Government energy policy wonk predicts U.S. will have climate laws by end of decade

From the regulate the masses anyway we can department:

US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said that US public opinion and state and local policymakers were moving toward reducing carbon responsible for the planet’s fast-rising temperatures
US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said that US public opinion and state and local policymakers were moving toward reducing carbon responsible for the planet’s fast-rising temperatures

NEW YORK (AFP) – US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on Monday predicted that the world’s largest economy would have legislation by the end of the decade to combat climate change.

His optimism comes despite intense political debate in the United States with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump vowing to scrap the Paris climate accord if elected on November 8.

But Moniz, opening the annual Climate Week of events in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, said that US public opinion and state and local policymakers were moving toward reducing carbon responsible for the planet’s fast-rising temperatures.

“I will state quite frankly, I have a bet riding on the fact that we will have economy-wide legislation in the Congress by the end of this decade. I really believe that this is coming,” he said, joking that as a physicist he believed in “rationality.”

Legislation to create the first nationwide carbon caps in the United States, the world’s second-largest emitter after China, died in the Senate in 2010, with little prospect seen for action after the Republicans took control.

President Barack Obama instead has relied on executive authority to take measures such as regulating power plants and fuel standards.

Moniz said that the United States was confident it would meet its goal submitted under the Paris accord of reducing emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases by 26 to 28 percent by 2025, from 2005 levels.

“But I think there’s no issue that rather than a sectoral approach, which is inherent in using administrative authorities, a simplified economy-wide approach would be preferable and, frankly, would be a lot clearer in terms of the signals for business,” Moniz said.

The United Nations is hoping that this week’s meetings will put in force the Paris accord, which requires formal agreement by 55 countries accounting for 55 percent of global emissions.

The accord got a major boost earlier this month when Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping jointly committed themselves to the global climate pact.

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Gabro
September 19, 2016 1:41 pm

Won’t happen if GOP holds onto Congress and takes the White House. Some states may pass carbon taxes and more idiotic regulations, but steam is coming out of the cuckoo Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change Alarmism (CACCA) engine.
America is doing its bit to reduce CO2 emissions anyway, but relying more heavily on gas. Not that there’s anything wrong with more plant food in the air.
Waxing Arctic sea ice would help forestall these disastrous policies so devoutly to be resisted.

Catcracking
Reply to  Gabro
September 19, 2016 1:48 pm

I wonder why this is not more of an issue as an important difference between Democrats and Republicans in the debate and who is best for the country if elected.
Even Fox rarely brings up the difference, focused instead on “birther” which most voters don’t care about.

Joel Snider
Reply to  Catcracking
September 19, 2016 4:08 pm

‘I wonder why this is not more of an issue as an important difference between Democrats and Republicans’
It’s similar to the situation with immigration. The democrats want a permanent underclass and voter base. The republicans want cheap labor.
With climate change, both parties have dogs in the fight – although the differences are not as clear cut across party lines. But not the least of it on the republican side is thirty years of investment in ‘green energy’ – they aren’t prepared to take a donut in returns if it all turns out to be for nothing.
For democratic motivations, just pick up the Huffington post. And then wash your hands.

george e. smith
Reply to  Gabro
September 19, 2016 2:24 pm

Why is he wearing that pink petroleum fossil substance on his lips ??
Doesn’t he know that there’s a war going on out there against climate change ??
He looks like something out of Joseph Haydn’s generation.
And he’s our Energy Secretary ; wasting precious fuel like that ?
G

Pop Piasa
Reply to  george e. smith
September 19, 2016 3:18 pm

I wonder if he powders that wig, George.

Reply to  george e. smith
September 19, 2016 5:24 pm

Pop, when I first saw that pic this thought crossed my mind, why did they use a painting from the 1700’s to depict this guy?

Mort
Reply to  george e. smith
September 20, 2016 4:58 am

Glad I wasn’t the only one to think that was a man in a powdered wig

Greg
Reply to  george e. smith
September 20, 2016 6:43 am

yeah, he looks like some relic of the era of King George.

Bryan A
Reply to  george e. smith
September 20, 2016 2:26 pm

Not so sure that is a Pink Petrolium Fossil substance on hit lips.
More likely just friction burns

Stan Theman
Reply to  george e. smith
September 21, 2016 4:51 pm

You mean that is a he!? I thought it was an old woman!

BFL
Reply to  Gabro
September 19, 2016 3:51 pm

Well it looks like California is going to install Li-Ion batteries from Musk/Tesla to make up for those mandated but not so reliable windmills & solar panels to the tune of ~100 million. Considering the Tesla auto “bricks”, wonder just how reliable & cost effective they will be:
“The California energy commission warned this summer that the loss of Aliso Canyon could cause up to 14 days of rotating power brownout due to gas shortages. The relatively mild California spring and summer prevented the disruption. Tesla’s Powerpack batteries are expected to provide plenty of backup power to off-set any winter natural gas shortage.
Tesla reports that it will deliver the 80MWh Powerpack battery system before the end of 2016 to be installed at Southern California Edison’s Mira Loma substation.
“Upon completion, this system will be the largest lithium ion battery storage project in the world,” Tesla posted on its website. “When fully charged, this system will hold enough energy to power more than 2,500 households for a day or charge 1,000 Tesla vehicles.”
Neither the State of California, Southern California Edison, nor Tesla disclosed the size of the award. Bloomberg estimated that with a 2MWh Powerpack system costing $2.9 million, the contract would be about $100 million.
Utility grid operators are beginning to embrace battery storage as a much more reliable method of providing renewable energy than “intermittent” wind and solar power, which require a 100 percent natural gas power plant back-up. Batteries are also much more economical for the limited time buffering of power availability.”
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/09/19/tesla-wins-100m-award-80mwh-socal-edison-battery-storage/
http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/05/tesla-already-has-38000-reservations-for-the-powerwall-but-use-case-is-narrow/

Reply to  BFL
September 19, 2016 4:00 pm

Yea, and an 80 mwh battery will back up a gigawatt power plant less than five minutes (if it could be drawn on at that rate)

John Harmsworth
Reply to  BFL
September 19, 2016 10:10 pm

2,500 households! And they’re bragging about it? And the storage costs as much as the generation! And they’re bragging about it? One down and about 1 million to go! Insanity!

Reply to  BFL
September 20, 2016 12:41 am

@TomHalla
an 80 mwh battery will back up a gigawatt power plant less than five minutes (if it could be drawn on at that rate
Actually something like a picosecond
Hint: Capitals Matter In SI Units. MWh!=mWh.
And if you think I am a pedantic grammar Nazi, remember Spinal Tap….

Greg
Reply to  BFL
September 20, 2016 6:45 am

“Yea, and an 80 mwh battery will back up a gigawatt power plant less than five minutes (if it could be drawn on at that rate)”
Cool, I have some 2800 mAh x 1.2 volt batteries in my flash light, I could run a small nation with the four of them.

Reasonable Skeptic
Reply to  BFL
September 20, 2016 9:22 am

Umm, 100 million for 2500 homes is 40k per home. I think I want to be on the selling side of this deal.

Reply to  BFL
September 20, 2016 11:01 am

“…enough energy to power more than 2,500 households for a day or charge 1,000 Tesla vehicles.”
Cute! I’m assuming that you’re kidding that it takes 2 1/2 times as much energy to charge a Tesla as to run a whole house.

Bryan A
Reply to  BFL
September 20, 2016 2:30 pm

SO, Power 2500 households or charge 1000 Teslas…hmmmm
I didn’t realize that 1 Tesla uses as much energy than 2.5 households per day.
Talk about an Energy Hog!!!

george e. smith
Reply to  Gabro
September 19, 2016 7:14 pm

USA is already a net carbon sink anyway.
In fact we are the ONLY large land based one on the planet.
G

Editor
Reply to  george e. smith
September 20, 2016 10:27 am

I think you will find that the two largest national carbon sinks are 1.Argentina, 2.Australia.
[Willis post ?years ago, from memory]

September 19, 2016 1:43 pm

Moniz is right if and only if the US is silly enough to elect Hillary Rodham Clinton, and even then, only if the greens outbid everyone else.

Reply to  Tom Halla
September 19, 2016 1:55 pm

I think you misspelled her name. Isn’t it Hillary Ream-em Clinton?

hanelyp
Reply to  Gunga Din
September 19, 2016 2:56 pm

It’s Hillary Ramrod.

Pop Piasa
Reply to  Gunga Din
September 19, 2016 3:20 pm

“Rotten” is what it always comes out when I say that high-society hyphen-name.

jvcstone
Reply to  Gunga Din
September 19, 2016 3:31 pm

in light of the credit card donor thing, it should be rob’em

afonzarelli
Reply to  Gunga Din
September 19, 2016 5:04 pm

Pop, +1

donb
September 19, 2016 1:49 pm

Having “economy-wide legislation in the Congress by the end of this decade” is not the same as passing such legislation into law. Lots of bills get introduced only to die in Congress. Who is president is not enough.

Kevin Kilty
September 19, 2016 1:53 pm

If we stay on a 2% or lower growth rate, or head into recession, then by the end of the decade we could be close to being number three on the list.

Louis
Reply to  Kevin Kilty
September 19, 2016 2:17 pm

Are you implying that keeping the U.S. growth rate at or below 2% is part of a plan by the Obama Administration to reduce emissions and get around Congress? Come to think of it, they have imposed almost a trillion dollars in new regulations on business over the past 8 years. They had to know that such regulations would depress the economy and reduce emissions as a side effect. Yeah! Let’s kill jobs and put the brakes on prosperity so we can wage war on an imaginary climate boogeyman. After all, he’s getting ready to spring out of his hiding place in the deep oceans any day now. Real enemies, like ISIS and al Qaeda, pale in comparison to the destructive power of the climate boogeyman, which has no limits other than one’s imagination.

MarkW
Reply to  Louis
September 20, 2016 9:57 am

I’m always amazed by the number of people who actually believe that regulations don’t cost anything.

troe
September 19, 2016 1:55 pm

The climate lobby is a lawless cabal. Useful idiots with PhD’s like Moniz add prestige to a roached cause. This administrations actions on the Dakota pipeline project send the signal to business that loopy is yapping about. You can follow all of the rules and we will still screw you arbitrarily.
A sizable part of the GOP is complicit in all of this.

Walter Sobchak
September 19, 2016 1:56 pm

“greenhouse gases by 26 to 28 percent by 2025, from 2005 levels.”
No problem. Hillary will implement socialism, the economy will do a full Venezuela, and the resulting depression will reduce fuel usage.

ShrNfr
Reply to  Walter Sobchak
September 19, 2016 2:08 pm

Whatever warming that GHGs may provide may come in very handy during the downslope of the AMO.

donb
Reply to  Walter Sobchak
September 19, 2016 2:31 pm

Actually, the US has already reduced CO2 by half this goal since 2005 — that mostly from greater energy efficiency in many forms and switching from coal to natural gas in power production. Just the ongoing current trend in these may get the US there in 2025.

September 19, 2016 2:05 pm

Kinda scary. We have the US Environmental Protective Agency. We know how destructive rather than protective it has became after politics rather than honest science has ruled. A US Climate Protective Agency? “Hell on Wheels” aimed at even more control with no rails to keep it on track.
Government bureaucracy is not our friend.

Reply to  Gunga Din
September 20, 2016 5:52 am

For me, the most telling portion of the information provided:
“using administrative authorities, a simplified economy-wide approach would be preferable and, frankly, would be a lot clearer in terms of the signals for business”. Essentially, this is an administrative arm of central government dictating the mandates for the entire country. This, I believe, is the end-goal – use of climate “policy” to centralize and consolidate power.

Resourceguy
September 19, 2016 2:06 pm

So this should be front and center on campaigns, debates, and all other exposure of candidates. Let’s start the trend of honest and open government policy debate now instead of cloakroom bets and ploys.

nc
September 19, 2016 2:07 pm

China, I India laughing all the way to the bank.

Reply to  nc
September 19, 2016 4:48 pm

China’s banks about to choke on a gargantuan pile of bad debt.

Trebla
September 19, 2016 2:07 pm

As a physicist, Moniz would do well to review his notes on energy density. Wind and solar just don’t cut it, and they won’t be the energy sources replacing fossil fuels unless the Energy Secretary has found a way around that little problem. For example, compare the world’s first solar powered airplane, Solar Impulse, with a Boeing 747. Passenger ratio: 1 to 350. Speed 28 MPH (night) or a maximum of 56 MPH versus 550 MPH. Or think about powering a 100,000 ton container ship from China to San Francisco using sails versus a modern high-efficiency bunker-burning engine. I think you get the picture.

Reply to  Trebla
September 19, 2016 2:17 pm

He undoubtedly has a financial portfolio tied to renewables, aided by the likes of Tom Steyer and George Soros. Analogous to Hillary Clinton’s lucrative cattle futures trading acumen back in Arkansas.

Reply to  Joel O’Bryan
September 19, 2016 4:54 pm

“I will state quite frankly, I have a bet riding on the fact that we will have economy-wide legislation in the Congress by the end of this decade. I really believe that this is coming,”

Reply to  Trebla
September 19, 2016 2:20 pm

I think he may be more concerned with getting “the goal” done than with getting the job done.
(Who put him in his position?)

george e. smith
Reply to  Trebla
September 19, 2016 2:33 pm

We Don’t need no stinkin’ sails !
Those containers will (by then) each power themselves across the oceans.
The USPO has a slogan to sell their few custom sized packing boxes:
” If it fits, it ships ! ”
That will become:
” If it runs by itself, it ships ! ”
So each container will have solar panels (made in China) on top that will provide all the energy required to move that container and its contents, across the oceans.
Any container that can’t power itself doesn’t get on the ship.
See how easy it is to cure the problem.
g

jim
September 19, 2016 2:11 pm

This how the USSR might win WWIII before most people even know we are at war: buy control of key groups claiming to be environmentalists and use that control to shut down the USA economy with “carbon” regulation. Sierra Club, WWF, ect.
[“might win” ??? .mod]

george e. smith
Reply to  jim
September 19, 2016 2:35 pm

Keep your hands off the World Wrestling Federation.
Vince McMahan and Hulk Hogan won’t put up with that.
g

afonzarelli
Reply to  george e. smith
September 19, 2016 5:13 pm

Yeah, george, and what’s with this “USSR” bit… (jim’s being sooo 20th century)

george e. smith
Reply to  george e. smith
September 19, 2016 7:23 pm

Right on Afonz,
I think they could even go back and get themselves a new Tsar / Czar.
Gotta learn Comrade Putin some new manners first.
St Petersburg is such a pretty place I’m told.
Jim needs to do a coupla “Hail Marys”.
g

September 19, 2016 2:14 pm

By 2020 the climate will have cooled enough that even the psuedoscientists GISS and NOAA data adjusters won’t be able to hide it.
But then Climate Change was never about honest science.
It will be fun to watch as early 70’s type cold NH winters keep coming while the climatist fraudsters claim ever more warming.

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
September 19, 2016 2:34 pm

Make a USCPA and it won’t make a difference which way natural climate variations swing.
Man’s ego will claim the blame and those among us who love power will claim the ability to fix it. All they’ll need is the authority to do so. Bye bye freedoms.

Bruce Hall
September 19, 2016 2:23 pm

I find it impossible to comprehend how anyone can deny that weather is changing. Look outside! Geez, unless you are blind, you can see that weather is beginning to affect trees and birds and even water temperatures. We need comprehensive legislation and taxation to battle this weather change, no doubt cause by the rise of human cities and agriculture and contrails and internal combustion engines.
Deniers need to be either incarcerated or given mental health therapy. The time to act is now! I’m taking donations to accelerate this action against weather change.

george e. smith
Reply to  Bruce Hall
September 19, 2016 2:38 pm

The weather now doesn’t change any more than it has for the last 600 million years.
The mean Temperature stays between 12 deg. C and 22 deg. C
What’s to worry about ??
g

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  Bruce Hall
September 19, 2016 4:53 pm

He means Autumn

D. J. Hawkins
Reply to  Bruce Hall
September 19, 2016 5:15 pm

Bruce forgot the /sarc tag.

Reply to  Bruce Hall
September 19, 2016 6:43 pm

nice /sarc
I got it.

MarkW
Reply to  Bruce Hall
September 20, 2016 10:02 am

Bruce, that’s called summer. Give it a few months and it goes away, just like it does every year.

September 19, 2016 2:25 pm

Here’s the law that will exist within a decade:
Anyone abusively indoctrinating another person with the death cult belief system in climate changing only by human action, in denial of the existence of a global climate system, will be sentenced to seven years of supervised reeducation watching flocks of birds, shoals of fish, clouds, snowflakes and unadjusted temperature histories and proxy reconstructions.

george e. smith
Reply to  ptolemy2
September 19, 2016 2:40 pm

You left out sheep.
New Zealand will not put up with that.
You better prepare for a war against New Zealand.
g

Jon
Reply to  george e. smith
September 19, 2016 4:41 pm

What people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is nobody’s business!

george e. smith
Reply to  george e. smith
September 19, 2016 7:26 pm

That is shear folklore Jon !
g

george e. smith
Reply to  george e. smith
September 19, 2016 7:28 pm

Some people take Nyquil.
Others count sheep !
Live with it.
g

techgm
September 19, 2016 2:26 pm

Let’s pray his prediction is as accurate as the climate models have proven to be.

Marcus
September 19, 2016 2:28 pm

..Looks like a nut, talks like a nut and acts like a nut….yup, 97% probability that…. he’s a nut …

afonzarelli
Reply to  Marcus
September 19, 2016 5:18 pm

Yeah, Marcus, he looks like a wanna be Ben Franklin to me… (i mean, what’s up with that haircut?)

arthur4563
September 19, 2016 2:35 pm

These people are morons – molten salt nuclear reactors are CLEARLY the future of power production – inherently safe, cheap to build and cheap to operate – the cheapest energy technology out there and only
a few years away from commercialization, and capable of burning our nuclear wastes – reducing their radioactivity to very manageable levels ,requiring only a cheap storage technology for the several generations. until the wastes return to background radiation levels. Anyone aware of current power technologies will predict that the future power technology will be molten salt nuclear, irregardless of what the greenies believe. Most environmentalists are woefully ignorant of nuclear power, past and present. They still live in the 1970’s.

John Coutts
Reply to  arthur4563
September 19, 2016 10:59 pm

If only governments would actually pick up and read about this…it is the only way to go!!

Reply to  arthur4563
September 20, 2016 12:46 am

molten salt nuclear reactors are CLEARLY the future of power production
No, they are not. It’s fine to play up their strengths and ignore their weaknesses, but they are as yet an undeveloped technology that is simply one of many possible nuclear fission options.
Nuclear power of some sort will be needed (if we still have a civilisation) once gas becomes more less economically viable, but second guessing what sort of technology it will be, is rather futile.

Resourceguy
September 19, 2016 2:39 pm

He is betting on the roll out of California energy and tax policy across the country in yet another replay of that lead-lag relationship sprung by less-than-upfront party leadership.

Tom in Florida
September 19, 2016 2:46 pm

They will have to take away all the guns first.

Marcus
Reply to  Tom in Florida
September 19, 2016 3:27 pm

..Sure, they can have my gun, ” out of my cold dead hands ! “

September 19, 2016 2:55 pm

If the Billion advanced to Green Energy and Climate change went into a crash Molten Salt Reactor program; the US and World would have 24×7 emission free energy at a cost cheaper than coal. egeneration.org

Chris Hanley
September 19, 2016 3:11 pm

This is propaganda, the aim is to create the expectation of an outcome, and that outcome, by causing uncertainty in the energy sector — similar to market manipulation.

September 19, 2016 3:37 pm

An legislation should be directed towards preventing the subversion of science as the means for political ends. Another useful legislative act would be to withhold UN funding until the IPCC is disbanded.

Reply to  co2isnotevil
September 19, 2016 5:31 pm

co2, you can include the whole of the UN, the EU and any other “world” organization run or sucked dry by dictators.

Marcus
September 19, 2016 3:39 pm

..Thank God President Trump will put an end to this one sided love affair of scientific stupidity by cutting off unaccounted for funds for unscientific research ! IMHO

September 19, 2016 3:46 pm

As a theoretical physicist and Secretary of Energy he could possibly show why, at the molecular level, thermalization explains that CO2 has no significant effect on climate. Instead, he has apparently abandoned science and become a political hack.

September 19, 2016 3:54 pm

Coming soon . . . a law that states the burning of carbon-containing fuels shall not produce CO2 as a by-product.
Why complicate things if you don’t have to?

Joel Snider
Reply to  Gordon Dressler
September 19, 2016 4:02 pm

Kinda lends knew meaning to ‘waiting to exhale’.
Just hold it.

george e. smith
Reply to  Gordon Dressler
September 19, 2016 7:32 pm

Well no water effluent either. Gotta [treat] all GHGs as equals.
Well Moonbeam Brown just signed some new California Green Demise Law on the 6PM NEWS this evening.
Anthony will catch up with the story details soon I assume.
We are done for.
g