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NY Times Global Warming Survey Misleads the Public

February 4, 2015 by Leave a Comment

The New York Times recently offered up the latest in a series of surveys sponsored by media companies (and in this case executed by a believer at Stanford) purporting to show that pretty much everyone – even the dumb-dumb Republicans — wants the government to “do something” about global warming (“Most Republicans Say They Back Climate Action, Poll Finds” read here).

I thought it might be helpful to give some context and perspective to the issue.

Methodology

I know everyone gets bored with methodology pretty quickly; so do I. The Times polled adults (not registered voters, not likely voters). They weighted the results, which means they conformed them to how they think the American public is divided with respect to ideology and demography.

Priorities

This issue is at or near the top of the approximately no one’s priority list. We have been starting surveys for years by asking people: “What is the most important or pressing issue facing the United States? And what is the second most important or pressing issue facing the United States?” In ten years of asking that question, never has more than 3% of registered (or likely) voters identified environment as one of their top two issues, and a very small fragment – maybe 30 people per 10,000 respondents (or about 1/3 of one percent) – have specifically mentioned global warming. The economy, jobs, health care, the war in Iraq, debt and deficit, gas prices, etc., have all taken their turn at or near the top of the priority list (typically with 50-70 percent of the voters identifying them at one time of another as the first or second priority). But the environment has never gotten any higher than 5% combined.

Why is that important? Because most surveys simply ask respondents to select from a list (“Of the following, which do you think is an important issue facing the United States”) or, worse, ask some variation on “do you think climate change is an important issue”. These questions are not very likely to result in probative, accurate assessments of what respondents really care about, because they limit the choices the respondents can give to those selected by the survey writer. It is probably important to note that even when presented with a list, climate change routinely finishes last among the concerns of survey respondents.

The Times asked how serious a problem global warming is, without reference to other problems, so it is impossible to place the results in context.

Beliefs

We can go back and forth for a long time about what the survey data shows with respect to who believes what about global warming. But let’s make it easy. Last summer, Pew came out with survey results that indicated that about 18% of the voters simply did not believe the Earth is warming. Another 18% indicated that the Earth was warming, but did not attribute that warming to man. Another 17% indicated that we did not know enough yet to assign attribution. 40% believed the Earth is warming and man is the culprit (but it is not completely clear if that means man is entirely to blame, mostly to blame, or what). As always, about 7% did not know or refused to say what they thought.

I could pull any decent public survey from the last 15 years and the numbers would not vary by more than 5 percentage points in any direction. The simple reality is that this issue – at least since 2000 – has been marked by some short-term variations and then a return to the baseline. The baseline looks a lot like the Pew survey – about one in five hard-core believers on either side, with the remaining 60% split about evenly over time (sometimes 35-25 in one direction, sometimes 35-25 in the other).

Costs

Despite (or perhaps because of) differing sentiments about causation, there is much more coherence with respect to what voters are willing to pay to address global warming. I think we are the only ones who have consistently asked about willingness to pay as an open question (“How much are you willing to pay each year to address global warming/to reduce global average temperatures by XX/to reduce the United States’ dependence on fossil fuels?”). The responses have become fairly predictable. Means have been as high as $279 (mostly due to true believers answering “$10,000”); medians (the important measure in a democracy) have been as high as 50 to 60 dollars; and the percentage of respondents who say “zero” or “nothing” has remained pretty consistently in the low 40s.

In our most recent survey, when we asked how much respondents would be willing to pay to address global warming each year, 4 dollars was the median response (and, again, 42% answered “zero”).

The important point is that there is very limited tolerance to pay anything, even absent questions being raised about increasing the size and reach of government or giving economic advantages to our competitors.

The problem of “we”

Most people involved in public policy know that when a politician says “we”, he really means “the government”. But in most instances, our respondents understand “we” to mean “the people of the United States”. This distinction can be crucial during policy discussions, especially when it comes to federal support for something. An elected official says: “We need to support X.” The politician, of course, usually means give X some taxpayer money. But voters often think he means, “buy their product” or “get out of their way”. It is a small, but incredibly important rhetorical point, especially as we talk about renewable energy.

Conflation

Despite the best efforts of the Administration, voters do not yet conflate “doing something” on global warming with federal action. Those of us who work in policy circles routinely conflate the two; voters do not. In fact, we should clearly bifurcate “action” from “federal government action”.

Part of this rests on the idea that very few people trust the federal government to do anything well. For example, in a recent survey we asked: “Do you trust the federal government to address global warming?” Sixty percent (60%) said no; just 20% said yes.

This is important because voters expect and anticipate that if and when alternative energy becomes affordable, reliable, plentiful, and if and when global warming is addressed (whatever that means), it will happen through the application of (probably disruptive) technology and innovation, not by virtue of government regulations, mandates, and subsidies.

The Times takes full advantage of the confusion about conflation. An important question in the survey asks: “Would the United States doing things to reduce global warming in the future hurt the economy, help, or have no effect.” Imagine if the question was “would the federal government doing things help or hurt”; or “would legions of rules and bureaucrats help or hurt”. I could go on, but you get the point.

By the way, even after cooking the question, the Times could only get 42% of the respondents to say that the United States doing “things” to reduce global warming would help the economy; and that only after a series of questions focusing on how grave a problem such warming might be.

The key question

The Times offered three different takes on global warming. This one was the most popular: “I believe that global warming has been happening for the past 100 years, mainly because we have been burning fossil fuels and putting out greenhouse gasses. Now is the time for us to be using new forms of energy that are made in America and will be renewable forever. We can manufacture better cars that use less gasoline and build better appliances that use less electricity. We need to transform the outdated ways of generating energy into new ones that create jobs and entire industries, and stop the damage we’ve been doing to the environment.”

Wow. The other two options were essentially strawmen. This one, of course, is a perfect example of the problem of “we”. “Now is the time for us to be using new forms of energy.” Again, imagine if they had asked whether now is the time for new federal mandates to use new forms of energy. “We need to transform the outdated ways of generating electricity . . .” Imagine if they had asked whether the federal government should transform the electricity system. Actually, we did ask that in a survey a few months back and about two-thirds of the voters rejected the idea.

You get the point. The survey drove respondents to this answer. It doesn’t tell us anything that we didn’t already know – people like technology, they like a clean environment, they like better cars and appliances, they like new jobs and industries. The survey is silent on the questions of the day – how much should the federal government be involved in energy? How much are people willing to pay to change the way we make and consume energy? What do people think are the best ways to make the changes they want?

I had hoped for better from the Times and Stanford.

Other questions

When they did get around to asking about the federal government, the Times could not resist an editorial preface. Here’s the question: “As you may have heard, greenhouse gases are thought to cause global warming. Should the federal government limit the amount of greenhouse gases that U.S. businesses put out?” In other words, there is a problem, would you like someone else to take care of it? Not a shocker, 78% of the respondents like free stuff.

But when it turned to what the respondents were willing to offer, the wallets got a little tighter. Just 25% favored increased taxes on electricity (I wonder how they would feel about a renewable mandate that acts as a tax); and 35% favored taxes on gasoline. I’m not sure where those taxes would go, although I suspect if we asked, “would you a favor an increase in the federal gasoline tax?” we would get fewer than 35% of respondents supporting the idea.

Final thoughts

Three final thoughts are worth noting.

First, the science is coming our way. One by one the narratives on the other side are being discredited or simply overtaken by events. Think about polar bears, or droughts and hurricanes, or sea level rise, or global average temperatures. Even the most recent IPCC report, read in its entirety, injects considerably more uncertainty into the discussion. As improbable as it seems, the Washington Post recently ran a blog delving into the “pause” in the increase of global average temperatures. Each of the IPCC models has been wrong in its entirety; climate sensitivity is much lower than anticipated.

Second, other nations are coming our way. Australia has gotten rid of its carbon tax. The Japanese have indicated they have bigger fish to fry than global warming. The Germans are about to give up on their green experiment and will use more coal this year than last, and will use more next year than this year. India recently said flat out that economic growth was more important than global warming.

Third, as discussed above, public opinion continues to wash around a few simple numbers – it has been fairly static for a long time.

You can make whatever decisions are appropriate for your company or your boss or what have you; I hesitate to tell people what to do. But the counsel should at least be based on good information. The information we have available to us – opinion research and science — suggests that we are winning this fight. It is probably premature to talk about exit strategies.

One last thought. Those who are advocating a rework of messages and policies with respect to global warming are, almost without exception, the same people who have been encouraging a series of preemptive surrenders since the Bush Administration. There were numerous people, especially among the utilities, who wanted to make a deal with Jim Connaughton and his crew in 2007 and 2008. They then migrated onto Waxman-Markey. Now they are wetting the bed over the proposed existing source rule.

This post was authored by Mike McKenna, President of MWR Strategies. McKenna has conducted public polling research for AEA.

 

 

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Sen. Schumer Opposes Job-Creating KXL, Supports Job-Killing Wind Subsidies

February 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Amid last week’s fierce Senate debate over the Keystone XL pipeline bill, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York made light of the economic benefits of the pipeline when he said, “The fact is that the Keystone would create only 35 permanent jobs—a drop in the bucket. A fried chicken franchise creates about as many jobs.”

Schumer’s statement is economically illiterate, especially when you pair it with his support of Sen. Heitkamp’s amendment to extend the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) for five years. He has a problem with a private project that creates jobs and generate tax revenue, but he supports massive public subsidies through the PTC that reduces the number of jobs overall.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs for Oil Carriers!

Schumer “only 35 permanent jobs” argument is a favorite of those in opposition to Keystone XL. Schumer apparently believes that the more jobs a project creates, the better as opposed to asking whether a project makes economic sense. This is lunacy. For example, just think of how many jobs would be created if people physically carried the oil from Hardisty, Alberta to Cushing, Oklahoma. Millions of jobs could be created!

The Keystone XL will carry 830,000 barrels of oil a day. A barrel of oil is 42 gallons, so that’s 34,440,000 gallons a day. If a gallon of oil weighs 7 pounds and a person can carry 50 pounds that means it would take 4,800,000 people to carry the oil the Keystone XL would carry every day. According to Sen. Schumer’s logic, we shouldn’t use a pipeline, but instead TransCanada should hire 5 million people to carry oil! All our job problems would be solved!

It is obvious that this example is silly, but it illustrates Sen. Schumer’s logic. It isn’t a bad thing that the pipeline would only employ 35 people—it’s a great thing. This is how the free market works—it means that instead of millions of people carrying oil from Canada that the work is done by a mere 35 people. This frees up people to create value and be productive elsewhere in the economy. It does not make sense to hire people to carry oil when there are cost effective alternatives.

At Least the Keystone XL Creates Jobs—Unlike the Wind Production Tax Credit

But the wind PTC is different. With the Keystone XL, the TransCanada isn’t asking the federal government for a multi-billion dollar handout. All they are asking for a permission to cross the border. The wind PTC is multi-billion dollar handout and even Sen. Schumer should understand that multi-billion dollar handouts don’t come free.

The wind PTC does not create jobs on net, compared to an alternative policy in which the federal government refrains from using the tax code to pick winners and losers. Although the proponents of the PTC such as the American Wind Energy Association claim that failing to reauthorize the tax credit would “kill jobs,”[1] the money used to subsidize those jobs comes from taxpayers, not from thin air.[2] Rather than arbitrarily limiting tax credits to wind producers, generally returning the money to taxpayers would have “created jobs” as well—jobs that produce goods and services that Americans actually want. As we have pointed out:[3]

“At the end of last year [2012], the federal wind production tax credit was extended for another year. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, this one-year extension of the PTC would cost $12.1 billion. The American Wind Energy Association, the lobby for the wind industry, claims that 37,000 jobs would have been lost if the PTC was not extended. This means that each job “saved” cost the U.S. Treasury $327,000. While the PTC…might “create” some identifiable jobs, they do not create jobs “on net.”

The money to pay for the PTC has to come from somewhere. In other words, if taxpayers were able to keep the money instead of it going to subsidies, the taxpayers would have spent the money and that spending would have created other jobs.

The question isn’t whether the PTC “creates jobs”—it’s whether it creates more jobs than it takes away from the rest of the economy. In Spain, for example, where the government pushed “green energy subsidies” aggressively, 2.2 jobs were lost for every “green job” that the subsidies supported.[4] This is why the PTC is not a job creator—the money has to come from somewhere.

35 Permanent Jobs is Greater than Jobs Destruction Caused by the PTC

The Senate’s Keystone bill is an attempt to authorize a privately funded project that has been waiting on federal approval for over six years. The pipeline would create thousands of jobs, strengthen the economy, and deliver affordable and reliable energy without relying on support from the federal government. The PTC amendment, on the other hand, was nothing more than an attempt to extend a taxpayer-funded handout to the wind industry. An extension of the PTC would cost taxpayers billions of dollars, raise electricity rates, and do little to create jobs for Americans.

If Sen. Schumer truly wants to put more Americans to work and strengthen our economy, he should spend less time blocking Keystone XL and more time cutting costly handouts like the wind PTC.

AEA Communications Director Chris Warren contributed to this post.

[1] AWEA, Federal Production Tax Credit for Wind Energy, http://www.awea.org/Advocacy/content.aspx?ItemNumber=797

[2] Strictly speaking, there is an important distinction to be made between a business receiving a reduction in its tax liability versus receiving an explicit subsidy check funded by other taxpayers. However, in practice this distinction is not very relevant for the PTC, because many projects use sophisticated financial maneuvering in order to offload the tax credit from the actual operation onto outside investors, effectively auctioning off the tax credit. This type of maneuvering is necessary because the operation in question doesn’t have a high enough tax liability to take full advantage of the PTC. That’s why so many environmentalists are pushing to make the PTC refundable, which would turn it into an outright welfare program for renewable power. See http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2012/04/refundable-federal-tax-credit-could-remove-barrier-to-community-wind.

[3] Daniel Simmons, Testimony before the Ohio Senate Public Utilities Committee, American Energy Alliance, November 13, 2013, https://www.americanenergyalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Simmons-Testimony-for-Ohio-Public-Utilities-Committee-SB-58.pdf.

[4] Gabriel Calzada Alvarez, Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources, Universidad Rey de Juan Carlos, March 2009, http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf.

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Introduction to Fossil-Fuel Divestment

February 3, 2015 by 1 Comment

Energy is the lifeblood of modern society, but there is a new movement to halt our use of energy and the products of modern life as well—the fossil-fuel divestment movement. These activists seek to pressure individuals and institutional investors to “divest” of stocks, bonds, and other investments in natural gas, oil, and coal companies. This morally bankrupt movement is trying to keep billions of people in poverty, deny people access to energy, and forbid access to the lifesaving products that come from coal, natural gas, and oil—including steel, plastics, and pharmaceuticals.

Divestment Threatens Modern Life and the Potential to Achieve a Better Life

The energy we use in every day life comes from a variety of sources, but some play a bigger role than others. Natural gas, oil, and coal—the sources of energy the divestment movement wants to divest from—make up 82 percent of all the energy Americans use. Two-thirds of the electricity we use comes from coal and natural gas, and 95 percent of our transportation fuels come from petroleum.

While most Americans have access to energy, according to the International Energy Agency, “globally over 1.3 billion people are without access to electricity and 2.6 billion people are without clean cooking facilities.” Natural gas, coal, and oil offer some of the most cost-effective ways to expand energy access for these people. But the divestment movement wants people to divest from these energy companies, making it more difficult to expand energy access to the poorest of the world’s poor.

But it’s not just about energy. Coal, oil, and natural gas are used for far more than just energy. Besides generating electricity and providing heat for people’s homes, natural gas is used to make fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, plastics, fabrics, and many more products. Besides generating electricity, coal is used to make steel, concrete, soaps, aspirins, plastics, carbon fiber, and more. Besides creating transportation fuel, oil is used to make chemicals, plastics, asphalt, lubricants, wax, and much more.

By urging people to divest from the stocks of natural gas, coal, and oil companies, the divestment movement is not only trying to divest people from the energy from these sources, but from the products as well. For instance, the naïve might think that divesting from coal stocks only means ending coal for electricity generation, but it also means divesting from stainless steel as well. This means divesting from stainless steel water bottles like the Klean Kanteen.

Divesting also means that our roads will worsen because it means divesting from the companies that produce not only asphalt, but also concrete. And how will bridges be built without steel?

Divestment also means divesting from carbon fiber—so no more high-tech bicycles. It also means no more polyester and nylon, such as is used in Patagonia’s outdoor gear, which comes from natural gas. The list goes on.

In other words, divestment activists want us to turn our backs not only on the energy we use in every day life, but on the steel, plastics, carbon fiber, and other products of modern civilization as well.

Scale of Global Energy Demand

Taken to its logical conclusion, divesting from natural gas, oil, and coal would consign billions of people around the world to a lifetime of poverty. The world’s energy needs are vast and growing: global energy demand is expected to rise 37 percent by 2040, while 1.3 billion people around the world currently lack access to electricity. The world needs more energy, but divestment activists demand us to use less energy, or at least less of the only sources of energy that can meet our needs. That is a recipe for energy poverty.

Looking Ahead

In less than two weeks, divestment activists will hold a “Global Divestment Day” to push their radical cause. It’s why the American Energy Alliance has launched this Divestment Tracker to highlight the benefits of traditional energy sources and the threat posed by divestment activists. Although “Global Divestment Day” (or perhaps more aptly, “Energy Poverty Day” or “Stone Age Day”) will come and go, divestment activists and their harmful philosophy are not going away quietly.

That’s why, in the coming days, AEA will be providing a series of educational articles related to the divestment movement. Forthcoming topics include: explaining the positive role of natural gas, oil, and coal to every day life; assessing the claims, history, and goals of divestment activists; and highlighting the scale of global energy demand. We hope this page can serve as a useful resource for anyone who wants to fight for energy freedom. Stay tuned!

div-button-revised

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Blocking Off ANWR in One Map

February 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment

The following map, from the Institute for Energy Research, shows how much land would be off-limits if Obama’s proposed ANWR wilderness plan (12.28 million acres) were added to existing ANWR wilderness areas (7.16 million acres). That would cover a strip of land extending the length of D.C. to Boston that is 77 miles wide:

Screen Shot 2015-02-03 at 10.36.06 AM

President Obama’s wilderness proposal is less about protecting ANWR than preventing energy development. It is part of a larger effort to starve the Alaska Pipeline, which is operating at just one-quarter of total capacity despite the state’s vast energy resources. Alaskans deserve better.

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It’s A Free Country

January 30, 2015 by 1 Comment

Free Country 600 AEA Correct

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Do the Feds Know How Big ANWR Is?

January 28, 2015 by Leave a Comment

The Interior Department announced a proposal this week to designate 12.28 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as wilderness. In a White House video, President Obama claimed a wilderness designation would “make sure that this amazing wonder is preserved for future generations.” But it seems the federal government doesn’t even know the actual size of the “amazing wonder” it wants to preserve.

The Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) lists at least three different acreage estimates for ANWR, with a range of 500,000 acres. That discrepancy is equivalent to misplacing more than 11 cities the size of Washington, D.C.[i] This begs the question: if the feds don’t know how big ANWR is, are they really its best stewards?

FWS: ANWR is 19.3 Million Acres

Consider the following screenshot in which FWS claims ANWR is 19.3 million acres. It can be found in a section of the FWS website titled “Facts & Features”:

Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 1.29.12 PMFWS: ANWR is About 19.64 Million Acres 

Now consider this next screenshot. We found it in the first chapter of FWS’s new draft ANWR Comprehensive Conservation Plan. Here FWS claims that ANWR is not 19.3 million acres, but actually 19.64 million acres. For context, the difference between those two figures is like losing an area of land the size of New York City[ii]:

CCP ANWR Acerage

Careful readers will notice the footnote in the above screenshot. The footnote informs readers, “Acreages in this Plan are derived from many sources and may not agree with previously published values.” In other words, the people tasked with protecting ANWR don’t even agree on how big ANWR actually is.

Interior Department: ANWR is 19.8 Million Acres

The disagreement only deepens with the Department of Interior’s press release announcing the Comprehensive Conservation Plan. The press release claims that ANWR is neither 19.3 million acres nor 19.64 million acres, but actually 19.8 million acres­—or 500,000 more acres than the lowest estimate from FWS’s “Facts & Features” page:

Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 1.40.20 PMFWS now says ANWR is 19.64 Million Acres 

FWS states in its recent planning update that “the size of the Refuge was previously published as 19.3 million acres but is listed in the Revised Plan as 19.64 million acres.” But this still begs the question: why does Interior’s press release claim ANWR is 19.8 million acres?

Oil Production Would Require Just 2,000 Acres

In 1980, Congress set aside 1.5 million acres of ANWR for future study of its energy resource potential, known as the “1002 Area.” The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that ANWR’s 1002 Area, which the administration’s proposal would put off-limits, has an expected value of 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil that could be produced at a rate of about one million barrels of oil per day.[iii]

Energy resources in the 1002 Area could be developed using merely 2,000 acres, or less than 0.01 percent of ANWR’s total area.[iv] Regardless of the size of ANWR, the FWS’s inability to figure out the size within 500,000 acres makes us wonder: what’s wrong with allowing energy production on a mere 2,000 acres?

 

Click here to read IER’s fact sheet on ANWR.

[i] Washington, D.C. is 43,712 acres. See http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/gazetteer.html

[ii] New York City is approximately 300,000 acres. See http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/gazetteer.html

[iii] U.S. Geological Survey, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 1002 Area, Petroleum Assessment, 1998, Including Economic Analysis (April 2001), http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-01/.

[iv] Energy Information Administration, Potential Oil Production from the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Updated Assessment, 3. Summary, http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/arctic_national_wildlife_refuge/html/summary.html. See also, Arctic Power, Top 10 Reasons to Support Development in ANWR, http://www.anwr.org/topten.htm.

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New Report Calls Out EPA’s Junk Science

January 28, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Energy In Depth released a new report Wednesday that questions the scientific data EPA uses to justify its proposed ozone rule—which could be the costliest regulation in U.S. history.

One interesting finding in EID’s survey of the literature is that EPA’s ozone rule could actually increase asthma-related mortality, even though the agency cites reducing asthma attacks as one of the major benefits of the rule. As EID explains:

The EPA cites “asthma attacks” as one of its key health indicators, suggesting that imposing a stricter ozone standard would reduce asthma attacks, and thereby delivering health benefits. But as noted by the Center for Regulatory Solutions — a project of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council — EPA’s own documents show that asthma-related mortality could increase in certain areas if ozone levels decrease.

[…]

[Dr. Michael] Honeycutt looked at EPA’s own data sets and found that, in Houston, adjusting the ozone standard to 70 ppb or 65 ppb would result in 48 or 44 more premature deaths, respectively. The reason for this counter-intuitive conclusion is anyone’s guess, ranging from flawed data analysis to an acknowledgment that less economic opportunity can worsen individuals’ health.

To read the rest of EID’s report, click here.

To read IER’s analysis of EPA’s proposed ozone rule, click here.

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Report: Money for Green Groups Tied to Russian Oil Interests

January 27, 2015 by 2 Comments

A forthcoming report claims that a foreign firm funding U.S. environmental groups opposed to America’s domestic energy boom is tied to a state-owned Russian oil company with a financial interest in halting U.S. energy production. As The Washington Free Beacon reports:

A shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests and offshore money laundering schemes involving members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle … No one knows where that firm’s money comes from. Its only publicly documented activities have been transfers of $23 million to U.S. environmentalist groups that push policies that would hamstring surging American oil and gas production, which has hurt Russia’s energy-reliant economy.

The “shadowy Bermudan company” is called Klein Ltd. Klein funds a group called Sea Change, an environmental bundler which has donated millions of dollars to groups like Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the League of Conservation Voters. Each group supports policies designed to undermine domestic oil and gas development, including bans on hydraulic fracturing.

According to the Environmental Policy Alliance, Sea Change is run by hedge-fund millionaire Nathaniel Simons and his wife, who along with Klein Ltd are Sea Change’s only donors. Mr. Simons supposedly “commutes to work across San Francisco Bay aboard a 50-foot yacht, also runs a venture capital firm that invests in companies that benefit from environmental and energy policies that Sea Change grantees promote,” as reported by the Free Beacon.

This news shouldn’t surprise anyone. The Russian government has a major financial interest in seeing America produce less energy. The U.S. is now the world’s largest combined oil and natural gas producer, recently eclipsing Russia and Saudi Arabia. Booming U.S. oil production has sent oil prices tumbling—that benefits American families in the form of lower gas prices. It also means less money for the Kremlin, which is heavily dependent on oil and natural gas revenues to fund its government.

Our energy boom also enhances our national security. We could unleash our enormous supplies of oil and natural gas to help our European allies fight back against petro-states like Russia that use energy as a geopolitical weapon. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is slow-walking liquefied natural gas (LNG) permit applications that would allow us to export natural gas to Poland, Ukraine, and other allies currently besieged by Putin and dependent on Russian gas supplies.

Fortunately, some in Congress want to force the administration to act. This week, the House is expected to pass a bill to force the Department of Energy to expedite LNG export applications. The American Energy Alliance supports the bill and issued a key-vote alert urging passage. It represents a tangible step Congress can take to counter Russian aggression against U.S. interests, which is particularly relevant given new allegations linking Russian oil interests to national environmental groups..

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Senate Should Tackle Wasteful Green Building Programs

January 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Today, the Senate will vote on amendment #103 by Senator Flake, which would address duplication in the federal government concerning green building initiatives. The Senate should approve the amendment.

In 2011, a report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) on duplication, overlap, and fragmentation found 94 different initiatives across 11 different federal agencies focused on fostering “green” building in the non-federal sector. GAO could not identify how much funding is spent on these initiatives because the information they received from the agencies was “incomplete and unreliable.” In addition, the vast majority of these initiatives failed to provide goals or performance measures, which make it difficult to determine if the programs are effective. Lastly, they found there was little coordination across the government concerning these initiatives.

Since the 2011 report, there is little evidence to suggest that the administration has done much of anything to remedy these issues. Congress has also ignored these issues and has failed to provide adequate oversight of the taxpayer funds used to sustain these initiatives.

The Flake amendment would provide a way to address these issues. The amendment would require federal agencies to provide a report to Congress that includes details on funds spent, clients served, the number of employees involved, and whether there are written goals guiding the initiatives. Lastly, in a separate report the agencies must provide recommendations to eliminate or consolidate programs.

Lastly, there is little doubt that the private sector could and should perform much of the work included in these federal initiatives. An obsession with “green” has swept across the federal government, resulting in massive duplication, overlap, and fragmentation of taxpayer resources. Congress should examine these efforts closely and work to eliminate wasteful, ineffective, and unnecessary programs.

Congress has a duty to be a responsible steward of taxpayer resources. The Flake amendment is but the first step toward achieving that goal.

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What is the State of Wind Energy in America?

January 23, 2015 by Leave a Comment

This week the American Wind Energy Association’s (AWEA) CEO Tom Kiernan published an op-ed at The Hill‘s Congress Blog titled “The State of the Wind Industry is Strong.” We noticed that Mr. Kiernan’s piece omitted several important points about the state of American wind energy, so we took it upon ourselves to make those additions for him, our edits in red.

The state of the wind lobbying industry is strong

The strength of the U.S. wind industry is attracting the notice of a mirage built on massive subsidies from the highest levels of government. In his State of the Union address, President Obama noted that the U.S. leads the world in wind generation, as well as being fleeced.

The fact that the U.S. is #1 – leading even China — comes from an analysis by EDF Renewable Energy executive Dr. James Walker, former CEO of AWEA, which is the DC-based lobbying arm of the wind industry. Wind energy is an American success story: the U.S. invented utility-scale wind farms, and by investing in them here in the U.S., we now have some of the best infrastructure with a 20-year life span—that turns out to be much less in reality—this country has ever built.

How did we become #1? Well, to be honest, wind is #1 when we say it is. Back in 2012 when we said wind was the “top source of new generation,” we were referring to installed capacity, not actual energy production (natural gas actually beat us by ten fold that year in new production). For the purposes of this article, though, we like how our production stacks up against China’s, so we’ll go with that. Trust us—we’re experts. 

America is blessed with excellent wind resources, which are only economical with taxpayer subsidies, and hard-working Americans high-powered lobbyists have made great strides in capturing and delivering more wind energy subsidies to American consumers multi-national wind conglomerates. That is why the average U.S. turbine is more productive – powering more homes than turbines in other countries – due to technological progress. We’ll never be as productive as natural gas, coal, hydroelectric, or nuclear power plants, but our wind turbines are slightly better than China’s, and that’s good enough for us.

A key, successful federal tax policy has encouraged companies to become this efficient, by only rewarding performance. And by performance we mean randomly generating electricity whenever the wind happens to blow, about 30 percent of the time on average, not when people actually need it. Unfortunately, Congress let the renewable energy Production Tax Credit expire once again at the end of 2014. By providing a long-term, stable policy, we can retain our number one status, keep well-paying jobs and invest in American communities. We realize that letting the PTC remain expired is a long-term and stable policy too, but please don’t do that. If the PTC goes away even AWEA won’t be able to fudge the numbers enough to make the wind industry look good.

There is bipartisan support for this tax incentive, as shown in the State of the Union address and the GOP rebuttal. Newly-elected Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who delivered the rebuttal, may not agree on much with President Obama. One thing they do agree on is that investing in wind power makes sense and that the Production Tax Credit is the right policy to continue growing this abundant, homegrown resource. That’s not news to people who know the PTC was actually written by an Iowa Republican, but it sounds nice. The hundreds of millions of tax dollars that get diverted to Iowa every year through the PTC probably have no bearing here either. Please ignore all of that.

If the parties come together to pass this commonsense policy, the U.S. can write the next chapter on the historical rise of wind power as it transforms from an obscure technology in 1888 to a slightly less obscure technology over a hundred years later. Very exciting. According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s forthcoming Wind Vision report, American wind power can double wind by 2020 and double again by 2030 to provide 30 percent of U.S. energy. We can do all this and save consumers money simultaneously if policymakers keep supporting federal tax incentives to attract the necessary private investment. I am literally begging you to support my industry (which is really strong, I promise) with your tax dollars. Without handouts from Congress, we are pretty much helpless.

Kiernan is CEO of the American Wind Energy Association.

(The original piece is here for reference: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/230248-the-state-of-the-wind-industry-is-strong)

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