By Paul Driessen
Government officials and grant recipients must also be held accountable for fraud
False, misleading or fraudulent claims have long brought the wrath of juries, judges and government agencies down on perpetrators. So have substandard manufacturing practices.
* GlaxoSmith Klein has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $750-million fine for manufacturing deficiencies at a former pharmaceuticals plant. Even though there was no indication of patient harm, said the US attorney, the fine was needed “to pressure companies to follow the rules.”
* Johnson & Johnson was recently slapped with a $258-million jury verdict for allegedly misleading claims about the safety and superiority of an antipsychotic drug. J&J’s actions “defrauded the Louisiana Medicaid system,” prosecutors argued. (The company intends to appeal.)
* The Feds have also prosecuted baseball players for lying to congressional investigators about using performance-enhancing steroids. Said a prosecutor: “Even when you’re just providing information to the Legislative Branch, you need to be truthful.”
Who could oppose following the rules, making quality products and being honest? But shouldn’t these values apply where far more is at stake than a few companies, pills, baseball records or bad role models? Shouldn’t we demand that these rules apply to people and actions that have unprecedented impact on lives, livelihoods, liberties and communities throughout the country?
Can we afford to continue having double standards that let government officials violate basic standards of honesty and accountability that they apply “vigorously” to citizens and companies? Why should legislators, regulators and investigators be exempt from rules they devise and impose on everyone else? Shouldn’t we teach our kids that government officials mustn’t lie to us, either?
Few examples are as immediate, costly and far-reaching as the new ozone, dust, mercury and carbon dioxide rules that EPA regulators are trying to impose, under the guise of protecting air quality, planetary climate and human health. Few corporate executives or citizens are as exempt from basic legal standards as the energy and climate czars, czarinas, bureaucrats, and government-funded scientists and activists who seek to inflict their anti-hydrocarbon agenda on us, regardless of the science - or the impacts on jobs, prosperity, families and civil rights progress.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s new mercury, ozone and soot rules alone would eliminate up to 76,000 megawatts of generating capacity by 2015, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation calculates. That’s 7% of total US electric generating capacity - enough to power 38,000,000 homes under normal conditions. It’s 1.2 times the all-time peak electricity demand record for the entire state of Texas.
Credit Suisse estimates that compliance with these new standards will cost the power generation industry (ie, electricity consumers) $150 billion by 2020, to retrofit coal plants or replace them with natural gas-fired units. NERA Economic Consulting calculates that meeting EPA’s proposed new 60 ppb ozone standard alone would impose an annual cost of $1-trillion per year and cumulative losses of 7.3 million jobs; create hundreds of new air quality non-attainment areas; require millions more car inspections and repairs; and block numerous highway, residential and commercial construction projects.
The costs are monstrous - the benefits negligible, illusory or fabricated. The ozone rules would send power plant emissions almost to natural background levels in many areas. That’s just for starters.
EPA claims coal-fired power plants release “40% of all domestic human-caused mercury emissions.” But only a quarter of this is deposited in the contiguous United States. The National Center for Atmospheric Research says total mercury emissions from U.S. power plants are roughly equivalent to what comes from trees burned in forest fires. (Natural mercury in soils is taken up by trees through their roots.)
Some 30% of mercury that lands in the US comes from other countries. And according to data collected by the Science and Public Policy Institute, when emissions from volcanoes, oceanic geothermal vents and other natural sources are also factored in, US power plants may account for as little as 0.5% of total annual US mercury emissions and 0.002% of global emissions.
Worse, these huge energy, employment and economic impacts do not include the far more massive costs and intrusions associated with EPA’s scheme to slash carbon dioxide emissions, supposedly to safeguard “human health and welfare” from “dangerous” plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide and the manmade global warming that CO2 allegedly causes.
The Brookings Institute, Congressional Budget Office, Charles River Associates, Heritage Foundation and other analysts have documented the economic impacts. Delaware Senate candidate Chris Coons may “earn” millions if cap-tax-and-trade passes or the EPA rules are implemented. The rest of America will pay big-time. America’s #1 priority is fixing the economy and jobs. EPA’s seems to be killing them.
As to the “science” behind what the White House now calls “global climate disruption,” the ClimateGate emails underscored how deceptive, manipulated and even fraudulent the supposed evidence actually was. The IPCC’s headline-grabbing climate “disasters” turned out to be based on environmentalist press releases, casual email comments, anecdotal stories, student theses, studies that had absolutely nothing to do with climate change, and almost anything except honest peer-reviewed science.
On October 6, highly respected physicist Harold Lewis resigned from the American Physical Society. He had believed the climate chaos claims - but kept studying the science, pro and con, for years. He still saw a small human element in climate-forcing mechanisms, but no longer believed the alarmist hysteria. Finally, he’d had it, and said so bluntly in his resignation letter to APS President Curtis Gallan:
“[T]he global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. I don’t believe any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion.”
As for EPA, instead of conducting its own analysis of competing climate change claims, the agency simply adopted the bogus IPCC conclusions. Even in the face of the unfolding ClimateGate and IPCC scandals, Administrator Lisa Jackson proudly and pointedly refused to alter her position or plans. While the Glaxo whistleblower stands to get $96 million for turning in his company, EPA research analyst Alan Carlin got sent to bureaucratic Siberia for issuing an independent analysis that disagreed with his agency.
Now we face another monumental federal power grab, this time of the hydrocarbon energy that powers 85% of the American economy. The looming seizure of our money, jobs and liberties is based on shoddily manufactured “evidence,” fraudulent data and science, good-old-boy peer reviews, and false or misleading reports and testimony that would earn any citizen or company exec major fines and jail time.
When Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, their first order of business should be investigating the “manmade climate disaster” industry. They should subpoena federal employees and grant recipients, question them under oath regarding their funding and activities, and hold robust, public, expert debates on the science, economics, costs and supposed benefits of cap-tax-and-trade, carbon dioxide “endangerment,” ozone, and other punitive government policies that are strangling our nation’s energy and economic future.
They need to ensure that basic rules of honesty, transparency and accountability are finally applied as forcefully to regulators and taxpayer-funded scientists and activists, as to the rest of us.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.
By Art Horn
Richard “Dick” Blumenthal is a clear and present danger to America.
Who is Dick Blumenthal? He is the Connecticut attorney general running to fill the seat of the retired Democrat Chris Dodd, who held the seat for three decades. Should he win on November 2, Americans will be at greater risk of higher energy costs and more energy dependence on dangerous foreign sources.
Blumenthal is an ardent believer that our way of life and the way we grow prosperity will destroy the climate of the future. His words and actions prove he is devoted to changing the way we make energy in the United States to save us from ourselves. He believes burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide “pollution.” According to Dick, continuing to use coal, oil, natural gas, and others will ramp up catastrophic global warming. He proved the depth of his devotion when he personally represented Connecticut and sued American Electric Power. The following is from his press release:
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal today praised a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit reinstating Connecticut vs. AEP, a lawsuit filed by him and other state attorneys general seeking to compel the nation’s biggest greenhouse gas polluters to reduce harmful emissions.
Blumenthal personally argued the case. Blumenthal said, “This ruling restoring our legal action breathes new life into our fight against greenhouse gas polluters and changes the legal landscape to impose responsibility where it belongs. Our legal fight is against power companies that emit a huge share of our nation’s CO2 contamination, but it will set a precedent for all who threaten our planet with such pernicious pollution. This ruling vindicates our tenacious and tireless battle on behalf of a powerful coalition of states and environmental advocates - a battle that will now have its day in court.
“Our battle is not against the EPA or the federal government - which we have won already - but rather against the polluters themselves under federal nuisance law. Our goal is not money damages, but a change in company practices to stem the pollution and safeguard our environment and economy. This lawsuit is comparable to our fight against Big Tobacco, without the money. In the end, this legal crusade can help save lives and our planet from global warming.”
As you can see, Dick was the lead attorney for this landmark case. He argued that carbon dioxide polluters represent a “public nuisance,” the nuisance being global warming. Therefore the polluters must be stopped. What this lawsuit translates to is this: Anyone, including the vast number of environmental groups, would be able to sue any entity that produces greenhouse gases. That includes all companies that generate electric power by using fossil fuels. The cost of defending themselves would be potentially catastrophic. And this is the goal: to shut them down, permanently.
Has anyone bothered to tell Blumenthal there is no historical data to support his “fight against greenhouse gas polluters”? His lawsuit is completely frivolous, based on the relationship between carbon dioxide (the accused) and temperature. All measurements of the Earth’s temperature show there has been no global warming for a decade. Dr. Phil Jones from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England said there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995, despite the “pollution” of carbon dioxide rising steadily since then. Data from the worldwide network of measuring stations show an increase of 18 parts per million, or a 6% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide in the last decade.
Ironically this “pollution” is only dangerous if it does not exist. It is only dangerous if all of it were sequestered out of the atmosphere. In that case, all plant and animal life on Earth would die, including you, me, and Dick Blumenthal.
This is not the first time this “disconnect” of temperature and carbon dioxide has surfaced, although it is rarely cited. From 1945 to 1976, the Earth’s temperature was in a cooling trend. This “global cooling” continued for three decades despite carbon dioxide concentrations rising from about 310 parts per million in 1945 to 332 parts per million in 1976. That’s an 8% increase over the pre-industrial revolution baseline of 280 parts per million. Yet there was no global warming at all - there was cooling!
While Blumenthal has been attorney general for last two decades, electricity rates in Connecticut have gone up even faster than carbon dioxide readings. The Energy Information Agency says the residential electric rate in Connecticut is 19.03 cents per kilowatt hour. That is a hefty 37% above the U.S. average of 12.01 cents per kilowatt hour. Yet in his run for the Senate, he boasts about how he has reduced electric rates for Connecticut’s people.
These kinds of false statements are OK when you’re trying to save the Earth - it’s the greater good that matters, right?
If Dick Blumenthal is elected on Tuesday, another “green warrior” will go to Washington to tear down American prosperity for its sins of carbon pollution. Only this warrior will be in a much more powerful position to punish us for our sins. He will be a member of the United States Senate. He will be fighting to destroy what has been instrumental in making this nation great - accessible, affordable, plentiful energy. No number of windmills or solar panels will ever come close to replacing those assets. However, an unprecedented number of lawsuits from environmental groups might be a way to force these renewables down our throats, even if they don’t work.
Dick Blumenthal thinks carbon emissions from our way of life will cause global warming. I propose we declare Dick Blumenthal a “public nuisance” and permanently cap the emissions that spew from his mouth - including, by the way, the “pollutant” carbon dioxide - by dealing him an electoral loss on November 2.
See more and comments on Pajamas Media here.
By Dennis Ambler, SPPI
Vast sums of money, influence and power are involved in carbon mitigation schemes, and yet there is never any mention in the media of these massive and lucrative conflicts of interest. They appear quite content swallowing the diversionary tactics pushed by the likes of DeSmog Blog and Greenpeace ExxonSecrets with their claims of “oil- company funded deniers”. It is doubtful that mainstream journalists ever bother to look behind the scenes at these people, yet it is all available on official websites.
It is no wonder that Christiana Figueres wanted the Kyoto Mechanism to continue, when she addressed the UNFCCC TianjinChicago Climate Exchange. Conference on the 4th of October, because without it her friends in the carbon business would find their virtual world starting to disappear, as evidenced by the recent problems at the Chicago Climate Exchange.
An ancillary issue ripe for Congressional oversight is how do they get away with these incestuous financial relationships involving carbon trading companies, whilst devising and promoting legislation for a CO2 control agenda that will only benefit themselves and the companies that they advise, but will cause new and additional untold hardship to millions by casting them into political, economic and energy poverty.
For example…
UN Climate Secretary was Trained by Al Gore
In March this year, Christiana Figueres replaced Yvo de Boer as the new Executive Secretary to the UNFCCC, which is responsible for the annual Conferences of the Parties, (COPS) such as COP 15 in Copenhagen and the upcoming COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico. Former Secretary De Boer, has moved to KPMG and “will have an international role working with KPMG member firms in advising business, governments and other organizations on sustainability issues.”
Trained by Al Gore
There are some very interesting details on Figueres’ website, one of which is her proud claim to have been “Trained and authorized by Al Gore to deliver his presentation The Inconvenient Truth.”
She was greatly involved in Carbon Trading until taking up her new position. She has also been a member of the Executive Board of the Clean Development Mechanism of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol allowing industrialised countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment (called Annex 1 countries) to invest in ventures that reduce emissions in developing countries as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions in their own countries. It is the mechanism used for transferring wealth from industrialised nations to developing nations such as India and China.
Carbon Pricing
From 2008 to 2010, she was Vice Chair of the Rating Committee, Carbon Rating Agency, described on her web site as the “first entity to apply credit rating expertise to carbon assets”.
The Carbon Rating Agency is a subsidiary of IdeaCarbon who say about themselves, “our unique access to some of the most influential decision-makers in the carbon and environmental community, gives us the possibility to foresee important regulatory and market trends and thus allow clients to have unparalleled views and advice on climate issues and debates.” IdeaCarbon is based in the Isle of Man, a tax haven.
The Carbon Rating Agency openly boasts of its highly influential management team and ratings committee: “which includes ratings experts, financial market professionals, UN climate change negotiators and former senior managers from development agencies such as the World Bank, a combination which ensures that the full range of risks facing carbon projects are taken into account by the ratings process.”
Influential people driving the carbon pricing agenda
Idea Carbon includes amongst its advisers Lord Stern Chairman of the London School of Economics (LSE) Grantham Institute. He joined IdeaGlobal, the parent company, in 2007, as Vice Chairman. The Grantham Institute was set up in 2008 by Jeremy Grantham, chairman and co-founder of GMO, a $140 billion global investment management company based in Boston with offices in London, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney and Zurich.
He funds amongst others, WWF-US and Environmental Defense.WWF President Carter Rober and Environmental Defense President Fred Krupp, are both on the management board of the Grantham Institute along with Grantham himself.
Fellow adviser at IdeaCarbon is Dr Samuel Fankhauser, who is also a colleague of Lord Stern at the LSE Grantham Institute as a Principal Research Fellow. Fankhauser is also on the UK Climate Change Committee and its Mitigation sub-committee. He participated in the 1995, 2001 and 2007 assessments of the IPCC.
IdeaCarbon is involved in carbon trading on the Indian Multi-Commodities Exchange, (MCX), which estimates that by 2020 the market for project based carbon offsets is estimated to grow to at least 200bn.
Another IdeaCarbon colleague of Lord Stern is Mr. Nitin Desai, a Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General on Internet governance and chair of the Advisory Group that organises the annual UN Internet Governance Forum. He is an Honorary Fellow of the LSE and former Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations from 1997 to 2003.
In India, he is a colleague of IPCC chair Dr Pachauri, as a “Distinguished Visiting Fellow” at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and advises the Indian Government on its national climate change action plan.
Christiana Figueres was also a Senior Advisor to C-Quest Capital, “a carbon finance business dedicated to originating and developing high-quality emission reduction projects around the world. We invest in carbon assets that generate not only superior returns but also concrete benefits to the environment. Founded by Ken Newcombe and Matthew Mendis in 2008, CQC is headquartered in Washington, D.C. with offices in Australia and Malaysia and a presence in India.”
Ken Newcombe, CEO was from 2006 to 2007, Vice Chairman of Climate Change Capital in London, which manages the largest private sector carbon fund in the world. (Lord Oxburgh of the UEA enquiry is a director).
“Before joining the private sector, Newcombe led the development of the Prototype Carbon Fund, a public-private partnership of the World Bank which pioneered the global carbon market and managed the growth of World Bank’s carbon finance business to eight carbon funds, with approximately a billion dollars under management for investment in carbon offset projects and laying the foundation for additional funding of the same order.”
See more here.