Such a levy can’t be justified on basis of altering climate; real goal is a revenue stream to fund European-style government.
By CHRISTOPHER HORNER / For the Register
Recently, a leaked agenda laid bare a strategy session among a virtual Who’s Who of left-leaning big-government activist groups, hosted by a generally conservative policy group, the American Enterprise Institute. By the agenda’s title, this fifth in a series was part of a “Lame Duck Initiative” to strategize enactment of a “carbon” tax, or federal energy tax on oil, coal and gas, in the post-election session of Congress that began this week.
AEI thereby joined former Republican politicians and advisers seeking to rebrand, as a conservative idea, the latest incarnation of what the political Left has long pined for, only to be told it was a dead letter given the political debacle of the Clinton administration’s 1993 “BTU tax.”
The headings and justifications for the new effort were equally as incongruent as conservatives falling for this call to bail out opponents of abundant, affordable reliable energy. These reflected diametrically opposed sales pitches apparently foretelling different audiences what they want to hear.
Specifically, AEI and the other groups are preparing to sell the carbon tax both as “revenue neutral” and as a “deficit hawk” measure. But this new energy tax can’t actually be both.
Revenue neutrality means it would be offset by reducing other taxes - this is the sales pitch for conservatives and swing voters. One rumored target is the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal gasoline tax. This strategy would further illuminate the campaign’s confusion, given that the purpose of a carbon tax, as a “sin” tax, is to make activities deemed undesirable (energy use) more expensive.
Alternately, the new energy tax is supposedly targeted for deficit reduction - which in Washington means directed to new spending.
However absurd on its face, this is politics, and saying both just might work. The key thing is simply to get the new energy tax enacted, by whatever means necessary.
This is only the beginning of the muddled sales pitch. The new tax would be sold as a response to man-made climate change. The biggest problem here, outside of the political baggage of myriad climate-science scandals, is that it is universally agreed that such a tax would be a meaningless gesture.
Specifically, under no scenario, even accepting every assumption proffered by global warming activists, would any strategy ever proposed actually detectably impact climate. This includes the “global” Kyoto Protocol treaty, which within days of being agreed upon in 1997 was footnoted by proponents as actually being just the first of 30 such treaties needed to impact climate.
So much for a “climate” rationale for a U.S.-only carbon tax, which seeks unilateral, marginal reductions in carbon dioxide. CO2 is a marginal greenhouse gas, all of which gases, together, still amount to a marginal climate “forcing” (major forcings being the sun, oceans, clouds). A fraction of a fraction does not climatic impact bring.
The temperature after imposition of cap-and-trade, the Kyoto Protocol or a carbon tax will be whatever it would have been without any of them. So, while a new energy tax may be chicken soup for the wealthy world’s environmental guilt, as a substantive matter, it is a futile gesture.
There are few opportune times for such things, but now certainly is not one of them.
So let’s have an open, honest debate, which requires first acknowledging that a “carbon” tax is less likely being proposed for things it would not do, like impact climate, than for what it would do.
A proposed carbon tax is actually about finding a new, massive and ultimately expanding revenue source, an ATM machine, a European-style revenue gusher to fund a European-style government.
When the carbon tax’s proponents can acknowledge these things, or demonstrate that they are not true, we can have a useful debate over their new energy tax.
Christopher C. Horner is a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and author of “The Liberal War on Transparency: Confessions of a Freedom of Information ‘Criminal’” (Threshold Editions).
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DRIESSEN: Global warming hysteria will kill jobs
By Paul Diessen, Washington Times
Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have boosted shale gas production from zero a few years ago to 10 percent of all U.S. energy supplies in 2012, observes energy analyst Daniel Yergin. It has increased U.S. oil production 25 percent since 2008, in the face of more federal land and resource withdrawals, permitting delays and declining public land production.
In the process, the fracking revolution created 1.7 million jobs in oil fields, equipment manufacturing, legal and information technology services, and other sectors. It will generate over $60 billion this year in state and federal tax and royalty revenues, reduce America’s oil import bill by $75 billion, and save us $100 billion in imported liquefied natural gas, concludes a new IMF Global Insight analysis.
A resurgent American petroleum industry could add “as many as 3.6 million jobs by 2020, and increase the US gross domestic product by as much as 3 percent,” says Citigroup’s “Energy 2020” report. Fracking could make North America energy independent and turn the United States into the world’s number one oil producer in a few more years.
For people still concerned about “catastrophic manmade global warming” (despite 16 years of stable global temperatures), hydraulic fracturing helps cut carbon dioxide emissions, using clean-burning natural gas that costs a third less than oil per BTU.
Common sense says hydraulic fracturing should garner widespread public, political and even environmentalist support. Several states have banned it, however, and the Environmental Protection Agency and Bureau of Land Management are poised to unleash new rules that could usurp state control and restrict or hyper-regulate fracking on federal, state and private lands.
They justify the bans and regulations by citing public anxiety over fracking but fail to mention that this anxiety has been nurtured and orchestrated by environmental pressure groups whose fractured fairy tales about this technology would be as funny as the Rocky and Bullwinkle tales if the economic, employment, national security and environmental consequences weren’t so serious.
Some of these “fairy tales” include:
Burning tap water. You could ignite methane at your kitchen faucet if your water well was drilled through gas-bearing rock formations and not properly sealed to keep gas out. Fracking zones are thousands of feet below groundwater supplies, though. Production wells use cement and steel casing that extends hundreds of feet below the surface, and sensitive instruments monitor downhole activity to ensure that valuable gas does not escape into near-surface formations or the atmosphere.
Groundwater contamination. Fracking fluids are 99.5 percent water and sand. The other 0.5 percent are chemicals that fight bacterial growth, keep sand particles suspended and improve production. The vast majority of these chemicals can be found in household items that Americans use safely every day including cheese, beer, canned fish, dairy desserts, shampoo and cosmetic products. In addition, heavy plastic liners are now common under drilling rigs, storage tanks and containment pits. Along with modern drilling and well casing methods, these liners help make chemical or salt contamination of groundwater far less likely than from winter salting of icy roads.
Wastewater and water depletion. In addition to changing the composition of fracking fluids to address concerns about water use and wastewater disposal, drilling companies increasingly recycle the water they use. Today, far less water is used in fracking than to grow corn and process it into ethanol.
Earthquakes. Fracturing rocks does cause cracking that can be measured with ultra-sensitive equipment. But these micro-seismic events measure around 0.8 on the Richter Scale, about what is caused by a passing car. Even loaded dump trucks register only 3 (the minimum that can be felt by humans), and property damage does not begin until level 5. Deep injection of water for geothermal energy development, enhanced oil recovery operations, or disposal of petroleum, municipal or industrial wastewater have caused detectable seismic activity. Yet of more than 800,000 injection wells nationwide, only about 40 were felt at the surface.
Fracking is subject to multiple regulations. State and local regulation and cooperation with industry, constant refinements and improvements in rules and practices, and accommodation to public concerns about water, fracking fluids, road congestion, community impacts and other issues have been ongoing for decades. That is part of the reason why 2.5 million instances of fracking worldwide (over 1 million in the U.S.) since 1949 have not caused any serious harm.
Unfortunately, environmentalist fairy tales about fracking cost us energy, jobs, revenue and prosperity for no ecological benefit. The ultimate irony is Europe, where opposition to fracking (and nuclear power) is causing Germany and other central EU countries to build 10,600 megawatts of new coal-fired electrical power plants during the next four years.
Meanwhile, green power mandates have pushed Germany’s electricity prices to the second highest in Europe (32 cents per kWh, compared to an average of 10 cents in the U.S.) putting countless jobs at risk and leaving German households staring at another big rate hike next year.
America needs access to its oil and gas deposits under rational regulations that reflect reality, instead of eco fairy tales. The White House, Congress and government bureaucracies need to distinguish between fact and fiction, understand how to produce real energy, jobs and revenues, and stop trying to “fundamentally transform” our nation.
Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and author of “Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death” (Merril Press, 2012).
"We would never propose a carbon tax”—White House spokesman
E&E News reports: “If President Obama left any doubt during his news conference yesterday about whether he would push a new carbon tax to fight climate change, White House spokesman Jay Carney tried today to put the issue to bed. ‘We would never propose a carbon tax and have no intention of proposing one,’ Carney said, according to a White House transcript of a press briefing on board Air Force One. It was an unusually blunt assessment of a policy position the White House had been telegraphing even before Obama’s speech. Carney acknowledged that Obama believes there’s more work to do to fight climate change but said the president’s immediate focus would be economic and job growth. “Task No. 1 is dealing with these [fiscal cliff] deadlines that pose real challenges to our economy,’ Carney said.”
“House GOP Opposes Carbon Tax”
Inside EPA reports: “The entire House GOP leadership has signed a free-market group’s pledge to oppose a carbon tax in the 113th Congress, which could further undermine environmentalists and others as they push for the tax, after the White House signaled it has no intent to propose such a measure even in the midst of a fiscal crisis. Pro-carbon tax groups continue to press for the policy as one that could reduce emissions and raise much-needed revenues. For example, the groups Green for All and Rebuild the Dream issued a Nov. 15 statement noting, ‘President Obama indicated that he’s committed to fighting climate change while creating jobs. A carbon tax could achieve both. It would help end the fiscal standoff and save important federal programs without burdening low-income and middle-class families.’ However, Obama at a Nov. 14 press conference said he will likely delay further policy action on climate change until after ‘wide ranging’ talks with experts—a statement that coupled with the House GOP anti-carbon tax pledge suggests dim prospects for the measure.”
“House GOP leaders pledge to oppose climate change ‘tax’”
The Hill reports: “The entire House GOP leadership team has registered its opposition to climate legislation that raises revenue, underscoring the long odds that taxing carbon emissions has in negotiations on the fiscal cliff. The Tea Party group Americans for Prosperity greeted Wednesday’s election of the House GOP leadership team by pointing out that the lawmakers are among the signers of the group’s ‘no climate tax’ pledge. Signers agree to ‘oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.’ They include Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who all retained their leadership posts.”
The Green agenda and carbon taxes have decimated Europe. The greens don’t care. Spain’s Unemployment is 25.8%, Greece 25.4%, Macedonia 31.6%. Spain invested heavily in wind and solar subsidies which sent energy prices skyrocketing and industry overseas. They have stopped the subsidies. Because these socialist governments have entitlement societies, forced cutbacks lead to riots. That is our future if our government gives into pressure from environmental terrorists.
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Five GOP Bills Obama Should Support
Convinced that he has a mandate to increase taxes in his second term, President Barack Obama is reportedly planning to “barnstorm” the country in January if House Republicans fail to accept his demands.
But before Obama bills taxpayers for his transcontinental victory lap, he would be wise to rethink his opposition to five House-passed regulatory reform measures currently languishing in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Because increases in regulation decrease profit by shifting resources toward compliance rather than growth, new regulations have the same effect as new taxes. If Obama is looking for a way to build credibility on a tax reform deal with House Republicans, he would be wise to persuade his fellow Democrats to pass these House-backed regulatory reforms.
1. Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act
Since the regulatory spree inaugurated by the New Deal, Congress has been complicit in the enormous increase in federal regulations. Every year these rules further constrict the ability of the private sector to create jobs and grow the economy. The game goes like this. Congress passes a vague law empowering an agency to regulate an entire industry or activity. The agency writes rules and implements them, at huge costs to consumers and producers. Congress is outraged, but does little to stem the tide.
In 2010 alone, federal agencies implemented 100 “major rules,” meaning each rule is expected to have an economic effect of $100 million or more annually. Congress has very little power to stop such regulations from going into effect, and no incentive to tinker with them once the market absorbs them. The REINS Act corrects this problem by requiring any major rule to be approved by both houses of Congress before it becomes law.
2. Regulatory Accountability Act
Where the REINS Act targets the impact of major rules, the Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA) reforms the way rules are made. Currently, agencies under a president’s control are required by executive order to use cost-benefit analysis when evaluating the impact of their proposed regulations. But executive orders can be rescinded by any president at any time. Under RAA, the cost-benefit requirement becomes legally required no matter which president is in office.
RAA also extends the cost-benefit rule to independent agencies, so called because technically they are not under the direction of a president when making policy decisions. Examples include the National Labor Relations Board and the Federal Communications Commission. Under Obama, both the NLRB (in rulings against right-to-work states) and the FCC (with its misnamed Net Neutrality policy) have proposed sweeping regulatory changes without bothering to consider how much their dictates will cost. It’s time for every agency in the federal bureaucracy to calculate the burden of its regulations.
3. Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act
One of the biggest complaints from the private sector is that the barrage of costly new rules spewing out of Washington makes it almost impossible to justify expanding staff levels or capital improvements. Faced with a string of unfunded mandates from laws like Obamacare and others, small businesses are wisely opting to stockpile money and outsource jobs, rather than risk hiring full-time workers who are too expensive to employ.
If it became law, this bill would prohibit any new economically significant regulation from going into effect unless the unemployment rate falls to 6 percent or below. It would also remind bureaucratic administrators of the link between regulation and the job market.
4. Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act
Speaking of the job market…
This bill easily could be called the Pesticide Industry Relief Act, but the official name is more attractive and just as accurate. In 2006, a federal appeals court threw out the Bush EPA’s decision not to require crop dusters and other pesticide sprayers to obtain a permit under the Clean Water Act (CWA).
The Bush EPA had three good reasons opposing yet another permit process. First, pesticide regulation is covered under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), not CWA. Second, pesticides already go through a rigorous screening process under FIFRA, so users know the relevant guidelines. Third, the extra compliance costs would be oppressive. By its own count, EPA estimates that the new permit gauntlet will add 1,033,713 hours of work for permit-seekers, as well as 45,809 hours of work for officials to process them.
Because of all this, it is no wonder the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act was passed unanimously by Republicans and Democrats out of committee, and with all Republicans and 57 Democrats voting to send it to the Senate. Getting this bill signed into law would mark at least one occasion where Obama took seriously complaints about onerous and duplicative compliance costs.
5. Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act
Of the bills mentioned thus far, this may be the least likely to inspire a regulatory reversal by President Obama since he has already threatened a veto if it ever comes to his desk.
Still, the measure has merit. If passed, the Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act would draw bureaucrats’ attention to the impact of new regulations on small businesses, meaning those entities without recourse to lobbyists, lawyers and other liaisons to soften the blow rules have on the bottom line. RFIA would increase the quantitative data available on how a proposed regulation could harm or benefit small businesses by requiring agency officials to post their findings on the agency’s website.
When he entered office, Obama promised to preside over “the most transparent administration in history.” Changing his tune on RFIA would be a big step in that direction.
Signing any of these reforms into law would help build toward the kind of bipartisan consensus Republicans and Democrats will need to make any real progress on a tax reform deal, but the clock is ticking.
When the new Congress is sworn-in in January the legislative system resets, and all of the bills that failed to get to the president will die.
In order to get the nation’s economy moving in the right direction, House Republicans and the Obama White House should make the latter’s campaign slogan their own: “We Can’t Wait.”
President Barack Obama got the facts wrong on global temperatures in his brief discussion of climate change Wednesday afternoon, according to Joe Bastardi, a meteorologist and Chief Forecaster to Weatherbell Analytics.
In his first press conference since March, Obama addressed one question on climate change from Mark Landler of the New York Times, premised on recent claims from climate change activists that Hurricane Sandy was evidence of global warming.
Obama’s answer was also a mere regurgitation of the same incorrect claims from climate change activists, says Bastardi, and did not necessarily represent entirely accurate facts. Below is Landler’s question, followed by an excerpt of the president’s answer.
Q: Thank you, Mr. President. In his endorsement of you a few weeks ago, Mayor Bloomberg said he was motivated by the belief that you would do more to confront the threat of climate change than your opponent. Tomorrow you’re going up to New York City, where you’re going to, I assume, see people who are still suffering the effects of Hurricane Sandy, which many people say is further evidence of how a warming globe is changing our weather. What specifically do you plan to do in a second term to tackle the issue of climate change? And do you think the political will exists in Washington to pass legislation that could include some kind of a tax on carbon?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, as you know, Mark (sp), we can’t attribute any particular weather event to climate change. What we do know is the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even 10 years ago. We do know that the Arctic ice cap is melting faster than was predicted even five years ago. We do know that there have been extraordinarily - there have been an extraordinarily large number of severe weather events here in North America, but also around the globe.
Earlier Wednesday, Breitbart News published a response from Bastardi to similar claims recently published by the Huffington Post. Upon hearing the president’s statement today on the matter, he provided the following response to Breitbart News.
First, I would like to point out that it is refreshing to see the President discard some of the hysteria surrounding Hurricane Sandy and its link to global warming. Anthropogenic global warming activists will attribute every extreme weather event to global warming, which has now been termed “climate change” since the earth has stopped warming, which leads us to the next issue with the President’s comments.
Not only are temperatures not increasing faster than was predicted ten years ago, temperatures have not increased at all since the late 1990’s.
Click to enlarge.
Furthermore, when you compare the observed temperatures of the past 10 years against all the climate model predictions, the result should do more than raise eyebrows about how much tax-payer money is being wasted on climate science that is proving to be wrong.
Click to enlarge.
Before we make carbon policy that can hurt our already struggling economy, there needs to be an unbiased debate about what is actually driving our climate.
As stated earlier today at Breitbart News, it will be that much more important that hyperbole and political agenda do not drown out facts and historical reality as the process of reconstructing homes and lives in the wake of Sandy takes place.
Read the full transcript of President Obama’s news conference today, including the complete Question and Answer portion.
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STEVE GODDARD OF REAL SCIENCE ADDS:
Temperatures have declined over the last 10 years, and the US is experiencing the longest period without a major hurricane strike in 150 years. This past summer had the fewest tornadoes on record. Obama apparently believes that whatever stupid ideas pop up in his head must be true.
