Author: Steve Milloy
NUMBY-ism blocks CCS in Germany
Germans say “not under our backyard” to carbon capture and storage, reports The Guardian.
Climate Parasite Quote of the Day
In a Washington Post op-ed today, America’s foremost rentseekers, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers (Al Gore’s venture capital firm) and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, wrote:
We are American businessmen. Our job is building businesses and commercializing innovation. Every year, GE invests 6 percent of its industrial revenue in research and development to produce more efficient and cleaner wind turbines, jet engines, locomotives, power turbines and appliances. Kleiner Perkins has invested $680 million in 48 of the most compelling new clean-energy technologies, with $1.1 billion more to invest. We are trying to do our part. But our government’s energy and climate policies are our principal obstacle to success.
By lobbying for the America-hating, economy-killing Waxman-Markey bill simply to make money, Doerr and Immelt are not businessmen so much as they are thieving parasites. They want a federal law which would enable them to sponge-off taxpayers and rip-off consumers. By forcing Americans to pay more for energy and to reduce their standard of living, Doerr and Immelt will destroy not build America.
Climate Parasite Quote of the Day
In a Washington Post op-ed today, America’s foremost rentseekers, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers (Al Gore’s venture capital firm) and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, wrote:
We are American businessmen. Our job is building businesses and commercializing innovation. Every year, GE invests 6 percent of its industrial revenue in research and development to produce more efficient and cleaner wind turbines, jet engines, locomotives, power turbines and appliances. Kleiner Perkins has invested $680 million in 48 of the most compelling new clean-energy technologies, with $1.1 billion more to invest. We are trying to do our part. But our government’s energy and climate policies are our principal obstacle to success.
By lobbying for the America-hating, economy-killing Waxman-Markey bill simply to make money, Doerr and Immelt are not businessmen so much as they are thieving parasites. They want a federal law which would enable them to sponge-off taxpayers and rip-off consumers. By forcing Americans to pay more for energy and to reduce their standard of living, Doerr and Immelt will destroy not build America.
Greatest Generation’s Last Fight?
The ‘Greatest Generation’ may have enough left for one more fight.
Baltimore Gas & Electric’s request for an expedited regulatory review of its smart meter installation program ran into the third rail of American politics last week — the AARP.
AARP Maryland filed a letter of opposition to the fast-track process asking for a full hearing, according to the Baltimore Sun (July 28).
The Sun reported:
“The problem is what’s not in the filing,” said AARP Maryland’s advocacy director, Hank Greenberg. “There are a lot of questions that need to be answered.”
Only with an evidentiary hearing, with sworn witnesses and testimony by experts, would the public be “able to substantiate whether there are savings and whether some of the claims in the filing can be verified and backed up,” he said.
In its letter, AARP also raises concerns about a “time-of-use” pricing scheme also included in BGE’s filing. The utility proposed charging about 16 cents per kilowatt-hour from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays from June through September and 10 cents for other times during that period.
Not only should AARP be concerned about smart meters — a.k.a., energy rationing via high prices — the seniors’ advocacy group ought to be concerned about the Waxman-Markey climate bill now being considered in the Senate.
While Waxman-Markey will raise energy prices for seniors (and everyone else), it won’t increase their fixed retirement incomes.
Greatest Generation’s Last Fight?
The ‘Greatest Generation’ may have enough left for one more fight.
Baltimore Gas & Electric’s request for an expedited regulatory review of its smart meter installation program ran into the third rail of American politics last week — the AARP.
AARP Maryland filed a letter of opposition to the fast-track process asking for a full hearing, according to the Baltimore Sun (July 28).
The Sun reported:
“The problem is what’s not in the filing,” said AARP Maryland’s advocacy director, Hank Greenberg. “There are a lot of questions that need to be answered.”
Only with an evidentiary hearing, with sworn witnesses and testimony by experts, would the public be “able to substantiate whether there are savings and whether some of the claims in the filing can be verified and backed up,” he said.
In its letter, AARP also raises concerns about a “time-of-use” pricing scheme also included in BGE’s filing. The utility proposed charging about 16 cents per kilowatt-hour from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays from June through September and 10 cents for other times during that period.
Not only should AARP be concerned about smart meters — a.k.a., energy rationing via high prices — the seniors’ advocacy group ought to be concerned about the Waxman-Markey climate bill now being considered in the Senate.
While Waxman-Markey will raise energy prices for seniors (and everyone else), it won’t increase their fixed retirement incomes.
Cap-and-clunker?
This week’s failure of the Obama administration’s cash-for-clunkers program — it ran out of money within a few days of starting — should give us all pause.
If the Obama administration and Congress can’t design, fund and execute the relatively simple task of giving away taxpayer money to people who buy new cars, then what can we expect from their 1,400-page Waxman-Markey bill that completely rewrites national energy policy?
Real melting: Climate alarmism in California
It looks as though Al Gore will need to work on controlling public opinion rather than greenhouse gases.
Global warming alarmism and support for greenhouse gas regulation is slipping in eco-cidal California, according to a new survey by the Public Policy Institute of California.
According to the survey media release:
Most residents (66%) support the 2006 California law (AB 32) that requires greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020. Support has declined 7 points from July 2008 (73%) and 12 points from 2007 (78%). The decline is sharpest among Republicans (57% 2008, 43% today).
While most see global warming as a threat (47% very serious, 28% somewhat serious) to the economy and quality of life in the state, the percentage of residents who categorize the threat as very serious has declined over the past two years (54% 2007, 52% 2008, 47% today.) Residents are divided over whether the state government should take action to reduce emissions right away (48%) or wait until the economy and state budget situation improve (46%). In July 2008, when the plan to implement AB 32 was being discussed, a majority (57%) said the government should adopt it right away rather than wait (36%).
“Californians clearly support policies to improve the environment,” says Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of PPIC. “But in the current economic climate their support has dropped a notch.”
More Al Gore lobbying $$$
The Climate Protection Action Fund, a subsidiary of Al Gore’s Repower America, paid $60,000 to the Glover Park Group during the second quarter of 2009 for lobbying on Waxman-Markey.
We earlier reported that Al Gore’s venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, paid $100,000 in lobbying fees so far in 2009.
Al Gore failed to disclose any of this when he testified in April before Congress in favor of Waxman-Markey.
Click here for the CPAF lobbying report.
ClimateWire reports that a Gore spokesman failed to respond to several requests for comment. No matter. Had the Gore camp responded, it likely would have been with a face similar to that below, when Al Gore denied at the April House hearing that he had any business relationship with Goldman Sachs.
Climate bill’s tax wolf in ‘free money’ clothing
Beware of greens bearing free carbon allowances.
Climate bill supporters are trying to attract Senate votes for Waxman-Markey by touting the free carbon allowances that would be allocated to individual states. This analysis by the World Resources Institute, estimates the range of free carbon allowances for energy consumer assistance programs on a per capita basis at $40/person (California) to $160/person (Wyoming) for the year 2016. The average assistance level is $90/person.
While such “free money” sounds great, it does have a hidden cost — higher energy prices that far exceed the value of the allowances.
For example, Georgia residents would receive about $80/person/year in free allowances to offset higher energy costs. But the head of the Georgia Public Service Commission recently stated that a climate bill would raise energy costs to the average Georgia Power customers by an estimated $66/month by 2020. So while a family of four might get free allowances worth $320/year, their cost of electricity would increase by $792/year, a net loss of $472/year.
Would you pay that much money annually for a government program that accomplishes nothing?
Germans hoard incandescents ahead of ‘light bulb socialism’
From Spiegel:
As the Sept. 1 deadline for the implementation of the first phase of the EU’s ban on incandescent light bulbs approaches, shoppers, retailers and even museums are hoarding the precious wares — and helping the manufacturers make a bundle…
But — like laws on bent cucumbers — many have mocked the light bulb legislation as just another example of an EU bureaucracy gone wild. Holger Krahmer, for example, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany’s business-friendly FDP party has accused the EU of imposing ‘light bulb socialism’.”
Obama OSHA Pick Supports Junk Science in Courts and Public Policy; Senate Should Probe Links With Trial Lawyers, Radical Environmentalists
WASHINGTON, July 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — President Obama’s nominee to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), David Michaels, should be grilled by the U.S. Senate about his links to trial lawyers and other anti-science activist groups, JunkScience.com says. Continue reading Obama OSHA Pick Supports Junk Science in Courts and Public Policy; Senate Should Probe Links With Trial Lawyers, Radical Environmentalists