By Ben Geman, The Hills Energy and Environment Blog

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) on Thursday said the Senate should abandon efforts - at least for now - to pass a sweeping climate change bill and also urged adoption of his plan that would block some EPA greenhouse gas regulations for two years.

“The Senate should be focusing on the immediate issues before us - to suspend EPA action on greenhouse gas emissions, push clean coal technologies, and tackle the Gulf oil spill,” he said in a prepared statement Thursday afternoon.

“We need to set aside controversial and more far-reaching climate proposals and work right now on energy legislation that protects our economy, protects West Virginia and improves our environment,” added Rockefeller, an ally of the his home state’s coal industry.

Rockefeller’s office circulated the comment Thursday afternoon, following a meeting of the Senate Democratic caucus on energy legislation.

It notes that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to allow a vote this year on Rockefeller’s bill that would delay EPA regulation of carbon emissions from power plants and other stationary sources for two years.

“This bill is needed as soon as possible - not only to guarantee that Congress, rather than an unelected regulatory agency, sets our national energy policy, but also to make sure that in this very fragile economic recovery, our manufacturing and energy sectors are able to grow and create jobs,” Rockefeller said.

A Reid aide confirms that Rockefeller’s plan “is on a list of items that we will try to consider this year.”

The caucus meeting featured presentations by sponsors of various energy and climate change plans, including Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who are touting separate proposals to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

But the opposition of Rockefeller - who chairs the Commerce Committee - to taking up broad global warming legislation could be a blow to the climate proposals.

The meeting yielded no apparent decisions about the shape of the “clean energy” bill that Reid intends to bring to the floor this summer, and further caucus talks are planned. Reid, in particular, did not say whether the plan would include provisions to limit greenhouse gases.

But Kerry warned against viewing Reid’s lack of commitment to carbon provisions as a blow to his effort to advance climate legislation. Kerry authored a broad climate and energy bill with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) that they pitched to the caucus Thursday.

“We first need to allow senators to weigh in and have a chance to address concerns and see where the balance of sentiment is in the caucus,” Kerry told reporters after the caucus meeting.



“That’s the normal process here. I would not read anything into that except his [Reid’s] respect for those senators and for that process,” Kerry added. Read more here.

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Boxer Declares Climate Change as the Greatest Threat, But Opponents Slam Theory

Terrorism. Nuclear weapons. Corrupt and oppressive regimes.

Sen. Barbara Boxer said last week that climate change—not any of that other stuff—will stand as the “leading cause of conflict” over the next two decades. The comment was apparently based on reports and studies over the past few years that have linked climate change to other security issues, but her colleagues—as well as her Senate campaign opponent—described the prediction as a big stretch.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., Boxer’s Republican counterpart on the environment committee she chairs and arguably the most outspoken global warming skeptic in Congress, decried the warning on Tuesday as a bogus ploy to win support for a sweeping energy regulation bill.

“We know global warming alarmists frequently use scare tactics to push the U.S. to pass costly cap-and-trade legislation. But to say that carbon emissions will be the leading cause of conflict in the next 20 years represents a new low in alarmist propaganda,” Inhofe, ranking member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a written statement to FoxNews.com.

“Given the tremendous security challenges confronting our nation today—from Iran, North Korea, Islamic extremism and much else—Senator Boxer’s statement seems a bit out of touch. I would hope that she simply misspoke.”

The chairwoman of the EPW committee made the remark on the floor last Thursday, when the Senate was taking up a challenge to the Obama administration’s EPA rules that would cut greenhouse gas emissions. Democrats succeeded in stopping the Republican-led resolution, with the help of senators like Boxer.

On the floor, she warned that climate change would have far-reaching consequences in the not-so-distant future.

“I’m going to put in the record ... a host of quotes from our national security experts who tell us that carbon pollution leading to climate change will be over the next 20 years the leading cause of conflict, putting our troops in harm’s way,” Boxer said. “And that’s why we have so many returning veterans who want us to move forward and address this issue.”

According to Boxer’s office, the senator believes climate change will be “one of the” leading causes of conflict—not necessarily the primary cause—despite her statement on the floor last Thursday. It’s unclear whether Boxer simply misspoke or whether she was intentionally escalating her warning.

Boxer’s office backed up her statement afterward by pointing to a Pentagon report that discussed the security implications of climate change; the creation by the CIA of a Center on Climate Change and National Security; and a statement from 33 retired generals and other high-ranking military officials saying climate change is “making the world a more dangerous place.”

But the recent studies and statements on the connection between climate change and other problems generally do not conclude that the issue will drive all-out chaos on a global scale.

Rather, they say climate change has the potential to exacerbate existing problems like poverty and droughts and social tensions.

That was the conclusion reached by a National Intelligence Assessment in 2008 that found climate change could lead to food and water shortages, among other problems, and in turn fuel conflict.

“Climate change alone is unlikely to trigger state failure in any state out to 2030, but the impacts will worsen existing problems,” then-National Intelligence Council Chairman Thomas Fingar said in a statement to Congress. Fingar said the problems would hit poor, developing countries hardest leading to pressure on the U.S. military to respond, but that the United States might actually “benefit slightly” from climate change over the next few decades because of “increased agricultural yields.”

The Pentagon’s latest Quadrennial Defense Review also concluded that climate change would contribute to “food and water scarcity” and could worsen “mass migration.” The report said that “climate change alone does not cause conflict,” though it “may act as an accelerant” of instability.

Even that conclusion has been called into question by experts who say the theory lets bad governments and bad leaders off the hook by blaming future problems on climate.

Idean Salehyan, a University of North Texas professor who co-authored a book on this subject, wrote a column in 2007, when the theory started to gain traction, in which he called predictions of “apocalyptic” consequences from climate change “misleading” and “irresponsible.”

“They shift liability for wars and human rights abuses away from oppressive, corrupt governments,” he wrote. Salehyan could not be reached for comment for this article.

The Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano testified last year before Boxer’s committee that political violence has actually dropped as emissions have risen.

“The environment does not cause wars—it is how humans respond to their environment that causes conflicts. Climate change does not necessarily ensure that there will be more or less conflict,” he said.

The campaign of Boxer’s Republican opponent, Carly Fiorina, cited Carafano’s testimony and others in criticizing the senator’s claim from last week.

“We can all agree that terrorists pose a serious security threat to our nation. However, there is wide disagreement within the security community, and the American people, about the role climate change plays in global security. Despite this, Barbara Boxer has chosen to fight for cap-and-trade legislation under the auspices that somehow raising energy prices and costing America jobs will make us safer,” Fiorina spokeswoman Amy Thoma said in a written statement to FoxNews.com.

Robert Dillon, spokesman for EPW committee member Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Boxer was “overstating” the problem. He said Democrats have been employing a lot of “hype” to try building support for the stalled cap-and-trade energy bill. Murkowski sponsored the EPA challenge that was defeated last week.

“I think we all understand that climate change adds to those issues [detailed in the studies],” Dillon said. “What made Senator Boxer make that leap? ... I have no idea.” See report here.

By Holger Krahmer

The financial crisis and subsequent recession in the United States have prompted some to begin calling for a completely new kind of economy. This new economy would be based on environmental values, a so-called “Green New Deal” to be ushered in by President Obama and leaders in Europe. The plan includes cap-and-trade legislation, new spending on “green” jobs, subsidies for favored firms and technologies, and trade restrictions against out-of-favor products and industries.

The United States is the world’s most crucial economic engine, and before it goes much further down this road, it might want to look at Europe’s experience with a similar deal. It has done little to help the environment but much to harm consumers and the broader economy.

In Europe, green ideas have been in fashion for two generations and have driven policy to a much greater extent than in the United States. Despite this, we have not witnessed a sizable green wave of new jobs, as evidenced by our unemployment rates, which are routinely several percentage points higher than in America.

The green movement has succeeded in generating increased government spending and subsidies at taxpayer expense. Much of this spending has been directed toward inefficient renewable-energy projects, such as solar and wind power. In my own country, these subsidies appease Germany’s mighty pro-green lobby, but they have done little to put downward pressure on unemployment, and their contribution to Germany’s overall energy mix is small.

Germany, like the United States, is a major industrial and manufacturing powerhouse. It continues to rely on fossil fuels and will do so for a long time to come. There is no escaping this fact, no matter what the Green New Deal enthusiasts say.

To that end, it’s important that Washington not make some of the mistakes we in Europe have made. Specifically, U.S. political and industry leaders should be careful not to follow Europe’s path of buckling under to “greenmail,” which undermines sound policy and genuine sustainable economic growth.

Here is what has happened in Europe: Caving to pressure from alarmist environmental groups, European companies such as Carrefour, Metro AG and Unilever have elected to halt the purchase of certain food, industrial and paper products from developing countries. The green groups claim these products, made in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, harm rain forests and other critical habitats.

However, several reputable studies show that nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, the global trade in goods created in these areas provides jobs and incomes to those desperately in need of economic advancement. These economic advances make environmental improvements in their home countries possible. The irony is that by refusing to trade with producers from these developing countries, European companies are making the global environment worse, not better.

Consider the global trade in paper products that are produced in Southeast Asia. This has been one of the great economic success stories of the region, as undeveloped countries such as Indonesia tap their environmental resources - in this case, renewable forests - to create products for exchange in global markets. The resulting pulp and paper industries employ hundreds of thousands of people across Southeast Asia, giving them good jobs and a chance to provide steady livelihoods for themselves and their children. This has been crucial to establishing a middle class and promising a better economic future for all in the region.

But radical environmental groups, mostly based in Europe, claim that the purchase of paper goods from these countries harms wild habitat. This is untrue. Countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia have some of the strongest wildlife and rain-forest protections in the world. They have set large swatches of their land off-limits, out of the reach of industrial interests. Their commitment to their own natural environments far exceeds anything in Europe’s own environmental history.

But facts rarely stop green pressure groups once they fixate on a target. The eco-activists pressure Western companies - via greenmail campaigns - to stop purchasing these goods, thus harming the economic prospects of Southeast Asia. The activists believe this is part of the larger Green New Deal they are orchestrating. But it’s a raw deal for the workers of developing countries and the consumers of Europe and the United States. And it does nothing to protect the environment.

Of course, this fits well with the agenda of the environmental left, which wants to limit consumer choice for wealthy Westerners and prevent the poor in developing countries from kick-starting economic growth. For too long, Europe has been complicit in perpetuating these deeply inhuman policies. It will be an even greater economic and humanitarian shame if America follows suit. Read story here.

Holger Krahmer is a German Liberal and a member of the European Parliament’s environment committee and the temporary committee on climate change.

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Carbon carousel: European market a haven for tax fraud
Connie Hedegaard, Center for Investigative Reporting

Flying below the American radar, a tax scandal has been rocking the global carbon markets. Ironically, it is emanating from Copenhagen, the city that six months ago hosted the world’s largest climate summit. But back in 2007, long before COP 15 arrived, the Danes began working behind the scenes to host a growing cadre of carbon brokerage firms, which have become central to trading the world’s fastest growing commodity.

To make it easier for these financial firms to set up shop in the Danish capital, the Ministry of Finance decided to skip background checks on companies being vetted to trade on the country’s national carbon exchange. According to a string of reports in the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet, all the government asked companies to provide was an email address. This laissez-faire attitude succeeded in channeling close to a third of all EU carbon trades through Denmark, and has since backfired badly.

The paper reported that one firm after another was little more than a front company for transacting complicated financial scams. In fact, more than 80 percent of the carbon trading firms registered on the Danish exchange closed down after the media probe began, according to a statement (pdf) by the country’s Environment Minister, Lykke Friis.

The fraud is known as a “tax carousel.” Danish-registered companies buy carbon credits from brokers in other European countries. This intra-European trading of credits to meet EU emissions standards (and the trades made by speculators betting on the price of these credits) are not taxed. But when the buyer and seller are trading in the same country, in this case Denmark, a value added tax, or VAT, is imposed.

In Denmark, VAT is a hefty 25 percent on each transaction—one of the highest rates in Europe. But rather than turn the tax monies over to the Danish treasury, the traders packed up and disappeared. Three-quarters of the carbon traders registered in Denmark during the past year have either been dismantled by their owners or were shut down by the authorities.

According to a Reuters report, EuroPol estimates the scheme has so far cost treasuries in Denmark and other European countries some 5 billion euros (about US$7 billion) in lost revenues, while throwing into question the veracity of thousands of carbon trades.

Bo Elkjaer, the Danish reporter who broke the story, explained over email that his further investigations suggest the scandal is by no means confined to Denmark. Many of the same firms are suspected of running similar schemes in the Netherlands, Germany, Norway and the UK. EuroPol reports that after the governments of France, the UK, the Netherlands and Spain changed their tax codes to close the loophole, the volume of carbon trading in those countries collapsed by 90 percent.

Meanwhile, the media blitz has raised questions about the EU’s new commissioner for climate action, Connie Hedegaard, who was Denmark’s climate minister when many of the fraudulent deals were set in motion. Hedegaard said publicly that she knew nothing about the fraud before Mr. Elkjaer and his newspaper began reporting on the case last December.

In May, the Guardian reported that it had obtained a document from inside the Danish ministry drawing attention to the tax fraud problem, which Ms. Hedegaard had initialed back in August 2009. Since then, she has admitted she was aware of the problem but says that at the time she signed the report, she saw it as a tax issue and, therefore, not her responsibility.

EuroPol is in the middle of a full scale investigation into the scam, and hundreds of arrests have been made across Europe.

Elkjaer says the scandal highlights the vulnerability of a system based on trading an intangible asset. “It’s just a computer certificate, moved from account to account in endless loops,” he said. “A trade can be performed from a single laptop anywhere in the world. All it needs is an internet connection.” See post here.

William O’Keefe, CEO, and Jeff Kueter, President, The Marshall Institute

Today, the George C. Marshall Institute published a reply to the book, Merchants of Doubt, which attacks the integrity of the Institute and its founders.  The reply is available here.

Replete with half-truths and mischaracterizations, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s book besmirches the reputations of three great American scientists to silence dissent within the ranks of scientists and stifle debate among policy makers about how to respond to global warming.  Their message is both anti-science and anti-democratic.  Whether the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is desirable or not is irrelevant, the merits of their scholarship and its implications are clear.

Predictably, they create a tobacco strawman and knock it down to set the tone of a grand conspiracy to harm the public.  Specifically, the work overstates the linkage between Dr. Seitz, a past president of the National Academy of Science - the nation’s most senior scientific establishment, and a past president of a leading biomedical institution, the Rockefeller University in New York City, and R.J. Reynolds.  Yes, Seitz helped establish an advisory committee to direct a research and development program upon his retirement as president of Rockefeller.  Why?  Because Reynolds and Rockefeller University (as well as the Rockefeller family) had a long-standing relationship and it was an opportunity to provide input into a multi-million dollar program in basic medical and human health research.  Seitz assembled a team of eminent health scientists to provide insight and advice.  What did the research contribute?  A Nobel Prize, for one, while others included studies of the effect of renin on blood pressure, factors affecting cell development, and contributors to arterial sclerosis. 

The very documents Oreskes and Conway cite to build the tobacco strawman reveal that Seitz and his colleagues did nothing more than direct an advanced research program.  The underlying citations state the Seitz-led research program was independent of Reynolds and conducted by scientists and scientific institutions of the highest regard.  Other than asserting guilt by association, Oreskes and Conway present no evidence that Seitz and his many colleagues were participants in some grand conspiracy.  That conspiracy exists only in their minds.

Next Oreskes and Conway claim Seitz and the George C. Marshall Institute wrongly defended the creation of a ballistic missile defense.  Yes, Seitz and his colleagues, Dr. Robert Jastrow and Dr. William Nierenberg, believed it was morally repugnant to allow citizens to stand defenseless before the prospect of nuclear annihilation as an intentional U.S. government policy.  Construction of a defense was technically possible and would enhance the security of the United States, they believed.  Others didn’t and the debates across the foreign policy and scientific establishments were as charged and vociferous as any seen before or since.  The facts are: the Soviet Union fell, President Reagan’s advocacy of missile defense was part of the equation contributing to their fall, the emerging missile defense offers the prospect of security against rogue states and terrorists for whom traditional deterrence likely fails, and a world where nuclear weapons were rendered obsolete (Dr. Jastrow’s 1983 book outlines steps toward this end) remains a goal of presidents of both political parties.

Next comes the charge that Seitz et al engaged in personal attacks on prominent climate scientists in hopes of fostering doubt about whether humans were causing global warming.  If Oreskes or Conway had bothered to speak with anyone who actually knew or worked with these men, they would have quickly learned that they were men of principle, motivated by concerns about the erosion of scientific literacy and dangers of manipulation of science for political ends arising from that erosion.  What caused them to look at climate change science?  Curiosity about the scientific basis of claims of apocalyptic global warming and worry about the implications that political leaders would draw from potentially inflated claims.  Each had decorated scientific careers and each had been leaders of world-class scientific institutions and participants on government-sponsored scientific panels.  Jastrow was a professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth and founder of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Nierenberg was the head of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.  Each had considerable experience working at the nexus of science and public policy and understood the role that scientific information played in shaping policy and political outcomes.

Oreskes and Conway claim an opposition to government regulation motivated the Institute’s founders’ positions on climate change.  Speculating about what Drs. Jastrow, Seitz, and Nierenberg felt about global warming is unnecessary as they clearly described their concerns, “If the changes in our atmosphere are likely to cause consequences, we must understand the problems and promote sensible policies to remedy them.  What would be unwise is to lapse into apocalyptic thinking or ostrichlike denial.  We believe ourselves far more sophisticated, more enlightened, than preceding generations.  Until we can calmly and objectively approach our environmental challenges without promoting public hysteria and exciting short-sighted, self-interested reaction, we cannot claim that we are.” (Scientific Perspectives on the Greenhouse Problem, Jameson Books, 1990: 92-93).

In fact, their work is remarkably prescient.  Writing 20 years ago, Seitz, Jastrow and Nierenberg identified the critical variables affecting estimates of temperature and man’s impact of climate that remain the central focus of the scientific debate today.  They were: adjustments for uncertainty in the temperature observations (the quality of the surface temperature record has been shown to be in question); the effect of the ocean thermal lag (the role of the oceans and the movement of heat and carbon dioxide in the oceans remains an area of active study); adjustments for natural variability (our understanding of the natural patterns of Earth’s climate is still under development); and procedures for estimating 21st century warming (a process based entirely on computer models and forecasts which have known limitations).

For its part, the Marshall Institute is not a “merchant of doubt.” Our long-held position is simple - take action on climate change commensurate with the state of knowledge and have that action be flexible so it can adjust as our understanding of man’s impact on the climate changes.  Do we oppose cap-and-trade or Kyoto Protocol like policies?  Yes.  They are expensive and will yield little environmental return.  Do we propose actions to take?  Yes.  Did Oreskes and Conway bother to inquire about them?  No.

Oreskes and Conway’s work is the latest in a long line of one-sided, fear mongering pseudo-exposes whose purpose is to incite and intimidate.  Readers are left with a clear message --Doubt and dissent are dangerous and scientists that question the conventional view of climate change are corrupt charlatans in the pocket of industry.  Doubt and dissent are cornerstones of the advancement of knowledge and the scientific process.  Read more here.

“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.” Galileo Galilei