Category: Green Hell

From Carbon Control News:

The natural gas pipeline industry [in the form of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA)] is drafting a legislative proposal for revising [Waxman-Markey] to … allow the industry to pass-along the cost of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to its customers without an explicit approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)…

While merchant power generators, utilities, and a number of other entities receive free allowances under the Waxman-Markey bill, pipeline companies do not. The INGAA spokespeson says the industry is not requesting free allowances, but instead is calling on Congress to allow the cost of purchasing allowances to be directly passed along to consumers, arguing that the allowance costs should be reflected in the delivered product.

“Unlike other industrial sources, we can’t simply raise our prices to reflect allowance” costs, the spokesperson says, noting that a pipeline company would need to go to FERC and formally request it, initiating a proceeding that can take a year or longer.

Instead, INGAA wants pipeline companies to be able to charge rates that “track” the fluctuating price of carbon allowances. Opening a new rate case would also “make the entire rate base subject to challenge and uncertainty,” something the companies want to avoid.

Here’s a novel thought: Why not oppose Waxman-Markey instead of trying to buff that legislative turd into a popsicle?

From Politico.com:

Three House Democratic leaders who were whipping members on the climate change bill gave tens of thousands in campaign cash to party moderates around the time of the 219-212 vote on June 26, according to Federal Election Commission records.

From the Sunday Times (Perth, Australia):

“While the fuel sources of renewable energy are inexpensive, the other costs associated with it are not, including the initial infrastructure cost, network costs, back-up generation and the like which are factors in the full cost of renewable energy,” Synergy head of corporate affairs Andrew Gasper said.

Will President Obama be the building inspector-in-chief?

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.

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.

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?

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?

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’.”

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.

“Michaels supports the use of junk science as a basis for public policy and court decisions, representing a threat to employers, employees, consumers and taxpayers,” said Steve Milloy, publisher of JunkScience.com.

Michaels runs something called the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP) at the George Washington University. While its university affiliation and academic name would seem to lend it a modicum of credibility, in fact, SKAPP’s origins are much more revealing.

As Milloy first reported in the Wall Street Journal in October 2003, SKAPP was launched by something called the Common Benefit Trust — an expense account originally established for the purpose of compensating silicone breast implant (SBI) plaintiff lawyers for legitimate services and expenses incurred in connection with the multi-billion dollar SBI litigation.

But some of that money was diverted to form SKAPP, whose mission was to work to overturn the 1993 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals — the landmark decision that permits judges to set up scientific review panels in federal litigation to keep junk science out of the courtroom. One Daubert panel played a pivotal role in stopping SBI litigation in federal courts.

SKAPP has also been recently active in the controversy over the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), which is used in food and beverage packaging.

The day after Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) introduced a bill to ban BPA in baby and children’s products in April 2008, personal injury lawyers filed a billion-dollar class action lawsuit against five baby bottle manufacturers for using BPA in plastic baby bottles and toddler training cups.

Around that time, Michaels was active in the media against BPA, telling the Washington Post, for example, that BPA makers were like the tobacco industry because, he claimed, raising questions about the science underlying regulatory action is merely a tactic to delay regulation.

“Apparently, the only decent thing for an industry wrongfully besieged by activists and the government to do is to knuckle under in Michaels view,” Milloy said. “Be assured that Michaels will advance the insidious junk science agenda at OSHA unless the Senate stops him,” Milloy added.

The Obama administration’s new mileage standards are not slated to apply to vehicle makers that sell fewer than 400,000 cars per year in the U.S., reports the Wall Street Journal — taking BMW, Daimler AG, Suzuki and Mitsubishi Motors off the hook.

In effect, the provision would make it easier for Mercedes to keep selling cars like its $147,000, 12-cylinder S600 sedan, rated at 13 miles per gallon, while GM or Toyota would be required to meet tougher mileage standards with smaller, more efficient cars.

Do you think that Government Motors CEO Obama realizes the competitive disadvantage at which he placed his own company?