News - American Energy Alliance

New EPA GHG Rule is Latest Assault on American Energy

April 26, 2012 by AEA Leave a Comment

“The Obama agenda seeks to control the way we live, work, and act by controlling the sources of energy we use. This rule gives more power to Obama regulators by giving fewer sources of affordable energy to American consumers.”
– IER President Thomas J. Pyle

WASHINGTON D.C. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is preparing today to issue a proposed rule for greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants, a move that industry experts believe “effectively bans new coal plants” in the United States. Currently, coal-fired energy provides nearly 45 percent of America’s electricity needs, while solar and wind energy provide a combined 2.33 percent.

IER President Thomas Pyle released the following statement in advance of EPA’s proposed rule:

“President Obama promised to bankrupt coal-powered electricity in the United States, and this latest rule — when combined with the administration’s new rules for mercury emissions and cross-state pollution — makes good on that promise. Already, towns like Craig, Colo., whose economies rely on coal-fired electricity generation, are struggling under the burden of Obama regulations.

“Because the administration couldn’t shut down towns like Craig through cap-and-trade laws, the President has determined to impose his agenda through the EPA. This development is not surprising, given the president’s assurance that cap-and-trade was ‘just one way of skinning the cat.’

“The United States has the largest coal reserves of any country in the world with 486 billion short tons of technically recoverable resources. States like Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Montana lead the nation in producing this valuable resource for affordable electricity. If the EPA’s new rules are finalized, entire industries across the United States will be pushed out of business — and jobs with them.

“The EPA’s increasingly politicized rule making is clear. Administrator Lisa Jackson and her regulatory enforcers are advancing an agenda that gives tremendous financial benefit and market advantage to the president’s closest allies in the renewable sector and satisfies the ideological demands of environmental extremists who want to destroy traditional energy in America.

Filed Under: News, Products and Power Tagged With: greenhouse gases

Death and Toxins: How Krugman Botched His Mercury Commentary

April 25, 2012 by AEA 1 Comment

Critics of NYT columnist and blogger Paul Krugman know that the economist—who won his Nobel award for work on international trade—has a habit of carelessly repeating the “facts” on environmental issues put out by his liberal colleagues. Yet Krugman’s blog post on the EPA’s decision to regulate mercury emissions from power plants was so factually mistaken and incredibly misleading that it was surprising even by his standards. In this post I’ll clarify the depth of the chasm between Krugman’s comments and reality.

Krugman on Mercury Regulation

Here is how Krugman used his extraordinary megaphone at the NYT blog to deal with the EPA’s decision. Krugman first quotes two paragraphs from Grist writer David Roberts, then returns to his own (Krugman’s) commentary:

David Roberts reports on the EPA’s decision, finally, to regulate mercury from coal plants:

Anyone who pays attention to green news will have spent the last two years hearing a torrent of stories about EPA rules and the political fights over them. It can get tedious. After a certain point even my eyes glaze over, and I’m paid to follow this stuff.

But this one is a Big Deal. It’s worth lifting our heads out of the news cycle and taking a moment to appreciate that history is being made. Finally controlling mercury and toxics will be an advance on par with getting lead out of gasoline. It will save…tens of thousands of lives every year and prevent birth defects, learning disabilities, and respiratory diseases. It will make America a more decent, just, and humane place to live.

[Back to Krugman writing:] Let me repeat part of that: it will save tens of thousands of lives every year and prevent birth defects, learning disabilities, and respiratory diseases. This is actually a much bigger issue, when it comes to saving American lives, than terrorism.

As Roberts explains, we’ve known about these costs of mercury pollution for decades, yet it took until now to get something done. The reason is, of course, obvious: special interests, hiding behind claims of immense economic damage if anything was done, were able to block action. [Emphasis in original.]

This is Krugman’s preferred M.O. when it comes to environmental issues: Copy-and-paste wild numerical claims, no matter how implausible on their face, and then pretend that all of the scientists agree with Krugman, while anyone who objects is either a fool or a paid shill of big business.

In this case, the numbers were so absurd that I decided to spend a few hours digging into the matter more deeply. Even those who are familiar with the progressive Left’s willingness to bend numbers to support their ideological causes may be surprised at what I uncovered.

The Origins of a Bogus Statistic: The Liberal Blogosphere Telephone Game

Most readers are probably familiar with the “telephone game,” in which one person whispers a statement to a second person, who whispers it to a third, and so on. With a big enough group, by the time the “statement” reaches the last person, it has morphed into something only faintly resembling the original utterance.

Something analogous partially explains what happened with Krugman’s over-the-top analysis. Glancing up again at the Krugman quotation, notice that the good doctor—in a post titled, “The Meaning of Mercury”—cited the claim that the EPA’s decision will “save tens of thousands of lives every year,” and then Krugman wrote, “[W]e’ve known about these costs of mercury pollution for decades.”

Because of Krugman’s title and discussion, the innocent reader would be led to believe that “the science” had shown that mercury pollution itself was responsible for at least 20,000 deaths annually, in the same way that (say) car crashes are responsible for a large number of deaths every year.

This is why my alarm bells went off. After all, in 2007 (the latest year of finalized data) the U.S. only had 2.4 million deaths total, with much of this number due to causes clearly unrelated to mercury. (For example, more than 123,000 died from accidents, some 35,000 were suicides, and 18,000 were homicides.) Was Krugman really telling us with a straight face that he thought at least 20,000—the lowest number that would render “tens of thousands” an accurate description—deaths were due to mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants?

We can see how Krugman’s version of reality starts to unravel, just by looking more closely at the very quote Krugman himself selected from David Roberts, who had written: “Finally controlling mercury and toxics will be an advance on par with getting lead out of gasoline” (italics added). Krugman, whether intentionally or through ignorance, led his readers to believe that this was a discussion about mercury, when, as we will see, the (bogus) statistic isn’t based on mercury emissions at all.

“Saving Lives” versus “Preventing Premature Deaths”

If we follow Krugman’s link to David Roberts’ piece, we don’t see any specific explanation of the “tens of thousands of lives” claim. However, in that piece Roberts’ links to this guest post at ClimateProgress (Joe Romm’s blog), by Daniel J. Weiss and Jackie Weidman. It is here that we start learning where the “tens of thousands of lives” number comes from, because the authors write, “These rules will remove millions of pounds of mercury, lead, arsenic and other dangerous pollutants from coal plants, preventing 17,000 premature deaths annually.”

Notice that the telephone game has struck again. Weiss and Weidman say the rules will prevent “17,000 premature deaths annually.” David Roberts incorrectly translated that into a claim that the rules will “save tens of thousands of lives.”[1] Besides being wrong numerically, it’s also misleading, since preventing a “premature death” doesn’t have quite the same ring as “saving lives.”

If a new air traffic control system reduces airplane crashes, so that fewer people die from “airplane crash” every year, then it is clearly saving lives, and the evidence for the efficacy of the new system is quite objectively verifiable. But if instead someone claims that a new pill will reduce “premature deaths” by a certain number each year, that is a much more abstract claim, dependent on a theoretical model. The new pill might in fact be a wonderful boon to public health, but the researchers in question have a lot more leeway to come up with a wildly wrong number when they can play with “preventing premature deaths.”

Reporting the Top of the Range Instead of the Range

Alas, even the “prevent 17,000 premature deaths” claim has fallen victim to the telephone game. If we follow the link that Weiss and Weidman provide, we are led to the EPA analysis fueling much of the progressive blogosphere’s commentary on the issue. Here we see, at long last, the origin of the factoid. On page 3 the report explains, “In 2016, these proposed rules would avoid: 6,800 – 17,000 premature deaths.” Thus, when Weiss and Weidman confidently asserted that the rules would “prevent…17,000 deaths annually,” they were reporting the very highest number in a range given by the EPA. (Note also that the low end of the range wouldn’t even constitute ten thousand, let alone “tens of thousands.”)

Bait and Switch: None of This Is About “Air Toxics” After All

We have already seen the telephone game’s ability to distort and inflate, resulting in Paul Krugman’s absurd implication that the scientific consensus has known for decades that mercury emissions from power plants currently cause at least 20,000 deaths annually, and that anyone who disagrees must be stupid or corrupt.

However, a reasonable person might respond, “Okay Murphy sure, the figures weren’t just about mercury, but ‘mercury and other air toxics.’ It’s also true Murphy that the actual number might be as low as 6,800 premature deaths avoided, rather than ‘tens of thousands of lives saved.’ But still, Krugman and his allies are only guilty of inflating the numbers and botching the summary of the facts. The basic spirit of their analysis is still sound, right?”

Unfortunately, what is happening here is far more Orwellian than a mere telephone game. The EPA’s analysis is based on a gigantic bait-and-switch, as Dr. Anne E. Smith explained in her August, 2011 technical commentary on the EPA’s proposed rule. From Smith’s summary of her findings:

EPA reports that the Proposed Rule will produce annual benefits of 6,800 to 17,000 avoided premature deaths and other types of health effects reductions, with an estimated value ranging from $53 billion to $140 billion, but these benefits have nothing to do with air toxics at all. The fact that none of these benefits are due to air toxics reductions is quite clear if one reads the Executive Summary (Chapter 1) of the RIA. [Emphasis in original.]

Indeed, if one knows what to look for, this shocking revelation is implicit in the EPA’s own fact sheet (which the ClimateProgress writers Weiss and Weidman linked to). On the very same page that provides the “6,800 – 17,000 premature deaths” bullet point, the EPA document says:

The updated standards will provide certainty and level the playing field so that all power plants will have to limit their toxic emissions – ultimately preventing 91 percent of the mercury in burned coal from being emitted into the air. The rule provides up to 4 years for facilities to meet the standards.

EPA did not estimate the benefits associated with reducing exposure to air toxics or other air pollutants, ecosystem effects, or visibility impairment. However, the proposed toxics rule would cut emissions of pollutants that are of particular concern for children. Mercury and lead can adversely affect developing brains – including effects on IQ, learning, and memory.

In addition to the benefits of reducing exposure to air toxics, these standards would reduce concentrations of fine particles (PM_2.5) in our air. This will significantly improve public health by preventing hundreds of thousands of illnesses and thousands of premature deaths each year. [Emphasis added.]

Thus we see that the figures (both for premature deaths and economic benefits) cited by the progressive bloggers refernot to emissions of mercury by itself or even of mercury plus all other “air toxics” combined, but rather to a certain type of fine “particulate matter,” denoted PM_2.5. In other words, EPA proposed a rule to limit mercury and other “air toxics” emissions and then, to justify the rule, almost completely relied on a model of the costs and benefits of reducing PM_2.5emissions, which would be an incidental byproduct of the rule. Thus, even if we accept the EPA’s analysis as gospel truth,the numbers of “lives saved” cited by Krugman have virtually nothing to do with mercury at all.

But wait, it gets worse. As Dr. Smith explains later (pp. 6-7) in her analysis, the modeling assumptions behind these PM_2.5 numbers are themselves quite dubious:

[R]eaders unfamiliar with the literature on PM_2.5 health risks should be aware that the estimates of PM_2.5-attributed deaths (such as the 6,800 to 17,000 that EPA is attributing to the Proposed Rule) are based entirely on statistical associations between total mortality rates in various locations of the US and their respective monitored, region-wide ambient PM_2.5 concentrations….EPA’s estimate of 6,800 to 17,000 PM_2.5-related premature deaths avoided in 2016 as a result of the Proposed Rule is based on an assumption that 130,000 to 320,000 deaths, respectively, of 2005’s US deaths were hastened by breathing ambient PM_2.5….And yet, EPA identifies not a single death during 2005 that was attributed, even in part, to exposure to ambient PM_2.5. If PM_2.5 is indeed having this estimated effect on the public health, there is no evidence indicating when or where these events occurred, or who was affected. Rather, these mortality estimates are merely inferences drawn after making a host of assumptions about how to convert a statistical association into a concentration-response function. No one really even knows what types of deaths might be implicated. A common belief among researchers is that the deaths are primarily cardiovascular in nature, but this is far from an established fact: everything from cardiovascular causes to diabetes to lung cancer has been mentioned as having such an association in one paper or another. There is no clinical evidence to inform these inferences either, despite at least 15 years of efforts by researchers to find a clear physiological mechanism to explain and lend credibility to these estimates based solely on statistical correlations.

Conclusion

The deeper one digs into the actual science backing up the wild claims of Krugman & Co. on mercury regulation, the weaker their rhetoric becomes. The implausible assertions in Krugman’s blog post were generated by a comedy of transgressions, ranging from (perhaps honest) poor paraphrasing, to reporting the top number of a wide range, to justifying regulations on air toxics emissions based on dubious models of the health effects of particulate matter.

In conclusion, let me be clear: No one is claiming that little kids should play with mercury. (In fact, will Krugman, David Roberts, et al. join IER in opposing the government’s phased-in ban on incandescent bulbs that will effectively force all schools and daycare centers—not to mention homes—to use mercury-filled CFLs? These guys keep telling us how dangerous mercury is, after all.) Yet the public should get mighty suspicious when the allegedly airtight evidence on the benefits of mercury regulation turns out to be so very fragile indeed.

[1] Maybe Roberts is adding EPA’s claim of avoiding 17,000 premature deaths to other numbers, but if so, he fails to note his source.

Filed Under: Facts, News, Products and Power Tagged With: coal, EPA, Krugman, MACT, Mercury Regulation

ICYMI: AEA Fires Energy ‘Jump Ball’ for 2012 President Election

April 25, 2012 by Benjamin Cole Leave a Comment

The Washington Post
By Dan Eggen
April 25, 9:28 AM

Nearly all of the independent advertising aired for the 2012 general-election campaign has come from interest groups that do not disclose their donors, suggesting that much of the political spending over the next six months will come from sources invisible to the public.

Politically active nonprofits that do not reveal their funding have spent $28.5 million on advertising related to the November presidential matchup, or about 90 percent of the total through Sunday, a Washington Post analysis shows.

Most of the ad spending has come from conservative groups criticizing the policies of President Obama in key swing states, the data show. Tens of millions more have been spent by secretive groups targeting congressional races, again primarily in support of Republicans.

The numbers signal a shift away from super PACs, which are required to disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission and which have dominated political spending in the Republican presidential primary contest. Instead, the battle between Obama and presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney appears likely to be dominated by a shadow campaign run by big-spending nonprofits that do not have to identify their financial backers.

The pattern underscores the growing influence of corporations and wealthy individuals in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that made it easier to spend unlimited money on elections. The numbers also suggest that many wealthy donors are increasingly opting for the confidentiality of nonprofits rather than allowing the public scrutiny that comes from giving to super PACs or candidates.

“I think there is a potential to see a tremendous amount of money flowing through these nonprofit groups,” said Bill Allison, editorial director at the Sunlight Foundation, which advocates greater disclosure for political organizations and candidates. “For an awful lot of donors, it’s a very attractive way to give without leaving any kind of footprint.”

Crossroads GPS, the largest of the independent pro-Republican groups, said it raised nearly $40 million from unidentified donors in the first three months of this year, compared with less than $10 million by its affiliated super PAC, American Crossroads, which discloses contributions, according to documents and officials.

The Crossroads groups have run nearly $12 million in anti-Obama ads this cycle, nearly all of them paid for by the secretive nonprofit arm, according to data from Kantar Media/Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks ad spending. Recent tax records showed that 90 percent of the $76 million raised by the nonprofit arm through 2011 came from unidentified donors who gave $1 million or more, including two who gave $10 million each.

Many of the spots aired by groups such as Crossroads GPS are considered “issue ads” because they do not specifically urge viewers to vote for a particular candidate. The strategy allows them to conform to Internal Revenue Service rules for “social welfare” groups, which do not have to disclose their donors as long as their “primary purpose” is not politics.

One Crossroads GPS spot currently running in Virginia, for example, castigates the president for high energy costs. “No matter how Obama spins it, gas costs too much,” the female narrator says. “Tell Obama: Stop blaming others and work to pass better energy policies.”

Despite its anti-Obama message, the ad is not considered an election-related message under FEC and IRS guidelines. That means the money spent to air the spot — about $204,000 in the Richmond, Charlottesville and Washington markets — will not count as part of the group’s political budget, experts say.

“We are still very early in the cycle, with virtually all of last year and the first quarter dedicated to framing legislative and regulatory issues with conservative messaging,” said Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for the Crossroads groups. “As we approach the elections, more of our expenditures will be political and election focused.”

In addition to Crossroads, top expenditures on anti-Obama issue ads include $7 million from Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group with ties to oil billionaires Charles and David Koch; $3 million from the American Future Fund, a nonprofit conservative group based in Iowa; and at least $3.3 million from the American Energy Alliance, a group supported in part by the energy industry.

Liberal groups have spent little in comparison. The Environmental Defense Fund and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees have each spent about $1.1 million on ads related to the general presidential election, the data show. Most of the money on the left, particularly from labor unions, is expected to be spent on grass-roots organizing rather than advertising.

Benjamin Cole, communications director for American Energy Alliance, said the estimated $4 million the group has spent on television, radio and Internet ads “is just a fraction of what we’re expecting to spend” by November. He said the group is proud that it “fired the jump ball for the general election” with an ad running in 10 swing states that criticizes Obama’s energy policies and warns of $9-a-gallon gasoline.

“Almost overnight it became Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on energy,” Cole said. “There’s no problem with that. We want the conversation about energy and we’re happy to keep that conversation going.”

Nonetheless, Cole said, the group’s aims are primarily educational and nonpartisan. He noted that the group has criticized Romney, giving him its “Dim Bulb Award” last week for saying in 2003 that coal energy “kills people.”

Watchdog groups have long complained about a lack of disclosure by tax-exempt advocacy organizations, and Democrats have pushed for stronger requirements. Last month, a federal judge in Washington ordered the FEC to require tougher disclosure rules for nonprofits that run ads within 60 days of an election, but it’s unclear whether the agency will act on the matter before November.

Much of the advocacy spending related to the presidential election will go undocumented until 2013, when interest groups file their annual reports with the IRS.

Super PACs also have come under fire for transparency because many donations to the groups are from entities that are hard to trace. Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney super PAC that has raised $52 million, said it would revise its FEC disclosures this week after news organizations raised questions about a $400,000 donation linked to a defunct company address.

Spokeswoman Brittany Gross said the listing was the result of a “clerical error.” She said the filing will be updated to show a pair of $200,000 contributions from Gerald and Darlene Jordan, who hosted a recent fundraiser for Romney at their home in Palm Beach, Fla.

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Filed Under: News Tagged With: 2012 election, Barack Obama, Gas Price Ad, gas prices, Mitt Romney

Ending Corn Ethanol Support

April 23, 2012 by AEA 14 Comments

A USAToday story on the expiration of federal government support of domestic corn ethanol demonstrates the media’s ability to shape a story while appearing to be objective. The reporter technically includes both sides of the story, but trumpets one side so that the average reader would be outraged at the policy change. In reality, federal government support for ethanol is an inefficient attempt at central planning of markets that spawned some terrible consequences.

What’s In a Headline?

Right from the start, we know where the story is coming from. Its headline blares: “End of ethanol subsidy will raise the price of gas.”

Yet this is just one of the points addressed in the article. For example, after reading the text of the piece the editor could have used any of the following alternative headlines:

1) “End of ethanol subsidy will allow Congress to give Americans huge tax cut.”

2) “End of ethanol subsidy will trim deficit by $60 billion over 10 years.”

3) “End of ethanol subsidy will lower food prices.”

4) “End of ethanol subsidy means Congress no longer picking winners and losers in energy markets.”

5) “End of ethanol subsidy without repeal of ethanol mandate means government makes consumers pay more for gasoline.”

Each of these five alternate headlines would be just as true as the one the editor went with. They have a different ring from talking about raising gas prices, don’t they?

As the article explains, the subsidy was a 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit given to refiners for blending ethanol into gasoline, which works out to 4.5 cents a gallon for “E-10.” The tax credit did two things: (1) It made it cheaper to produce ethanol thus increasing its supply and pushing down its price. (2) It increased the demand for ethanol and hence for corn, thus pushing up the price of all types of food. Furthermore, the tax credit meant the Treasury received $6 billion less than it otherwise would have.

With this context, now we can see how removing the 45-cent-per-gallon subsidy would yield the various effects described in the hypothetical headlines above.

This Was Never About Encouraging Ethanol Use

The irony in the ethanol program was that it has never been about the environment, or weaning Americans off of their “dependence” on oil, as supporters of the program claimed. Instead, the rationale for the tax credit—and the mandate that we put it in our gasoline — and the reason the program lasted for 30 years—was to provide a quite naked payoff to American corn growers.

This is obvious when we consider the other component of the program: A 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. The tariff made Brazilian ethanol (produced from sugar cane) unable to compete in the United States with corn-based ethanol. This ensured that the generous tax credit given to refiners ended up boosting incomes of American farmers, rather than Brazilians.

Let the Market Decide

Federal ethanol policies have been a classic case of the far reaching consequences of federal policies. In recent years, with more and more of the corn crop getting diverted by federal mandate to ethanol, we have seen spiking commodity prices and global food riots, even ardent boosters of ethanol started having doubts.

The economist Ludwig von Mises demonstrated that once the government begins dabbling in one sector of the market, it leads to problems that invite yet more intervention. The government swells, with more money and more regulations being thrown as the problem evolves.

In this case, the government initially wanted to support domestic farmers while boosting the use of ethanol. To that end, it implemented a tax credit to refiners who were forced by law to incorporate ethanol. However, if that were the end of things, then the Treasury would effectively be creating a tax loophole to funnel money to Brazilian farmers, since they could produce ethanol more cheaply. Thus the need to implement the tariff, keeping Brazilian ethanol out.

Yet the extra demand for corn caused its price to rise, but also the prices of everything for which corn is used, including cattle feed (and hence beef prices), and chicken feed (and hence chicken prices). Moreover, by raising the price of corn, the ethanol support caused farmers to use more of their land growing corn, rather than other crops. The reduced supply made these agricultural products more expensive, too.

The government lacks the knowledge and judgment to decide whether refiners should be using more ethanol, or whether such ethanol should be produced domestically versus abroad. These are the types of decisions that a decentralized market makes, day in and day out. Central planning doesn’t work in North Korea, and it doesn’t work in US energy markets either.

Conclusion

Eliminating the tariff on imported ethanol removes an artificial barrier to the free movement of goods across borders, and hence can increase the standard of living of Americans and Brazilians. The elimination of the special tax credit for ethanol moves the tax code in the direction of simplicity and neutrality with respect to various energy sources. To prevent the change from being a net tax hike, the government could reduce tax rates across the board for all Americans. Lastly, the next thing to be repealed should be the ethanol mandate, which compels the use of one product and drives up gas prices. If the USAToday staff is concerned about rising gasoline prices, they should support IER’s calls for increased access to domestic oil resources.

Filed Under: News, Products and Power, Renewable Fuel Standard Tagged With: rfs

AEA launches “Obama Promises” ad on Pandora Radio

April 16, 2012 by Benjamin Cole Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON D.C. — The American Energy Alliance launched today a 30-second advertisement on Pandora Radio, a development of the Music Genome Project with more than 125 million registered users throughout the United States. The ad, entitled “Obama Promises,” will air in nine states — New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina.

AEA purchased 45 million spots for both audio and visual advertisements on Pandora Radio in what constitutes one of the largest current campaigns hosted by the Oakland, Calif-based company and a first-ever venture into Internet-based radio advertising by the Alliance. The spots will air between Apr. 16 and Apr. 27, 2012.

“The American Energy Alliance is adopting an ‘all of the above’ strategy to reach the American public with our message about President Obama’s failed energy policies. What began as a $3.6 million television ad now continues through an aggressive effort to reach tens of millions of Pandora listeners with a hard-hitting message about Obama gas prices and the politically-connected companies who benefit from the administration’s war on fossil fuels,” AEA President Thomas Pyle noted.

“We will use every available resource — from television to radio, the Internet to direct mail and grassroots mobilization — to educate American consumers who are paying for President Obama’s failures at the gas pump, on their electricity bills, and in the goods and services they use every day. The “Obama Promises” ad is latest component of our nationwide effort to combat bad policies that drive up the cost of energy and rob the American people of the affordable, organic energy sources our future depends on.”

To hear AEA’s “Obama promises” ad, click here.

To watch AEA’s “Nine Dollar Gas” ad, click here.

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Filed Under: Press Releases Tagged With: gas prices, Keystone XL, Obama promises, Pandora, Solyndra

In the Pipeline: 4/11/12

April 11, 2012 by AEA Leave a Comment

The Onion Couldn’t Have Written a Better Headline ABC News (4/10/12) reports: Former General Services Administration administrator Martha Johnson missed a lavish Las Vegas conference for government employees because she was already committed to meetings in California at Solyndra, according to testimony in an official government investigation…Solyndra is the now-bankrupt green energy company that the Obama administration had provided with a $535 million loan through the stimulus…The development, if true, dovetails together two embarrassing but otherwise unrelated episodes for the Obama administration.

Gary Andres. Michael Beckerman. Alexa Marrero. These people are without a doubt some of the best staff ever to serve at the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Oh, and Chairman Upton has been better than pretty much any other chairman since the Republicans retook the majority The American (4/9/12) reports: U.S. energy policy needs a reboot—a broad reassessment of our strategies—because much of what we thought we knew has either dramatically changed or turned out to be plain wrong…When I first became involved in these issues, President Jimmy Carter told us our domestic energy supplies were running out and a foreign cartel would determine everything from the cars we drove to the temperatures in our homes. The future he painted looked bleak.

NYT is betting on the river card with this article — four paragraphs praising the virtues of affordable energy and then the party line New York Times (4/10/12) reports: Cheaper fuel produced domestically could reduce the cost of shipping and manufacturing, trim heating and cooling bills, improve the auto market and provide tens of thousands of new jobs…It might also pose new environmental challenges, both predictable and unforeseen, by damping enthusiasm for clean forms of energy and derailing efforts to wean the nation from its wasteful energy habits.

If people keep telling the truth, it will destroy the policy process as we know it Forbes (4/10/12) reports: High gasoline prices will fall once Americans start to conserve and they start to innovate. In the batter’s box: gas-to-liquids, or GTL, which can be used to power everything from buses to trucks to planes…Two key factors are at play. First oil prices are at $115 a barrel and second, natural gas is abundant and cheap at just more than $2 per million Btus. There’s a huge incentive to increase the value of that fuel given that the producers don’t want to get to stuck with undeveloped reserves.

You see, not every nation on the planet has gone insane Associated Press (4/10/12) reports: U.S. coal exports reached their highest level in two decades last year as strong demand from Asia and Europe offered an outlet for a fuel that is falling from favor at home…U.S. Department of Energy data analyzed by The Associated Press reveal that coal exports topped 107 million tons of fuel worth almost $16 billion in 2011. That’s the highest level since 1991, and more than double the export volume from 2006.

I wonder if Jim Hansen will shriek about how the NASA alums are trying to silence him Daily Caller (4/10/12) reports: Nearly 50 former NASA scientists, astronauts and technologists are chastising NASA for its position on man-made climate change…In a March 28 letter addressed to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, the group of 49 former employees ask NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies to “refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites” because “it is clear that the science is NOT settled.”

Roger Pielke (both Junior and Senior) is pretty smart. So when they say that the IPCC is intentionally misleading people about something, you should probably pay attention Roger Pielker (4/10/12) reports: As I prepared for my lunch seminar which I am giving later today. I had a chance to revisit the press release issued by the IPCC on January 25, 2010 in response to an article that appeared in the UK Sunday Times one day earlier which detailed failures of the IPCC AR4 related to claims made about climate change and disasters…The Sunday Times article was about how the 2007 IPCC AR4 mishandled the issue of the economic toll of disasters and climate change. With the advantage of hindsight, we can now see that the claims made in the Sunday Times article have been completely vindicated and the IPCC press release was full of misinformation (to put it kindly). This post has the details.

Filed Under: Blog

In the Pipeline: 4/9/12

April 9, 2012 by AEA Leave a Comment

First Energy would argue that they are not intentionally causing a shortage in the capacity markets in order to make a bunch of money from unsuspecting ratepayers. I like to argue that I am taller and better looking than people think I am Platts Energy (4/8/12) reports: West Virginia regulators ordered FirstEnergy not to begin retiring three coal-fired plants in the state totaling 660 MW until regulators have a chance to review the company’s justification for the closings…The Public Service Commission said it has concerns about the retirements and it wants to evaluate the factors the company used to warrant their closings…The plants are the 292-MW Albright in Preston County, 242-MW Willow Island in Pleasants County and 126-MW Rivesville in Marion County. The plants will be closed by September 1, FirstEnergy said…Regulators asked FirstEnergy whether the retirements would produce upward pressure on capacity prices in the PJM Interconnection and the effect the closings would have on the net cost of service from an increase in capacity prices. It asked for a copy of PJM’s Reliability Status Report regarding how the closings would affect reliability.

This is not the April Fools’ Day version. This is a legitimate, accurate story. Which should make you a little queasy The Hill (4/6/12) reports: The Energy Department said Thursday it expects to begin tentatively approving new taxpayer-backed loans for renewable energy projects in the coming months…The announcement comes about seven months after Solyndra, the California solar firm that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the administration in 2009, went bankrupt, setting off a firestorm in Washington.

It is significantly less ridiculous than the Chevy Volt or the Nissan Leaf. And taxpayers aren’t paying rich people to buy it Wall Street Journal (4/8/12) reports: The second day of media previews at the New York International Auto Show is traditionally quiet, with less pressure than opening day and far fewer important press conferences. Many reporters leave the show early on day two so they can catch flights home or get back to their offices…This year, though, many are likely to stick around at least until 1:35 p.m., which is when the press conference for flying-car maker Terrafugia Inc. is scheduled to begin. Indeed, the road-and airworthy vehicle on display, called the Transition, may attract as much attention from people from inside the auto industry as from those writing about it.

Thank goodness. Matt Damon is finally here to help us work out national energy policy. Words cannot express the relief of a grateful Nation Politico (4/8/12) reports: Matt Damon will star in “The Promised Land,” an anti-fracking movie set to begin filming later this month…WME Agency, which represents Damon, confirmed that the “Good Will Hunting” star has signed on to the movie and co-wrote the film, and that it is, indeed, about hydraulic fracturing — the controversial practice of pumping a mixture of sand, water and chemicals into a well to break up rock and help extract natural gas.

These are the endangered polar bears that poorly-informed but well-meaning people (kind of like Matt Damon) are always talking about. Happily, they can now read this and learn something Globe and Mail (4/7/12) reports: The debate about climate change and its impact on polar bears has intensified with the release of a survey that shows the bear population in a key part of northern Canada is far larger than many scientists thought, and might be growing…The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic.

Filed Under: Blog

In the Pipeline: 4/4/12

April 4, 2012 by AEA Leave a Comment

It’s hypocritical for the same politicians calling for sanctions on China for placing quotas on a its rare earth exports to simultaneously try to block the export of our own natural gas resources MarketWatch (4/2/12) reports: The Chinese are wrong in the case of rare earth elements and should reverse their practices. President Obama shouldn’t follow in their footsteps with U.S. natural gas, a move which not only runs counter to our own obligations, but which threatens our own economic recovery.

Wind energy comes up snake eyes in Nevada, but you already knew that. This is getting to be a dog bites man story, and we are not going to run them anymore. Except to point out that people who support extending the wind PTC (like Jerry Moran) are fools Las Vegas Sun (4/2/12) reports: A year ago, a Reno clean energy businessman warned the Public Utilities Commission that if it didn’t set a few standards for NV Energy’s wind rebate program, its customers could end up footing the bill for turbines that rarely produce electricity…One reason behind his concern: To be eligible for rebates, customers didn’t need to prove that the wind actually blows enough to justify installing a turbine on their property.
If you were blind, there would be no sin in that. But you say “we see”. And your sin remains Politico (4/3/12) reports: Former federal offshore oil-and-gas-drilling enforcer Michael Bromwich readily admits he might have rubbed people the wrong way…“I may be not as good as some other people are at turning the other cheek,” he said in an interview Monday. “I think that I’m a strong personality, I have strong views. I let people know what I think — including members of Congress at hearings — and I think people don’t like that. Some people don’t like that.”

Well now. Maybe Lincoln was right with that whole fooling some of the people some of the time Smart Money (4/3/12) reports: March sales rose 22% from the previous month and 13% from a year ago to an annualized rate of 14.3 million vehicles, according to data released today by Edmunds.com. Experts credit rising gas prices as a leading factor for this spike in consumer demand. Sales of subcompact cars and mid-size cars made up 24% of total market share in March, up three percentage points from a year ago – the biggest growth in any category, according to forecasts by Kelley Blue Book. But despite the large swings in gas prices, hybrid sales have barely budged: they made up just 2.1% of market share last month, almost unchanged from a year ago. Of the 1.4 million cars that sold last month, less than 30,000 of them were hybrids. “Interest in hybrids is not as high as one would think especially in light of high gas prices,” says Jesse Toprak, vice president of market intelligence at TrueCar.com.

So if Romney’s policies are bad, does that mean that President Rig Count’s policies are good? Or does it just mean we are already in the campaign of personal destruction? Kind of sad for a guy who started out as the Messiah New York Times (4/3/12) reports: The Obama campaign is putting nearly $1.4 million behind its newest commercial, getting the president’s message on the air in some of the nation’s largest television markets, according to figures provided by a Republican strategist who tracks media purchases…The ad buy covers six battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada and Virginia — and includes cities like Tampa, Fla.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; Des Moines; and Cleveland…The ad will be shown on both broadcast and cable television.

Filed Under: Blog

In the Pipeline: 4/3/12

April 3, 2012 by AEA Leave a Comment

Solyndra. Beacon. First Light. Q-Cells. They will be thrown into the exterior darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen GWPF The German firm says it has abandoned an attempt to refinance its debts and will file for insolvency on Tuesday…Like other solar panel makers, Q-Cells has been hit by falling prices and last year the firm lost 846m euros ($1.1bn; £702m)…The company started in 2001 with 19 staff and now employs more than 2,000 workers…Q-Cells had been trying to organise a deal to swap debt for shares in the company.

Now we are on to something New York Times (4/2/12) reports: Butterfly wings are not just beautiful. They are also sophisticated collectors of solar energy that help butterflies stay warm, and researchers say that their shinglelike structure could provide valuable clues into developing better solar technology.

Wow. We must have really hit a nerve with our latest ad Politico (4/2/12) reports: President Obama’s reelection campaign has launched their third television spot of the cycle — an energy-themed ad that takes aim at both Mitt Romney and Big Oil companies…”Under President Obama, domestic oil production’s at an eight-year high,” the ad charges. “So why is Big Oil attacking him? Because he’s fighting to end their tax breaks.”…”He’s raising mileage standards, and doubling renewable energy,” the ad’s narrator says. “In all these fights, Mitt Romney’s stood with Big Oil— for their tax breaks, attacking higher mileage standards and renewables.”

Vroom…Vrooom! Chevy Volt production will remain idle for the next 12 weeks Detroit Free Press General Motors plans to halt production of the Chevrolet Volt at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant for three weeks in July, instead of the traditional two-week shutdown…”This is (a) normal part of business as managing to market demand,” GM spokeswoman Michelle Malcho said in an e-mail…Volt production has been idled for a five-week stretch through April 23 because dealers had a surplus of the plug-in extended-range electric vehicle…The Volt, which can travel about 35 miles on a single charge of electricity until a gasoline-powered generator kicks in, has yet to live up to the automaker’s original sales expectations. Chevrolet sold 1,023 Volts in February.

You know the best part? The Rubio crew sent along an op-ed supporting ethanol as proof that the Senator is really right on global warming. He will definitely make a great running mate for Willard Buzzfeed (4/2/12) reports: Florida Senator Marco Rubio is considered a likely Republican Vice Presidential nominee. But Rubio’s past carries some positions now decried by the right. In 2008, as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Rubio presided over a vote directing the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to create rules for limiting carbon emissions. In 2007, Rubio delivered this speech on energy, where he said “this nation and ultimately the world, are heading towards emissions caps,” adding Florida could become the “Silicon Valley” of green energy. Update This was not as strong as the federal legislation known a “cap and trade” and a Rubio spokesman emails this 2007 op-ed in which the then House Speaker cites opposition to cap and trade legislation.”

And EPA immediately tried to regulate it . . .Wall Street Journal (4/2/12) reports: When our ancestors first used fire has been a long-running debate, and a new study concludes the earliest firm evidence comes from about one million years ago in a South African cave…The ash and burnt-bone samples found there suggest fires frequently burned in that spot, researchers said Monday…Over the years, some experts have cited evidence of fire from as long as 1.5 million years ago, and some have argued it was used even earlier, a key step toward evolution of a larger brain. But it is a tricky issue. Even if there is evidence of an ancient blaze, how do researchers know it wasn’t just a wildfire?

Somewhere, Randy Randol is laughing GWPF (4/2/12) reports: Analysis by the GWPF of the newly released HadCRUT4 global temperature database shows that there has been no global warming in the past 15 years – a timescale that challenges current models of global warming…The important question is whether 15 years is a sufficient length of time from which to draw climatic conclusions that are usually considered over 30 years, as well as its implications for climate projections.

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Obama Campaign Distorts Energy Record, Deceives American Public

April 3, 2012 by AEA Leave a Comment

“Airing dubious attack ads against the American Energy Alliance won’t absolve the president or his administration for a three year energy embargo on federal lands.”
— AEA President Thomas Pyle

WASHINGTON D.C. — The Obama campaign, the Democratic National Committee and a pro-Obama Super PAC are frantically deploying television propaganda to distract the American public from the president’s energy record. In an ongoing multi-million dollar educational advertisement sponsored by the American Energy Alliance, the president’s true record is laid bare. Yet in the last week, the partisan Democratic triumvirate launched an apparently coordinated response to AEA’s ad, “Nine Dollar Gas,” now airing in eight states.

“The desperate response of Team Obama reveals the degree to which the president feels personally responsible for higher gas prices and is worried that the American people will listen to the truth instead of his propaganda. Rather than address the facts in the AEA ad, the Obama campaign, the DNC and his Bill Maher-funded Super PAC, throw up smokescreens and false allegations to hide from the truth,” noted AEA President Thomas Pyle.

“With rising gas prices, the president understandably wants to run from his record. His efforts to distract the public by floating specious claims and making unsubstantiated allegations about the American Energy Alliance are schizophrenic and shameful. Airing dubious response ads won’t lower gas prices, and it most certainly won’t absolve the president or his administration for a three-year energy embargo on federal lands.”

The Obama campaign claims that AEA’s ad is “false,” and without giving evidence of a single false claim, proceeds to make some whoppers of their own. Consider the following:

Obama False Claim #1: “[T]his president has expanded oil and gas drilling.”

AEA Truth: According to data released last month by the Energy Information Administration, oil production on federal lands was down 14 percent in FY2011. Offshore oil production alone declined by 285,000 barrels a day over the past fiscal year, and natural gas production on federal and Indian lands has fallen by 781 billion cubic feet since FY2009.

Those decreases are enough to deny a year’s worth of oil supply to both Nevada and New Mexico, and enough to shut off all natural gas to the states of Ohio or Michigan.

Obama False Claim #2: “[President Obama] is taking steps to … save consumers at the pump by making sure we are no longer tied to the volatile prices in the global oil market.”

AEA Truth: The only steps the president has taken so far to directly address the rising price of gasoline was to ask the Saudi royal family to boost oil production, to call for increased production in Sudan, and to dispatch Attorney General Eric Holder to form another task force targeting oil markets.

Meanwhile, the president has cancelled oil development off the Atlantic coast, cancelled offshore development in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, cancelled lease sales in the Alaskan seas, and cancelled oil shale development in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. All told, the president’s policies have embargoed more than 1 trillion barrels of technically recoverable oil reserves.

Obama False Claim #3: “[D]omestic oil production is at its highest level in eight years.”

AEA Truth: According to a Congressional Research Service report released last month, 96 percent of the increases in domestic oil production are occurring on private and state lands. Moreover, production increases that have occurred over the last three years are due to Bush-era policies, a fact even The New York Times cautiously admits.

Obama False Claim #4: “President Obama’s historic investments have also helped increase clean energy production — net electricity from wind and solar have more than doubled since 2008.”

AEA Truth: First, it is telling that the president takes credit for “his investments” in solar and wind energy. Last time we checked, he’s been “investing” the money of the American people, and doing a pretty poor job at it. Between Solyndra, Beacon Power, Blythe Solar, and Solar Trust of America, the Obama administration owns these failures, regardless of how politically unpalatable they are. Billions of taxpayer dollars have been thrown into renewable energy sinkholes by this administration with no prospect of a return on the “investment.”

As for the ‘doubling’ of wind and solar, it’s also telling what the Obama campaign does not disclose. Last year, wind and solar energy generated less than 3 percent of our net electricity. But on a total consumption basis, these sources only suppled 1.3 percent of our energy needs. Moreover, according to an EIA report released last year, taxpayer-funded renewable energy subsidies increased by 186 percent over three years to $14.7 billion. Simply put, the president’s favorite renewables may be producing more electricity, but at nearly three times as much cost to taxpayers.

Obama False Claim #5: “Why is Big Oil attacking [President Obama]? Because he’s fighting to end their tax breaks . . . So when you see [AEA]’s ad, remember who paid for it and what they want.”

AEA Truth: The Washington Post Fact Checker has now called response ads aired on behalf of President Obama “misleading,” and “stretches of the truth.” To read why Team Obama has received “Three Pinocchios” for false ads twice in the last four days, click hereand here.

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Filed Under: Press Releases Tagged With: AEA Ad, DNC, Nine Dollar Gas, Obama, Priorities USA