Obama Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor represents a potential threat to U.S. consumers and to the economy in terms of energy and the environment.
In her 2007 Second Circuit decision in Riverkeeper, Inc. v. EPA 475 F. 3d 83, Judge Sotomayor sided with extreme green groups who had sued the U.S. EPA because the agency permitted cost-benefit analysis to be used in the determination of environmental protection technology for power plant cooling water intake structures.
Fortunately, Judge Sotomayor’s decision was recently overturned by the Supreme Court, fittingly on April 1, 2009 (Entergy v. Riverkeeper, No. 07-588).
Had the EPA been required to abide by Judge Sotomayor’s decision, American consumers would have been forced to pay billions of dollars more in energy costs every year as power plants producing more than one-half of the nation’s electricity would have had to undertake expensive retrofits.
President Obama said this weekend in an interview that,
“What I want is not just ivory tower learning. I want somebody who has the intellectual firepower but also a little bit of a common touch and a practical sense of how the world works.”
But Sotomayor didn’t have too much of a “common touch” and “practical sense” when it came to the cost-benefit analysis.
Senators should probe whether Judge Sotomayor lacks the common-sense realization that the benefits of environmental regulation ought to outweigh its costs — a worldview with ominous implications given the nation’s present rush toward cap-and-tax global warming regulation and other green mindlessness.
For right now, we’ll just leave that as a question.
The WHO summary document concerning its program to rollback the use of DDT states that,
Malaria is one of the greatest public health challenges facing the developing world. World Health Organization (WHO) data indicate that malaria causes over 1 million deaths per year, with
over 90% of those deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria causes over 300 million cases of acute illness each year. Children account for over three-quarters of these cases, and malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds. Beyond the immediate disease burden, malaria incurs devastating costs on local economies, both direct costs of treatment and prevention and indirect costs of lost productivity. This burden is especially great in the tropical developing
world where malaria most often occurs.
So it sounds like you’d want an effective tool for combating a disease that kills a child every 30 seconds, right? The WHO document says that,
Spraying indoor surfaces with DDT has been highly effective in interrupting malarial transmission in many developing countries.
So why, then, does the WHO want to phase out DDT? The WHO says,
Because of its chemical stability, it is slowly metabolized, it accumulates in the environment through food chains and in tissues of exposed organisms and is potentially harmful to wildlife and to humans.
So the WHO wants to phase-out the “highly effective” DDT because it is “potentially” harmful. But what does “potentially” harmful mean and does it offset a-dead-child-every-30-seconds?
Next, the WHO says,
DDT and its residues build up in the food chain, and it is potentially harmful to wildlife and to humans, if not applied in accordance with WHO guidelines and recommendations.
So the WHO wants to phase-out DDT because some applicators don’t use it properly? Isn’t it worth ensuring that DDT is used properly (whatever that actually means) given that a child dies every 30 seconds from malaria?
The WHO continues,
Chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides such as DDT, which became widely used in the 1940s, are slowly metabolized, accumulate in living tissue, and can affect the health of humans and wildlife. There is now considerable debate and increased suspicion regarding the ability of DDT and other pesticides to disrupt the endocrine systems of mammals.
Debate? Are you kidding me? Who is debating what? There seems to be no debate that a child dies every 30 seconds from malaria. How many children need to die while unknown people allegedly debate who-knows-what?
Finally, the WHO says,
New evidence is being published about links between low-level DDT exposure and adverse health effects, in particular related to childhood neurodevelopment, breast cancer in
women, male reproductive health (reduced sperm counts and quality) and to diabetes.
Even if these claims were true — and they’re not (see e.g., sperm count and breast cancer claims debunked) — since when does any of this outweigh the tragedy of a-dead-child-every-30-seconds?
So there’s no more question — the WHO wouldn’t want to save this child.
In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria. So much for that. Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease. The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world’s poor will suffer as a result.
The U.N. now plans to advocate for drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria. The aim “is to achieve a 30% cut in the application of DDT worldwide by 2014 and its total phase-out by the early 2020s, if not sooner,” said WHO and the U.N. Environment Program in a statement on May 6…
“Sadly, WHO’s about-face has nothing to do with science or health and everything to do with bending to the will of well-placed environmentalists,” says Roger Bate of Africa Fighting Malaria. “Bed net manufacturers and sellers of less-effective insecticides also don’t benefit when DDT is employed and therefore oppose it, often behind the scenes.”
The 14th century witnessed the “Black Death.” We’ll witness “Green Death.”
The House Energy and Commerce last night approved an amendment introduced by Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) to the Waxman-Markey bill that would require the EPA to explore establishing a national program for labeling products with their “carbon content” — that is, labeling products to show much CO2 was emitted in their manufacture and the warming impact of that CO2.
The goal of this amendment is to stigmatize the use of energy at a consumer product level and would undoubtedly lead to a host of dubious-to-fraudulent marketing claims about the climate-friendliness of consumer products.
We reported in March about the New York utility Indeck filing suit to declare the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) unconstitutional.
Briefs have since been filed — they’ll make great holiday weekend reading!
In the immediate wake of President Obama’s announcement of more stringent mileage standards by 2016, California air czar Mary Nichols told Reuters yesterday that,
“California will be immediately getting to work on what the standards should be for beyond 2016,” and that she expects, “a much more stringent standard.”
Now that California voters have forced Gov. Schwarzenegger to start cutting state employees to stave off the state’s fiscal crisis, a good place to start would be pink-slipping Nichols and the rest of the California Air Resources Board.
“Here are some of the key votes on amendments [to the Waxman-Markey climate bill] so far. Most were straight party-line votes, but a few Democrats strayed on several votes.
Mike Rogers (R-MI) introduced an amendment suspending the Act if China and India don’t adopt similarly stringent emissions reductions. Defeated on a party-line vote with all members of the committee voting, 23-36.
Roy Blunt (R-MO) introduced an amendment suspending the Act if electricity prices go up in any region more than 10% after inflation. Defeated, 23-32.
Fred Upton (R-MI) introduced an amendment suspending the Act if unemployment reaches 15%. Defeated, 21-34.
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced an amendment requiring full disclosure to consumers of cost increases due to the Act. Defeated, 19-35.
Lee Terry (R-NE) introduced an amendment suspending the Act if gasoline prices hit $5. Defeated, 25-31.
Tim Murphy (R-PA) introduced an amendment suspending Act if 10,000 steel jobs lost. Defeated, 20-35.
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced an amendment prohibiting using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases (H. R. 391).Defeated, 23-33. John Barrow of Georgia was the only Democrat who voted yes.
Phil Gingrey (R-GA) introduced an amendment requiring 100% auctioning of ration coupons, with proceeds going to the States. Defeated, 4-52. This vote shows how tied the Republicans as well as the Democrats are to big business special interests.”
As for a the Democrats are concerned, damn the economic and social downsides, full speed ahead on the costliest, junk science-fueled special interest boondoggle of all time.
… in 2008, according to a report released yesterday by the Energy Information Administration.
That’s no surprise as economic activity and energy use are highly correlated.
The greens want us to use less energy, so you can probably predict the impact that will have on economic growth. Don’t bother coming back with the “efficiency” argument — been there, debunked that.
President Obama’s so-called Economic Recovery Advisory Board held its first quarterly meeting today — it was a spectacle of the sort of self-dealing and corruption that we may rightly expect to become routine if cap-and-trade legislation passes.
After the meeting, CNBC’s Becky Quick interviewed ERAB board member John Doerr, head of the venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins — that’s right, the very same Kleiner Perkins that has invested more than $1 billion in 40 cap-and-trade-dependent business ventures and that has Al Gore as a partner.
Doerr said that ERAB talked about the need for:
Green technologies;
Cap-and-trade; and
Rewarding electric utilities for selling less electricity.
Doerr also told Quick that an EPA analysis showed that cap-and-trade would cost Americans less than $100 per year. (LOL!)
But we have no reason to believe that Doerr wouldn’t say and do absolutely anything to help ram through cap-and-trade legislation that would enable his firm to steal billions of dollars from consumers and taxpayers through bogus Al Gore-endorsed “green technologies.”
If you’re thinking that Doerr is only one voice on the ERAB and that less-biased heads will prevail, think again. Here are the other ERAB members and their interests/positions on cap-and-trade:
Austan Goolsbee as staff director and chief economist (Obama administration);
William H. Donaldson, SEC Chair, 2003-05 (Obama supporter who has spoken in support of climate legislation);
Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., president and CEO, TIAA-CREF (TIAA-CREF promotes climate change legislation through shareholder activism and possibly stands to benefit from “green” investments);
Robert Wolf, chairman and CEO, UBS (sells climate change-related financial products);
David F. Swensen, CIO, Yale University (Yale supports climate change legislation);
Mark T. Gallogly, founder and managing partner, Centerbridge Partners L.P. (early Obama supporter);
Penny Pritzker, chairwoman, Pritzker Realty Group (Obama campaign finance chairman);
Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO, GE (parent company of NBC News) (lobbying for climate legislation through USCAP);
John Doerr, partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (lobbying for climate legislation through Al Gore);
Jim Owens, chairman and CEO, Caterpillar Inc. (lobbying for climate change legislation through USCAP);
Monica C. Lozano, publisher & chief executive officer, La Opinion (her newspaper endorsed Obama);
Charles E. Phillips, Jr., president, Oracle (wants to use Oracle technology to ration electricity to consumers through a “smart grid”);
Anna Burger, chairwoman, Change to Win (union group that supports green jobs);
Richard L. Trumka, secretary-treasurer, AFL-CIO (the union has joined with greens to lobby for climate legislation);
Laura D’Andrea Tyson, dean, Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley (Obama supporter who has advocated climate change legislation);
Martin Feldstein, professor of Economics, Harvard (opposes cap-and-trade)
So of the 16 members of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, only one (Feldstein) opposes cap-and-trade. At least six (Immelt, Owens, Doerr, Ferguson, Wolf, Phillips) expect direct financial benefits from cap-and-trade. The remaining members are either Obama supporters/employees or union representatives. Taxpayers, consumers and non-rent-seeking businesses have been left out in the cold.
Click here for the Quick-Doerr interview. Don’t miss Green Hell endorser Larry Kudlow’s anti-green fusillade at the end.
This memo from the Minority Staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee indicates that Republicans are finally starting to understand that big business is the enemy of taxpayers, consumers and, well, freedom itself, when global warming is concerned.
By themselves, Al Gore and the greens lack the credibility and the lobbyists to put the carbon choke-hold on our economy. But big business — like the members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership — are providing what the Gore-greens lack.
