CARE’s Monthly Newsletter, The PowerLine, and through special e-mail alerts, we have been encouraging people to contact their Senators asking them to support the Murkowski Resolution. The Debate on the floor has been postponed until June 10. There is still time to push for approval of the “Resolution of disapproval.”

It is a complicated legislative process that is hard to fully comprehend. This posting by our friend from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Marlo Lewis and Former Senator and Governor of Virginia, George Allen, offers the best overview we’ve seen. Please give it a read. If the EPA’s power grab alarms you, pass this link on to everyone you know and ask them to contact their senators too! Here’s a link to make sending your Senator a note asking him or her to support the Murkowski Resolution!

The EPA's Shocking Power Grab
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is carrying out one of the biggest power grabs in American history. The agency has positioned itself to regulate fuel economy, set climate policy for the nation and amend the Clean Air Act—powers never delegated to it by Congress. It has done this by declaring greenhouse gas emissions a danger to public health and welfare, in a proceeding known as the "endangerment finding."

On June 10 the U.S. Senate is scheduled to debate and vote on Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski's resolution of disapproval to overturn the endangerment finding. The resolution is absolutely necessary to restore democratic accountability in climate policymaking.

If allowed to stand, the EPA's endangerment finding will trigger a regulatory cascade through multiple provisions of the Act. America could be burdened with a regulatory regime more costly than any climate bill Congress has rejected or declined to pass, yet without the people's representatives ever voting on it.

Consider how the endangerment finding will expand the EPA's power beyond any plausible congressional mandate.

To begin with, the finding compels the EPA to establish greenhouse gas emission standards for new motor vehicles. About 95% of all vehicular greenhouse gas emissions are carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from motor fuel combustion. Because there is no commercially proven technology to capture CO2 tailpipe emissions, the principal way to reduce the amount of CO2 emitted per mile is to reduce the amount of fuel consumed per mile. In other words, greenhouse gas emission standards for automobiles are basically fuel economy standards by another name. By empowering the EPA to set greenhouse gas emission standards, the endangerment finding also empowers the EPA to determine the stringency of fuel economy standards, even though the Clean Air Act gives the EPA no such authority.

Once the greenhouse gas emission standards go into effect, CO2 becomes a "regulated air pollutant" and, thus, automatically subject to additional regulation under the Act's Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) pre-construction permitting program and Title V operating permits program. Under the Act, a firm must obtain a PSD permit before it can build or modify a "major stationary source" of regulated air pollutants, and obtain a Title V permit before it can operate such a source. The problem is that an immense number and variety of previously non-regulated entities—big box stores, office buildings, apartment complexes, small manufacturers, even commercial kitchens—emit enough CO2 to qualify as "major" sources.

By the EPA's own admission, applying PSD and Title V to CO2 leads to "absurd results." The EPA and its state counterparts will have to process approximately 41,000 PSD permit applications per year (instead of 280), and 6.1 million Title V permit applications per year (instead of 14,700). Agencies' administrative resources will be overwhelmed, producing ever-growing backlogs that slam the brakes on new construction and force millions of firms to operate in legal limbo. A more potent anti-stimulus package would be hard to imagine.

To avert a red ink nightmare, the EPA proposes to "tailor" the permitting programs so that they exempt for six years all sources emitting less than 50,000 tons per year (TPY) of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases. But the Act plainly states that a source is subject to PSD if it has the potential to emit 250 TPY of a regulated air pollutant and Title V if it has a potential to emit 100 TPY. In reality, the EPA proposes to amend the statute. This breach of the separation of powers only compounds the constitutional crisis inherent in the EPA's bid to hijack fuel economy regulation and climate policymaking.

Even if courts uphold EPA's tailoring rule, it's anybody's guess how many smaller sources EPA will try to regulate after 2016. Government burdens have a habit of ratcheting up over time.

The tailoring rule also provides no protection from the endangerment finding's most absurd result—rulemakings to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), set below current atmospheric concentrations, for greenhouse gases. Environmental litigation groups are only acting on the obvious implication of the EPA's assertion that the root cause of endangerment is the "elevated concentration" of greenhouse gases when they demand that the EPA initiate such rulemakings.
The economic consequences would be devastating. Even a global depression lasting several decades would not be enough to lower CO2 concentrations from today's level—roughly 390 parts per million—to 350 ppm, the new politically correct "stabilization" target advocated by former Vice President Al Gore, the Center for Biological Diversity and numerous other environmental groups. Yet under the Clean Air Act, states are obligated to attain NAAQS within five years or, at most, 10 years. The endangerment finding thus sets the stage for environmental activists to transform the Act into a deindustrialization mandate via litigation. The Murkowski resolution would nip all this mischief in the bud.

A strong case can be made that the EPA's endangerment finding is scientifically flawed. However, the Murkowski resolution is a referendum not about climate science but about the constitutional propriety of the EPA exercising powers not delegated by Congress. The resolution would overturn the "legal force and effect" of the EPA's endangerment finding, not the EPA's scientific reasoning or conclusions.

Who should make climate policy—the people's representatives or politically unaccountable bureaucrats, trial lawyers and unelected activist judges appointed for life? That is the sole question raised by the Murkowski resolution. The U.S. Constitution permits only one answer.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., warns that if the public has to wait for Congress to pass legislation to control greenhouse gas emissions, "that might not happen, in a year or two, or five or six or eight or 10." Yes, but that is representative democracy. And the democratic process is more valuable than any result that the EPA might obtain by doing an end run around it. Of all people, U.S. senators should understand this basic precept of our constitutional system.


George Allen is a former U.S. senator and governor from Virginia. He is also chairman of the American Energy Freedom Center. Marlo Lewis is a senior fellow in environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Kerry-Lieberman Climate Bill Equals Lost Jobs

What would happen to you and your family if you were laid off from work? You would be immediately faced with the daunting task of finding another job when national unemployment stands at 9.9%. This nightmare scenario could quickly become a reality if Congress manages to pass the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill, also known as the American Power Act. This monstrosity of a bill would destroy job opportunities for hard working American families struggling to make ends meat through higher taxes, higher utility rates, and outsourcing solar panel and wind turbine manufacturing to China. In addition, unilateral economically self-destructive behavior on part of the United States would result in lower wages for American works while workers in China and India would remain unhindered.

This blog entry will change your view on how environmental/energy policy affects you, your family, and your community. The actions of Washington have very real consequences and it's time to take notice and begin putting political pressure on your members of Congress to KILL THIS BILL! (Please click on text for Congressional contact information directory)

Kerry-Lieberman Equals Lost Jobs
Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (IND-CT) claim that their new energy bill, the American Power Act, would save the environment. What they don't tell you is that it would powerfully destroy jobs.

The Congressional Budget Office is more honest. Last week it issued a report entitled "How Policies to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions Could Affect Employment." The report concluded that "job losses in the industries that shrink would lower employment more than job gains in other industries would increase employment, thereby raising the overall unemployment rate."

With the national unemployment rate now 9.9%, Americans are concerned about their job prospects and those of friends and neighbors. Polls show that many believe that reducing global warming, the so-called benefit of lower greenhouse gas emissions, is less important than economic growth. With the slowdown in many measures of global warming over the past decade, it's an inconvenient truth that climate change is playing second fiddle to jobs.

Adding to the public's skepticism are leaked emails from the University of East Anglia in November 2009 showing the destruction of original global temperature data and the suppression of research papers authored by global warming dissenters. Americans are no fools - they know that no reduction in global warming will occur if America reduces greenhouse gases without similar action by China and India, and these countries have not agreed to comparable steps.

The Kerry-Lieberman bill is the Senate companion to the climate change bill that the House passed last summer, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, cosponsored by Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Edward Markey, Chairman of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee, both Democrats.

Senator Lindsay Graham, an influential South Carolina Republican, was originally one of the cosponsors of the Senate bill, making it nominally bipartisan and giving it a greater chance of passage. But he dropped his sponsorship at the end of April.

On Wednesday, Mr. Kerry issued a statement saying that "It is time for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to come together to pass legislation that will create American jobs and achieve energy security, while reducing carbon pollution by 17 percent in 2020 and by over 80 percent in 2050."

The bill requires that the country's total greenhouse gas emissions in 2013 be 5% lower than 2005 levels and that levels in 2020 be 17% lower - even as the economy, one hopes, has been expanding - and that by 2050, emissions be 80% below the 2005 baseline.

Representative Joe Barton, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, declared, "And just like with Waxman-Markey, we'll need to crash dive the economy back to something resembling the 1870s in order to reach the anti-global warming targets that Kerry-Lieberman sets for 2020, 2030, and 2050."

Indeed, it's not technologically possible to meet these goals now without radically reducing the American standard of living. The bill's sponsors appear to believe - or hope - that passage of the law will inspire technology to appear as needed. The bill contains numerous grants to "eligible partnerships" to develop such technology, as well as to study the fields of clean and renewable energy.

The mechanism for achieving the bill's proposed, ambitious goals for emissions reduction is standards for power plants, heavy industry, and transportation, and a "cap-and-trade" program beginning in 2013.

Under this new, far-reaching regulatory regime, Environmental Protection Agency politicians, in consultation with other Cabinet agencies, would issue regulations within a year governing the allocation of allowances to emit greenhouse gases.

The bill would require EPA to shrink allowances steadily to 2050. When any year's emissions exceed a firm's cap, it would have to purchase allowances from the government or other companies. That is a tax under another name, driving up costs that would be passed on to consumers.

Supporters of the bill claim that the new regulations will create jobs as more Americans are employed to produce new emissions-suppressing technology. But funds for new capital expenditures have to come from somewhere, and the costs are passed to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Not only does the bill penalize American firms through higher costs of production, it causes jobs to be created abroad through required investments in wind turbines and solar panels, now commonly manufactured in China. But carbon-intensive sources of energy such as coal and oil, which are disfavored by the bill, are produced domestically and employ American workers.

The CBO report shows that emissions reduction programs would cause job losses in coal mining, oil and gas extraction, gas utilities, and petroleum refining. In addition, workers' wages adjusted for inflation would be lower than otherwise because of the increase in prices due to a cap and trade program. CBO concludes that some workers, therefore, would leave the labor market, because at the new lower wages they would prefer to stay home.

Any reader of the CBO report would realize that it's not in the interests of American workers to embark on an emissions reduction program with our current high unemployment rate. According to CBO, "While the economy was adjusting to the emission-reduction program, a number of people would lose their job, and some of those people would face prolonged hardship." Workers laid off in declining industries would find it hard to get new jobs.

The CBO report points out that "In cases in which a shrinking industry was the primary employer in a community, the entire community could suffer." The tax base would dwindle and real estate would lose its value as unemployed workers moved elsewhere. The community's personal income would diminish and real estate values would fall as the jobless moved away.

Despite the creation of 290,000 jobs in April, the unemployment rate stands at 9.9%, higher than the United Kingdom, Canada, and even Germany and Italy. When given a choice between the ephemeral benefits of carbon reduction and jobs that pay for rent and groceries, out-of-touch politicians might choose Kerry-Lieberman. But, for most Americans, jobs win every time.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Green-Think: It Is Less About The Environment And More About Using Environmental Accidents To Advance Social And Political Agendas

With the daily news continuing to focus on the oil spill in the Gulf, there is ongoing discussion as to what it all means. One suggestion is that the environmentalists are grieved. Surely there is truth to that as everyone—oil producers included—is. But there is much more going on in the background.

We were pleased to receive the following insights from Steven Milloy, author of Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them , widely known for his popular website: junkscience.com. This piece is bound to stir up some controversy while offering substantial food-for-thought.

If you are not familiar with Steven Milloy, we invite you to listen to CARE’s Conference Call recording when he was our featured guest, March 2009.

Greens Love Oil Spills
If you think that environmentalists are lamenting the Gulf oil spill, think again.
President Obama discomfited the greens in March when he announced that he would expand opportunities for offshore drilling. Although not a sincere policy proposal, the President’s announcement nonetheless worried the greens as they thought that they might have to make a concession on offshore drilling to get oil industry support for a climate bill.

Although the President reiterated his support for more drilling after the spill, Congressional Democrats, environmental groups and the Center for American Progress have all publicly breathed a sigh of relief. Their view is that the spill not only strengthens their hand against more drilling, but increases the likelihood of getting a climate bill through the Senate.

“Environmentalists hope the BP spill turns into a game changer that will help propel the climate legislation’s passage much like the Exxon Valdez oil spill led to the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments,” reported Climatewire (May 4).

This is not likely to be the case since the public of 2010 is much more hip to the green agenda than it was in 1990, but the Climatewire report provides clear insight into green-think. They don’t care about the planet’s environment so much as they do about how they can use environmental accidents to advance their social and political agenda.

Not convinced?

Consider the puzzlingly slow response of the Obama administration to the spill.
Although Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano claims the government has been involved since “day one,” in fact, that “day one” response was limited to search and rescue efforts. Days after the spill, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed the severity of the accident, stating, “I don’t honestly think it opens up a whole new series of questions, because, you know, in all honesty I doubt this is the first accident that has happened and I doubt it will be the last.”
As the spill got worse, threatening coastal areas and the administration, the administration remained content to allow the inept BP—responsible for the largest oil spill on Alaska’s North Slope in 2006—to putter around with unsuccessful efforts to repair the leak and contain to the spill.

For an administration that claims to be so sensitive to the environment, its reaction was curious. Why didn’t the administration rush to action? If your house is catches fire, does the 911 operator respond to your call for help with, “Let’s wait and see if you can put it out before we send a fire truck.”

Interestingly, a Clinton administration-era plan calls for the immediate use of fire booms in case of a major Gulf oil spill, according to a Mobile Press-Register report. A single boom (costing only a few hundred thousand dollars) towed by two boats can burn 1,800 barrels of oil an hour, “raising the possibility that the spill could have been contained at the accident scene 100 miles from shore.”

But there were no booms onsite or anywhere close. It took federal officials more than a week to even conduct a test burn. Booms won’t be onsite until Wednesday or Thursday of this week.

It’s hard to know for sure whether this all simple lameness on the part of government, or whether the Obama administration is in no rush to prevent a disaster because it perceives an oil-drenched Gulf Coast as a way to advance cap-and-trade and anti-oil agendas. But why would it let a good crisis go to waste?


Steve Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and is the author of Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them (Regnery 2009).

The Tale Of Two Americas

There is a tale of two Americans playing out right before our eyes. In the state of Pennsylvania, there is an job-creation surge being fueled by the shale gas industry. In the state of California, there is a campaign to drive hundreds of thousands of Californians out of work by mandating the creation of "green jobs" at the expense of other sectors of the economy. The shale gas industry has sent up a flare of hope during dark economic times while environmentalists are doing everything they can do to prolong this recession.

According to Penn State University, "the shale gas industry's boom is creating 100,000 jobs in Pennsylvania during 2010..." In contrast, "California's unemployment has soared from less than 5 percent to more than 12 percent since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act three years ago." See the difference? Embracing traditional energy sources like shale gas can turn back the tide of rising unemployment while government-mandated "green jobs" will exacerbate America's current economic plight.

In reality, the problem is much more complicated than this which is why CARE is pleased to bring you insights from Dennis T. Avery, an environmental economist and senior fellow with the Hudson Institute. We invite you to read his latest analysis so you have the knowledge needed to set the record straight and tell the tale of two Americas; one that embraces traditional energy sources and economic prosperity while the other embraces government-mandated "green jobs" and the economic misery that comes with it.

Green Jobs or Shale Gas? The Numbers Talk
The shale gas industry’s boom is creating 100,000 jobs in Pennsylvania during 2010, according to Penn State University. Only a few of these new jobs are on drill rigs; many of those jobs go to highly-skilled oil patch veterans from out of state. But the gas industry’s expansion has created jobs by the tens of thousands in steel production, construction, and services.

More important, the clean, low-cost energy from the shale gas will go on creating additional jobs in every Northeast regional industry that needs energy—meaning all of them. The shale gas boom is creating similar huge job gains throughout Appalachia, Texas, and Louisiana, with the new shale drilling system also about to expand in the huge Bakken oil shale deposits under the Dakotas and Montana.

Meanwhile, the giant state of California has created only 48,000 "green jobs" over the 13 years from 1995 to 2008. Green jobs still make up only 1 percent of California’s economy. Worse, says State Senator Bob Dutton, the high energy taxes needed to create those few green jobs are at the same time killing millions of jobs in all sorts of industries across the state. California’s unemployment has soared from less than 5 percent to more than 12 percent since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act three years ago.

The governor promised that the global warming tax would "create a whole new industry to pump up our economy, a clean-tech industry that creates jobs, sparks new cutting-edge technology and will be a model for the rest of the nation and the rest of the world." Instead, the global warming taxes will drive up the prices of all non-renewable energy—as they were intended to do.

California taxpayers will now pay for wind turbines and solar panels made in China, while California has lost more than 600,000 manufacturing jobs. Business relocation specialist Joseph Vranich says he’s working full time to help companies flee California’s rising costs and restrictions. He warns that no one is calling about moving into the Golden State.

Senator Dutton points to CalPortland Cement, which has cancelled its California expansion plans and is considering a Nevada location instead. It recently closed a cement operation in Colton, laying off 100 workers.

That’s a preview of the "green jobs" impact. The manufacturing—and farming—will be done in places that don’t impose energy taxes. If the Congress imposes import tariffs, that still won’t provide cost-effective energy for American farming, manufacturing, or transport. With far less energy available, our standards of living must drop dramatically.

The Wall Street Journal reports the Southern California Public Power Authority is warning of a 30 percent hike in electric rates. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has told business to expect a 21 percent hike this year. LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says the city must raise rates because "the State is breathing down our necks . . . where we could be looking at fines of $300 million [in 2012] and $600 million on top of that."

All of this in spite of the low correlation between CO2 and our thermometer records—22 percent. The correlation with sunspots is 79 percent. Does Washington care? Or does President Obama want $6 gasoline, tripled electric bills—and $800 billion per year in energy taxes to "spread the wealth" among his allies?

DENNIS T. AVERY is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421 or email to cgfi@hughes.net.

The Cusp of Climate Crisis Solutions

Recently an e-mail from Al Gore landed in CARE’s in-box. It said, “I've been working on solutions to the climate crisis for a long time--and right now, we're on the cusp of what could be the biggest breakthrough in decades, with a bipartisan Senate clean energy and climate bill under negotiation right now.That's why this week, supporters like you have already made over 42,000 calls to your Senators to demand the strongest legislation possible.It's been one of the largest call-in campaigns in the history of our movement, and we've definitely got people's attention. But we have only one day left until our deadline tonight, and we need to demonstrate exactly how broad and deep this movement is.”

This caused a bit of panic in CARE’s Executive Director, Marita Noon. She thought, “Omigosh! How have I missed this? I better get a notice sent out encouraging people to call with the other side’s viewpoint.”

However, before taking drastic action, Marita checked with one of the members of our Energy Council who follows these things more closely: Myron Ebell—who was our Conference Call guest in January. He responded by sharing the content of this posting. Whew! No wonder we were not closely following this specific legislation.

The Mainstream Media’s New ‘Favorite Republican’
The mainstream media have been searching for a new favorite Republican ever since John McCain won the presidential nomination in the spring of 2008. Clearly, McCain couldn’t be allowed to continue in that role because of the risk that it might have helped him win the presidency.

Favorite Republican really shouldn’t be a hard spot to fill. The only qualifications required are an eagerness to abandon conservative principles in order to further fashionable liberal issues, and a general ineffectualness at pursuing conservative goals.

Several prominent Republicans come immediately to mind as being well qualified.

It’s taken awhile, but after a long audition, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has won the job. Increasing, as well as increasingly favorable, mainstream media attention culminated on Sunday when Thomas L. Friedman anointed Graham in his New York Times column. Friedman’s fawning interview is headlined: “How the GOP Goes Green.”

As often happens when the subject knows his interviewer is friendly, Graham lets down his guard and says several revealing things.

Most stunning is Senator Graham’s explanation of why he supports energy-rationing policies to address global warming: it’s so college students will like him. Should you think I’m fabricating this or exaggerating, let me quote Friedman’s column:

Look at how he is received in colleges today. “Instead of just being one more short, white Republican over 50,” says Graham, “I am now semi-cool. There is an awareness by young people that I am doing something different.”

If this makes Senator Graham sound like a nitwit, that could be misleading. Friedman also mentions that one major corporation is counting on Graham to bail them out. General Electric, which manufactures wind turbines in Greenville, South Carolina, has been one of the biggest corporate supporters of energy rationing legislation for a simple reason. Besides windmills, they make a bewildering variety of industrial and consumer products (including nuclear reactors) that will be in much higher demand if government artificially raises energy prices.

And there’s also Duke Energy, a large electric utility holding company with a branch in South Carolina. Duke’s Chairman James Rogers is an old Enron hand who has become the leading corporate lobbyist for cap-and-trade legislation. Rogers hopes to make billions in windfall profits if it is enacted.

Senator Graham would not seem to be Rogers’ man, since he has been quoted widely in the past several days saying that cap-and-trade is dead in the Senate. Instead, Graham is working on a more modest bipartisan compromise energy-rationing bill with Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). The funny thing is that news stories report that their bill will contain a cap-and-trade program for electric utilities only. Graham, Kerry, and Lieberman just aren ‘t calling it cap-and-trade because the public have figured out that cap-and-trade is a sneaky name for an indirect tax that will transfer massive amounts of wealth from them to the federal government and its big business partners in crime.

The Graham-Kerry-Lieberman effort is going nowhere, but then the McCain-Lieberman and the Lieberman-John Warner (R-Va., now retired) cap-and-trade bills never went anywhere either. Senator McCain called what Graham, Kerry, and Lieberman are putting together “a joke.” That may be sour grapes coming from someone who is no longer favorite Republican, but it’s also a realistic assessment.

Senator Graham will not be favorite Republican solely on the global warming issue, however. Politico reported Monday on the cozy relationship between Graham and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. They are working together on how to close down Guantanamo. And no doubt Graham will be there in the years to come on other major issues when the left really needs him.

There is a solution for Senator McCain. His name is J.D. Hayworth. (And even if Hayworth loses to McCain in Arizona’s primary election on August 14, his challenge is forcing McCain to act like a conservative for most of this legislative year.) Unfortunately, Senator Graham is not up for re-election until 2014. So a solution is four years away.

Until then, South Carolinians are doing what they can to push back against the attraction of being the darling of the New York Times. Three county Republican committees in the state have voted to censure him. And this past Saturday, a hundred protesters organized by Freedom Works demonstrated in front of the senior senator’s office in Greenville.

But I doubt that Senator Lindsey Graham is going to worry much about the ire of mere citizens, as long as the New York Times is singing his praises and big business executives are backing him. He appears to be settling comfortably into the role of the mainstream media’s favorite Republican.

Climate Change: Another Option

CARE would like to call your attention to an alternative approach that addresses rising greenhouse gas levels. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute has proposed that instead of adopting economically damaging policies like cap and trade, that the United States take a serious look at geoengineering. What is geoengineering and why should you care? (No pun intended!) Geoengineering is a cost effective approach to reducing greenhouse gas emission levels whose "techniques include injecting fine sulfur particles into the upper atmosphere to slow down the warming process from the sun, and spraying clouds with salt water to make them reflect more solar radiation away from earth. Similar cooling effects -- as well as some adverse consequences -- have been observed after volcanic eruptions." In a nutshell, those among us that want to take an objective look at the science behind global warming have an affordable and scientifically compelling alternative to economically ruinous proposals like cap-and-trade and empowering the EPA to declare greenhouse gases a threat to human health and welfare.

Climate Change: Another Option
WASHINGTON--As world leaders meet in Copenhagen to discuss reducing greenhouse gas emissions, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson has positioned herself, with President Obama's approval, to make an end run around Congress and impose regulatory limits on greenhouse gases, including the best known: carbon dioxide.

On Monday Ms. Jackson published a regulatory finding that greenhouse gases pose a danger to Americans' health and need to be controlled. She said that the finding was a required precondition to the agency's imposing caps on emissions of carbon dioxide and five other gases: methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.

The announcement by Ms. Jackson was laden with symbolic significance. It was Mr. Obama's signal to world leaders, whom he will join in Copenhagen later this month, that Washington is determined to take actions to reduce America's greenhouse emissions.

It was also a prod to Congress to pass legislation that would curtail those emissions. The administration -- and some Democrats in Congress -- would prefer a legislative approach because it would enable them to shape the law, and it might be less susceptible to challenge in the courts.

The House has passed its climate change bill, but in the Senate a measure sponsored by two Democratic committee heads, Barbara Boxer and John Kerry, has stalled.

This posturing diverts the public's attention from a larger truth: The Democrats' approach of slapping limits on emissions by power plants, factories, refineries, and motor vehicles, is fundamentally flawed, whether by statute or regulation.

The approach would raise energy prices and costs of production, suppress wage and employment growth, and drive up prices of houses, home heating and cooling, cars, and other manufactured goods by raising production costs. It is a recipe for economic drag.

The bill would require greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 to be no more than 17% of 2005 emissions. The target for the year 2050, four decades into the future, cannot be achieved with today's technology -- and illustrates the hubris of those who think they can fine-tune the American economy far beyond anyone's capacity to foresee events.

Whether from recognizing hubris or from sheer exhaustion, the Senate has failed to pass its bill. Republicans boycotted the committee vote to send it to the floor. No wonder. With unemployment at 10% and over 15 million Americans out of work, there is little public support for legislation to harm the economy.

Furthermore, with the revelation that scientists at the University of East Anglia in Britain destroyed original temperature data rather than turn it over to other scientists for examination, the science of global warming has acquired a tarnished reputation.

Enter Ms. Jackson. As EPA administrator, she claims the power to regulate greenhouse gases under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. In 2007 the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that greenhouse gases were pollutants, thus giving EPA the power to regulate them if the administrator found them harmful to human health. And so she did.

The EPA administrator may have the power to regulate, but she does not have to pay the resulting economic costs, nor even weigh costs against possible benefits. Costs could reach trillions of dollars, to be paid by ordinary Americans through more expensive products and lost jobs.

To many environmental activists at Copenhagen, regulation of greenhouse gases is worth any cost. The usual approach is to set tight limits on carbon emissions, but taking that approach in isolation, as the pending congressional bills and Copenhagen summit would do, would do substantial damage to the U.S. and global economies, especially since substitutes for fossil fuels will be expensive and limited for a number of years.

Let's suppose we all want to cool the earth. Some scientists, including Dutch Nobel Prize winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, advise that altering features of the earth's environment, such as seeding clouds, would be far more effective against global warming, faster, and less costly. This is called "geoengineering."

Geoengineering techniques include injecting fine sulfur particles into the upper atmosphere to slow down the warming process from the sun, and spraying clouds with salt water to make them reflect more solar radiation away from earth. Similar cooling effects -- as well as some adverse consequences -- have been observed after volcanic eruptions.

Successful geoengineering would permit earth's population to make far smaller reductions in carbon use and still slow or reverse global warming, but at a vastly lower cost. Just as critically, it would also buy time until more information is known about the process of global warming. No responsible response to global warming should fail to consider geoengineering, and a 40-year plan needs decades to ramp up. Just ask Moses.

Further, if India and China don't also sign up to cut their carbon emissions -- and they haven't committed yet to approving reductions at Copenhagen -- cuts in American carbon emissions alone would not solve the problems of climate change. American emissions would likely be replaced by emissions from newly-industrialized countries.

Geoengineering needs to be considered both in Congress and in Copenhagen. Even if other countries did nothing, successful geoengineering could have global benefits at relatively low cost while postponing the burden of enforcing compliance with emissions limits until alternative technologies are discovered.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Climategate's Lesson: Science Hasn’t Failed, Government Has

The recent revelations of the "Climategate" scandal raises concerns about the integirty of government and science in energy-related matters, so CARE decided to enlist the aid of Patrick Cox, a transformative technologies expert associated with the Whiskey and Gunpowder investment newsletter. He builds the case that even though some scientists intentionally concealed the Medieval Warm Period, manipulated data, attempted to redefine the peer-review process, and steamrolled over those that questioned the data; Climategate ultimately stands as a testament to the integrity of science and the failure of government. He points out that good men and women revealed the truth and are reevaluating the data at the CRU while the climatological-industrial complex is acting like Climategate never happened. Cap and trade is still being pushed and the Environmental Protection Agency is determined to put its recent declaration that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare into force of law. The chess pieces are set, they are moving across the international board, and the recent course of action shows us that Climategate stands as a testament to the failure of government rather than science. CARE is confident that this article will help change your understanding of whom is truly at fault here.

Climategate Update: Science Hasn’t Failed, Government Has
What a fascinating week. The leaked e-mails and computer code from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit have become the greatest scientific scandal of our age. The head of the CRU has been forced to step down. Scientists who cooperated with the CRU in other locations, including the United States and New Zealand, are now under investigation.

I’ve been warned, incidentally, that any discussion of global warming will elicit complaints from one side or the other, so I would be better off not bringing it up. The notion that climatology is unacceptable in polite conversation is a huge problem. I’ve been following this debate for over 15 years and have worked with some of the important scientists who have advocated openness and more debate in climate research. Real scientists consider this a legitimate scientific issue, not a partisan one.

Moreover, the CRU scandal is enormously relevant to many investor issues. I’d rather lose readers who are offended than fail to keep the rest of you informed. If you’re getting your news from the mainstream media, you may not know yet how damaging this event has been to the credibility of the U.N. and those in the administration who support CO2 controls. (The Canadian press, however, is doing a far better job of covering the story.)

I told subscribers to my newsletter Breakthrough Technology Alert about a year ago, by the way, not to invest in so-called green technologies that rely on subsidies and regulatory interventions. That advice stands now more than ever. Polls show that about three-quarters of Americans consider the scientific theory of anthropogenic global warming false or even fraudulent. Given growing anger over deficits and terrible unemployment statistics, harmful environmental measures passed now are likely to be overturned or blocked after the 2010 election cycle.

I saw this coming for several reasons. One is that the lack of scientific ethics exposed by the CRU whistle-blower is not really news. It has been obvious to those of us who were paying attention for a very long time. The leaked documents make it clear, however, to those who don’t understand the mathematical subtleties of regression analysis or program in Fortran.

For the first time, the general public is learning that the CRU climate model, which the U.N. relies on, purposely hid the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). This obfuscation was necessary because the MWP was not just warmer than it is now; it had a generally positive impact on humans. The University of East Anglia now admits, in fact, that the CRU has no real evidence that the climate is warming and says it will take at least three years to recompile and analyze the data.

The climatological-industrial complex, however, is forging ahead as if nothing has happened. Supporters of an incredibly expensive cap-and-trade scheme, in the middle of the worst economic downturn in modern history, are undeterred. Even without the invention of Enron, cap and trade, the EPA is dead set on treating and regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

You know that stuff you exhale in high concentrations: CO2? The EPA apparently thinks pollution results even with miniscule increases in the 0.038% trace levels of CO2 found in the atmosphere. Obviously, slightly elevated CO2 levels have never resulted in cataclysm before. So why does it say so now?

Its theory is that the planet’s ability to absorb CO2 is maxed out. Additional CO2, it says, will therefore result in skyrocketing CO2 levels. This theory, however, is completely unsupported by evidence. Dr. Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol just published as study in Geophysical Research Letters showing that the portion of the atmospheric CO2 absorbed by plant life, mostly in the oceans, has remained stable since 1850.

In fact, it is the failure of the CRU model to properly address the role of the oceans that convinced me long ago that it’s fundamentally missed the boat. Only about 10% of the Earth’s heat storage is atmospheric. About 90% of the Earth’s energy storage takes place in the waters of the oceans. Water, after all, stores far more energy than air.

Furthermore, ocean temperatures are far easier to measure accurately. Many land-based temperature stations have been compromised due to changes in local conditions, mostly increased urbanization. This is not the case with oceans. NASA has more than 3,000 robotic buoys that dive and surface continually all over the world collecting ocean temperature data at different depths. This information has been transmitted via satellite to NASA since 2003. Compiled, it shows clearly that ocean temperatures are falling.

If the oceans were bleeding heat into the atmosphere, we would see higher air temperatures. The Climategate e-mail leak shows, however, that even CRU knows that atmospheric temperatures have fallen since the late ‘90s. This means, I believe, that we are in an extended period of global cooling, not a temporary turnaround. University of Rochester physicists have published recently data showing the historic and central role ocean temperatures play in climate and climate change.

The fact that the U.N.’s climate gurus have destroyed data, hid inconvenient truths and subverted the peer-review process is not, by the way, proof that anthropogenic global warming could not possibly occur. Nor does it prove we are not in a natural period of cooling caused by solar cycles. The only thing it does prove is that models are junk and that the most powerful government-anointed climate scientists have no idea what’s going on — as the leaked e-mails stated over and over again.

This is the big lesson. It isn’t science that has failed. Science isn’t dying, as Daniel Henninger said recently in The Wall Street Journal. Real science is a process of discovering the truth through transparency, experimentation and verification. Look around you. You can see the fruits of real science in the increased length and quality of life that we all enjoy. Science is alive and well in the private sector.

Climategate is a failure of politicians and bureaucrats involving over $90 billion in tax-funded research grants. It is complicated by passionately cheerleading environmentalists who have turned their movement into a kind of religion.

The corruption of scientists by government monies is by no means new. It won’t be the last time, either. Nevertheless, the courage of the CRU whistle-blower demonstrates the robustness of science. The truth has come out.

It remains to be seen if the political drive to control human activities and profit from political wealth transfers will prove more powerful, in the short run, than the truth contained in the leaked e-mails and computer code. In the long run, however, I have no doubt that those who embrace fraud will be outed, if not punished.

My focus is on identifying those transformational technologies with the greatest potential for profit and growth. Those opportunities will not go away even if the fraud inherent in the CRU’s sham models are used to hobble the American economy with destructive cap-and-trade taxation or onerous EPA regulation of CO2. India, Russia, China and many other countries have made it clear they will never adopt such economy-killing measures — especially during a period of economic downturn and high unemployment. They stand more than willing to host the revolutionary disruptive industries that are coming onto the scene today. Many of our top scientists and small caps are already being wooed to relocate elsewhere.

Fortunately, polls show that nearly three-quarters of the American people are extremely angry with the government right now. The old media, which are lobbying for some sort of bailout, will continue trying to cover it up. Having not only endorsed the concept of anthropogenic global warming, but attacked skeptics as subhuman, it is impossible for many to admit they were wrong. Science and technology, though, have already provided alternate avenues of information dissemination. The unwillingness of the old media to report one of the most important stories of this young century is evidence they deserve to fail.

The reversal on cap and trade by Australia, along with a likely change in the government, in large part because of Climategate, ought to act as a warning to the administration. If not, then the people will grow angrier yet and we’ll see another iteration of the revolution next year at the ballot boxes. Science cannot be stopped or even perverted for long.

Patrick Cox is a transformative technologies expert associated with the Whiskey and Gunpowder investment newsletter.

Climatology is a “Political” Science

CARE would like to highlight a disturbing trend: The science of "climate change" has lost all vestiges of credibility and has been reduced to a "political science". CARE Energy Council member Byron King, whom is with the Whiskey and Gunpowder investment newsletter, has illuminated how manufactured evidence from the Climate Gate scandal ties into the "big picture" of the global warming deception. As someone who studied geology at Harvard University and has over 35 years experience with earth sciences, Byron King understands that when the U.K. Telegraph declares that "This Is the Worst Scientific Scandal of Our Generation," it's time to pay attention! His article will change the way you look at the global warming debate and delivers a doup de grace to those that would deny humanity access to affordable and abundent energy in the name of junk science.

Climatology is a “Political” Science
Last week, the global warming movement crashed, along with its holier-than-thou "only we can save the world" aura of empirical certitude. It’s more like "political" science now — literally — and there are 3,000 e-mails to prove it. Down with the ship went the last semblance of unblinking, unthinking willingness to submit to draconian, Procrustean "cap and trade" legislation against fossil fuels.

The cause of the crash was a batch of purloined e-mails from the University of East Anglia and its so-called Climate Research Unit (Climate Research Fabrication Unit is more like it). When the contents of the e-mails hit the fan, the U.K. Telegraph headlined that "This Is the Worst Scientific Scandal of Our Generation."

On this last point, we can now see how much of the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide (CO2), and related "global warming," marches to a drumbeat that permits no foot to fall out of step. The East Anglia e-mails reveal a transnational cabal of scientists whose ethics and methods mirror those of Stalin’s favorite biologist, Comrade Trofim Lysenko.

That is, these modern Merlins of global warming have massaged the climate data to fit their preconceived anti-CO2 theories. For many years, the climate change Godfathers have humiliated and intimidated scientists who dared to disagree. They’ve squashed dissent. They’ve blackballed academic journals that didn’t toe the line of politically correct global warming wisdom. And they’ve done it all under the rubric of "peer-reviewed" science — where they are the peers über alles. Nice work, if you can get it.

The global warming crowd claims that the climate change is a phenomenon that’s wholly man-made — mostly in the industrialized West, and particularly by industries in the U.S. of A. The science is settled, they claim. You can’t argue with it. No, indeed. And how convenient!

But as someone who studied geology (admittedly at Harvard, where they’ve been teaching the subject only since 1787) and has been in and around the earth sciences for over 35 years, I always wondered why the proposed remedies for global warming and climate change are not really solutions to the alleged problem.

I mean, the so-called remedies for global warming mostly call for U.S. and other Western nations to pay high-energy taxes on carbon-based fuels. And the remedies call for the West — especially the U.S. — dramatically to curtail CO2-emitting energy sources. Oh, and Wall Street will be able to trade "carbon credits," like it’s done with such success in the field of mortgage-backed securities and the like.

Meanwhile, under the proposed cap-and-trade schemes, the developing world gets a whole banana boat full of unspecified "climate reparations" from the West, all while burning lots of coal and using more and more energy from any and every source. Huh?

To my way of seeing things, the proposed remedies for global warming never added up. Now, with the release of the East Anglia e-mails, we know that things were never supposed to add up. The whole global warming and remedies process is designed to lasso a perceived "environmental" problem and use it to fulfill a laundry list of campus-Marxist political agendas. And quite a bit of the mainstream West swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.Now that the cat is out of the bag (to change metaphors), is cap and trade dead? Have we reached a teachable moment about things like future energy use and industrial development? Will we see a period of backing down and thorough re-examination?

Or are there too many big shots, with too much ego and too much money, already too invested in the man-caused global warming process to admit of any doubt? Follow the money, I suppose.

Then again, there might not be much money to follow. Sometimes, deliverance comes from the strangest places...

***

Byron King earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, graduated cum laude from Harvard University, served on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations, and is a regulator contributor to the Whiskey and Gunpowder investment newsletter.

An Informed Voter's Opinions on Cap and Trade

Typically here at Comments About Responsible Energy, we feature opinions, current energy news, and have made available a cadre of experts who willingly share their insights with us. Upon reading, you are invited to add you comments or questions.

In the CARE Newsletter, The PowerLine, we frequently post questions from the “audience”—either an audience member from one of Marita’s speaking engagements or something that comes in via e-mail in response to the newsletter. We solicit the answer from an appropriate expert and post both the question and answer there.

But this posting is different. It is from a CARE Newsletter Reader and it does have questions. And we are inviting our various experts to comment on it. But we’ve chosen to post this piece here in the Blog because we think the author’s comments and questions may reflect some of what you are thinking. We invite you—expert or not—to respond to the thoughts and questions posted here. Tell Criss where she is right—or where she is off base. If you know the answers to her questions, please offer your insights.

My feelings on cap and trade can best be expressed by the following:
The root purpose of the Cap and Trade bill appears to me to be reducing greenhouse emissions and steer the U.S. away from fossil fuel dependency; the ultimate goal being reducing the emissions by 20% by the year 2020. It accomplishes this via various taxes, surcharges, fines and the like and then distributing these funds to the development and deployment of “renewable” energy sources.

When I look at gas, oil and coal I realize that they give us electrical energy, transportation/shipping fuel and a ton of by-products like: plastic, herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, more than 50% of all our composite materials, including fabrics, air and water filters and even pencils. Until recently these fossil fuels have been the most cost effective sources of these energy needs. We humans have known, consciously, as a whole, that these fuels put poisons into our air, water and soil. We have also been aware that they kill humans since at least the 1800’s. No government taxes in any country developed or made available these fuels and all their various uses to the masses, rather free enterprise did that. Governments did not really get involved until it was admitted just how deadly these poisons from burning these fuels can be. IE: There were thousands of deaths from these poisons. Also all three of these fuel sources are an earth resource. They are finite as far as we humans are concerned because it takes the earth millions if not billions of years to produce them. Worldwide consumption rates to these fuels are increasing each year. This means eventually they will become consumed to extinction. We humans currently, nor in the near future, have a way to make our own version of these fuels, en mass, quickly and cost efficiently.

I do not want to put any more poisons into our air, water and soil. So any replacement energy source will need to be cleaner than our existing ones. Nor do I want to rely on another finite earth resource for energy as eventually that too will be consumed to extinction. So they should be as renewable as possible. Nor do I want to have the new energy source to be more dangerous than any existing fuel source to harvest, refine, distribute and burn or utilize and dispose of in any way. Nor do I want to be charged to develop these new energy sources or to put these new sources into production. I believe that the private enterprise sector should do that. And the new sources must be at least as cost effective as the existing energy sources.

The existing alternatives to gas, coal and oil are hydro, solar, wind, geo-thermal and nuclear.

I rule nuclear out because it is based on another finite earth resource--uranium, which is rarer than gas, oil or coal. Rarer than diamonds. Plus it has some safety and security issues that have yet to be resolved. The large plants are almost as cost effective as existing gas, coal and oil, but the cost of safety and security make it uneconomical. Then there is the fact that it only addresses, on a large scale, just one energy need--electrical. It does not address transportation, other than large sea vessels, nor does it address all the by-products. Its safety and security issues also means that additional poisons can and have been, released into either or our air, water or soil. And radiation poison scares me as much as any other natural or man-made disaster or poison, if not more so.

I rule out solar and wind because again they only address electrical energy and do not address transportation or by-product. Yes there is some research to use electrical airplanes, but the successful ones so far are for one or two people and not mass transit or cargo. And yes we do have some electrical vehicles, but they too are not ready for economical en mass deployment (being small they are a safety risk to occupants up against say a dump truck, nor do they have the oomph to plow thru a snow drift). When implemented for large scale electrical production there are some environmental issues and they are not as cost effective as gas, coal and oil production plants in our current business economic model (mega bucks, mega profits, mega quickly). Although, these are very good and cost effective on a small non-commercial production scale, so much so that the energy companies are doing everything in their power to push the price up and they must perceive this as a threat to their mega bucks.

I rule out hydro energy as again this is mostly electrical energy and has some safety and security issues of its own to be resolved. Mainly concerning the dams themselves. They disrupt the natural flow and ecosystems of the river they are implemented on and there is the risk of dam failure which could result in deaths from flooding. Nor does hydro address all the by-products. They are however almost as cost effective as gas, coal and oil without the poisons.

I rule out geo-thermal as they only address electrical and are not quite as cost effective as our existing gas, coal and oil, very close but not quite. Nor do they address transportation and by-products.

My research also indicates that if the U.S. achieved its Cap and Trade Bill goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, the actual result worldwide would be barely over 1%. If all the other countries of the world did the same and reduced by 20% by 2020 the overall worldwide lowering of greenhouse gases in the air would still be in the single percentage points, almost double digit, but single.

Then there is my opinion that physiologically it does not induce or entice people to reduce and conserve their existing fossil fuel usage. Yes it does tax and fine or surcharge if we do not lower our consumption but it does so in a very negative way and not a positive way. Philologists have long been proponents of the quickest and longest lasting behavior changes occur thru positive reinforcement and not negative. IE: Give people a tax break if they lower their consumption (individual or company), taxes stay the same if they stay at the same level as today and then taxes go to a higher percentage rate if they increase consumption over today.

When I compare this research information against the bill, the bill does not address my requirements or priorities. It charges (taxes, fines, surcharges) me to make drastic changes to the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions but does not result in an overall reduction worldwide that is beneficial to humans, et al verses the cost of doing so. Nor does it address finding, developing and deploying en mass cost effective replacements to the electrical, transportation and by-product needs to get off coal, gas and oil. Nor does it address the issue of how to use our existing energy sources more effectively and cost efficiently. And last but not least it does not address the energy infrastructure which is over 50 years old, is falling down around our feet and looses approximately 20-30% of the energy we currently produce via transmission and conversion from AC to DC and DC to AC losses. We need a suite of replacements and no one alternative available today accomplishes enough to charge me to death for their deployment.

I am against the cap and trade bill as it exists today because it basically accomplishes nothing but charges the crap out of me.

My "debate" questions are really asking why everyone seems to be debating the disputed facts concerning greenhouse gas emissions and not zeroing in on the real issues:

Oil, Coal, Gas and Uranium are finite earth resources and will eventually become extinct. Doesn't really matter when they get used up, they will be used up and the longer we take to reduce or eliminate our use of them the faster they will be used up.

Other than people with a suicide wish--I doubt there is anyone who wants more poisons in our air, water or land. So cutting greenhouse gases is not really the issue--cutting all poison emissions is the real issue.

Our energy infrastructure or GRID is so old it is falling down around us. Just putting a computer program on it to re-route surges and drops does not fix this aspect. We need a new, more efficient and cost effective TRUE SMART GRID. We need to stop loosing energy we currently produce to transmission and energy type conversion as well as the physical aspects of the power lines being just too old and tired to keep up with today’s demands.

We need replacements for our electrical energy needs, our transportation (personal and bulk) energy needs and we need replacements for all the by-products that existing fossil fuels, particularly oil and coal, now give us.

Our current US Business Economic Model for Mega Bucks, Mega Profits, Mega Quickly (instead of just bucks, profits and quick) are killing research, development and deployment of any true changes to our existing mass energy systems and enterprises that can get us off these dang blasted finite earth resource fuels.

Our current US Government and energy businesses seem to think that we the American Citizens should pay for this development and deployment of new sources and fixes through taxes, fines, surcharges and debasement of our dollars. Sorry but they created the problem, it was not just us citizens, this needs to be free enterprise.

There seems to be an avoidance of the fact that NONE of the existing alternatives to coal, gas and oil will FIX our true energy issues or the environmental ones either and no one wants to go broke via any means to pay for the fix either. So why do we keep debating all this other crap instead of really brain storming for ideas to fix this mess?

Criss--An Independent, Informed Voter

Colorado’s Conflicted U.S. Senator, Mark Udall

Two of Al Gore’s leading global warming suckers in the U.S. Senate are Mark Udall, D-Colo., and John McCain, R-Ariz.

To his credit, McCain has always been a nuclear energy advocate. Sen. Udall, true to his family’s tradition of being in lockstep with Big Enviro, hasn’t. But he’s beginning to give nuclear energy favorable lip service. Is Udall, like New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson in his old days in Congress, talking out of both sides of his mouth?

Here is John Dendahl’s commentary with an open letter to Sen. Udall. If the Senator responds, we’ll be sure to let you know.

If Not to Speak Out of Both, Why Have Two Sides to One’s Mouth?
U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., is reported to be among those twisting arms for senate votes on the economically ruinous cap-and-trade scheme already passed in the U.S. House. Hollywood Henry Waxman’s is one of the names on the House bill, and few could name a Member of Congress who deserves more “credit” for laws burdening the U.S. economy and restricting the individual rights of U.S. citizens.

Members of Congress like Udall are exempt from mainstream media criticism for conflicts of interest. However, Udall has one here in spades. His wife, Maggie Fox, is CEO and president of something called Alliance for Climate Protection, founded by Al Gore with money from his global warming horror movie. Typical of Big Enviro’s big bucks “charitable” [i.e., organized under Sec. 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code] organizations, the Gore/Fox alliance has a companion lobbying organization, the Climate Protection Action Fund. Fox is CEO and president of that as well.

Gore is reported already to have amassed a huge fortune in a market for trading carbon credits, and that’s before any law has been enacted limiting carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, the purported reason for any such limits--the claims that the climate is warming and that atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from human activities is the cause--has been reduced to pseudoscience making mischief comparable in scope to eugenics.

Just for the sake of changing the course of the argument, however, why not inquire of Udall and others in the global warming camp as to what sources of, say, electricity they propose as alternatives? “Renewables” like solar and wind is the stock answer. After decades of subsidies, and now laws mandating their use, these sources remain well under one percent of national electric output, and they obviously cannot run 24-7 even when they work.

The correct answer, of course, is nuclear. Udall has whispered that word somewhat approvingly. However, deep skepticism is warranted since most of Udall’s energy talk comes out of the Big Enviro side of his mouth. Despite its unequalled, half-century record for safety, Udall always raises that “issue” and can be expected to hide behind it when the chips are down and Big Enviro says, “No way, Mark.”

Click here for my op-ed on this subject as published in The Denver Post on July 27, and click here for the senator’s limp response.

It’s time, as they say, to get down to brass tacks, so here’s an open letter:


Dear Sen. Udall:

Many friends and I were happy to read your letter-to-the-editor in The Denver Post on July 29, responding to my op-ed published two days earlier. I had been attempting communication with your office for nearly eight weeks before I received two e-mails, slightly different but with substantially the same “boilerplate” I referred to in the op-ed.

It should surprise no one that you have supported WIPP. It commenced operations about two months after you took your seat in the U.S. House and now holds thousands of tons of TRU waste from your congressional district (Rocky Flats). My reference to Udall family complicity in delaying WIPP and adding huge sums to its cost was about events going back more than a decade before you were in Congress and needs no further elaboration here.

However, I’m reminded of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. I find at this website that your father was a sponsor. That was 27 years ago. My understandings are that, under this legislation, utilities (read, ratepayers) have now remitted about $30 billion to the federal fund it created; about $10 billion of that has been spent, largely or entirely on the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada; not an ounce of spent fuel has left temporary storage; and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., now intends that the Yucca Mountain project be deep-sixed.

I reminded readers of my op-ed, “Preserving the myth that radioactive waste cannot be safely disposed has been a major goal of organized ‘environmentalists’ for decades.” An article in The Denver Post on August 25 quotes you on Yucca Mountain, “a dead project.” Have you just rolled over and died for Sen. Reid?

Your claims of concern about anthropogenic global warming are not credible without a great deal more support for expanded nuclear power than this from your l-t-e: “I am more than open to expanding our use of nuclear power and recently said so on the floor of the Senate.” Frankly, sir, that’s not even a starter. The aforementioned Denver Post article about the bipartisan photo-op you and Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., held in front of trees killed years ago by pine beetles has a terrific headline, “Udall, McCain united in call for nuclear power,” but I hope you’ll excuse my skepticism after experiencing a decade or more of safety-shrouded doublespeak on the subject by Bill Richardson.

Perhaps as a red herring, your letter raised cost as an issue unfavorable to nuclear power. Nuclear power plants are delivering electricity cheaper than any other source today. Your “cleaner sources,” solar and wind, are the choices that have failed for decades on account of cost whenever they aren’t underwritten by direct government subsidies and/or laws like Colorado’s essentially mandatingtheir use without regard to cost. Uncertainty associated with the licensing process, and “leadership” such as you are getting from Sen. Reid, are the primary reasons I’d suggest for any reluctance by utility company boards and executives to build nuclear power plants we need.

Lastly, about global warming. People chasing money mostly from government grants and agency appropriations have now spent many tens of billions on “proving” that global warming continues, is a very bad thing, and is largely the result of increased concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by human activities. Others who simply observe the world around us shake our heads in disbelief, wondering what planet you and these researchers live on. The climate is cooling, not warming, and the researchers among the crowd laughably claiming consensus about warming can’t make their expensive, complicated--and might I also suggest falsified in some cases?--models jibe with real world measurements.

I believe global warming is to the late 20th and early 21st centuries what the pseudoscience eugenics was to the early 20th. For a cogent discussion of eugenics and the historic mischief of politicized science, look here.

Isn’t it well past time for you to level with the people you represent and tell them the truth? I wouldn’t suggest that’s a decision that can be reached and implemented easily. You have been prominent among global warming alarmists for a long time. Further, I acknowledge the awkwardness of, uh, breakfast table talk and all if this were juxtaposed against your wife’s prominent position in the propaganda end of Al Gore’s carbon-cap-and-trade crusade.

But wouldn’t a mind change now be better than having most of one’s constituents look back in a couple of years, wondering what kind of fool would defy what was so obvious and vote to accelerate his country’s economic tailspin? You got elected to lead us toward sound public policy. In my experience, that’s occasionally neither easy nor comfortable. Honesty, however, sure makes for better sleeping.

I look forward to receiving a reply that addresses directly what is said in this letter.

Respectfully,

s/ John Dendahl

John Dendahl, a Rocky Mountain Foundation senior fellow, is a retired business executive. He resides in Littleton, CO.

Keeping Energy In The Discussion: Questions To Ask At Town Hall Meetings

We had a lively conversation with Paul Driessen during CARE’s July Conference Call. As we were discussing energy and policies in Washington DC, the conversation naturally went to cap and trade legislation. Paul began giving us some ideas and we asked if he would, from his background on the subject, please give us some comments/questions that we could ask our representatives when they are home for August Recess that would keep energy issues in the dialogue. He promised to give it some thought and the following is what he created.

It suggests a number of important, substantive questions that members of Congress need to address, before proceeding further on energy and climate legislation. It could help inspire and energize people to participate in those sessions--and exercise their First Amendment rights to be fully involved in an informed democratic process. Indeed, many are questions that people all over the world should be asking their elected officials.

Demand Answers From Your Senators And Congressman During Their August Recess
Americans are justifiably wary about Congress rushing to overhaul our healthcare system--17% of our economy--with little debate, analysis or bipartisan input. They worry that the legislation could affect their costs, free choice, doctor-patient relationships and access to quality care.

They should be even more concerned about complex, thousand-page legislation that would overhaul 100% of our economy--the energy system that powers and enables everything we eat, heat, cool, grow, make, transport, drive and do--to prevent hypothetical manmade catastrophic climate change.

Energy is the Master Resource that makes life possible. Without abundant, reliable, affordable energy, opportunity, progress, job creation, health and civil rights are hobbled and rolled back.

And yet, global warming bills are being rushed into law at warp speed, not just without debate, but with debate vilified as climate holocaust denial, criminal acts and treason against the planet.

Proponents insist a planetary crisis demands instant action. The truth is that President Obama wants to present a US commitment to draconian reductions in plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide at the December Copenhagen climate conference. He wants to pressure China, India and other nations to sacrifice their economic growth to the specter of alleged climate disasters. Copenhagen is the last chance for eco-activists to implement a UN-centered system of global governance, global taxes, and global control of energy, economies and living standards.

Open, robust, unfettered debate is absolutely essential. It is our inalienable right, the foundation of democracy and a free and prosperous America. A good place to start that debate is the town hall meetings that our elected representatives will be holding during their August recess. Here are a few questions that concerned citizens might want to ask.
1) Congressman John Conyers said he didn’t bother reading the bill, before he voted on it, because he would need two lawyers to explain the passages to him. Did you read and understand it? All of it? Then how can we be expected to do so? Why should we be expected to obey it? Why should we let congressmen who can’t understand their own bills control 100% of our economy?

2) Global temperatures are not increasing. Thousands of scientists say humans and carbon dioxide are not causing a climate disaster. Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts and heat waves are not increasing. Emissions from China and India will quickly replace any CO2 reductions the United States might achieve by taxing and restricting fossil fuel use, crippling our economy, and hurting seniors and poor families most. Why does Congress refuse to allow real debate? Why does it simply assume and decree that we have a global warming crisis and must enact legislation immediately?

3) House Speaker Pelosi recently said “every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory,” so that America can slash energy use and emissions, and prevent dangerous climate change. This can only lead to a massive, intrusive Green Nanny State; the end of affordable, reliable energy; a coerced switch to expensive, unreliable wind and solar power; and skyrocketing energy costs that will hammer families and businesses and cost millions of jobs. Why would you support such legislation?

4) Cap-and-trade is a huge tax on the energy we use for everything we make and do. It’s a massive wealth transfer, from consumers to the government, to pay for unprecedented spending increases and more pork for favored businesses and voting blocs. It violates President Obama’s pledge not to tax anyone with incomes below $250,000. It will cost families $1000 to $4,600 per year in extra energy and living expenses. How can you justify voting for such punitive legislation?

5) The average annual temperature in Antarctica is minus 50. Temperatures would have to increase 85 degrees 24/7/365 for a century or more, to melt South Pole ice caps and raise sea levels 20-50 feet. Can you explain how a 0.02% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (from 285 ppm in 1850 to projected 485 ppm) can overturn basic laws of thermodynamics, replace the powerful natural forces that caused Ice Ages and other climate changes in the past, and produce ice-cap meltdowns?

6) Replacing hydrocarbons with “green” energy will require millions of acres of land for turbines, solar panels, geothermal facilities and transmission lines. Do you support relaxing environmental study, endangered species and other laws, to fast-track approval of these projects, despite their impacts on habitats? Or do you want them subjected to the same rules that have stymied thousands of other energy projects, so that renewable energy projects can’t be built, either--and we have a huge “energy gap”?

Do you support protecting the rights of land owners? Or do you favor eminent domain, so that government can seize people’s property and expedite construction of these projects?

7) Replacing hydrocarbons with “green” power will also require hundreds of millions of tons of steel, copper, concrete, fiberglass and rare earth minerals for turbines, solar panels and transmission lines. Do you support opening our lands for renewed exploration and development, so that we can produce these raw materials and create American jobs? Or do you intend to keep US lands off limits, allow eco-activists to file lawsuits to prevent development, and force us to depend on imports for renewable energy, too?

8) The United States spent $79 billion on global warming programs between 1989 and 2008. The vast majority went to scientists, bureaucrats, alarmist groups and propaganda campaigns that say we face a climate disaster. Do you support a law requiring that future spending be split 50:50 between researchers who think humans are causing a climate disaster, and those who believe climate change is mostly natural and cyclical--so that we can have honest, unbiased science … and sound public policy decisions?

9) Claims that we face a climate disaster are based on selected use of questionable temperature data, short-term temperature trends, and scary computer scenarios that even modelers don’t call predictions--but merely possible futures, if numerous assumptions about climate systems, energy generation, carbon dioxide and global economic growth 25-100 years from now turn out to be true. How can you justify transforming (and risking) America’s energy and economic future, based on computer models?

10) The White House and EPA suppressed a government report that said scientific evidence does not support claims that we face a global warming disaster--until after passage of a House bill that would send US carbon dioxide emissions back to 1868 levels. Why did you ignore this dictatorial and fraudulent action? Will you now demand a new debate and new vote? Demand that this report be reviewed and debated fully, before the Senate acts on similar legislation? Penalize EPA for suppressing free speech?

11) The economic pain, job losses and government intrusion into our lives under the House-passed global warming bill would reduce projected global average temperatures in 2050 by an imperceptible 0.1 degrees. That’s largely because 97% of the projected increase in CO2 emissions between now and 2030 will come from developing countries that are building new coal-fired power plants every week, according to the International Energy Agency. Why would you support legislation that is all pain, and no gain?

12) Over 1.5 billion people in China, India and Africa still do not have electricity, for even a light bulb or tiny refrigerator. Almost 2.5 billion people around the world live on less than $2 a day. Millions die every year from diseases that would be largely eradicated with electricity for refrigeration, sanitation, clinics, and industries that generate greater health and prosperity. How can you justify telling them global warming is the biggest threat they face, and they need to get by on wind and solar power, and give up their dreams of better lives, because you are worried about global warming? Doesn’t that violate their most basic human rights--including their right to improved living standards, and to life itself?

Exercise your constitutional rights. Write to your legislators. Attend town hall meetings. Ask questions. Demand answers. Demand debate. And safeguard your future, and your children’s future.


Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – black death.

The Best Course of Action on Climate Change Legislation

With so much going on in Washington politics in relation to energy—and especially cap and trade, it is difficult to stay on top of it all. Here from Master Resource—a Free-market Energy Blog, Robert Bradley, CEO and founder of the Institute for Energy Research, offers an up-to-date overview with lots of additional information for those who want to follow up with documentation.

Of note, is a response to this posting from atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, “Hansen’s proposal of a carbon tax paid into the Treasury is certainly a much better alternative to Waxman-Markey — if one really wanted to limit CO2 emissions – assuming, of course, that such a policy is needed

1. that anthropogenic CO2 increases will make a significant contribution to Global Warming. The evidence says No, contrary to the IPCC report; see http://www.nipccreport.org

2. that a warmer climate (such as existed during many periods of earth history) is worse than a colder climate.

A carbon tax would certainly be more effective and less costly. But it is not as attractive to politicians as the Waxman-Markey bill, which dispenses multi-billions of goodies and deserves to be called “The Full Employment for Lobbyists Act of 2009.”

But even an energy tax has many loopholes that surely will be exploited. Should farmers pay the tax? What about municipalities, police, firemen, hospitals, clergy, etc, etc. The Defense Department? Surely they will exempt “pollution-free” solar and wind energy. But how will enviros react to nuclear energy – which also emits no CO2? One could go on…

The best course of action is to do nothing – and adapt to inevitable naturally-caused climate changes, as mankind has been doing since the dawn of history."

The Left’s Civil War on Cap-and-Trade: Who Likes Political Capitalism?
Some environmental leaders have said that I am naïve to think that there is an alternative to cap-and-trade, and they suggest that I should stick to climate modeling. Their contention is that it is better to pass any bill now and improve it later. Their belief that they, as opposed to the fossil interests, have more effect on the bill’s eventual shape seems to be the pinnacle of naïveté.
- James Hansen, “Strategies to Address Global Warming,” July 2009.

Welcome to the science of politics, Dr. Hansen–and welcome to a tradition in political economy that is more than a century old. “I see no force in modern society which can cope with the power of capital handled by talent,” stated William Graham Summer in 1905, “and I cannot doubt that the greatest force will control the other forces.” And said George Will in our time: “The world is divided between those who do and do not understand that activist, interventionist, regulating, subsidizing government is generally a servant of the strong and entrenched against the weak and aspiring.”

The political hijacking of climate legislation is why the Left is now embarrassingly split on the issue. And just maybe this is the opening wedge to get the Left to reconsider climate alarmism in its wider dimensions. After all, higher energy costs disproportionately affect the poor and slow the drive to mass-electrify the developing world. And the climate crusade is resurrecting (uneconomic) nuclear power–a Left no-no. And geoengineering–that too is an unwanted stepchild of climate exaggeration.

And there is even the spectre of Big Brotherism in this energy road to serfdom. Remember Jimmy Carter’s winter/summer thermostat regulations? Perhaps civil libertarian Nat Hentoff, now with the Cato Institute, will start to worry about the carbon police in a no-holds-barred carbon-constrained world.

There are good reasons for the Left to oppose the Waxman-Markey climate bill that is now in debate in the U.S. Senate.

1. HR 2454 does virtually nothing to reverse out the human influence on climate.
2. The political attempt to deal with the issue has been hijacked by, in Hansen’s words, “people in alligator shoes.”
3. Climate progressivism, led by cap-and-trade, is a throwback to Ken Lay’s Enron.
4. Carbon-code regulation for its own sake is dumb, vindictive, and elitist–an affront to the “little guy” rhetoric of the party in power.

Running Out of Time?
A realistic look at climate science, economics, and politics points towards a coming tipping point in favor of climate-change adaptation rather climate-change mitigation. This explains the current panic among climate regulationists about not passing cap-and-trade legislation in 2009–regulation that is supposed to magically lead to hard, short-term global targets in Copenhagen later this year.

Political failure this year portends failure next year–and beyond, which is to say that there are more losers than winners in cap-and-trade because carbon-based fuels are winners and politically correct energies are losers–as judged by consumer/voters.

Time is running out, given:
1) The long-lived nature of fossil-fuel infrastructure in light of the consumers’ strong preference of affordable, reliable energy;
2) The inability of renewable energies to compete on cost and reliability grounds despite decades of special government favor; and
3) The less-than-linear (logarithmic) forcing by greenhouse gas emissions on climate. (CO2 emissions have less and less of an effect on climate because of the atmosphere’s saturation effect.

In The Guardian earlier this year, James Hansen gave President Obama “four years to save the earth.” This was an update to Hansen’s 2006 pronouncement in the New York Review of Books: “We have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions.”

And as if to make it possible, Al Gore’s Repower America Project (Alliance for Climate Protection) has had a ten-year decarbonization plan. In their words:
It will be possible to achieve a 100% clean power mix over the next ten years if appropriate policies are put in place to unleash the [zero carbon source] technologies’ vast potential.
But then came Waxman-Markey, and Al Gore (like Joe Romm, under intense pressure at Obama’s think tank Center for American Progress) buckled to the politics of incrementalism–make that incremental incrementalism. And James Hansen, Al Gore’s mentor, has responded in no uncertain terms.

Here is what Hansen recently said to the party in power–and Al Gore, President Obama, and John Holdren in particular:
But we have to level with … President Obama [who] recently came out with a full-throated endorsement of Waxman-Markey. Was he properly advised about its contents? Perhaps so, but he chose to overrule the advice? His Science Adviser, John Holdren, has said that he cannot discuss what he has said to the President.

Al Gore probably has the strongest voice that the President would listen to, so assessment on that front is useful. Last year Al called for rewiring America within 10 years – a national electric grid with renewable energies and energy efficiency replacing 100 percent of coal use. Now he supports Waxman-Markey, which locks in negligible movement in that direction–indeed, the progress in that direction might be greater without Waxman-Markey, and surely would be greater with a rising carbon price. Perhaps “100% carbon-free in 10 years” was only meant as an idealistic goal to be abandoned.

So now that it has been revealed that the climate “problem” is far beyond what voters and politicians can or will stomach, what will Dr. Hansen do? One can only hope that he will bow to reality by:
1. Revisiting his alarmist science (he has shown signs of open-mindedness before) or
2. Instruct the political sector to cease-and-desist and not to squander wealth on the pretext of addressing climate change, wealth that is needed for societal adaptation under his gloomy scenarios.

Joe Romm vs. The Left
And then there is Joe Romm of Climate Progress, who is hopping mad at the Left, not only the Right, when it comes to climate alarmism and policy activism.\

James Hansen … RealClimate … Energy Action Coalition … Breakthrough Institute … Washington Post … New York Times … to Dr. Romm, all scientific news must be bad news about the climate, and no climate legislation is bad enough to veto given the alternative of no legislation. His is a scorched earth policy for a non-scorched earth. Romm even abandoned his earlier views about what was good climate legislation! I think it had to do with organizational pressure, and thus I challenged Romm to stand up to his boss John Podesta on Waxman-Markey just like I challenged my old boss Ken Lay on Enron’s knee-jerk climate alarmism. There are limits to being a ”company man.”

And Dr. Romm does have a fight on his hands. Regressive energy taxation and a special-interest takeover of the 1,428-page H.R 2454 is no small matter. It is not surprising that a growing number of prominent individuals and organizations on his side of the debate do not like corporate welfare (aka political capitalism) and special-interest regulation that is form over substance. Welcome to the real world.

Contra Romm, climate policy needs a fundamental mid-course correction. Cap-and-trade should politically die just like the House-passed BTU tax died in 1993. Free-market economic policies that create individual and organizational wealth is the best that politics can do when it comes to the real or imagined challenges of global and regional climate change.