News - American Energy Alliance

Outrage Over EPA Rules Continues

October 22, 2014 by AEA 8 Comments

Since EPA proposed the new carbon dioxide emissions rules for existing power plants on June 2nd, twelve states have filed suit, arguing the new regulations are illegal under the Clean Air Act. The governors of Texas and West Virginia have demonstratively spoken out against the rules, citing their need for coal-fired power plants to provide their citizens with affordable, reliable power. And now, Virginia’s State Corporation Commission has released their own criticism.

“As currently drafted, the carbon emission rates that EPA proposes for Virginia are arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful.”

“Virginia’s compliance with the Proposed Regulation, as currently drafted, will be expensive and will be paid for by Virginia residents and businesses. Contrary to the claim that ‘rates will go up, but bills will go down’, experience and costs in Virginia make it extremely unlikely that either electric rates or bills in Virginia will go down as a result of the Proposed Regulation.”

“Additional near-term generator retirements caused by the Proposed Regulation will compound existing, unresolved reliability concerns in the Commonwealth.”

The Commission is absolutely right, on all counts. EPA’s proposed rules for existing power plants will disproportionately hurt the low-income families that need reliable, affordable energy the most, and the proposed regulations are being promoted by a misleading PR campaign designed to hide their questionable legality.

Power plants with enough generating capacity to reliably power 44.7 million homes–plants that have provided states like Virginia with affordable, reliable power for decades–have already or will soon be shut down as a result of the EPA’s regulations. Five of these coal-fired plants will be unnecessarily shut down in the Old Dominion by 2016, while the state is forced to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 38% by 2030. Every citizen should be outraged by EPA’s “arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful” rules, and we are glad to see the Virginia State Corporation Commission leading the way.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Clean Air Act, low income, power plant closure, power plant rule, virginia, Virginia State Corporation Commission

Is EPA Shutting Down Your Power Plant?

October 21, 2014 by AEA 2 Comments

A recent report from the Institute for Energy Research revealed that 72.7 gigawatts (GW) of power have closed or are scheduled to close because of EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Rule (colloquially called MATS or Utility MACT), the proposed Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), and the recently proposed restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. This is enough electricity to reliably power 44.7 million homes, or every home in every state west of the Mississippi River, excluding Texas.

There are 37 states with projected power plant closures. View the interactive map below to see how your state is being affected by EPA regulations:

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: CSAPR, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, Utility MACT

Public Enemy #1

October 17, 2014 by Mike Morrison Leave a Comment

Secretary of State John Kerry needs to get his priorities straight. Recently he was quoted saying “threats posed by climate change should be addressed with as much ‘immediacy’ as confronting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and the Ebola outbreak.” Iraq is in shambles, the battle for Kobani rages on in Syria, and as Vox reports the Ebola epidemic could be even worse than we thought:

The World Health Organization projects that 20,000 people will be infected in November. HeathMap, put the number at about 14,000 if there’s no improvement in the situation.

But in worst-case scenario, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention project that up to 1.4 million people could be infected by January.

Putting climate change in the same breath as nations ridden with civil wars and crippling diseases shows just how disconnected from reality Mr. Kerry is.

Filed Under: Cartoons Tagged With: climate change, Climate Deniers, Ebola, global warming, John Kerry, Public Enemy

Using More Energy Helps the Planet

October 17, 2014 by AEA Leave a Comment

National Journal recently published an article with the somewhat exaggerated headline, “Why Natural Gas Won’t Help Save the Planet.”

The story cites a study in Nature which equates “saving the planet” to “slashing global greenhouse-gas emissions.” But what do they say about the role energy plays in improving the planet? The report goes on to state, “Lower natural gas prices accelerate economic activity, reduce the incentive to invest in energy-saving technologies, and lead to an aggregate expansion of the total energy system: a scale effect.”

National Journal’s headline implies that “accelerated economic activity” and “expansion of the total energy system” are threats to the planet. What those abstract terms really represent is the ability for human beings to live longer, healthier, more productive lives.

For example, using World Bank data, the Institute for Energy Research analyzed the role that higher energy consumption and electricity generation played in human development in China and India. The following charts indicate that as energy use and electricity generation have risen, so have economic growth, access to improved sanitation facilities, and life expectancy at birth, while child mortality has dropped:

We should focus more on improving the planet for humans than on making sure humans alter the planet as little as possible. The reality is that using more energy to pump water, provide light, and refrigerate food and medicine makes social and economic development possible. “Saving the planet” should mean improving the lives of people on the planet.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: China, Energy Poverty, greenhouse gas emissions, India, natural gas, Nature Journal

No More Carbon Taxes in the Land Down Under

October 16, 2014 by AEA 1 Comment

Australia’s carbon tax was so disastrous that some of its biggest supporters are hastily distancing themselves from it — and lawmakers in the U.S. should take note.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported this week that the democratic socialist Labor Party is officially bailing on support for a carbon tax. Party leader Bill Shorten announced:

“We will not have a carbon tax, the Australian people have spoken and Labor is not going to go back to that.” [Emphasis added]

The carbon tax was such a disaster that much of the 2013 Prime Minister election was centered around the tax. Then-candidate for Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, “More than anything, this election is a referendum on the carbon tax.”

Abbott went on to win the election in part by pointing out the damages caused by the carbon tax–including higher electricity prices and greater unemployment. A peer-reviewed study from 2013 by Dr. Alex Robson of Griffith University in Brisbane laid out the economic pains the carbon tax caused Australian families:

In the year after Australia’s carbon tax was introduced, household electricity prices rose 15%, including the biggest quarterly increase on record.
The job market had previously been stable, but after Australia’s carbon tax, the number of unemployed workers has risen by more than 10%.
Carbon dioxide emissions have actually increased, and will not fall below current levels until 2043, according to the Australian government.

The following chart from Dr. Robson’s study also maps the ways in which a carbon tax and similar “green” schemes have forced households in Queensland (QLD) and New South Wales (NSW), Australia to pay higher electricity bills:

As a result of these negative impacts, Australians spoke loud and clear on election day when they voted in Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. And even the Labor Party, once a staunch supporter of the carbon tax, is distancing itself from the carbon tax.

Although Australians recognized that the carbon tax was destroying their economy, many U.S. policymakers and pundits continue to support implementing a similar system in the U.S. Just recently, Senator Mark Udall from Colorado touted his support for a price on carbon dioxide emissions:

Australia’s carbon tax brought higher energy costs and unemployment to its citizens. To prevent these same outcomes in America, our policymakers should heed the warning signs in Australia and drop their support for a carbon tax, or risk paying the political price of ignoring the priorities of the American people.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Australia, carbon tax, mark udall, tony abbott

Engineering America’s Tomorrow at the Colorado School of Mines

October 15, 2014 by AEA Leave a Comment

America’s energy boom has created an abundance of high-paying and secure jobs in the oil and gas industry at a time when other sectors of the economy continue to struggle. As a result students are flocking towards degree paths that will help them break into the industry.

For example, the Colorado School of Mines has seen annual enrollment for undergrad petroleum engineering increase from under 300 to 900 in the last ten years. And it’s not alone. The University of Wyoming and the University of North Dakota have also seen record growth in petroleum engineering enrollment numbers.

Students pursuing this degree path can expect a high-paying job in a rapidly growing field.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) the median pay for a petroleum engineer in 2012 was $130,280 per year. That’s nearly four times the median pay across all occupations.

Not only is the pay good–the demand for petroleum engineers is climbing. The BLS projects that employment of petroleum engineers is projected to grow 26 percent from 2012 to 2022, significantly higher than the 11 percent growth rate projected across all occupations.

As many young Americans are investing their future in America’s energy boom, the oil and gas industry is investing in their education. For example, the industry is paying for new equipment and classrooms at the Colorado School of Mines. And the oil company Schlumberger is even paying one of its employees to be an adjunct professor at the school.

America’s energy boom is providing job opportunities that simply didn’t exist ten years ago. In an economy where many recent college graduates face unemployment or underemployment, the oil and gas industry is an encouraging bright spot that will only continue to grow.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Colorado School of Mines, Petroleum Engineering

Wind PTC Gives to the Rich at the Expense of the Taxpayer

October 15, 2014 by AEA Leave a Comment

In a recent speech, former U.K. Environment Secretary Owen Paterson compared the U.K.’s Climate Change Act to the policies of the infamous Sheriff of Nottingham in the story of Robin Hood:

“It amazes me that our last three energy secretaries, Ed Miliband, Chris Huhne and Ed Davey, have merrily presided over the single most regressive policy we have seen in this country since the Sheriff of Nottingham: the coerced increase of electricity bills for people on low incomes to pay huge subsidies to wealthy landowners and rich investors.” [Emphasis added]

Paterson specifically pointed out policies that subsidize wind, which are expected to cost the U.K. 1.3 trillion euros by 2050.

The United States faces a similar problem with the decades-old wind Production Tax Credit (PTC), which provides wind producers with a subsidy from the American people of 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour. Although the wind PTC expired at the end of 2013, Congress is under pressure from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to extend the tax credit via a tax extenders package (the IRS has already given wind producers very f avorable treatment on existing provisions). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has made it clear that passing tax extenders will be a top priority going into the lame duck session.

But an extension of the PTC would not come cheap. The Senate Finance Committee estimates that a two-year extension would cost taxpayers $13.35 billion.

Not only do Americans pay for the wind PTC in their taxes, but also through higher energy prices, as First Energy CEO Anthony Alexander explains:

“Subsidies such as the Production Tax Credit encourage developers to build whether or not the generation output is needed. This unneeded, excess capacity is not only uneconomic, but it puts additional pressure on baseload coal and nuclear assets that are essential to grid stability and affordable energy prices.” [Emphasis added]

Just like the Sheriff of Nottingham, the PTC gives to the rich at the expense of average taxpayer. As billionaire investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett said:

“I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate. For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

Reinstating the PTC will only put more of a financial burden on the American people while lining the pockets of billionaires and subsidy-chasing corporations. U.S. policymakers should echo the calls of Owen Paterson in the U.K. and put an end to subsidies like the wind Production Tax Credit once and for all.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: AWEA, Owen Paterson, U.K., warren buffett, wind energy, wind production tax credit, wind ptc

Governator Encourages the World to Be More Like California — But Should He?

October 13, 2014 by AEA 1 Comment

The Governator is back, only this time he’s here to promote California’s failed energy policies on a global scale. Two-term governor of California and Terminator legend, Arnold Schwarzenegger presided over a climate conference which was hosted by his group “R20 Regions of Climate Action”. The conference ended in an unbinding pledge by several regional groups to join the fight against global warming.

In his remarks at the conference, Schwarzenegger touted California’s success:

“Our organization, the R20 and I, we are big believers in a regional approach, in the sub-national approach, that while maybe the UN does not come to an agreement right away, and hopefully when they have the negotiations in Paris they will come to an agreement, but to utilize also the sub-national governments because we in California have been very successful without the help of the national government.” [Emphasis added]

In truth, Schwarzenegger’s policies in California have only continued the state’s legacy of expensive energy.

As governor of California, Schwarzenegger pushed hard for “green” energy policies in the name of climate change, including a mandate that 33 percent of retail electricity sales come from renewables by 2020 and a low carbon fuel standard (LCFS), which forces transportation fuel producers to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions used in the manufacturing of fuel or to purchase credits to offset their impact.

As a result of California’s energy policies, the state now suffers from some of the highest electricity costs and gasoline prices in the U.S.:

And if it weren’t enough to harm California’s energy situation, Schwarzenegger has taken it upon himself to promote these types of policies around the world through R20 Regions of Climate Action. The truth of the matter, though, is that a bigger global problem than climate change is energy poverty.

In 2011, 1.3 billion people did not have access to electricity, almost a fifth of the global population. Developing nations are focused on increasing access to affordable energy for their citizens, not on implementing policies that will make energy more expensive. In fact, the leaders of China and India skipped the recent UN climate summit because the UN’s renewables push would threaten reliable energy and human development in both countries.

We may not be able to go back in time, as Schwarzenegger did in Terminator, and warn Californians about Schwarzenegger’s disastrous policies, but countries should look to his failures as an example of what not to do.

Filed Under: Blog

Detour

October 10, 2014 by Mike Morrison Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Blog

Climate Activists ADMIT They Are Moving the Goalposts

October 9, 2014 by AEA Leave a Comment

Last month I wrote a post titled, “Climate Change Crowd Moves Goalposts—Again.” I was referring to the rhetorical strategy of de-emphasizing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a metric for gauging the impact of climate change. I speculated that this was because the climate change activists recognized that on the original terms of the debate—as staked out in the IPCC reports, for example—their case was quite weak. Somebody who knew how to actually read the latest IPCC report would see that this “consensus science” showed that the goal of limiting global warming to 2°C would cost more than the benefits (as I demonstrated in a later post).

In that context, it’s very refreshing to see my accusations totally confirmed by this October 1 Nature article that explicitly calls for climate activists to change their goal. And they even cite the awkward pause in global warming as one of the reasons! I’m not exaggerating for effect; look at their opening paragraphs:

For nearly a decade, international diplomacy has focused on stopping global warming at 2°C above pre-industrial levels. This goal — bold and easy to grasp — has been accepted uncritically and has proved influential.

…

Bold simplicity must now face reality. Politically and scientifically, the 2°C goal is wrong-headed. Politically, it has allowed some governments to pretend that they are taking serious action to mitigate global warming, when in reality they have achieved almost nothing. Scientifically, there are better ways to measure the stress that humans are placing on the climate system than the growth of average global surface temperature — which has stalled since 1998 and is poorly coupled to entities that governments and companies can control directly. [Bold added.]

Rarely does one get such clear-cut confirmation: These particular climate change activists are telling their colleagues that the “pause” in global warming is putting them into a rhetorical box, and so they had better switch to a whole suite of dials that could not possibly be falsified. (They didn’t use those exact words; that is my elaboration on how they are trying to avoid making the same mistake in the future.)

Now to their credit, some members of the climate activist community are pushing back against the Nature article, saying that the 2°C goal should not be abandoned. Nonetheless, I thought it worthwhile to bring the latest to your attention, showing that we’re not attacking strawmen here: When the data year after year make it harder to stick to the original climate change goal, an article in Nature calls for moving the goal.

IER Senior Economist Robert Murphy authored this post.

Filed Under: Emissions Standards, GHG, News, Products and Power, Threats