Control: The House and Senate climate bills contain a provision giving the president extraordinary powers in the event of a “climate emergency.” As chief of staff Rahm Emanuel says, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
If you thought the House health care bill that nobody read has hidden passages that threaten our freedoms and liberty, take a peak at the “trigger” placed in the byzantine innards of both the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill and the Kerry-Boxer bill just passed by Democrats out of Sen. Barbara Boxer’s Environment and Public Works Committee.
As Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation points out, the Kerry-Boxer bill requires the declaration of a “climate emergency” if the concentration of carbon dioxide and other declared greenhouse gases in the atmosphere exceeds 450 parts per million (ppm). It was at about 286 ppm before the Industrial Revolution and now sits at around 368 ppm.
That figure was picked out of a hat because the warm-mongers believe that’s the level at which the polar ice caps will disappear, boats can be moored on the Statue of Liberty’s torch and dead polar bears will wash up on the beaches of Malibu.
The Senate version includes a section that gives the president authority, under this declared “climate emergency,” to “direct all Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions … to address shortfalls” in achieving greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions.
What the “appropriate actions” might be are not defined and presumably left up to the discretion of the White House. Could the burning of coal be suspended or recreational driving be banned? Sen. David Vitter, R-La., asked the EPA for a definition and received no response.
Competitive Enterprise Institute scholar Chris Horner says “this agenda transparently is not about GHG concentrations, or the climate. It’s about what the provision would bring: almost limitless power over private economic activity and individual liberty for the activist president and, for the reluctant leader, litigious greens and courts” packed by liberal Democrat appointees.
A key Senate committee today approved a plan to impose the nation’s first-ever caps on greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, over the objections of panel Republicans who have blocked work on the measure.
The Environment and Public Works Committee voted 11-1 — with seven Republican members skipping the vote — to approve the climate change legislation drafted by Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., was the lone Democrat to vote against the measure, primarily because of his objections to the bill’s mandate that by 2020, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions be 20 percent less than they were in 2005. Baucus wants a less-rigorous 2020 emissions cap of 17 percent — with the option of raising it to 20 percent only if other countries impose similar limits.
Although today’s vote advances the Kerry-Boxer bill out of the main panel that has a role in vetting it, that is likely to be the high-water mark for the legislation this year. At least five other committees are expected to weigh in on the issue before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., can merge their proposals into a single global warming bill for floor debate.
Under the rosiest of scenarios for bill backers, debate on global warming legislation likely would not begin until next spring. And Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told reporters this week that “some people are talking about not doing it until after the 2010 election.”
Beyond the timing concern, Baucus’ “nay” vote today underscores the challenges facing proponents of capping greenhouse gas emissions. A moderate Democrat whose support is key on any climate bill, Baucus also has a platform to push for changes as chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee.
Bill backers also have to find a way to navigate any measure around a host of regional concerns and their advocates on Capitol Hill — including senators worried about the vitality of manufacturing, members from coal-reliant regions and others concerned legislation will encourage U.S. refiners to move operations overseas.
“As a landmark bill moves — not an easy bill, but a landmark bill — at each stage, you have to find a new sweet spot,” Boxer said. “And each stage requires a little bit of a different emphasis. And that is played out as everybody gets involved.”
Kerry is already working separately with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, to write a new bill combining emissions caps with incentives for nuclear power and a plan for new domestic oil and gas drilling.
Boxer pushed the bill out of her environment committee by relying on a rarely used interpretation of panel rules that allow it to be sent to the full Senate even without members of the minority party.
Committee Republicans, led by James Inhofe of Oklahoma, objected to the move they had dubbed the “nuclear option.”
Inhofe said he was “deeply disappointed” by Boxer’s decision to violate the “longstanding precedent of the committee.” “We have not been able to find a time when a bill has been marked up without minority participation,” Inhofe said.
But panel Democrats said it was essential to send a signal to the world that the U.S. is on a path to capping the carbon dioxide and other emissions blamed for global warming before international climate change negotiations next month in Copenhagen.
The Senate testimony of Sec. Chu is predicated upon false assumptions, points out Christopher Monckton in a succinct letter to Senators posted by the Science and Public Policy Institute [SPPI], a Washington DC –based NGO.
The letter points out that Chu’s testimony cites the now-outdated 2007 Climate Assessment Report of the IPCC and a subsequent but also now-outdated MIT study, saying global warming by 2100 would be 7-11 Fº. “These excessive estimates are founded solely on computerized guesswork,” says Christopher Monckton, former adviser to UK Prime Minister Thatcher and current SPPI policy adviser.
Monckton reviews a number of recent papers having appeared in the peer-reviewed literature that put the man-made warming scare to rest, and render regulation of CO2 emissions needless and blindingly fatuous.
Particular attention is given to the recent paper of Lindzen and Choi (2009). Using direct measurements of outgoing radiation, the two researchers found that the IPCC models get both the science and their “predictions” wrong. Monckton presents a series of IPPC model graphs and compares them to the one produced from real measurements. “The IPPC model predictions,” reports Monckton, “actually trend in a direction opposite to that of the graph from observed reality.”
Concludes Monckton, “By patient, painstaking measurement, the two researchers have trumped the computer models’ unanimously erroneous guesswork, and have definitively ended the debate over the question how much warming CO2 causes. Therefore, Secretary Chu’s declaration that the ‘threat’ from ‘climate change’ is ‘grave’ and that current levels of CO2 emission are ‘unsustainable’ has no scientific justification.”
On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton, a noted climate change skeptic, gave a presentation in St. Paul, MN. In this 4-minute excerpt from his speech, he issues a dire warning to all Americans regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty, scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Lord Monckton served as a policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher. He has repeatedly challenged Al Gore to a debate to which Gore has refused. Monckton sued to stop Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” from being shown in British schools due to its inaccuracies. The judge found in-favor of Monckton, ordering 9 serious errors in the film to be corrected. Lord Monckton travels internationally in an attempt to educating the public about the myth of global warming.
There has been considerable debate raised about Monckton’s conclusion that the Copenhagen Treaty would cede US sovereignty. His comments appear to be based upon his interpretation of the The Supremacy Clause in the US Constitution (Article VI, paragraph 2). This clause establishes the Constitution, Federal Statutes, and U.S. TREATIES as the supreme law of the land. Concerns have been raised in the past that a particularly ambitious treaty may supersede the US Constitution. In the 1950s, a constitutional amendment, known as the Bricker Amendment, was proposed in response to such fears, but it failed to pass. You can read more about the Bricker Amendment in a 1953 Time Magazine article.
Click here to watch Lord Monckton’s entire 95-minute speech in which he utterly destroys the so-called ’science’ behind global warming.
LOS ANGELES– U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced today in a keynote address at the California Governor’s Global Climate Summit that the Agency has taken a significant step to address greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act. The Administrator announced a proposal requiring large industrial facilities that emit at least 25,000 tons of GHGs a year to obtain construction and operating permits covering these emissions. These permits must demonstrate the use of best available control technologies and energy efficiency measures to minimize GHG emissions when facilities are constructed or significantly modified.
The full text of the Administrators remarks is available at www.epa.gov.
“By using the power and authority of the Clean Air Act, we can begin reducing emissions from the nation’s largest greenhouse gas emitting facilities without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the vast majority of our economy,” said EPA Administrator Jackson. “This is a common sense rule that is carefully tailored to apply to only the largest sources — those from sectors responsible for nearly 70 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions sources. This rule allows us to do what the Clean Air Act does best – reduce emissions for better health, drive technology innovation for a better economy, and protect the environment for a better future – all without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the better part of our economy.”
These large facilities would include power plants, refineries, and factories. Small businesses such
as farms and restaurants, and many other types of small facilities, would not be included in these requirements.
If the proposed fuel-economy rule to regulate GHGs from cars and trucks is finalized and takes effect in the spring of 2010, Clean Air Act permits would automatically be required for stationary sources emitting GHGs. This proposed rule focuses these permitting programs on the largest facilities, responsible for nearly 70 percent of U.S. stationary source greenhouse gas emissions.
With the proposed emissions thresholds, EPA estimates that 400 new sources and modifications to existing sources would be subject to review each year for GHG emissions. In total, approximately 14,000 large sources would need to obtain operating permits that include GHG emissions. Most of these sources are already subject to clean air permitting requirements because they emit other pollutants.
The proposed tailoring rule addresses a group of six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).
In addition, EPA is requesting public comment on its previous interpretation of when certain pollutants, including CO2 and other GHGs, would be covered under the permitting provisions of the Clean Air Act. A different interpretation could mean that large facilities would need to obtain permits prior to the finalization of a rule regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
EPA will accept comment on these proposals for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.
The Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service is currently deliberating on offshore drilling permissions for the years 2010-2015. If an area is not approved now, drilling for domestic oil will be off-limits there until at least 2015.
The Minerals Management Service says it will ultimately decide the fate of 31 proposed lease sales to drill in the outer continental shelf based on public input through the process of “notice and comment.”
The notice and comment deadline for the current six-year approval cycle is September 21st, 2009.
We all remember $4 gas last summer, and higher energy costs are in our very near future. If we don’t produce more American energy now, higher prices will certainly be exacerbated.
America is a beacon of capitalism, so it can be jarring to discover one of its largest industries is a redoubt of socialism. State governments have been running the electricity business, currently a $330-billion-a-year industry, since Theodore Roosevelt pounded his White House bully pulpit.
Central planning of the electricity industry started during the Progressive Era, as is the case with many misguided policies. Early in the 20th century, intervention-minded progressives, such as Wisconsin’s Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette, concluded that electric companies would consolidate into “natural” monopolies that preyed on consumers. This was a curious conclusion to reach at a time when electric companies were competing vigorously in many cities.
Their remedy for this theoretical drift toward natural monopoly was, incredibly, to establish real government-mandated monopolies. States created commissions with the regulatory power to outlaw competition among utilities and set the price of electricity for consumers. By the end of the Great Depression, almost all Americans bought their electricity from government-backed monopolies, and it remains so to this day.
The progressives reasoned that electricity providers couldn’t abuse consumers if they labored under the state’s thumb, but it’s far from that simple. Without competition, there is no spur for innovation, which is why electricity transmission and distribution–the system of wires, towers and poles that transmits electricity from the power plant to your home–haven’t changed much since the regulators stepped in.
That’s unfortunate, because while the power system remains frozen in time, American society as a whole has changed dramatically. The U.S. has become a wired nation, a people wholly dependent on reliable electricity to power their computers, phones and iPods. And America’s anachronistic electricity supply chain is failing to keep pace with demand. Massive blackouts in California (2005), Florida (2008) and the entire Northeast (2003) serve as stark reminders of the fragility of the U.S. grid.
Congress wants to overhaul the system by spending a king’s ransom on technologies that would give utilities the ability to moderate consumer demand–by, say, remotely turning down millions of thermostats during periods of peak use. In theory, this might avoid the supply crunches that can stress the system to the breaking point, leading to blackouts. Proponents call this a “smart grid” approach, but it’s really a stupid policy, especially when the U.S. could modernize the system without spending a penny from the government treasury.
“I expect all the bad consequences from the chambers of Commerce and manufacturers establishing in different parts of this country, which your Grace seems to foresee…. The regulations of Commerce are commonly dictated by those who are most interested to deceive and impose upon the Public.” - Adam Smith, 1785 letter. In The Correspondence of Adam Smith.
By Robert Peltier
The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454, aka Waxman–Markey) was narrowly adopted by the House of Representatives on June 26. As has become standard practice, few legislators were familiar with the final 1,428-page bill, given all the horse-trading hours before the final vote.
Waxman–Markey was a low point in the political process, but what made passage possible was worse: highly organized support from some quarters of the electric utility industry and a lack of protestation from much of the rest.
Some industry parties believe that their lobbyists successfully watered down an extremely disruptive legislative draft to the point that the final was merely distasteful. But compared to killing the bill, which could have been done had the industry been so minded, getting “a seat at the table” resulted in passage.
I remember when ”getting a seat” in legislative negotiations included infiltrating and defeating bad proposals. Today, it means ensuring your company gets a piece of the political pork. Such “rent-seeking” substitutes political capitalism for principled free-market capitalism and leaves virtually all of us poorer.
On Wednesday, August 19th, Dr. Fred Singer (physicist, research professor at George Mason University and author of Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years) will headline the Minnesota Symposium on Climate Change at the Earle Brown Center. The program begins at 3:00 and will be followed by a reception at 7:00.
Dr. Pekarek from St. Cloud State University as well as other noted Minnesota Climate experts will also speak.
Following a general presentation, there will be a series of breakout sessions following either the economics or science of global warming theories and policies.
No wonder skeptics consider the left’s belief in man-made global warming as akin to a fad religion — last week in Italy, G8 leaders pledged to not allow the Earth’s temperature to rise more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
For its next act, the G8 can part the Red Sea. The worst part is: These are the brainy swells who think of themselves as — all bow — Men of Science.
The funny part is: G8 leaders can’t even decide the year from which emissions must be reduced. 1990? 2005? “This question is a mystery for everyone,” an aide to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said.
And while President Obama led the charge for the G8 nations to agree to an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in industrial nations by 2050, the same Russian aide dissed the standard as “likely unattainable.”
No worries, the language was non-binding. Global-warming believers say that they are all about science, but their emphasis is not on results so much as declarations of belief.
Faith. Mystery. Promises to engage in pious acts. Global warming is a religion. While Obama was in Italy preaching big cuts in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, he was losing some of his flock in Washington. The House may have passed the 1,200-page cap-and-trade bill largely unread, but Senate Democrats are combing the fine print and not liking what they see. As Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said of the bill, “We need to be a leader in the world but we don’t want to be a sucker.”
Republicans are raising questions about why the EPA apparently dismissed an analyst’s report questioning the science behind global warming
By Judson Berger
A top Republican senator has ordered an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency’s alleged suppression of a report that questioned the science behind global warming.
The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin, pushed back on the prospect of regulating gases like carbon dioxide as a way to reduce global warming. Carlin’s report argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined.
“He came out with the truth. They don’t want the truth at the EPA,” Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, a global warming skeptic, told FOX News, saying he’s ordered an investigation. “We’re going to expose it.”
HR 2454, the “Cap and Tax” bill known as ACES was brought to the floor of the United States House of Representatives today. A 300 page amendment to the over 1,000 page bill was brought forward at 3:09 this morning and a final, official copy of the bill was not available to House members during debate on passage of the bill.
House Republicans repeatedly inquired about the whereabouts of a printed copy of the final bill and were rebuffed by the DFL chair. In short, virtually no one had read the bill being considered for final passage.
Shortly before 6:30 PM CST, a roll call vote on final passage was called. The bill was passed by a vote of 219 – 212. 211 Democrats voted for passage with 43 Democrats voting no. 8 Republicans voted in favor of passage with 168 of them voting no. One Democrat didn’t vote and 2 Republicans didn’t vote.
The cap and trade bill will now move to the U. S. Senate for their consideration. If it passes there, it’s on its way to becoming law by the stroke of President Obama’s pen.
Far more Democrats voted against the bill than Republicans voted for it, which is telling in a broad sense when considered in light of the wishes of the American electorate – most of whom oppose this bill.
One could say that a lack of Republican unity was responsible for the bill’s passage. Had the tiny minority of Republican congressmen who voted in favor of the bill abstained, or voted no, the bill would have failed.
Take Action: The bill’s next stop is the U. S. Senate. Contact your Senator now and urge a ‘No” vote on the Cap and Tax Swindle.
The American people are under assault by officials in the federal government. Under the specious guise of saving the planet, they intend to fleece the people to benefit political allies, powerful money interests and a political agenda that is in direct opposition to the American way of life.
By President Obama’s own admission, with a cap and trade scheme like the Waxman- Markey Bill, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
The Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade bill, also known as ACES (the American Clean Energy and Security Act - HR 2454), is projected to impose annual energy cost hikes in excess of $1,000 per household. The total cost to the flagging American economy is projected at $650 billion to over $1 trillion.
Even if the hotly contested claims of carbon-driven manmade global warming were to be believed, the touted climate benefit of the Waxman-Markey bill is that global surface temperatures will be one tenth of one degree cooler than currently projected in one hundred years.
ACES comes with an incredible price tag and promises no significant short or long-term benefit to either the American people or the global climate. This bill is nothing but another attempt to at a massive power and money grab by Washington’s elite.
To enrich a few powerful financial beneficiaries, like producers of wind turbines, and carbon trading firms such as the one former vice president and climate-alarmist-in-chief Al Gore profits from, Waxman-Markey is poised to decrease our national gross domestic product by $7 trillion dollars or more and cost another 1.9 million jobs, while adding sharply to the average families’ financial burden. Electricity rates could increase as much as 90% (nearly double what you now pay), Gasoline prices could rise 75%.
If this cap and trade scheme prevails, a select group of the rich will get richer on the backs of hard working American families who will literally see no benefit, not even after paying for this scheme for one hundred years.
A vote on this bill could come up in the House as soon as Friday. Call your congressman and senator today. Let them know that you wont stand for this despicable, fraudulent fleecing of America’s honest hard-working families.
This week, as Governor Pawlenty was making his historic announcement, I was part of a delegation of Minnesotans attending the Third International Conference on Climate Change, sponsored by the Heartland Institute. This is the third conference in little over a year to draw attention to the widespread and growing dissent over the alleged “consensus” on “Global Warming” or “Climate Change.”
The conference coincided with the release of “Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.” The report thoroughly documents the challenges to the global warming thesis, from problems with the models, to faulty temperature record observations and other data and with competing theories about the biology and physics of the effects of the gasses that impact the climate. The entire 800+ page report is available for free online at the Heartland Institute web site.
At the same time that there are serious doubts about the science, the costs of government regulation touting environmental benefits in reducing carbon and greenhouses gasses are becoming clearer. And they are high. According to the Heartland Institute, reducing greenhouse gas emissions “even modestly” is estimated to cost the average household in the U.S. approximately $3,372 per year and would destroy 2.4 million jobs. Electricity prices would double, sending more businesses into bankruptcy and others overseas to countries that aren’t burdened with high regulatory costs. Much of the funding for “climate change” will do nothing to help the environment at all, instead going directly to radical environmental groups who will use those resources to create sophisticated propaganda and lobbying campaigns to promote an anti-business, anti-growth agenda. If supporters of the free market do not continue to work to expose the fact the very basis, for the theories of global warming and climate change are in dispute, we will be fighting an uphill battle for our future economic prosperity down the road.
Most media coverage of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), focuses on the bill’s cap-and-trade program and the free rationing coupons (emission allowances) that the bill’s co-sponsors, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA), had to hand out to utilities and other interests to secure their support for the legislation.
But the cap-and-trade program occupies only one of four of the bill’s main sections (”titles”). Other titles contain a host of mandates and “incentives” (carrots and sticks) to reshape energy and transportation markets.
By IBD Editorial Board
Republicans are raising questions about why the EPA apparently dismissed an analyst’s report questioning the science behind global warming
By Pat Anderson
By Marlo Lewis
Entries (RSS)