News

He definitely should.  It would help the campaign tremendously. National Journal (9/4/12) reports: “A large group of Democratic donors is threatening to withhold money from President Obama’s reelection campaign unless he breaks his silence on climate change and responds directly to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s denigration of the issue at the Republican National Convention last week.”

I had no idea that Pleistocene-era caliche deposits release carbon into the atmosphere when exposed to the elements. WSJ(9/4/12) reports: “A couple of weeks ago we wondered if green lobbying groups would object to new Department of Interior rules to streamline environmental approval for solar energy projects on hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land. (“The Solar-Painted Desert,” Aug. 13, 2012.) Well, here we go. Three environmental groups—Western Lands Project, Basin and Range Watch, and Solar Done Right—have filed a formal complaint of the kind that often presages a lawsuit… But here’s the real shocker: The letter complains that “no scientific evidence has been presented to support the claim that these projects reduce greenhouse emissions.” And “the opposite may be true. Recent work at the Center for Conservation Biology University of California, Riverside, suggests that soil disturbance from large-scale solar development may disrupt Pleistocene-era caliche deposits that release carbon to the atmosphere when exposed to the elements, thus ‘negat[ing] the solar development C [carbon] gains.'””

You know the really sad part?  No one is really surprised. Inside Climate News (9/4/12) reports: “Mitt Romney has vowed to drill the nation’s way out of its foreign oil addiction instead of investing in clean fuel technologies—but according to Dan Senor, one of Romney’s closest political advisers, that’s bad economics.”

This is discouraging.  Again, not surprising, but discouraging. E&ENews (9/4/12) reports: “Man-made global warming is happening, President Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney agreed in answers released today on the independent website ScienceDebate, but neither candidate provided specifics about what kind of future policies would be needed to slow climate change or guard against its adverse effects.”

So the new automobile mandates kill people, increase the cost of cars, punish poorer people, and erode the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund.  Is there anything this crew can’t wreck? American Road & Transportation Builders Ass. (8/29/12) reports: “As new cars and light trucks are purchased in the future and old ones retired, average fuel economy will improve, reducing the 2009 forecast of gasoline sales and HTF revenues by the amounts shown in the table.  The baseline for computing percentage losses is total HTF revenues.”

Is Reuters trying to imply that Senator Reid is a corrupt politician trying to compel a utility to purchase expensive, unreliable energy?  Because if they are, they need to write this story on just about every Member of Congress who favors utility mandates.  Or, looked at through a different prism, everyone who favors the ethanol mandate. Reuters (8/31/12) reports: “In 2003, the Nevada Democrat publicly banned relatives from lobbying him or his staff after newspaper reports showed that Nevada industries and institutions routinely turned to Reid’s sons or son-in-law for representation. Now, questions surrounding family ties are flaring again in Nevada around the Senate majority leader. He and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert.”

Hey, I’m pretty sure Solyndra and the rest of the crew went under babbling about how the Chinese were killing them.  Let’s make it easy.  No one on the planet wants a product that doesn’t work as well as its competition.  When was the last time you bought a VHS tape? The Telegraph (8/29/12) reports: “At the same time, the quality of the solar equipment being made by Chinese companies, even by the biggest companies, is often not export-grade… While the Chinese government has promised to hugely increase its purchases of solar panels, there is a significant excess capacity in the domestic market that has kept prices low.”

What?  You mean FERC does not rule the entire planet?  Does Joe Kelliher know about this? Platts (8/28/12) reports: “While the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission can retroactively determine what the electricity rates in California should have been during the Western energy crisis of 2000-01, it cannot use that information to make non-jurisdictional entities, such as municipal utilities and the Bonneville Power Administration, pay refunds, a federal appeals court has determined.”

On Friday we noted that some in New York did not want the Champlain Hudson line bringing in electricity from Canada.  Now, we note that some in New England would rather not have the Northern Pass line bringing electricity in from Canada.  Sense a theme?  On a separate note, kudos to ISO-NE for acknowledging that switching to natural gas may be a lot more complicated than people think. Union Leader (8/29/12) reports: “On Friday we noted that some in New York did not want the Champlain Hudson line bringing in electricity from Canada.  Now, we note that some in New England would rather not have the Northern Pass line bringing electricity in from Canada.  Sense a theme?  On a separate note, kudos to ISO-NE to acknowledging that switching to natural gas may be a lot more complicated than people think.”

This is why my native New York is doomed.  Even the “Republicans” are idiots. WSJ (8/27/12) reports: “Upstate legislators are opposing a plan to build an electricity transmission line from Canada to New York City, claiming the proposal to import lower-cost hydroelectric power would cost New York jobs.”

You would think that Nancy Pelosi would take time out from increasingly ridiculous press conferences to make sure that San Francisco is doing its part to destroy what is left of California. SF Weekly (8/29/12) reports: “Now, more than four years and one mayor later, that program has also done almost nothing to offset greenhouse gas emissions. The fund has reaped in $203,152 from city departments since 2009, plus a $14,000 donation and $1,129 from travelers who purchased carbon offsets from a kiosk at SFO.”

Does anyone really think this crew was going to let Shell explore in the Chukchi?  Seriously? BSEE (8/30/12) reports: “It’s an upside-down world when a company forks over more than $2 billion to the government for the right to explore for energy and it becomes a news story 5 years later when the government allows them to stir up some mud – but not actually drill for oil — on the ocean floor dozens of miles off shore.  Sort of makes one wonder how the process will work for getting the government to allow an operation that will actually cost them something when they run our health care.”

Congressman Pompeo is rarely wrong.  He is not here. Politico(8/29/12) reports: “There’s been a steady drumbeat recently from those seeking an extension of the wind production tax credit. For many reasons, including some that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has carefully highlighted in his opposition, this is a bad idea.”

We won.  You might have missed it in all the mayhem. Politico(8/29/12) reports: “T. Boone Pickens said natural gas vehicles can survive just fine without Congress approving his so-called Pickens Plan.”

Ken Green not only killed it, he squashed it like a bug.  Don’t even think about mustering up a rebuttal to this gem. AEI (8/28/12) reports: “So let us, once again, review why a carbon tax is a bad idea: 1) Taxes on carbon are not simply taxes on consumption, they’re a tax on production as well, since energy is a primary input to production (and is a growing share because of increasing automation). Taxing both production and consumption seems like a poor way to stimulate your economy, reduce your costs of production, or make your exports more competitive.”

Waiver requests on the RFS are starting to rattle investors?  The RFS itself has been a disaster for the economy, for fuel efficiency, for the environment.  I’m glad someone is getting rattled. The Hill (8/28/12) reports: “Biofuels groups said Tuesday that political pressure from governors to waive the renewable fuel standard (RFS) this year is starting to strain the industry by sending “instability signals” to investors.”

First off, who wrote this for him?  Second, I guess the world is easy when you are a rich-kid punk.  But consumers actually prefer affordable, reliable energy.  And workers like to have jobs.NYTimes (8/27/12) reports: “ON the northern tip of Delaware County, N.Y., where the Catskill Mountains curl up into little kitten hills, and Ouleout Creek slithers north into the Susquehanna River, there is a farm my parents bought before I was born. My earliest memories there are of skipping stones with my father and drinking unpasteurized milk. There are bald eagles and majestic pines, honeybees and raspberries. My mother even planted a ring of white birch trees around the property for protection.”

It’s actually scary to read this, because it makes you think that someone in the current Administration is trying to undermine American prosperity and security. Governor Sean Parnell (8/24/12) reports: “At this critical juncture, Alaska is prepared to supply our nation with employment as well as a secure source of domestic energy, only to be thwarted repeatedly by federal actions designed to impede our progress. Evidence shows the blame lies not with industry, but with the Obama Administration’s agenda to prevent oil and gas production on federal lands.”

Normally, this is called vandalism. On Wednesday, you’ll be encouraged to sign the bus, while also enjoying beef tenderloin and seafood for lunch. AEA invites you to join Stephen Moore, Senator John Barrasso, Representative Mike Pompeo, and Thomas Pyle, President of AEA for a free market energy forum on Wednesday, August 29^th, at 11:30 in Liberty Plaza.

Perhaps not the largest surprise we’ve ever experienced. USA Today(8/27/12) reports: “It would be the second interruption in production for the Volt, which can go 38 miles on battery power before needing a recharge from its gasoline engine. GM late Monday disputed published reports that the move is because of slow Volt sales.”

 
The Romney crew is only going to have trouble flipping some of these regulations if they hire the same batch of “moderates” that the Bush Administration did.  Yes, we mean guys like Boyden Gray and Jim Connaughton. National Journal (8/27/12) reports: “For all the Republican rhetoric about President Obama’s “war on coal,” there isn’t really a lot that Mitt Romney could do as Obama’s successor to turn around the decline in an industry that has long been the mainstay of the nation’s power supply.”
 
Jack Gerard would be a great chief of staff or Secretary of Interior or even Energy.  He would definitely be better than some of the horrible names that are being kicked around now. Politico (8/27/12) reports: “American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard on Monday dismissed scuttlebutt that he could serve a senior role in a Mitt Romney administration… “Washington silly talk,” Gerard told POLITICO in an interview on the first official day of the Republican National Convention.”