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In the Pipeline: 12/4/12

December 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The great thing about a carbon tax is that it exposes the entire racket.  It is about expanding government; it has never had anything to do with the environment.   Only slow-witted people are confused about that. MasterResource (12/3/12) reports: “Yep, that is it. For all the incessant talk as to how the highly consumptive U.S. lifestyle—from SUVs, to air conditioners, to big screen TVs and huge portion sizes—is leading climate catastrophe, the sum total of our contribution to “global warming” this century will amount to the neighborhood of about 0.2°C. Not five degrees. Not two degrees. But abouttwo-tenths of a degree Celsius. And even this number may be on the high side if the climate sensitivity is lower than about 3°…”

 

My favorite part of this?  That Senators Grassley and Thune are raising questions about the disposition of Solyndra’s assets.  You may remember that the same two Senators are the biggest proponents in the “Republican” caucus for extending the wind production tax credit.  So, apparently it is okay to take money from taxpayers for inefficient and expensive energy sources, but you can’t share any of the spoils with the Chinese. National Legal and Policy Center (12/3/12) reports: “So far Republican Sens. Charles Grassley (Iowa) and John Thune (S.D.) have repeatedly raised questions and concerns about the possible transfer of A123’s business, jobs and technology from the U.S. – where taxpayers have thrown in approximately $132 million only to see many times that amount in losses since its 2009 initial public offering – to China. They’re no longer the only voices speaking out against the transaction.”

 

Jones is solid.  More so than many Republicans we know. Politico(12/3/12) reports: “NARUC’s new president said today that the wind industry is “pretty mature right now” and “does not need the PTC.” But, Philip Jones quickly said that was his personal opinion and not NARUC’s position. Other renewables like geothermal and tidal still need financial help, he said. Yet, with all the fiscal cliff discussions taking place on Capitol Hill, Jones didn’t think the PTC would get renewed. When he asked NARUC lobbyist Chris Mele to chime in on the odds of a PTC extension, Mele said: ‘Toss a coin at this point.’”

 

That would be an awesome nomination.  And Senator Inhofe would finally get to question His Largeness face to face.  How do you figure that would turn out? Current (12/2/12) reports: “Al Gore. I first heard this suggestion from my friend David Greenberg, the historian who writes for Slate, and I though, nahhh. But it grew on me pretty fast. Tell me why not. He’d be great. He’s known around the world. He’s respected around the world, about 90 percent of which surely wishes he’d been the president instead of the guy he beat. I’m not saying he’d change the world; no one can do that. But he’d get a hearing everywhere. He knows a huge number of world leaders, and he knows the issues cold. He could dive right into the pool’s deepest end, in the Middle East, on Iran, you name it.”

 

It must be hard to have a healthy level of self-esteem in an industry where your success or failure has no relation to hard work and merit. Statesman.com (12/1/12) reports: “Hornaday disagrees that the industry can continue to thrive in Texas without the tax credit that pays 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour… In today’s market, Hornaday said he can sell electricity at 3 to 4 cents per kilowatt because the tax credit pays about a third of the cost of a turbine. Without the tax credit, Hornaday said his price would increase to 5 or 6 cents a kilowatt, as compared to natural gas’s 3-cent range.”

 

This is about average for a bunch of generals and admirals.  Some of it is good (increase domestic production); some of it is timid and pointless (send Interior back to revise its Soviet-style five year plan); and some of it is just plain ridiculous (more electric cars!).  Small wonder we have trouble winning wars.Energy Security Leadership Council (2012) reports: “The Energy Security Leadership Council (“Council”) believes that America’s energy security can be fundamentally strengthened through a combination of major reductions in oil consumption, increases in domestic energy production, and reforms to energy-related regulations. Most importantly, we must transform our transportation sector so that oil is no longer its primary fuel.”

 

After they shot Thomas Jackson, North Carolina has been on a pretty steady slide. E&ENews (12/3/12) reports: “What are the opportunities for bipartisanship on renewables heading into the next Congress? During today’s OnPoint, Aaron Nelson, president and CEO of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce in North Carolina, discusses the future of federal clean energy policy and his expectations for the wind production tax credit, which expires at the end of this year.”

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In the Pipeline: 12/3/12

December 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Everyone who cares about America should read all 39 pages of this report.  Because it kills. NDP Consulting (November 2012) reports: “As put by NERA’s Anne Smith, “Once one strips away the non-credible and inappropriate façade of coincidental co-benefits from reducing an already-regulated non-HAP pollutant, the MATS rule is left with almost nothing to justify its costs.””

 

Our Rob sets the stage, and he isn’t playing around: “The Theatrics of Fossil Fuel Critics”. Denver Post (11/30/12) reports: “As Manhattan Institute scholar Robert Bryce has noted, ‘Nothing else comes close to oil when it comes to energy density, ease of handling, flexibility, convenience, cost, or scale.’ To stop oil exploration would be to condemn the world to high energy prices and stunted economic growth… Divestment would represent an enormous hit to pension plans. It would make the retirement accounts of millions of average Americans less secure. Rather than improving the environment, divestment would actually slow the development of alternative energy technologies.”

 

We are going to miss Jim Rogers.  He was always a reliable rent-seeker. National Legal and Policy Center (11/29/12) reports: ““Usually shareholders change boards, not public entities,” said Charles Elson, director of John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, who said he had never seen such a degree of intervention in a case that at least did not involve some illegal activity.”

 

I have no idea why the traditional media is dying.  I really don’t.Bloomberg (11/30/12) reports: “The most dynamic executive in his industry, Rogers, the chief executive of Charlotte-based Duke Energy (DUK), has spent a career building ever-bigger utilities. He knows coal, gas, nuclear, solar, wind. He’s done all of them. And he recognizes the need to forge a national energy policy that sharply reduces carbon emissions that contribute to global warming and the extreme weather it is increasingly visiting upon our little planet.”

 

We only run this because the story is so rare. Bloomberg (11/29/12) reports: “Mississippi taxpayers may have only an empty Senatobia building and solar panel equipment to show for $26 million in loans to Twin Creeks Technologies.”

 

We are concerned about potential bias as well.  After all, this is the crew that brought us Obamacare. Energy & Commerce (11/30/12) reports: “House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders today wrote to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius concerning the Department’s role in the Interagency Working Group to Support Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has expressed its intention to undertake a broad study of potential health impacts associated with hydraulic fracturing and other shale gas development activities. Members are concerned ATSDR’s actions could jeopardize domestic natural gas production and job creation if the agency’s work is not based on sound scientific principles.”

 

This is both great and sad.  Great, because Oklahomans have Senator Inhofe fighting for them.  Sad, because this is what the Republic has come to in the 21st Century. Environment & Public Works(11/30/12) reports: “Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, today said that Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) decision to propose a ‘threatened’ listing for the Lesser Prairie Chicken under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is great news for Oklahoma because it provides a crucial step towards achieving a ‘not-warranted’ decision in the coming months.”

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In the Pipeline: 11/30/12

November 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Let’s be honest.  What happened in New York and New Jersey was an appalling lack of preparedness, in the media center of the planet.  When she came ashore Sandy was a Category 1 hurricane.  If she had hit the Southeastern United States (like hurricanes usually do), blowhards like Senator Whitehouse would have paid no attention (like he usually does).  Politico(11/30/12): “Senate Democrats used an emotionally charged hearing Thursday on the effects of Hurricane Sandy to make an aggressive attack on climate change deniers in and out of Congress. At a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing featuring sometimes tearful reports from lawmakers representing East Coast states, some panel Democrats suggested putting customary congressional collegiality on the back burner to push more forcefully for mitigating climate change.”

 

Dan makes a good point.  Why are the Canadians developing their oil sands?  Are they smarter than us?  Or is it because we have Ken Salazar and they don’t?  E&E News (11/29/12): “Their report advocates hiking a royalty rate that is already five times higher than Alberta’s oil sand royalty rate that has attracted hundreds of billions of dollars in investment,” he said. “The impact of their recommendations would kill potential jobs, royalties and revenues in a quest for a higher percentage of nothing rather than a smaller percentage of a huge resource that could serve U.S. needs for over a century.”

 

I like what Tolstoy wrote about electric cars:  anything is better than lies and deceit.  National Legal and Policy Center (11/29/12): “In many cases this is intentional,” Car and Driver reported, “with automakers building EVs to satisfy regulators and leasing a limited number of loss-making vehicles in California and a handful of other states.” One such example is the Ford Focus Electric, whose battery alone costs $12,000-$15,000 and whose sales are measly, with only 200-or-so dealers on the West Coast and in the Northeast bothering with it. Ford received a $5.9 billion stimulus loan guarantee to retrofit five of its plants for the production of electric and hybrid vehicles.

 

Well now, all those Senators and Congressmen who have been carefully avoiding opposing a carbon tax actually have a chance to act like men and take a stand.  I’m betting few take the opportunity.  Senator David Vitter (11/29/12): “‘There’s a lot of talk in Washington about raising taxes, and finding ‘revenues’ in creative ways, to avoid going over the fiscal cliff,’ Vitter said. ‘But a carbon tax – which would force more financial hardship upon family budgets, energy consumers and job seekers – needs to be completely taken off the table. Our resolution would enshrine that.’”

 

What is the obsession with biofuels?  At $27 dollars a gallon, Mabus must know the whole thing is bogus.  Murkowski surely should recognize the whole thing is a sham and probably tied to some unsavory donors.  Institute for Energy Research (11/29/12): “Interestingly, if the military uses 130 million barrels of oil per year, that means that Alaska’s ANWR, which is estimated to hold 10.4 billion barrels of oil at the mean would supply all of the military’s needs for 80 years. Yet Secretary Mabus’s administration opposes the opening of ANWR’s oil, apparently preferring the green biofuels costing 10 times as much. ANWR’s 10.4 billion barrels of oil are worth almost $1 trillion to the US economy at today’s price of oil, and the jobs, revenue and security of supply they would offer our nation draw a bright contrast to the expensive and unnecessary green energy the Senate decided to waste taxpayers money on this past week.  In fact, Secretary Mabus’s administration actually closed 50% of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska earlier this year for oil exploration.”

 

Which do you figure is more likely to happen, whatever ridiculous thing the Doha crew comes up with, or 1200 new coal plants worldwide?  Institute for Energy Research (11/29/12):  “While the war on coal is working, reducing coal generation and consumption and associated carbon dioxide emissions here in the United States, many world economies are looking towards coal for future generation needs. China, India, Russia, and Germany, to name a few, are building coal-fired power plants. Worldwide coal plant construction grew 5.4 percent over the past year and now represents about 30 percent of installed capacity. According to the World Resources Institute, almost 1,200 coal-fired power plants are in the planning stages (a capacity of 1.4 million megawatts) and over three-quarters of them are to be built in China and India, where over 500,000 megawatts each are currently planned for construction.”

 

The following think tank chiefs are opposed to a carbon tax.  The list to date follows.  If your guy is not on the list, it is because he either favors a carbon tax, wants to retain the option of favoring a carbon tax at some point in the future, or has yet to contact us.

Tom Pyle, American Energy Alliance / Institute for Energy Research
Myron Ebell, Freedom Action
Phil Kerpen, American Commitment
Fred Smith, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Andrew Quinlan, Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Tim Phillips, Americans for Prosperity
Joe Bast, Heartland Institute
David Ridenour, National Center for Public Policy Research
Michael Needham, Heritage Action for America
Tom Schatz, Citizens Against Government Waste
Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform

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Intentionally increasing gasoline prices only makes sense to New York attorneys

November 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Earlier this week, the Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI)at the New York University School of Law announced they were threatening EPA with a lawsuit to increase the price of gasoline and diesel through a cap-and-trade system. They claim they want to increase the price of transportation fuel to “address climate change,” but they omit the fact that if the United States stopped using gasoline today, it would have an incredibly minor effect on the climate.

Specifically, the faculty at New York University School of Law is petitioning EPA to implement a cap on carbon dioxide emissions from transportation fuels for cars, trucks, boats, and ships. How much will this increase the price of transportation fuels? According to a recent study by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, “Reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the transportation sector 14% below 2005 levels by 2020 may require gas prices greater than $7/gallon by 2020.”

The New York attorneys didn’t specify how where a cap should be set, so it’s possible that their plan would drive up gasoline prices beyond $7 a gallon. Seven dollar a gallon gasoline would cause great economic harm to Americans who don’t ride the New York subway to work and play, so it is important to consider the benefits of the law school’s plan.

The dean of New York University School of Law, Richard Revesz,  claims that “The benefits of protecting the public from the threats of climate change outweigh the costs.” However, he fails to describe what the benefits will be. Luckily, others have used EPA’s MAGICC climate change model and information from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to examine the impact U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have on global temperature computer models.

Climate researcher Paul Knappenberger ran EPA’s climate model and he found out that “if the U.S. as a whole stopped emitting carbon dioxide immediately, the ultimate impact on projected global temperature rise would be a reduction, or a “savings,” of approximately 0.08°C by the year 2050 and 0.17°C by the year 2100—amounts that are, for all intents and purposes, negligible.” These small temperature reductions would result only if all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions ended immediately.

The New York University School of Law professors are not talking about reducing all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, but only a part of the emissions from transportation. According to EPA, in 2010, transportation emissions were 27 percent of the U.S. total. Even if the cap proposed by the attorneys resulted in a 25 percent reduction (which means that the price of gasoline would increase well past $7 a gallon), that would only result in a reduction of 7 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. If a 100 percent reduction in carbon dioxide would result in a reduction of temperature increase of 0.08°C by the year 2050, just think of what a reduction of just 7 percent would do.

Representatives of the New York University School of Law claim that EPA should cap carbon dioxide emissions to protect the public from the dangers of climate change. But their cap would not have any discernible impact on global warming, and it would drive up the price of gasoline well past $7 a gallon. This sort of trade off might make sense if you are an rich attorney in New York City, but it sure doesn’t make any sense to the rest of us.

Filed Under: Emissions Standards, Products and Power

In the Pipeline: 11/28/12

November 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Very exciting in my house this morning.  I told my kids they could have any new toy they could get their hands on…as long as they picked it from their toy box.  Welcome to the Obama Administration’s gulf lease sale. Fuel Fix (11/27/12): “A 10-year moratorium on drilling within 1.4 nautical miles of either side of that maritime boundary was initially set to expire in January 2011 but was extended until January 2014. Although companies were allowed to submit bids for blocks in the area subject to U.S.-Mexico talks, they won’t be opened during the November sale, and they may never be opened at all.”

 

Environmentalist “logic”– Solyndra failed because a half billion dollars in subsidies was “too little.” The Buffalo News (11/27/12):  “Solyndra failed because China beat us to the punch by subsidizing its solar panel industry with $30 billion. Our $500 million loan guarantee to Solyndra was too little, too late.”

 

Wind power makes me lose sleep as well. National Review (11/27/12): “In the lawsuit, the residents claim that the noise produced by the turbines on the 74-megawatt facility causes headaches and disturbs their sleep. Some of the residents say they have abandoned their homes because of the noise. Others are claiming that the project has hurt their property values.”

 

A rational person would support the Keystone project (like about 75% of Americans).  An ideologue (like the President) would oppose it, because it is contrary to his view of the trajectory of history.  A leader (like Senator Barrasso) would advocate for it, because it means more economic growth, more jobs, more energy security. Star Tribune (11/27/12): “The politics surrounding this decision should also be over,” he said. “If the president is serious about improving our economy and helping America become an energy independent nation, he’ll approve the Keystone XL pipeline immediately.”

 

Only in the land of the 800 billion dollar “stimulus” could a 2.3 million dollar carousel be built essentially without comment.  Keep in mind, that doesn’t even count the cost of the solar panels (which were donated by PEPCO and paid for by its ratepayers). At this rate, maybe they should replace the hand painted endangered animals with hand-painted unemployed Americans. Washington Post (11/26/12): “The Smithsonian’s National Zoo is opening a new solar-powered carousel with hand-carved, hand-painted figures representing many endangered animals.”

 

Crossfitter by night?  I don’t even know what that is.  But this dude should forget that and preach on. J. Justin Wilson (11/26/12): “On Point’s host, Tom Ashbrook, warned that the water used for fracking is water we can’t “use for crops” and even went so far as implying that the water used for fracking was contributing to the dropping water levels in the Mississippi River. Something didn’t add up. Americans have a problem comprehending big numbers and I decided to crack out my trusty TI-83 and figure this out.”

 

Well now… Princeton University (11/27/12): “The United States could eliminate the need for crude oil by using a combination of coal, natural gas and non-food crops to make synthetic fuel, a team of Princeton researchers has found.”

 

Back-Door “Green Energy” Coercion, the San Francisco treat. Wanna bet Queen Nancy will opt-out? Master Resource (11/26/12): “Thousands of San Francisco residents may be sucked into a green energy plan that will raise their electricity rates 77 percent without their knowledge or consent. Beginning next spring, half of the city’s 375,000 residential ratepayers will automatically be enrolled in CleanPowerSF – unless they take action to opt out of the program.”

 

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In the Pipeline: 11/27/12

November 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

As we have noted before, the days are evil.  Which explains why we fight. The Hill (11/26/12): “Yet the economic advantages of a carbon tax are so manifest that it is still possible, once the fiscal cliff negotiations are finished and talks turn to a truly transformative tax reform deal, that leaders in Congress will begin to reconsider it, especially it if is marketed on economic grounds.”

 

Finally, someone gets some real benefit out of solar power!  Pass the Cheetos! Fuel Fix (11/26/12): Illegal marijuana growers are increasingly using solar power to operate large-scale operations in an attempt to remain off the grid and avoid detection from law enforcement agents, authorities said.

 

Corruption is a disease. Governments are the carriers. Michigan Capital Confidential 11/26/12: He said a mindset of “crony socialism” is running green energy programs. He points to the 2008-2011 Wall Street Journal surveys of chief executive officers that highlight the top five priorities of CEOs. In each of those annual surveys, CEOs cited a need for some sort of government subsidy as a top priority, Michaels said. “You can’t just blame the government for this,” Michaels said. “You have to understand these large corporations are begging for favors to produce cars that no one wants.”

 

Kind of makes you glad we won. Renewable Energy World (11/26/12): Britain’s electricity customers will be paying higher bills by 2020 to cover the costs of expanding renewable energy supplies such as solar and wind, government officials said.

 

What do you want to bet that Facebook gets a permit to build a data center on federal lands in Alaska long before Exxon or Chevron get a permit to drill? Slate (11/27/12): “But once you’ve gotten past the fundamental realization that the cloud is a hulking, polluting, physical thing, there’s another story to tell. It’s the one about how some of the more forward-thinking Internet companies are coming up with wildly creative ways to cut down on all that waste. Facebook is building its latest data center at the edge of the Arctic Circle. An industry consortium is sponsoring a “server roundup” and handing out rodeo belt buckles to the Internet company that can take the largest number of energy-leeching comatose servers offline. And Google has saved huge amounts of energy by allowing its data center workers to wear shorts and T-shirts.”

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In the Pipeline: 11/26/12

November 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

We agree with Senator Vitter.  We do rock. Larry Kudlow Show, begins at 1:21:00 (11/17/12):  “I’d love to direct your listeners to a really good website . . . it’s by the Institute for Energy Research, which is a pro-domestic energy think tank, and they have a long list of action item possibilities from the Obama administration that they may be working on.  So that’s a great place to go if anybody wants to learn more about what the possible threats are.”

 

Whoops.  Larry slipped up here and told the truth about carbon taxes and energy taxes and how they are the same thing.  No wonder why the Obama crew had no use for him. Washington Post (11/23/12): “Summers asserted that it’s shocking that the United States has the lowest-priced energy in the world. “Why aren’t we talking more about raising taxes on carbon and energy?” he asked.”

 

You may have missed this.  But it is instructive because no one even tries to pretend that this is about climate change or global warming or the environment or anything other than expanding the size of government. The Sacramento Bee (11/26/12): “The likelihood of there being a hole in the budget has increased,” said Tiffany Roberts, an LAO analyst who focuses on climate change issues. “Not only do we question the viability of using the $500 million, but if these assumptions hold, it’s unlikely there’s even going to be $500 million.”

 

Lawmakers of the world unite and set the global price for carbon. OK, impossible, but at least Shell, et al. are covered for their next shareholder meeting. Bloomberg (11/19/12): “Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) joined Unilever NV (UNA) and more than 100 companies calling for lawmakers worldwide to put a “clear” price on carbon emissions in order to contain global warming.”

 

It is kind of shocking to think the entire world is not impressed with the collectivist ideas that are ascendant in the United States.  I mean, it’s great, but it does seem like a surprise to people like Walsh. Time Science (11/21/12): “The war on coal is being won in the U.S., but that won’t make much of a difference to global climate change. The real war is being fought in countries like China and India — and there may be little we can do to influence their policy choices.”

 

This must be a good thing if Juliet feels a need to attack it.  Keep it up gang. Washington Post (11/24/12): “The people who are saying that are trying to take attention away from the real issue — that alternative energy, renewable energy, is more expensive than conventional energy.” Todd Wynn, who directs ALEC’s energy, environment and agriculture task force, said the group decided to take up the issue because some of its members are worried about the mandates’ “impacts on their state’s economies and their constituents.”

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In the Pipeline: 11/20/12

November 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

This doesn’t sound very good. Fox Business (11/16/12) reports: “The Obama administration provided struggling battery maker A123 Systems Inc with nearly $1 million on the day it filed for bankruptcy, the company told lawmakers investigating its government grant.”

 

Maybe Richard Windsor is also controlling EPA’s unmanned drones: “Is The Obama EPA Running Its Own Black-Ops Program?” Investors Business Daily (11/19/12) reports: “Federal law prohibits the government from using private emails for official communications unless they are appropriately stored and can be tracked. Because things look suspicious at the EPA, the House Science Committee is investigating the possibility that the agency has conducted business it doesn’t want the public to see.”

 

A little more Richard Windsor/Lisa Jackson/ most transparent Administration in history news. IER (11/19/12) reports: “The Institute for Energy Research (IER) renewed a request to the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for documents related to the administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline earlier this year.  Recent reports indicate that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has used at least one alias email account to conduct official government business, and IER believes that the EPA’s non-responsiveness to the organization’s original March 15 request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) may owe, in part, to the administrator’s use of alias accounts that were not covered in the earlier letter.”

 

Doug Lamborn is right as rain.  Cory Gardner probably needs to rethink his position.  Allison Sherry remains the best reporter on the Denver Post staff. Denver Post (11/18/12) reports: “On the House side, the three Colorado Republicans who support it have written letters to congressional leadership trying to get a vote on some of the proposed measures that would extend the credit… Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, doesn’t support it because he says he doesn’t believe the federal government should pick winners and losers in energy development.”

 

Of course it’s the right thing to do to rob taxpayers and poor people with regressive spikes in the cost of energy to build an “oasis” of electricity with solar panels, and top it off with Chevy Volts for people who make $170,000 a year… This is a house of cards that will blow over with or without another hurricane.NYTimes (11/19/12) reports: “But a drawback is that residents have to figure out where to put the batteries — a particular quandary for those with homes vulnerable to flooding… So some are looking at electric vehicles as potential backup energy sources instead. In some cases, a car could fuel a house for days on a single charge.”

 

When the bureaucracy starts giving up on an idea, you know its time is starting to wind down. E&ENews (11/19/12) reports: “With the U.S. intelligence budget shrinking, the CIA has quietly shut down its Center on Climate Change and National Security — a project that was launched with the support of Leon Panetta when he led the agency, but that drew sharp criticism from some Republicans in Congress.”

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More Regulations for Victims of Hurricane Sandy

November 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

 

In a previous post I explained how it wasn’t Hurricane Sandy, but government price controls, that were causing the long gas lines in New Jersey and New York. As usual with government regulations, they caused problems that the government then swooped in to “fix,” patting itself on the back. In this case, allegedly pro-business officials Governor Christie and Mayor Bloomberg instituted license plate restrictions, and then praised the wonders in reducing the harmful effects of their own policies.

Look for example at this news story:

New York drivers woke up Friday [November 9] to the first widespread gas rationing since the fuel crisis of the 1970s, as the Northeast struggles to recover from the devastation of Superstorm Sandy and a subsequent snowstorm.

Officials said the gas rationing was imposed because something had to be done to ease the long waits for fuel, which they say has caused panic-buying and hoarding.

Police officers were assigned to gas stations to enforce the new system, beginning their shifts at 5 a.m. in Long Island and 6 a.m. in New York City.

“This is designed to let everybody have a fair chance, so the lines aren’t too oppressive and that we can get through this,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. Officers would also make sure people “don’t get pushy in line,” Bloomberg told WOR-AM radio on Friday morning.

…

New York City’s program of gas rationing is modeled on one New Jersey implemented last week — allowing drivers to fill up on alternating days depending on their license plate number — that has reduced lines dramatically…

“The last two days, I’ve barely seen any fuel lines anymore,” Christie said. “There’s order, there’s easy access to gas.”

In New York, however, Bloomberg indicated that the city had little choice but to implement the policy.

“It now appears there will be shortages for possibly another couple weeks,” Bloomberg said, later adding, “If you think about it, it’s not any great imposition once you get used to it.”

To repeat, the long lines for gas—which the article above admits is one of the primary culprits for the residents’ panic hoarding—were not caused by the storm per se, but by the government’s threats to crack down on any retailer who raised prices. When the supply of gasoline drops drastically, and the demand goes up, the market-clearing price rises too. If the government doesn’t allow the actual price to rise, then you get a massive shortage—more people trying to buy gas than can be accommodated by the available supply. This is literally textbook stuff.

What’s interesting is that even the policy of license plate rationing doesn’t reduce lines as much as one might initially suppose. Another blogger has given numerical illustrations, but here’s the intuition: In the absence of the license plate restrictions, people would have a natural tendency to smoothen the length of gas lines. For example, if someone has half a tank left, and on his way to work sees that the lines are all 3 hours long, he’ll probably keep driving and hope to fill up later in the week. But, if he sees a particular line that happens to only have 10 cars in it, he might pull off and get in that line, since the opportunity is too good to pass up.

This type of process would have naturally occurred in the absence of formal government restrictions on who could buy gas on a given day. It wouldn’t be perfect, of course, but there would be a natural tendency for the people lining up on any given day, being the ones who really needed gas then and couldn’t wait—with everybody else biding their time to fill up on a later day of the week.

But now if we introduce an arbitrary restriction on which cars are eligible to receive gas, this natural sorting process is upset. Now, if a guy with a half a tank of gas is driving past a station with a short line (perhaps it’s late at night), he only has a 50 percent chance of even being legally eligible to fill up.

On the other hand, if a couple know they need to go on a long road trip on Wednesday, without the license restrictions they could fill up either on Tuesday or Wednesday. If the lines were too long on Tuesday, they could wait and fill up Wednesday morning, before their trip.

But now with the license restrictions, suppose this couple’s car is only eligible to get gas on a Tuesday. They have to get in line that day, since Wednesday is no longer a legal option.

These considerations show the various ways in which the license plate restrictions can actually make the “queuing” process less efficient; generally speaking you don’t have people by introducing arbitrary constraints. The mere fact that lines were reduced after the introduction of the license plate restrictions by itself overstates their effect, because the lines would have naturally receded as people’s panic subsided and they got a sense of how long the “average” line would be during the crisis.

Now in practice, it is possible that the license restrictions really did reduce average wait times. But if you think it through, the only way this is possible is if there were lots of people who would line up multiple days in a row. Thus, the license plate restriction makes half of them ineligible on a given day, reducing the lines.

Thinking through the logic of the situation, you realize that this only makes sense if people were arbitrarily limited by how much gasoline they could buy once they reached the front of the line, either by the police or by the station owners (perhaps because they didn’t want to run out with so many people still waiting in line).

At best, the episodes in New Jersey and New York show that one form of government intervention—price controls—inevitably gives rise to further ones, to deal with the previous intervention’s ill effects. At worst, the situation shows that the government keeps making things worse with further rounds of intervention. Even if it’s true that the license plate restrictions reduced average wait times (and again, a simple measurement of times would overstate the savings), we are still missing all of the individual hardship cases where someone really needs to buy gas on a Wednesday (say), but now has to wait till the next day because of his license plate. This is a ridiculous situation in a country priding itself on economic freedom.

 

Filed Under: News, Products and Power

In the Pipeline: 11/19/12

November 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

It may be a little difficult to follow this, so we will make it easier.  It appears that Administrator Jackson may have created and used secret email accounts using a pseudonym (Richard Windsor) for the specific purpose of evading Freedom of Information requirements.  She was not alone. Washington Times(11/17/12) reports: “A House committee has launched an investigation into whether EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson used an email alias to try to hide correspondence from open-government requests and her agency’s own internal watchdog — something that Republican lawmakers said could run afoul of the law.”

 

But, then again, Administrator Jackson would not be the first EPA Administrator to evade Freedom of Information Act requirements. Daily Caller (11/12/12) reports: “You remember Ms. Browner, the lady who suddenly ordered her computer hard drive reformatted and backup tapes erased, hours after a federal court issued a ‘preserve’ order … that her lawyers at the Clinton Justice Department insisted they hadn’t yet told her about?” Horner told TheDC News Foundation. “The one who said it’s all good because she didn’t use her computer for email anyway? That one.”

 

Europe is doomed.  I mean, not as doomed as California, but it’s close. The Telegraph (11/18/12) reports: “Effectively, the policy goal is to phase out fossil fuels from power generation within 15 years. And the cost ? We’re looking at over £100bn in the UK just to get to the 2020 milestone and at least the same again in the next decade. Which brings us nicely to the problems faced by the Coalition Government.”

 

We like Geoff Davis. RealClearEnergy (11/16/12) reports: “Already, many small business owners are announcing they will be forced to lay off workers to get below the 50-employee threshold set by ObamaCare to avoid the law’s costly regulations, which will take effect in January. A more immediate threat, though, are the reckless anti-coal regulations that are expected to be released before the end of November that will make it cost-prohibitive to build any new coal-fired plants, and further drive up consumer and industrial energy prices.”

 

Feed-in tariffs are helping to bankrupt Europe.  Maybe we should test them someplace, preferably near where the author lives.SmartPlanet (11/14/12) reports: “The revenues collected would go into a dedicated national Energy Trust Fund, just as a portion of our gasoline taxes go into the national Highway Trust Fund. And like the latter, they would then be disbursed to states who elect to implement FiTs meeting or exceeding the federal guidelines. The states would not be required to implement FiTs, but if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be eligible for the federal funds. The funds collected would only be used for renewable generation capacity and building efficiency upgrades.”

 

That’s odd. We thought everybody loved wind turbines and that there was absolutely nothing wrong with them. GlobalWarming.org(11/2/12) reports: “A major disagreement erupted this week in the British government over future onshore windmill installations.  The number two minister in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, John Hayes, MP, declared that “enough is enough,” and that no more wind farms needed to be built in the United Kingdom.  Hayes complained that wind turbines had been “peppered across the country” without regard for public opinion.”

 

Climatologist Curry to Obama: Hmmmmm…   Judith Curry (11/17/12) reports: “What we do know is the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even 10 years ago,” Obama stated. “We do know that the Arctic ice cap is melting faster than was predicted even five years ago. We do know that there have been an extraordinarily large number of severe weather events here in North America, but also around the globe.” Hmmmmm. . .   I wonder what his source was on the bolded statement.

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