By Marita Noon,Townhall Finance
During the three-day Supreme Court review of Obamacare, Justice Anthony Kennedy created news with his statement that the government has a “heavy burden of justification” to prove its case. All of America is watching and waiting for the expected June decision from the Supreme Court.
The question remians: Did the Obama administration overstep its authority with its landmark healthcare legislation?
But, at least in one case, we do not have to wait for a decision that the Obama administration has “overstepped its authority” - a federal judge has already handed down that decision. In this case, healthcare is not at the center of the debate; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is. The agency have been issuing regulations and finalizing rules with no “burden of justification.”
The EPA, “dominated by anticarbon true believers,” could be considered rogue - except that it has the blessing of the boss. The agency’s actions align with President Obama’s “campaign to raise the price and limit the production of fossil fuels” here in America. The EPA’s freewheeling, however, may have been curbed as the agency is facing a headwind of opposition from the industries they are shutting down, state regulators, and even federal judges.
The wheels are coming off the wagon.
A couple of weeks ago, March 23, the EPA suffered a setback when US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, DC, determined that the EPA did not have the power to revoke a legitimately approved mining permit once it had been issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, as the EPA had done in January 2011 regarding Arch Coal’s Spruce No. 1 mine in WV. In ordering that the EPA’s “action be vacated in its entirety,” Judge Jackson said: “This is a stunning power for an agency to arrogate to itself when there is absolutely no mention of it in the statute.”
The EPA entered dangerous territory when it retroactively vetoed the permit, which had been approved after an exhaustive, approximately 10-year, regulatory process - which included time for an extensive review by the EPA. At the time, Senator Manchin (D-WV) said the “decision is not just fundamentally wrong, it is an unprecedented act by the federal government that will cost our state and our nation even more jobs during the worst recession in this country’s history.” He continued: “it has negative ramifications for every state in our nation.” Manchin called the EPA’s decision “an irresponsible regulatory step” and said it was “a shocking display of overreach,” with “a chilling effect on investments and our economic recovery.”
The permit, issued in 2007, now “remains valid and in full force.”
The following week, April 1, the EPA itself took a step back in its arrogant power grab. Once again, in January 2011, the EPA positioned itself above the appropriate governing body. In this case, the EPA filed a lawsuit against an energy company it claimed had contaminated drinking water in Texas through a natural-gas drilling process known as hydrofracturing - which is currently regulated by states, and for which the EPA wants national standards.
In Texas, oil and gas activities are regulated by the Railroad Commission. The EPA said the Railroad Commission failed to address an “imminent and substantial endangerment” to public health. The EPA then, in January 2011, filed a lawsuit against Range Resources. The Railroad Commission accused the EPA of “fear mongering, gross negligence and severe mishandling.” After an appeal from Range Resources argued that “the agency’s analysis was inconclusive,” and the company pointed to nearby wells known to contain gas long before Range began drilling in the area, the EPA dropped its suit.
Railroad Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman responded: “By dropping their court case and enforcement actions, EPA now acknowledges what we at the Railroad Commission have known for more than a year: Range Resources’ Parker County gas wells did not contaminate groundwater. This announcement is a vindication of the science-based processes at the Railroad Commission.”
The Texas case highlights other aggressive actions by the EPA. In agreeing to drop the case, the EPA has agreed to retest water in Wyoming and Pennsylvania where the agency has also engaged in the practice of sowing fear, uncertainty, and doubt - about which the Wall Street Journal cautions that regulators may be “spreading needless fear so they can enhance their own power while pursuing an ideological agenda.” As far back as the early 1950s, natural gas, especially methane, has been found in water wells in areas where no drilling has taken place, but the gas is naturally seeping from “underlying gas-bearing shales.” The seepage can be accompanied by a “rotten egg” smell that tips off an investigation.
Addressing the Texas case, John Hayward, in a column in Human Events, explains the ideology that “is the core assumption of radical environmentalism: all industry is guilty until proven innocent, and the burden of proof rests heavily upon industry. Only the most aloof, unaccountable, heavily concentrated federal power is suited for conducting these prosecutions.”
By spreading fear, the EPA justifies its existence - after all, there is a problem that it needs to solve. It gains power without, as Justice Kennedy said, “a heavy burden of justification.” The crazy regulations the EPA has been issuing represent a breakdown in faith in the government. The EPA has been exposed as being abusive and arrogantly authoritative.
Just two days after the Texas reversal was released, the EPA announced a delay on finalizing its rules aimed at natural-gas wells drilled using hydraulic fracturing. Oil and gas companies pushed to weigh in on the new standards. Perhaps, the EPA is feeling like the rotten egg.
And, these recent “egg-on-its-face” events come after the Supreme Court unanimously sided with the Sacketts and against the EPA in a decision that allows Mike and Chantell Sackett to challenge the EPA. In a statement, the Sacketts praised the court for “affirming that we have rights, and that the EPA is not a law unto itself.”
With this change in climate, it is time to challenge the EPA’s recent regulations against the coal-fueled power industry and give the EPA the “heavy burden of justification.” Let the agency prove that it is not just regulating on fear, emotion, and ideology - but on sound science
During the three-day Supreme Court review of Obamacare, Justice Anthony Kennedy created news with his statement that the government has a “heavy burden of justification” to prove its case. All of America is watching and waiting for the expected June decision from the Supreme Court.
The question remians: Did the Obama administration overstep its authority with its landmark healthcare legislation?
But, at least in one case, we do not have to wait for a decision that the Obama administration has “overstepped its authority” - a federal judge has already handed down that decision. In this case, healthcare is not at the center of the debate; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is. The agency have been issuing regulations and finalizing rules with no “burden of justification.”
The EPA, “dominated by anticarbon true believers,” could be considered rogue - except that it has the blessing of the boss. The agency’s actions align with President Obama’s “campaign to raise the price and limit the production of fossil fuels” here in America. The EPA’s freewheeling, however, may have been curbed as the agency is facing a headwind of opposition from the industries they are shutting down, state regulators, and even federal judges.
The wheels are coming off the wagon.
A couple of weeks ago, March 23, the EPA suffered a setback when US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, DC, determined that the EPA did not have the power to revoke a legitimately approved mining permit once it had been issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, as the EPA had done in January 2011 regarding Arch Coal’s Spruce No. 1 mine in WV. In ordering that the EPA’s “action be vacated in its entirety,” Judge Jackson said: “This is a stunning power for an agency to arrogate to itself when there is absolutely no mention of it in the statute.”
The EPA entered dangerous territory when it retroactively vetoed the permit, which had been approved after an exhaustive, approximately 10-year, regulatory process - which included time for an extensive review by the EPA. At the time, Senator Manchin (D-WV) said the “decision is not just fundamentally wrong, it is an unprecedented act by the federal government that will cost our state and our nation even more jobs during the worst recession in this country’s history.” He continued: “it has negative ramifications for every state in our nation.” Manchin called the EPA’s decision “an irresponsible regulatory step” and said it was “a shocking display of overreach,” with “a chilling effect on investments and our economic recovery.”
The permit, issued in 2007, now “remains valid and in full force.”
The following week, April 1, the EPA itself took a step back in its arrogant power grab. Once again, in January 2011, the EPA positioned itself above the appropriate governing body. In this case, the EPA filed a lawsuit against an energy company it claimed had contaminated drinking water in Texas through a natural-gas drilling process known as hydrofracturing - which is currently regulated by states, and for which the EPA wants national standards.
In Texas, oil and gas activities are regulated by the Railroad Commission. The EPA said the Railroad Commission failed to address an “imminent and substantial endangerment” to public health. The EPA then, in January 2011, filed a lawsuit against Range Resources. The Railroad Commission accused the EPA of “fear mongering, gross negligence and severe mishandling.” After an appeal from Range Resources argued that “the agency’s analysis was inconclusive,” and the company pointed to nearby wells known to contain gas long before Range began drilling in the area, the EPA dropped its suit.
Railroad Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman responded: “By dropping their court case and enforcement actions, EPA now acknowledges what we at the Railroad Commission have known for more than a year: Range Resources’ Parker County gas wells did not contaminate groundwater. This announcement is a vindication of the science-based processes at the Railroad Commission.”
The Texas case highlights other aggressive actions by the EPA. In agreeing to drop the case, the EPA has agreed to retest water in Wyoming and Pennsylvania where the agency has also engaged in the practice of sowing fear, uncertainty, and doubt-about which the Wall Street Journal cautions that regulators may be “spreading needless fear so they can enhance their own power while pursuing an ideological agenda.” As far back as the early 1950s, natural gas, especially methane, has been found in water wells in areas where no drilling has taken place, but the gas is naturally seeping from “underlying gas-bearing shales.” The seepage can be accompanied by a “rotten egg” smell that tips off an investigation.
Addressing the Texas case, John Hayward, in a column in Human Events, explains the ideology that “is the core assumption of radical environmentalism: all industry is guilty until proven innocent, and the burden of proof rests heavily upon industry. Only the most aloof, unaccountable, heavily concentrated federal power is suited for conducting these prosecutions.”
By spreading fear, the EPA justifies its existence - after all, there is a problem that it needs to solve. It gains power without, as Justice Kennedy said, “a heavy burden of justification.” The crazy regulations the EPA has been issuing represent a breakdown in faith in the government. The EPA has been exposed as being abusive and arrogantly authoritative.
Just two days after the Texas reversal was released, the EPA announced a delay on finalizing its rules aimed at natural-gas wells drilled using hydraulic fracturing. Oil and gas companies pushed to weigh in on the new standards. Perhaps, the EPA is feeling like the rotten egg.
And, these recent “egg-on-its-face” events come after the Supreme Court unanimously sided with the Sacketts and against the EPA in a decision that allows Mike and Chantell Sackett to challenge the EPA. In a statement, the Sacketts praised the court for “affirming that we have rights, and that the EPA is not a law unto itself.”
With this change in climate, it is time to challenge the EPA’s recent regulations against the coal-fueled power industry and give the EPA the “heavy burden of justification.” Let the agency prove that it is not just regulating on fear, emotion, and ideology - but on sound science.
New UK Met Office global temperature data confirms that the world has not warmed in the past 15 years.
Analysis by the GWPF of the newly released HadCRUT4 global temperature database shows that there has been no global warming in the past 15 years - a timescale that challenges current models of global warming.
The graph shows the global annual average temperature since 1997. No statistically significant trend can be discerned from the data. The only statistically acceptable conclusion to be drawn from the HadCRUT4 data is that between 1997 - 2011 it has remained constant, with a global temperature of 14.44 +/- 0.16 deg C (2 standard deviations.)
The important question is whether 15 years is a sufficient length of time from which to draw climatic conclusions that are usually considered over 30 years, as well as its implications for climate projections.
The IPCC states that anthropogenic influences on the climate dominated natural ones sometime between 1960 - 80.The recent episode of global warming that occurred after that transition began in 1980. The world has warmed by about 0.4 deg C in this time. Whilst we live in the warmest decade of the instrumental era of global temperature measurement (post-1880), and the 90s were warmer than the 80s, the world has not got any warmer in the last 15 years.
In 2001 and 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (and here) estimated that the world would warm at a rate of 0.2 deg C per decade in the future due to greenhouse gas forcing. Since those predictions were made it has become clear that the world has not been warming at that rate. Some scientists retrospectively revised their forecasts saying that the 0.2 deg C figure is an average one. Larger or smaller rates of warming are possible as short-term variations.
Global warming simulations, some carried out by the UK Met Office (here, here and here), have been able to reproduce “standstills” in global warming of a decade or so while still maintaining the long-term 0.2 deg C per decade average. These decadal standstills occur about once every eight decades. However, such climate simulations have not been able to reproduce a 15-year standstill:
“Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate” (NOAA 2008).
We also note a comment in an email sent by Professor Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit: “Bottom line - the no upward trend has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.”
Whether the global temperature standstill of the past 15 years continues or is replaced by warming, as the IPCC predicts, only future data will tell. In the meantime the length of the standstill means that the challenge it offers for models of future climate prediction, and explanations for past warming, cannot be ignored.
Dr David Whitehouse, science editor of the GWPF, said:
“We are at the point where the temperature standstill is becoming the dominant feature of the post-1980 warming, and as such cannot be dismissed as being unimportant even when viewed over 30 years.”
“It is time that the scientific community in general and the IPCC in particular acknowledged the reality of the global temperature standstill and the very real challenge it implies for our understanding of climate change and estimates of its future effects.”
“It is a demonstration that the science is not settled, and that there are great uncertainties in our understanding of the real-world greenhouse effect when combined with anthropogenic and natural factors.”
Contact:
david.whitehouse@gwpf.org
GWPF: 0207 79306856
Technical note: The HadCRUT4 database has been released from 1997 - 2010. The 2011 datapoint has been estimated from the differences between HadCRUT4 and the two published versions of the previous dataset, HadCRUT3, as observed over the past decade. As the HadCRUT3 data includes 2011 it is possible to estimate HadCRUT4 as lying between the specified error bars.
By Larry Bell
Governor Deval Patrick’s new deal to blow costly subsidies on a breezy wind farm off Nantucket Sound has leading green energy proponents purple with rage. And these aren’t just your usual run of the windmill anti-carbon crusaders and environmental activist organizations.
Acting upon the legislature’s Green Communities Act of 2000 requiring that 20% of the state’s power come from renewable sources by 2025, the 130-turbine Cape Wind project threatens to obstruct the pristine ocean view of that elite one percent of greedy rich coastal residents the other 99 percent are presumed to loathe.
What true “environmentalists” could possibly object to non-polluting wind power that will help save our planet from the dreaded climate-ravaging fossil-emitted CO2 scourge? Some of their names should be quite familiar to you. One, for example, is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nephew of a popular president and prominent lawyer for the powerful Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). His uncle, the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), along with Senate colleague and fellow Nantucket resident John Kerry, didn’t want Cape Wind disturbing their vistas either.
Senator Kerry explained his reasons this way: “I’ve always said that I think Senator Kennedy has raised very legitimate issues with respect to the siting process and with respect to location. I’ve also suggested that it’s my opinion there may be even better locations for it. I"ve sat with Jim Gordon [president of Cape Wind], I’ve sat with other folks, I’ve met with Coast Guard people. I’ve tried to do due diligence on it, and I’m not sure there aren’t both windier and, you know, more accessible areas.”
In other words, it’s not that the Senator doesn’t like wind power. He just doesn’t want it located off his beach.
Sound familiar?
Governor Patrick helped blow life into Cape Wind by approving a merger of two local utilities, NStar and Northeast Utilities of Connecticut, creating a new company that must purchase 27.5% of their output from the project. The $17.5 billion agreement also requires that Cape Wind freeze its rates for the next five years and distribute a one-time rebate of $21 million ($13 per capita) to the customers. But since Cape Wind construction hasn’t yet begun, the freeze on electricity prices will lapse by the time NStar starts purchasing the power.
The Boston Globe reports that the deal won’t come cheap, either for NStar, or for its customers. Based upon a 15-year contract filed with state regulators last Friday, the starting price for power Cape Wind produces will be more than double the cost of conventional Massachusetts electricity. While utilities generally pay about 8 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity rather than the 18.7 cents Cape Wind will charge, they caved in following nearly a year of negotiations with state energy officials.
According to a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Robert Kennedy Jr., NStar had experienced years of intense state political pressure before agreeing to the Cape Wind power purchases. Their CEO Tom May had argued that such a contract would impose too large a burden on their ratepayers. In order to certify with the green-power requirements, NStar had previously contracted with far less expensive land-based wind-power suppliers.
Offshore wind installations are very costly to build and maintain, second only to solar thermal. Customers who chose to purchase the “NStar 100” option (with a theoretical 100% of their electricity coming from the Maple Ridge wind farm in upstate New York and Kirby Wind Power in Maine) already saw their current 4.791 cent per kWh premiums rise by 33% to 6.39% per kWh on March 1.
In case you’re wondering, former Governor Mitt Romney opposed Cape Wind ...not because he doesn’t like wind power, but because it would depress property values and damage the local economy which depends heavily on tourism. Project supporters accused him and federal lawmakers of “back-door deal-making” to kill the project.
Cape Wind has also entered into a separate agreement with another utility, National Grid, to sell them their electricity at the same 18.7 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) rate NStar will pay, with a 3.5% annual increase over the next 15 years. At the end of those 15 years the compounded interest will have driven customer costs to 31.3 cents per kWh, about four times what they are paying now.
Those customers aren’t the only ones who are being fleeced. Even at high premiums the entire wind industry would be blown away by conventional power sources if not for huge taxpayer subsidies. According to a 2008 Energy Information Agency (EIA) report, the average 2007 subsidy per megawatt hour for wind and solar was about $24, compared with an average $1.65 for all others.
Since first adopted in 1992, the “temporary” Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind energy which, unless extended is scheduled to sunset at the end of the year, has ballooned from $5 million per year in 1998, to over $1 billion annually today. And even if ended, taxpayers are still obligated to cover nearly $10 billion in tax credits for projects built during the last decade. That’s in addition to an almost $20 billion debt for wind projects eligible under a Section 1603 extension, the renewable energy bailout of 2011. In many parts of the country the PTC actually exceeds the wholesale price of power.
In the meantime, while taxpayers cover much of the added expense and mandated wind purchases and prices are being locked in at economically burdensome rates, abundant natural gas prices are plummeting, falling nearly half from about $5 /mmBTU last summer, to around $2.35/mmBTU now. (By the way, the EIA equates the energy equivalent of $3 natural gas to the same as $18 oil.)
Also, for comparison, construction costs for offshore wind power projects runs about $5,000 per kilowatt, or about the same as a nuclear plant which will provide at least three times as much capacity with continuous rather than intermittent output. An offshore wind installation costs about five times as much as a natural gas-fired generator to construct per kilowatt, plus also requires a backup power source (typically natural gas) to balance out the power grid during most of the time when the wind isn’t blowing.
Along with high taxpayer and ratepayer costs, scenic impacts and objectionable noise associated with wind power, the industry is also facing fierce blowback from environmental groups over the destructive consequences of the turbines upon wildlife. Yet while federal law enforcement officials have filed hundreds of cases against oil and gas companies and electric utilities under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) of 1918, somehow, the U.S. wind industry has usually gotten a get-out-of-jail free card.
For example, in August 2009 ExxonMobil pled guilty and agreed to pay $600,000 in fines on charges it killed 85 birds that came in contact with hydrocarbons in company-owned uncovered tanks and wastewater facilities located in five western states. But no charges were filed when in 2009 the Los Angeles Times reported that turbines are killing about 70 eagles each year at Altamont Pass in California. A 2008 study funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency estimated that about 2,400 other raptors, including burrowing owls, American kestrels and red-tailed hawks along with about 7,500 other birds protected by MBTA are being killed as well.
There are lots of bat casualties too....caused by a change in air pressure near turbine blades that ruptures their lungs. A study of a 44-turbibe wind farm in West Virginia found that up to 4,000 had been killed in 2004 alone. A 420-turbine installation in Pennsylvania reportedly killed more than 10,000 in 2010.
Yet the only legal action the wind industry has ever faced was filed against NextEra Energy Resources by the State of California in 2010 for the Altamont bird kills. The company agreed to a $2.5 million settlement, and agreed to remove or replace all turbines by 2015.
But now, the wind industry itself faces human-caused endangerment, a lethal threat of economic starvation if vital subsidies aren’t extended. A 2011 report released by HIS Emerging Energy Research, an independent group in Cambridge, Mass concluded that expiration would cause wind power installations to decrease from 5.6 gigawatts a year since 2005, to 2.3 gigawatts per year from 2013 to 2016 thanks in large part to competition from low natural gas prices. As IHS analyst Matt Kaplan observed, “Fundamentally, the industry is not ready to stand alone”.
Writing in MasterResource, Lisa Linowes tells us all to expect scary stories from the American Wind Association warning of a crushing blow to American jobs if Congress lets the wind power Production Tax Credit lapse. But don’t expect them to mention that most of the industry sector’s jobs are temporary construction positions, with less than 20,000 involved in the manufacture of parts used in turbines. Lisa concludes that the Production Tax Credit is one earmark many Americans know about, and their opinion is remarkably consistent: “The cost of the PTC is excessive, the benefits are elusive, and frankly, Big Wind’s pitiful performance measured against industry promises makes this entitlement easy to sunset.”
Icecap Note: In Europe where subsidized wind and solar was the green dream, the subsidies have been stopped in many countries as the wind proved to not deliver as promised as the wind does not always blow when you need it and fossil fuel plants must be running in low efficiency back up modes to supplement. Wind power in the UK produced just 0.6% of the electricity needed for example in the UK during the record cold in December 2010 and causing electricity prices to skyrocket beyond the means of many families. They are scurrying to build natural gas alternatives. Spain stopped subsidizing wind and solar because industry left when rates increased and left the country with a 20.5% unemployment rate and huge deficits. In Australia, where they are staring down the gun of huge carbon taxes and forced demise of their mining, coal and agricultural industries because of green policies, the public has turned against the false science and bad policies and hopefully will force the greens and ALP out to where they belong, floating among the coral reefs. Let’s hope that Flannery, Karoly, Trenberth and other false prophets are included in the purge. Hopefully the US will follow suit in November.