environment

David Wu melted down at a townhall in Oregon when asked why he won't read the health care bill or the cap and trade bill. Watch it here:

Congressman Wu meets Samurai Mom from WashCoGOP Oregon on Vimeo.

Wu managed no coherent response. That isn't totally unusual for him. I was in the House chambers for the Medicare vote, when I worked for Nick Smith. There were many strange things that night. But one of the weirdest was Wu's behavior. David Broder reported (pdf) that a fellow member of the House described him as "almost catatonic."

But hey, why be able to read or explain a bill that he thinks is one of the most important ever, right?

H/T NWDigest.

Republicans have fought cap and trade wrong, and they're going to lose because of it.  If the bill passes, they've lost a policy fight; if the bill fails, Republicans will not get credit for lower prices, but they will be blamed (fairly or not) for obstructing progress on environmental problems.

Let's stipulate a few political realities: (a) the public generally agrees that something must be done about climate change, (b) cap-and-trade is expensive, complicated, inefficient, unpopular, subject to industry gaming and political manipulation, (c) cap and trade is widely regarded (including by environmentalists) as inferior to a carbon tax, but (d) Democrats are pushing for cap and trade anyway, because it is "politically possible."

What should Republicans do instead?  Propose a carbon tax. 

But, instead of a straight tax increase (as Democrats want), Republican should propose a carbon tax that replaces the payroll tax.   That is revenue neutral, meaning there is no total tax increase.

There are many reasons this works.

• Environment: Republicans would be offering the most pro-environment solution to climate change. 
• Cost: A Carbon-for-Payroll tax would address the climate change problem without imposing any additional tax on Americans (unlike cap and trade).
• Externalities: The payroll tax disincentivizes positive externalities - labor and employment.  The carbon tax disincentives negative externalities - congestion, pollution, greenhouse gas emissions/climate change, dependence on foreign oil, money sent to tyrants and enemies, foreign debt, the trade deficit, price volatility.
• Tangibility: A carbon tax is a consumption tax (e.g., a gas tax), which consumers feel in a tangible way and can adjust behavior to optimize their exposure to the tax. Payroll taxes is money they never see, so the cost is much less noticed.  The more sensitive the public is to the price they're paying for government, the more rational they will be about government spending.

Finally, the key: The idea of swapping the payroll tax for a carbon tax was proposed by....Al Gore.  So you've got a coalition composed of environmentalists, foreign policy hawks, the Chamber of Commerce (and businesses in general), Exxon, the auto industry and Republicans who want to stop higher taxes.

Republicans should be offering The Al Gore Amendment to every piece of energy/environment legislation in sight.  And if Democrats oppose it, then the burder is on Democrats to explain why they refuse to support the most pro-environment and pro-economic growth proposal to address climate change.

That's good policy and good politics.

I saw two very interesting stories on the environment yesterday made me stop and think.  One was about the UK, and a projected need for their population to shrink by half to be sustainable in a green manner.  This recommendation was made by one of the Prime Ministers leading Green Advisors.  The other story was about Oregon and how they have lost jobs due to green regulations shutting down the lumber industry.  In attempts to recover some jobs, they had also attempted to put wind mills in those areas which were also shot down by the green movement because the power lines would be an eye sore and the windmills can kill birds and bats. 

At first I reacted to these stories with a narrow minded indignation on the government and action groups getting involved in issues where they should not be.  How can you have liberty where a government advocates population control?  How can green groups oppose replacing a non-green industry with green power?  Then I had an epiphany.  My thought process was not Conservative at all.  I was locked into a narrow mindset based on past, false assumptions.  My eyes opened to a way that we can reduce government impact to boost the economy and save the environment.  By letting natural forces run their course we can achieve a truly Conservative approach to solving these issues.  This is my modest proposal on how this can be accomplished.

Remember all the rage about "biofuels" being the answer to the energy crisis?

Remember all those millions of "green jobs" the President-elect is promising to create?  

Well, on the local level, we are moving in the opposite direction. A plant built to process biodiesel is shutting down in the wake of the failure of its corporate parent.

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2008/11/29/news/a2-chbiofuels26.txt

The court-appointed receiver overseeing the liquidation of assets of a now-defunct Waterbury heating oil company said he will ask a Hartford Superior Court judge next week to allow the abandonment of a biofuels plant the firm was developing in Cheshire.

Carlton Helming said he will make the request of state Superior Court Judge Grant Miller because the plant “is not economically viable to maintain.”

Watch billions of taxpayer dollars be wasted in the next few years building white elephants like this all over the nation. We are just going to reprise the massive ethanol folly (now acknowleged by CBS news) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/24/tech/main4629581.shtml?source=RSSattr=SciTech_4629581 all over again

<!-- sphereit start -->In  future years we may look back at the Great Mexican Tortilla Crisis of 2006 as the time when ethanol lost its vroom.

Right or wrong, that was when blame firmly settled on biofuels for the surge in food prices. The diversion of American corn from flour to fuel put the flat corn bread out of reach for Mexico's poorest.

Two years later, the search is on for ways to keep corn on the table rather than in the gas tank.

Somehow this story seemed befitting of "Turkey Day'. An ambitious Republican signs up with a Democratic oriented agenda of taxes, spending and regulation.  

Evidently to Utah's Jon Huntsman, the new administration is just what America has been waiting for on energy policy. 

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081127/energy_western_governors.html?.v=2

Western governors: 'Obama, act quickly on energy'

We must not repeat the mistakes of the past," says the letter signed by association chairman, Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah, and vice chairman, Democratic Gov. Dem Brian Schweitzer of Montana. "The future of our nation depends on it."

 

 

 

Among the recommendations are annually spending tens of billions of dollars to develop clean energy technology; establishing an 'aggressive' greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal to help stop global warming; and proposing a mandatory national system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions through "market-based mechanisms."

If I recall correctly, efforts to pass "cap and trade" in the Congress died a quick and quiet death. There's never been a vote on Kyoto. The proposal by Canadian Liberals to pass a carbon tax contributed to their worst drubbing in decades. And, hmm, is there something like a recession going on which might suggest higher taxes and consumer costs might actually wreak real damage on real people?

But Jon Huntsman learned from John McCain that if you don't have a base inside the Republican Party for which to run for President, you can get one outside the Republican Party by playing up to the news media. The news media is convinced we are facing an immediate environmental apocalypse; hence they are looking for a Republican greeniac. Governor Huntsman has decided to fill the bill.

Now, I'm hearitly in favor of building a clean free market energy economy. But we ought to do someline akin to the Pickens plan because it makes economic sense to stop enriching adversarial states; not because someone shows a movie with a polar bear on an ice floe. And what this green first approach does is play into the hands of every statist, antidevelopment group out there who wants to see the economy grind to a halt to punish "big business". Not to mention "cap and trade" will be a bureaucratic tax machine likely to crush much of the economy; particularly under Obama's auspices.

I also think it displays incredible chutzpah (folks out west may need a dictionary for that word)to declare oneself an authority on energy issues when your state hardly has any oil wells. Hmm, maybe the Governor whose state actually produces oil might be a more relevant spokesperson?  

Some people are big on saying how wonderful Jon Huntsman is, and how he is going to be the future of the party.  Sorry. we already had Mitt Romney and John McCain run in 2008. This guy seems nothing more than a mash-up of their less attractive features. 

I've read a lot of discussion on this blog and many other over the "failings" of the party and what we must do to rebuild.  The Washington Post today ran a feature story on the Rebuild the Party effort and talked a lot about the effort to get the GOP to take seriously our deficiency in online organization and mobilization.

Much of the Rebuild the Party discussion has focused on the three things Patrick lined out in his post today - infrastructure, message and leadership.  It has troubled me that one thing has been missing, but I couldn't quite put a finger on what that was. 

Fortunately, another Washington publication caught the omission for me.

They can't quite get to policy disputes or serious analysis, because they're too busy mulling over the implications of liberals joining forces with Islamofascists, the United Nations, and Mexican immigrants to execute some kind of nefarious plot.

Worse, Kevin noted that when these blogs do consider key policies, such as global warming and growing income inequality, they tend to believe the problems don't exist.

While written with the harsh lefty tilt you've come to expect online, there is a serious point built into that shot.

Republicans continue to be against things.  We're against serious exploration of alternative fuels simply because it conforms to our messaging that global warming is caused by trees, cow farts, etc, or because we simply refuse to acknowledge environmental concerns. 

But where is the harm in moving beyond that discussion and into a serious conversation about other alternatives simply because it may improve a) our economy b) our position as innovators in the world or c) our quality of life? 

We have, in short, become reactionary.  Most of the discussion of "honing our message" is still aimed at reframing the ideology/theology of the past rather than having serious discussions of the future.  We're focused on the message, but not the ideas behind it.

Why not embrace the environment as a message, but distance ourselves from government mandates as the answer. 

Whether true or not, the perception of the environment is that something must be done to "fix" it.  By denying that, we have framed the debate as a choice between the government must do something to address it, or we simply do nothing.

There is a third, and more politically profitable alternative.  We can make this a referendum on how government must address the issue. The GOP should engage in debate over "going green" not in the context of stopping global warming, but in the context of supporting new technologies and businesses.

Take, for instance, FuelMaker Corporation. This is a company that seeks to address the distribution problem of alternative fuels by creating a fuel distribution system in your home. Installation of a compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling system in your home would enable you to skip the gas station and have a permanent refueling option in your home.

The GOP should propose tax credits for investment in such a refueling system and cars (or conversion of cars) that run on CNG.  Such a move would combine our support of lower taxes with a recognition that green technologies aren't a bad thing.  We would reverse our identity as a party that supports dirty fuels to one that supports clean fuels and co-opt the eco-issues purely as a business move - rather than "having to cave" on global warming.

If our fight with the Democrats shifts from a question of whether global warming exists to one of who is more serious about investment in green technologies, we win back turf that we have given up.  What's more, we win it back in a "smart government" or "pro-innovation" context.

You could make the same argument for home installation of wind/solar systems.  You can still support coal/nuclear/oil, but still embrace other forms of energy.

This would also extend to using the power of government - such as it is - to guide investment into quality of life issues from a pro-capitalist perspective.  We should not view our ideas through the prism of "us versus the Democrats." What we must do, is explore the issues that resonate with the people (and the environment is only one) and engage in discourse based on an approach that favors putting people, innovation, and yes, even business first.

My grandmother used to describe people as "again'ers".  They were the people who were against everything.  That's what we have become.  We need to engage in healthy debate and reinvest in our intellectual capacity as much as we must invest in our Internet organization and the semantics we use.

Recently, there has seemed to have been a shift in the international tenor of the environmental debate. The nomination of John McCain made the Republican Party the last major center-right party in the world to embrace some sort of affirmative strategy to effect global warming. (about mid-way through the previous government, the Conservative Party of Canada switched their position, and in the last unfortunate election, the Liberal Party of Australia, a huge producer of coal, also switched their position)

At the time, there was a little victory jig. However, two things have no happened that are putting a damper on the watermelons (green on the outside, but red on the inside)

First, the Drill Here, Drill Now movement in the United States has gotten international attention. Last month, I was at a conference of European center-right parties. People were aghast at what Newt and crew were up to. Left leaning academics who had been with Democrats told them that the hope of a Kyoto-style agreement in 2012 was understood to be over.

The second is likely to be the Canadian election. There's a telling piece in today's Telegraph-Journal, a Canadian paper. John Williamson, from a Canadian free-market think-tank, notes several things that came from the election:

Dreams of a carbon tax are dashed now, although few environmentalists will publicly say so. More likely, they will soon assert the messenger failed, not the carbon tax idea. But of course, we know this is bunk. The Liberals campaigned unequivocally on a revenue-neutral carbon plan to save the planet. It was soundly rejected.

The policy itself, not Mr. Dion's egg-headed intellectualism, was the political albatross. Long before the campaign was underway, the Liberal Party's own pollster was warning that the public was not buying the so-called Green Shift. A leaked memo from Michael Marzolini on April 29 was unequivocal: "It was our recommendation that if a carbon tax shift absolutely must be part of our platform - and we do not recommend this at all - that it only be part of a larger environmental strategy involving actual popular proposals." His forecast: "Making a carbon tax shift the key plank in our appeal to the electorate is a vote loser, not a vote winner."

A British journalist getting a briefing on the election got the message:

At a breakfast sponsored last week by the Canadian High Commission in London to discuss the election results, one British journalist astutely observed that the rejection of the tax by voters of a G7 nation could have consequences for the climate change debate. Despite all the scare-mongering from the United Nations and hand-wringing about an alleged "scientific consensus," Canadians nonetheless refused to swallow the tax. If courteous Canadians (that's how Europeans view us) are willing to say "no thanks" to elite opinion-makers, might not voters in other democracies?

With respect to paying more for energy, Canada found its voice in the global warming debate. It certainly wasn't the one environmentalists envisioned when the carbon tax was proposed.

One should also point out that the clarity of this message cannot be understated. If not for the economic troubles that emerged late in the Canadian campaign, the Conservatives would likely have won a majority, potentially reducing the Liberal party to a third-party status.

Barack Obama's first statement on Sarah Palin attacked her on a number of issues, including energy:

Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same."

 It has been well-noted that the politics of this attack are completely tonedeaf. But the substance of these attacks are completely dishonest. In fact, Palin's record clearly demonstrates that she is pro-energy, but has a more complicated relationship with the oil companies. At the same time, Barack Obama can be credibly argued to be in the pocket of "Big Corn" and "Big Coal."

First, Palin's record on energy is clearly more populist than the traditional Republican line. She has found a way to be pro-energy but express some hostility to energy companies. I point to two things: her support for a windfall profits tax. I don't understand the details of Alaska energy policy, so I don't now how to frame this, but I can't imagine that the energy companies were lobbying for this. Then there's the pipeline issue I mentioned previously. I don't now if I support these policies, but I do note that these are clearly not "Big Oil" favoring practices. The take home:

Barack Obama talks about fighting "Big Oil", but he voted for the horrific Energy Bill that Joe Biden and John McCain voted agianst. Sarah Palin, as governor, has beaten "Big Oil" twice.

On a broader strategic level, sometimes we are "pro-energy" and sometimes, indeed, pro-"Big Oil". There are two ways to be opposed to this. You can be anti-"Big Oil" but pro-energy, which seems to be Palin's answer. Or you can be anti-energy, which is Obama's answer.

Now let's actually look at the special interests he has sucked up to. It turns out that Grist, the leading enviro blog, is not at all happy about his positions. Obama's position seem to result in higher energy prices, environmental degradation, and sucking up to special interests.

At Yearly Kos last year, the Grist blog asked Obama about his coal record. What did he do?

So, lots to talk about, but for now: I'm in a candidate forum with Barack Obama and he was just asked directly about coal. He dodged and weaved, said there would have to be a "transition," and that there would need to be "investments," etc. etc.

Unsatisfying.

Grist's anger continues:

The piece notes that when Obama ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, he claimed that "there's always going to be a role for coal" in Illinois, standing with miners in a press conference. USA Today also reminds readers that employees of coal companies and electric utilities have contributed $539,597 to his Senate and presidential campaigns, according to campaign finance data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

In May 1998, state Sen. Obama voted in favor of a bill condemning the Kyoto global warming treaty and preventing Illinois from making moves to regulate greenhouse gases, at least in part because of pressure from the state's coal industry. Fast forward a decade, and now Obama calls climate change "one of the greatest moral challenges of our generation."

The dynamic here is that there is a lot of Democratic union votes in downstate Illinois that are tied to the coal industry. As the Washington Post put it, he is "stuck between industry and environment." Grist criticizes the underlying ideas behind Obama's legislative strategy:

With regard to global warming, the very best we could do with CTL is stay on the same disastrous trajectory we are on now. Does that sound like something that deserves taxpayer subsidies?

Why is Obama giving subsidies to companies in exchange for no positive environmental impact? Because he is paying off his buddies. The big interests in his state, he opens the federal treasury to them.

Let's be clear: Obama is a coal whore.

It doesn't stop with "Big Coal". There's also "Big Corn." A friend who is an ethanol lobbyist says that they are big into Obama because McCain opposes both ethanol subsidies and the ethanol tarriff. (I actually asked McCain about the ethanol tarriff when I was with him on the bus in March of 2007, and the MSM people mocked me)

As the NYT notes in a headline, "Obama Camp Closely Linked With Ethanol." Paul Krugman calls this stuff "Demon Ethanol". Here's what he says:

Well, anyway — the news on ethanol just keeps getting worse. Bad for the economy, bad for consumers, bad for the planet — what’s not to love?

So let's be clear: Obama is an ethanol whore.

Now, Obama defenders will say that he is just supporting constituencies in his states, even if it isn't great for the country or the environent. Sure. That's true. I accept that explanation.

Except that Sarah Palin, who has oil in her state, is sticking to the oil companies.

Which one is a reformer, an independent, and fights special interests?

I'm not entirely sure what to make of the new energy plan from T. Boone Pickens, but his piece in the Wall Street Journal is worth reading.  After detailing the environmental, economic and foreign policy problems that our reliance on oil involves, Pickens writes...

I want to reduce America's foreign oil imports by more than one-third in the next five to 10 years.

How will we do it? We'll start with wind power. Wind is 100% domestic, it is 100% renewable and it is 100% clean. ... In 2008, the Department of Energy issued a study that stated that the U.S. has the capacity to generate 20% of its electricity supply from wind by 2030. ...

My plan calls for taking the energy generated by wind and using it to replace a significant percentage of the natural gas that is now being used to fuel our power plants. ... We can use new wind capacity to free up the natural gas for use as a transportation fuel. That would displace more than one-third of our foreign oil imports.

The Pickens Plan is outlined at his website.   My own thoughts...

• When a billionaire puts a lot of his own money behind a project, it's a good idea to pay attention. 
• If this is such a good idea, why isn't profit and success sufficient to drive us in that direction? 
• Joseph Romm raises interesting questions about what wind power should replace, as well as the efficiency of natural gas in transportation.  So does FuturePundit.
• Sending money to tyrannies is a security problem, but we don't need a re-run of the old "buy American" protectionism.
• I believe more domestic production of oil is a marginally useful thing, but a long-term solution probably requires (short term) diversified energy sources - more plausible as technological progress allows us to capture, e.g., wind and solar energy more efficiently and to increase battery storage capacity - and (long term) nuclear energy.
• I believe the lack of fueling infrastructure is a significant barrier to using natural gas for transportation.
• I believe the scientific evidence that anthropogenic climate change is occurring is solid. 
• I believe the cost of oil is significantly higher than the price of oil and the negative externalities  of our oil-driven economy are a problem that needs to be resolved.
• I believe regulatory solutions to environmental problems are likely to result in path dependencies and inefficiencies that do more to shift costs around than to actually address them.  An effective solution must be market-based so that it works with incentives, rather than against them.   To Pickens credit, that seems to be the direction in which he is pressing.  With his own money.

Overall, I'm glad to see Pickens launching this project.  Private businesses charting profitable paths forward is far better than governments picking winners and losers.  

Sometimes there is a moment in everyday life that sums up a much bigger theme in our society. It happened to me this morning on a Connecticut interstate.

I was driving along when  I spotted an odd license plate in the car passing me. The plate was one of these special Connecticut "Greenway" plates (it look nice and you contribute to the environment programs buying it). 

The plate read "F-OPEC"

I was a bit taken aback, not so much that the CT DMV slept through processing a rather profane vanity plate, but at the car sporting this call to arms.

It was a Mercedes CLK 500.  The federal government reports this vehicle is rather far from a gas sipper, gulping down fuel at the rate of 17 mpg city/25 mpg hwy  , using premium fuel    http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/24261.shtml 

Evidently. a hybrid, a Mini Cooper, a Toyota Corolla, (Ironman's present ride) or even a rather large car like a Honda Accord would not adquately transport our anti-oil activist to his place of destination 

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/best/bestworstNF.shtml

Indeed, our ultra Green was just slightly less guzzling than those folks driving the speedy land yachts of the expressway-- the state troopers...whose Crown Victorias get a comparable  15mpg city/23 mpg hwy.   http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2008_Ford_Crown_Victoria.shtml

We know, also, that lower speed limits and slower driving save fuel. Just ask Jimmy Carter and his 55mph national speed limit. Evidently this lesson was lost on the suave tree hugger based on his driving habits.

Watching F-OPEC tear through the Farmington "stack" @ 80 mph I was wondering if maybe he might meet up with an unmarked Crown Victoria.  And unless there's a "cap and trade" market for speeding tickets, then maybe he ought to change his plate to F-UPD.