MSNBC reports that,
Hundreds of California at-risk students may become part of the green economy if they sign up for the state’s new “green corps,” which the governor launched Monday.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made the announcement just after meeting with President Obama’s Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis in Sacramento.
If this is about jobs, that’s fine. If this is about taking “troubled youth” and turning them into green automatons, that’s quite another matter.
The Associated Press reports that,
Eight Senate Democrats are opposing speedy action on President Barack Obama’s bill to combat global warming, complicating prospects for the legislation and creating problems for their party’s leaders.
The eight Democrats disapprove of using the annual budget debate to pass Obama’s “cap and trade” bill to fight greenhouse gas emissions, a measure that divides lawmakers, environmentalists and businesses. The lawmakers’ opposition makes it more difficult for Democratic leaders to move the bill without a threat of a Republican filibuster.
The budget debate is the only way to circumvent Senate rules that allow a unified GOP to stop a bill through filibusters.
“Enactment of a cap-and-trade regime is likely to influence nearly every feature of the U.S. economy,” wrote the Democratic senators, mostly moderates. They were joined by 25 Republicans. “Legislation so far-reaching should be fully vetted and given appropriate time for debate.”
It takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, but Democrats and allied independents currently control 58 seats…
The Democrats who signed the letter, addressed to the chairman and top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, were: Robert Byrd, W.Va.; Blanche Lincoln, Ark.; Mary Landrieu, La.; Carl Levin, Mich.; Evan Bayh, Ind.; Ben Nelson, Neb.; Bob Casey Jr., Pa.; and Mark Pryor, Ark.
The 25 Republicans were led by Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska.
Take action:
E-mail your support to at last one of the following Democrat Senators who are standing against the Obama Climate Railroad:
Sen. Robert Byrd, W.Va.;
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Ark.;
Sen. Mary Landrieu, La.;Carl Levin, Mich.;
Sen. Evan Bayh, Ind.;
Sen. Ben Nelson, Neb.;
Sen. Bob Casey Jr., Pa.; and
Sen. Mark Pryor, Ark.
Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar today announced plans to lay off more than 2,400 employees at five plants in Illinois, Indiana and Georgia as the heavy equipment maker continues to cut costs amid the global economic downturn.
Since it’s hardly rocket science that,
Bad economy = Less construction = Bad news for Caterpillar,
inquiring minds want to know why caterpillar is lobbying, via the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, for economy-harming greenhouse gas regulation. Moreover, since such regulation is likely to be anti-coal in nature, why is Caterpillar effectively lobbying against the coal industry, one its biggest customers?
Take action:
Ask Caterpillar Investor Relations why CEO James Owens is lobbying against his own earnings.
As related in today’s Wall Street Journal entitled, “Tax My Products, Please,” AutoNation CEO Michael Jackson said at a conference earlier this month that
“We need more expensive gaosline.”
Why would Mr. Jackson adopt such an anti-consumer, anti-car and anti-his-own business attitude? The WSJ reported that,
While last year’s energy spike briefly encouraged small-car sales, Mr. Jackson complained that those sales have plummeted with gas prices. “I have fuel-efficient vehicles parked at my dealerships as far as the eye can see. I can’t give them away.” He figures a tax that guarantees a gas-price floor of $4 a gallon is a “good start.” [Ford CEO Alan Mulally], for his part, talked about how good Ford’s sales of small cars were in Europe, and that “one of the reasons is that gasoline and diesel is somewhere between seven and nine dollars a gallon.”
Jackson won’t suffer if gas prices go up. He made $4.5 million in 2006 and $3.4 million in 2007. While information on his 2008 compensation will be released later this month, it could very well be in the same neighborhood since his base salary is $1.1 million.
Take action:
E-mail AutoNation CEO Michael Jackson and tell him that his problem could be resolved by selling vehicles that Americans want to buy — like SUVs. You may want to mention that higher gas taxes are regressive and will hit those in lower tax brackets much harder than it will multimillionaires like himself.
The New York Times reports today on the folly of “clean coal” projects.
As the federal government and industry spend billions of dollars on projects to capture CO2, the daunting task remains what to do with it after capture. Here’s what the greens say, according to the Times
:Greenpeace argues that the energy required to capture the carbon, pressurize it and pump it underground is too large and the risks of underground storage too high. The effort, the group says, would divert money from more promising alternatives. Others argue that making coal safe to burn would simply encourage damaging mining, like mountaintop removal.
For more on the clean coal controversy, check out this piece by Steve Milloy.
The bottom line: Coal, as used in the U.S., is already clean. There’s no need to capture and bury it — even if such a Herculean task could be accomplished.
Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell today offered a dose of reality concerning energy and CO2 in a federal securities filing:
In the future, in order to help meet the world’s energy demand, we expect to produce more hydrocarbons from unconventional sources than currently. The production of hydrocarbons from those sources has an energy intensity that is a number of times higher than that for production from conventional sources. Therefore, in the long term, it is expected that the CO2 intensity of our production will increase.
Unfortunately, the sentence immediately preceding the above quote stated:
Emissions of greenhouse gases and associated climate change are real risks to Shell and society in general.
Would you invest in a company that condemns its own products and then says it plans on selling more of them?
Take action:
Trash has become worthless in China, crimping the recycling business, the New York Times reported on March 12.
The problem isn’t confined to China:
Environmentalists and recycling experts worry about the impact of the recycling slump. With Western curbside recycling programs becoming less profitable, local governments are being forced to re-examine their programs as they struggle to balance budgets. In some cases, that means that office printouts and soda cans, once exported, went to landfills.
“It used to be that recyclers would pay governments for these goods,” said Mr. Savage of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. “But now governments have to pay recyclers. What was once a revenue stream is now a cost to cities.”
So maybe the greens were a little hasty in condemning economic growth?
IBM is addressing water resources as part of its Smarter Planet/Think marketing campaign. In a campaign media release today, IBM VP Sharon Nunes said that,
“Without sufficient insight into near- and long-term factors affecting your water supply and usage — complex issues such as access, quality, cost and re-use — you increasingly run the risk of failure.”
A reasonable sentiment — until you get to the end of the media release which reads:
“Together with IBM, The Nature Conservancy is developing computer tools that will enable companies to gain a better understanding of the environmental and social consequences of their water use. By fostering sustainable water management practices, companies and municipalities will be able to make better decisions to the benefit of both local communities and nature.” — Brian Richterb, Director of The Nature Conservancy’s Global Freshwater Team.
Translation: The greens are looking to IBM technology to help them reduce our access to water.
Steve Milloy’s new book, Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them, discusses how the greens are working to make us thirsty.
Reuters reported today,
Canada’s federal government has given itself the power to decide whether infrastructure projects aimed at stimulating the economy are subject to environmental assessment, a top minister said on Monday.
The move is aimed at streamlining approvals for C$12 billion ($9.4 billion) of public spending being planned to kick-start the country’s flagging economy, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said.
Word of the Conservative government’s policy, which also involves delegating some assessment decisions to the provinces, had already angered environmental groups. It comes into force immediately.
Just last month Prime Minister Stephen Harper told CNBC free market champion and Green Hell endorser Larry Kudlow that economic realities trump green policies.
Go Canada!
The Wall Street Journal reported today that,
Many state and city governments reeling from financial woes are about to get whacked again, this time by an unforeseen increase in their pension bill thanks to market declines.
In an effort to stave off tax increases, New Jersey lawmakers on Monday will consider a bill that would allow municipalities to defer payment of half their annual pension bill, due April 1, for one year. Those towns, counties and schools that opt to defer would face a higher pension bill for years to come.
Market hits are bad enough, but did you know that not only were many state pension funds already underfunded before the financial crisis, but many state pension fund administrators are working to make things worse by lobbying for global warming regulation.
For more on this story check out our report, Pensions in Peril: Are State Officials Risking Public Employee Retirement Benefits by Playing Global Warming Politics?
Take action:
1. Read Pensions in Peril; and
2. If you are a current or retired public employee who is a beneficiary of a state or local pension fund system, contact your state and local representatives and request that the system administrators explain why they are either lobbying for or not lobbying against global warming regulation.
Touting its products to investors, biofuels manufacturer FutureFuel Corp. states in its annual Form 10-K report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that,
Biodiesel is a sustainable, renewable transportation fuel with a growing market in the United States and internationally. See http://www.emerging-markets.com/biodiesel/default.asp . As an
alternative to petrodiesel and other petroleum-based fuels, biodiesel has several advantages, including:
- extending domestic diesel fuel supplies;
- reducing dependence on foreign crude oil supplies;
- expanding markets for domestic and international agricultural products;
- reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and other gases that are regulated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency [Emphasis added] (see, e.g., http://www.cyberlipid.org/glycer/biodiesel.htm ); and
- being usable by existing diesel engines while extending their useful lives (see, e.g., http://www.cyberlipid.org/glycer/biodiesel.htm ).
But with respect to biodiesel reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it’s quite possible that the claim is more fantasy than fact. You may remember this New York Times headline from February 2008:
Biofuels make greenhouse gases worse, scientists say
At the very least, there is controversy about the greenhouse gas footprint of biofuels, including FutureFuel’s biodiesel.
The federal securities laws are based on two pillars — a requirement of full and fair disclosure of material facts and a prohibition on fraudulent activity. FutureFuel’s unqualified touting of biodiesel seems to lack a basis in reality and would seem to be the very sort of thing that the federal securities law prohibit.
Or does the act of pleading green entitle one to a “Get Out of the Truth Free” card?