Watts Up With That?

It seems difficult to figure out just what the Boxer-Kerry bill is these days. If nothing else, its a sloppy rush job, beyond that, is it climate, or something else? How much will it cost? Only the shadow knows.

Photo by Chris Kleponis. NWF

From Wall Street Journal Blogs Environmental Capital:

By Keith Johnson

Okay, so Sen. Barbara Boxer has moved the energy and climate bill out of the Environment and Public Works Committee and onto the Senate floor. That doesn’t get the bill any closer to garnering 60 votes, but as Sen. Boxer said, it can’t get 60 votes while stuck in committee, either.

The chairwoman of the environment committee defended her decision to pass the bill despite a Republican boycott; usually, Senate panels require at least a token presence of the minority party. Rules do allow for a simple majority vote, rules that “are there to be used when the Majority feels it is in the best interest of their states and of the nation to act,” Sen. Boxer said. Read the rest of this entry »

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U. S. Chamber Caves to Special Interests on Energy-Rationing Legislation

CEI Invites Small Businesses to Join With CEI to Fight Kerry-Graham

Washington, D.C., November 4, 2009 – The Competitive Enterprise Institute responded today to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s announcement that it will now support energy-rationing legislation by calling on small businesses to drop their Chamber membership and join CEI in fighting this catastrophic legislation.

In a November 3 letter to Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, the Chamber announced that it would now support legislation based on a recent New York Times op-ed by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Read the rest of this entry »

Sen. Barbara Boxer went ahead with the markup hearing on her global warming bill this morning despite the absence of all but one Republican (George Voinovich). She sat alone during markup doing nothing for 15 minutes. Michelle Malkin obtained photos. See below.

More photos below

Read the rest of this entry »

US puts climate debate on hold for five weeks despite plea by Merkel

• Senate delay means no bill likely before Copenhagen
• German leader makes historic Congress address
• UN Chief says deal in Copenhagen not likely either (VOA News)

Merkel delivers remarks to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill, Washington DC, USA, 03 Nov 2009. Photograph: Rainer Jensen/EPA

Chancellor of Germany Angela

by Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington and Damian Carrington in UK

International negotiators lost one of the key elements to a successful deal on global warming today after Democratic leaders in the US Congress ruled out passing a climate change law before 2010. In the latest obstacle on the road to the UN summit in Copenhagen next month, Senate leaders ordered a five-week pause to review the costs of the legislation.

The delay, which would push a Senate vote on a climate change bill into next year, frustrates a last-minute push by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to get America to commit itself at home to cut greenhouse gas emissions before the Copenhagen meeting. World leaders – and US officials – have repeatedly said US legislation is crucial to a deal on global warming. Read the rest of this entry »

Oregon’s biggest problem used to be logging jobs lost from spotted owl lawsuits.

A new sort problem is developing. Green jobs and green programs are going off the rails. Portland recently passed a draconian “Climate Action Plan to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% that has little chance of succeeding by its 2050 deadline.

Read the story from the Oregonian here

The latest news is that the Green Tax breaks aren’t what they were promised to be and taxpayers are getting hosed for a cost 40 times what was voted on:

State lowballed cost of green tax breaks

State officials deliberately underestimated the cost of Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s plan to lure green energy companies to Oregon with big taxpayer subsidies, resulting in a program that cost 40 times more than unsuspecting lawmakers were told, an investigation by The Oregonian shows.

It gets worse. Now tax breaks are being sold in Oregon for less than they are worth. Read the rest of this entry »

THE nation’s peak science agency has tried to gag the publication of a paper by one of its senior environmental economists attacking the Rudd government’s climate change policies.

The paper, by the CSIRO’s Clive Spash, argues the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is an ineffective way to cut emissions, and instead direct legislation or a tax on carbon is needed.

The paper was accepted for publication by the journal New Political Economy after being internationally peer-reviewed.

But Dr Spash told the Australia New Zealand Society for Ecological Economics conference that the CSIRO had since June tried to block its publication.

In the paper, Dr Spash argues the economic theory underpinning emissions trading schemes is “far removed” from the reality of permit markets. “While carbon trading and offset schemes seem set to spread, they so far appear ineffective in terms of actually reducing GHGs (greenhouse gases),” he says. “Despite this apparent failure, ETS remain politically popular amongst the industrialised polluters.

“The public appearance is that action is being undertaken. The reality is that GHGs are increasing and society is avoiding the need for substantive proposals to address the problem of behavioural and structural change.” Read the rest of this entry »

This is a surprise from Newsweek. Some recent examples of green subsidy: Fisker Automotive will receive a $529 million subsidy from the US government to build hybrid cars for the US market in California. This follows a previous subsidy award of $465 million to Tesla Motors to build electric cars. Both awards were made on the recommendation of former vice-president Al Gore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m an electric car fan, I drive one myself. But such projects should succeed or fail on their own merit and without public funds in my opinion.

The Dark Side of Green

Climate change is the greatest new public-spending project in decades. Each year as much as $100 billion is spent by governments and consumers around the world on green subsidies designed to encourage wind, solar, and other -renewable-energy markets. The goals are worthy: reduce emissions, promote new sources of energy, and help create jobs in a growing industry.

Yet this epic effort of lawmaking and spending has, naturally, also created an epic scramble for subsidies and regulatory favors. Witness the 1,150 lobbying groups that spent more than $20 million to lobby the U.S. Congress as it was writing the Clean Energy bill (which would create a $60 billion annual market for emission permits by 2012). Government has often had a hand in jump–starting a new -industry—both the computer chip and the Internet got their start in American defense research. But it’s hard to think of any non-military industry that has been so completely and utterly driven by regulation and subsidies from the start. Read the rest of this entry »