By Darren Samuelsohn of ClimateWire

Key Senate climate bill advocates are searching for something—anything, really—that can serve as a legislative compromise for capping U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.The lawmakers’ fishing expedition has led them into a series of meetings with moderate Democrats and Republicans, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel as they try to maintain momentum on an issue in the face of stiff opposition from senators who want to keep the focus on the economy.

Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) all said over the past week that they have been making it perfectly clear to everyone that they are open to new ideas when it comes to tackling climate change.

“My approach here is we really must do something this year,” said Lieberman, who has been co-sponsoring cap-and-trade bills since 2001. “The two problems of American energy dependence and global warming will only get worse. We’ve just got to do the most we can. I’m not being rigid or ideological about it. So anybody who wants to try to make the problem better, it’s worth considering.”

“We’re just going to keep everything on the table and not putting out a framework at this point,” said Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

The trio last fall indicated they plan to compromise on more nuclear power and expanded oil and gas drilling. But they had resisted calls to pare back their plans on an economywide cap-and-trade program, saying that was the lowest-cost alternative for industry.

Until now.

All three now say they are willing to listen to senators who would prefer alternative ideas, including starting first with emission limits on the electric utility industry and then perhaps phasing in other parts of the economy. “You ask about the power sector, to do that alone wouldn’t be my first choice, but if it’s all we can do in the end, I’d consider it, sure,” Lieberman said yesterday.

“Some people have mentioned different sectoral approaches, we’re looking at that,” Kerry said. “We’re looking at everything. What we want to do is make sure that we get the job done. And we’re not wedded to any one way of trying to do that, so we’re looking at options.”

Another option is the “cap and dividend” approach that forgoes trading of greenhouse gas credits. Kerry, Graham and Lieberman met yesterday with Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), co-sponsors of a bill that does just that.

They are also meeting soon with Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio), both of whom have to varying degrees considered the power plant-only approach.

Graham last week said he was appealing to Republicans to sign off on a limit for greenhouse gas emissions, and he too was open to different ideas. “I think you’ve got to price carbon,” he said. “You can have a hybrid system of emission controls and taxes.” Several longtime cap-and-trade supporters also have offered some cover to the Senate trio as they search out a compromise.

“I don’t think anybody has given up on cap and trade,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). “I think big, comprehensive bills are very difficult to do in this environment, regardless of what it is. I tend to be an incrementalist. I say do what you can do, when you can do it. Because everything is opportunity and timing. If you have both, you can get it done. If you have only one, it’s very difficult to get it done.”

“There’s going to be some significant compromises that are going to have to be made if we’re going to get an energy bill done,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). “We knew it two weeks ago. We knew it last week. We know it this week. This is nothing new. We knew we’d not be able to get a major energy bill done without some significant change.”

Cardin said a deal that notches 60 Senate votes also could withstand any divisions that emerge from the left. “My expectation, if we succeed, there’ll be strong support for what we do from the environmental community,” Cardin said. “Will it be universal? I doubt it. But if we’re going to be able to get a bill done, there are compromises that are going to have to be made, and some groups are not going to be happy about it.

“Our goal is to make sure we reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Cardin added. “There’s different ways you can accomplish that.”

The ‘fence’ grows

Kerry, Graham and Lieberman may have reason to be optimistic after a pair of moderate Democrats indicated they are not entirely closed off from negotiations. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said yesterday that she is open to a broad climate and energy bill as an alternative to the U.S. EPA climate regulations expected in the coming months. “I am for a legislative solution, not a rulemaking, not an unaccountable rulemaking process,” said Landrieu, one of three Senate Democrats who co-sponsored a resolution that would strip EPA of that authority. “I’m for an accountable legislative process to achieve that, and I’d be open to some modification of cap and trade that really recognizes the importance of the refining industry here. Because we’re going to have a supply shortage of oil and refined products. We need to do it all. We need to be producing more and particularly more natural gas. “I think there’s a way forward, but it’s most certainly going to be bipartisan, and it’s most certainly going to be from the center out,” Landrieu added.

Also opening the door again was Sen. Ben Nelson, the Nebraska Democrat who held out until the very end during last month’s Senate deliberations on health care reform legislation. Nelson in past interviews has questioned whether Congress had any interest in tackling such a complicated subject as climate change in an election year, but he did not rule it out last week.

“I’d hope energy policy would still be alive and well,” Nelson said. “I’d hope it can have strong, bipartisan support, at least that’s what I’m hoping.”

Nelson said he has not had detailed conversations yet with Kerry, Graham and Lieberman. But he said he is open to negotiations on setting a limit on greenhouse gas emissions. “I want to see what the legislation does,” he said. “I said I can support cap. I have trouble with cap and trade, the trade part of it. So if it’s cap and trade, watered down, and it’s only the trade watered down, that won’t satisfy me.”

The recent comments from Landrieu and Nelson shift the senators from “probably no” back to the “fence sitter” category on E&E’s analysis (pdf) of the Senate global warming debate. They join 27 others, including Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Several other Senate “fence sitters” are sending signals they are a long way from a “yes” vote.

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) said yesterday that he is focused on a much different set of issues. “You ask, is there a way? The answer is, I don’t know. But at a time of economic anxiety, it will be more difficult,” he said. “Without the global cooperation from China, India and elsewhere, it just makes it that much harder.”

“I’m very skeptical of cap-and-trade as a concept,” said Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), who said he would rather see the Senate move legislation he co-sponsored with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) that emphasizes funding for clean energy technology (E&ENews PM, Nov. 16, 2009).

McCain said he is still waiting for an invitation from President Obama to talk about the climate issue. “He hasn’t for the past year, but you can always hope,” the 2008 Republican presidential nominee said.

As for the utility-only approach, Voinovich and Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar are the most prominent Republicans to speak up with any level of interest on the issue (E&E Daily, Dec. 3, 2009). Both have said they are studying the topic while giving no guarantee they will get behind any specific legislation.

Lugar said yesterday he has not yet spoken with Kerry about the power plant-only strategy. Asked if he thought it had a better chance of passing, he said, “Not necessarily, and I’ve not really advocated that. I hypothetically talked about a lot of things, as I’m sure he has.”

Voinovich said his staff are working on an analysis of limiting emissions just on power plants. Once finished, he said he would meet with Kerry “and just see if there’s any area where something can be done.”

For now, Voinovich said he is much more interested in focusing on the energy provisions included in a bill (S. 1462 (pdf)) adopted last spring by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “My initial feeling ... is that we ought to look at the energy bill, which is pretty bipartisan, and look at that in terms of how it could be enhanced to achieve some real reductions in emissions,” he said.

Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the lead sponsor of that energy bill, gave himself some wiggle room when asked if he would like to see a more comprehensive bill get across the finish line. “I want to see us pass what we’ve been able to report out of committee,” he said. “If we’re able to pass more, that’s great too.”

In the search for votes, Lieberman said he is counting on Graham and at least two more Republicans. “We assume we have Collins and Snowe.” But try telling that to the Mainers.

Collins sidestepped questions about her meeting with the Senate trio. “Stay tuned,” she said. And Snowe, who will meet next week with Kerry, Graham and Lieberman, insisted that the economy is a much more pressing issue for her compared with cap-and-trade legislation. “Climate change is a key issue,” Snowe said. “But right now, there are so many factors affecting business’ ability to create jobs or preserve jobs that we have to factor that into the equation. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not dismissing, because I’ve been a leader on that effort in the past, but I also think we have to recognize what can we do and what’s the art of the possible.” See this report.

Icecap Note: Go here and tell these senators what they can do with a climate change bill. Call or write or both. They are not paying attention to what’s happening. Flood their switchboards. Get them to focus on what is important. Many of these senators have lobbiests on their backs (or maybe filling their pockets) and many had already been counting the money the cap-and-tax bill was going to bring in and some have connections to the Chicago Climate Exchange (right up to the top).

By Marlo Lewis, Pajamas Media

On Thursday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, introduced a resolution of disapproval, under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), to overturn EPA’s endangerment finding (the agency’s official determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare) . Murkowski’s floor statement and a press release are available here.

The resolution has 38 co-sponsors, including three Democrats (Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana). If all 41 Senate Republicans vote for the measure, Sen. Murkowski will need only seven additional Democrats to vote “yes” to obtain the 51 votes required for passage. (Under Senate rules, a CRA resolution of disapproval cannot be filibustered and thus does not need 60 votes to ensure passage.)

Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval is a gutsy action intended to safeguard the U.S. economy, government’s accountability to the American people, and the separation of powers under the Constitution. Naturally, Sen. Barbara Boxer and other apostles of Gorethodoxy denounce it as an assault on the Clean Air Act, public health, science, and “the children.”

Rubbish!

At a press conference she organized on Thursday, Boxer employed an old rhetorical trick - when you can’t criticize your opponent’s proposal on the merits, liken it to something else that is plainly odious and indefensible. She said:

Imagine if in the 1980s the Senate had overturned the health finding that nicotine in cigarettes causes lung cancer. How many more people would have died already? Imagine if a senator got the votes to come to the floor to overturn the finding that lead in paint damages children’s brain development? How many children and families would have suffered? Imagine if the senator had come down to the floor and said, you know, I don’t think black lung disease is in any way connected to coal dust. Imagine!

Note that all the outrages Boxer is describing are imaginary. Murkowski is not proposing to question the link between cigarette smoke and lung cancer, etc. More to the point, she is not questioning the linkage between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Nor is she questioning the validity of EPA’s endangerment finding (even though there are strong scientific reasons for doing so). In fact, Sen. Murkowski supports legislation to control greenhouse gas emissions (her floor statement and legislative record leave no doubt on these points).

What Murkowski opposes is EPA dealing itself into a position to control the U.S. economy without “any input” from the people’s elected representatives. The endangerment finding compels EPA to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) from new motor vehicles, which then in turn obligates EPA to apply Clean Air Act pre-construction and operating permit requirements to millions of small businesses. The endangerment finding also establishes a precedent for economy-wide regulation of greenhouse gases under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) program.

The Murkowski resolution addresses a basic conflict of interest that Sen. Boxer prefers to sweep under the rug. Under the Clean Air Act, the agency that makes the findings that trigger regulatory action is the same agency that does the regulating. Since regulatory agencies exist to regulate, they have a vested interest in reaching “scientific” conclusions that expand the scope and scale of their power.

Up to now, this ethically flawed situation has been tolerable because Congress has clearly specified the types of substances over which EPA has regulatory authority - those that degrade air quality, those that pose acute risks of toxicity, or those that deplete the ozone layer. But when Congress enacted and amended the Clean Air Act, it never intended for EPA to control greenhouse gases for climate change purposes.

Yes, it is possible, by torturing the text of the Clean Air Act as the Supreme Court did in Massachusetts v. EPA, to infer congressional authority for greenhouse gas regulation. But the fact remains that Congress did not design the Clean Air Act to be a framework for climate policy, has never voted for the Act to be used as such a framework, and has never signed off on the regulatory cascade that EPA’s endangerment finding, if allowed to stand, will ineluctably trigger.

According to the Washington Post, Boxer stated that if the public has to wait for Congress to pass legislation to control greenhouse gas emissions, “that might not happen, in a year or two, or five or six or eight or 10.” Yes, but that’s democracy. And the democratic process is more valuable than any result that EPA might obtain by doing an end run around it.

Since the Progressive Era, our country has increasingly lived under a constitutionally dubious system of regulation without representation. Regulations have the force and effect of law, and many function as implicit taxes. Article I of the Constitution vests all legislative powers, such as the power to tax, in Congress. For decades, however, Congress has enacted statutes that delegate legislative power to agencies that are not accountable to the people at the ballot box. Constitutionally, the only saving grace is that the regulations implement policies clearly authorized in the controlling statute.

But the regulatory cascade that will ensue from EPA’s endangerment finding has no clear congressional authorization. Indeed, regulations emanating from the endangerment finding are likely to be more costly and intrusive than any climate bill Congress has considered and either rejected or failed to pass.

We are on the brink of an era of runaway regulation without representation. Sen. Boxer complains that the Murkowski resolution is “unprecedented.” But that is only fitting, because the resolution addresses an unprecedented threat to our system of self-government. Read post and comments here.

By Marc Sheppard, American Thinker

Not surprisingly, the blatant corruption exposed at Britain’s premiere climate institute was not contained within the nation’s borders.  Just months after the Climategate scandal broke, a new study has uncovered compelling evidence that our government’s principal climate centers have also been manipulating worldwide temperature data in order to fraudulently advance the global warming political agenda.

Not only does the preliminary report [PDF] indict a broader network of conspirators, it challenges the very mechanism by whiwhich global temperatures are measured, published, and historically ranked. 

Last Thursday, Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo and computer expert E. Michael Smith appeared together on KUSI TV [Video] to discuss the Climategate—American Style scandal they had discovered.  This time out, the alleged perpetrators are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). 

NOAA stands accused by the two researchers of strategically deleting cherry-picked cooler-reporting weather observation stations from the temperature data it provides the world through its National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).  D’Aleo explained to show host and Weather Channel founder John Coleman that while the Hadley Center in the U.K. has been the subject of recent scrutinywhich global temperatures are measured, published, and historically ranked. 

Last Thursday, Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo and computer expert E. Michael Smith appeared together on KUSI TV [Video] to discuss the Climategate—American Style scandal they had discovered.  This time out, the alleged perpetrators are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). 

NOAA stands accused by the two researchers of strategically deleting cherry-picked cooler-reporting weather observation stations from the temperature data it provides the world through its National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).  D’Aleo explained to show host and Weather Channel founder John Coleman that while the Hadley Center in the U.K. has been the subject of recent scrutiny:

“We think NOAA is complicit if not the real ground zero for the issue”

And their primary accomplices are the scientists at GISS, who put the altered data through an even more biased regimen of alterations, including intentionally replacing the dropped NOAA readings with those of stations located in much warmer locales.

As you’ll soon see - the ultimate effects of these statistical transgressions on the reports which influence climate alarm and subsequently world energy policy are nothing short of staggering.

NOAA - Data In / Garbage Out

Although satellite temperature measurements have been available since 1978, most global temperature analyses still rely on data captured from land-based thermometers, scattered more-or-less about the planet.  It is that data which NOAA receives and disseminates - although not before performing some sleight-of-hand on it.

Smith has done much of the heavy lifting involved in analyzing the NOAA/GISS data and software, and he chronicles his often frustrating experiences at his fascinating website.  There, detail-seekers will find plenty of them, divided into easily-navigated sections—some designed specifically for us “geeks,” but most readily approachable to readers at all technical strata.

Perhaps the key point discovered by Smith was that by 1990, NOAA had deleted from its datasets all but 1500 of the 6000 thermometers in service around the globe. Now, 75% represents quite a drop in sampling population, particularly considering that these stations provide the readings used to compile both the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) and United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) datasets.  The same datasets, incidentally, which serve as primary sources of temperature data not only for climate researchers and universities worldwide, but also for the many international agencies using the data to create analytical temperature anomaly maps and charts. 

Yet, as disturbing as the number of dropped stations was, it was the nature of NOAA’s “selection bias” that Smith found infinitely more troubling. It seems that stations placed in historically cooler, rural areas of higher latitude and elevation were scrapped from the data series in favor of more urban locales at lower latitudes and elevations.  Consequently, post-1990 readings have been biased to the warm side not only by selective geographic location, but also the anthropogenic heating influence of a phenomenon known as the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI). 

For example, Canada’s reporting stations dropped from 496 in 1989 to 44 in 1991 with the percentage of stations at lower elevations tripling while the numbers of those at higher elevations dropped to 1.  That’s right, as Smith wrote in his blog, they left “one thermometer for everything north of LAT 65.” And that one resides in a place called Eureka, which has been described as “The Garden Spot of the Arctic,” due to its unusually moderate summers.

GISS - Garbage In / Globaloney Out

The scientists at NASA’s GISS are widely considered to be the world’s leading researchers into atmospheric and climate changes. And their Surface Temperature (GISTemp) analysis system is undoubtedly the premiere source for global surface temperature anomaly reports. 

In creating its widely disseminated maps and charts, the program merges station readings collected from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) with GHCN and USHCN data from NOAA.  It then puts the merged data through a few “adjustments” of its own. First, it further “homogenizes” stations, supposedly adjusting for UHI by - according to NASA—changing “the long term trend of any non-rural station to match the long term trend of their rural neighbors, while retaining the short term monthly and annual variations.” Of course, the reduced number of stations will have the same effect on GISS’s UHI correction as it did on NOAA’s discontinuity homogenization - the creation of artificial warming. In fact, throughout the entire grid, cooler station data are dropped and “filled in” by temperatures extrapolated from warmer stations in a manner obviously designed to overestimate warming.

Government and Intergovernmental Agencies—Globaloney In / Green Gospel Out

Smith attributes up to 3F (more in some places) of added “warming trend” between NOAA’s data adjustment and GIStemp processing. That’s over twice last century’s reported warming. And yet, not only are NOAA’s bogus data accepted as green gospel - so are its equally bogus hysterical claims, like this one from the 2006 annual State of the Climate in 2005 [PDF]:

“Globally averaged mean annual air temperature in 2005 slightly exceeded the previous record heat of 1998, making 2005 the warmest year on record.”

And as D’Aleo points out in the preliminary report, the recent NOAA proclamation that June 2009 was the second warmest June in 130 years will go down in the history books, despite multiple satellite assessments ranking it as the 15th coldest in 31 years.

Even when our own National Weather Service (NWS) makes its frequent announcements that a certain month or year was the hottest ever, or that five of the warmest years on record occurred last decade, they’re basing such hyperbole entirely on NOAA’s warm-biased data. And how can anyone possibly read GISS chief James Hansen’s Sunday claim that 2009 was tied with 2007 for second warmest year overall and the Southern Hemisphere’s absolute warmest in 130 years of global instrumental temperature records without laughing hysterically?  Especially considering that NOAA had just released a statement claiming that very same year - 2009—to be tied with 2006 for the fifth warmest year on record. 

So, how do alarmists reconcile one government center reporting 2009 as tied for second while another had it tied for fifth?  If you’re WaPo’s Andrew Freedman, you simply chalk it up to “different data analysis methods” before adjudicating both NASA and NOAA innocent of any impropriety based solely on their pointless assertions that they didn’t do it.

Earth to Andrew: “Different data analysis methods?” Try replacing “analysis” with “manipulation” and ye shall find enlightenment. More importantly, does the explicit fact that since the drastically divergent results of both “methods” can’t be right both are immediately suspect somehow elude you?

But by far the most significant impact of this data fraud is that it ultimately bubbles up to the pages of the climate alarmists’ bible: The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report. And wrong data begets wrong reports which—particularly in this case—begets dreadfully wrong policy. Read much more here.

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After Copenhagen, Banks and Investors Pulling Out of Carbon Markets
UK Guardian

Banks and investors are pulling out of the carbon market after the failure to make progress at Copenhagen on reaching new emissions targets after 2012.

Carbon financiers have already begun leaving banks in London because of the lack of activity and the drop-off in investment demand. The Guardian has been told that backers have this month pulled out of a large planned clean-energy project in the developing world because of the expected fall in emissions credits after 2012.

Anthony Hobley, partner and global head of climate change and carbon finance at law firm Norton Rose, said: “People will gradually start to leave carbon desks, we are beginning to see that already. We are seeing a freeze in banks’ recruitment plans for the carbon market. It’s not clear at what point this will turn into a cull or a rout.”

Paul Kelly, chief executive of Eco­Securities, which develops clean energy projects, said that while markets had not expected a definitive post-Kyoto Protocol deal at Copenhagen, they had expected some progress.

“The lack of regulatory certainty in the post 2012 world affects the market’s view of what CERs [carbon credits from clean energy projects] will be worth and subsequently will constrain financing for projects. If you had an agreement at Copenhagen with a bit more detail, people would be more willing to take risk.”

After two weeks of extenuating talks, world leaders delivered an agreement in Copenhagen that left campaigners disappointed as it failed to commit rich and poor countries to any greenhouse gas emission reductions.

Banks had been scaling back their plans to invest in carbon markets before Copenhagen. Fewer new clean energy projects need to be financed as, because of the recession, there are fewer global emissions to offset. The price of carbon credits has also fallen, while plans to introduce national trading schemes, particularly in the US and Australia, remain uncertain. Full story here.