Climate Bills and a Green Economy
Senate Panel Approves Democratic Climate Bill
November 5, 2009Reuters - A key U.S. Senate environment committee approved a Democratic climate change bill on Thursday that would require industry to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.
The bill approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee will now become one of several initiatives in the Senate aimed at attacking global warming. But they are unlikely to produce legislation that would be voted on by the full Senate until next year at the earliest.
With Republicans boycotting the environment panel's measure, saying more analysis of the legislation was needed, 10 Democrats approved the bill and one Democrat, Senator Max Baucus, voted against it.
Senator John Kerry, who co-authored the bill with fellow Democrat Barbara Boxer, is leading an effort with some Republicans and the White House to draft a compromise.
Democrats in Congress, working on a major plank of President Barack Obama's agenda, have been anxious to show at least some progress on enacting a domestic climate change bill before December 7, when an international global warming summit convenes in Copenhagen.
While there were scores of amendments to the bill that environment committee members wanted to debate and vote on before approving it, they were unable to because of the Republican boycott. Under committee rules, at least two Republicans had to be present to debate and vote on changing the bill.
Boxer delayed work on the legislation for two days, saying she was giving Republicans the opportunity to collect more information from EPA officials and to offer their own amendments. But Republicans did not take her up on the offer and by Thursday, Boxer had lost patience with the delay. She opened Thursday's work session reading from a letter from John Rowe, Chief Executive of Exelon, one of the country's largest utilities.
Calling the bill written by Boxer and Kerry "an excellent starting point," Rowe wrote, "We urge you as chairman, as well as your colleagues, to take the steps necessary to order the bill reported by the committee so that climate legislation can be considered by the full Senate."Baucus' vote against the bill reflected the difficulties ahead in crafting a measure that would attract the 60 votes needed for passage by the Senate.
As an influential moderate Democrat, Baucus laid out changes he would seek, including a weaker carbon-reduction target. Other Midwestern and Southern senators from states heavily reliant on coal will seek their own changes, which could upset liberals now supporting the bill.
Climate Bill (Clean Energy/Cap-and-Trade) Goes to Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
The Climate Bill has been referred to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Archived webcasts of Environment and Public Works Committee hearings are available in Realplayer, Flash, or both formats.ALL ACTIONS
9/30/2009:
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
10/27/2009:
Committee on Environment and Public Works. Hearings held.
10/28/2009:
Committee on Environment and Public Works. Hearings held.
10/29/2009:
Committee on Environment and Public Works. Hearings held.
11/3/2009:
Committee on Environment and Public Works. Committee consideration and Mark Up Session held.
11/4/2009:
Committee on Environment and Public Works. Date of scheduled consideration. SD-406. 10:00 a.m.
Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute, Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, S. 1733
FACTBOX: Deciphering the Jargon in the Climate Debate
FACTBOX: Timeline, Comparison of U.S. Climate Bills
Al Gore is Full of Carbon Gas
November 4, 2009| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Al Gore Extended Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Al Gore Extended Interview Pt. 2 | ||||
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Tear Down Mental Walls on Climate, German Chancellor Says
November 3, 2009McClatchy Newspapers — German Chancellor Angela Merkel made an impassioned plea Tuesday to a joint session of Congress to work together on efforts to curb global warming and to help forge a binding climate-change deal at an international meeting next month.
"We need an agreement on one objective: Global warming must not exceed 2 degrees Celsius," Merkel said, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. "To achieve this, we need the readiness of all countries to accept internationally binding obligations. We cannot afford missing the objectives in climate protection that science tells us have to be met."Merkel said that people must tear down mental walls that blocked them from seeing the plight of future generations if warming continued unchecked. The world's nations will meet next month in Copenhagen, Denmark, for climate talks. She said they'd need to find the same resolve that Germans had when they brought down the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989.
"And then, in Copenhagen, we shall be able to overcome this wall separating the present from the future, in the interest of our children and grandchildren, and in the interest of sustainable development all over the world," Merkel said.She urged the United States to join Europe in setting a limit on heat-trapping gases from fossil-fuel burning.
"It is true there can be no agreement without China and India," she said. "But I'm convinced that once we — Europe and America — show ourselves willing to accept binding agreements we will also be able to convince China and India to join."Failure to cut emissions also would result in missed opportunities for sustainable economic growth from clean energy, the German leader said.
Democrats stood and cheered during her comments on climate change, while many Republicans sat without applauding, reflecting the partisan divide on the issue.
"She's going to be disappointed," said Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He doesn't accept the view of the vast majority of climate scientists, who say that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and deforestation are responsible for a rise in global temperatures over recent decades.The Republican-Democratic split on climate change also was evident Tuesday in the Senate. Republicans boycotted a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, blocking the panel from moving a bill that would put mandatory limits on emissions for consideration by other Senate committees.
Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said that the Environmental Protection Agency's analysis of the bill was incomplete. He also disagreed with the assumptions the agency used.
The Senate bill is expected to be revised greatly before a final vote, probably early next year. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said the bill that resulted from the work of six Senate committees later this fall would undergo a full EPA analysis, which would take about five weeks.
Merkel met with President Barack Obama earlier Tuesday at the White House.
"The United States, Germany and countries around the world, I think, are all beginning to recognize why it is so important that we work in common in order to stem the potential catastrophe that could result if we continue to see global warming continuing unabated," Obama said before the meeting.Later, after meeting with a delegation of top leaders from the European Union, Obama said they'd discussed climate change extensively and agreed that it's "imperative to redouble the efforts" on the road to Copenhagen to achieve success and avoid "a potential ecological disaster."
Merkel was the first German leader in more than 50 years to address Congress. Republicans and Democrats applauded when she spoke about not accepting a nuclear Iran, the world's responsibility in the war in Afghanistan and the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Merkel said the clock was ticking in Tehran on an international deal that would transfer most of Iran's low-enriched uranium out of the country to be converted for peaceful purposes. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government has sent mixed signals about whether it will accept the offer.
"Iran knows our offer, but Iran also knows where we draw the line," she said to applause. "A nuclear bomb in the hands of an Iranian president who denies the Holocaust, threatens Israel and denies Israel the right to exist is not acceptable. Security of the state of Israel is, for me, non-negotiable now and forever"...
Al Gore Set To Become First "Carbon Billionaire"
November 3, 2009Prison Planet.com - The New York Times has lifted the lid on how Al Gore stands to benefit to the tune of billions of dollars if the carbon tax proposals he is pushing come to fruition in the United States, while documenting how he has already lined his pockets on the back of exaggerated fearmongering about global warming.
As is to be expected, the article is largely a whitewash and takes an apologist stance in defense of Gore.
However, the Times' John M. Broder does reveal how one of the companies Gore invested in, Silver Spring Networks, recently received a contract worth $560 million dollars from the Energy Department to install “smart meters” in people’s homes that record (and critics fear could eventually regulate) energy usage.
“Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr. Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years,” states the report, highlighting the fact that Gore is “well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.”Since he left office, Gore’s personal net worth has skyrocketed on the back of his advocacy for global warming issues and the financial dividends this has reaped. Gore’s assets totaled less than $2 million in 2001; and although he refuses to give a figure for his current net worth, a recent single investment of $35 million in Capricorn Investment Group, a private equity fund, illustrates just how fast Gore has enriched himself from his climate change bandwagon.
“Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in,” writes Broder.
The Times report notes how Gore “has a stake in the world’s pre-eminent carbon credit trading market.” As we reported back in March, before he became President Barack Obama also helped fund the profiteers of the carbon taxation program that he is now seeking to implement as law.
The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) has direct ties to both Al Gore and Maurice Strong, two figures intimately involved with a long standing movement to use the theory of man made global warming as a mechanism for profit and social engineering. Gore’s investment company, Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offset opportunities, is the largest shareholder of CCX.
Maurice Strong, who is regularly credited as founding father of the modern environmental movement, serves on the board of directors of CCX. Strong was a leading initiate of the Earth Summit in the early 90s, where the theory of global warming caused by CO2 generated by human activity was most notably advanced.
Both Strong and Gore come from the Club of Rome clique, who, in their 1991 Report, “The First Global Revolution” openly admitted how they were planning to exploit the contrived hoax of global warming in order to further their agenda.
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote...
Expert Opposes Senate "Cap and Trade" Bill
October 29, 2009The New American - The Senate held a hearing on October 29 dealing with the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S. 1733), cap-and-trade legislation that would cut CO2 emissions. At that hearing, evidence was presented that clearly showed how an aggressive emissions reduction strategy would be detrimental to the United States.
The presenter was Iain Murray, the vice-president for strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which describes itself as “a public interest group dedicated to free enterprise and limited government.” A link to Murray’s full testimony in PDF form is available at the CEI website.
S. 1733 is a carbon emissions trading scheme, often referred to as cap-and-trade legislation. The bill “replicates policies that have been tried and failed in other nations,” Murray said in his written testimony to the Committee. Specifically, the European Union has gone this route and become an example of what not to do.
Murray explained: “The primary vehicle for European Union action to mitigate global warming is the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Indeed, the ETS is often spoken of as the model for any American cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gas emissions. However, the ETS has not been a success.”
Murray pointed out that in August 2007 the British think-tank Open Europe rendered this assessment of ETS: “The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is supposed to be the EU’s main policy tool for reducing emissions. But so far, it has been an embarrassing failure. In its first phase of operation [2005-2008], more permits to pollute have been printed than there is pollution. The price of carbon has collapsed to almost zero, creating no incentive to reduce pollution. Across the EU, emissions from installations covered by the ETS actually rose by 0.8%.”
By way of contrast, the United States is already among the top performing nations at reducing emissions since 2000. Murray noted, “According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency, the United States has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 3 percent.” The United Kingdom almost equalled this performance with a 2.9 percent reduction, but “the only major economy to reduce its emissions more was France, at 6 percent.”
“This should be taken into account when comparing policies and performance,” Murray insisted. (For example, France’s reliance on nuclear energy may be worth noting here.) He also emphasized that the underwhelming ETS has cost Europe $171 billion.
Developing nations around the globe are going to become a major source for emissions, and they would have to pay the even higher price of remaining undeveloped if the G8 goal for emissions reduction is to be met. The target is to reduce global emissions to 50 percent below their 2005 levels by 2050.
Murray presented data showing that “emissions increases over the next 40 years are predicted to come overwhelmingly from the developing world.” No matter how much developed countries reduce their emissions, the developing nations would have to make reductions that would cripple their growth. More likely, they would just continue their present course of development.
Because the United States “does not recognize that the path of emissions reduction is rightly unacceptable to developing nations,” Murray stated, it “will mean the United States will be placed at a serious economic disadvantage” if S. 1733 becomes law. This disadvantage will be added on top of America’s industries moving overseas, the current recession, the decline of the dollar, and the federal deficit.
Murray suggests a more sane course of action: ““Instead, what European and American lawmakers should do is pursue other avenues than emissions reduction. Adaptation, scientific research and building resiliency in developing nations are all more promising approaches.”
EIA: A Tiny Agency with a Big Role in Energy Debate
November 1, 2009McClatchy Newspapers - ...As energy increasingly dominates the economy, a quiet little agency in Washington holds the responsibility for tracking the particles that conduct, fuse, blow, heat, combust and convert the earth, wind and water into the energy that makes our society run.
The man behind the quiet data-crunching enterprise is Richard Newell, a Duke University economist and energy enthusiast...
Newell took over Aug. 3 as the administrator for the Energy Information Administration. Utility companies make decisions about whether to build new power plants based in part on the EIA's long-term projections of energy use. The office is responsible for dozens of daily, weekly and monthly reports on all aspects of energy.
It tracks how much energy comes from solar, geothermal and biomass sources. It follows the production and use of coal, natural gas and petroleum. It tracks greenhouse gas emissions.
Its work can shake financial markets and propel legislation. It does all this, by law, in a nonpartisan, neutral fashion. The only political appointee is the director: Newell...
The economic recovery bill that passed last winter contains $80 billion in investments for renewable energy.
In what's likely to become one of the more controversial debates of the coming year, lawmakers, lobbyists and advocates who are shaping climate change legislation also will rely on the EIA's impartial data to mold the nation's energy future.
Newell has the job of offering information without influencing policy. He holds a lot of power...
The EIA tracks annual emissions of greenhouse gases, and it offers data about future greenhouse-gas emissions and economic impacts to members of Congress as they shape legislation. Newell said he wanted to ensure that analysis was as accurate as possible...
Newell's biggest challenge may well be to maintain the EIA's strong impartiality amid all the competing agendas that buffer the agency...
Guy Caruso, who served six years as the head of the EIA under President George W. Bush, said the agency often faced criticism from various organizations that were lobbying for their own interests.
"I'd tell them, 'We can't just plug in what you like as your aspirational goals,' " Caruso recalled in an interview. He paused. "That's a challenge."Caruso also recalled Congress questioning him as gas prices shot up last year, well beyond what the EIA had expected.
"You're put in a very difficult position," Caruso said in an interview. "There's a lot of second-guessing going on."
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