With Energy Policy, President Schlemiel Tries the Same Thing Again

FROM-Pajamas Media

Posted By Chris Salcedo

Do you have one of those hapless characters in your life? They are so incompetent in their everyday endeavors, but they smile a lot. They’re incredibly likable, but they really have nothing of substance to add to any conversation. They have no clue, but you still pull for them, hoping that one day they’ll get it, or at the very least that good fortune will smile on them.

Unfortunately, our entire nation has one sympathetic character like this in our lives, and good fortune certainly has smiled on him. He’s the author of two autobiographies, and with no business experience — or any experience in building anything whatsoever — he’s managed to become a multimillionaire. The beauty of our capitalist system, said Walter Lippmann, is that the good fortunes of our countrymen can multiply our own.

But this is one of those rare cases in America when the good fortune of one leads to misfortune for all. Our entire nation is poorer because of “often wrong” Obama’s success.

I listened to the president’s vision for America in the State of the Union Address last month. Amazing — President Obama’s policies have failed by almost every measure, yet he continues to press on with more of the same. The part about how he believes this is the nation’s “Sputnik moment”? I just about fell out of my chair — he was still pushing the taxpayer-funded green agenda. It became clear in that moment that all of the accusations about this president being an empty suit are true. The man that liberals told us is the smartest man ever elected president has no ability to reason beyond his own ideological preconceptions.

His call for even more government spending, cloaked by the word “invest”? Brilliant, aside from the fact that the United States is $14.2 trillion in debt and we don’t have the money. The president is married to his mantra: that government is the only way.

Mr. Obama is showing his experience, or lack thereof, every day he’s in office. The president has never had to meet a payroll, he’s never run a business, and his entire life experience isa delightful journey in idealistic theory. To be fair, his chosen reading material didn’t quite prepare him for his current job: Saul Alinsky, Bill Ayers, Cloward and Piven. How could Mr. Obama be expected to chart a course to continued prosperity for the United States when the aforementioned paragons of liberal thought have just the opposite in mind?

But one need not do much reading or research to see the disastrous outcomes from policies the president keeps pushing. Spain currently has the highest unemployment rate of the industrialized nations at 20%, or one in five Spanish workers. Their current economic woes are directly attributed to the meltdown caused by their so-called “green economy” initiatives. It does seem to be a pattern among left-wing ideologues — no matter how miserable the failure of leftist policies, they still believe they can follow the same strategy and get a different result.

Here’s my suggestion to the president on converting America to a green economy. If America wants it done quickly and efficiently, let a conservative do it.

The most inefficient way to spend money is through the federal government — I ask anyone to show me a government-sponsored initiative that outperforms the same endeavor in the private sector, “outperform” referring to the cost and speed through which the desired result is achieved. History and a fundamental understanding of human nature tell us that human beings working with self-interest in mind always have an incentive to perform their very best, which stands in stark contrast to the larded and layered bureaucracy that exists in our federal government. Efficiency is a foreign concept in government, as evidenced by every federal program to ever come into existence — none I’m aware of have ever been cost effective. Aside from the taxpayer money skimmed by bureaucrats, politicians, and union thugs, the drive to excel just isn’t there. No matter how hard the government worker tries, his lot is the same as other unionized workers that may or may not work as hard as he does. The worst way to foster innovation is through government, and the only prayer America has for a successful transition from an oil-based economy is the private sector.

One part of Mr. Obama’s speech had a sliver of merit — no conservative worth his salt advocates taxpayer funded corporate welfare. Oil companies, or any American company for that matter, ought to thrive or die on their own merits. Taxpayer money ought to be given for results, not for the promise of future results. The subsides and tax breaks currently given to oil companies ought to be converted into contracts for desired technologies. The companies that start to roll out said technologies should get the money or the tax breaks. The cash can be used to keep the cost of these products lower.

Conservatives really do value the “all-of-the-above” approach. Hybrid cars won’t do it alone, but hybrids, electric, biofuels, nuclear fission, and, yes, more oil, can solve our energy woes. Unlike the president, most non-ideologically driven people understand that even if these alternative fuels and energy sources become widely used and available, man will still need oil. The applications in plastics alone are immense. And if American companies received incentives to make the products we need and want, those products would saturate the market much faster than could happen from any government mandate. No crushing anti-business taxes or corporate welfare are needed in a truly capitalist system untainted by government bureaucrats.

The simple truth that the schlemiel administration doesn’t understand is that we will need the titans of industry if we are going to pull off a transition from an oil-based economy. The president summed it up about oil companies: ”I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re doing just fine on their own.” Indeed they are. And we will need their capital. We’ll need their innovation. We’ll need their entrepreneurial spirit if the United States is ever to get off of oil.

But these companies will need to make money to help finance this costly conversion. Our government can help by allowing our companies to find those resources right here at home. That means we’ll need a government that will reduce our reliance on foreign oil so our national security and the pocketbooks of everyday Americans aren’t put at risk. We’ll need a government that can see beyond blind hatred of success, success they can’t tax or control. We’ll need a president who has experience in building things up, not tearing them down. We’ll need a president who isn’t a reactionary to a “Sputnik” or any other moment. We’ll need a leader that instead sets the trend. We’ll need a man of action, one who recognizes and isn’t ashamed of America’s strengths.

In short, we need a conservative in charge if we’re ever to see a vibrant and prosperous green economy for the United States.

Green Jobs Are Not Evergreen Jobs

FROM-Townhall


By Debra J. Saunders


After receiving at least $43 million in aid from the state of Massachusetts, Evergreen Solar announced last month that it would be closing its manufacturing plant in Devens, Mass., laying off its 800 workers and moving its manufacturing operations to China.
Warning: These are the "green jobs" that President Obama has touted as part of his "winning the future" agenda.

The problem isn't that Obama wants to direct federal dollars toward research for alternative energy. It is in the national interest to have affordable options when oil sources are depleted.

The problem is that Obama thinks that green jobs are the answer to the anemic economy recovery. And he clings to that belief in the face of contrary evidence.

Last May, the president came to solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra in Fremont, Calif., to celebrate a new plant -- creating 3,000 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent workers. President Obama exclaimed, "The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra."

Within months, Solyndra, which has yet to turn a profit, announced that it was canceling the expansion. Solyndra, the San Jose Mercury News reported, has shifted more than half of its production to -- you guessed it -- China.

At best, you can describe Obamaland's choice of venue as bad advance work.

Michael El-Hillow, Evergreen Solar's chief executive, explained in a statement the reason for his company's move: "While the United States and other western industrial economies are beneficiaries of rapidly declining installation costs of solar energy, we expect the United States will continue to be at a disadvantage from a manufacturing standpoint."

Evergreen is -- this month anyway -- the third-largest solar panel manufacturer in the United States. The Massachusetts plant opened in 2008 with much fanfare and generous taxpayer assistance. But just one year later, The New York Times reported, company suits were talking to Chinese officials, who could offer cheaper labor -- average monthly wages below $300 as opposed to $5,400 in the Bay State -- sweetheart loans and other incentives.

Harvard economist Edward L. Glaeser saw Evergreen leave Massachusetts and opined in The New York Times that while he believed investing in green technology, "(I)t always was a mistake to think that clean energy was going to be a jobs bonanza."

And: "We shouldn't pretend that cheaper solar energy will end up employing millions of our less-skilled citizens."

This leaves American solons with two choices: Keep feeding the meter -- or cut your losses.

The high cost of subsidizing wind and solar power should seal the deal. According to the California Energy Commission, the cost of photovoltaic solar electricity is about 26 cents per kilowatt hour, as opposed to 13 cents for electricity powered by natural gas.

With the unemployment rate at 9 percent, Washington should be looking to create jobs that aren't going to run to China. Or, as Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, told The New York Times, "If the president really were serious about job creation, he would be working with us to develop American oil and gas by American workers for American consumers."

American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Steven F. Hayward likes to ask people which state has the lowest unemployment rate. The answer is North Dakota, with an unemployment rate of 3.8 percent. "The reason is they've had a huge oil and gas boom," Hayward explained. They've tripled their oil output.

As the price of oil spills over the $100-per-barrel mark, Washington ought to reconsider the "green jobs" approach. As Hayward noted, "Brown energy creates jobs and prosperity."

Labor Department awards millions of dollars in college grants for scarce ‘green jobs’

FROM-The Daily Caller

By Matthew Boyle

The Department of Labor has issued several million dollars in grants to community colleges and specialized universities around the country to train students for “green jobs” in renewable energy fields. While the grants are supposed to fund the future “rank and file” workers of the renewable energy industry, there’s a glaring problem the DOL seemingly overlooked — those jobs are either non-existent or scarce.

A former college official who has applied for these grants and has in-depth experience working with the Department of Labor and the Department of Education told The Daily Caller that colleges will often fudge expected job placement numbers just to get extra government cash.

“On ground level – it’s a real struggle – my grant writers came to me and honestly said, ‘I don’t have any job projections, what do I tell them?’ You do your best to make up job numbers,” said the former college official, who wished to remain anonymous to prevent jeopardizing future job opportunities. “But it’s not like lying – it’s just guessing what we might be able to do in a best case scenario, but you don’t say it’s not likely for many jobs.”

The former college official told TheDC that, though his college received five different “green jobs” grants from the Department of Labor to train students, no program has been set up yet.

“I can tell you, one, at least at my college, we’ve been very slow to get these grants underway,” he said. “In terms of those programs going, what’s the rate of success on these programs? I don’t think the DOL could produce very strong job numbers on these programs.”

Bill Wilson of not-for-profit group Americans for Limited Government told TheDC these programs and grants are nothing more than a collection of buzzwords, as they don’t serve any practical purpose.

“Congress needs to cut these vanity ‘green job’ promotion projects out of the budget, it is a waste of money and an insult to the American taxpayer to fund these thinly veiled environmental political rallies,” Wilson said in an e-mail.

It’s not like these grants are being given to research and development programs at big name schools focusing on developing new renewable energy technology, either. They’re being given to universities and community colleges to train students in technical or associate degree programs to work in yet-to-be-developed fields. Many of the grants are promised to colleges that pledged to push “green jobs” or “new energy technology,” but don’t go into much more detail about how they plan to go about doing that.

For instance, Calhoun Community College in Decatur, Ala., received more than $3.4 million to help train 175 people, both those who are unemployed and high school students, in “energy-efficiency technology.” That translates into more than $20,000 per person, and many of the trainees likely won’t be able to secure jobs simply because there aren’t very many companies in the U.S. hiring for what they are being trained to do.

Then, there’s Kern Community College District in Bakersfield, Calif., which was granted about $2.7 million for similar training programs for 650 people. There’s also the Shenandoah Valley Workforce Investment Board, Inc., in Harrisonburg, Va., which got about $5 million to help 1,010 “unemployed and dislocated workers” learn “current and future employer needs” in green technology manufacturing, solar and wind energy support and efficiency assessment and retrofitting for existing energy consumers.

The former college official told TheDC that, though solar and wind are emerging energy sources and though some people around the country are interested in making their homes or businesses “greener,” he thinks there isn’t enough business to support the people being trained to go into these industries. Colleges, he said, are simply incapable of turning down free government money.

Cutting Carbon Emissions-one job at a time

FROM-USA TODAY

Study: lower carbon emissions linked to recession

Carbon dioxide dioxides, widely considered the chief cause of global warming, decreased from 2008 to 2009, largely because of the global economic slowdown, says a study released Sunday.

"There is a close link between the world's gross domestic product and emissions of carbon dioxide," says study lead author Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, according to a story by USA TODAY colleague Doyle Rice.The emissions drop of 1.3%, the first since the lat 1990s, included significant regional differences. The largest decreases occurred in Europe, Japan and North America: 6.9% in the United States, 8.6% in the U.K., 7% in Germany, 11.8% in Japan and 8.4% in Russia.

In contrast, emissions jumped in emerging economies, including 8% in China and 6.2% in India. China remains the top emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, followed by the USA, India, Russia and Japan.

The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, projects that if the economic recovers as expected, global fossil fuel emissions will increase by more than 3% in 2010. It's part of the annual carbon budget update from the Global Carbon Project, a group of emissions experts from international environmental organizations

California's Destructive Green Jobs Lobby

Silicon Valley, once synonymous with productivity-enhancing innovation, is now looking to make money on feel-good government handouts..
 
FROM-WSJ

By GEORGE GILDER

By GEORGE GILDER
California officials acknowledged last Thursday that the state faces $20 billion deficits every year from now to 2016. At the same time, California's state Treasurer entered bond markets to sell some $14 billion in "revenue anticipation notes" over the next two weeks. Worst of all, economic sanity lost out in what may have been the most important election on Nov. 2—and, no, I'm not talking about the gubernatorial or senate races.

This was the California referendum to repeal Assembly Bill 32, the so-called Global Warming Solutions Act, which ratchets the state's economy back to 1990 levels of greenhouse gases by 2020. That's a 30% drop followed by a mandated 80% overall drop by 2050. Together with a $500 billion public-pension overhang, the new energy cap dooms the state to bankruptcy.

Conservative pundits have lavished mock pity on the state. But as America's chief fount of technology, California cannot go down the drain without dragging the rest of the country with it.

The irony is that a century-long trend of advance in conventional "non-renewable" energy—from wood to oil to natural gas and nuclear—has already wrought a roughly 60% drop in carbon emissions per watt. Thus the long-term California targets might well be achieved globally in the normal course of technological advance. The obvious next step is aggressive exploitation of the trillions of cubic feet of low-carbon natural gas discovered over the last two years, essentially ending the U.S. energy crisis.

The massive vote against repeal of the California law—62% to 38%—supports an economy-crushing drive to suppress CO2 emissions from natural gas and everything else. In a parody of supply-side economics, advocates of AB 32 envisage the substitution of alternative energy sources that create new revenue sources, new jobs and industries. Their economic model sees new wealth emerge from jobs dismantling the existing energy economy and replacing it with a medieval system of windmills and solar collectors. By this logic we could all get rich by razing the existing housing plant and replacing it with new-fangled tents.

All the so-called "renewables" programs waste and desecrate the precious resource of arable land that feeds the world. Every dollar of new wages for green workers will result in several dollars of reduced pay and employment for the state's and the nation's other workers—and reduced revenues for the government.

read article here

What's driving Obama's subsidies of Chevy's Volt?

FROM-WAPO
George F Will

"Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive."

- Joe Biden, Oct. 26


General Motors, an appendage of the government, which owns 61 percent of it, is spending some of your money, dear reader, on full-page newspaper ads praising a government brainstorm - the Volt, Chevrolet's highly anticipated and prematurely celebrated (sort of) electric car. Although the situation is murky - GM and its government masters probably prefer it that way - it is unclear in what sense GM has any money that is truly its own. And the Volt is not quite an electric car, or not the sort GM deliberately misled Americans into expecting.

It is another hybrid. GM said the Volt would be an "all electrically driven vehicle" whose gas engine would be a mere range-extender, powering the Volt's generator, not its wheels: The engine would just maintain the charge as the battery ran down. Now GM says that at some point when the battery's charge declines, or when the car is moving near 70 mph, the gas engine will power the wheels.

The newspaper ads proclaim, "Chevrolet Runs Deep." Whatever that means, if anything, it does not mean the Volt runs deep into a commute or the countryside just on electricity. At the bottom of the ads, there is this, in microscopic print: "Volt available in CA, TX, MI, NY, NJ, CT and Washington, DC, at the end of 2010. Quantities limited." Well.

Quantities of everything - except perhaps God's mercy, which is said to be infinite - are limited. But quantities of the Volt are going to be so limited that 44 states can only pine for Volts from afar. Good, because the federal government, which evidently is feeling flush, will give tax credits of up to $7,500 to every Volt purchaser. The Volt was conceived to appease the automotive engineers in Congress, which knows that people will have to be bribed, with other people's money, to buy this $41,000 car that seats only four people (the 435-pound battery eats up space).

Mark Reuss, president of GM North America, said in a letter to the Wall Street Journal: "The early enthusiastic consumer response - more than 120,000 potential Volt customers have already signaled interest in the car, and orders have flowed since the summer - give us confidence that the Volt will succeed on its merits." Disregard the slipperiness ("signaled interest" how?) and telltale reticence (how many orders have "flowed"?). But "on its merits"? Why, then, the tax credits and other subsidies?

The Automotive Engineer in Chief - our polymathic president - says there will be a million plug-in cars in America by 2015. This will require much higher gasoline prices (perhaps $9 a gallon) and much bigger bribes: GM, which originally was expected to produce as many as 60,000 next year, now says 10,000 for all of North America.

GM says that, battery-powered, the Volt has a 40-mile range. Popular Mechanics says 33. Thomas R. Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association of the electric utility industry, is, understandably, a Volt enthusiast: This supposedly "green" vehicle will store electric energy - 10 to 12 hours of charging on household current - produced by coal- and gas-fired power plants.

The federal government, although waist-deep in red ink, offers another bribe: Any purchaser can get a tax credit of up to 50 percent of the cost (up to $2,000) of an extra-powerful (240-volt) charger. California, although so strapped it recently issued IOUs to vendors, offers a $5,000 cash rebate for which Volt buyers are not eligible but purchasers of Nissan's electric Leaf are. Go figure.

In April, in a television commercial and a Wall Street Journal column headlined "The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full," GM's then-CEO Ed Whitacre said "we have repaid our government loan, in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule." Rubbish.

GM, which has received almost $50 billion in government subventions, repaid a $6.7 billion loan using other federal funds, a TARP-funded escrow account. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) called this a "TARP money shuffle." A commentator compared it to "paying off your Visa credit card with your MasterCard."

Meretricious accounting and deceptive marketing are inevitable when government and its misnamed "private sector" accomplices foist state capitalism on an appalled country. But those who thought the ethanol debacle defined outer limits of government foolishness pertaining to automobiles were, alas, mistaken.

Green Manna

Breaking the Obama Code: The Green Money Machine

FROM-American Thinker

By Patti Villacorta

As a few dozen dot com billionaires gathered in a Palo Alto living room one evening in early 2007, then-Senator Obama rallied potential new donors over the speakerphone. After the call, the host John Roos, a prominent lawyer, emphasized what most of his guests already knew. The clean-energy revolution was gaining momentum. The election in 2008 would be the critical moment. The ethics-based green revolution could be passed into law and Obama was their guy. Roos raised much money and opened many doors for Obama that evening. In May 2009, despite initial criticism from Japan, Roos was given the plum appointment of U.S. Ambassador.
Roos, who had handpicked his guest list carefully, was a kingmaker in the progressive, green, and Bay Area billionaires club. The polls showing America's rising concerns about ocean levels reflected the hard work of Silicon Valley hedge fund managers and venture capitalists.

The Obama Exploratory team had formed and the candidacy announcement was scheduled for early February. But Jude Barry, a political strategist and software programmer, wasn't one to hedge his bets. In late December of 2006 he quietly filed paperwork and created Obama for America Draft Committee (FEC ID #C00431130).

Jude Barry is one of many Howard Dean loyalists who helped Obama win the White House. Once labeled as a "self-styled Machiavellian apparatchik" by the San Jose political press, Barry helped develop Dean's net roots campaign that unraveled with a scream in Iowa. Still, the political landscape had been changed forever by Barry and fellow Deaniacs including Christopher Edley, UC Berkeley Law School Dean, Patrick Gaspard, Obama's political director, Jeremy Ben Ami, former Clinton staffer and founder of the anti-Israel J Street, and assistant attorney general Ron Weich.

Co-founder of Catapult Strategies with Dean Campaign manager Joe Trippi, Barry became well known in Silicon Valley political circles where he grew up and attended Catholic school with another assistant attorney general: Tony West. West is the Bay Area lawyer recently revealed as defense attorney for American Taliban John Walker Lindh.

Barry collected six $5000 donations from 12/28/06 and 12/30/06, including one from eBay millionaire Tom Adams III. At the same time Steven Churchwell, a partner at DLA Piper LLC's Government Affairs Group in Sacramento, listed himself as PAC Treasurer. Churchwell's bio states he "assists clients through the challenging waters of California government and politics." Areas of concentration include Ballot measures, Internal Investigations, and PAC regulations.

Obama's courtship with the high-tech crowd had begun back in early 2005. Within weeks of his swearing-in, the new United States Senator launched his Hopefund Pac then flew west to mingle. At the time, Jude Barry was managing Obama-backer Steve Westley's gubernatorial primary against Phil Angelides, the national chair of the Apollo Alliance. Other Apollo Board members include Dan Reicher, Google's Director of Climate Change, Robert Redford, and Van Jones, Obama's ex-Green Czar. Jones worked on Arianna Huffington's brief run for governor.

Obama scored big. Eileen Chamberlain-Donahue, wife of eBay CEO John Donahue took a liking to Obama. She went on to become Chairwoman of the National Women for Obama Finance Committee, and won an invitation to watch his Denver speech from a luxury suite with Penny Pritzker and Oprah.

By November 2006 Hopefund had raised $2.5 million. Some of Obama's early donors include the Warren Buffetts, co-founder of Espirit clothing company Susie Buell, Steven Spielberg, Attorney General Eric Holder, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski, Christina Romer, the Chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, Craig's List CEO Craig Newmark, David Geffen, as well as Jon Gruber, the MIT economist criticized recently for failing to disclose HHS consultancy contracts.

Edward Robinson's piece on fundraising scene in the wealthy Bay Area points out:

Venture capitalists ... are struggling with an investing climate that's the gloomiest since the bust of 2000 and '01. In the first half of 2008, only five venture-backed companies went public ... the poorest showing in five years. ``Almost everybody who's been in the Valley for any period of time is pursuing cleantech now,'' says Dixon Doll. .

That's where VCs see Obama coming in. In his policy proposal, the senator pledged to invest $150 billion over 10 years to develop solar farms in the Sunbelt, plug-in hybrid cars that get 150 miles per gallon (64 kilometers per liter) and clean coal that doesn't spew carbon.

Obama knew he needed California to win and green billionaires knew they needed Obama. A new loophole, the Unauthorized Independent Expenditure (IE), could make it happen. IEs can spend and raise unlimited money as long as there is no coordination with the candidate. An IE at its most brazen is SEIU's Committee on Political Education (SEIU COPE), formed in order to raise $26,009,685.53 in support of Obama, and $3,163,276.29 to oppose McCain.

The 2008 report "Independent Expenditures: The Giant Gorilla in Campaign Finance," reveals million dollar contributions and multi-million dollar expenditures are common. Californians for a Better Government (CPG), the highly controversial IE formed for the Angelides' campaign collected $10,015,643 with $8.7 million coming from one pocket: Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulous and his daughter Eleni Tsakopolous-Kournalakis. Married to the President Emeritus of The Washington Monthly, Ms Tsakopolous-Kournalakis now serves as Ambassador to Hungary.

CPG hired Steve Churchwell as Treasurer just as Obama for America Draft Committee would a few months later. Churchwell landed at the center of a probe involving incorporation irregularities. The Barry/Churchwell team continues making news. Along with a cryptography and electronic signature expert, they recently unveiled Verafirma Inc, then filed suit requiring San Mateo Superior Court to accept electronic signatures on an initiative petition.

Although Angelides lost to Schwarzenegger, he received a campaign donation from Paul Pelosi (Nancy's husband). In January 2009 Angelides delivered billions in stimulus money for Apollo's big, "new" green revolution initiative. First unveiled at a 2006 Conference co- sponsored with Bob Borosage, Angelides' friend from Jesse Jackson's campaign, Apollo's green revolution themed conference featured Kerry, Edwards, Dean, Obama and others vowing to take the party back from the centrist DLC.

In May 2009, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid selected Angelides to chair their Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) tasked with investigating the cause of the 2007-2010 financial crisis. The Angelides pick prompted complaints of conflicts-of-interest mainly around issues like pension funds. Strangely, his seat on the Board of the Climate Prosperity Alliance (CPA) went unmentioned.

CPA describes itself as a "global network of financiers, businesses, economic development authorities, scientists and NGO's." Marc Weiss, CPA Chair, served as Special Assistant to Andrew Cuomo and Henry Cisneros under Bill Clinton. CPA endorses the expansive policies of the U.N. General Assembly's 2009 'Global Green New Deal.' CPA also advocates $1 trillion of green investments per year in order to "re-deploy assets" and solve worldwide financial instability."

Weeks before falsified documents surfaced confirming global warming as little more than another far-left power grab, a CPA report celebrated $1,248,740,645,930.00 invested since 2007. The monies came from finance institutes and corporations in North America, Europe, China, India, Japan and Brazil.

Welcome to the ethics-based global revolution. The tangle of corrupt, hypocritical liars is made far worse by the growing realization of just how badly America was duped.

More...

End run around insanity

Move Afoot in the Senate to Can EPA CO2 Regs

Sen. Lisa Murkowski introduces a resolution that would prevent the agency from treating greenhouse gases as poison.

FROM-Pajamas Media

by Marlo Lewis

On Thursday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, introduced a resolution of disapproval, under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), to overturn EPA’s endangerment finding (the agency’s official determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare) . Murkowski’s floor statement and a press release are available here.

The resolution has 38 co-sponsors, including three Democrats (Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana). If all 41 Senate Republicans vote for the measure, Sen. Murkowski will need only seven additional Democrats to vote “yes” to obtain the 51 votes required for passage. (Under Senate rules, a CRA resolution of disapproval cannot be filibustered and thus does not need 60 votes to ensure passage.)

Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval is a gutsy action intended to safeguard the U.S. economy, government’s accountability to the American people, and the separation of powers under the Constitution. Naturally, Sen. Barbara Boxer and other apostles of Gorethodoxy denounce it as an assault on the Clean Air Act, public health, science, and “the children.”
Rubbish!

At a press conference she organized on Thursday, Boxer employed an old rhetorical trick — when you can’t criticize your opponent’s proposal on the merits, liken it to something else that is plainly odious and indefensible. She said:

Imagine if in the 1980s the Senate had overturned the health finding that nicotine in cigarettes causes lung cancer. How many more people would have died already? Imagine if a senator got the votes to come to the floor to overturn the finding that lead in paint damages children’s brain development? How many children and families would have suffered? Imagine if the senator had come down to the floor and said, you know, I don’t think black lung disease is in any way connected to coal dust. Imagine!

Note that all the outrages Boxer is describing are imaginary. Murkowski is not proposing to question the link between cigarette smoke and lung cancer, etc. More to the point, she is not questioning the linkage between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Nor is she questioning the validity of EPA’s endangerment finding (even though there are strong scientific reasons for doing so). In fact, Sen. Murkowski supports legislation to control greenhouse gas emissions (her floor statement and legislative record leave no doubt on these points).

What Murkowski opposes is EPA dealing itself into a position to control the U.S. economy without “any input” from the people’s elected representatives. The endangerment finding compels EPA to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) from new motor vehicles, which then in turn obligates EPA to apply Clean Air Act pre-construction and operating permit requirements to millions of small businesses. The endangerment finding also establishes a precedent for economy-wide regulation of greenhouse gases under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) program.

The Murkowski resolution addresses a basic conflict of interest that Sen. Boxer prefers to sweep under the rug. Under the Clean Air Act, the agency that makes the findings that trigger regulatory action is the same agency that does the regulating. Since regulatory agencies exist to regulate, they have a vested interest in reaching “scientific” conclusions that expand the scope and scale of their power.

Up to now, this ethically flawed situation has been tolerable because Congress has clearly specified the types of substances over which EPA has regulatory authority – those that degrade air quality, those that pose acute risks of toxicity, or those that deplete the ozone layer. But when Congress enacted and amended the Clean Air Act, it never intended for EPA to control greenhouse gases for climate change purposes.

Yes, it is possible, by torturing the text of the Clean Air Act as the Supreme Court did in Massachusetts v. EPA, to infer congressional authority for greenhouse gas regulation. But the fact remains that Congress did not design the Clean Air Act to be a framework for climate policy, has never voted for the Act to be used as such a framework, and has never signed off on the regulatory cascade that EPA’s endangerment finding, if allowed to stand, will ineluctably trigger.

According to the Washington Post, Boxer stated that if the public has to wait for Congress to pass legislation to control greenhouse gas emissions, “that might not happen, in a year or two, or five or six or eight or 10.” Yes, but that’s democracy. And the democratic process is more valuable than any result that EPA might obtain by doing an end run around it.

Since the Progressive Era, our country has increasingly lived under a constitutionally dubious system of regulation without representation. Regulations have the force and effect of law, and many function as implicit taxes. Article I of the Constitution vests all legislative powers, such as the power to tax, in Congress. For decades, however, Congress has enacted statutes that delegate legislative power to agencies that are not accountable to the people at the ballot box. Constitutionally, the only saving grace is that the regulations implement policies clearly authorized in the controlling statute.

But the regulatory cascade that will ensue from EPA’s endangerment finding has no clear congressional authorization. Indeed, regulations emanating from the endangerment finding are likely to be more costly and intrusive than any climate bill Congress has considered and either rejected or failed to pass.

We are on the brink of an era of runaway regulation without representation. Sen. Boxer complains that the Murkowski resolution is “unprecedented.” But that is only fitting, because the resolution addresses an unprecedented threat to our system of self-government.

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Economists Warn of a Climate Trade War

In the wake of the failed climate change summit in Copenhagen, countries are talking about imposing carbon tariffs on imports. Bad idea, say trade experts

FROM-Business Week

John Kerry was on a roll. At the Copenhagen climate summit, the former US presidential candidate delivered a fiery speech that was mostly directed at China. If the US has to accept binding targets for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, then Beijing must do the same, Kerry told his audience. Workers in the US should not "lose their jobs to India and China because those countries are not participating in a way that is measurable, reportable and verifiable," he said.

This was an expression of the old fear in industrialized countries that aggressive action on climate change could lead to local economic disadvantages. Environmentalist politicians and academics have long been calling for the establishment of a global emissions trade. It is a simple and captivating idea for many: Each state gets a certain amount of CO2 allowances. Those who want to emit more must buy emissions rights from other countries that emit less CO2. Ideally, poorer countries would automatically make money, and rich countries would at the same time have a financial incentive to reduce their CO2 emissions.

However, such a system would only work if all states participated—and industrialized countries for years have feared that just won't happen. In particular, large emerging economies like China and India could blow off climate protection and give their businesses competitive advantages in the global market. The failure to reach an international climate change agreement in Copenhagen has done little dampen such worries.

Kerry and Sarkozy Threaten China and India

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Now, Western politicians are getting more open with threats to make the most CO2-intensive imports more expensive—with the help of punitive tariffs. If the West protects the environment, Senator Kerry said in Copenhagen, then climate sinners will not "dump high carbon intensity products into our markets." Kerry's thinly veiled threat: In this case, "I speak for the United States." According to a report in the New York Times, the Americans even tried to accommodate the possibility of unilateral penalties in the final document out of Copenhagen, but without success.

Yet such sentiments in Europe are getting louder, particularly in Paris. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly called for EU punitive tariffs on products from big emitters, should no agreement come from Copenhagen. Now that this has occurred, the question is how serious Sarkozy is about the issue. He had said that the French were working together with Germany on such plans. A German government spokesperson said Berlin was examining ways in which locational disadvantages for business could be prevented.

The response sound reserved, but was still much more positive than earlier statements made by government officials in Germany. Previously, the Germans had always categorically rejected Sarkozy's punitive tariff idea. Even in July, Matthias Machnig, then a state secretary in the Environment Ministry, described Sarkozy's proposals as "eco-imperialism."

China Will Remain the Workbench of the World

Experts, however, warn strongly against eco-punitive tariffs. Ottmar Edenhofer, environmental economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), sees them as more of a threat than a realistic option. Measured by the carbon dioxide emissions incurred in the production of goods, China is undisputedly the world's largest emitter of CO2. Punitive duties would hardly change that. "An adjustment of tariffs would likely never be high enough to substantially alter the demand in the West for goods from China," says Edenhofer. "China will remain the workbench of the world."

Punitive tariffs would therefore have almost no environmental impact, but would come with enormous risks. On one hand, the decrease in imports from China would likely weaken the US economy. "In addition, the Chinese could respond with counter-measures, of course," says Edenhofer told SPIEGEL ONLINE. China could—in theory—squander US Treasury securities and make the country's economy vulnerable.


Such a conflict would hardly be in the interests of either of these big global powers, since their economies are so closely intertwined. For example, China is currently financing the US twin deficits of a giant budget hole and a gap in the current accounting—the result of the United States importing far more goods and services than it exports. China, however, has a huge trade surplus. "Cooperation between the US and China is the only way," says Edenhofer. "A trade war is the last thing they need at the moment."

The climate summit in Copenhagen has shown, Edenhofer says, that the world still has to find its new geopolitical balance. "China steered away from the concert of the developing countries and presented itself in Copenhagen as a confident, cool negotiating world power," says the economist. Beijing has proven that it can derail a global agreement on climate protection. According to Edenhofer, "the showdown between the US and China has only just begun."

Legal Obstacles to Climate Tariff

Added to the economic risks of punitive tariffs are the legal problems. Environmentalists often complain that the World Trade Organization (WTO) has disqualified ecological tariffs as unjustified obstacles to trade. This is mainly due to an iron-clad principle of international trade law: equal treatment. "Identical goods must be treated equally," Christian Tietje, international law expert from the University of Halle, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

It is irrelevant whether a cell phone was produced in an environmentally friendly, but more expensive manner in Germany—or in a less ecological and less expensive manner in China. This also applies to climate protection. The lawyer says that solving the problem with extra taxes is "highly problematic in terms of international trade law."

A classic WTO dispute case from the 1990s shows just how high the barriers to trade tariffs in the name of environmental protection can be. The United States had imposed an import ban on shrimp from countries that were not concerned enough about protecting sea turtles. The basis for this was an American nature conservation law called the Endangered Species Act.

The Americans argued that the animals could be protected only through the use of certain nets with special exits for the turtles. Fishing fleets that did not use these should therefore be subject to the boycott. India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Thailand brought a complaint to the WTO—and initially won.

A WTO court declared that the US measures were not justified—after all, the US had not made enough of an effort to conclude agreements to protect the turtles with the states concerned. The WTO would only have allowed a boycott only after serious and appropriate negotiations had been held and had failed.

Wiggle Room in Trade Law

In the case of climate change, Tietje argues that this situation has not yet been reached—despite the debacle at the Copenhagen summit. "The serious efforts have not yet completely failed," he says. There is, after all, a final document and the timetable for further negotiations. They will begin in 2010 at the ministerial level in Bonn, and later go back to the heads of state and government in Mexico.

Some international lawyers, however, see a window of opportunity with targeted interventions in the world trading system to bring the worst polluters to reason—or at least bring them back to the negotiating table. When it comes to a few particularly environmentally damaging products such as steel, it is possible to imagine punitive tarrifs, says Thomas Cottier, head of the World Trade Institute in Berne. "Legally speaking, this is possible," he says. That would mean tariffs would be reduced, for example, for environmentally-friendly-produced goods.

"We are coming into a phase, where individual countries can try it out, and see how far they can or want to go," Cottier told SPIEGEL ONLINE. Wiggle room in trade law is not as tight as it is often claimed. The use of such measures is "more a political question."

It is clear, however, that the possible environmental penalties would be directed mainly against developing countries. This is not unproblematic. The industrialized world must now ask itself the fundamental question of what products they want to continue to produce abroad—where the price of labor may be low, but the price the environment pays is often too high.

Another unacceptable solution to a non problem

Since this won't hurt capitalism and will allow the evil corporate polluters to survive it obviously will need to be discredited and destroyed. Can't have CO2 being scrubbed, these chemical plants need to be shut down for a more sustainable world.

FROM- Trading Markets

S'TOMO SAYS NEW CHEMICAL PLANT SCRUBBER REMOVES ALMOST ALL CO2

TOKYO- Sumitomo Corp. and energy-saving Japanese technology developer Renaissance Energy Research KK have jointly devised a scrubber that can remove virtually 100 per cent of the carbon dioxide that chemical plants emit during the manufacturing process

In addition to being highly efficient, the new scrubber is also 80 per cent cheaper to operate than conventional systems, which use pressurized steam to remove the gas, and the initial cost is also lower, according to the company.

The new scrubber is made from special hollow-fiber membranes packed in a device through which the gases generated during chemical manufacture are passed. Each separation membrane consists of a support material sandwiching a compound that is highly reactive with the greenhouse gas.

In tests using a mixture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen, for every 1,000 molecules of carbon dioxide separated from the mix, only one molecule of hydrogen was sifted out. Renaissance Energy Research claims that this level of separation is the best in the industry.

A scrubber with a total surface area of 1,000 sq. meters of separation membrane is the size of a large truck

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What's not to like?

FROM- CNS

Global Warming Bill Would Cut U.S. Economic Growth, Study Says

The bill meant to combat global warming that passed the U.S. House of Representatives in June would decrease the Gross Domestic Product of the United States by $2 trillion to $3 trillion between 2012 and 2030, a study shows.

The study on the economic impact of the American Clean Energy and Security Act was commissioned by the American Council for Capitol Formation (ACCF), a non-profit that examines tax and environmental policy, and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the nation’s largest manufacturing trade organization.

The analysis was conducted by the Science Applications International Corporation, a private research company.

The global warming legislation, sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), passed the House in June by a 219-212 vote. The Senate may consider its own version of the bill this fall.

The legislation would impose caps on the amount of carbon that U.S. industry could emit and would allow manufacturers to trade emission allowances doled out by the government.

Waxman and Markey’s offices did not return calls seeking comment on the study.

“High energy prices, fewer jobs, and loss of industrial output are estimated to reduce [annual] U.S. Gross Domestic Product by between $419 billion and $571 billion by 2030,” the study says.
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“Cumulative GDP losses range between $2.2 trillion and $3.1 trillion dollars over 2012-2030 period,” it says.

NAM Executive Vice President Jay Timmons said in an Aug. 12 conference call that the study demonstrates that American jobs will be lost because of the Waxman-Markey global warming bill.

“By 2030 U.S. industrial output level will drop between 5.3 and 6.5 percent, and in turn, this will cost between 1.8 and 2.4 million jobs,” said Timmons. “The manufacturing sector actually absorbs a disproportionate burden, nearly two-thirds of those overall job losses.”

“Further,” he said, “the legislation pushes off job losses to the future by giving away allowances and exemptions on the front end, and meanwhile, of the 18-year period (2012-2030), energy costs are creeping upward and household incomes downward.

“Therefore, in 2030, the study shows that industrial states take a heavy hit in employment,” he said.

Margo Thorning, an economist with ACCF, attributed the anticipated loss of jobs to the “impact of the higher energy prices, slower productivity growth, and the net outflow of new investment.”

The ACCF/NAM study compares job losses and GDP under the Waxman bill to baseline projections without such a bill.

“The projections are based on our forecast for the economy, which basically we’re relying on the EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration) assumptions for that,” said Thorning. “So this baseline includes all of the other energy legislation that’s been passed in the last several years as well as the economic stimulus bill that was passed this spring.”

Adele Morris, policy director of the climate and energy project at the Brookings Institution, agrees with the assessment that the Waxman legislation will interfere with GDP growth.

“What we’re projecting is a decline to GDP relative to what it would have been without cap and trade,” she told CNSNews.com. “What we see is a deflection of GDP from its business as usual trajectory.

“In fact, our estimates are that … under cap and trade you have to wait until 2051 to get to the same GDP that you would have gotten in 2050 without the cap and trade program,” said Morris.

“It’s behind by one year in 2050, but it grows consistently,” she said.

In regards to job losses, Morris contends that it will only be a short- to medium-term phenomenon.

“We did an analysis with our own model, and we also showed some loss in employment from a long-term commitment to reduce emissions, and our model goes out to 2050, but what we show is that there’s a sort of shorter run effect,” Morris told CNSNews.com.

“I mean short- to medium-run, because what happens is capital is moving from the fossil intensive sectors to the less fossil intensive sectors,” she said. “So then you’re going to be losing jobs in some sectors and creating jobs in some other sectors.”

Morris pointed out that the Brookings Institution analysis only looked at the cap and trade provision of global warming legislation.

“Most models are going to show that in the long run people are going to work somewhere and the question is what is the long-run effect after the economy has adjusted to these sector shifts,” she said. “So the long-run impact on employment that we see is quite small.”

Morris said the global warming bill should be enacted for environmental purposes despite potential short-term job losses.

“Even if there’s a negative effect on baseline job growth in the short run, it’s still important to do,” Morris said. “So then the focus in my mind should be in a way to do it with the least effect on the economy, and it raises the point of trying to do everything in the most cost-effective way possible.”

According to a study by the liberal Center for American Progress and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Political Economic Research Institute, $100 billion invested in green energy strategies has the potential to create 2 million new jobs, roughly 800,0000 of which will be in the construction sector.

But Thorning says her organization’s study takes into account jobs that will be created in alternative energy.

“Yes, this study does take [into] account jobs that would occur in these newer technologies in renewable energy,” she said, “but even when you factor in the newer jobs or more job creating fields for nuclear generating capacity and so forth, we still overall lose jobs.”

A July 8 Government Accountability Office report on climate change legislation said that the chemical, primary metals, paper, and non-metallic mineral industries in the United States bear the brunt of the impact from a cap-and-trade program, losing jobs to foreign competitors.

The GAO called these industries “trade and energy intensive.” They account for 4.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product.

“Together, these four industries provided 23 percent of total U.S. manufacturing output in 2007 and had trade flows of about $500 billion,” said the GAO report.

Loren Yager, GAO’s director of international affairs, told CNSNews.com that employees may have to switch industries. “Employment may shift to other industries where there is more growth,” he said.

Still Some Selling To Do

FROM-Las Vegas Review Journal

Political climate for energy policies cools

Poll: Economy outweighs environment

By JENNIFER ROBISON

Recent surveys show Americans cooling to global warming, and they're even less keen on environmental policies they believe might raise power bills or imperil jobs. Those sentiments could mean a tougher road ahead for elected officials looking to fund investments in renewable power or install a carbon cap-and-trade system.

"Right now, Americans are more concerned about the economy than the environment," said Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll. "The politician who says, 'I'm going to cripple jobs and shut down factories' would be in trouble in this economy."

WHAT THE NUMBERS SAYMore...


Here's what Gallup found: The number of Americans who say the media have exaggerated global warming jumped to a record 41 percent in 2009, up from 35 percent a year ago. The most marked increase came among political independents, whose ranks of doubters swelled from 33 percent to 44 percent. Republican doubters grew from 59 percent to 66 percent, while Democratic skeptics stayed at around 20 percent.

What's more, fewer Americans believe the effects of global warming have started to occur: 53 percent see signs of a hotter planet, down from 61 percent in 2008. Global warming placed last among eight environmental concerns Gallup asked respondents to rank, with water pollution landing the top spot.

Another recent Gallup study found that, for the first time in 25 years of polling, more Americans care about economic growth than the environment. Just 42 percent of people surveyed said the environment takes precedence over growth, while 51 percent asserted expansion carries more weight. That reverses results from 2008, when 49 percent of respondents said the environment was paramount and 42 percent said economic growth came first. In 1985, the poll's first year, 61 percent placed a bigger priority on the environment, while 28 percent ranked economic growth highest.

All those results indicate trends that pose big challenges for the environmental movement, Gallup's researchers concluded. More pointedly, the findings signal potential trouble for policies designed to curb global warming.

"It's a conundrum. You can't just say to those interested in global warming that they need to do a better job of PR because they have been trying so hard," Newport said. "Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. He made a widely seen movie, and his book sold many copies. Yet, with all that, it hasn't worked. You would have to say that, somehow, they're not getting the message across."

Ask Daniel Weiss, a senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, why increasing numbers of Americans dispute global warming and place the economy ahead of the environment, and he'll say those findings are wrong.

"I don't accept their premise. I think the Gallup Poll is mistaken," said Weiss, whose organization will send its chief executive officer, former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, to Monday's clean energy confab. "I would want to look at their questions to see how they got to this place."

Weiss pointed to surveys that contradict Gallup's results. A Pew Environmental Group poll found that 77 percent of voters want lawmakers to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and 55 percent said efforts to curb global warming will create jobs. Another poll from the National Wildlife Federation found that 55 percent of those polled strongly support a global warming plan that reduces pollution.

But it's not just Gallup that shows flagging concern about global warming. In a July Rasmussen poll, 56 percent said they didn't want to pay higher taxes or utility bills to generate clean energy and fight global warming. A January Pew poll placed global warming last among the top 20 priorities Americans have for 2009. Nos. 1 and 2? The economy and jobs. Even trade policy and lobbyists outranked global warming. And Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think-tank, pointed to a study from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association that showed 58 percent of respondents were unwilling to pay more than they currently pay for electricity to combat climate change.

'A HUGE AMOUNT OF SKEPTICISM'

Most observers say the economy is behind changing attitudes.

When people face immediate concerns such as job security, more-distant problems fade into the background, Newport said.

Studies show a strong historical correlation between economic prospects and support for environmental causes. When the economy surges, public support for green initiatives rises, said Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow with the free-market advocate Cato Institute.

"We're in the midst of one of the deepest recessions since the Great Depression, and people suspect environmental policies have price tags that are not inconsequential," Taylor said.

The public's interest in climate change also rises with extreme weather events, and the nation hasn't seen widespread, catastrophic weather since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Taylor added.

Ebell said he doesn't believe the recession or the weather are eroding public concern about global warming. Rather, he said, publicity over the high cost of green policies in Europe and other regions, as well as indications that those policies haven't yielded results and a 12-year string of stable global temperatures, are changing Americans' minds.

European countries have imposed gasoline taxes of $3 to $4 per gallon to curb consumption, Ebell noted, and the TaxPayers' Alliance in Great Britain estimated that the average British family spends more than $1,200 a year on green charges and levies. Despite such investments, a December report from the United Nations showed that greenhouse gas emissions have grown by almost 10 percent worldwide since 1990, if you control for the emissions-curbing collapse of the Soviet Union and ensuing economic decline in Eastern Europe.

More importantly, said Ebell, the planet's average temperature hasn't risen since 1997, despite a 5 percent gain in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the same period. Twelve years doesn't make for a long-term trend, Ebell said, but every year that goes by with no increase in average temperatures makes it harder to assert the climate is sensitive to carbon dioxide.

"I think there's a huge amount of skepticism among the public. They've heard all these claims, and now they've been informed that there isn't any recent warming," Ebell said. "The public, without having a lot of information about it, is pretty astute. I think the alarmists are having a hard time making the case for global warming simply because reality is against them and the public has figured it out." (The Competitive Enterprise Institute has taken flak for accepting funding from oil giant ExxonMobil. Ebell said the financing ended several years ago, and the funding source didn't affect the group's policy positions, which were in place before the nonprofit sought the money and have remained intact since the agreement concluded.)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., responded that the science showing the greenhouse effect on Earth's climate is solid. He pointed to pictures from Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, which reveal the virtual disappearance of a glacier in the past 35 years.

Weiss added that ignoring the environment carries its own costs: The typical household energy bill has risen $1,100 in the past eight years, even without policies to fight global warming.

"Doing nothing has been very costly," he said.

Worse still, agreed Reid and Weiss, eschewing environmental policies hurts the economy. Prominent venture capitalists and executives from Fortune 500 companies such as General Electric say investing in green energy will boost the economy, creating millions of high-tech jobs. Even a policy as simple as retrofitting existing buildings and constructing new buildings according to green standards would bolster the construction sector, as well as reduce waste and pollution, Reid said.

"The country that makes the clean energy technologies of the future is going to be the one that dominates the world economy," Weiss said. "Right now, China, Germany and other economic competitors are ahead of us because we've had eight years of doing nothing. Americans know we must change the way we generate and use energy. The question isn't whether we're going to buy clean energy technologies. The question is whether we're going to buy clean energy technologies made in the United States and marketed overseas, or whether we'll buy them from China and bring them here."

STILL SOME SELLING TO DO

Bringing alternative power sources online and reining in greenhouse gases pose upfront costs, though, because the country's energy infrastructure was built around fossil fuels. Congress has appropriated more than $60 billion for clean energy initiatives in the past year, including $11 billion for a national "smart" electric grid, $5 billion for making homes more efficient and $2 billion to invest in advanced batteries.

Also, the federal Energy Information Administration released a report Wednesday that tallied up the costs of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the carbon cap-and-trade bill that passed the House of Representatives in May and goes to the Senate for a vote in the fall. The agency's analysis found that the bill would increase the cost of energy, pare economic output, curb purchasing power and cut $432 billion to $1.9 trillion from the nation's gross domestic product by 2030.

And that's where all those polls showing that Americans aren't certain those costs are worth it might begin to matter. With so many surveys revealing that Americans have little appetite for environmental policies that they think could stall economic growth or pinch consumers' budgets, policymakers still have some selling to do, observers say.

Politicians might just need to work harder at educating the public on why they think green policies are important, Newport said.

Other elected officials could end up changing their stands on those policies because, after all, a politician's biggest goal is to keep his job.

Monday's National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 will bring a parade of celebrated public policy experts to Las Vegas to discuss greening the country's economy.

But as leaders including former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger encourage investments in alternative energy, their policy prescriptions could face serious headwinds from changing public opinions.


"Some people think politicians vote on the merits of an issue," Taylor said. "There might be one here or there who does that, but they're exceptions to the rule. For the most part, politicians are like businessmen, only they're in the business of earning votes. Virtually everything they do is with an eye on how many votes it will get them. And these sorts of surveys tell politicians that votes for cap-and-trade programs are extremely hazardous to their electoral health."

Members of Congress who represent blue states and hold leadership positions in their parties will be safer than those who hail from swing states and enjoy less seniority, Taylor predicted.

Reid vowed Friday to continue his push for clean energy policies, saying that a sound and healthy environment is critical to any prosperous economy, and the Gallup numbers show most Americans continue to believe that the seriousness of global warming has been correctly portrayed or even understated.

"We have a duty to all of our children to make sure we don't let temporary difficulties get in the way of making good choices for their future," he said.

"Grasping at straws"

FROM- New Geography

Green Jobs Can't Save The Economy

by Joel Kotkin

Nothing is perhaps more pathetic than the exertions of economic developers and politicians grasping at straws, particularly during hard times. Over the past decade, we have turned from one panacea to another, from the onset of the information age to the creative class to the boom in biotech, nanotech and now the "green economy."

This latest economic fad is supported by an enormous industry comprising nonprofits, investment banks, venture capitalists and their cheerleaders in the media. Their song: that "green" jobs will rescue our still weak economy while saving the planet. Ironically, what they all fail to recognize is that the thing that would spur green jobs most is economic growth.More...

All told, green jobs constitute barely 700,000 positions across the country – less than 0.5% of total employment. That's about how many jobs the economy lost in January this year. Indeed a recent study by Sam Sherraden at the center-left New America Foundation finds that, for the most part, green jobs constitute a negligible factor in employment – and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Policymakers, he warns, should avoid "overpromising about the jobs and investment we can expect from government spending to support the green economy."

This is true even in California, where green-job hype has become something of a fetish among self-styled "progressives." One recent study found that the state was creating some 10,000 green jobs annually before recession. To put this into context, the total state economy has lost over 700,000 jobs over the past year (more than 200,000 in Los Angeles County alone). Any net growth in green jobs has barely made a dent in any economic category; only education and health services have shown job gains over this period.

More worrisome, in terms of national competitiveness, the green sector seems to be going in the wrong direction. The U.S.'s overall "green" trade balance has moved from a $14.4 billion surplus in 1997 to a nearly $9 billion deficit last year. As the country has pushed green energy, ostensibly to free itself from foreign energy, it has become ever more dependent on countries such as China, Japan and Germany for critical technology. Some of this is directly attributable to the often massive subsidies these countries offer to green-tech companies. But as New America's Sherraden puts it, this "does not augur well for the future of the green trade balance."

Nor are we making it any easier for American workers to gain from green-related manufacturing. Some of America's "greenest" regions are inhospitable for placing environmentally oriented manufacturing facilities. For example, high taxes and regulatory climate have succeeded in intimidating solar cell makers from coming to green-friendly California; a manufacturer from China told the Milken Institute's Ross DeVol that the state's "green" laws precluded making green products there.

Attempts to put windmills in Nantucket, Mass., the Catskills and Jones Beach in New York and other scenic areas have also been blocked by environmentalist groups. Transmission lines, necessary to take "renewable" energy from distant locales to energy-hungry cities, often face similar hurdles. Solar farms in the Mojave desert might help meet renewable energy quotas but, as wildlife groups have noted, may not be so good for local fauna.

And then there is the impact of green policies on the overall economy. Green power is expensive and depends on massive subsidization, with government support levels at roughly 20 times or more per megawatt hour than relatively clean and abundant natural gas. Lavishing breaks for Wall Street investors and favored green companies also may be harmful to the rest of the economy. A recent study on renewable energy subsidies on the Spanish economy found that for every "green" job created more than two were lost in the non-subsidized economy.

So how do we build a green economy that is sustainable without massive subsidies? First, governments need to learn how to say no to some environmentalists. Green jobs and renewable energy can not be fully developed without affecting somebody's backyard. Windmills will have to be built in some scenic places; transmission lines may mar somebody's "view-shed."

Arguably, the thing that would spur green jobs and domestic industries most would be economic growth. Environmentalists long have been cool to growth, since they link it to carbon production and other noxious human infestations. As an official at the Natural Resources Defense Council put it, the recession has "a moment of breathing room." Disaster may be still looming, but bad times add a few more moments to our carbon clock.

Long term, though, I would argue hard times may prove harmful for the environmental cause. Even with subsidies, many renewable energy projects are now on hold or being canceled across the country. Slackening energy demand, brought on by a weak economy, has undermined the case for new sources of energy generation; what looked attractive with oil prices at $140 a barrel and headed higher looks at $70 less so.

Similarly, hard-pressed homeowners and businesses don't constitute the best market for new, often expensive "green" products. A growing economy, which would drive up energy prices, could spur a more sustainable interest in alternative energy from firms that now only do so for public relations concerns. At the same time, cash-rich consumers could more afford to install energy-saving home insulation or rooftop solar panels. A strong economy would also spur sales of new energy-efficient appliances and cars.

This process would go more quickly if government relied less on mandates, which tend to scare serious investors, and turned toward incentives. With the right tax advantages, energy efficiency could become a positive imperative for companies.

There's also an unappreciated political calculus at work. A persistently weak economy undermines support for the green agenda. For the first time in 25 years, according to a Gallup poll, more people place higher priority on economic growth than on the environment.

Furthermore, more people now feel claims about global warming are "exaggerated." Early this year, Pew reported that global warming ranked last among the top 20 priorities of Americans.

Ultimately, environmentalists need to realize that the road to a green economy does not lie in promoting hysteria, guilt and self-abnegation while ignoring prohibitive costs and grim economic realities. Green enthusiasts should focus on promoting a growing economy capable of generating both the demand and the ability to pay for more planet-friendly products. After all, the economy needs green jobs less than green jobs need a thriving economy

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University. He is author of The City: A Global History. His next book, The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, will be published by Penguin early next year.

The New America

I find these headlines emblematic of the disconnect in the New America. The first is synonymous of trying to force an unprofitable product on the marketplace:

Largest US Biodiesel Plant Is For Sale

The nation's largest biodiesel refinery went on the block this week for an undisclosed price after the owner shut down the $70 million facility in the face
of low demand...

Obviously current economic conditions have contributed to the decline of the bio-fuel industry, which is precisely what the economy is supposed to do-weed out the losers in the marketplace. So despite massive government subsidies and mandated usage, this product can not survive normal economic variables. Common sense and economic laws would say that the bio-fuel industry should scale way back or disappear until it is a viable product.

Well at least that is the way things used to work, but not in our Brave New Green World. Now biofuel has been mandated by powers on high (governments) as a necessity to modern life, for what they still have not explained. So we are left with our second headline:

Cornell opens new biofuels laboratory

Why of course we need to invest much more public research money into an energy source that can not survive despite massive infusion of other public monies which can not get it past being a loser. But why not throw good (public) money after bad as the articles first paragraph so proudly proclaims:

Cornell University is the proud new home to a state-of-the-art Biofuels Research Laboratory, lauded as a unique research, educational and economic development facility rolled into one....

I wonder how much government research money was given to Thomas Edison, Henry Ford or countless other inventive entrepreneurs of the past in order to develop products and markets for their inventions? But in this New America we invest our children's money to research products which must be subsidized with our grandchildren's money in order that we may increase our tax burden on products we do not really need.

Then of course there is one final headline in the sad saga of the New America;

Researchers Say Increased Biofuel Resources Production Could Harm Water

A new study by researchers at Rice University in Houston, Texas warns that expanded production of crops to produce biofuels could damage water resources. The researchers suggest policy makers take into account what they call the "water footprint" when encouraging biofuel development...

Oh well, welcome to the New America.
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How Bad can it be?

FROM-Greg Mankiw's Blog

Cap-and-trade looks worse and worse

As all good economics textbooks teach (see chapter 10 of my favorite one), the purpose of market-based policies to deal with externalities is that they are more efficient than command-and-control regulations. In the case of carbon emissions and global climate change, putting a price on carbon is supposed to be a better substitute for government micromanagement.

Apparently, that lesson is lost on the writers of the bill making its way through Congress. Although the bill changes incentives by putting a price on carbon, it also offers a large dose of command-and-control regulation. Essentially, the sponsors don't seem to believe that getting incentives right is enough.

The Washington Post reports:

THE RUNNING joke in Washington is that nobody has read the 900-plus-page energy bill sponsored by Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), which the House will consider in coming weeks. What you hear from its backers is that its cap-and-trade provisions would create a market-based program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions -- which should mean that a simple, systemwide incentive encourages polluters to make the easiest reductions in greenhouse gases first, keeping the costs of fighting global warming to a minimum. In fact, the bill also contains regulations on everything from light bulb standards to the specs on hot tubs, and it will reshape America's economy in dozens of ways that many don't realize.

Here is just one: The bill would give the federal government power over local building codes. It requires that by 2012 codes must require that new buildings be 30 percent more efficient than they would have been under current regulations. By 2016, that figure rises to 50 percent, with increases scheduled for years after that....

According to the bill's advocates, America's buildings account for perhaps 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse emissions, and technology is available for builders to meet the targets in ways that are economical for building owners. Much of the problem is old buildings that waste huge amounts of energy, which wouldn't necessarily be touched by the new code. But it would be good if builders met these efficiency goals with new construction.

Is the best way to achieve that, though, to federalize what has long been a matter of local concern? And if the point of cap-and-trade is to change market incentives, why does Congress, and not the market, need to dictate these changes?

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Presiding over make believe world

This has to be one of the most surreal quotes I have ever read. The United States owes China close to a trillion dollars. We are there hat in hand asking them to loan us more and our President calls them less wealthy? Please contact me when Washington returns to the real world.

FROM- Reuters

Climate change pledges not so easy for some-Obama

DRESDEN, Germany, June 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday it would be difficult to convince less wealthy countries such as China to commit to pledges aimed at reducing global warming.

"It will be very difficult for us to persuade countries that are...less wealthy like China to take the steps they have to take to control carbon emmissions," Obama said a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the city of Dresden.
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Nickel and dimed

The ilconceived and unnecessary rush to change the country's energy network is going to cost the economy and individuals enormously. We will be nickle and dimed into economic stagnation. This is but an example. Equally as sad is this telling line from the article;

" ... electricity customers will pay an extra 71 cents per month and natural gas customers will pay an added $1.72 a month beginning with June bills to support the company's energy-optimization plan. The plan aims to increase energy efficiency for the utility and customers."

If the plan is to make energy more efficient for customers, why should it cost more? In the normal world efficiency equals savings, only in this new capitalist destruction regime we are being forced fed, does the consumer pay more for efficiency.

FROM-Detroit Free Press

Bills to rise for wind power

Consumers Energy surcharges OK'd

Consumers Energy customers will begin paying more on their bills to help pay for the utility's efforts to reach the state-mandated requirement of generating 10% of its power from renewable energy sources.

Electricity customers will begin seeing a $2.50 monthly surcharge on their September bills to support Consumers' Renewable Energy Plan, which calls for 900 megawatts of electricity coming from wind power by 2015. The utility plans to build between 250 and 500 wind turbines in Mason and Tuscola counties to generate 450 megawatts of power. The rest is to be purchased from contractors.

The cost to build the turbines will be $1.2 billion, said Consumers spokesman Jeff Holyfield. The utility is gathering meteorological data at 42,000 acres in the two counties to decide the best locations for the turbines.

In addition to the alternative energy surcharge, Consumers electricity customers will pay an extra 71 cents per month and natural gas customers will pay an added $1.72 a month beginning with June bills to support the company's energy-optimization plan. The plan aims to increase energy efficiency for the utility and customers.

The Michigan Public Service Commission approved the added charges Tuesday. The renewable energy and energy-optimization plans for DTE Energy, which serves most electricity customers in southeast Michigan, are to be considered by the PSC Tuesday.

In the last two months, the PSC also has approved renewable energy plans submitted by the other nine investor-owned utilities and 10 co-op utilities across the state.


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