Conflict of interest, the economy versus global warming agenda

From my Brenner Brief column

The Obama administration blames U.S. economic downturn on severe winter while pushing global warming agenda

Global Warming engulfs The White House|Photo Credit Wiki Media Commons

It is natural that this should happen since liberalism as practiced by the modern Democratic Party has become a never-ending balancing act of trying to enact leftist agenda driven policies to solve imaginary problems. So it is not surprising that the imagined world of the left to the real world awaits only a peek behind the curtain to be exposed. That being the case there still has seldom been such an obvious conflict in liberal orthodoxy as that which is taking place in the upper levels of the U.S. Government.

In order to deflect attention away from the Obama Administrations many failure and scandals while simultaneously ginning up support from an influential and powerful segment of the Democratic base, environmentalists, the administration has made a big push on climate change policy, aka global warming.

Starting with the release of the National Climate Assessment, Obama and his administration have begun a new push to warn Americans of the terrible threat facing us due to global warming. In speeches, in regulation proposals, and in threatened “executive actions“ the administration has hyped the global warming agenda.

Meanwhile, it was announced on Thursday that the nation’s first quarter gross domestic product (GDP) had been revised down into negative territory, -1%. The reason given for this bad news?

“Overall the first quarter was subject to a number of notable influences, including historically severe winter weather, which temporarily lowered growth,” said Jason Furman, head of the Council of Economic Advisers. “

This of course is in direct contradiction to the theory of global warming which predicts that winters are going to be warmer. In fact the second paragraph of the Overview of that much touted National Climate Assessment states

Winters are generally shorter and warmer. 

Well, except when they are not in which case harsh winters are a good cover for a shrinking economy brought on by Democratic policies. Which “coincidentally”in the same time frame saw the introduction of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) not to mention the threats of and recently implemented environmental policies that will needlessly hurt businesses,

While the administration is out pushing a “climate” report that claims that the winter of 2012 was one of the warmest ever, they fail to note that the winter that had just ended was one of the coldest on record. In fact the previous year (2013) was cooler than normal for the United States.

Much of the U.S. saw cooler-than-average and wetter-than-average conditions in 2013, according to the government’s official annual climate report released Wednesday.

It is undeniable that the severe winter of 2014 hurt the U.S. economy, colder weather always hurts the economy, which makes a thinking person wonder why the purveyors of doom and gloom attack warmer weather.  What is not being mentioned however is that we have had many cold and severe winters in our history but it is only when you are hovering near zero economic growth will colder weather throw the economy into the below zero range as has happened in the first quarter of 2014.

But the real charade is the Obama administration blaming a severe winter for a shrinking economy while simultaneously warning that global warming is having and will have a severe impact on  the US economy now and into the future. Irony is just so ironic.

An inconvenient chill

FROM-Editorial-The Washington Times

Global-warming proponents will face a day of reckoning on Capitol Hill

Al Gore and the climate doomsayers are at it again. The former vice president took to Twitter this week to declare the planet “under threat,” and he already has a solution. Mr. Gore’s group, the Climate Reality Project, is running a “put the heat on denial” campaign throughout August to remind people that it’s hot not because it’s summer, but because Americans are using their air conditioning and driving automobiles.

Alarmists hope to convince the public that the only way to avert certain catastrophe is to force everyone to use “green” energy. Mr. Gore coincidentally stands to profit handsomely from such a conversion through his politically correct investment firm, Generation Investment Management.

So far, Americans have been cold to the idea of giving up the conveniences of modern life. Because the planet has refused to warm up and cast doubt on the alarmist prophecies, Mr. Gore has stepped up his proganda game. In the past month, there have been 2,055 cities across the country reporting chilly summertime peak temperatures. In Texarkana, Texas, for example, the mercury can soar beyond 110 degrees in August. Residents on Friday enjoyed balmy temperatures in the 70s, beating a record set three decades ago.
Forget the evidence. The left insists proof of planetary overheating is overwhelming. “Nine of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since the year 2000,” says Mr. Gore’s climate group. “Extreme weather events like heat waves, heavy rains and drought are becoming more common and more severe. Coastal communities all over the world are preparing for the impacts of sea level rise.” Those predictions have proved less reliable than the local weatherman’s forecast.

Hurricane season began June 1, and there haven’t been any hurricanes yet. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s index of drought conditions has been well below normal over the past 12 months. The seas aren’t rising because the polar ice isn’t melting. The National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder reports Arctic sea ice is maintaining “average” levels while “Antarctic sea ice is near a record maximum extent for mid-August.” In short, everything is just fine, and that has Mr. Gore and his allies worried.

They ought to be. On Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power announced plans next month to grill bureaucrats from a dozen federal agencies about how they’ve been using taxpayer funds to advance a global-warming agenda. This presents an ideal opportunity for Congress to insist the government get out of the propaganda business. Mr. Gore is a wealthy man with plenty of cash to advance his own business interests.

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION STACKS DECK ON GLOBAL WARMING

FROM-Breitbart

William Bigelow

At Globalchange.gov, a Federal Advisory Committee called The National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee (NCADAC) is boasting of their climate report. In the upper right corner of the webpage, the motto is written: “Thirteen Agencies, One Vision: Empower the Nation with Global Change Science.”

You know what that means; the Obama Administration is about to force down Americans’ throats its belief in global warming and the attendant changes that must be made because of their manufactured crisis. For goodness sake, they’re even blaming Superstorm Sandy on global warming, for as we all know, there have never been hurricanes in all of recorded history that even came close to Sandy’s fury.

So pardon us if we’re a little suspicious of the members who contributed to this “report.” Let’s just take a look at the NCASDAC’s chair, two vice-chairs, and ten executive secretariat members.

Chair: Jerry Melillo. “But project leader Jerry Melillo of MBL said this study demonstrates for the first time that global warming would also be likely to increase the carbon storing potential of trees, by speeding up nitrogen cycling in the forest.”
Vice-Chair:Terese Richmond: wrote Leveraging SEPA to Promote Green-Friendly Development.

Vice-Chair: Gary Yohe: joined an Open Letter from Scientists in the United States on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Errors Contained in the Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007, in which this was said:

Read entire article

Maybe the Mayans meant a FISCAL end of the world

Obama Plans for Climate Deal as Fiscal Cliff Negotiations Rage

FROM-The Wall Street Journal

During the decade that Al Gore dominated the environmental debate, global carbon-dioxide emissions rose by 28.5%.

By ROBERT BRYCE

Over the past two months, environmental activists have held protests at the White House and elsewhere hoping to convince the Obama administration to deny a permit for the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Some of those same activists have launched a series of demonstrations called "Moving Planet" to move "the planet away from fossil fuels towards a safer climate future." And next month, leaders from dozens of countries will meet at the 17th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa.

But for all of the sturm und drang about climate change, what has actually happened? It's time to acknowledge five obvious truths about the climate-change issue:

1) The carbon taxers/limiters have lost. Carbon-dioxide emissions have been the environmental issue of the past decade. Over that time period, Al Gore became a world-renowned figure for his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," for which he won an Oscar. In 2007, he, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), collected a Nobel Peace Prize for "informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change." That same year, the IPCC released its fourth assessment report, which declared that "most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions." (Emphasis in original.)

Two years later, Copenhagen became the epicenter of a world-wide media frenzy as some 5,000 journalists, along with some 100 world leaders and scores of celebrities, descended on the Danish capital to witness what was billed as the best opportunity to impose a global tax or limit on carbon dioxide.

The result? Nothing, aside from promises by various countries to get serious—really serious—about carbon emissions sometime soon.

Here's a reality check: During the same decade that Mr. Gore and the IPCC dominated the environmental debate, global carbon-dioxide emissions rose by 28.5%.

Those increases reflect soaring demand for electricity, up by 36%, which in turn fostered a 47% increase in coal consumption. (Natural-gas use increased by 29% while oil use grew by 13%.) Carbon-dioxide emissions are growing because people around the world understand the essentiality of electricity to modernity. And for many countries, the cheapest way to produce electrons is by burning coal.

Rick Perry vs. the Global Warming Fraud

FROM-Human Events

Speaking out against the crime of the century.

by John Hayward


Rick Perry, having already demonstrated his meteorological powers by summoning a “black cloud” which destroyed what remained of MSNBC’s credibility, decided to finish off global warming for breakfast in New Hampshire. According to an Associated Press report:

Rick Perry says he does not believe in global warming. The newest Republican presidential candidate also says he would not have signed the debt-ceiling compromise brokered by Republicans and Democrats.

The Texas governor made the comments as he launched a two-day New Hampshire campaign tour. He was speaking at a packed breakfast event with business leaders Wednesday.

Perry said global warming is based on scientists manipulating data. He said he wouldn't devote federal resources to battling the environmental concern.

The Republican also said the debt-ceiling compromise, which helped avoid a national default, sent the wrong message by spending money the nation doesn't have.

Note the way the AP phrases this report: “Rick Perry says he does not believe in global warming.” Maybe he also “doesn’t believe” in gravity, or Barack Obama’s magical powers to create jobs. Clearly the AP finds his lack of faith… disturbing.

I’ll bet Perry used somewhat more forceful language than that. Last week, in a sneering article designed to convey the impression that Perry is a blinkered loon for failing to believe in the “global warming” that nobody can prove without resorting to outright fraud, the UK Guardian said Perry referred to their climate religion as “all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight.”

For good measure, back in 2007 Perry – who used to work for Al Gore’s campaign, back when he was a Democrat – said of the global-warming pope, “I’ve heard Al Gore talk about man-made global warming so much that I’m starting to think that his mouth is the leading source of all that supposedly deadly carbon dioxide.”

It’s curious to see liberals freaking out over someone who says he doesn’t believe in “global warming,” because supposedly they don’t believe in that any more, either. It’s “climate change” now. No matter what happens – wet or dry, hot or cold, ice or floods – only the extensively compensated clergy can calm the angry sky gods, and transform their will into law over the benighted masses.

It’s good to see Perry isn’t backpedaling on this. It’s important. The global-warming hoax is the crime of the century. The amount of money stolen by the con artists, or lost in mad attempts to comply with their bizarre religion, is literally incalculable. Countless billions have been handed over to them in funding, sacrificed to comply with deranged eco-regulation, and spent on propaganda aimed at children.

East Anglia emails admitting falsified evidence, polar-bear studies exposed as utter frauds, countless studies conveniently “misinterpreted,” ranting lunatic Al Gore as a figurehead… the con is over, and the perpetrators should be prosecuted. We can never recover the wealth seized and destroyed by these scam artists, but they should be denied every opportunity to swipe another nickel. Every other Republican candidate should be competing with Rick Perry to win that job.

Oil “subsidy” and “tax breaks” nonsense

FROM-Townhall

By Paul Driessen


President Obama frequently says Americans "need to end our $4 billion in annual taxpayer subsidies to oil companies." The latest Democrat bill would have repealed some $2 billion of what Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and others call "subsidies" and "special tax breaks" for Big Oil.

That’s baloney – shameless demagoguery that will inflict further damage on our struggling economy.

Subsidies are cash payments from government to the private sector. Money is taken from the 51% of Americans who still pay income taxes – and transferred by legislators and bureaucrats to companies and activities that "deserve" or "require" these wealth transfers, because the recipients perform an important service and/or could not remain in business unless subsidized with other people’s money (OPM).

The petroleum industry does not receive "subsidies" to produce oil and natural gas. It doesn't even get "special tax breaks" or outright tax credits. What are falsely described in these terms are actually tax deductions for costs incurred by companies in the process of exploring, drilling, producing and refining the oil and natural gas that energize this nation's economy and living standards.

These tax deductions are equivalent or similar to deductions claimed by every US business, large and small, for things like facilities depreciation, equipment, utilities, payroll, and research and development. They are intended to ensure that businesses, like individuals, recover their costs and get taxed only on their net incomes. For oil companies those deductions include:

* Geological and geophysical costs, for exploration to assess prospects prior to drilling;

* Intangible drilling costs – equipment, labor, fuel and supplies associated with drilling expensive wells;

* Expensing "tertiary injectants," water and chemicals injected into older wells to keep them producing;

* Domestic manufacturer's deductions of up to 6% of income earned from extracting oil and gas (farmers, manufacturers and other producers can deduct up to 9% of earned income);

* Percentage depletion allowance, allowing for gradual recovery of up-front investments in a petroleum (or iron, gold, limestone, et cetera) deposit that is gradually extracted and depleted. The allowance is not available to "integrated" companies that produce, refine and market oil.

White House, congressional and eco-activist claims that repealing these deductions will generate "billions in new revenues" reflect an abysmal grasp of basic business, economic and behavioral principles....

read entire article here

Obama Tilting at Oil Companies, Propping Up Windmills

FROM-Center for Individual Freedom

BY ASHTON ELLIS

In Cervantes’ Don Quixote, the title character repeatedly makes a fool of himself with well-meaning crusades against common sense. With U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder riding along as Sancho Panza, President Barack Obama is mounting his own quixotic quest: lowering gas prices by increasing the cost of doing business.

One of Don Quixote’s most infamous escapades was declaring battle against a windmill, then one of the greatest engines of economic progress. Today, President Barack Obama is trying to wage war against economic reality by threatening to prosecute oil companies for pricing gasoline according to the rules of supply and demand.

At least Don Quixote could claim ignorance. President Obama cannot. He knows all too well that the American economy runs on oil, consuming 15.3 million barrels a day. Of that, imports supply 9.5 million barrels a day while domestic producers contribute 5.8 million a day.

And though trained as a public-interest lawyer and employed as a non-profit community organizer, a president smart enough to graduate from Columbia and Harvard Law School should know that his idea to strip away tax incentives to oil companies raises their price of doing business. It doesn’t take much calculating to conclude that the end result is more expensive gasoline for every consumer.

Yet in his ongoing quest to create a green utopia where only politically correct energy flourishes, President Obama won’t acknowledge reality. He won’t admit that two days prior to forming his Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group, another federal agency confirmed there is no fraud to prosecute. Concluding its own investigation into allegations of market manipulation, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) “determined that none of the complaints involved conduct that violated” FTC rules.

The FTC report confirms a 2008 study by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that found price surges of up to $140 a barrel and $4 a gallon that year did “not support the proposition that speculative activity has systematically driven changes in oil prices.”

Contrary to liberal conspiracy theories, the CFTC reasoned that increases in oil prices were “largely due to fundamental supply and demand factors.”

Undeterred, the president’s Sancho Panza – U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder – assured confused onlookers that the Department of Justice would press on anyway. Without citing specifics, Holder said there are “at least a couple of things” that are “disturbing” about energy markets.

Here’s one. The Environmental Protection Agency’s appeals board recently killed Shell Oil’s drilling project in Alaska after the company spent $4 billion preparing the site. The weapon was a dubious ruling that an ice-cutting vessel used by Shell would emit greenhouse gases harmful to a nearby village of native Alaskans. Population: 245. Proximity to Shell’s site: 70 miles. Likelihood of being the real reason the environmentalists on the board voted against Shell: zero.

Despite this kind of catastrophic economic loss, President Obama wants to end some tax incentives to oil companies like Shell because their profits increase when consumers drive more (as do their taxes). If the tax incentives are ended, will he also promise to reimburse Shell and others for job-killing rulings like the EPA’s surprise decision?

Of course not.

Like Don Quixote, President Obama lives in a world of make believe, in which the engines of economic progress are the enemies of right-thinking men. As with ObamaCare, the president is dutifully mounting another assault against the interests of his neighbors. He isn’t content with putting America on a forced march to socialized medicine; now we’ll also have to get there in electric cars with less horsepower.

Don Quixote charged windmills because he thought they were giants harassing the land. President Barack Obama wants to increase costs for oil companies to lower gasoline prices. Unfortunately, only one of these stories is fictional.

Ironically, there is at least one likely beneficiary of Obama’s subsidy switch from “old” energy like oil to “renewable” sources: makers of windmills.

Cooling on global warming

FROM-LA TIMES

The fight against climate change has fizzled, with much of the public not believing or not caring. That's why Obama tries to change the subject to jobs when he talk about energy policy.

By Jonah Goldberg


"What the heck went wrong?" That, apparently, is the question roiling the environmental community as it realizes that the fight against climate change has fizzled.

As Brad Plumer writes in the New Republic, everything was looking great in 2008 for a sweeping effort to make good on candidate Barack Obama's pledge to start turning back the rising oceans. The Democrats held Congress. Both John McCain and Obama had promised to push for capping carbon emissions. Corporations had gotten on board. Al Gore and "An Inconvenient Truth" had seemingly softened up the public to the point where it might go along with whatever a popular president promised.

"Instead, the climate push was ... a total flop," laments Plumer.

And of course, Plumer's right, though not entirely for the reasons he claims.

Climate change is dead as a major political issue for the foreseeable future. Don't believe me? Check out Obama's remarks in his weekly radio address last weekend. It was all about energy policy, and yet not once did he talk about climate change.

In one sense, that's odd, given that without global warming, his energy policy goes from merely misguided to outright bonkers. After all, if you wanted to create non-exportable jobs, wean America off foreign oil or pursue energy independence from the Middle East, absent any concerns about climate change or releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, you would unleash America's massive energy reserves in coal, gas and oil. According to the Congressional Research Service, hardly a mouthpiece for Big Oil, the U.S. has the largest energy resources of any country, Saudi Arabia and Russia included.

But in another sense it's not odd, because telling voters that they have to pay high gas prices in order to ineffectually fight climate change would be honest but incalculably dumb, politically. Recent polling shows that Americans care about the economy more — a lot more — than global warming. Skepticism about the existence of a problem or its scope has been rising in the U.S. and Europe. When a Pew poll in January asked voters what their biggest priorities were, climate changed ranked second to last. Only obesity was deemed less of a priority. (Don't tell Michelle Obama.)

Even Madison Avenue has noticed. The New York Times reports that increasingly budget-conscious consumers are no longer willing to shell out extra for self-described "green products." As a result, the number of new Earth-friendly products has plummeted.

Why has climate change lost its oomph? Plumer lays out some of the reasons, though he minimizes the damage greens have inflicted on their own credibility thanks to the 2009 Climategate email scandal and wildly overstated predictions. For instance, the United Nations predicted there would be 50 million "climate refugees" by 2010. They're nowhere to be found.

No wonder Obama constantly insists that switching to vastly more expensive and less-efficient energy sources will create jobs. No wonder he insists that if we all get onboard the high-speed rail bandwagon, we'll win the future. No wonder he's trying to change the subject to as-of-yet-nonexistent gas station price gouging and allegedly outrageous subsidies for the oil industry.

Obama's claims are dubious at best. The Chinese word for high-speed rail should be "white elephant." Green jobs destroy more jobs than they create, and pay less. In Spain, Obama's favorite clean-energy innovator, one study found that 2.2 jobs were destroyed for every one that was created. Indeed, across Europe, massive investments in wind and solar simply haven't paid off.

One suspects that Obama would dearly love to drill a lot for more oil and gas, simply for the political windfall in jobs and economic growth. But after he flipped on offshore drilling, then flopped after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, he cannot flip again without infuriating his base. So he brags about how much more drilling there is today, even though that's the result of policies already in the pipeline.

Obama and the greens are in an exquisite bind. Without economic recovery, Americans won't support Obama's "investments," but Obama's investments are a hindrance to recovery.

Relax biofuel laws says World Bank as millions face food poverty

FROM-Green Car Web Site

The World Bank is calling on Governments around the world to relax laws requiring biofuels to be mixed with conventional fuels for road transport use as global food prices remain volatile.

According to the organisation, rising food and fuel prices is causing unrest in some of the world’s poorest countries as more people face being pushed below the $1.25 daily income extreme poverty line.

Driven in part by higher fuel costs connected to events in the Middle East and North Africa, global food prices are 36 per cent above their levels a year ago new World Bank Group numbers released this week reveal.

The bank is calling on governments to divert more crop production away from biofuel use and ease export controls to prevent even more people falling below the extreme poverty line.

“More poor people are suffering and more people could become poor because of high and volatile food prices,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick. “We have to put food first and protect the poor and vulnerable, who spend most of their money on food.”

The World Bank says that a further 10 per cent increase in global food prices would push a further 10 million people below this line. This is in addition to the 44 million people who have been driven into poverty since last June as a result of price spikes. The World Bank estimates there are now about 1.2 billion people living below the poverty line.

The World Bank’s food price index, which measures global prices remains close to its 2008 peak. While not suggesting that biofuel laws should be abolished altogether, the organisation is concerned that many of the greatest food price increases link to plants commonly used as biofuel sources. Crops such as maize show a 74 per cent increase in price, while other biofuel crops such as wheat show a 69 per cent increase and soybeans show a 36 per cent increase, although rice prices have been stable.

Food prices have soared due to severe weather events in key grain exporting countries, export restrictions and low global stocks as well as biofuel production. The food price hike is also linked to surging fuel prices – crude oil increased 21 per cent in the first quarter of 2011as a result of unrest in the Middle East and North Africa.

In Europe, the European Renewable Energy Directive states that 10 per cent of transport fuel must come from renewable sources by 2020. In the UK a similar measure requires 5 per cent of transport fuel to come from renewable sources by 2013-much of this is currently met through the use of biofuels.

The Boone Pickens Bill

FROM-American Spectator

By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

WASHINGTON -- Last week was the culmination of process begun years ago. A bill was introduced to Congress that can end American dependence on foreign oil. What is called the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act -- more simply put, the Nat Gas Act -- was introduced on April 6. It had bipartisan support. It ought to pass and pass promptly. It could be called the Boone Pickens Bill.

The process began with the Pickens Plan for global energy security in 2008. Authored by the legendary oilman Boone Pickens, who put some $80 million of his own money into promoting it, it called for the development of all sources of energy, even wind and solar. Boone recognized that as long as America is dependent on foreign oil America has a national security problem. We import 70 percent of our oil, a number that can only go up unless something is done. The oil comes from unfriendly countries in the worst scenario, unstable countries in a slightly better scenario. Canada is the best scenario, but cannot provide all the oil we need.

In the meantime, a very auspicious development has taken place. America has become the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. In fact, we probably have more energy capacity in natural gas than the Saudis have in oil.

In the last few years natural gas has been found in abundance in the United States. We have over 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, mostly in Appalachia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas -- more than twice the amount of Saudi oil, enough to last us 100 years, probably more. Recent innovations make it cleaner to burn and cheaper to use. It is the only fuel that can replace diesel in semis and other heavy-duty vehicles. Battery power will not work on these behemoths, nor will ethanol.

The Nat Gas Act that is now pending before Congress will extend and increase tax credits for natural gas and fueling. The key clauses call for the orderly replacement of diesel-powered 18-wheeler semis and other heavy-duty vehicles with natural gas over a five to seven year period. It also gives tax incentives to truck-stop owners to supply natural gas. That will amount to a savings of 2.5 million barrels of oil a day. It will cut our reliance on OPEC oil by 50%. This is why Boone calls it “a game changer.” With our reliance on OPEC down by 50%, the oil producers will have to negotiate with us for the price they charge us for oil. Also, we will have a breathing spell during which to find alternative sources of energy.

It seems to me that the way to look at the Nat Gas Act is as a national security measure. American presidents since Jimmy Carter have called for America to be energy independent. They wanted us to drill, to develop wind and solar, to expand our nuclear potential. Well, we can do all that but we have here and now the capacity to be independent. The solution is natural gas. Get the semis and other heavy-duty vehicles on it now.

About a year ago, the price of gas at the pump was not much of a problem. Now that price has shot up with turbulence in the Middle East. There are predictions of $5 a gallon gasoline. It could have been avoided had we acted on the Nat Gas Act a couple of years ago. The time to act is now. Our national security will be enhanced.

I have made a few calls around Washington. No one, save an environmental wacko, is against the Nat Gas Act before Congress. It is time for both Democrats and Republicans to prove that they can, acting together, get something done. This bill has 157 co-sponsors. Pass the bill. And why not call it the Boone Pickens Bill? It is a lot easier to enunciate than the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act.

Crushing light bulbs

Thinking global...local

FROM-American Thinker

Global Warming Alarmism's Long March through State and Local Institutions

By Peter Wilson

It's tempting to be complacent about the progress made against global warming alarmism.  Climate legislation seems to be stalled in the U.S. Congress.  A recent Gallup poll shows that concern about global warming among the American public is at historic lows; a mere 32% of Americans believe that global warming will affect them during their lifetimes.

We must keep in mind however that true believers don't give up simply because theirs is a minority opinion.  They just try in other ways.  Remember the New Left's "long march through the institutions."  Remember Nancy Pelosi's defiant words when she was losing the legislative battle over ObamaCare: "We will go through the gate.  If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence.  If the fence is too high, we will pole-vault in.  If that doesn't work, we will parachute in.  But we are going to get health care reform passed for the American people."

We have witnessed the Obama administration attempting an end run around Congress by siccing the EPA on "carbon polluters."  Another means of pushing climate legislation that makes fewer headlines is the multitude of activities at state and local levels.  A flyer for a meeting titled "Green Future 2020" that I attended in Cambridge, Massachusetts last week makes this exact point:

As the federal government continues to falter in its efforts to impose any meaningful standards of carbon emission control, it now falls to the states to step into the breach and push for innovative advances in clean, renewable energy to safeguard our environment and revitalize our national economy.

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change likewise agrees that "states and regions are acting as both leaders and innovators of climate change policy."

State climate legislation is not limited to the bluest states.  A 2009 report from the Pew Center on the States lists 36 states with State Climate Action Plans.  Thirty states have mandatory Renewable Portfolio Standards requiring a percentage (on average 20%) of electricity to be supplied by renewable sources.  Five more states have RPS "goals."  States without an official Climate Plan are sure to have numerous climate programs.  Alaska has a Climate Change Sub-Cabinet position in former Governor Palin's office.  Red state, oil-rich Texas is home to the Texas Climate Initiative, the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan, and the Texas State Energy Conservation Office.  The Mayor of San Antonio is pushing a green jobs initiative.  Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston are all members of Clean Cities Coalitions, and not surprisingly, Austin has its own Climate Protection Program, whose goal is "to make Austin the leading city in the nation in the fight against climate change."

Somewhere in the departments of Environmental Protection or Environmental Quality in all fifty states and in thousands of city governments, bureaucrats are hard at work -- for once! -- passing new legislation or implementing existing legislation, much of which was enacted in 2007 and 2008 when the public hadn't had time to figure out they were being taken for a ride.

 

Read entire article here

Fighting off the muggers

FROM-Washington Examiner


Don't let Big Green use government to mug taxpayers

So you are walking along one bright, sunny day minding your own business and loving life when suddenly two strangers jump in front of you, one a bearded dude in a worn L.L. Bean canvas shirt, khaki cargo shorts and sandals, the other in a dark pin-striped suit waving a file labeled "Equal Access to Justice Act."

When they demand that you "hand it over," your first instinct is probably to grip your wallet while assuming a defensive stance. You are indeed about to be mugged, but don't bother fighting these characters. Resistance is useless because such muggers have the law on their side. EAJA payouts for lawyer fees and other settlement costs in environmental suits against the government are going to leave you much poorer.

But the day could be coming when you won't be entirely without recourse, thanks to Sen. David Vitter, R-La., and Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah. They have introduced the Domestic Jobs, Domestic Energy, and Deficit Reduction Act of 2011 (3-D). The sponsors claim their bill "would create more than 2 million jobs, $10 trillion in economic activity, and $2 trillion in federal tax receipts (conservative 30-year estimates)." Among 3-D's major features are provisions to prod the federal bureaucracy to speed up Outer Continental Shelf lease sales for oil and natural gas exploration and development off the U.S. coasts, as well as federal permitting for energy purposes on public lands. The measure also would fix time limits on environmental and judicial reviews of leases and permits.

So what has all that to do with the two menacing figures blocking your way? The 3-D proposal would cap EAJA payouts in environmental lawsuits against the government. Under EAJA, Big Green environmental groups like the Environmental Defense Fund and Center for Biodiversity file hundreds of suits against the government every year, knowing the odds are great the litigation will be settled out of court. Win or lose, the Big Green groups receive millions of dollars in settlements, including lawyers fees and other cost reimbursements. The settlements are paid by the Treasury Department's Judgment Fund. Vitter and Bishop estimate that at least $4.7 billion has been paid out since 2003, with much of it going to Big Green groups.

But here's the catch: According to the Treasury Department, "the Judgment Fund has no fiscal year limitations, and there is no need for Congress to appropriate funds to it annually or otherwise. Moreover, disbursements from it are not attributed to or accounted for by the agencies whose activities give rise to awards paid. Absent a specific statutory requirement, the agency responsible is not required to reimburse the Judgment Fund." In other words, EAJA invites Big Green attorneys to file suits regardless of merit, knowing their hefty fees will be covered in the settlement paid from the Judgment Fund.

Worst of all, taxpayers have virtually no way of knowing how much such suits cost because courts often seal the settlements. Plus, according to Vitter and Bishop, "since 1998 there has been no uniform method of reviewing EAJA and there is no public accountability or transparency in the program." Tomorrow's Examiner editorial will look at the victims of this legalized theft and the lengthy list of Big Green perpetrators assaulting them.

Obama Builds Pipeline to Nowhere

FROM-Townhall

By John Ransom

After another of Obama’s ringing calls to inaction, confusion and delay, it should come as no surprise that people are even less sure now about the president’s energy policy than they were before he opened his mouth at Georgetown University on Wednesday and delivered another “landmark” speech.

We’ve come to expect that when B.O. talks about any policy, uncertainty follows. 

Many of his allies even feel betrayed. 

Welcome aboard, I say: He is who we said he was.  

Today’s major energy speech by the president was long on backdrop and short on specifics, a hallmark we've come to expect in an Obama landmark speech.

All he needed were the Styrofoam Grecian pillars.    

“If I am President,” Obama told us in 2008, “I will immediately direct the full resources of the federal government and the full energy of the private sector to a single, overarching goal — in ten years, we will eliminate the need for oil from the entire Middle East and Venezuela. “

This is a president who suffers from a kind of attention-deficit disorder, apparently.  He hasn’t used the full resources of the federal government to do anything but print money.

He’s been president for two years, and when it has come to producing more domestic energy and importing less, Obama has been noticeably less than energetic himself. When he talks about using abundant American resources like natural gas, we realize, sadly, that the only gas that will likely fill a pipeline that he proposes is the hot air from his mouth.

In places like Alaska, they share the uncertainty that all of us feel.

And the frustration.

“The president didn't single out Alaska's proposed pipeline specifically when he spoke about developing the nation's domestic natural gas resources,” writes the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) about the speech, somewhat forlornly, “but [Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska]  said he's been in ‘constant conversation’ with the White House about the project.”

The White House, Begich will find, is really good at that “constant conversation” part of the job. 

But every once in a while the White House should probably be quiet and let the grown-ups finish talking.

Obama bragged when he was running for president that he’d put “one million 150 mile-per-gallon plug-in hybrids on our roads within six years.” So far, he hasn’t even put one on the road. 

No one has. No such car exists. It's kind of a unicorn of the automotive world. 

Because that's what we're stuck with as policy these days: wishful thinking. Maybe leprechauns will come solve our problems.   

"Not being negative about Alaska is a positive," Begich reasoned in the ADN. 

That’s not exactly a winning motto for any state, or for any energy policy.  It might be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard a sitting senator say, even one from Alaska. 

Say what you will but  “Drill, baby, drill,” sounds an awful lot better.  

I don’t follow college basketball but I hear that the president’s NCAA brackets are doing really well- I’m not making this up.  

I wish he was as resourceful in coming up with an energy policy. Then he, Charlie Sheen and LeBron could unveil it live at the Chicago Theatre.

They could have it televised by ESPN. 

They could call it “Winning the Future with a Pipeline to Nowhere.”

That is, if the Miami Heat haven’t already trademarked the term.  

Harry Reid Is Running Scared -- EPA Vote Postponed as Leader Tries to Bring Democrats Together

FROM-FOX NEWS

By Phil Kerpen

Harry Reid is running scared. On Tuesday, Reid promised to allow a Senate floor vote on an amendment offered by Republican Leader Mitch McConnell that would stop the EPA from implementing President Obama’s failed global warming agenda by manipulating the 1970 Clean Air Act. This morning – fearing he would lose the vote – Reid confirmed he won’t allow it to happen until after next week’s recess.

On Tuesday night, as the McConnell Amendment was headed for a vote, Sen, Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) made a desperation ploy to derail the amendment. Rockefeller took to the Senate floor and asserted that McConnell’s amendment would forever prevent any federal action on global warming. Of course that’s silly, because Congress can always adopt a global warming bill if it has sufficient support to do so. That’s how our system is supposed to work.

That Congress hasn’t passed a global warming bill is all the more reason EPA should not be allowed to move forward on its own. Rockefeller put forward his own amendment that would allow delay some of the EPA’s global warming regulations temporarily. It was meant to create enough political cover to stop the McConnell Amendment. It didn’t work.

Even with Rockefeller’s ploy, Reid still didn’t have the votes to stop the amendment. So he stalled.

All day yesterday, it looked like the Senate was headed for a vote. But Senate Democrats were in disarray. Many of them know it would be politically disastrous to vote to allow Obama’s EPA to accomplish through regulatory subterfuge what Congress and the American people already rejected in last year's cap-and-trade debate and the November 2010 midterm elections.

Last night -- for the second night in a row – Harry Reid stalled. This morning he confirmed that – despite his prior promise – he will not allow a vote this week. Next week the Senate is in recess for a “state work period,” which Reid hopes will give him time to convince wavering senators not to stand up to the EPA. It also, however, gives free market activists, consumers, and taxpayers a chance to make their case against Obama’s backdoor global warming agenda and to demand their senators stand up for them.

The stakes are huge. Remember Obama’s words: “Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way.” The cat he wants to skin through EPA action? American energy consumers and businesses. He told us so when he explained “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

Any senator who intends to oppose the McConnell Amendment will have to explain to citizens why they want to outsource our energy and economic future to unelected bureaucrats in the EPA – especially at a time when the economy remains weak and EPA regulations threaten to destroy millions of more American jobs. If the Senate refuses to stop the EPA, the biggest winners will be our global competitors like China and India.

It will take 60 votes to stop the EPA.

The U.S. Constitution is unambiguous. It’s spelled out right after the preamble in Article I, Section 1: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”

When the Senate gets back from its recess it will be put to the test of whether each senator is willing to take responsibility for writing the laws and protecting American jobs. That’s what’s at stake as the Senate considers the McConnell Amendment.

Let's do everything we can to keep the heat on.

GOP attempts to block EPA's climate-change rules

FROM-Washington Examiner

By: Susan Ferrechio

Senate Democrats on Wednesday were scrambling to defeat a GOP attempt to block the Environmental Protection Agency from imposing new climate-change regulations, but their ability to fend off the Republican attack may be waning.

Republicans are pledging to keep introducing their proposal, which would prohibit the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, even if Democrats defeat it this week. GOP lawmakers believe they are building enough support among Senate Democrats, particularly a dozen or more politically vulnerable moderates, to eventually reach the 60 votes needed to pass the measure.

The provision, entitled the "Energy Tax Prevention Act," was authored by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, and introduced this week by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as an amendment to a small-business bill.

A vote was expected late Wednesday or Thursday. The amendment will likely fail, but could show serious cracks in the Democrats' ability to protect the EPA regulations.

"Today was a wake-up call to my colleagues," Inhofe said when the amendment was introduced. "We have legislation before us to help keep energy prices affordable."

Momentum to block the EPA rules increased this week when the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a proposal identical to Inhofe's.

During a hearing on the measure, House Energy and Power subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., warned that the EPA "is moving so aggressively, not thinking about the consequences of jobs in America, the cost on people in America, the fact that it would make us less competitive in the global marketplace."

The House will take up the bill next month and since the GOP holds a 24-seat majority in that chamber, it will likely pass. House passage could motivate some Democrats and moderate Republicans in the Senate to back it.

Democratic support for the EPA-blocking measure had grown in the Senate to the point that party leaders postponed a vote on the provision originally scheduled for late Tuesday. Democrats offered their rank-and-file an alternative plan, introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., that would delay the EPA regulations for two years rather than eliminate them entirely as the Republican measure would do.

The EPA is expected this year to begin issuing standards for power plants and oil refineries aimed at controlling greenhouse gas emissions, which are considered a form of pollution under the Clean Air Act. Critics of the new regulations say the EPA rules will significantly drive up energy costs, which will be passed along to consumers. The regulations would also kill jobs, they argued, by driving away businesses hampered by higher energy costs.

"If we are going to pass a law that increases the cost of energy in this country, then we are not going to have a level playing field with our competitors overseas," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

Democratic opponents of the EPA-blocking amendment called it a step backwards and a rejection of the science behind global-warming theories.

"It's a stick-your-head-in-the-sand approach to an issue which future generations will look back on and say, what were they thinking?" Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said.

Meet the lobbyist who turns 'green' into greenbacks

FROM-Washington Examiner

By: Timothy P. Carney

Environmental policy is not driven by tree-hugging activists, earnest liberal bloggers, or ecologically minded citizens. Instead, it flows from the lobbyists and executives of well-connected multinational corporations and built-for-subsidy startups that see profit in the loan guarantees, handouts, mandates, and tax credits Congress creates in the name of saving the planet.

K Street is the epicenter of this green-industrial complex, and ground zero might be the firm founded by Democratic revolving-door earmark lobbyist Steve McBee.

McBee, a former top staffer for Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and powerful House Appropriations Committee member Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., reportedly wrote key provisions in the stimulus bill to open the spigot of green corporate welfare. Also, he has hired up the Capitol Hill staff at the center of big environmental legislative pushes like cap and trade.

Exploring corporate lobbyists' central role in Obama's "green energy" push provides us two important lessons. First, it reveals as hypocritical the Democratic attack that opponents of cap and trade and other green policies are simply shills for big business.

Second, it ought to heighten our skepticism that these "green" policies are really crafted with an eye to helping the environment -- they are more likely skewed toward the bottom line of lobbied-up Big Business.

McBee's clients include SolarCity and the Green Tech Action Fund as well as electric-car maker Better Place Inc., waste-to-power company Ze-gen, and solar-power developer BrightSource Energy. But the big guys -- Boeing, JP Morgan, and Google -- also hire McBee to lobby for green-energy subsidies.

Electric car company Tesla signed on with McBee days after Obama's election, and soon won a $465 million loan guarantee to aid in building a new all-electric car.

With McBee's former boss being a senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, McBee Strategic used to be an earmark factory. After Obama's election, though, McBee pivoted to green energy and saw revenues soar in 2009.

"I attribute it to the bets we've made on clean energy and energy," he told Roll Call.

Late last year McBee hired Kathleen Frangione, described by Politico as "Sen. John Kerry's top climate staffer." You see the play: advance green legislation, then lobby for the companies trying to make money off that legislation.

The case of one McBee solar-panel client, Solyndra, helps illustrate how the green-energy game is as perilous for taxpayers as it is lucrative for lobbyists.

The 2005 energy bill created a new Department of Energy loan guarantee program for renewable energy facilities. In order to protect taxpayers, the 2005 law required from the beneficiary a sort of "down payment," to cover the risk of default.

But the 2009 stimulus bill removed that requirement, allowing DOE to give out loan guarantees without the "down payment." Energy lobbyists on Capitol Hill say that this provision, which opened the spigot on the DOE loans, was written by Steve McBee.

"We definitely were pretty involved in that," said Ryan Hubbard, a McBee spokesman, referring generally to the stimulus' green subsidies. When I asked specifically if McBee helped lower the bar for loan guarantees, Hubbard said he would check, but then didn't get back with an answer.

The very first company to take advantage of the newer rules was Solyndra, a California company that received a $535 million loan guarantee to build a second factory to make its cylinder-shaped solar panels.

Obama, Vice President Biden, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu all have visited Solyndra's main plant, saying the loan guarantee would generate 1,000 new jobs. Obama declared last May, "The foundation of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra."

But soon things turned south for Solyndra, and rather than adding 1,000 new jobs at its new plant in California, Solyndra decided to close its old plant (also in the Golden State), and downsize its labor force.

One problem: Solyndra spends much more per watt than other solar panel makers -- and don't even compare the company's costs with those of coal-fired plants, which don't need direct government subsidies to get by.

House Republicans are investigating whether anything improper occurred in DOE's award of the grant to Solyndra. My colleague David Freddoso last year chalked the company's subsidy successes up to lobbying.

On Jan. 30, 2009, 10 days into Obama's presidency and in the midst of the stimulus debate, Solyndra hired McBee Strategic as a lobbyist on "Implementation of Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Programs," according to McBee's lobbying filing.

It looks like McBee lobbied to loosen the rules on subsidies, then got his clients the first subsidy.

Just because McBee and clients get rich off of green regulation doesn't mean they're bad. But it's important to remember that the people shaping these laws aren't just in it for the polar bears.

The Warmist's Dilemma

FROM-American Thinker

By Adam Yoshida

have longed argued that one of the primary problems with the thinking of our well-meaning liberal friends is that they tend to live in the world of "wouldn't it be nice" and then attempt to argue that people who dissent from this view are just plain bad. Nowhere is that tendency better exemplified than in the battle over Climate Change.

Most of us are familiar with the concept of the "prisoner's dilemma." It's an exercise in game theory where two men are arrested for a crime and interrogated separately by the police. If one man informs on the other and the other does not, the informer will walk and the other will get ten years. If neither cracks than both will go free. If each betrays the other then each will get two years. It increasingly occurs to me that this the best paradigm through which to view the struggle over Anthropomorphic Global Warming and what to do about it.

Too often conservatives and libertarians have allowed themselves to get bogged down in the debate over whether global warming is occurring and, further, if it is whether humans are responsible for it. The problem, as I see it, is that this takes us into a charged debate over science that has us fighting an inconclusive battle of attrition over technical questions that are barely understood by the overwhelming majority of debaters. I think that we would be much better off if we used the example of the prisoner's dilemma to explain why the "solutions" to global warming proposed by the statist element -- assuming for the moment that they are 100% correct on the scientific aspects of the question -- are not only unworkable but destructive.

What do I mean? Well, ladies and gentlemen, let us consider the facts as they are presented to us. The advocates of a wide-ranging governmental response to AGW state that carbon emissions into the atmosphere are causing a change in the global climate and that the only way to arrest this is through enacting a program of state controls that will radically reduce the carbon produced by our businesses and homes. Let us parse that for the moment. We are speaking in global terms here. It means that emissions must be reduced to such a degree as is significant on global scale. That means one of two things.

Either everyone must reduce their emissions collectively or it means that we in the West must reduce our emissions so much as to compensate for non-reductions in the Third World.

While some may argue that these may take place in economically non-destructive ways, I would argue that that is simply impossible under the sort of timescale proposed (a few decades as opposed to the rest of the century, say). In the short-term, you can only reduce carbon emissions through heavy taxation and regulation of private enterprise and homes or through the mandating of the use of expensive and inefficient "green" technology. It may well be that the future will bring workable low or zero-carbon technologies but it doesn't seem likely to me that these will come about via state-funded projects. If these technologies were viable in the real-world than there would already be investors for them lined up around the block. To have GM produce $50,000 electric cars and then sell them to the public for $40,000 at a loss while being subsidized by the government isn't a winning strategy.

Remember: China's emissions are already more than those of the United States. They are on the way to being more than those of the United States and Europe combined (certainly, they will be a few decades hence at the current pace). India's are also rapidly increasing. China and India -- among many others -- have populations just grabbing onto the edges of wealth and comfort. How likely is it that they will be willing to take the sort of economically-restrictive measures necessary to bring about a meaningful reduction in carbon emissions?

China's emissions have been increasing more than 10% a year. India's are set to increase three-fold over the next twenty years. The United States and Europe could engage in some sort of environmentally-friendly mass suicide and it we would still not have a net decrease over the medium term without the cooperation of China and India.

We must return to the concept of the prisoner's dilemma. Once again, if we assume for the sake of argument that the advocates of AGW are 100% right on the science, we must also conclude that they are 100% wrong on the policy. Using the terms of the game, the Chinese and others have an overwhelming incentive to betray -- that is, not to cooperate in any sort of international effort to reduce carbon. Choosing in such a situation to attempt to cooperate with someone with zero intention to cooperate and strong incentives against doing so crosses the line into active insanity. It may reward its self-righteous proponents with a little moral frisson, but it would be incredibly destructive for the rest of us.

We would do well to remember that, for all of the apocalyptic rhetoric, the consequences of even the most extreme forms of Climate Change would be manageable in the West. The world isn't going to catch on fire and we're not going to grow gills and spend our lives fighting pirates. In the worst case scenario in North America we may find that growing patterns shift (not always, I will add, to our detriment), that we have to deal with some new diseases and pests that were not present before, and that some already-vulnerable coastal areas become less-viable. Even in the darkest scenario none of these things will happen overnight -- they'll occur gradually over a span of decades.

If we, in view of the likely decisions of others, elect to "betray" -- that is to not attempt any sort of generalized strategy for the reduction of carbon, then we will be making the best decision that we can make with the information available to us at the present time. Instead of throwing trillions of dollars down green sinkholes, we can use the time and money we have to improve our economy and our technology in an organic fashion -- creating the breathing room and the sort of open and flexible society that can respond to the challenge that Climate Change might represent. The alternative is a world where our measures will have doubtlessly proven insufficient to arrest any human-triggered change in the climate but where we will lack the wealth and resources to respond effectively to such changes as may occur.

Time to Put Brakes on EPA's Runaway Bureaucrats

FROM-Human Events

Sen. John Barrasso


I recently introduced the “Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act (S.228)” This legislation puts the brakes on Washington’s efforts to institute job-crushing carbon regulations. It is a rebuke that unelected bureaucrats badly need.

The Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act will block all federal authorities from regulating greenhouse gases without express approval from Congress. It puts an end to any grounds for legal action regarding climate change under the Clean Water Act, NEPA, the Endangered Species Act, or federal tort law generally.

Last November, the people sent a message to Washington that they want less spending, less government and more accountability. Here in Washington, the expectation has been that the President and his party would shift their policies in line with the wishes of the voters.

They have not done so..

Regulatory agencies in this President’s administration continue to seize powers they were never granted. Most of these powers are being used to enact policies that couldn’t gain majority support even when the President’s party controlled both houses of Congress. We are witnessing an open rebellion by a runaway Washington bureaucracy against the consent of the governed.

A few weeks ago, President Obama told the American people he would enact regulatory reform in order to “root out regulations that conflict, that are not worth the cost or that are just plain dumb.” We now know that these empty words were a smokescreen for more Washington overreach. Just a few hours after the President’s announcement, his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a statement saying it was “confident” that it wouldn’t need to change any of its existing rules, or even the ones it’s considering.

Ordinarily, this arrogance would be shocking. From the EPA, it is business as usual. The EPA routinely usurps enumerated powers and cloaks this maneuver in the act of enforcing existing law. For instance, under the cover of enforcing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the EPA has blocked over 60 leases for increased oil and gas exploration. They claim that the exploration could affect climate change. Nowhere is the EPA authorized to consider climate change under NEPA.

Now they want to usurp even more regulatory power by introducing a back-door Cap-and-Trade scheme. They are doing this in defiance of the American people, who have made it so clear that they don’t want cap and trade that even a Democrat-controlled Senate wouldn’t pass it. Yet the EPA plans to keep right on going, whether Americans like it or not.

I’ve introduced the Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act because it’s time to end frivolous climate-change lawsuits, stop the abuse of all existing federal law and declare a ceasefire in the war on red, white and blue jobs.
By curtailing the regulation of greenhouse gases while still allowing for regulation in areas where those gases pose a clear and direct threat to the public, this bill puts the burden of proof on the EPA to show that direct exposure to the same gases we inhale and exhale every day will threaten public health.

I recognize that different states may have different opinions, and have the constitutional right to act on those opinions. For this reason, my bill does not apply to state governments. This bill only reasserts the rightful authority of Congress on regulatory issues and the sovereignty of the individual states against Washington overreach.

I support the exploration of all forms of energy. Any shift to an alternative energy economy should occur because the people decide that alternative energy is better, not because Washington has made every other form of energy too expensive. If the EPA will not listen to the voice of the people, Congress must act. I urge the Senate to pass the Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act.

Senator John Barrasso is a Republican from Wyoming.