News

We couldn’t say it any better: “This project is not just a pipeline; it’s a lifeline for American working men and women.” Oklahoman (8/25/12) reports:

Abundance or scarcity.  Growth or destruction.  The choice could not be clearer. Human Events (8/26/12) reports: “While President Barack Obama rails against fossil fuels and supports billions of dollars in new spending for experimental sources of energy, Romney and running mate Paul Ryan support the development of the country’s natural resources as the foundation for a growing and modern economy.”

 
We have been taking a lot of heat from our friends at AEI about this sort of thing.  So we offer this without comment.  NYTimes (8/25/12) reports: The good news is that we could insulate ourselves from catastrophic risk at relatively modest cost by enacting a steep carbon tax. Early studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that a carbon tax of up to $80 per metric ton of emissions — a tax that might raise gasoline prices by 70 cents a gallon — would eventually result in climate stability. But because recent estimates about global warming have become more pessimistic, stabilization may require a much higher tax. How hard would it be to live with a tax of, say, $300 a ton?

 
There’s still a chance to RSVP for our event in Tampa. Issac will not be in attendence, but we promise it will still be an exciting lunch. August 29^th, 11:30am: “Stephen Moore, editorial board member and senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal, will lead a panel discussion in a lively debate on America’s energy future. With vast energy resources and advances in technology to unlock them, America has the potential to lead the world in energy production and spark a reviatlization of the manufacturing industry.”

This is the beat of the drum that we are marching to.

Look, we get that Alex Flint is working Harry Reid’s side of the street.  But Mitt Romney is a Mormon, too.  Maybe Alex should throw him a bone occasionally. Politico (8/23/12) reports: Many of Romney’s other energy ideas also come with catches. If approved in its entirety, the Keystone pipeline that’s been central to the GOP political agenda would give Canada access to world markets with its tar sands oils — not the direct line into American gas tanks that Republicans often suggest. The Canadians, Hakes said, “want it so they can export to other places.”

In what is otherwise an excellent document, this an unfortunate blemish.  I feel the presence of the dark side; or, as we prefer to call him, Jim Connaughton.  Seriously, the Romney crew needs to cut loose some of the dead wood from the previous, failed, unlamented Administration.  Politico (8/23/12) reports: Mitt Romney is again lending his weight behind an EPA renewable fuels mandate that has been under increasing criticism from both the left and right amid widespread droughts and spiking corn prices.

Tough to see how this turns out well for Dr. Mann.  But it will be fun watching Lowry and Steyn take the wrecking ball to him. National Review (8/22/12) reports: Mann is upset — very, very upset — with this Mark Steyn Corner post, which had the temerity to call Mann’s hockey stick “fraudulent.” The Steyn post was mild compared with other things that have been said about the notorious hockey stick, and, in fact, it fell considerably short of an item about Mann published elsewhere that Steyn quoted in his post.

This ran yesterday, but we wanted to make sure you saw it.  We don’t think this looks corrupt at all. AP (7/22/12) reports: A veteran Wall Street executive who performed an independent review that exonerated the Obama administration’s program of loans to energy companies contributed $52,500 to re-elect President Barack Obama in the months since completing his work, according to an Associated Press review of campaign records. The executive defended the integrity of his conclusions and said he decided to donate to Obama after his work was finished.

Does George Clooney know about this? Care2 (7/9/12) reports: Dead bats are turning up beneath wind turbines all over the world. Bat fatalities have now been documented at nearly every wind facility in North America where adequate surveys for bats have been conducted, and several of these sites are estimated to cause the deaths of thousands of bats per year.

In a sea of chaos, an island of reason. AEA (August 29, 2012) hosts: “Stephen Moore, editorial board member and senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal, will lead a panel discussion in a lively debate on America’s energy future.
With vast energy resources and advances in technology to unlock them, America has the potential to lead the world in energy production and spark a revitalization of the manufacturing industry.”
 
You know what is really going to lead to societal collapse?  Terrible anti-energy votes by Congressmen. Bangor Daily News(8/20/12) reports: “There are a number of events that could create a situation in the cities where civil unrest would be a very high probability,” Bartlett predicts in “Urban Danger,” a documentary that features the cabin tour. “And I think that those who can and those who understand need to take advantage of the opportunity when these winds of strife are not blowing, to move their families.”
 
Shale gas will cut U.S. wind, solar energy demand, Barclays report says (and that’s why the Sierra Club is now anti-gas because nat gas is now inexpensive, and unlike wind and solar, reliable). E&ENews (8/21/12) reports: “Barclays analysts lowered their forecast for wind demand in the United States by 12 percent for 2014 and 9 percent for 2015 because of a greater share of shale gas in the U.S. energy mix.”
 
Energy and Commerce is very solid.  Now on to the Utility MACT.Energy & Commerce (8/21/12) reports: “Republican leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee welcomed today’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to block implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, one of several stringent new EPA rules affecting power plants that are expected to drive electricity prices higher and put jobs at risk.”
 
A regulatory swap?  No one is talking about that.  And none of the bad guys would offer automobile mandates, the RFS, all efficiency standards, and the GHG regs in exchange for a tax that some nominal Republicans are already planning for without even considering such a trade. Greenwire (8/21/12) reports: “The R-Street Institute is allegedly free-market and limited government, but you have to wonder then their founder says about a carbon tax, “If it’s a true tax and regulatory swap, I don’t see any reason why conservatives wouldn’t support it.” Does Lehrer really believe that the federal government will remove CAFE standards, all energy efficiency standards, the ethanol mandate, the cellulosic ethanol mandate, AND not increase taxes with a carbon tax. They must be smoking some fun stuff up on R-Street.”
 
Is anyone missing here?  Other than coal guys (40% of electricity), natural gas guys (Boone most definitely does not count; he is just a plutocrat), or actual Republicans? Politico (August 2012) reports: “Guests: Alliance to Save Energy’s Kateri Callahan; American Petroleum Institute’s Martin Durbin; Nuclear Energy Institute’s Alex Flint; energy entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens; and Solar Energy Industries Association’s Rhone Resch.”
 
Yikes, Here is Boone again.  I wonder if he is going to pimp the NAT GAS Act.  I really wonder who puts these things together for the Republican convention.  Are they aware that the caucus rejected Boone’s plan pretty much en masse? Business Wire (8/17/12) reports: “Guest speakers and moderators will include former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, oil and gas executive, financier and billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens and former Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Cass Sunstein.”
 
I wonder if Heathcliff and Cathy preferred bird-killing, expensive, unreliable energy? Daily Mail (8/19/12) reports: “And now campaigners opposing plans for a wind farm near Haworth, West Yorkshire, are facing a war on two fronts, as another energy firm attempts to place turbines on the landscape at the heart of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.”

Preach on, Brother Bradley. Forbes (8/20/12) reports: “Ethanol as government energy policy has been an economic and environmental bust. There’s little debate: it inflates motor fuel prices, while compromising the environment. And that was before this summer’s drought reduced corn and wheat supply. President Obama is under pressure from all sides to waive the ethanol requirement for less expensive fuel and food.”

When the government takes away your beer and hands you a shot, the end of the story is pretty predictable. Apply that same logic here. WSJ (8/20/12) reports: “Mandated increases in energy efficiency—popular almost everywhere on the ideological spectrum—have been implemented around the world. Laws like the European Union’s new requirement for 15% energy savings, or the U.S. Senate’s proposed Clean Energy Standard Act of 2012, appear like clear winners for almost everyone. If the costs of new technologies are within reason, they promise consumers lower energy bills and producers more profit while mitigating the environmental costs of energy development and consumption… There is just one problem: Basic economics says that the best way to promote some activity is to reduce its price. That often means efficiency requirements end up having the opposite effect than the one intended.”

 
Hey!  Somebody at AEI must read the Pipeline; for that we are truly grateful.  Now if we could get some kind of public commitment to stop playing footsie with those who favor a carbon tax. AEI (8/18/12) reports: “The hardest hit sectors of the U.S. economy from a carbon tax would be energy-intensive industries, particularly chemicals, automobile manufacturing, iron and steel, aluminum, cement, and mining and oil refining… These large industries would be at a serious disadvantage in the world marketplace, and many companies would move production to countries without such a tax.”

 
“We want to make it safe for Republicans to debate climate change.”  That is almost exactly what Bob Inglis said when he launched his effort.  I wonder who is paying for these efforts.  I’m betting it is somebody like Bob Grady or Boyden Gray or Jim Connaughton.  I also wonder whether Senator Graham really wants to talk much about climate change.  I bet he doesn’t. National Journal (8/20/12) reports: “In a campaign season where energy and climate change have become partisan lightning rods, a small but growing group of Republicans are pushing back against their party’s orthodoxy on both issues.”

 
Do you think Salazar cares that his Department is consciously trying to impoverish Native Americans, rural Americans, and just generally all Americans?  I bet he is more worried about how legit he looks in that cowboy hat and bolo. Alaska Business Monthly(August 2012) reports: “As of yet, oil and gas has not been commercially produced from the NPR-A. This lack of production can be attributed to an onerous and sometimes convoluted federal process, where interactions within the Department of Interior and between other federal agencies is often confusing, leading to actions of one agency being cancelled by the actions of another. This bureaucracy often leads to a stalemate within agencies that can take years to sort out, leaving outside parties with no means of moving projects forward.”

 
This is a bit old (3 days now), but the message is too solid not to share.  The only scarce resource is wisdom; we have plenty of everything else. Washington Post (8/17/12) reports: “Sometimes the news is that something was not newsworthy. The United Nations’ Rio+20 conference — 50,000 participants from 188 nations — occurred in June without consequences. A generation has passed since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, which begat other conferences and protocols (e.g., Kyoto). And, by now, apocalypse fatigue — boredom from being repeatedly told the end is nigh.”

Nobody’s perfect, but we doubt the Sierra Club will be starting up a “Beyond Wind” campaign anytime soon. Hawaii News Now (8/3/12) reports: “This was the third fire related incident at the Kahuku wind farm since it opened in March 2011.  The battery energy storage system was hailed as breakthrough technology but clearly there are flaws.”