Hillary: Exploit financial crisis for CO2 regulation

Reuters reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a group of young Europeans at the European Parliament that,

“Never waste a good crisis … Don’t waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security… “Certainly the United States has been negligent in living up to its responsibilities.”

In what can only be viewed as a comical lack of self-awareness, she also chastised Russia for using energy as a political weapon against Ukraine in recent years:

“We are … troubled by using energy as a tool of intimidation… We think that’s not in the interest of creating a better and better functioning energy system.”

Is anyone “troubled” about the greens using the financial crisis as a political weapon?

John Kerry: CO2 regulation won’t work

Senate Foreign Relations committee Chairman Sen. John Kerry — a.k.a Mr. Teresa Heinz — said in a March 5 speech yesterday that, even with “the best” climate regulation proposed so far, including the cap-and-trade scheme outlined in President Obama’s budget proposal, atmospheric CO2 concentrations will nevertheless increase and cause “catastrophic and irreversible climate change,” according to Carbon Control News.

Kerry’s statement is based on a forthcoming analysis from the Heinz Center (Teresa Heinz, vice chair of the board of trustees), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Fidelity Investments.

“If you factor in the best of everything that is currently proposed — the best — and if you can presume that we do what is best,” CO2 emissions will still exceed 500 parts per million (ppm) by 2050,” Kerry said, while noting that 350 ppm was the CO2 concentration that policymakers should aim for.

“All the current plans take you to about 550 [ppm], but science has now said 550, 450 is not enough,” Kerry said. “We have to go back to 350.”

Bottom line: As spotlighted in Steve Milloy’s new book “Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them,” the greens want to control your life and destroy your standard of living in return for nothing.

Green activist free after attacking UK minister

A green activist opposed to the expansion of London’s Heathrow airport assaulted a UK minister with green goo as he arrived at a green summit.

Activist Leila Deen told Sky News that,

“We should stand up against people who are going to make political capital out of pretending to be green.”

A neighbor of Deen’s said,

“I think her mother would be proud.”

Most shocking is that Deen simply walked away after the attack. Scotland Yard apparently won’t be charging her.

Imagine what would happen to you if you attacked a U.S. government official.

Steve Milloy’s new book “Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them” discusses how greens are escaping criminal prosecution.

Irony for GE CEO: Green is not much green

GE CEO Jeff Immelt is fond of saying that “green is green,” apparently in hopes that his corporate greenwashing and lobbying for global warming regulation would be profitable.

But as GE’s stock price closed yesterday at $6.66, its lowest value since 1992 and about 10 percent of its peak value, the Washington Post point out in a front-page, above-the-fold story that:

The price of a GE share, $6.66, was less than the cost of a single compact fluorescent light bulb.

Question of the Day:

Which will last the longer?

  1. Jeff Immelt’s tenure as GE’s CEO, or
  2. A GE light bulb

Steve Milloy’s new book “Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them” spotlights GE’s dubious effort to go green.

NY Gov. attacked for acting without greens’ OK

Green groups are attacking New York Gov. David Paterson for permitting electric utilities more flexibility with carbon dioxide emissions. Worse, according to the greens, he did it without first asking them for permission!

The New York Times reported this morning that,

At the urging of the energy industry, Gov. David A. Paterson has agreed to reconsider a key rule New York adopted as part of a 10-state pact aimed at reducing the threat of global warming by cutting power plant emissions.

Mr. Paterson appeared to overrule the State Department of Environmental Conservation in making the move, which would reopen state regulations to provide power plants leeway to release greater amounts of emissions at no additional cost. Administration officials said the governor was concerned the rule might unfairly burden the energy industry.

His decision infuriated environmental groups, which learned of Mr. Paterson’s decision just this week, though he met with energy executives privately last fall and assured them he would take the step.

Take Action:

The Times reported that

Several environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Advocates of New York, sent a letter on Wednesday to the governor’s top deputy, Larry S. Schwartz, protesting the move.

Fire off your own e-mail supporting Gov. Paterson’s move!

Steve Milloy’s new book, “Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them,” focuses on how the greens are making energy more expensive and less available.

Three cheers for ExxonMobil!

Exxon Mobil announced yesterday that it would:

invest at record levels — between $25 billion and $30 billion annually over the next five years — to meet expected long-term growth in world energy demand.

DRILL, BABY, DRILL!

ExxonMobil’s 2008 highlights include:

  • Production started at eight major projects in 2008, which at their peak are expected to add the net equivalent of 260,000 barrels per day to the company’s production. A further nine major projects are expected to commence production in 2009, and at their peak are expected to add the net equivalent of an additional 485,000 barrels per day to production.
  • The company once again replaced more than 100 percent of production through proved reserves additions in 2008. It was the 15th consecutive year that the company’s proved reserves additions have more than replaced production. In addition, net exploration acreage has been increased by about 40 percent since 2003.
  • In the downstream, the company is progressing plans to invest more than $1 billion in lower-sulfur diesel projects at three refineries in the US and Europe. Once complete in 2010, these projects will allow an increase in lower-sulfur diesel production of 140,000 barrels per day.

Steve Milloy’s new book “Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them” discusses how there’s plenty of oil for our energy needs — if only the greens will let us at it.

Click here for ExxonMobil’s press release.

Business Climate Lobby: Once ‘at the table’, now ‘on the menu’

Kim Strassel writes in today’s Wall Street Journal about how lobbying for climate change regulation is shaping up as a giant miscue for corporate America.

Strassel cites Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers’ original rationale for lobbying:

“If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’ll wind up on the menu.”

Now, Strassel writes,

Duke sat, yet it and its compatriots are still shaping up to be Washington’s breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Obama plan will cost plenty, upfront, which will be borne by Mr. Rogers’s customers.

Stassel closes her terrific piece by recommending that:

Business leaders might do better to use this as an opportunity to kill the beast. They might get some credit for protecting their customers from what they are now, finally, admitting is a giant tax — in the middle of a recession.

The odd saga and miscues of corporate climateers like Duke Energy are spotlighted in Steve Milloy’s new book “Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them.”

Take Action:

E-mail Strassel’s column to a USCAP CEO that you know.

Renewable Pipedream?

Robert Bryce points out in today’s Wall Street Journal that if you convert the amount of electricity produced on a daily basis by so-called “renewable” energy sources into barrel-of-oil-equivalents, you get about 76,000 barrels of oil per day. But the America’s total primary energy use is equivalent to about 47.4 million barrels of oil per day.

President Obama declared in his address to Congress last week that,

“We will double this nation’s supply of renewable energy in the next there years.”

But even if the President was to achieve his ambitious goal, we’ll still depend on hydrocarbons. It’s no wonder that Bryce’s column was entitled, “Let’s Get Real About Renewable Energy.”

Bryce is the author of Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of ‘Energy Independence’ — which is available through the JunkScience.com store.

WSJ: ‘Warming to protectionism’

Editorializing about the EU’s new tariff on biodiesel imports from the U.S, the Wall Steet Journal noted that,

Just as more scientists acknowledge that we don’t know as much about the Earth’s climate as Al Gore says, it’s becoming clearer that environmental policies won’t lead to some green economic boom…

… Neither side is in the right here — which makes the case such a good illustration of the way green policies warp markets.

… If EU environmental policies were really about the environment, [U.S. biodiesel] arguably would be a good thing. More green fuel for everyone, and on the cheap to boot…

It turns out that Europe — which also isn’t known for restraint in supporting farmers — is more interested in protecting its own biodiesel industry than in seeing motorists fill their tanks with low-carbon fuel… And all of this despite evidence that fuels like biodiesel increase CO2 emissions compared with fossil fuels…

We keep hearing about the coming “green tech” bounty. But green-collar jobs will continue to cost more in subsidies and lost efficiency than the jobs themselves are worth. Not to mention the positions that are lost along the way in other firms or industries, or never created because energy costs more for everyone. A report last year by the economic research institute RWI Essen found that €205,000 in subsidies were spent for each solar-industry job created in Germany, and that the net effect on employment was negative…

California’s killer cars

As California seeks a waiver from the EPA to establish its own carbon dioxide emission standards for cars, General Motors notes in its annual 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that,

… Since CO2 emissions are directly proportional to the amount of fuel consumed by motor vehicles, CO2 emissions per mile are directly related to fuel consumption per mile. In this regard, California’s attempt to regulate CO2 emissions per mile is tantamount to establishing state level fuel economy standards…

This means that the only way to reduce automobile CO2 emissions is basically to make lighter — more deadly — cars.

Should you risk your life for the sake of CO2 emissions?

Take Action

Read this post for directions on how you can urge the EPA to not grant the California waiver.

Obama attack on oil & gas industry begins

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wants to take away tax breaks for oil and gas companies because they contribute to global warming.

Reuters reported that Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee on March 4 that,

“We don’t believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem). We don’t think that’s good economic policy and we think changing those incentives is good for the country.”

I’m not for the government subsidizing anyone, but Geithner’s statement indicates that the Obama administration is starting its long-promised attack on the oil and gas industry. Their tax breaks apparently are first. Are profits next? Since last summer, Obama has been saying that he would impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies.

A recent study by CRA International commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute concluded that a windfall profits tax likely would:

  • Cause a net loss of up to 490,000 U.S. jobs by 2030.
  • Reduce U.S. gross domestic product by roughly 1 percent, or $240 billion by 2030.
  • Increase U.S. imports of crude oil by up to 18 percent in 2030 and reduce U.S. domestic production of crude oil by up to 26 percent in the same year.

Gunfight with Al Gore Zombies at the EPA Corral!

Al Gore’s Repower America activist group has asked its members to sign a petition urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to grant the state of California a waiver to set carbon dioxide emissions limits for motor vehicles.

CEI’s Marlo Lewis explains here why granting the California waiver is a bad idea.

Now that you know enough to oppose the waiver, please take a moment to submit your comments to the EPA. Here’s how according to the EPA Federal Register notice:

Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2006-0173, by one of the following methods:

  • http://www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line instructions
    for submitting comments.
  • E-mail: a-and-r-docket@epa.gov.
  • Fax: (202) 566-9744.
  • Mail: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA West (Air
    Docket), 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Room B108, Mail Code 6102T,
    Washington, DC 20460, Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2006-0173. Please include a total of two copies.

Your thoughtful comments will surely be more impressive to the EPA than an empty-headed petition signed by Al Gore’s zombies.